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Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Martic Forge trestle in southern Lancaster County.
Listen to this
message on
your
audio player.
"'Return home and tell how much God has done for you.' So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him" (Luke 8:39).
We meet a lot of people in the course of our chaplain work. We see the "melting pot" at work, with many recent immigrants employed by our various companies. We truly see "red and yellow, black and white" as we walk the factory floors, through office cubicles, hotels and warehouses.
We try to learn names which is quite a challenge due to the four or five hundred people we may see each week but especially so with names unfamiliar to us here in America. But we still try, perhaps mangling the correct pronunciation a bit (or a lot). But people seem to appreciate the effort! We have Sapi from India, Milan from Bosnia, Dedan from Kenya, Melissa from Russia, Hieu from Vietnam, Mike from Haiti, Ruby from Colombia, Che from China, Yelena from Moldovia, Marco from Mexico, Nieve from the Dominican Republic and many others. (Note: We are probably not spelling some of these names correctly but that's how they sound to us. We could include many others but we can't even attempt the proper pronunciation or spelling of their names!) It is especially heartening when we find we share the same faith in Christ and have that level of fellowship that transcends language.
Several
months ago we met Jae Oh, a software engineer, who was born in Korea
but came to the United States as a baby. His full Korean name is Jaehun.
He was very receptive to our
visits upon our initial introduction. Over time we learned a little
more about him during our brief visits and this last Saturday
we invited him over for a trail ride and lunch. He brought a friend and we rode along the Manor Township Low Grade trail. (That's Jae in the photo to the left peering out of a tiny switch house along an old railroad grade.)
During lunch he shared his testimony. He has a heritage in his family of Buddhism but came to faith in Christ during his college days. Sometime later he went through a hard period and for several years was not walking close with the Lord. But he began attending a Korean Church, and in recent years has been growing in his faith, as well as sharing the love of God with others, including his parents and Dave, the friend who came with him for the trail ride. They are all now professing faith in Christ and attending church together!
There are a lot of types of evangelism. Consider the impact of a well-known evangelist like Billy Graham and the many we have seen responding to an altar call at his meetings. Consider scores of local churches and frequent appeals from our pastors to accept and follow the Lord. How about youth camps, street evangelism, and on and on the list grows for the various ways people try to reach the lost for Christ.
But in our view the greatest form of evangelism is the one on one impact, which many times precedes what happens at a larger setting. Consider the many who invited someone to a Billy Graham meeting or to church and had planted seeds long before they responded to an altar call.
Many years ago someone defined evangelism as "one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread." Of course we are all beggars in this story, as the old hymn states,
In our daily text we have a brief description of an early "beggar". We aren't told his name but he had a remarkable testimony as "the Gerasene demoniac". His deliverance was quite dramatic and afterwards he is at the feet of Jesus "dressed and in his right mind." That's genuine conversion and transformation!
Jesus moved on from that area and the story ends with our daily verse. A direct command spoken from the Lord, "Return home and tell how much God has done for you." And a simple, blessed response, "So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him."
The story ends there, at least in Luke's record. What kind of response was there to the man's message? Scripture doesn't inform us of that. I am sure, like today, some rejected him even scoffing. But others may have themselves believed. I would think for sure his parents surely responded favorably after seeing their son in his right mind. And for some seeds were sown that may not have germinated for many years. I've often wondered how many saved at Pentecost and in the early days of the church were people who had been impacted by Christ during His earthly ministry. I guess we'll just have to wait till we meet some of these folks in heaven and hear their story first hand.
We encourage all our readers today to keep on sharing the love of God and telling what the Lord has done for you, no matter what your story is!
Be encouraged today,
Stephen & Brooksyne Weber
Daily prayer: Father,
we thank You for the New Testament Scriptures that highlight the many
miracles of Jesus as He made Himself available to the common people,
the sick people, and even the people driven mad by demons. Not only did
You break the chains and fetters that people used to bind the demon
possessed Gerasene when he was out of his mind, but You broke the
chains and fetters that bound him to the evil control of Satan. He had
a great, miraculous story of deliverance to spread throughout the
community and in his own home. Our stories may seem to us much less
spectacular, but when our bonds of sin are broken our deliverance is
just as miraculous. So we pray for courage and motivation to share Your
love by telling what You have done for us. We want to share Your love
by sharing of our faith so that we show the world that Jesus Christ is
real to us ev'ry moment, ev'ry day. Amen.
Note from Jae: As believers let’s strive to live a life full of love, support and understanding especially towards those less fortunate than ourselves without being judgmental of their circumstances. After all, who are we but a house full of sinners gathered together? However we understand this concept of His grace. Let’s spread God’s love whenever and wherever we see suffering. We don’t always have to travel as missionaries to third world countries to share the gospel. There is a saying at my church 내가 있는 이 곳이 선교지입니다 which roughly translates to “Where I am here and now is the mission field”. This can mean something simple as befriending the lonely newcomer sitting next to you at service or cooking hot dogs for hungry inner city children.
Some more scenes from the Enola Low Grade recreational trail.
This last weekend we took two rides on the Enola Low Grade Recreational trail, one north of Safe Harbor and another in a section south of Safe Harbor we had never been on before.
A view from high atop the Martic Forge trestle which was just recently restored and opened for trail users. Our lead photo today shows the trestle from below.
Here's the Safe Harbor trestle from the north. This is still impassable for trail users and currently divides the trail into two sections
Two railroad trestles run parallel along the river in Safe Harbor. The lower belongs to the still active Norfolk Southern Line. The upper trestle is the abandoned Low Grade Railroad which is now a recreational trail in many sections of Lancaster County. The Manor Township section I rode on Saturday with Jae and Dave ends at this trestle which we hope that one day will be restored as part of the trail.
The trail ends at the yet un-refurbished Safe Harbor trestle.
On Sunday afternoon Brooksyne and I approached the trestle from the south side. It posted "No Trespassing" but we were tempted to have a little walk. (We didn't!)
The portion of the trail south of the Safe Harbor Trestle is not nearly as pleasant for a bike ride as the other side north of the trestle as it has larger stones. It was still a neat ride! (North of the trestle is finely crushed stone.) You can see this is a very wild area.
We saw several turtles on the trail. Brooksyne is trying to get him (or her) to peek his head out. She's enough of a country girl to know how to hold a turtle. (For those who may not know nervous turtles tend to pee on you when you pick them up!)
Today's Suggested Music and Supplemental Resources
"Share His Love" Video Instrumental, unable to find a suitable vocal version.
"Come Ye Sinners" Video Vertical Church Band
"Come Ye Sinners" Video New Hope Singers A neat version by some island singers! This is fun to watch.
"Yes, I Know" Video GVB
"Rescue the Perishing" Video Billy and Cindy Foote
Here's an article from our local newspaper concerning the refurbished Martic Forge trestle.
Send a message to Stephen & Brooksyne
To receive the "Daily Encouragement" each Monday-Friday through email see this page to subscribe to our email list. You can also subscribe to the Wordpress rss feed or through a Wordpress email subscription. (See the email subscription on the right side after opening this page.)
Are
our daily encouragement messages a blessing to you? We ask you to
consider making a donation to Daily Encouragement Net so that we can
continue to prepare and provide this daily resource which is
accessed by believers and seekers all over the world. Daily
Encouragement Net relies solely on the generosity and financial support
of its readers and podcast listeners. See here
for more information on supporting this
ministry. Gifts are tax deductible.
Permissions: Please feel free to pass on, reproduce and distribute any material on Daily Encouragement Net, in part or in whole, in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way or charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. It is our desire to spread this material, not protect or restrict it. I do request that you keep the contact, copyright and subscription information intact.
Text only version for printing: To make a text only version for printing (without photos or any of the supplemental materials)
1) Open the basic text editor that comes with all computers (known as wordpad, textpad, etc.) You can also use a program like Word and select paste text only.
2) Select and copy the text from the portion of the message you want to print.
3) Paste into the text pad. (The photos won't show up but you will have a brief text description of the photo which you can delete or just ignore.)
4) Format if you desire (change font, increase or decrease size, etc.)
5) Print!
Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: New International Version. © 1984 by International Bible Society; NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, New King James Version (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. and the King James Version.
Personal Mission Statement: "I am created by God to bring Him glory. Through God's Son Jesus Christ I have been redeemed and make it my life's goal to please the Lord. My mission in life is to honor God through my faith and obedience and prepare myself and all whom I may influence for eternity."
© Copyright 2015 Stephen C. Weber - All Rights Reserved
Daily Encouragement Net - 495 Kraybill Church Road - Mount Joy, PA 17552 USA
<Previous Message Next Message>
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Martic Forge trestle in southern Lancaster County.
"Share His Love"
(Part 3)
(Part 3)
Listen to this
message on
your
audio player."'Return home and tell how much God has done for you.' So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him" (Luke 8:39).
We show the love of God each day we live,
Reveal Christ's presence in our lives;
And how the Holy Spirit guides us day by day,
For God so loved the world His only Son He gave.
Reveal Christ's presence in our lives;
And how the Holy Spirit guides us day by day,
For God so loved the world His only Son He gave.
We meet a lot of people in the course of our chaplain work. We see the "melting pot" at work, with many recent immigrants employed by our various companies. We truly see "red and yellow, black and white" as we walk the factory floors, through office cubicles, hotels and warehouses.
We try to learn names which is quite a challenge due to the four or five hundred people we may see each week but especially so with names unfamiliar to us here in America. But we still try, perhaps mangling the correct pronunciation a bit (or a lot). But people seem to appreciate the effort! We have Sapi from India, Milan from Bosnia, Dedan from Kenya, Melissa from Russia, Hieu from Vietnam, Mike from Haiti, Ruby from Colombia, Che from China, Yelena from Moldovia, Marco from Mexico, Nieve from the Dominican Republic and many others. (Note: We are probably not spelling some of these names correctly but that's how they sound to us. We could include many others but we can't even attempt the proper pronunciation or spelling of their names!) It is especially heartening when we find we share the same faith in Christ and have that level of fellowship that transcends language.
Several
months ago we met Jae Oh, a software engineer, who was born in Korea
but came to the United States as a baby. His full Korean name is Jaehun.
He was very receptive to our
visits upon our initial introduction. Over time we learned a little
more about him during our brief visits and this last Saturday
we invited him over for a trail ride and lunch. He brought a friend and we rode along the Manor Township Low Grade trail. (That's Jae in the photo to the left peering out of a tiny switch house along an old railroad grade.)During lunch he shared his testimony. He has a heritage in his family of Buddhism but came to faith in Christ during his college days. Sometime later he went through a hard period and for several years was not walking close with the Lord. But he began attending a Korean Church, and in recent years has been growing in his faith, as well as sharing the love of God with others, including his parents and Dave, the friend who came with him for the trail ride. They are all now professing faith in Christ and attending church together!
There are a lot of types of evangelism. Consider the impact of a well-known evangelist like Billy Graham and the many we have seen responding to an altar call at his meetings. Consider scores of local churches and frequent appeals from our pastors to accept and follow the Lord. How about youth camps, street evangelism, and on and on the list grows for the various ways people try to reach the lost for Christ.
But in our view the greatest form of evangelism is the one on one impact, which many times precedes what happens at a larger setting. Consider the many who invited someone to a Billy Graham meeting or to church and had planted seeds long before they responded to an altar call.
Many years ago someone defined evangelism as "one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread." Of course we are all beggars in this story, as the old hymn states,
Come ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love, and pow'r.
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love, and pow'r.
In our daily text we have a brief description of an early "beggar". We aren't told his name but he had a remarkable testimony as "the Gerasene demoniac". His deliverance was quite dramatic and afterwards he is at the feet of Jesus "dressed and in his right mind." That's genuine conversion and transformation!
Jesus moved on from that area and the story ends with our daily verse. A direct command spoken from the Lord, "Return home and tell how much God has done for you." And a simple, blessed response, "So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him."
The story ends there, at least in Luke's record. What kind of response was there to the man's message? Scripture doesn't inform us of that. I am sure, like today, some rejected him even scoffing. But others may have themselves believed. I would think for sure his parents surely responded favorably after seeing their son in his right mind. And for some seeds were sown that may not have germinated for many years. I've often wondered how many saved at Pentecost and in the early days of the church were people who had been impacted by Christ during His earthly ministry. I guess we'll just have to wait till we meet some of these folks in heaven and hear their story first hand.
We encourage all our readers today to keep on sharing the love of God and telling what the Lord has done for you, no matter what your story is!
Share His love by telling
what the Lord has done for you,
Share His love by sharing of your faith,
and show the world that Jesus Christ
is real to you ev'ry moment, ev'ry day.
what the Lord has done for you,
Share His love by sharing of your faith,
and show the world that Jesus Christ
is real to you ev'ry moment, ev'ry day.
Be encouraged today,
Stephen & Brooksyne Weber
Daily prayer: Father,
we thank You for the New Testament Scriptures that highlight the many
miracles of Jesus as He made Himself available to the common people,
the sick people, and even the people driven mad by demons. Not only did
You break the chains and fetters that people used to bind the demon
possessed Gerasene when he was out of his mind, but You broke the
chains and fetters that bound him to the evil control of Satan. He had
a great, miraculous story of deliverance to spread throughout the
community and in his own home. Our stories may seem to us much less
spectacular, but when our bonds of sin are broken our deliverance is
just as miraculous. So we pray for courage and motivation to share Your
love by telling what You have done for us. We want to share Your love
by sharing of our faith so that we show the world that Jesus Christ is
real to us ev'ry moment, ev'ry day. Amen.Note from Jae: As believers let’s strive to live a life full of love, support and understanding especially towards those less fortunate than ourselves without being judgmental of their circumstances. After all, who are we but a house full of sinners gathered together? However we understand this concept of His grace. Let’s spread God’s love whenever and wherever we see suffering. We don’t always have to travel as missionaries to third world countries to share the gospel. There is a saying at my church 내가 있는 이 곳이 선교지입니다 which roughly translates to “Where I am here and now is the mission field”. This can mean something simple as befriending the lonely newcomer sitting next to you at service or cooking hot dogs for hungry inner city children.
Some more scenes from the Enola Low Grade recreational trail.
This last weekend we took two rides on the Enola Low Grade Recreational trail, one north of Safe Harbor and another in a section south of Safe Harbor we had never been on before.
A view from high atop the Martic Forge trestle which was just recently restored and opened for trail users. Our lead photo today shows the trestle from below.
Here's the Safe Harbor trestle from the north. This is still impassable for trail users and currently divides the trail into two sections
Two railroad trestles run parallel along the river in Safe Harbor. The lower belongs to the still active Norfolk Southern Line. The upper trestle is the abandoned Low Grade Railroad which is now a recreational trail in many sections of Lancaster County. The Manor Township section I rode on Saturday with Jae and Dave ends at this trestle which we hope that one day will be restored as part of the trail.
The trail ends at the yet un-refurbished Safe Harbor trestle.
On Sunday afternoon Brooksyne and I approached the trestle from the south side. It posted "No Trespassing" but we were tempted to have a little walk. (We didn't!)
The portion of the trail south of the Safe Harbor Trestle is not nearly as pleasant for a bike ride as the other side north of the trestle as it has larger stones. It was still a neat ride! (North of the trestle is finely crushed stone.) You can see this is a very wild area.
We saw several turtles on the trail. Brooksyne is trying to get him (or her) to peek his head out. She's enough of a country girl to know how to hold a turtle. (For those who may not know nervous turtles tend to pee on you when you pick them up!)
Today's Suggested Music and Supplemental Resources
"Share His Love" Video Instrumental, unable to find a suitable vocal version.
"Come Ye Sinners" Video Vertical Church Band
Come ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love, and pow'r.
Chorus:
I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
O there are ten thousand charms.
2 Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome,
God's free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Ev'ry grace that brings you nigh.
3 Come ye weary, heavy laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you're better,
You will never come at all.
4 Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love, and pow'r.
Chorus:
I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
O there are ten thousand charms.
2 Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome,
God's free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Ev'ry grace that brings you nigh.
3 Come ye weary, heavy laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you're better,
You will never come at all.
4 Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.
"Come Ye Sinners" Video New Hope Singers A neat version by some island singers! This is fun to watch.
"Yes, I Know" Video GVB
"Rescue the Perishing" Video Billy and Cindy Foote
Here's an article from our local newspaper concerning the refurbished Martic Forge trestle.
Send a message to Stephen & Brooksyne
To receive the "Daily Encouragement" each Monday-Friday through email see this page to subscribe to our email list. You can also subscribe to the Wordpress rss feed or through a Wordpress email subscription. (See the email subscription on the right side after opening this page.)
Are
our daily encouragement messages a blessing to you? We ask you to
consider making a donation to Daily Encouragement Net so that we can
continue to prepare and provide this daily resource which is
accessed by believers and seekers all over the world. Daily
Encouragement Net relies solely on the generosity and financial support
of its readers and podcast listeners. See here
for more information on supporting this
ministry. Gifts are tax deductible.Permissions: Please feel free to pass on, reproduce and distribute any material on Daily Encouragement Net, in part or in whole, in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way or charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. It is our desire to spread this material, not protect or restrict it. I do request that you keep the contact, copyright and subscription information intact.
Text only version for printing: To make a text only version for printing (without photos or any of the supplemental materials)
1) Open the basic text editor that comes with all computers (known as wordpad, textpad, etc.) You can also use a program like Word and select paste text only.
2) Select and copy the text from the portion of the message you want to print.
3) Paste into the text pad. (The photos won't show up but you will have a brief text description of the photo which you can delete or just ignore.)
4) Format if you desire (change font, increase or decrease size, etc.)
5) Print!
Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: New International Version. © 1984 by International Bible Society; NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, New King James Version (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. and the King James Version.
Personal Mission Statement: "I am created by God to bring Him glory. Through God's Son Jesus Christ I have been redeemed and make it my life's goal to please the Lord. My mission in life is to honor God through my faith and obedience and prepare myself and all whom I may influence for eternity."
© Copyright 2015 Stephen C. Weber - All Rights Reserved
Daily Encouragement Net - 495 Kraybill Church Road - Mount Joy, PA 17552 USA