When my time comes to die, I can only hope to be half the man that Peter was. When he knew he was going to be executed, he was still writing and teaching people about Christ Jesus. Right up to the last minutes of his life, Peter was still trying to help people in general turn their lives around and accept Christ in their lives.

He was still teaching things like KEEP GROWING IN THE FAITH, like keep studying God’s Word and building knowledge, like keep practicing Brotherly Love, like caring for each other and being in fellowship with one another as often as possible.  Also, like Jesus taught, we should continuously come together in His name and boost each other up.

Peter was still teaching about False Teachers and False Preachers.  You see, there were false teachers and false religions back then as well. Peter was warning us to always check out what teachers tell you. In our ministry, we always challenge you to go and read your Bible after our services to make sure we are teaching the truth.

A lot of these false teachers, as well as atheists and many other people, will try to tell you that Christ isn’t coming back, because if he was coming back, then he would have already come back. The truth of this matter according to our BIBLE is that God doesn’t want to lose even one of us, and for this reason he is being very patient. Christ said that even he doesn’t know the day of his return, that only God knows.

Can you imagine a person who is about to be executed thinking of others instead of himself? Today  we call these people HEROES!!!! Yet, we are finding these heroes in those little short books in the back of our New Testament where you hardly ever hear most preachers and teachers teach from.

I don’t know about you but I believe that these are good, no, GREAT LESSONS for us today as well as they were way back there two thousand years ago.

If you ever want to join our live services, it is a simple thing to do. You simply pick up your phone and dial 712 432 3900,  and when prompted you just enter conference number 431167#. We meet each Sunday evening at 8 pm eastern time, U.S.A. You will be on live with us and can talk to and with other Christians.   May God Bless You and Your Family this and everyday.

One of the hardest things a person could ever attempt to do.  It can surprise you when you get someone to listen to you the first time.  Each and everyone of us have experienced this at lease a dozen or more times in our walk with Our Lord and Savior including Our Lord and Savior, who experienced rejection many more times than anyone of us ever will. He still gets rejected today. Over 2,000 years later.

Last night my wife and I were watching a movie about Mary the Earthly Mother of Our Lord and Savior. It was a great movie in that it tried to show what his Mother must have gone through with her shock of an Angel telling her that she would give birth without first knowing a man, and then that her child would be the promised Messiah! Great movie, like they said at the first that the movie is pretty much along scripture but we don’t have much detail about Mary’s or Christ’s private lives. The makers of the movie were trying to show what a mother must have gone through, love and emotion wise. As she watched her son grow up and fulfill his destiny as The Son of God.I mention all of this only to point out that this movie also tried to show how Christ was denied by so many people around him that had known him as he grew from a child into manhood. Jesus had to leave his hometown to find people who accepted his teachings.

It is often very hard for people who have known you all your life to accept the changes that come into your life after you accept Christ Jesus into your life. Even if they profess to already be followers of Christ. You see, they have their own ideas of what their relationship with Christ is or should be, and then,here you come. All on fire! Wanting to talk about it out loud, not quietly on Sundays only. You are excited!!! When we read Our Bible we see that Christ Jesus had the same problems. When he spoke in the synagogue like  all Good Jewish Men are required to do at some time in their life, they were shaken up when he didn’t need to look at and read the scriptures from the scrolls(or as we would call them, the books)! They rejected him primarily out of fear. They were afraid because they had a problem accepting that this simple carpenters son,who,they had known since he was born, could quote the scriptures without even looking at the written version of those sacred scriptures that they all claimed to know and live by.

You see, most people get complacent in their religious life somewhere along the way. They truly believe that they know enough of Our Scriptures to get by and possibly get into Heaven. Then, here you come!  Christ has put a great fire in your heart and sent you among your family and friends to reawaken their fires as well. It is scary for them, to say the least !!!! Even though your friends and family probably do know, or at least have been taught at sometime, enough to get them into heaven, they can get shook up when they see you on fire. They can get nervous and wonder to themselves if they are doing right in their walk with Christ, causing them to reject your life changes. Even God sent his only Son away from his earthly home to other cities to preach and teach,so people would more readily accept Christ’s teachings at first.

So, now you can see. You are not alone in your trials and tribulations during your witnessing for Christ. As for me, I as your pastor, still go through the same trials in witnessing to people. Almost no one in the area where I was born and grew up in East Texas will  listen to me when I tech and Preach about Our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. They still see me as that wild child pain in their side that I was when I was growing up. They say they acknowledge that Christ Jesus has changed my life and for reasons only known to him, appointed me as Pastor of this Ministry for the last fourteen years. But, most of them will not talk with me about Christ. I many times simply want to just sit quietly and listen to them talk about their relationship with Christ but they are afraid or so unsure of themselves they wont even do this.

I am not Christ by any stretch of the imagination, but when I start to become discouraged in my life of witnessing for Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I just slow down a bit and reflect on his earthly life and remind myself that he went through the same trials and tribulations but he kept his eye and heart on the ultimate prize, going home to Heaven.

in church last week we were in 1 Peter where Peter said for us to live like we are strangers here on earth and in our communities. We are to concentrate on our Spiritual lives and always strive to keep on working toward our heavenly home. A major part of this, is to continuously witness to others around us. Even though it gets hard sometimes, always remember that Our Lord and Savior went through the same things long, long ago. My Prayer for YOU is this, May Jesus Bless and Keep YOU today and everyday until that Glorious day when HE brings us all home.

You can always join our services live and actually participate with other people of like beliefs  calling in on Sunday Evenings at 8 p.m. eastern time in the U.S.A. by dialing 712 432 3900 and when prompted put in conference number 431167#.

 

 

 

Tonight’s lesson comes from the book of 1 Peter in our New Testament. In this letter of instructions to a group of people Peter describes being a christian as like being a foreigner or stranger in your own home town. Whenever I feel like I am being shunned by people because I stick true to My Lord and Savior. This book of 1 Peter is a great place to go.

You see the people that Peter was writing to lived in a time and area where life was pretty dull day to day. Pretty much all the good times to be had were at the many festivals and parties celebrating pagan Gods, of which there were generally many. Sad thing was that anytime bad times came around someone simply created another god and more celebrations to go with that God. So when a person gave their life to The One True Living God and quit attending these festivals and quit worshiping these Man made Gods that person was not very popular. They became like a stranger in their own village.

We sometimes feel that way today. We will be persecuted because of our new found faith.Peter reminds us that Jesus was persecuted constantly although he never sinned. But then Jesus ultimate reward was in Heaven. We will also receive our reward in heaven.Peter tells us to always obey the human government appointed over us. Now we may not like that government, we must obey it. This doesn’t say that we cant work to change the government, it simply reminds us of the lessons that we earlier learned fro the Book of Philemon. There is a proper, profound way that we can change any government. We should not go out and cause disturbances and violate the law.

Another profound way that Peter changed the known world was in chapter 3 verse 7. Peter said your wife is your equal. Up until this time wives and women in general were considered property of men. Men could treat women pretty much anyway they wanted to.Can you imagine hearing this the first time. Oh! How this changed things. I can only imagine how people thought Christians crazy!

If you ever begin thinking that your life is hard, and you are hitting a brick wall every way you turn, simply think how Christians felt back in the time of this Book was written. People had such a hard life in villages and small towns and on farms and the only good times they had, the only things that they looked forward to. You start saying these things are bad because you now live according to the teachings of One God. You start telling them and their families to stop partying and instead start living a quiet pious life, you were not very popular.They could and many times did sue these new Christians and take all their belongings. They would insult you, have you arrested,get you jail time, kick you and your family out of the village, have you executed. But these Christians stayed the course and stayed true to Jesus Christ. You are not jailed,beaten, nor sued for being a christian.You are not executed thrown out of town and not being fired for being a christian.

We can worship openly today.I thank Jesus to be living and witnessing to the world in today’s time.

If you want to hear more of this lesson on our recorded version from last sunday night you can call 712 432 3903  when prompted simply enter conference number 431167#. We are live and you can call in and participate in a live church service with other believers by calling 712 432 3900 conference 431167# at 8pm eastern time in the U.S.A. each and every Sunday night.  May God Bless You All this and Every Day.

Welcome to Traveling 4 Christ Ministries.
Tonight you are going to journey into my
mind and eavesdrop on a conversation.
What you are about to hear is about spreading the gospel.
Oh no, not that… Yup, that is where we are headed tonight. I will quote and paraphrase scripture and
give you, hopefully tips or help encourage you to get out there. This has been weighing on my heart
for about a week. After being saved a lot of people just stop and go through the motions. Such As, far as church is concerned it is come and listen, that’s it. We are a Go and Get church, once we are off the
phone we should be going and getting more people. It is now time to step out of comfort zones and
help others to the eternal life we have in Christ.
Now here begins the conversation, by the way as we enter my mind please keep your hands and
feet inside the vehicle for the duration of the ride.

Alright, here we go, let’s do this, I love you Lord. I know I can do this. This is going to be easy.
Just like you said in Act 8:4 “But the believers who had fled Jerusalem went everywhere preaching
the good news about Jesus.” I got this. I am going to go out and tell people about you.
Him, I am going to talk to him. OK, here’s where the rubber meets the road.
Excuse me sir, do you have a moment so I can talk to you about Jesus? What? Pardon me?
That’s not very nice.
OK forget that one, I will talk to her, she seems nice.
Ma’am do you know where you would end up tonight if you were to die today? I’m sorry
I didn’t catch that, oh really? OK well thank you and have a nice day.

Man this is tougher than I thought, why can’t I do this? Why won’t people listen? Don’t they
know I am only trying to help them and look out for their eternal soul? I mean who wants to spend
eternity in hell, separated from God with zero chance of redemption? OK, when in doubt go to God’s
word, it always has the answers. There is nothing you can think of or talk about that God has not
already spoken or given directions about. Hmmmm, here we are Acts 8:29-31 “The Holy Spirit
said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.” 30 Philip ran over and heard the man
reading from the prophet Isaiah; so he asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
31 The man replied, “How can I when there is no one to instruct me?” and he begged Philip
to come up into his carriage and sit with him.
OK so from this passage of scripture the man was already into the scripture, how easy would
that be to find someone that is in scripture asking for help?
Alright so Philip comes across this Eunuch and finds out what he knows and works from there.
He starts to explain what has been written and what he is reading. So my task is to find out where the person is and start there. Whether they are a non believer, semi believer or maybe a actual believer.

Rule 1: Start where the other person is, not where I want to start.

It is going to take some listening and learning about others before I try and jump in, I guess.
Let’s see what else I can learn:
2 Corinthians 11:6 say “I may not be a trained speaker, but I know what I am talking about….”
So I need to make sure I know what I am talking about. Paul wasn’t an established speaker but he was
dead set on the message. He knew without a doubt what he wanted to say. So it tells me that content is
more important than the presentation. That is a relief, I know what I want to say to people I am just not

sure how to put the words together. 1 Corinthians 1:17 says, “For Christ didn’t send me to baptize,
but to preach the Good News- and not with clever speeches and high-sounding ideas, for fear that the
cross of Christ would lose its power.” So I don’t have to be a professional speaker to do this, great,
now I feel much better. And after reading 2 Corinthians 4:2, paraphrasing it, we can’t trick anyone by
distorting or changing the Good News.

So Rule 2: Content is more important than presentation.

OK God, this is great, let’s keep going…….. teach me more……..wait, content, hmmm, let’s see
what I can get for content. Just to make sure I get this right. Alright, alright, I have read, and read and
read and for me it comes down to the Roman Road. To me it says it quickly and I understand it and I
know I can repeat it. Here it goes: in my words of course;-

Romans 3:23 says we are all sinners.

Romans 6:23 says we deserve death for our sins.

Romans 5:8 Jesus Christ died for our sins.

Romans 10:8-10 To be forgiven of our sins, we must truly believe and confess that Jesus
is Lord. And that salvation only comes through Jesus Christ.

Now I can explain the different areas of Romans if I need to; Telling the person how we are
all sinners, where and how it started. I can explain to them why we deserve death, a Perfect God
who abhors sin and cannot be near sin, so we must die and be separated, meaning hell. Thirdly, as a
perfect God, he orchestrated a plan to bring us back to him. This is where John 3:16 falls into place.
Finally, we confess and truly believe that Christ is our Savior and without him we will not be able
to enter into the presence of God. Here is where John 14:6 comes into play. Jesus replied, “I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” Done, now I got the
content and know what I am going to say. Now I just need to go out and do it. But I have to keep
in mind the parable that Jesus taught about the seeds in the Four Soils. Found in Matthew 13:3-9,
to sum it up the footpath with the birds, shallow soil with rocks, soil among the thorns, and finally
fertile soil. The 4 soils are different people who hear the seeds or the Good News. The Footpath seeds
are eaten by the birds that is people who hear but don’t understand, and the bird is the devil taking the
word before it takes root. The soil with rocks, is people who her the Good News and are happy and do
nothing with it. The third is soil with thorns, again they hear the message and are happy about it, but
life gets in the way and they message gets crowded out. The fourth is the fertile soil, the message
is heard and takes root and blossoms and the message is continually spread.
Not everyone is going to respond favorably to what I am going to say so I just have got to keep
trying. Remember Pat, not everyone listened, responded to or even liked Jesus when he was doing
this. Wow, just think about that, YOU are going to go out and do what Jesus did, actually what Jesus
wants you to do. As you talk to people the reactions may not be immediate, you may never know if
you made a difference. That is not your concern, you give them the message and let the Holy Spirit
do the rest. You just share the Good News to everyone you can and like a pebble thrown into the lake
it will ripple across to the other shore and you will never know how many people saw the ripple and
wondered about it.

Let’s see just to remind myself

Start where the other person is, listen to them.
Content is more important than presentation.
Take them down the Roman Road.
Don’t get upset about reactions.
Keep spreading the message.

So I guess what I am trying to say is, as a Christian it is our responsibility to tell others about
the gospel. Here at Traveling 4 Christ Ministries we are not a come and listen church. We are a go and
get, go and get more people. It is even in our name, “Traveling” we should be out spreading the gospel
as much as we can. In Matthew 28:18-20 The Great commission, which reads; Then Jesus came to
them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the
very end of the age.” is still in effect and is still our number 1 request from Christ. After what he went
through to save us, how can we not at least spread the gospel. Remember, start were they are,
content over presentation, the content is the Roman Road, don’t worry about the reactions, and keep
spreading the message.

Now it is time to get out of my mind please.

Heavenly Father,
I thank you for putting this message on my heart, I thank you for giving me the opportunity
to share it in this setting. I pray that you will stir our hearts to go out and witness for you.
You have given us so much, and ask so little of us. Please use each of us to be the instruments
of your word. Let us be one of the many to go out to the utter ends of our neighborhoods and
proclaim your word. I know in my heart that you are with me at all times and will give me the
words when needed. I just ask that you help me find the courage for that first step.
It is in your Almighty, loving name we pray.

Amen.

pk.

 

Please join us live every Sunday evening at 8pm eastern/ 7 pm central. You can call 712-432-3900. When prompted for conference number dial 431167 #  then listen in and enjoy. We look forward to you listening in.

Well it is superbowl sunday again. I always wonder how many people will give just a little of their time to Jesus today. I firmly believe that if people had tailgate parties on sunday for Our Lord like they used to, less people would be lost to this world and certainly less people would be going through life asking the age old question” WHY ME LORD”.

In what we now affectionately call the olden times, going to church was akin to superbowl sunday celebrations now. In the movies we see people of those olden times going to church regularly but this was not the norm, most people lived quite a ways from each other and life required seven days a week working to simply survive. They studied our Bible at home as a family unit.

News of a circuit riding preacher coming to town was normally cause for folks to travel, sometimes many miles, and sometimes for days each way, and gather for church. these times were planned far in advance and it always was cause for celebration. Many people only saw each other on these occasions. Great fellowship, great eats, great music and especially great Preaching!

I have some great memories from my childhood when my grandmother took me to an old Baptist Church out in the woods of East Texas. Sadly, it has been so long ago that I don’t remember where it was. However I do still have my memories. There was no air conditioner, so we had all the windows open and the ladies had little a hand fan trying to cool themselves as much as possible. It was an old fashioned Hell,Fire and Brimstone Preacher. We had a Baptizing in the creek, and Dinner on the Grounds.

You met all sorts of your kin, Got right with God, Got Baptized if you hadn’t already,and for that one time a year, you could eat as much as you wanted to!  And lets not forget the music! It wasn’t a well rehearsed musical group like churches have today. It was people from all over, who might be a great musician or might only know one or two chords on their instrument. Whatever the case was, they were playing for Our Lord. I still can sit somewhere quiet and close my eyes and hear that great Gospel Music. It came from the heart. I listen to a lot of Gospel Music today but nothing compares to those old Gospel Meetings!

You could just feel the Presence of Our Lord everywhere! Everyone was here for the same thing, Worshiping God and fellowship. You took those memories home with you and they kept you going until the next time. I could walk around the courthouse square in our little town and the old men sitting there would be talking about the recent church meetings for months.

I guess what really stands out was the fact that no matter which denomination you claimed for your own, you all came together in peace and fellowship at these meetings. You see, There could be several preachers there at once, from different denominations and never once did you hear anything about those different denominations. It was simply about saving souls and living for Jesus.

Did I mention that it would rival any superbowl sunday football celebration?  And it was all for Jesus Christ!!!!!