From Ezra 4:1 - In every door God opens for His people is Satan working his best to trip us up and close the door by desecration, discouragement, despair, or division. The sad truth is that sometimes he is successful.

From "God's Work supplied" - Ezra 1:1-9 " When God moves and opens a door to do His will, He stirs in men's hearts to serve and supplies the needs by others giving money & materials so all have a part and God's work is completed" or as Hudson Taylor said, "God's work, done God's way, never lacks God's supply"

From "Doing God's work" - Ezra 3 "There comes a time in our service for the Lord where we move from available willingness to actual work."

Behind every "open door' of opportunity stands our God ready to help us and say at it's end "well done".
(Revelation 3:8)

We carry the "burden" of God's message not as a weight to get us down but as a gift to share" (Malachi 1:1)

Yesterday Pastor James shared the Word of God by explaining Dispensationalism. It is so good to see from the Word of God that God has a plan for the ages, for the times we know that run from eternity to eternity. We were encouraged in our faith as we were able to see the faithfulness to God, combined with His mercy and grace, meet the need of man's unfaithfulness. In every dispensation man failed but God provided a substitute for us for our sin until Jesus came and provided our "once for all", nothing more is needed, sacrifice for sin. It is so good now that we have this message of salvation to give out to others that they, too, can be filled with the blessed hope of a coming Savior. So we say we great desire "come quickly, Lord Jesus", Great is our God and His faithfulness! Amen!!

His name shall be called Wonderful, He is marvelous, surpassing, extraordinary, beyond words, awesome!!! He is the joy of our life, the goose-bumps of our body, the happiness of our heart, the twinkle of our eyes, the song of our soul, the clap of our hands, and the smile of our face, He’s all we ever dreamed of and more! Amen???

Well, it happened again last night at the hymn sing. Faces left church radiating with smiles because they had joy in their hearts. It was our Christmas hymn sing and people esthetically lifted their voices in praise to God and it made our hearts happy. Music is such good therapy for the soul, it just replaces the gloom that life might bring and restores the soul. God's music is so much different from the world because it's all about a God who loves, cares, and gives us hope. So the lesson learned last night was simple, if you want your spirit lifted and your joy restored, get together with God's people and bellow out praise to God! It's guaranteed to put a smile on your kisser, and don't forget, if you'll do this, sir, life won't be miserable. Don't believe me, check out James 5.

One of the points of last's message about Ezekiel the watchman was that when someone gives a warning there is a call for a decision. After all what good is a warning if there isn't a response to it. In our post modern culture this is almost a thing of the past; invitations are seldom given, Bible studies express comments not commitments, praise music doesn't have songs of invitation, it's culturally taboo to "go forward" any more, no one likes to be put on the spot. Yet if our message is true, it must have a call of decision, or the message is just another idea. agree?