Music Video - Daddy's Hands - by Courtney Jenkins

"Our Father Who Is In Heaven"
A Message From Pastor Mark Taylor

“After this manner pray: Our Father Who is in Heaven. Holy and Honored shall be Your Name.  Your Kingdom come, Your will be done in Earth, as it is in Heaven.” (Matthew 6:8-10

Today, in the United States, we celebrate Father’s Day.  The first observance of Father's Day is believed to have been held on June 19, 1910.  It is sad that today one out of three children do not have a father living with them in their homes. 

Notice that when Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He counseled them to relate to God as "Father."  By now, we all understand that prayer is simply the practice of talking with God - it's the vehicle by which fellowship with God can take place in this life. The first lesson from the Lord's Prayer then is simply that God, our Father, wants us to talk to Him. He is a conversationalist; He wants to have that kind of relationship with His children, one where the children take the initiative to discuss the events of their lives, and He wants to be the One who is available to listen and meet their needs.

As human beings we are designed to know God as our Good, Loving, Heavenly Father.  The trouble is we do not see Him clearly... partly because the lenses we wear to look at Him are provided by the experiences of our earthly fathers (and other male authority figures).  If we had or have, a physically absent or emotionally absent father, then at a heart level we may well fear that God will not be close to us... and therefore we find it hard to believe that He wants to draw near and is near!   If you do not have an earthly father present with you today, or if your father does not show you the love you desire, God wants to be your Father.  “When my father and my mother forsake me, Then the LORD will take care of me.” (Psalms 27:10).  

Our Father is our protector.  “A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, Is God in His holy habitation.” (Psalms 68:5).

Our FATHER is full of forgiveness: “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalms 103:12).

Our FATHER is Love:  “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love”  (1 John 4:7-8).

Our FATHER is all powerful (omnipotent).  There is no limit to what HE can do.  “Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.” (Psalms 147:5). 

Our FATHER is all knowing (omniscient).   He knows your thoughts: “The LORD knows the thoughts of man, That they are futile” (Psalms 94:11).  “You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off” (Psalms 139:2).

Our FATHER is present everywhere (omnipresent).  Our FATHER is not limited by time or space. “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there” (Psalms 139:7-8).

A good Earthly Father should be someone we can go to when we are in trouble or when we are discouraged.  Sometimes all we need is a word of encouragement from him to give us the courage to keep on going when we feel like giving up. Someone to tell us he is for us and on our side.  “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.”  (Jeremiah 29:11-12).   

Your Heavenly Father can meet that need and give you the resources to get back on your feet when you have been knocked down by this world.  “As a father pities his children, So the LORD pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” (Psalms 103:13-14).  Do you need a Father today who can just take you in His arms and tell you everything is going to be ok?  Your Heavenly Father wants to do just that.  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”  (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, there is no greater gift that you can give to your children and grandchildren, than your time.  There are times when they just need someone to listen to them and spend some time with them.  This is something our Heavenly Father wants to give to His children.  He is a good listener and never too busy to take time for you.

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” (1 John 5:14-15).

'Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:2-3).

Our FATHER is full of pity and mercy: “The LORD is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him” (Psalms 103:8-11).

On this Father's Day, we will honor our fathers with a gift, a card, a call, a word of appreciation or a hug. Let us also remember to honor our Heavenly Father. We can honor our fathers who have gone to Heaven by transferring that love into an act of kindness to someone else.

We will honor Him by taking time to talk with Him, worshipping Him in Spirit and thanking Him for His faithful provision. We will seek to correct any broken relationships we may have with Him or with others of His children. We will follow His leadership into ways of righteousness and accept His protection from the evil one. We will give Him all the praise and glory due His name.  Make this a Happy Father’s Day for your Heavenly Father.

I hope the God of the Bible is your FATHER. I hope that you have seen the FATHER today.  He wants to be your FATHER.   It is His will that everyone go to Heaven and live with Him forever.   "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." The Father is a king, but a king who does not always get what He wants.  What we need to understand is that He values the free choice of His children - He wants you to come to Him out of love, not coercion or fear.  Let His will be done in you.

TAKING THE ORDINARY AND MAKING IT EXTRAORDINARY 
John 2:1-12

“Behold, I make all things new.”  (Revelation 21:5)

by Pastor Mark Taylor

 What Jesus did at the wedding signifies some very important things to us about Jesus and His compassion for people. He even cares about our embarrassing shortcomings.  God is working behind the scenes to meet the need.  He is solving the problem when we have only looked at it.  He is curing the cancer when we are still trying to pronounce its name.  He is providing the resources as the bills are placed in the mailbox.  He is giving us strength when we are weak. (Isaiah 40: 29-31)

To the Jewish people wine symbolized joy. The Jewish rabbis had a saying, ‘Without wine there is no joy.” At the wedding in Cana their joy had run out! In some ways it is a reminder of the emptiness of our life without Christ.  When the water was turned to wine, the shame of the bridal family was turned to joy.

That is simply the way life works. There are times we run out of joy.  But this miracle teaches us that when the wine runs out, Jesus can turn the water into wine.  The Bible reminds us that the Joy of the Lord is our strength. Do you believe that? Because if you do that means that Joy doesn’t come from anywhere else.  The change in our lives - our water into wine- is not based on our strength or efforts, it is available as we yield our lives to the Holy Spirit’s power.

Wherever Jesus went there was life and joy. He stated that His life mission was, as He said, that “His joy might be in us and that our joy might be complete” (John 15:11). He has come to bring His joy, and there is joy everywhere He is in our world. 

He is the God of irrepressible joy, and He has come to share it. He offers the wine of joy to all those who are thirsty for life — for those who will come and drink.

Perhaps Jesus could have used Mary.  Jesus could have looked to His disciples.  Surprisingly, to all who were at the wedding, Jesus did the unexpected, He looked to the servants.  Miracles meet ordinary needs in unexpected ways.    One of the deepest desires of every believer is to be part of the plan of God.  The compelling nature of the love of God creates a yearning in us to get off the bench and into the game.  We often assume that people with social, political or even spiritual status will be God’s first choice, But God does not look at things the way people do.  “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart”  (I Samuel 16:7. 

In our limited understanding, we don’t understand how filling jars with water solves a wine problem.  My job is to faithfully walk with a glass of water until He turns it into wine.  When I get out of the way and walk faithfully with a servant’s heart, God turns water into wine.  There will be times in life when you feel that what you are carrying is terribly inadequate.  That is when faith becomes real as you trust God to take what you have and make it something better.  “Now unto Him, that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.  Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.”  (Ephesians 3:20-21).

There is no limit to His grace. What Jesus gives is never just enough, it is always more than enough, with plenty left over. He did not give just enough trees; He gave more than enough. He did not create just enough mountains; He created more than enough. He did not give just enough ocean; He gave more than enough. He did not give just enough life and joy; He gave more than enough.

Miracles happen when we understand that Jesus transforms our everyday experiences. Jesus did not come to give us information; He came to give us a transformation. He changes things. He has a way of taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary. He did not come to bring new ideas; He came to make new people. The water did not just appear to be wine; it was transformed into wine — the best of wine at that.  “Behold, I make all things new.”  (Revelation 21:5).  The best wine was always offered first. Isn’t that just like our Lord? The best always comes at the end. The grace we once tasted cautiously—we now drink freely. Jesus has poured out in us the richness of His love and forgiveness.  He has a lot of wonderful things planned for you and I after we leave this Earth and all of its problems.  In very ordinary places He creates extraordinary beauty. Let Jesus touch you, and see if your life is not filled with new beauty and wonder — new  flavor and fragrance.   Jesus is in the business of turning water into wine, sinners into saints, fear into courage, sorrow into joy, defeat into victory, despair into hope and death into life. 

Miracles happen when we understand that Jesus extravagantly provides for our everyday requests. There were six jars containing between 20 and 30 gallons apiece.  Though we anticipate that God may give us enough to get by, we often do not expect abundance.  Our expectations are far too low.    Filling the purification jars with water was hard work.  The servants filled each jar with approximately 25 gallons of water - bucket by bucket and step by step.  Out of those water jars came 2,500 glasses of water turned into wine - more than enough to satisfy the needs of the wedding banquet.  The Lord Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was more than enough.  His shed blood was more than enough to offer forgiveness for not just for our sins of the past, but for our sins today, and for the inevitable sins of tomorrow.   Why did Jesus give so much wine? Because He is an extravagant giver. He never gives just enough; He always gives superabundantly.

You have to use what you have before the Lord Jesus changes your water into wine.  You may have to fill some jars which requires effort and hard work on your part. You may have to go to where Jesus is working to receive the wine.  Everyone there at the wedding that day was at the right place at the right time when the Lord Jesus showed up.  But He is still working miracles today in the lives of His children when they are living right and serving Him.  “Blessed is the person that does not walk in the company of the ungodly, nor stands in the same place as sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.  But their delight is in the words of the Lord, and in His words do they mediate day and night.”They shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his/her fruit in their season; their leaf shall not wither, and whatsoever they do shall prosper.” 
  (Psalm 1: 1-3). 

(For more video and written sermons by Pastor Mark Taylor go to:  www.sermonstotheworld.blogspot.com )