Persecuted For Righteousness

Daniel 6:16 

"Then the King commanded and they brought Daniel, and

cast him into the den of lions, Now the King spake and

said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest

continually, he will deliver thee."

         The plot was set, However in the end the perpetrators and their families were hated and destroyed. (Dan. 6:24). They dug a pit into which they fell themselves. They thought to flatter the king, and secure Daniel’s destruction. But what that had done, was brought more perilous an end to themselves instead of Daniel and his two friends. God still sends His angels to shut the lion's mouths, of this evil world, and avenges His people. Daniel may or may not have seen the angel in the lions den any more than we behold the angels around us. But Like Daniel, "We Know They Are There!"
        Walk before God in righteousness and peace, and be sure that you are faithful till your work is done. Trust God and study His Word. With study comes wisdom, and wisdom can make changes in circumstances. 
        Amen!!

Reading: (Dan. 6:1-24)

May God Bless You

And Your Families

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry 

Serving God Is A Servants Joy!

3 John 1:5

"Beloved, thou doest faithfully

whatsoever thou doest to the

brethren, and to strangers;"

        There is a Christian thought here. A man's circumstances may be such that he cannot become a missionary or a preacher. Life may have put him in a position where he must work a secular job, staying in the one place and carrying out the routine duties of life and living. But where he cannot go, he can spread the gospel through other channels as well as his money, his prayers and his practical support.
        Not everyone can be, or is called to be in the front lines of the gospel; but by supporting those who are there, he can make himself an ally of the truth. Remember that, all giving to the wider work of Christ and his church must not become an obligation but a privilege, not a duty but a delight. The church needs those who will go out with the truth, but it also needs those who will be allies of the truth at home. My friends, no matter how you get the word of God out to this evil world, do it by faith and in truth. 

        Amen! 

Reading: (3 John 1:5-8)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

Never Compromise, Be Steadfast In God's Word!

2 John 1:11

"For he that biddeth him God speed

is partaker of his evil deeds."

        Here John may have addressed the same people that he addressed in the book of 1 John. Here John was speaking of, "Exhortation to Steadfastness."  We have to remember the situation. There was a time when it was touch and go whether the Christian faith would be destroyed by the speculations of false teachers who would commonly travel from church to church spreading heresy. Its very existence was in peril. "If" the church dared to even compromise with these false teachings, it could have led to a destructive corrosion of the faith.
        The problem then, and the problem now, is to find a way of living with those whose convictions  are different from our own concerning the most fundamental matters in life, without either breaking charity or being disloyal to the truth." It is there where love will find a way. The best way to destroy our enemies, is to make them our friends, and be true to that friendship. We must never compromise with mistaken or false teachings, However, we are never free from the obligation of seeking to lead them to the truth of  "The Gospel Of Jesus Christ," as the truth was taught to us, and the truth that remains within us as a Christian people.  "That God For Steadfast Believers"
        Amen!! 

Reading: (2 John 1:7-13)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

 

Stay True To What You Know

1 John 2:20

"But ye have an unction from the Holy

 One, and ye know all things." 

        John reminds his people that all of them possess knowledge. The people who had gone out were Gnostic's who claimed that there had been given to them a secret, special and advanced knowledge, which is Gnosticism; "practices of doctrines of several, pre-Christian pagan, Jewish, and early Christian sects, which was not open to the ordinary Christian. John reminds them and all Christians, that in matters of faith the humblest Christian need to have no feeling of inferiority compared to the most learned scholar. There are, of course, matters of technical scholarship, of language, of history, which must be the preserve of the expert; but the essentials of the faith are the possession of every man.
        This leads John to his point. He wrote to Christians then, and for Christians today. Not because we do not know the truth, but because we do. The greatest Christian defense is simply to remember what we know. What we need is not new truth, but that the truth which we already know needs to become active and effective in our lives. It is the simple fact, that in the Christian life things would be different, "if" we would only put into practice what we already know. That is not to say that we never need to learn anything new; but it is to say that, even as we are, we have the "True Light" to walk by, "if" we would only use it. 
         Amen!!

Reading: (1 John 2:18-29)

May God Bless You 

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

Messiah, David's Son and Lord?

Luke 20: 44

"David therefore calleth him Lord,

how is he then his son?"

        It is worth while for us to take this little passage by itself, for it is very difficult to understand. The most popular title of the Messiah was Son of David. That is what the blind man at Jericho called Jesus (Luke 18:38-39), and that is how the crowds addressed Him at his entry into Jerusalem (Matt. 21:9). Here Jesus seems to cast doubts on the validity of that title. The quotation is from Ps. 110:1. In Jesus' time all the Psalms were attributed to David and this one was taken to refer to the Messiah. In it David says that he heard God speak to his Anointed One and tell him to sit at his right hand until his enemies became his footstool; and in it David calls the Messiah My Lord. How can the Messiah be both, David's son and David's Lord?
        Jesus was doing here what He so often tried to do, trying to correct the popular idea of the Messiah. What Jesus was saying here was, "You think of the coming Messiah as Son of David; so he is; but he is far more. He is Lord." He was telling men that they must revise their ideas of what Son of David meant. They must abandon these fantastic dreams of world power and visualize the Messiah as Lord of the hearts and lives of men. He was implicitly blaming them for having too little an idea of God. It is always man's tendency to make God in his own image, and thereby to miss his full majesty. My Friend, let us not make that same mistake!
        Amen

Reading: (Luke 20:41-44)
               (Matt. 22 41-46)
               (Mark 12:35-37)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

  

By What Authority?

Luke 20:3,4

"And he answered and said unto them, I will also

 ask you one thing and answer me: The baptism

 of John, was it from heaven or of men?"

        It is no wonder they asked Jesus by what authority He did these things! To ride into Jerusalem as He did and then to take the law into His own hands and cleanse the Temple; they needed some kind of explanation. To the orthodox Jews,  Jesus' calm assumption of authority was an amazing thing. No Rabbi ever delivered a judgment or made a statement without naming his authorities. He would say, "There is a teaching that,"  Or he would say, "This was confirmed by Rabbi So and So. What they wanted was that Jesus should say bluntly and directly that he was the Messiah and the Son of God. Then they would have a ready made charge of blasphemy and could arrest him on the spot. But He would not give that answer, for his hour was not yet come.
        The reply of Jesus is sometimes described as a clever debating answer, used simply to score a point. But it is far more than that. He asked them to answer the question, "Was the authority of John the Baptist human or divine?" The point is that their answer to Jesus' question would answer their own question. Every one knew how John had regarded Jesus and how he had considered himself only the fore runner of the one who was the Messiah. If they agreed that John's authority was divine then they had to also agree that Jesus was the Messiah, because John had said so. If they denied it, the people would rise,, against them. Jesus' answer in fact asks the question, "Tell me--where do you yourself think I got my authority?" He did not need to answer their question if they answered his.
        To face the truth may confront a man with a sore and difficult situation; but to refuse to face it confronts him with a tangle out of which there is no escape. The  Pharisees refused to face the truth, and they had to withdraw frustrated and discredited with the crowd. My Friends, we as Christians have been given, authority through the blood of Jesus Christ; However remember that faith comes before the authority. With out faith you will never, see, feel, or enjoy what God has in store for you in this life, or be prepared for life after death. If you have not choose one of these eternal life's, You need to chose one now!  "Eternal Life" or "Eternal Hell"
        Amen 

"You Have The Authority to Choose"

Reading: (Luke 20:1-8)
               (Matt. 21:23-27)
               (Mark 11:27-33)

May God Bless You

And Your Family 

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

The King Trust's His Servants

Luke 19:13

"And he called his ten servants and delivered

them ten pounds, and said unto them,

Occupy till I come."

        There is no better example like this than Jesus himself. Of his thirty three years of life Jesus spent thirty of them in Nazareth. Had he not show faithfulness to the tasks of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth, and the obligation of being the breadwinner of the family, God could never have given him the supreme task of being the Saviour of the world.
        The Parable of the Ten Pounds, tells us of a king's reward. The reward that the faithful servants received was not one which they could enjoy by sitting down, and folding their hands and doing nothing. One was put over ten cities, and the other over five. The reward of work well done was more work to do. The greatest compliment we can pay a man is to give him ever greater and harder tasks to do. The great reward of God to the man who has satisfied the test is more trust.
        The parable ends with one of the laws of life. To him who has, more will be given; from him who has not, what he has will be taken away. If a man has a goal and stays focused on that goal, he will reach that goal with greater efficiency; if he does not stay focused, he will lose interest and lose much; "fruits of his labor" while reaching for his goal. If we really strive after goodness and master this and that temptation, new things and new heights of goodness will open to us; if we give up the battle and take the easy way, much of the resistance power we once possessed will be lost and we will slip from whatever height we had attained.
    There is no such thing as standing still in the Christian life. We either get more or lose what we have. We either advance to greater heights or slip back. "Let's all stand and stay firm in Jesus Christ!" 

        Amen!!

Reading: (Luke 19:11-17)

               (Matt 25:14-30)

May God Bless You  

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry