PJP2 160320 - Palm Sunday 2016

God's Nod 160320 - Deuteronomy 3:21-22 (ESV/emphasis added/jaj)...."(Moses said to the Israelites)....'And I commanded Joshua at that time, ‘Your eyes have seen All That The Lord your God Has Done to these two kings.  So Will The Lord Do to all the kingdoms into which you are crossing.  You Shall Not fear them, For It Is The Lord your God Who Fights For you.’"....

PJP2 SIP 160320 - Psalm 54:1-7 (ESV/emphasis & paraphrase added/jaj)....O Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, Father God, we Come to You this day in Worship and Praise for Your Loving Mercy and Saving Grace.  O Lord Jesus, our King and our God, Save us By Your Name, And Vindicate us By Your Righteous Might.  O Holy Spirit, Hear our Prayer; Give Ear, Father God, To the words that we Lift to You.  Lord Jesus, As You Said During Your Walk Among us as One of us, strangers, who Do Not Know You, or who have rejected You as Lord, they have risen against us and Your Family of The Faith; ruthless men, Holy Spirit, Seek our very Lives, due to our Faith In You; Clearly, Father God, they Do Not Set You before themselves.  Lord Jesus, Thank You for Your Encouragement, for Behold, You Have Sent Your Holy Spirit to us, and He Is our Helper; Father God we Praise You, for You, O Lord, You Are our Upholder of our Lives.  O Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, Father God, May we Ever Reflect Your Forgiveness, and Your Call to Repent and Return to You.  Help us, Lord.  May Your Truth Be Clear to those who choose to reject You and Your Grace.  For by their choice, You Will Return the evil that they have shown;  In Your Faithfulness, You Will Be True to Your Promise, and those who choose to reject Your Salvation, will come to a bitter end.  O Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, Father God, With A Freewill Offering of ourselves, we Will Sacrifice To You; We Will Give Thanks To Your Name, O Lord, For IT Is Good.  Thank You, Lord Jesus, For You Have Delivered us From every trouble, And our Eyes Have Seen Your Triumph!  In Your Precious and Holy Name we Pray these Prayers....Amen/Amen....jaj

PJP2 THANKS 160320 THANKS Focus -

Psalm 28:6-7 (ESV/emphasis added/jaj)...."Blessed Be The Lord!  For He Has Heard the voice of my pleas for Mercy.  The Lord Is my Strength And my Shield; In Him my Heart Trusts, And I am Helped; my Heart Exults, And With my Song I Give Thanks To Him."....

PJP2 THANKS TEXT 160320 - John 12:20-26 (ESV/emphasis added/jaj)...."Now among those who went up to Worship at The Feast were some Greeks.  So these Greeks came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, 'Sir, we wish to see Jesus.'  Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.  And Jesus Answered them, 'The Hour Has Come for The Son of Man To Be Glorified.  Truly, Truly, I Say to you, Unless A Grain of Wheat Falls into the earth and dies, It Remains alone; BUT If It dies, It Bears Much Fruit.  Whoever Loves his life Loses it, And whoever Hates his Life in this world Will Keep It for Eternal Life.  If anyone Serves Me, he Must Follow Me; And Where I Am, There Will My servant Be Also.  If anyone Serves Me, The Father Will Honor him.'"....

I Hear The Holy Spirit making Three Points of Thanks, this morning, focusing around - (1) These Greeks; (2) Grain of Wheat's Death Yields Life and Fruitfulness; (3) A Servant Follows his Master... (1) I am Thankful God The Father Accepts us all.  "These Greeks" asking to see our Lord Jesus would have been a HUGE no-no during our Lord's Time Amongst us.  Greeks would clearly have been Gentiles.  Also, we know from history the Greeks were a polytheistic people, thus their requesting to 'see' a Rabbis of Judaism would really have been very odd indeed.  Now the Word does not Share if Jesus Spoke with "These Greeks" - Yet His Answer, "A Grain of Wheat Falls into the earth and dies....BUT If IT dies, IT Bears Much Fruit"....resonates with me that our Lord Jesus was Opening The Narrow Gate for All who Believe and Follow Him as His servant.  "If anyone Serves Me"....His Word, "anyone" is a wide-open path for us to Him.  (2) Grain of Wheat....It isn't rocket-science to connect the dot to our Lord Jesus' reference to His Passion, death and Resurrection in His Comment regards the Grain of Wheat.  One could say His Prophecy of Bearing Fruit has indeed come true.  As of 2010, 33% of the world's population (+/- 2.1 Billion people) claimed to be Believers in our Lord Jesus.  BUT, Bottom-Line/Up-Front....personally for me, His Choosing to die for my sins, Bears His Fruit within me, and Guides me to (3) as His servant, Follow Him.

Thus my Prayer of Thanks for us today would be - Lord Jesus, Thank You for Providing a Path for us, "These Greeks" to become Your children by Your Life, Death and Resurrection.  Holy Spirit, Help us and Encourage us, likewise, to Be Grains of Wheat of Your Word to Be Willing to die to our selves and Live Your Life Within us.  Father God, Empower and Encourage us to Ever Walk In Your Son, our Lord Jesus' Steps.  We Pray These Prayers of Thanks in Your Son's Holy Name....Amen/Amen....jaj

PJP2 PROLOG 160320 PROLOG Focus -

Psalm 67:5 (ESV/emphasis added/jaj)...."Let the peoples Praise You, O God; Let All the peoples Praise You!"....

PJP2 PROLOG POST 160320 - John 12:12-19 (ESV/emphasis added/jaj)...."The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus Was Coming to Jerusalem.  So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, 'Hosanna! Blessed Is He Who Comes In The Name of The Lord, Even The King of Israel!'  And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is Written, 'Fear Not, daughter of Zion; Behold, your King Is Coming, Sitting on a donkey's colt!'  His disciples Did Not Understand These Things at first, BUT When Jesus Was Glorified, THEN they Remembered That These Things Had Been Written About Him AND Had Been Done To Him.  The crowd that had been With Him When He Called Lazarus Out of the tomb And Raised him From the dead Continued To Bear Witness.  The Reason Why the crowd Went To Meet Him Was That they Heard He Had Done This Sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing.  Look, the world has Gone After Him.'”....

In just six short days our Lord Jesus will go from being a Celebrity and Worshipped, to a 'criminal' and washed-up.

Do we still do the very same yet today?  I am confident I have.  I am certain that when The Lord's Work is Positive and All's going 'gang-buster' Good in my Life...Our Lord has Called Forth Lazarus....- I am All Over cutting down palm branches and waving them around shouting, "Hooah!  Hosanna!!"  Yet, when the storm(s) of Life roll in, and my Ship of Life is being bobbed around like a cork (and all because instead of trimming the sails, I hoisted them in arrogance saying, "Bring It!"), my attitude is perhaps not one of Worship and Praise.

BUT Praise God, our Lord Jesus, The King of kings, calmly shares with us, "Do Not be afraid.  It Is I!"  

Thus my Prayer for us today, on this Palm Sunday 2016, would be - O Lord Jesus, Thank You for Your Saving and Amazing Grace.  Holy Spirit, Ever Open our Inner Eyes, especially when we are blinded by the 'glitz and glamor' of the Event, missing the Truth of Your Point to us that our King of kings first comes to us Humbly and Unassuming.  Father God, Teach us that Only After the Grain of Wheat is Planted, Dies to self and Rises Again from The Tomb By Your Power.... Then and Only Then do we Begin To Bear Fruit for You Through You.  We Lift Up our Prayers, Lord Jesus, In Your Holy Name....Amen/Amen....jaj