From the pen of Brother Dennis Sampson, st week the teens from our church went down to the Carolina Youth Camp. A couple of them can be real shy, some out spoken, but all in all normal teenagers. The reports back talked about them having a great time down there. We had three in our group saved and over 80 in all saved. By the way the CYC had 750 people show up for this event. The last night ended up with the Holy Spirit moving among them and a couple hundred found their way outside. Pitch black out, no street lights out in the woods, but they began to sing and shout and just praise God. They truly felt what it was like to be free. On the way home our teens talked about how great and different this freedom was. They even practiced a song as a group and Sunday morning sang for us. 2 Corinthians 3: 17 “… where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.†Are we willing to go to where He is though? Often times our complacency keeps us from knowing His power, freedom, and fellowship. We need to move obstacles out of our own way to get to where He is waiting for us. Of course if you are saved the Holy Spirit lives inside of you but that us not my point here. Friday of last week I decided that today needed to be a day of fasting. I have never done more than a few hours at a time except when sleeping. But there are things going on right now in my life that I need help with. And just praying about it ain’t getting it done. Don’t get me wrong we need to pray about everything, Philippians 4:6. There are times however that we need to pray and fast, Matthew 6:16. Jesus even said somethings can only be overcome by prayer and fasting Matthew 17:21. Today I decided I would abstain or fast from food for 16 hours. Not trying to brag just explaining because there are many things we can choose to fast from and for various lengths of time. I will say this though, about half way through the fasting God laid a friend of mine on my heart. He is a good preacher but he has been out of it for a while now. I don’t know the details but I do miss him and his family. When I started to pray for him then it felt different. At the moment all I can say is that I felt free in prayer for him. What exactly God will do to restore him I don’t know but if He can restore a wretch like me then God can restore anyone. FREEDOM is available but it isn’t free. FREEDOM will costs us something but the price will be worth it. Do we want God’s freedom or has apathy set it in? God can fix that but we have to move toward Him first.
Also I would like to add that my book (Suicide:The Bible and Today) can be bought online at: Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Alibris.com, BooksaMillion.com and here on our church's sermonaudio.com webstore