Remember, tomorrow we have set-up for Ranch Family Fun Day at 8 am. We could definitely use your help! It only takes about an hour. See you there!
Words from the Pastor
March has started off to be a great month for Canelo Cowboy Church already and we are barely in our second week! Last Sunday we ordained two new deacons, Fred Keys and David Stiffey and an associate pastor, Cisco Baez. I wish all of you could have been here for the service. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and preaching of the word. It is just so good to see how God is moving in our church and in our community! So please keep the leadership in your prayers because the enemy would like nothing more than to tear down what God has been building here for the past 12 plus years.
I Peter 5:8 tells us this: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” In the 7th verse Peter tells us to, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.” I know that I wrote those backwards, but I did that for a reason. When are you most vulnerable for an attack from Satan? I find that in my life it is when I don’t give everything to God. When I allow my anxieties and fears to float to the top and don’t allow the Holy Spirit to work in my life. Peter writes here to “Give all.” Some translations have replaced the word Give with the word Cast. In the Greek that pretty much what it is saying! Cast your cares or worries on Jesus! Or as Carrie Underwood sings it, “Jesus take the wheel!!” Don’t allow the cares and the worries of the world to pull you down and take the joy that Jesus so freely gives us in every situation! Be alert! Or stay awake! Do not even for a moment let down you guard and allow the enemy to infiltrate your thoughts! We have the power to resist Satan. Jesus has given us everything we need to have victory in this war, no matter what the battle looks like.
And now read verse 10: “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” So after you have suffered a little while, God Himself will restore you, make you strong, make you firm and make you steadfast! God will do this for you because He loves you and wants the best for you.
Sometimes, what we think is in our best interest isn’t. You see, because God has a bird’s eye view of everything that is going on in our lives, He knows when we will need a little extra help. He can see the foolish moves we are going to make even before we make them. But still, He wants only what is good for us and His desire is that we will be strong, firm and steadfast. So, He had Peter write, “After you have suffered for a little while…” Trust Him to lead you. If we keep our minds and hearts on Him, the enemy doesn’t stand a chance when he is sneaking around ready to devour us. Trust Him! Proverbs 3:5 & 6.
Please let me know if you need anything. You pray for me and I’ll pray for you. Naomi and I love you all. -Pastor Steve
via Canelo Cowboy Church https://ift.tt/2H3LuoM
Words from the Pastor
Well Happy March!! With all the moisture maybe it will warm up here and we will have a wonderful spring with green feed and fat cattle! Pretty soon we’ll be wishing for cooler weather and we’ll be missing the snow. I myself am glad that it doesn’t stay around very long. Someone once said that if you don’t like the weather her in Southern Arizona just wait for 10 minutes and it will change! How true that is. But isn’t it great to know that God will never ever change?
The Scripture tells us in Hebrews 13:8 that, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Just to know that He is as sure as the sunrise and sunset and that we can depend on Him should give us the greatest joy ever. But it is so easy to get carried away with all the stuff of the world and get burdened down with things that don’t matter in the long run. Paul goes on to tell us in the 9th verse of Hebrews 13, “Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who do so.” So, if we read verse 8 and verse 9 together the writer is telling us that Jesus is the same day in and day out forever and that we need to pay attention to what we get carried away with.
What is a “strange teaching?” Well, according to verse 9 it’s not depending on grace alone for our salvation, it’s depending on “Fluff.” Such as, “You have to dress this way for God to love you. You have to wear your hair this way to be accepted into the Kingdom. You can’t eat that kind of food and be a Christian.” Some religions put a lot of rules and regulations on people to be Christians, but Jesus said that He is the way the truth and the life, not this extra “fluff.”
So, does that mean that we don’t try and change after we become Christians? No, not at all. That’s what the Christian walk is all about, changing from our old self and putting on our new self. Paul told king Agrippa this, “…I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds (Acts 26:20).” Did you read that? And demonstrate their repentance by their deeds. In other words, change your ways. Stop doing what you were doing and start serving God. Start doing what Jesus told you to do and that is to love your neighbor as yourself. Brothers and sisters, if we could do that then we could start to see a revival in this Nation like we have never seen! If we as Christians could just love as Jesus tells us to love we would see a whole new dimension to what the church could do in the world today! I would love to be a part of that, wouldn’t you? I know that God is working in all of your lives to bring about His will for you and those you can touch for Him. Let Him do that work and see what happens to the darkness around us!
Please let me know if you need anything. Naomi and I love you all. -Pastor Steve
Words from the Pastor
Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6 this: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done (NLT).” I believe that one of the things that we need to do as Christians is learn to thank Him for everything that happens in our lives. We always say that we trust Him and that we know that He is in control, but do we really put that into practice when the push comes to shove? When hard things come in my life, do I allow the Spirit of God to have His way in my life or do I kick and scream like a brand-new baby Christian? I think that I have gotten stronger after all of these years but I still have a long way to go.
My niece posted the following quote on my Facebook page this last week: “If you can trust a puzzle company to make sure every piece is in the box to complete the puzzle, then why can’t you trust God that every piece of your life is there for a reason?” Isn’t that the truth? He is the one that pieced this whole earth together, hung every star in the sky and set this whole thing in motion, so why can’t we trust Him to know what He is doing with our lives?
Now I do know that somethings that happen to us are just from us reaping what we have sown. I mean, that is just a principle of life. If we live a promiscuous lifestyle, we just may pay for that. If we drink and drive, we just may pay for that. If we live in sin, we are going to reap what we have sown and we should never think that God is being mean to us! He gave us our own free will and He allows us to make our own choices, that is just how our Heavenly Father operates. But there are times that He will allow things in our lives that are out of our control just so we can grow in our walk with Him. If you don’t believe that just read the Book of Job. Or read the story of Joseph in Genesis. Both of these men were righteous men, but God allowed things in their lives just to prove to them that He is in control. His desire for us is that we can grow constantly and that our walk with Him will be one that is constantly getting stronger.
In the 7th verse of the 4th chapter of Philippians Paul tells us, “Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” So, if we don’t worry about anything and we pray about everything then we can experience God’s peace. And His peace will guard our hearts and minds. What does it mean to guard something? It means to protect something. It’s interesting that Paul writes “guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” That’s where all of our problems start you know, in our minds. And that’s why Paul writes in the 8th verse, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things (NIV).” Think about good things. Fill your mind with good things. There are plenty of things out there that beg for our attention and it is up to us to fill our minds with things that will glorify God and bring us that kind of peace that exceeds anything that we can imagine. His desire for us is that we have this peace no matter what our circumstances. All we need to do is reach out and take it!
Please let me know if you need anything. Naomi and I love you all. -Pastor Steve