Tag: Canelo

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Fatherhood

I want to welcome you to our June Ranch Family Fun Day.  I know that today is Father’s Day and I do understand that you could be celebrating in some other way, but I’m stoked to have you here hanging out with us at Canelo Cowboy Church.

What do you think of the new building? Pretty cool don’t ya think? No pun intended!

Being a father is not easy!  I know; Naomi and I have nine wonderful children.  None of them came with any instructions!  We just did the best we could, and boy oh boy did I make mistakes.  However, God knows and He was able to fix my stupid.

You know, no matter what you think, you have a Heavenly Father that loves you and He wants to help you make it through whatever struggles you may be going through right now.  As an earthly dad, I want to help my children and make sure they all have what is good and have everything that they need.  It’s part of being a dad.  It’s in your heart to do good for them.  And if we as dads want that for our children, then I can guarantee that our Heavenly Father wants to do good for you and have a relationship with you even more!  He sent His Son to die on a cross for you so you could have a relationship with Him.  Because of His love, you can spend eternity with Him. He loves you more than a fat kid loves cake!

It’s my prayer that we, as a church, can minister to every one of you.  Someone brought to my attention this week the fact that the church is the people.  That’s you and me; not the building or the grounds, but us as folks.  It’s made up of folks like us that are just plain and simple.  The Bible calls us the Bride of Christ!  His church.  But you must be born again by the Blood of Jesus Christ before you can truly be the Bride!  So please, join us today.  If you’ve never made that commitment please do.  Don’t leave here without making that decision for eternity.

God Bless You!  We sure love all y’all!

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Praise the Lord!

I sure hope everyone had a great week and was blessed. We are one day closer to Christmas and you know what a wonderful time that is around here with the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service and all of that! Good times are ahead for us folks!
And the loan for the new building will close this week sometime we’re hoping! Praise the Lord! How wonderful will that be! Dennis and Juli have their house on the market and they will be out here the first week of January Lord willing. Then we’ll get started on the new building and rocking and rolling there, so maybe we can be in there by our 10th year anniversary in April. Wow, a dream is fixin’ to come true, for me anyway!
As we near the season that we celebrate our Saviors birth I sure hope we can all look back and see how far the Lord has taken us as a church in the last year. We’re growing in numbers and growing spiritually. We’re going to be in a bigger place Lord willing this year so we can go back to one service and all be a family again! It’s just so great to see how God has answered prayers and how He is shaping things around here so He can grow the church and us as His children!
One of the ways He grows us as His children is to allow us to go through hard times. It seems we are more open to His leading and we have a tendency to call on Him when the hard times hit, so He goes ahead and allows them in our lives. I want to be closer to Him but that doesn’t mean I enjoy the hard times. But I know I need them. It’s a catch 22 because I know I need them but I don’t like them but I need them and…so praise the Lord, He’s in control! All we need to do is make Him the center of our world and He can handle the rest!
Please let me know if you need anything. Naomi and I love you all.

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This World is Not My Home

Have you ever wondered what your thought pattern is going to be when you come down to the end of your life? Will you be like Paul and say “For I am ready to be poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.” (II Timothy 4:6-7) Do you long to hear the words, “Well done good and faithful servant?” I always talk tuff and say that I’m ready to go, but when it comes down to it we’ll see where my faith lies!
But remember the old song, “This World is Not My Home?” it’s true that we are just foreigners here and there is a promised land waiting for us in Heaven! That’s real folks! Life, at least to me, is great down here on this earth, but can you imagine what Heaven is going to be like? And we have a promise that we will be there if we know Jesus as our personal Savior! Paul writes in I Corinthians 15:19, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”
So then, we have Faith to trust Jesus as our Savior, we have Hope that we are going to make Heaven our home, and then we have that agape Love that allows us to treat our neighbor as we would treat ourselves. And the best part of all of that is the fact that it all comes through the grace of God! We get God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense! We don’t have to work for it folks! We just get it because our Heavenly Father loves us so much!
Please let me know if you need anything. Naomi and I love you all.
-Pastor Steve

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Shadows in the light

Does anybody remember this song?
When I look into Your holiness, When I gaze into Your loveliness
When all things that surround become shadows In the light of You;
When I’ve found the joy of reaching Your heart, When my will becomes enthralled in Your love When all things that surround become shadows In the light of You,
I worship You, I worship You, The reason I live is to worship You

I worship You, I worship You, The reason I live is to worship You

I’m not sure who wrote it or what year it was that Naomi and I first heard it but I do remember it really touching my heart. Especially the words, “When all things that surround become shadows in the light of You, I worship You…”So what that is saying is that everything that we do, everything we say, everything that we face every day is a shadow compared to Him! He burns brighter, He shines brighter in my life and He makes all the bad things good! And He does this not by changing our circumstances, but by changing us! He is in the life changing business and I for one am thankful for that!
Alan Redpath once wrote, “The conversion of a soul is the miracle of a moment; the manufacture of saint is the task of a lifetime.” Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.” Amen.
God Bless Your Day! Keep me in your daily prayers, please! Love All Y’All!!

~Pastor Steve~