PastorBlastor

Ramblings from Retirement – Who Is Your Neighbor By Retired Pastor Lee Hemen May 29, 2021 Sitting here this morning I did what I always do, I prayed for my neighbors. I pray for them by name and street address. I use the Bless Every Home app. You can also go onto their website and do it that way. I like it because I can edit the names to keep them as up-to-date as possible. I also try to walk three to four times a week throughout my neighborhood with my grandkids or by myself, for exercise and to keep up with what is happening in my neighborhood. I’ve met more neighbors on my walks, waved to them, said “Hi.” or stopped to talk with them. I pick up concerns and blessings which I pray for when I pray for them and this brings me to one of my favorite passages of Scripture. In Luke’s gospel we find Jesus speaking to a very intelligent young man: “On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ‘What is written in t...

The Good shepherd! - John 10:1-16 By Pastor Lee Hemen June 14, 2015 In our day and age we do not think about shepherds, in fact most folks would not know what they are or what they do unless one lived in the Southwest or some other place that raises sheep. Shepherding is a lost art that has been replaced by other means such as GPS, dogs and gas-powered vehicles. However, in Jesus' day shepherding was a way of life that everyone was intimately aware of. Comparing people to a shepherd and his sheep was common. The priests and the rulers often called themselves shepherds and their people as sheep. This is why the Bible makes frequent use of this analogy. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David were shepherds. Jesus takes the idea of shepherding and relates it to the fact that the spiritual leadership of his day had lost their ability to be insightful shepherds who took care of those entrusted to their care. Instead of being good shepherds they had become… I. Thieves and robbers! (Vv. ...