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1/31/2012
Trust Him—Not Stuff
By Max Lucado
All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. Psalm 104:27-28
If there were no God—“stuff” trusting would be the appropriate response to an uncertain future. But there IS a God!
And God does not want us to trust money. Jesus said, “Do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, or have an anxious mind.”
Scrooge didn’t create the world. God did!
Psalm 104 celebrates this lavish creation with 23-verses of itemized blessings; the heavens and the earth, the waters and streams and trees and birds and goats, and wine and oil and bread, and people and lions. God is the source of living things both small and great!
God is the great giver. The great provider. The fount of every blessing.
Absolutely generous and utterly dependable.
The resounding and recurring message of Scripture is clear:
God owns it all.
God shares it all.
Trust Him—not “stuff!”
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What people need to-day to satisfy their deep hunger and to give them a permanent and Divine experience is to know, not sanctification as a state, but Christ as a living Person, who is waiting to enter the heart that is willing to receive Him.
A. B. Simpson
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My Father's Giving
"Prove me now" (Mal. 3:10).
What is God saying here but this: "My child, I still have windows in Heaven. They are yet in service. The bolts slide as easily as of old. The hinges have not grown rusty. I would rather fling them open, and pour forth, than keep them shut, and hold back. I opened them for Moses, and the sea parted. I opened them for Joshua, ...and Jordan rolled back. I opened them for Gideon, and hosts fled. I will open them for you--if you will only let Me. On this side of the windows, Heaven is the same rich storehouse as of old. The fountains and streams still overflow. The treasure rooms are still bursting with gifts. The lack is not on my side. It is on yours. I am waiting. Prove Me now. Fulfill the conditions, on your part. Bring in the tithes. Give Me a chance. --Selected
I can never forget my mother's very brief paraphrase of Malachi 3:10. The verse begins, "Bring ye the whole tithe in," and it ends up with "I will pour" the blessing out till you'll be embarrassed for space. Her paraphrase was this: Give all He asks; take all He promises." --S. D. Gordon
The ability of God is beyond our prayers, beyond our largest prayers! I have been thinking of some of the petitions that have entered into my supplication innumerable times. What have I asked for? I have asked for a cupful, and the ocean remains! I have asked for a sunbeam, and the sun abides! My best asking falls immeasurably short of my Father's giving: it is beyond that we can ask. --J. H. Jowett
"All the rivers of Thy grace I claim, Over every promise write my name" (Eph. 1:8-19).
Streans in the Desert
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The Everlasting Word of God
Now there is one thing that always arrests me in the Bible. It is that the Bible is such an ancient book, and yet is so intensely modern and practical. Think of the ages which have fled since it was written and how "heaven and earth have passed away" since then; think of our cities and of the life we live in them and of the stress and strain unknown in the ...quiet Bible times. To me it is wonderful, when I reflect upon it, that the Bible should be of any use at all now, and should not rather have moved into the quiet of libraries to be the joy of the unworldly scholar.
But if there is one thing certain it is this---the Bible meets the need of modern life. In spite of all criticism, as a practical guide there is no book to touch it. There is not a problem you are called to face and not a duty you are called to do; there is not a cross you are compelled to carry and not a burden you are forced to bear, but your strength for it all shall be as the strength of ten if you make a daily companion of your Bible. Now this is what you feel about the Bible, that it never offers a draught from shallow waters. You do not find there a set of petty maxims, but you find the everlasting love of God there. You do not find any shallow views of sin there, but a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And that is the secret of the Bible's permanence, when our little systems have had their day and ceased to be, then for sin and sorrow and life and death and duty, it gives us to drink as out of the great depths.
George H. Morrison
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The Depths of Jesus Christ
And think for a moment upon Jesus---of Jesus in relation to His words. If ever words were as water to a thirsty world, surely it was the words that Jesus spoke. How simple they were, and yet how deep! How tender and full of love, and yet how searching! They seemed to pierce into the very heart till a man felt that his secret thought was known.
Now there are men whose lives so contradict their words that when you know the men you cannot listen to them. And there are men who are so much less than their own words that when you come to know them you are disappointed. But what people felt about Jesus Christ was that when all was uttered, the half was never told, for at the back of all His words there was Himself, deeper unfathomable than His deepest speech. That is why the words of Christ will live even when heaven and earth have passed away. You can exhaust the cup or drain the goblet dry, but you cannot exhaust the spring fed from the deeps. And just because the words of Jesus Christ spring from the depths of that divine humanity, they will save and strengthen the obedient heart to the last recorded syllable of time.
George H. Morrison
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"Who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."--Ephesians 1:11
By these words the apostle brings before our eyes God's omnipotent power as carrying into effectual performance the counsel of his own will towards the objects of his distinguishing favour. An especial blessing is couched in this. Next to a believing view of the purposes of God's grace, and a sweet persuasion... of our interest in them, nothing is more strengthening and encouraging than a realising apprehension of the power of God to carry them into full execution. Feeling, as we do, our own miserable helplessness, sinking under the pressure of our daily weakness, mourning over continual failures, and grieving on account of perpetual backslidings, encompassed by foes, and distressed by fears, how strengthening it is to our faith, thus tried to the utmost, to believe that he who has purposed has power to perform. This persuasion of the almighty power of God was the support and strength of Abraham's faith, which bore him up in the face of seeming impossibilities, and whereby he gave glory to God (Rom. 4:18-21). When, then, as walking in the steps of the faith of Abraham, we can look up believingly to the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we behold sovereign grace in his heart, and infinite wisdom in his mind, so we see almighty strength in his arm, and thus become sweetly persuaded that all which his loving heart feels, his infinite wisdom directs, and his omnipotent power can execute.
J. C. Philpot
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Choose to Please God
by Joyce Meyer
Now am I trying to win the favor of men, or of God? Do I seek to please men? If I were still seeking popularity with men, I should not be a bondservant of Christ (the Messiah). —Galatians 1:10
The apostle Paul said that in his ministry he had to choose between pleasing men and pleasing God. That is a choice you also must make. If your goal is to build a name for yourself and win favor with people, it will cause you to live in fear of man rather than in fear of God.
For years I tried to build my own reputation among believers by striving to win the favor of men. But through bitter experience I learned I was submitting to a sort of slavery to people. God helped me realize I could only be truly free in Him.
If you are trying to build your reputation with people, it’s time to give up all your own human efforts and simply trust God. He will give you supernatural favor with the people that are right for you.
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MODELING GROWTH
James 1:22
Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves
I am learning about pastors and missionaries across the country who are preaching against the very sins they are committing themselves. Nationally known Christian personalities who vehemently condemn immorality have themselves been found to be hiding an immoral lifestyle. Those of us who are called to preach or teach God's Word must put it on first. We must get on our knees before God as we prepare the message and say, "God, is this Scripture true in my life?" If not, we had better be honest enough to say to those who hear us, "I wish I were a better example of this passage than I am, but I'm still growing in this area." To proclaim the Word of God as if it were true in your life when it's not is a lie.
Those of us who receive the Word are also vulnerable to self-deception if we fail to put it into practice. We hear a sermon or a lesson and say, "Wow! What a great truth!! and hurry off to share it with someone else without processing it ourselves and applying it to our own lives. James said that hearers of the Word who are not also doers of the Word deceive themselves.
Why are we afraid to admit it when our lives don't completely match up to Scripture? I believe it's because many of us have a perfection complex. We think we have to model perfection and not admit to something less. But we can't model perfection, because we're not perfect; we can only model growth. The people around us need to know that we are real people in the process of maturing. They need to see how we handle failure as well as how we handle success. When we model this kind of honesty in the Christian community, we greatly reduce the possibility of the deceiver gaining a foothold.
Prayer: Lord, forgive me for the times I have placed the quest for earthly perfection ahead of growth in You and Your Word. Help me model growth in my life today.
Neil T. Anderson
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God Always Hears
"My God will hear me" (Micah 7:7).
Friends may be unfaithful, but the LORD will not turn away from the gracious soul; on the contrary, He will hear all its desires. The prophet says, "Keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. A man's enemies are the men of his own house." This is a wretched state of affairs; but even in such a case the Best Friend remains t...rue, and we may tell Him all our grief.
Our wisdom is to look unto the LORD and not to quarrel with men or women. If our loving appeals are disregarded by our relatives, let us wait upon the God of our salvation, for He will hear us- He will hear us all the more because of the unkindness and oppression of others, and we shall soon have reason to cry, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy!"
Because God is the living God, He can hear; because He is a loving God, He will hear; because He is our covenant God, He has bound Him- self to hear us. If we can each one speak of Him as "My God," we may with absolute certainty say, "My God will hear me." Come, then, O bleeding heart, and let thy sorrows tell themselves out to the LORD thy God! I will bow the knee in secret and inwardly whisper, "My God will hear me."
Charles Spurgeon
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1/30/2012
Look Over Your Shoulder
By Max Lucado
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Hebrews 12:1-2
In Matthew 14:28, Peter took Jesus at his word: “Lord, if it’s you, command me to come to you on the water.
Jesus said, Come And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.”
Storms prompt us to take unprecedented journeys. For a few historic steps and heart-stilling moments, Peter did the impossible. He defied gravity and nature; he walked on the water to Jesus!
But when Peter saw the wind, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me!”
Peter shifted his attention away from Jesus and toward the squall—and when he did, he sank like a brick in a pond.
Whether or not storms come, we cannot choose. But where we stare during a storm—that we can!
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"Cast down but not destroyed" (II. Cor. iv. 9).
How did God bring about the miracle of the Red Sea? By shutting His people in on every side, so that there was no way out but the divine way. The Egyptians were behind them, the sea was in front of them, the mountains were on every side of them. There was no escape but from above.
Some one has said that the devil can wall u...s in, but he cannot roof us over. We can always get out at the top. Our difficulties are but God's challenges, and He makes them so hard, often, that we must go under or get above them.
In such an hour, if there is a divine element, it brings out the highest possibilities of faith and we are pushed by the very emergency into God's best.
Beloved, this is God's hour. If you will rise to meet it you will get such a hold upon Him that you will never be in extremities again, or if you are, you will learn to call them not extremities, but opportunities, and like Jacob, you will go forth from that night at Peniel, no longer Jacob, but victorious Israel. Let us bring to Him our need and prove Him true.
A. B. Simpson
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There is no patience so hard as that which endures, "as seeing him who is invisible"; it is the waiting for hope.
Thou hast made waiting beautiful; Thou has made patience divine. Thou hast taught us that the Father's will may be received just because it is His will. Thou hast revealed to us that a soul may see nothing but sorrow in the cup and yet may refuse to let it go, convinced th...at the eye of the Father sees further than its own.
Give me this Divine power of Thine, the power of Gethsemane. Give me the power to wait for hope itself, to look out from the casement where there are no stars. Give me the power, when the very joy that was set before me is gone, to stand unconquered amid the night, and say, "To the eye of my Father it is perhaps shining still." I shall reach the climax of strength when I have learned to wait for hope. --George Matheson
Strive to be one of those--so few--who walk the earth with ever-present consciousness--all mornings, middays, star-times--that the unknown which men call Heaven is "close behind the visible scene of things."
Streams in the Desert
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There is no patience so hard as that which endures, "as seeing him who is invisible"; it is the waiting for hope.
Thou hast made waiting beautiful; Thou has made patience divine. Thou hast taught us that the Father's will may be received just because it is His will. Thou hast revealed to us that a soul may see nothing but sorrow in the cup and yet may refuse to let it go, convinced th...at the eye of the Father sees further than its own.
Give me this Divine power of Thine, the power of Gethsemane. Give me the power to wait for hope itself, to look out from the casement where there are no stars. Give me the power, when the very joy that was set before me is gone, to stand unconquered amid the night, and say, "To the eye of my Father it is perhaps shining still." I shall reach the climax of strength when I have learned to wait for hope. --George Matheson Strive to be one of those--so few--who walk the earth with ever-present consciousness--all mornings, middays, star-times--that the unknown which men call Heaven is "close behind the visible scene of things."
F. B. Meyer
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The Divine Secrecy of God's Gifts
The best gifts are always at our hand. The brightest are never far away. All things needed for the song and crown are in the region where our hearts are beating. And yet though they are here, they are not flaunting themselves. They are by our side, but they are never showy. There is no name inscribed upon their foreheads nor any blast of the trumpet o...n their lips.
Think, for example, of the gift of love. In the darkest spot on earth some love is found. I doubt if there is a man so brutal and so base that no one loves him and thrills at his approach. And yet how silent and how secret love is, hiding itself away from human eye and speaking in a momentary glance. Our poets liken love to a flower. It is red as the rose, white as the lily. Yet love is not a flower of the field; love is the treasure hidden in the field. And thousands cross the field and never see it nor do they dream of the treasure hidden there until at last, in the appointed hour, passes the traveler who understands.
It is always so with the love of man. It is always so with the love of God. God's love is here, and yet how secret and hidden it all is---how meaningless to the blinded--till Christ has come and shown His wounded side and led us to the glory of the cross.
George H. Morrison
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"Almighty God sighed human breath."
It is indeed a mystery; but "great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh." O glorious mystery!
"The highest heavens are short of this; 'Tis deeper than the vast abyss; 'Tis more than thought can e'er conceive, Or hope expect, or faith believe."
Hart
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THE DEFINITION OF DISCIPLESHIP
1 Thessalonians 5:11
Encourage one another, and build up one another, just as you also are doing
Jesus' primary call to His disciples is seen in His words "Come to Me" (Matthew 11:28) and "Follow Me" (Matthew 4:19). Mark records: "He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and that He might send them out to preach, and to have authority to cast out the demons" (Mark 3:14, 15). Notice that Jesus' relationship with His disciples preceded His assignment to them. Discipleship is the intensely personal activity of two or more persons helping each other experience a growing relationship with God. Discipleship is being before doing, maturity before ministry, character before career.
Every Christian, including you, is both a disciple and a discipler in the context of his Christian relationships. You have the awesome privilege and responsibility both to be a teacher and a learner of what it means to be in Christ, walk in the spirit and live by faith. You may have a role in your family, church or Christian community which gives you specific responsibility for discipling others, such as husband/father, pastor, Sunday school teacher, discipleship group leader, etc. But even as an appointed discipler, you are never not a disciple who is learning and growing in Christ through your relationships. Conversely, you may not have an "official" responsibility to disciple anyone, but you are never not a discipler. You have the opportunity to help your children, your friend, and other believers grow in Christ through your caring and committed relationship with them.
Similarly, every Christian is both a counselor and counselee in the context of his Christian relationships. A good counselor should be a good discipler, and a good discipler should be a good counselor. Biblically, they are the same role. Your level of maturity may dictate that you do a lot of Christian counseling. But there will still be times when you need to seek or receive the counsel of other Christians. There will never be a day when we don't need each other.
Prayer: Father, help me remember that I will never be so mature that I need not receive godly counsel from my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Neil T. Anderson
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Prepare to Love Others
by Joyce Meyer
The night is far gone and the day is almost here. Let us then drop (fling away) the works and deeds of darkness and put on the [full] armor of light. —Romans 13:12
Before your feet touch the floor in the morning, put on the full armor of God with which you can quench all the fiery darts of the enemy (see Ephesians 6:13–17). Put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, and the readiness of the gospel of peace.
Don’t let the devil steal your peace in the morning. Start talking to God before you even get out of bed.
Tell Him, “I love You, Lord, and I need Your help today. Please strengthen me to walk in the fruit of the Spirit. Help me walk in love all day long. Help me to keep my thoughts on You, Lord.”
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Shining Brightly in the Twilight Years
“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward manis renewed day by day.” 2 Corinthians 4:16
So many people think that they cannot do much for the Lord as they enter their twilight years. God doesn’t change just because your health may take a turn or you feel weaker. The faith that is inside of you has not weakened, unless ...you stop feeding it with works of faith. The things that God calls us to do in life do not hinge upon our physical stamina or financial strength.
Do you know where one of the great strengths of a church lies? In its seniors who have walked with God for years. With their reservoir of wisdom and fortress of faith, they get hold of God, and though their bodies are wearing a bit, they are as strong as they ever were—because God is their strength.
Douglas MacArthur once said, “You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts, as young as your self with confidence, as old as your fears, as young as your hope, as old as your despair.” God gives unfading strength for His undiminishing promises.
Adrian Rogers
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1/29/2012
God is Love
By Max Lucado
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. I John 4:10 NIV
Does God love us because of our goodness? Because of our kindness? Because of our great faith?
No, he loves us because of his goodness, kindness, and great faith. John says it like this: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us.”
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"Send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared" (Neh. viii. 10).
That was a fine picture in the days of Nehemiah, when they were celebrating their glorious Feast of Tabernacles. "Neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared."
How many there are o...n every side for whom nothing is prepared! Let us find out some sad and needy heart for whom there is no one else to think or care. Let us pray for some one that has none to pray for him. Let us be like Him who, one Christmas Day, gave His life and His all, and came to those who would not appreciate His holy gift, but rejected His blessed Babe, and murdered His only Son.
Let us not be afraid to know something even of the love that is unrequited and is thrown away on the unworthy. That is the love of Christ, and God has for such love a rich recompense.
How Christ must almost weep over the selfishness that meets Him from those for whom He died.
A. B. Simpson
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Like the Cedars of Lebanon
"What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter" (John 13:7).
We have only a partial view here of God's dealings, His half-completed, half-developed plan; but all will stand out in fair and graceful proportions in the great finished Temple of Eternity! Go, in the reign of Israel's greatest king, to the heights of Lebanon. See that... noble cedar, the pride of its compeers, an old wrestler with northern blasts! Summer loves to smile upon it, night spangles its feathery foliage with dewdrops, the birds nestle on its branches, the weary pilgrim or wandering shepherd reposes under its shadows from the midday heat or from the furious storm; but all at once it is marked out to fall; The aged denizen of the forest is doomed to succumb to the woodman's stroke!
As we see the axe making its first gash on its gnarled trunk, then the noble limbs stripped of their branches, and at last the "Tree of God," as was its distinctive epithet, coming with a crash to the ground, we exclaim against the wanton destruction, the demolition of this proud pillar in the temple of nature. We are tempted to cry with the prophet, as if inviting the sympathy of every lowlier stem--invoking inanimate things to resent the affront--"Howl, fir tree; for the cedar has fallen!"
But wait a little. Follow that gigantic trunk as the workmen of Hiram launch it down the mountain side; thence conveyed in rafts along the blue waters of the Mediterranean; and last of all, behold it set a glorious polished beam in the Temple of God. As you see its destination, placed in the very Holy of Holies, in the diadem of the Great King--say, can you grudge that "the crown of Lebanon" was despoiled, in order that this jewel might have so noble a setting?
That cedar stood as a stately prop in Nature's sanctuary, but "the glory of the latter house was greater than the glory of the former!"
How many of our souls are like these cedars of old! God's axes of trial have stripped and bared them. We see no reason for dealings so dark and mysterious, but He has a noble end and object in view; to set them as everlasting pillars and rafters in His Heavenly Zion; to make them a "crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God." --Macduff
"I do not ask my cross to understand, My way to see-- Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand, And follow Thee."
Streams in the Desert
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But a few days, for the Love he had. Genesis 29:20
That touch is enough! We can fill in all the rest. This old-world love was of the same quality as our own. Oh, blessed God I what a priceless inheritance this is! Time itself never tedious, but always too short; labor never hard; distance never long; sacrifice unheard of, the word almost in disuse - where Love is queen. This is how we... would feel to our dear Lord: so that the missionary away from home and friends, as well as the invalid suffering for Jesus, might feel years of loneliness and pain but a few days, for love of the beloved Master. We may acquire such love thus:-
Meditate much on the love of Jesus. - Sit with the Apostle beneath his cross, and say, each time with deeper appreciation: He loved me, He gave Himself for me. Do not think of your love to Him, but of His. It is well to take the Lord's Supper frequently, as affording opportunities for remembering His dying love.
Be on the alert to detect His love in daily providence and trifles. - It is amazing how much is ever being arranged by His tender thoughtfulness to alleviate and brighten our lot. If you cannot detect it, dare still to believe it.
Ask the Holy Spirit to breathe His love into your heart. - He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit; and when the doors are open between Christ and the soul, the aroma of His love freely enters.
Show His Love to every one. - Whether you like people or not, do to them as He would do; let His love flow through you to them; what we manifest to others for His sake, we shall come to feel toward Him, and them also. "This commandment have we from Him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."
F. B. Meyer
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In one of Shakespeare's sonnets there is a memorable line, "With what I must enjoy, contented least." There can be little doubt, from the connection, that Shakespeare is referring to his plays. "With what I most enjoy, contented least"--then Shakespeare was not satisfied with Hamlet. There is a grand unrest there like the unrest of the ocean, and through the heart of it there runs the track of God.... We are not here to be satisfied and indifferent. We shall be satisfied when we awake. We are here to strive and yearn and toil and pray for things that are too large for our three-score years. And in that distressing and yet divine unrest, there is the way and ordering of God. God's way is never in the stagnant pool; His way is ever in the restless sea. It is He who says to us, "This is not your rest." It is He who fills us with eternal hope. It is He who makes us rise after each failure to strive again for what we cannot reach. So we toil on and all we do is fragmentary, but we shall be satisfied in the eternal morning. He keeps us "climbing up the climbing wave" here, but in heaven there shall be no more sea.
George H. Morrison
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"A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident."--Proverbs 14:16
I believe no living soul can be satisfied with a notional religion: though a miserable backslider, and driven into the fields to feed swine, he cannot feed on their husks, but sighs after the bread of his Father's house. The eyes being enlightened to see the nature of sin, the justic...e and holiness of God, and the miserable filthiness of self, the quickened soul can find no rest in anything short of a precious discovery of the Lamb of God; and the more that the soul is exercised with trials, difficulties, temptations, doubts, and besetments of various kinds, the more does it feel its need of that blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. What is a Christian worth without inward trials and exercises? How dead and lifeless are our prayers; how cold and formal when the soul is not kept alive by inward exercises! Where are the sighs, cries, groanings, wrestlings, and breathings of a soul that is at ease in Zion? The world is everything and Christ nothing, when we become settled on our lees, and are not emptied from vessel to vessel; but inward exercises, fears, straits, and temptations stir up the soul to cry, and pray, and beg for mercy. The certainty, the power, the reality of eternal things are then felt, when guilt, and wrath, and fear, and disquietude lay hold of the soul. Mere notions alone of Christ, false hope, a dead faith, a presumptuous confidence, a rotten assurance, are all swept away as so many refuges of lies, when the soul is made to feel its nakedness and nothingness, its guilt and helplessness before God. And thus all these inward exercises pave the way for discoveries of Christ--those views of his blood and righteousness, that experimental acquaintance with his Person, love, grace, and work, which is life and peace.
J. C. Philpot
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God Is in the Details
by Joyce Meyer
And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby), that He may remain with you forever. —John 14:16
The Lord cares about every tiny detail of your life. People who don't believe this truth have a difficult time experiencing real intimacy with Him. You can and should talk to Him about everything.
Nothing is too big and nothing is too small. He will help you put in your contact lens or drive in snow. He said, "I am with you always" (Matthew 28:20 NIV), and He is always ready to help, strengthen, encourage, or comfort you.
The Holy Spirit is called "The Helper." He is also referred to as "The Standby." I love that He is standing by me at all times, waiting to assist me with whatever 1 need. But He is a gentleman and won't push His way into our lives. We open the door for Him to work simply by asking, which is prayer.
God is love, and when we dwell in His love, enjoying and being aware of it, we dwell in God. To dwell means, “to live and remain in.” “Dwelling" is not an occasional visit, but a permanent, fixed situation.
I don't say, "I visit my house." I say, "I live in my house." God wants us to say the same about Him and His love for us. His love is where we live. God is with us at all times, watching over us, keeping us safe, overseeing every detail of our lives. And the Holy Spirit is standing by to help you!
Love God Today: Whatever you need today—a parking place, help navigating a tough situation at work—know that God cares about the little things and the details of your life, and He wants you to depend on Him.
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Obedience Brings Blessing
"Observe and hear all these words, which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the LORD thy God" (Deuteronomy 12;28).
Though salvation is not by the works of the law, yet the blessings which are promised to obedience are not denied to the faithful servants... of God. The curses our LORD took away when He was made a curse for us, but no clause of blessing has been abrogated.
We are to note and listen to the revealed will of the LORD, giving our attention not to portions of it but to "all these words." There must be no picking and choosing but an impartial respect to all that God has commanded. This is the road of blessedness for the Father and for His children. The LORD's blessing is upon His chosen to the third and fourth generation. If they walk uprightly before Him, He will make all men know that they are a seed which the LORD has blessed. No blessing can come to us or ours through dishonesty or double dealing. The ways of worldly conformity and unholiness cannot bring good to us or ours. It will go well with us when we go well before God. If integrity does not make us prosper, knavery will not. That which gives pleasure to God will bring pleasure to us.
Charles Spurgeon
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1/28/2012
Our Father Never Leaves
By Max Lucado
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will lead you into all truth. John 16:13
Envision a father helping his son learn to ride a bicycle, and you will have a partial picture of the Holy Spirit.
The father stays at the son’s side. He pushes the bike and steadies it if the boy starts to tumble. The Spirit does that for us; he stays our step and strengthens our stride. Unlike the father, however, he never leaves. He is with us to the end of the age.
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"That my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (John xv. 11).
There is a joy that springs spontaneously in the heart without external or even rational cause. It is an artesian fountain. It rejoices because it cannot help it. It is the glory of God; it is the heart of Christ, it is the joy divine of which He says, "These things have I spoken unto you that My joy mi...ght remain in you, and that your joy might be full." And your joy no man taketh from you. He who possesses this fountain is not discouraged by surrounding circumstances, but is often surprised at the deep, sweet gladness that comes without any apparent cause, and even comes most strongly when everything in our condition and circumstances is fitted to fill us with sorrow and depression.
It is the nightingale in the heart, which sings at night, and sings because it is its nature to sing.
It is the glorified and incorruptible joy which belongs to heaven, and anticipates already the everlasting song. Lord, give me Thy joy under all circumstances this day, and let my full heart overflow in blessing to others.
A. B. Simpson
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Believe in Order to See
"Then believed they his words; they sang his praise. They soon forgot his works; they waited not for his counsel; but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert. And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul" (Ps. 106:12-15).
We read of Moses, that "he endured, as seeing him who is invisible." Exactly th...e opposite was true of the children of Israel in this record. They endured only when the circumstances were favorable; they were largely governed by the things that appealed to their senses, in place of resting in the invisible and eternal God.
In the present day there are those who live intermittent Christian lives because they have become occupied with the outward, and center in circumstances, in place of centering in God. God wants us more and more to see Him in everything, and to call nothing small if it bears us His message.
Here we read of the children of Israel, "Then they believed his words." They did not believe till after they saw--when they saw Him work, then they believed. They really doubted God when they came to the Red Sea; but when God opened the way and led them across and they saw Pharaoh and his host drowned--"then they believed."
They led an up and down life because of this kind of faith; it was a faith that depended upon circumstances. This is not the kind of faith God wants us to have.
The world says "seeing is believing," but God wants us to believe in order to see. The Psalmist said, "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."
Do you believe God only when the circumstances are favorable, or do you believe no matter what the circumstances may be? C. H. P.
Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe. --St. Augustine
Streams in the Desert
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Behold a Ladder set up on the Earth, and the top of it reached to Heaven. Genesis 28:12
All men feel that earth and heaven touch at the horizons of the distant past and future; but we ought to feel that the present moment of time and this bit of the world's surface are linked with heaven. This is what the ladder meant for Jacob. The moorland waste, where he lay, and Laban's home, whit...her he journeyed, were as near God as his father's tent. Earth is linked with heaven:-
By God's daily providence. - His loving eye is ever upon us, His ears always open to our cry, and His angels go to and fro on our world performing ceaseless ministries.
By our Saviour' s mediation. - As He intimated to Nathanael, His own nature as uniting God with man, and especially His Ascension glory as the man Christ Jesus, is the one great connecting link. "Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
By daily fellowship and holy thought. - We should practice the sense of God's presence, often stopping ourselves amid our ordinary avocations and interests to say, aloud when possible, ,' God is near, God is here." In all likelihood we are daily living amid the glories of the eternal world; but our eyes are blinded. Oh that by humility and purity we may become more sensitive, and awake to the things that are unseen and eternal! Lord, open our eyes, that we may see! (2Ki 6:17).
By holy yearning. - When Jesus ascended, He unrolled a path behind Him, along which we shall one day travel to meet Him. Hope treads that glorious Ascension ladder; and as she does so, again we see the heaven opened, and our destiny unfolded at Christ's right hand.
F. B. Meyer
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"And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."--Ephesians 2:6
There is a distinction between being quickened together with Christ and being raised up together with him. Is not this true in the experience of God's people? To be quickened into divine life, to be convinced of sin, to have the fear of God planted deeply in the soul, is the ...commencement of a work of grace. But this is not a deliverance, not a being raised up out of darkness, bondage, doubt, guilt, and fear. This is not a knowledge of Christ, and the power of his resurrection; this is not a full coming out of the dark and silent tomb into the glorious light and warmth of day. But here is the great blessedness of a mystical union with the Lord Jesus Christ that, as by virtue of interest in him there is a partaking of the benefit and power of his having been quickened, so there is a partaking in the benefit and power of his having been raised up. God does not quicken a soul into divine life to let it remain in the dark tomb of doubt, fear, guilt, and bondage. In raising up Christ there was not only a pledge of the spiritual, but a virtual resurrection of the members of his body. Liberty, then, the liberty of the gospel, deliverance from all doubt and fear, the manifestation of pardon and peace, the shedding abroad of the love of God in the heart, are blessings as much assured to the members of Christ's mystical body as their first quickening into spiritual life, and both are equally assured them in Christ their covenant Head.
J. C. Philpot
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The Infinite God Allows Us to Know Him
“All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” Matthew 11:27
When God condescends Himself to make Himself known to us, the Bible calls that “revelation.” The Infinite reveals Himself to the finite. Now, what is the ag...ent in this revelation? The Holy Spirit because only the Holy Spirit knows the mind of God and searches the deep things of God.
You and I cannot know God apart from the Holy Spirit revealing Him to us. Isaiah 55:9 says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Even in the human realm, the only way you and I know anything about each other is when we reveal ourselves to one another. And the only way that man will ever know God is for God to reveal Himself. Praise God that He has chosen to do that!
Adrian Rogers
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THE LAWS OF GOD
Luke 11:39
Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness
The Talmud , a collection of ancient rabbinic writings, relates the story of Rabbi Akiba, who was imprisoned. Rabbi Joshua brought him some water, but the guard spilled half of the container. There was too little water to both wash and drink, and Rabbi Akiba faced the possibility of death for lack of water if he chose to use the water for ceremonial washing. He reasoned, "He who eats with unwashed hands perpetuates a crime that ought to be punished by death. Better for me to die of thirst than to transgress the traditions of my ancestors!"
Jesus responded harshly to such reasoning: "You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!" (Matthew 23:24). The Lord cautions that the weightier matters of the law (such as justice and mercy) are overlooked when attention focuses on strict observances of religious practices. This leads to a corresponding negligence of the eternal laws of God. Jesus told people to pay more attention to cleansing their hearts and not be like their leaders who cleanse only their hands.
The laws of God are liberating and protective. They are restrictive only when they protect us from the evil one. The rules of any institution should ensure the freedom of each individual to reach his or her God-given potential. They should serve as a guide so we don't stray from our purpose, and they should protect us from those who abuse the system.
The principle that Jesus modeled could be stated as follows: If people are commanded to follow a traditional practice that makes life more difficult and no longer contributes to the purpose of the organization, then we must not participate as a matter of religious conscience. Jesus simply didn't observe such traditions, and He defended His disciples for not observing them as well.
Prayer: Thank You for reminding me, Lord, that the law kills but the Spirit gives life. Help me walk in that freedom today.
Neil T. Anderson
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Tears Shall Cease
"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes" (Revelation 21:4).
Yes, we shall carne to this if we are believers. Sorrow shalt cease, and tears shall be wiped away. This is the world of weeping, but it passes away. There shall be a new heaven and a new earth, so says the first verse of this chapter; and therefore there will be nothing to weep over concerning the Fall an...d its consequent miseries. Read the second verse and note how it speaks of the bride and her marriage. The Lamb's wedding is a time for boundless pleasure, and tears would be out of place. The third verse says that God Himself will dwell among men; and surely at His right hand there are pleasures forevermore, and tears can no longer flow.
What will our state be when there will be no more sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain? This will be more glorious than we can as yet imagine. O eyes that are red with weeping, cease your scalding flow, for in a little while ye shall know no more tears! None can wipe tears away like the God of love, but He is coming to do it. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Come, LORD, and tarry not; for now both men and women must weep!
Charles Spurgeon
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1/27/2012
God’s Heart for Parents
By Max Lucado
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32
God has a heart for hurting parents. Should we be surprised? No, after all, God himself is a Father!
Are you separated from your child? So was God. Is someone mistreating your child? They mocked and bullied his.
Is someone taking advantage of your children? The Son of God was set up and betrayed by a greedy follower. Are you forced to watch while your child suffers? God watched his son on the cross.
But because of his great love for us, “he did not spare his own son but gave him for us all. So with Jesus, God will surely give us all things!” All things must include courage and hope!
Your child may not be in your arms—but your child is safely in his!
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"This one thing I do" (Phil. iii. 13).
One of Satan's favorite employees is the switchman. He likes nothing better than to side-track one of God's express trains, sent on some blessed mission and filled with the fire of a holy purpose.
Something will come up in the pathway of the earnest soul, to attract its attention and occupy its strength and thought. Sometimes it is ...a little irritation and provocation. Sometimes it is some petty grievance we stop to pursue or adjust. Sometimes it is somebody else's business in which we become interested, and which we feel bound to rectify, and before we know, we are absorbed in a lot of distracting cares and interests that quite turn us aside from the great purpose of our life.
Perhaps we do not do much harm, but we have missed our connection. We have got off the main line.
Let all these things alone. Let grievances come and go, but press forward steadily and irresistibly, crying, as you haste to the goal, "This one thing I do."
A. B. Simpson
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We Need Minor Keys Too
"Giving thanks always for all things unto God" (Eph. 5:20).
No matter what the source of the evil, if you are in God and surrounded by Him as by an atmosphere, all evil has to pass through Him before it comes to you. Therefore you can thank God for everything that comes, not for the sin of it, but for what God will bring out of it and through it. Ma...y God make our lives thanksgiving and perpetual praise, then He will make everything a blessing.
We once saw a man draw some black dots. We looked and could make nothing of them but an irregular assemblage of black dots. Then he drew a few lines, put in a few rests, then a clef at the beginning, and we saw these black dots were musical notes. On sounding them we were singing, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below."
There are many black dots and black spots in our lives, and we cannot understand why they are there or why God permitted them to come. But if we let God come into our lives, and adjust the dots in the proper way, and draw the lines He wants, and separate this from that, and put in the rests at the proper places; out of the black dots and spots in our lives He will make a glorious harmony. Let us not hinder Him in this glorious work! --C. H. P.
"Would we know that the major chords were sweet, If there were no minor key? Would the painter's work be fair to our eyes, Without shade on land or sea?
"Would we know the meaning of happiness, Would we feel that the day was bright, If we'd never known what it was to grieve, Nor gazed on the dark of night?"
Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties. --C. H. Spurgeon
When the musician presses the black keys on the great organ, the music is as sweet as when he touches the white ones, but to get the capacity of the instrument he must touch them all. --Selected
Streams in the Desert
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There are four facts which, when borne in mind, guard us against the sudden oversetting of passionate appetite.
We were once dead in sins. - Surely we do not want to go back again to the charnel-house with its corruption.
We died for sins in the person of Christ our Representative. - In Him we have met the demands of God's holy law; but surely that must be an awful thing ...which cost our Saviour so dearly.
We died to sin with the Lord Jesus. - We have passed with Him on to Resurrection ground; so that we belong to the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
We are called on to reckon ourselves dead in sin. - The nearer we live to God, the more sensitive we shall be to the most distant suggestion of evil, closing doors and windows against its entrance, reckoning ourselves "not at home" to it, and yielding our members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
F. B. Meyer
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Why Did God Make the Summer and Winter?
There is only one answer that can be given to that question in the light of all that we have learned. Not just for their own sakes has He made them--not for their sublimity or beauty merely. Through night and day, through sunshine and through storm, God has His purpose which is never baffled. And that one purpose--how shall we describe it? Put i...n simple language it is this: It is the purpose of every living thing that after summer there should be the harvest. Of course, God has made purposes in every thing and every season. Undoubtedly when He made the summer beautiful, He meant it to give pleasure to His children. But there is one thing deeper than all others, and that is the mellowing of the harvest field. Nothing is beautiful in nature for its own sake. Beauty is a trust for other's sakes. Summer and winter look beyond themselves to the time when the flower shall wither and the fruit shall come. He that liveth to himself is dead. There is he that scattereth and yet increaseth. Our gifts----our summer sun and winter storm--these have an end to serve in other lives. We are not here simply to be happy. We are here to serve and be a blessing. And "Thou hast made our summer and our winter" that we may have the joy of harvest time.
George H. Morrison
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"And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins."--Ephesians 2:1
Death in sin is of course a figure, and must be interpreted as such; for moral death is its meaning, and by moral death we understand the utter absence of everything holy, heavenly, spiritual, and divine; the entire want of participation in, and conformity to the life which God lives as essentially and ...eternally holy, pure, wise, and good, and for ever dwelling in the glorious light of his own infinite perfections. To be dead, then, is to have no present part or lot with God; no knowledge of him, no faith, no trust, no hope in him; no sense of his presence, no reverence of his terrible Majesty; no desire after him or inclination toward him; no trembling at his word, no reliance on his promise, no longing for his grace, no care or concern for his glory. It is to be as a beast before him, intent like a brute on satisfying the cravings of lust, or the movements of mere animal passion, without any thought or concern what shall be the issue, and to be bent upon carrying out into action every natural purpose, as if we were self-creators, and were our own judge, our own lord, and our own God. O what a terrible state is it to be thus dead in sin, and not to know it, not to feel it, to be in no way sensible of its present danger and certain end, unless delivered from it by a mighty act of sovereign power! It is this want of all sense and feeling which makes the death of the soul to be but a representation of, as it is the prelude to, that second death which stretches through a boundless eternity.
J. C. Philpot
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CHANGING DIRECTIONS
Psalm 25:5 NIV
Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long
The next five questions to ask yourself regarding God's will are to help you when facing a change in direction.
Is it reasonable? God expects us to think. His guidance may transcend human reasoning, but it never excludes it. God doesn't bypass our mind; He operates through it: "Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be babes, but in your thinking be mature" (1 Corinthians 14:20). We are warned in Scripture not to put our mind in neutral. We are to think and practice what we know to be true (Philippians 4:8, 9). Does a realistic opportunity exist? Closed doors are not meant to be knocked down. If you have a hopeless scheme, let it go. If it isn't God's timing, wait. If a realistic opportunity exists, and all the other factors are in agreement, then take the plunge. God may open a window of opportunity, but it will close if not taken advantage of. The faithless man asks, "What do I stand to lose if I do?" The faithful man asks, "What do I risk losing if I don't?" Are unbiased, spiritually sensitive associates in agreement? Be careful not to consult only those who will agree with you. Give your advisors permission to ask hard questions. Don't be afraid of "no" answers. If it isn't God's will, don't you want to know before you make the mistake of acting impulsively? Do I have a sanctified desire? Don't think that being in the will of God must always be an unpleasant task. The joy of the Lord should be our strength. I find my greatest joy in serving God and being in His will. But don't get the idea that if everything is wonderful, you must be in the will of God. Is this a desire to satisfy a lust of the flesh or a Spirit-filled desire to see God's kingdom established and people helped? Do I have a peace about it? This is an inner peace. Is the peace of God guarding your heart and mind?
If you have been able to answer yes to all 10 of these deciding factors, what are you waiting for?
Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that I can trust You with the details and direction of my life today.
Neil T. Anderson
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Precious Repentance
"And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye hate committed" (Ezekiel 20:43).
When we are accepted of the LORD and are standing in the place of favor, and peace, and safety, then we are led to repent of all our failures and miscarriages toward our graci...ous God. So precious is repentance that we may call it a diamond of the first water, and this is sweetly promised to the people of God as one most sanctifying result of salvation. He who accepts repentance also gives repentance; and He gives it not out of "the bitter box" but from among those "wafers made with honey" on which He feeds His people. A sense of blood-bought pardon and of undeserved mercy is the best means of dissolving a heart of stone. Are we feeling hard? Let us think of covenant love, and then we shall leave sin, lament sin, and loathe sin; yea, we shall loathe ourselves for sinning against such infinite love. Let us come to God with this promise of penitence and ask Him to help us to remember, and repent, and regret, and re- turn. Oh, that we could enjoy the meltings of holy sorrow! What a relief would a flood of tears be! LORD, smite the rock, or speak to the rock, and cause the waters to flow!
Charles Spurgeon
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Be Still
by Joyce Meyer
Let be and be still, and know (recognize and understand) that I am God. —Psalm 46:10
Talking has always come easily to me, but I have had to learn to listen. I once felt my husband did not want to spend time sitting and talking together, so I told him we needed to talk more. He responded, “Joyce, we don’t talk. You talk and I listen.” He was right, and I needed to change if I expected him to want to spend time with me.
I soon discovered that I treated God the same way I treated Dave. I did the talking and expected Him to listen. I complained that I never heard from God, but the truth is that I never took time to listen to Him. The verse for today teaches us to be still, and know that God is God. Many of us find being still difficult to do because our flesh likes to be busy and active doing things, but we must learn to spend time alone and to be still if we want to hear God’s voice.
For many people, listening is an ability that must be developed and practiced. Sometimes this means sitting quietly in God’s presence without saying anything. We should practice listening! One way to do this is to ask God if there is anyone He wants you to encourage or bless—and then be still and listen. You will be surprised at how quickly He responds by placing someone on your heart. He may give you specific things you can do to encourage them.
As we listen for God’s direction He gives us creative ideas that perhaps we have never considered. Take time to be still and listen carefully to Him and then be obedient and do what He shows you to do.
God’s word for you today: Take time out today. Be still and listen.
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1/26/2012
A Greenhouse of Prayer
By Max Lucado
Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift your hands toward Him for the life of your young children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street. Lamentations 2:19
Someday I’ll ask God, “Why were you so good to my daughters and me? And he’ll answer by pointing to my wife, Denalyn! “She just kept talking about you and your kids!”
Denalyn took regular prayer walks through our house, stepping into each living area. She prayed for her daughters and husband. She took full advantage of the invitation of Lamentations 2:19 to
Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift your hands toward Him for the life of your young children.
Parents, we can do this. We can be loyal advocates, stubborn intercessors.
Permissive parents. Paranoid parents.
How can we avoid the extremes? We pray!
Prayer is the saucer into which paternal fears are poured to cool. Each time a parent prays, Christ responds.
His big message to moms and dads? Bring your children to me. Raise them in a greenhouse of prayer!
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"I called him alone and blessed him" (Isa. li. 2).
When we were in the East we noticed the beautiful process of raising rice. The rice is sown on a morass of mud and water, ploughed up by great buffaloes, and after a few weeks it springs up and appears above the water with its beautiful pale green shoots. The seed has been sown very thickly and the plants are clustered together in gr...eat numbers, so that you can pull up a score at a single handful. But now comes the process of transplanting. He first plants us and lets us grow very close to some of His children, and in great clusters in the nursery or the hothouse, but when we reach a certain stage we must be transplanted, or come to nothing. He calls us out by His Spirit and Providence into situations where we have to lean directly on Him, where He puts upon us a weight of responsibility and service so great that we have an opportunity of developing and are thrown upon the great resources of His grace.
"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is; for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out her roots by the rivers."
A. B. Simpson
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God is Waiting Upon Us
"And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you...blessed are all they that wait f or him" (Isa. 30:18).
We must not only think of our waiting upon God, but also of what is more wonderful still, of God's waiting upon us. The vision of Him waiting on us, will give new impulse and inspiration to our waiting upon Him. It will give u...s unspeakable confidence that our waiting cannot be in vain. Let us seek even now, at this moment, in the spirit of waiting on God, to find out something of what it means. He has inconceivably glorious purposes concerning every one of His children. And you ask, "How is it, if He waits to be gracious, that even after I come and wait upon Him, He does not give the. help I seek, but waits on longer and longer?"
God is a wise husbandman, "who waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it." He cannot gather the fruit till it is ripe. He knows when we are spiritually ready to receive the blessing to our profit and His glory. Waiting in the sunshine of His love is what will ripen the soul for His blessing. Waiting under the cloud of trial, that breaks in showers of blessings, is as needful. Be assured that if God waits longer than you could wish, it is only to make the blessing doubly precious. God waited four thousand years, till the fullness of time, ere He sent His Son. Our times are in His hands; He will avenge His elect speedily; He will make haste for our help, and not delay one hour too long. --Andrew Murray
Streams in the Desert
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Because that Abraham obeyed My Voice and kept My Charge. Genesis 26:5
It is awful to realize how our sins may repeat themselves in our children. Here is Isaac following in the precise steps of Abraham, who had acted in a similar manner toward Sarah when entering Egypt. In each case there was a sad lapse of faith; but it was even worse for Isaac, with Abraham's example to warn him. But... a man may pass blessings on to his children, as well as the sad entail of evil habits.
He leaves the blessing of the divine covenant. God had entered into covenant with Abraham, and was prepared to fulfill its provisions to his son. "I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee." So a godly ancestor may be able to secure for all his seed a share in the divine grace and favor. The spirit that is put on him does not depart from his seed, or his seed's seed forever.
The blessing of his prayer. - It is impossible to over-estimate the effect of a good man's prayers; they are as streams or trees, which go on flowing and bearing fruit long after they were originated. The legacy of a good man's prayers is of priceless worth. He may have long since passed to his rest; but God remembers them, and answers them in blessings to the next generation. How often in this chapter we read that "God blessed Isaac."
The blessing of a noble name. - We may all leave that, if we can transmit nothing else. To have had a father that knew God, walked with God, pleased God; who was on intimate terms with Him, and could speak to Him, as a man with his friend - illumined the ordinary nature and existence of Isaac with unearthly beauty. Let us live so that our children may be ranked as nobles, because they bear our name.
F. B. Meyer
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But the strange thing about Jesus Christ is that He has saved us by being a Man of Sorrows, yet He was always speaking of His joy. And the strange thing about the Christian Gospel is that joy is its keynote, joy is its glad refrain; and yet it comes to me, to you, and whispers, My son, my daughter, take up thy cross and bear it. Did Jesus of Nazareth contradict Himself? Is the Gospel in opposition... to the Gospel? Never, friend, not that: a house divided against itself is doomed. But it is through the strange antagonisms of the heart, and all the teaching of a diverse guidance, that we are brought at last to our wealthy place.
Remember, then, that even in daily life God means us to advance through contradictions. And when the brightness passes and the shadows come, when the song of the morning is changed into a cry, don't think that any unlooked-for storm has swept you from your charted course to heaven. It takes both lights and shadows to make a summer. There is December in the perfect year no less than June. The earth rolls on to harvest through night and day, through bitter cold and heat. And you and I need all that ever came to us if our field is to be golden by and by.
George H. Morrison
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"And he taught them many things by parables."--Mark 4:2
The Scripture employs two beautiful figures to illustrate the reception of the divine testimony. One is the committing of the seed to the ground, as in the parable of the sower. The husbandman scatters the seed in the bosom of the earth, and the ground having been previously ploughed and reduced to a beautiful tilth, opens its b...osom to receive the grain. After a little time the seed begins to germinate, to strike a root downward, and shoot a germ upward; as the Lord speaks, "First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." This emblem beautifully represents how the testimony of Jesus Christ finds an entrance to the soul, takes root downward and carries a shoot upward. The root downward is into the depths of a tender conscience, and the shoot upward is the aspiration, breathing, and longing of the soul for the living God. The other figure is that of grafting. "Receive," says James, "with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." Now when a scion is first put into the stock, after a little time sap begins to flow out of the stock into the scion, and this sap unites the two together. So it is spiritually when the soul receives the testimony of Christ. The testimony of Christ is received into a broken heart, as the scion is inserted into and received by the stock. As, then, life flows out of the stock into the scion, it creates and cements a sweet and blessed union with God's word and him of whom the word testifies. Thus it grows up into a living bough, which brings forth blossoms of hope, leaves of a consistent profession, and fruit of a godly life.
J. C. Philpot
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FACING A DECISION
Psalm 25:4 NIV
Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths
In today's and tomorrow's devotionals, I would like to share with you 10 questions you'll want to ask yourself and pray about when you're faced with a decision. The first five are generic. They represent moral issues and godly wisdom that are normative for all times.
Have you prayed about it? Prayer was never intended to be a fourth-down punting situation in which we ask God to bail us out of our hasty decisions. It was intended to be a first-down huddle. We aren't supposed to ask God to bless our plans; we're supposed to ask God for His plans. Is it consistent with the Word of God? In our culture, ignorance of God's Word is no excuse since resources abound. I believe that every home should have at least a concordance, a Bible dictionary, a topical Bible, a good commentary, and a study Bible with notes. Most pastors would love to share what God has to say about a given matter. If they wouldn't, you have called the wrong pastor! Can I do it and be a positive Christian witness? A seminary student stopped by my office and told me about a job he had been offered. It would take care of his financial needs, but he had some reservations concerning the sales pitch he was required to use. I asked him if he could use the sales technique and be a positive witness for Christ. He didn't take the job. Will the Lord be glorified? Can I do this and give glory to God? In doing it, would I be glorifying God in my body? Am I seeking the glory of man or the glory of God? Am I doing this to be noticed by man or am I seeking to please the Lord? Am I acting responsibly? God doesn't bail us out of our irresponsibility. But when we are faithful in little things, He will put us in charge of greater things. Don't get ahead of God's timing or you will be over your head in responsibilities. Seek to develop your life and message, and God will expand your ministry.
Prayer: Dear Lord, help me take a good, hard look at these questions and then avoid at all costs any compromise with Your will in my life today.
Neil T. Anderson
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He Acts on Honest Confession
"He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light" (Job 33:27-28).
This is a word of truth, gathered from the experience of a man of God, and it is tantamount to a promise. What the LORD has done, and is doing, He will co...ntinue to do while the world standeth. The LORD will receive into His bosom all who come to Him with a sincere confession of their sin; in fact, He is always on the lookout to discover any that are in trouble because of their faults.
Can we not endorse the language here used? Have we not sinned, sinned personally so as to say, "I have sinned"? Sinned willfully, having perverted that which is right? Sinned so as to discover that there is no profit in it but an eternal loss? Let us, then, go to God with this honest acknowledgment. He asks no more. We can do no less.
Let us plead His promise in the name of Jesus. He will deliver us from the pit of hell which yawns for us; He will grant us life and light. Why should we despair? Why should we even doubt? The LORD does not mock humble souls. He means what He says. The guilty can be forgiven. Those who deserve execution can receive free pardon. LORD, we confess, and we pray Thee to forgive!
Charles Spurgeon
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A Clear Conscience
by Joyce Meyer
I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying; my conscience [enlightened and prompted] by the Holy Spirit bearing witness with me. —Romans 9:1
We see that Paul referred to his conscience being enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Paul could tell by his conscience that his behavior was acceptable to God, and I am sure that he could, likewise, discern when it was not. That is the function of the conscience.
Paul spoke of the importance of keeping one's conscience clean. One of the main functions of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to teach us all truth, to convict us of sin and convince us of righteousness (John 16: 8,13).
Therefore I always exercise and discipline myself [mortifying my body, deadening my carnal affections, bodily appetites, and worldly desires, endeavoring in all respects] to have a clear (unshaken, blameless) conscience, void of offense toward God and toward men. —Acts 24:16
Since Paul made such an effort to have a clear conscience, it surely must be very important. Simply stated, that means we cannot properly worship God with known sin in our lives. The confession of sin should be the prelude to real worship. We must approach God with a clean conscience. There is no peace for the person with a guilty conscience. His faith will not work; therefore, his prayers won't be answered.
The two Scriptures that follow bear this out.
Holding fast to faith (that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence) and having a good (clear) conscience. By rejecting and thrusting from them [their conscience], some individuals have made shipwreck of their faith.
—1 Timothy 1:19
They must possess the mystic secret of the faith [Christian truth as hidden from ungodly men] with a clear conscience. —1 Timothy 3:9See More
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1/25/2012
May God give us faith to fully trust His Word though everything else witness the other way. --C. H. P.
When is the time to trust? Is it when all is calm, When waves the victor's palm, And life is one glad psalm Of joy and praise? Nay! but the time to trust Is when the waves beat high, When storm clouds fill the sky, And pra...yer is one long cry, O help and save!
When is the time to trust? Is it when friends are true? Is it when comforts woo, And in all we say and do We meet but praise? Nay! but the time to trust Is when we stand alone, And summer birds have flown, And every prop is gone, All else but God.
What is the time to trust? Is it some future day, When you have tried your way, And learned to trust and pray By bitter woe? Nay! but the time to trust Is in this moment's need, Poor, broken, bruised reed! Poor, troubled soul, make speed To trust thy God.
What is the time to trust? Is it when hopes beat high, When sunshine gilds the sky, And joy and ecstasy Fill all the heart? Nay! but the time to trust Is when our joy is fled, When sorrow bows the head, And all is cold and dead, All else but God. --Selected
Streams in the Desert
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The redemption of Jesus Christ. - Every one is born into a redeemed world; the propitiation of the blessed Lord, the blood that flowed on Calvary, the concealment of the effects of Adam's sin, are for all. As all the world was affected by Adam's sin, so all are included in God's love in Jesus. But again Satan is eager to induce men to abjure and cast away these benefits; he blinds the eyes of thos...e that believe not, so that they refuse to "behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
The grace of the Spirit. - Every one may build up a strong and beautiful character by yielding to the Holy Ghost's gracious promptings. That grace knocks, like sunshine, at the windows of every soul; but how often it is sold for a mess of pottage! The choice between these two is constantly being presented to us. God help us always to choose the divine, the spiritual, the eternal!
F. B. Meyer
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"Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old."--Lamentations 5:21
Are you not often destitute of the power to repent, and confess your sins before God? Does not conscience often bring to view a melancholy retrospect of carnal thoughts, wicked desires, vain imaginations, foolish words, frivolous speeches, and all that catalogue of evils, that huge ...bill which godly fear sometimes files in the court within, as seen in all our departures from the life of God? But are you able to repent? are you able to feel cut to the very heart? are you able to mourn and sigh because conscience brings against you this long indictment? Can you always feel your soul melted down with sorrow on account of it? Are you always able to feel contrition because you are proud, worldly, covetous, everything that is evil, everything that is hateful in God's sight? But, then, there are times and seasons when the Lord is pleased to work upon the conscience, to move and stir the soul, to touch the heart with his gracious finger--then repentance and godly sorrow flow forth. It is with us as with the rock that Moses struck. There was water in the rock; but it required to be struck with the rod before the waters flowed out. So we may have the grace of repentance in our souls; but it requires the divine hand to strike the rock, to cause the waters of godly sorrow to gush forth.
J. C. Philpot
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The Greater Miracle
“I, even I, am the Lord; and beside Me there is no Savior.” Isaiah 43:11
It takes more of God’s power to save a soul through the cross of Jesus than it does to do any other thing. God had no difficulty creating the universe. The Bible tells us He spoke and it was so. But when God wrote salvation’s story, He went to great difficulty. Let me illustrate.
What if I held a service and had the power to straighten a cripple’s legs or to bring sight to the blind? The next service would be standing room only. Now I certainly want God to heal, but let me tell you something else.
What if I held a service and a little girl walked down the aisle and gave her heart to Jesus? That is a greater miracle than opening the eyes of the blind because the Son of God had to hang on a cross in agony and blood to purchase her salvation! Jesus did not come as a great healer or teacher, He came as a Savior.
Adrian Rogers
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YOUR POSITION IN CHRIST
James 4:7
Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you
Daisy was one of the first persons I dealt with who was caught in spiritual conflicts and suffered from demonic influences. She was a Christian and a university graduate, but she had severe mental and emotional problems which developed after her father divorced her mother. Within a period of five years, Daisy had been institutionalized three times as a paranoid schizophrenic. After about three weeks of counseling with me, Daisy finally found the nerve to bring up the nighttime visitation of snakes.
"What about the snakes?" I asked.
"They crawl on me at night when I'm in bed," she confessed.
"What do you do when the snakes come?"
"I run in to my mother. But they always come back when I'm alone."
"Why don't you try something different," I continued. "When you're in bed and the snakes come, say out loud, 'In the name of Christ, I command you to leave me.'"
"I couldn't do that," Daisy protested. "I'm not mature enough or strong enough."
"It's not a matter of your maturity; it's a matter of your position in Christ. You have as much right to resist Satan as I do."
Daisy squirmed at the prospect. "Well, I guess I could do that." Daisy sighed, sounding like she had just agreed to take castor oil.
The next week when Daisy walked in she said, "The snakes are gone!" If her problem had been strictly a neurological or chemical imbalance, taking authority over the snakes in Jesus' name wouldn't have worked. But in Daisy's case, the problem was spiritual.
James wrote: "Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). But if you don't resist him, he doesn't have to go. Or if you just pull the covers over your head in fear and say, "O God, do something about these demonic influences," the evil spirits don't have to leave. Resisting the devil is your responsibility based on the authority you possess in Christ.
Prayer: Dear Father, thank You for providing me with such wonderful power. Help me not to be afraid to use it for my sake and others.
Neil T. Anderson
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He Acts on Honest Confession
"He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light" (Job 33:27-28).
This is a word of truth, gathered from the experience of a man of God, and it is tantamount to a promise. What the LORD has done, and is doing, He will co...ntinue to do while the world standeth. The LORD will receive into His bosom all who come to Him with a sincere confession of their sin; in fact, He is always on the lookout to discover any that are in trouble because of their faults.
Can we not endorse the language here used? Have we not sinned, sinned personally so as to say, "I have sinned"? Sinned willfully, having perverted that which is right? Sinned so as to discover that there is no profit in it but an eternal loss? Let us, then, go to God with this honest acknowledgment. He asks no more. We can do no less.
Let us plead His promise in the name of Jesus. He will deliver us from the pit of hell which yawns for us; He will grant us life and light. Why should we despair? Why should we even doubt? The LORD does not mock humble souls. He means what He says. The guilty can be forgiven. Those who deserve execution can receive free pardon. LORD, we confess, and we pray Thee to forgive!
Charles Spurgeon
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All Things Work for Good
by Joyce Meyer
We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose. —Romans 8:28
After John 3:16, Romans 8:28 is probably the most-quoted Bible verse among Christians. Paul’s words bring comfort and peace to many of us in our difficulties and hardships. They give us hope that no matter what hurts and disappointments come in our lives, everything will eventually work out for our good.
The two verses preceding Romans 8:28 talk about prayer. They say that when we don’t know how to pray as we ought to, the Holy Spirit comes to our aid and prays through us. It is through these Holy Spirit-filled prayers that all things work together for good, no matter what they are. Not all things that happen to us are good in and of themselves, but God is good and He can cause them to work toward our good if we trust Him.
Continuing to trust God is the key to victory in painful and seemingly unjust situations. Faith and prayer move the hand of God. If we continue believing, He promises to continue moving in our behalf to work everything out for good.
God makes this promise to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We must love God with all of our hearts, and we must want His will. We must be willing to submit to His plan at all times.
The plan that God has for us eventually changes us into His image. We are destined to be molded into His image. That may sound spiritual, but in reality, it usually hurts. I often think of clay being pressed into a mold, and wonder how the clay would feel if it had feelings. Being changed into an entirely different shape would probably be painful. If we take a lump of clay and press it into a mold, there is always too much clay to fit, and some pieces must be discarded. I found that there was more of me than would fit into the mold of Jesus Christ, so many of my thoughts, words, and actions had to be discarded.
We must go through things that are difficult and learn how to respond to them the way Jesus would. We must not give way to the fearful thoughts and feelings that attack us. We must learn to remain steadfast, knowing that no matter how things appear now, God will work them out for our good—and in the process, He will use them to make us better people.
God’s purpose in everything that happens is to make us more like Jesus Christ. Jesus was the totally obedient one. “Although He was a Son, He learned [active, special] obedience through what He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).
We also learn through what we suffer. We learn from God’s Word and life’s experiences. Because of our sinful nature, we tend to fight God at every point, but this only makes the process longer and more painful. Learn to surrender quickly, and save yourself a lot of agony. I’ve learned that God gets His way in the end, so why prolong the process?
Where the mind goes the man follows. Keep your mind going in the right direction, and your life will catch up with it. A person who has their faith firmly planted in God cannot be defeated. The Bible says that Joseph’s brothers hated him, but God was with him. God gave him favor and promoted him, so we see that his faith in God lifted him above his circumstances.
Some terrible things happened to Joseph. His brothers sold him to slave traders and told his father a wild animal had killed him. He was betrayed by those whom he served and tried to help, but God was watching him all the time. God had a good plan for Joseph, and it came to pass. He ultimately said that although the things that happened to him were originally meant for harm, God intended it for good.
This same thing is true for all of us. Satan cannot defeat us if we keep believing that God is working for our good, and that we are being continually transformed into His image.
All wise and loving God, make me more like Jesus. I don’t like to suffer, and I hate to fail, but through Jesus Christ, I ask You to teach me and enable me to understand that, because of You, everything truly works together for my good. Amen.
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1/24/2012
Known to Wander
By Max Lucado
For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. Titus 2:11
If the prophet Isaiah who said, “All we like sheep have gone astray” had known my dog, he might have written, “All we like Molly have gone astray!”
You don’t want to know how many times this minister has chased his dog down the street, tossing un-minister-like warnings! She’s definitely known to wander!
Last week we thought it was for good. I went to the animal shelter. I didn’t find her there. But I had the urge to fill my car with barking, tail-wagging dogs. As much as I wanted to save the dogs, I wanted to stay married even more!
But the urge helps me understand why Jesus made forgiveness his big announcement. Paul told Titus, “Salvation’s available for everyone! Tell them!”
By the way, Molly turned up in a neighbor’s backyard. Turns out she wasn’t as far from home as we feared.
Neither are you!
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"Freely ye have received, freely give" (Matt. x. 8).
When God does anything marked and special for our souls, or bodies, He intends it as a sacred trust for us to communicate to others. "Freely ye have received, freely give."
It has pleased the Master in these closing days of the dispensation to reveal Himself in peculiar blessing to the hearts of His chosen disciples in... all parts of the Christian Church; but this is intended to be communicated to a still wider circle, and every one of us who has been brought into these intimate relations with God, becomes a trustee, or witness for these higher truths to every one we can influence.
If God has revealed Himself to us as our Sanctifier, it is that we may help others to know Him as a Sanctifier.
If He has become our Healer, it is because there are sick and suffering lives to whom we can bring some blessing.
In like manner, if the hope of the Lord's coming has become precious to us, it would be worse than ingratitude for us to hide our testimony to this truth, and hold it only for our own personal comfort.
A. B. Simpson
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Our Helper in Prayer
"Seeing then that we have a great high Priest...Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb. 4:14,16).
Our great Helper in prayer is the Lord Jesus Christ, our Advocate with the Father, our Great High Priest, whose chief mini...stry for us these centuries has been intercession and prayer. He it is who takes our imperfect petitions from our hands, cleanses them from their defects, corrects their faults, and then claims their answer from His Father on His own account and through His all-atoning merits and righteousness.
Brother, are you fainting in prayer? Look up. Your blessed Advocate has already claimed your answer, and you would grieve and disappoint Him if you were to give up the conflict in the very moment when victory is on its way to meet you. He has gone in for you into the inner chamber, and already holds up your name upon the palms of His hands; and the messenger, which is to bring you your blessing, is now on his way, and the Spirit is only waiting your trust to whisper in your heart the echo of the answer from the throne, "It is done." --A. B. Simpson
The Spirit has much to do with acceptable prayer, and His work in prayer is too much neglected. He enlightens the mind to see its wants, softens the heart to feel them, quickens our desires after suitable supplies, gives clear views of God's power, wisdom, and grace to relieve us, and stirs up that confidence in His truth which excludes all wavering. Prayer is, therefore, a wonderful thing. In every acceptable prayer the whole Trinity is concerned. --J. Angell James
Streams in the DesertSee More
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My Master Abraham. Genesis 24:12
This worthy man, Eliezer, the steward of Abraham's house, was almost garrulous about his master. Count up the number of times in which he contrives to bring in the two words, "my master." We may learn from him how to speak of our Master, whenever we get the opportunity. "Rabboni, which, being interpreted, is, My Master."
We too can speak o...f the Lord God as our master. - The servant did not know Jehovah directly; it was enough that he had seen and heard Abraham pray to Him. This encouraged him to draw near for himself. So we are emboldened to draw near, because God is the God and Father of our Master Jesus. We love Him that was begotten, and are attracted to Him of whom Jesus said, "I ascend to my Father, and your Father; to my God, and your God."
We, too, ran plead for our Master's sake. - When asking for good speed to be sent to himself, he alleged as his plea that it would be showing kindness to his master Abraham. So when we ask great things from God, we can plead in the name of Jesus, and urge that in answering our petition God will be showing kindness to His Well-beloved.
Live, too, should bless in our Master's name. - When the answer was given, this reverent soul gave thanks as though the favor had been shown to his master. Indeed, all through his intercourse with Bethuel and Laban he seems to have lost his identity in Abraham. He could talk of nothing else but that one scheme; was only eager to carry his point for his master's sake; and when the errand was done, longed only to get back to his master's side. It is a beautiful lesson for those who call Jesus Master and Lord.
F. B. Meyer
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We are not here just to understand. Now we know in part and see in part. We are here to glorify God by trusting Him even when we do not understand. And such trusting carries its own evidences in the rich inward peace it brings as if our life were in tune with the Eternal. "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me." His meat was neither to probe nor to expostulate. When the cup was bitter, when the cross was heaviest, when the lights were darkened in the Garden of Gethsemane--He left it all quietly to God.
George H. Morrison
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"Leave it all quietly to God, my soul." Psa 62:1 (Moffatt)
Failure and Discouragement
Again, we are to remember the psalmist's counsel in the hours when we have done our best--and failed. The higher the service that we seek to render, the more are we haunted by the sense of failure. The man who has no goal doesn't fear failure. But in higher ministries, when soul is touching soul an...d we are working not in things, but lives, how haunting is the sense of failure. Every Sunday School teacher knows it well, every mother with her growing family, and every preacher of the Gospel. So little accomplished, so little difference made, so little fruit for the laborious toil, although the seed sown may have been steeped in prayer. Well then, are we to give up in discouragement? Are we to leave the battle line and be spectators because we hear no cheering sound of triumph? My dear reader, there is a better way, and it is just the old way of this gallant psalmist--"Leave it all quietly to God, my soul."
Often when we fail, we are succeeding. We are doing more than we have dreamed. We are helping with our rough, coarse hands because Another with a pierced hand is there. Do your best, and do it for His sake. Keep on doing it and don't resign. And as to fruitage and harvest and success--leave it all quietly to Him.
"When obstacles and trials seem
Like prison walls to be,
I do the little I can do,
And leave the rest to Thee."
George H. Morrison
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"Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe."--Psalm 119:117
We are surrounded with snares; temptations lie spread every moment in our path. These snares and temptations are so suitable to the lusts of our flesh, that we shall infallibly fall into them, and be overcome by them but for the restraining providence or the preserving grace of God. The Christian sees this; the Christian feels th...is. He has had, it may be, a bitter experience of the past. He has seen how, from want of walking in godly fear, for want of circumspection and standing upon his watch-tower, he has been entangled in times past in the snares of death. He has rued the consequences, felt the misery of having slipped and fallen; the iron has entered into his soul; he has been in the prison house, in bondage, in darkness, and death; in consequence of his transgressions he has been "the fool" described in Psalm 108, as "afflicted because of his iniquity," and can re-echo Hart's mournful description of his own miserable folly:
"That mariner's mad part I played, Who sees, yet strikes the shelf."
As, then, a burnt child dreads the fire, so he dreads the consequence of being left for a moment to himself; and the higher his assurance rises and the clearer his views become of the grace of God which bringeth salvation, and of his own interest in it, the more is he afraid that he shall fall. If his eyes are more widely opened to see the purity of God, the blessedness of Christ, and the efficacy of atoning blood, the more also does he see of the evil of sin, and his own weakness and inability to stand against temptation in his own strength. And all these feelings combine to raise up the earnest cry, "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe."
J. C. Philpot
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Care of Our Feet
"He will keep the feet of His saints" (1 Samuel 2:9).
The way is slippery and our feet are feeble, but the LORD will keep our feet. If we give ourselves up by obedient faith to be His holy ones, He will Himself be our guardian. Not only will He charge His angels to keep us, but He Himself will preserve our goings.
He will keep our feet from falling so that we do not defile our garments, wound our souls, and cause the enemy to blaspheme.
He will keep our feet from wandering so that we do not go into paths of error, or ways of folly, or courses of the world's custom.
He will keep our feet from swelling through weariness, or blistering because of the roughness and length of the way.
He will keep our feet from wounding: our shoes shall be iron and brass so that even though we tread on the edge of the sword, or on deadly serpents, we shall not bleed or be poisoned.
He will also pluck our feet out of the net. We shall not be entangled by the deceit of our malicious and crafty foes.
With such a promise as this, let us run without weariness and walk without fear. He who keeps our feet will do it effectually.
Charles Spurgeon
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1/23/2012
Fear Leads to Sin
By Max Lucado
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts our fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. I John 4:18
Fear, when it is mismanaged, leads to sin. And sin leads to hiding. And since we’ve all sinned, we all hide—in 80-hour workweeks, temper tantrums, and religious busyness. We avoid contact with God!
We’re convinced God must hate our evil tendencies. We despise our lustful thoughts, harsh judgments, and selfish deeds. If our sin nauseates us, how much more must it revolt a holy God?
So we draw a practical conclusion: God is ticked off at us!
Sin has left us lost and confused. Yes, we have disappointed God. But no, God has not abandoned us!
Jesus loves us too much to leave us in doubt about His grace. God keeps no list of our wrongs. His love casts out fear because He casts out our sin!
Live forgiven!
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I know a man in Christ" (II. Cor. xii. 2).
It is a great deliverance to lose one's self. There is no heavier millstone that one can be compelled to carry than self-consciousness. It is so easy to get introverted and coiled round one's self in our spiritual consciousness. There is nothing that is so easy to fasten on as our misery; there is nothing that is more apt to produce self-cons...ciousness than suffering, until it becomes almost a settled habit to hold on to our burden, and pray it unceasingly into the very face of God, until our very prayer saturates us with our own misery, instead of asking for power to drop ourselves altogether, and leave ourselves in His loving hands and know that we are free, and then rise into the blessed liberty of His higher thoughts and will, and His love and care for others.
The very act of letting go of ourselves really lifts us into a higher plane, and relieves us from the thing that is hurting. This habit of prayer for others, and especially for the world, brings its own recompense, and leaves upon our hearts a blessing like the fertility which the Nile deposits upon the soil of Egypt, as it flows through to its distant goal.
A. B. Simpson
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School of Suffering
"The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11).
This was a greater thing to say and do than to calm the seas or raise the dead. Prophets and apostles could work wondrous miracles, but they could not always do and suffer the will of God. To do and suffer God's will is still the highest form of faith, the most sublime Christi...an achievement. To have the bright aspirations of a young life forever blasted; to bear a daily burden never congenial and to see no relief; to be pinched by poverty when you only desire a competency for the good and comfort of loved ones; to be fettered by some incurable physical disability; to be stripped bare of loved ones until you stand alone to meet the shocks of life--to be able to say in such a school of discipline, "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?'--this is faith at its highest and spiritual success at the crowning point. Great faith is exhibited not so much in ability to do as to suffer. --Dr. Charles Parkhurst
To have a sympathizing God we must have a suffering Saviour, and there is no true fellow-feeling with another save in the heart of him who has been afflicted like him.
We cannot do good to others save at a cost to ourselves, and our afflictions are the price we pay for our ability to sympathize. He who would be a helper, must first be a sufferer. He who would be a saviour must somewhere and somehow have been upon a cross; and we cannot have the highest happiness of life in succoring others without tasting the cup which Jesus drank, and submitting to the baptism wherewith He was baptized.
The most comforting of David's psalms were pressed out by suffering; and if Paul had not had his thorn in the flesh we had missed much of that tenderness which quivers in so many of his letters.
The present circumstance, which presses so hard against you (if surrendered to Christ), is the best shaped tool in the Father's hand to chisel you for eternity. Trust Him, then. Do not push away the instrument lest you lose its work."
"Strange and difficult indeed We may find it, But the blessing that we need Is behind it."
The school of suffering graduates rare scholars.
Streams in the Desert
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I am a Stranger and a Sojourner. Genesis 23:4
The minute details of this purchase are recorded to emphasize the fact that, though the whole land was Abraham's by the Divine gift, he would not enter on its possession till God's time was come. We may be sure of certain blessings - ours in God's safe keeping - though they are withheld till the moment that His wisdom sees best. It was a t...ouching confession. The aged patriarch had for long years owned no settled dwelling-place. After years in the land of promise he was still without land enough for a grave.
Faith cannot be satisfied with the things of this world. - The sons of Heth had goods and lands, but Abraham did not envy them; he had caught a glimpse of the city which hath foundations, and this so satisfied and attracted him that he had no desire for aught that Palestine could yield.
Faith detaches us from the present. - We are content to dwell in tents, because here we have no abiding-place. The shows and .vanities of the world, in comparison with the vision of eternal realities, are as the glare of the streets compared with the steady glory of the constellations of the night.
Faith prompts to confession. - It bewrayeth itself. We should be careful and orderly in our business arrangements; but, in our dealings with our fellows, in our justice, fairness, honor, the lightness of our hold on the present world, we should make it manifest that we are seeking a country not our own.
Faith cannot be ashamed. - The God who prompted it must satisfy it, else He would have reason to be ashamed of having failed the souls that trusted Him. But now He is not ashamed to be called our God, because He has prepared for us a city.
F. B. Meyer
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The Guiding Hand of Christ
"Lead me to the rock that is higher than I." Psa 61:2
But, above all, we are led to the Rock that is higher by the guiding hand of Christ--"no man cometh to the Father but by me." When we crave for the certainty that God is love, we may turn in vain to nature or to history. Nature and history have many voices, but they never cry, "I am the way." Only Christ proc...laims Himself the way to One higher than our highest thought, because deeper than our deepest need. Thus, although the psalmist did not know it, he saw the day of Christ and he was glad. It was for Christ that he was yearning in that passionate outcry of his spirit. It is He who takes us by the hand and leads us where philosophy can never lead us, to Love, to a Father on the throne, to "the rock that is higher than I."
George H. Morrison
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"Man's goings are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way?"--Proverbs 20:24
Does not your heart sometimes quake with fear lest you have nothing but a nominal profession, lest the god of this world be blinding you, and lest your conscience be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin? It is good to have such fears. He who feareth not, who has no solemn apprehensions, no... anxious inquiries, who is never exercised with some internal trepidation of soul, it is much to be feared has never known what it is to have "the candle of the Lord searching the inward parts of the belly." But if God has quickened your soul into spiritual life, and you have ears to hear, I would just put two questions to you: Have you obtained righteousness by a manifestation of Christ's righteousness; pardon by the application of Christ's blood; love by a shedding abroad of love; deliverance by a discovery of God's outstretched hand? My other question is this--If you have not, and let conscience bear its honest testimony--if you have never experienced righteousness, pardon, love, and deliverance, is there a cry in your soul after them? Is there anything like fervent supplication that God would bestow them? Is there anything of a groan in the depth of your spirit that the Lord would reveal them? These are marks of life; and he that has these marks will have the blessing, because God has quickened him into spiritual life. It may be long delayed, but it will come at last; "it will surely come, it will not tarry." It may be withheld for wise purposes, and you may have to travel through many a dark season and many an anxious hour, but deliverance is sure; it is reserved for you in Christ, and you are reserved for it, kept by God himself unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
J. C. Philpot
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A Completed Sacrifice
"And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering: and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him" (Leviticus 1:4).
If by that laying on of his hand the bullock became the offerer's sacrifice, how much more shall Jesus become ours by the laying on of the hand of faith?
...
My faith doth lay her hand On that dear head of Thine, While like a penitent I stand, And there confess my sin.
If a bullock could be accepted for him to make atonement for him, how much more shall the LORD Jesus be our full and all-sufficient propitiation? Some quarrel with the great truth of substitution; but as for us, it is our hope, our joy, our boast, our all. Jesus is accepted for us to make atonement for us, and we are "accepted in the Beloved." Let the reader take care at once to lay his hand on the LORD's completed sacrifice, that by accepting it he may obtain the benefit of it. If he has done so once, let him do it again. If he has never done so, let him put out his hand without a moment's delay. Jesus is yours now if you will have Him. Lean on Him -- lean hard on Him -- and He is yours beyond all question; you are reconciled to God, your sins are blotted out, and you are the LORD's.
Charles Spurgeon
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Be Renewed
by Joyce Meyer
God selected . . . what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame. And God also selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is lowborn and insignificant and branded and treated with contempt, even the things that are nothing, that He might depose and bring to nothing the things that are, so that no mortal man should [have pretense for glorying and] boast in th...e presence of God. —1 Corinthians 1:27–29
If you are weak in faith, in mind, in body, in discipline, in self-control, or in determination, simply wait on God. He will be strong through your weakness.
Isaiah 40:31 teaches that if you expect God, look for Him, and hope in Him, you will change and renew your strength and power; you will run, and not faint or become tired. The Bible doesn’t say “hope so, it could be, or it may be”; it declares that you will be renewed.
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1/22/2012
God is Looking
"The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him" (2 Chron. 16:9).
God is looking for a man, or woman, whose heart will be always set on Him, and who will trust Him for all He desires to do. God is eager to work more mightily now than He ever has through any soul. The clock of the centuries points to the eleventh hour.
"The world is waiting yet to see what God can do through a consecrated soul." Not the world alone, but God Himself is waiting for one, who will be more fully devoted to Him than any who have ever lived; who will be willing to be nothing that Christ may be all; who will grasp God's own purposes; and taking His humility and His faith, His love and His power, will, without hindering, continue to let God do exploits. --C. H. P.
"There is no limit to what God can do with a man, providing he will not touch the glory."
In an address given to ministers and workers after his ninetieth birthday, George Mueller spoke thus of himself: "I was converted in November, 1825, but I only came into the full surrender of the heart four years later, in July, 1829. The love of money was gone, the love of place was gone, the love of position was gone, the love of worldly pleasures and engagements was gone. God, God alone became my portion. I found my all in Him; I wanted nothing else. And by the grace of God this has remained, and has made me a happy man, an exceedingly happy man, and it led me to care only about the things of God. I ask affectionately, my beloved brethren, have you fully surrendered the heart to God, or is there this thing or that thing with which you are taken up irrespective of God? I read a little of the Scriptures before, but preferred other books; but since that time the revelation He has made of Himself has become unspeakably blessed to me, and I can say from my heart, God is an infinitely lovely Being. Oh, be not satisfied until in your own inmost soul you can say, God is an infinitely lovely Being!' --Selected
I pray to God this day to make me an extraordinary Christian. --Whitefield.
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Jehovah-Jireh; In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided. Genesis 22:14
Abraham knew it would be. Probably he never told Sarah what God had asked of him till he and the lad were safely back in the tent. What need to trouble her? Her weak faith could not have stood the ordeal. It was with an unfaltering tone that the patriarch told his young men that they two would presently retur...n. Even though he should actually take Isaac's life, he was sure that he would receive him again from the altar in health. It was only at the very last moment that God indicated the ram as the sufficient substitute. So God's deliverances always come; they are provided in the mount of trial and sacrifice. When the foe seems secure of victory. - So it was with Israel.
Pharaoh, with his hosts, counted on an easy victory, the precipices around, the sea in front. To the eye of sense it seemed impossible to escape: all hope died. It was just then that the Almighty cleft a path through the mighty deep. "In the fourth hour of the night." - Strength was well-nigh exhausted in long battling with the waves. For hours the disciples with difficulty had kept themselves afloat. It seemed as if they must give in through physical collapse. It was then that the form of Jesus drew nigh unto the ship.
On the night before execution. - Thus Peter lies sleeping whilst the Church is gathered in prayer. To-morrow he will be a corpse. But the angel comes then to open the prison doors. So you may have come to an end of your own strength, and wisdom, and energy. The altar, wood, and fire are ready, the knife upraised, your Isaac on the point to die: but even now God will provide. Trust Him to indicate the way of escape.
F. B. Meyer
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"I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day."--Isaiah 27:3
The Lord Jesus Christ, who lives at God's right hand, has to send down supplies of his grace continually to keep your soul alive unto himself. Without this life being kept up and maintained by these continual supplies of his grace, you cannot pray, or read, or hear the ...word, or meditate with any feeling or profit. You cannot love the Lord and his blessed ways; you cannot submit to his righteous dealings; or hear the rod and him who appointed it. You may approach his throne, but your heart is cold, clouded, and unfeeling; your spirit sinks under the weight and burden of the trials and difficulties that are spread in your path; nor are you able to do anything that satisfies yourself, or that you think can satisfy God. By these painful but profitable lessons, you are experimentally taught that you want the life of Christ as well as the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ as much as the crucifixion of Christ; Christ as an ever-living, ever-gracious, ever-glorious Mediator, to send down supplies of his love and power into your soul, as much as you needed him to die upon the cross for your redemption.
J. C. Philpot
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SEEKING GOD'S FACE
Psalm 27:8 NIV
My heart says of you, "Seek His face!" Your face, LORD, I will seek
"If the sun is shining in the morning, I'll do it." "If he's there when I open the door, I'll know he's the one." "If I pass the class on world missions, I'll be a missionary. If not, I'll be a local pastor."
We all know better than this, but it's amazing how often scenarios just like these pop into our minds. Such propositions are referred to as "laying a fleece" before the Lord or "seeking a sign."
The term fleece comes from the account of Gideon. In Judges 6, Gideon is called by God to deliver Israel from the Midianites. Gideon questions whether God is even for Israel (verse 13), and he doubts his own ability (verse 15). So he asks God for a sign (verse 17). God gives him one, then tells him to tear down the altar of Baal. Gideon is afraid to go during the day, so he goes at night.
Then he questions again whether God will deliver Israel. This time he puts a lamb's fleece on the ground. If God will deliver Israel, then the lamb's fleece will be wet in the morning and the ground around it will be dry. The next morning it is so. That ought to satisfy him, right? Wrong! Wanting to be sure, and hoping that God won't get too mad, Gideon asks Him to do it again, but this time with the opposite result (i.e., the fleece dry and the ground wet). Not exactly the stuff heroes are made of. But God answers Gideon's request and then He reduces Gideon's army down to 300 men!
The whole point of the passage is that God, not man, is the deliverer. God chose a man desperately seeking assurance and reduced an army down to nothing so that the victory would clearly be His. The fleece wasn't a means of demonstrating faith; it was just the opposite. And it certainly wasn't used to determine God's will. God had already told Gideon what to do. Gideon was questioning the integrity of God, just as we do if we ask for a fleece when God has already shown us His will. "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign" (Matthew 12:39). As God's people, let's seek the face of God.
Prayer: Lord, forgive me for the times I have looked for sign instead of seeking Your face. I commit myself today to walk only in the faith revealed in Your Word.
Neil T. Anderson
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Christian Liberality
"Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble" (Psalm 41:1).
To think about the poor and let them lie on our hearts is a Christian man's duty; for Jesus put them with us and near us when He said, "The poor ye have always with you."
Many give their money to the poor in a hurry, without thought; and many more give nothing at all. This precious promise belongs to those who "consider" the poor, look into their case, devise plans for their benefit, and considerately carry them out. We can do more by care than by cash, and most with two together. To those who consider the poor, the LORD promises His own consideration in times of distress. He will bring us out of trouble if we help others when they are in trouble. We shall receive very singular providential help if the LORD sees that we try to provide for others. We shall have a time of trouble, however generous we may be; but if we are charitable, we may put in a claim for peculiar deliverance, and the LORD will not deny His own word and bond. Miserly curmudgeons may help themselves, but considerate and generous believers the LORD will help. As you have done unto others, so will the LORD do unto you. Empty your pockets.
Charles Spurgeon
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Uniquely Gifted to Help
by Joyce Meyer
Do not neglect the gift which is in you, [that special inward endowment} . . . —1 Timothy 4:14
Helen Keller achieved amazing goals despite being unable to see or hear. At 19 months of age, an illness caused her to go completely blind and completely deaf. Helen's parents sought help for her in Boston at Perkins School for the Blind.
The Perkins School assigned a tutor named Anne Sullivan to work with the child. Helen was terribly frustrated and often became resistant and violently angry. Many teachers would have lost their patience, but Anne Sullivan kept her composure and persisted in her efforts to teach Helen.
Eventually, Helen learned to read Braille, to write, and even to speak.
Helen also decided she wanted to attend college. Anne Sullivan helped her prepare and gain acceptance to Radcliffe College, associated with Harvard University. With Sullivan's help, she graduated with honors, having mastered several languages, four years later.
While in college, Helen started a writing career that would last more than 50 years. She went on to receive many awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
A vital key to her success was the fact that Anne Sullivan believed in her. Her patience, wisdom, and teaching ability combined to make her a uniquely gifted teacher for Helen.
Love Others Today: God has uniquely gifted you to help someone. Be available as God opens doors for you to do so.
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1/21/2012
"Pray without ceasing" (I. Thess. v. 17).
An important help in the life of prayer is the habit of bringing everything to God, moment by moment, as it comes to us in life. This may be established as a habit on the principle on which all habits are formed, of repeated and constant attention, moment by moment, until that whi...ch is at first an act of will, becomes spontaneous and second nature.
If we will watch our lives we shall find that God meets the things that we commit to Him in prayer with special blessing, and often allows the best things that we have not committed to Him to be ineffectual, simply to remind us of our dependence upon Him for everything. It is very gracious and mindful of Him thus gently to compel us to remember Him and to hold us so close to Him that we cannot get away even the length of a single minute from His all-sustaining arm. "In everything ... let our requests be made known unto God."
Let us bring our least petitions,
Like the incense beaten small,
All our cares, complaints, conditions
Jesus loves to bear them all.
A. B. Simpson
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Whatever His questions or His reticences, we may be absolutely sure of an unperplexed and undismayed Saviour.
"O troubled soul, beneath the rod, Thy Father speaks, be still, be still; Learn to be silent unto God, And let Him mould thee to His will.
"O praying soul, be still, be still, He cannot break His plighted Word; Sink down into His blessed will, And wait in patience... on the Lord.
"O waiting soul, be still, be strong, And though He tarry, trust and wait; Doubt not, He will not wait too long, Fear not, He will not come too late."
Streams in the Desert
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The finished work of Christ - The work of propitiation for sin is complete. We are not required to add to it one tear, or prayer, or vow. "It is finished." To go to heaven to bring Christ down, or to the deep to bring Him up, is alike superfluous. All we need is the opened eye to see what Jesus has done, and recognize that it is all that was demanded to meet the claims of God's holy law.
The things freely given to us of God. - God hath given us in Jesus all things that pertain to life and godliness. There is no possible gift or grace, in which we are deficient, that is not stored in Him, in whom the fullness of God abides. But we are blind; the eyes of our heart have not been opened to see the hope of our calling, the riches of our inheritance, the greatness of God's power. Did we know these things, surely not a moment would elapse without our availing ourselves of God's rich provision.
F. B. Meyer
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Brothers and sisters, you may be sure of this, that true peace demands an open channel, an unobstructed way to God if one is to walk with music in his heart. And I say that no tragic fall so blocks the channel between earth and heaven as do these daily little and unnoticed sins that grow and gather in the passing days.
George H. Morrison
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Do you recall that hour when Christ washed His disciples' feet? Do you recall the word He said to Peter, "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit"? My brother and sister, in that great word of Christ's there lies the Master's answer to our question. There is His treatment of the daily stain. He that is washed--and Peter had been washed. He had been bathed in th...e spirit of his Lord. Once and for all, coming to Jesus Christ, his guilt had been washed away forever. And now says Jesus, "Let me wash thy feet; let me cleanse off the soil of the daily walk"; and what He said to Simon Peter then, He says to you and me. I do believe that when a man is saved, he is saved not for a time but for eternity. I do believe that when we look to Christ, in that very moment all our sin is pardoned. But every day we need another cleansing for we have been traveling by dusty roads, and Christ is always stooping and ready to bestow His forgiveness. Do not rest at night till thou hast had it, brother. Summon the hours of the day before thee. Put forth thy feet and let Him wash them, for they are very dusty with the journey. So when thou wakest, thou shalt again be clean and ready for everything the day may bring, glad with the confidence of him who sang, "When I awake I am still with Thee."
George H. Morrison
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"Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."--James 5:11
The words translated "endure" and "patience" are the same in the original; and in fact, the example of Job is given as an instance of the happiness of those who endure. The same word is also used by our bl...essed Lord, where he says, "He that endureth to the end shall be saved" (Matt. 10:22). We have need then of endurance. As he that runs a race needs not so much swiftness as enduring strength to hold out to the end, never to give up as long as he can drag one limb before another; as the British soldier must never suffer himself to be beaten; so it is in the Christian race: we must never give up; we must never say "die;" we must never allow ourselves to be beaten by sin or Satan. If God himself seem to thrust us away from his throne, we must still plead and not take "No" for an answer, like the widow with the unjust judge. O what need we have of patience or endurance still to fight, though the battle be against us; still to run, though we may almost fear to lose the race; and still to press forward, in spite of every discouraging circumstance! But if in this way we do the will of God, as he would have us, and patience is given to us of which we have such deep need, let us not fear but that we shall receive the promise. "Let us then not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" (Gal. 6:9). We are bidden therefore to be "steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:58).
J. C. Philpot
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A HIGHER PRIORITY
Romans 8:14
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God
Two significant events in my life brought into clear focus the priority of relationship over achievement. Before being called into the ministry, I worked as an aerospace engineer on the Apollo program. I will never forget the day the lunar lander touched down on the moon. This bold headline dominated the front page of the Minneapolis Star : "Neil Armstrong Lands on the Moon." It was an achievement I was proud to be part of.
But the really big news came months earlier on page 7 in the third section: "Heidi Jo Anderson, born to Mr. and Mrs. Neil Anderson, Northwestern Hospital, March 12, 1969." That may not sound like big news to you, but it was to her mother and me. Heidi totally took over my den and captured an entire shelf in the refrigerator. She altered our sleeping pattern and restricted our social calendar. But she was ours to hold, to hug and to care for.
What does God care about moon shots? They are deeds to be outdone. Somebody will always come along and do it better, faster and higher. What God cares about is little people like Heidi Jo Anderson because they will be with Him forever.
The second significant event in my life was receiving my first doctoral degree. But it turned out to be one of the most anticlimactic days of my life. I heard no applause from heaven, and I don't believe my achievement added so much as an asterisk to my name in the Lamb's Book of Life. I was a child of God before that day and I was still a child of God afterward.
But what happens in heaven when one sinner repents? Applause! Why? Because a relationship with God is eternal, while earthly achievements last only for time. Have you sacrificed the eternal to gain the temporal? Have you ignored personal and spiritual relationships in your pursuit of human achievements? Relationships must always have a higher priority than temporal achievements.
Prayer: Lord, amidst the busyness of my schedule and clutter of my possessions, help me cherish and nurture my relationships today.
Neil T. Anderson
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God's Enemies Shall Bow
"The options shall know that I am the LORD" (Exodus 7:5).
The ungodly world is hard to teach. Egypt does not know Jehovah and therefore dares to set up its idols and even ventures to ask, "Who is the LORD?" Yet the LORD means to break proud hearts, whether they will or not. When His judgments thunder over their heads, darken their skies, destroy their harvests, and sla...y their sons, they begin to discern somewhat of Jehovah's power. There will yet be such things done in the earth as shall bring skeptics to their knees. Let us not be dismayed because of their blasphemies, for the LORD can take care of His own name, and He will do so in a very effectual manner.
The salvation of His own people was another potent means of making Egypt know that the God of Israel was Jehovah, the living and true God. No Israelite died by any one of the ten plagues. None of the chosen seed were drowned in the Red Sea. Even so, the salvation of the elect and the sure glorification of all true believers will make the most obstinate of God's enemies acknowledge that Jehovah, He is the God.
Oh, that His convincing power would go forth by His Holy Spirit in the preaching of the gospel, till all nations shall bow at the name of Jesus and call Him LORD!
Charles Spurgeon
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His Safety Deposit Box
“Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.” 1 Peter 4:19
Here are three reactions you need to have when you encounter suffering. First, you are to rejoice in what God is allowing to happen. (see 1 Peter 4:13) Second, you need to review your life (see 1 Peter 4:17-18). Am ...I suffering because of something I have done? If the Holy Spirit convicts you that your suffering is a result of your sin, then you need to repent.
Third, when you review your life and discover that your suffering is for the cause of Christ, then simply rely on Him (see 1 Peter 4:19). It is not your problem. It is His problem.
In 1 Peter 4:19 we see the word “commit.” That is a banking term. It means to deposit something of value with someone else, to keep it safe. He will take care of you. You can bank on it.
Adrian Rogers
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1/20/2012
Disagreeing With God
By Max Lucado
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Psalm 139:13-15
We sometimes believe a mouse in a lion’s den has better odds of success than we do. You flop miserably and descend yet another level into the basement of self-defeat!
Fear of insignificance creates the results it dreads! It arrives at the destination it tries to avoid. If you pass your days mumbling, “I’ll never make a difference; I’m not worth anything,” then guess what? You sentence yourself to a life of gloom without parole!
Even worse—you’re disagreeing with God. Questioning His judgment. Second-guessing His taste. According to God, you were ‘wonderfully made.’ He can’t stop thinking about you.
Why does He love you so much? The same reason the artist loves his paintings. You’re His idea!
And God only has good ideas!
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I want the love that cannot help but love;
Loving, like God, for very sake of love.
A spring so full that it must overflow,
A fountain flowing from the throne above.
"Now abideth faith, hope, love; but the greatest of these is love."
A. B. Simpson
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Whatever the Cost
"'Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son...I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven;...because thou hast obeyed my voice" (Gen. 22:16-18).
And from that day to this, men have been learning that when, at God's voice, they surrender up to Him the one thing above all else that was dearest to their very he...arts, that same thing is returned to them by Him a thousand times over. Abraham gives up his one and only son, at God's call, and with this disappear all his hopes for the boy's life and manhood, and for a noble family bearing his name. But the boy is restored, the family becomes as the stars and sands in number, and out of it, in the fullness of time, appears Jesus Christ.
That is just the way God meets every real sacrifice of every child of His. We surrender all and accept poverty; and He sends wealth. We renounce a rich field of service; He sends us a richer one than we had dared to dream of. We give up all our cherished hopes, and die unto self; He sends us the life more abundant, and tingling joy. And the crown of it all is our Jesus Christ. For we can never know the fullness of the life that is in Christ until we have made Abraham's supreme sacrifice. The earthly founder of the family of Christ must commence by losing himself and his only son, just as the Heavenly Founder of that family did. We cannot be members of that family with the full privileges and joys of membership upon any other basis. --C. G. Trumbull
We sometimes seem to forget that what God takes He takes in fire; and that the only way to the resurrection life and the ascension mount is the way of the garden, the cross, and the grave.
Think not, O soul of man, that Abraham's was a unique and solitary experience. It is simply a specimen and pattern of God's dealings with all souls who are prepared to obey Him at whatever cost. After thou hast patiently endured, thou shalt receive the promise. The moment of supreme sacrifice shall be the moment of supreme and rapturous blessing. God's river, which is full of water, shall burst its banks, and pour upon thee a tide of wealth and grace. There is nothing, indeed, which God will not do for a man who dares to step out upon what seems to be the mist; though as he puts down his foot he finds a rock beneath him. --F. B. Meyer
Streams in the Desert
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"Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord."--Hosea 6:3
"To know the Lord" is to know experimentally and spiritually the power of Jesus' blood and righteousness; to know our eternal union with him; to know him so as to be led by the Spirit into soul communion with him, that we may talk with him as a man talketh with his friend; to know him so that the secrets of his heart ...should be revealed to us, and we enter by faith into the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge; to know him so as to drink into his spirit, and to have his image stamped by the Holy Ghost upon our souls; to know him as coming down into our hearts out of his glorious sanctuary, filling our souls with his presence and his love; to know him as formed in us the hope of glory, making our bodies his temple, dwelling in us, breathing himself into us, speaking in us, moving as it were every affection of our heart and every faculty of our soul. Thus to know the Lord is the sum and substance of vital godliness. And, as "to know the Lord," implies, as well as comprehends, the knowledge of Jehovah in his Trinity of Persons and Unity of Essence, well may we say that, to know Jehovah the Father in his eternal love, to know Jehovah the Son in his redeeming blood, and to know Jehovah the Spirit in his divine operations and blessed teaching, is the foretaste of bliss below; and to know and see God as he is, is the consummation of bliss above.
J. C. Philpot
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THE WILL OF GOD
John 7:17
If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself
Knowing the will of God is not just a twentieth-century problem. People were struggling at the time of Christ. Some people were saying of Him, "He's a good man." Others were saying, "He leads the multitude astray" (see John 7:12). How could these people know whether He was leading them into truth?
Seizing the opportunity, Jesus set forth standards of divine guidance. His first admonition was, "My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself" (John 7:16, 17). The essential prerequisite to know the will of God, according to Jesus, is a willingness to do it.
What is the will of God? God's will for those who believe in Him is to be alive in Christ for the purpose of establishing His kingdom by overcoming the evil one and becoming fully the people He has called us to be. Notice the opening words of the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:9, 10). When praying this prayer, we are asking for God's will to be accomplished on earth as it presently is in heaven. Apparently God's will is being perfectly executed in heaven but not on earth.
Are you totally committed to do God's will without knowing for sure what it is? Do you hold any reservations about turning your will over to God? Do you really believe that God's will for you is good, acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2)? If God is God and you call Him Lord, doesn't He have the right to exercise His will in your life?
Prayer: Father, may Your will be accomplished in my thoughts, words and deeds today as it is being accomplished in heaven.
Neil T. Anderson
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The Overcomer
"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree Of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God" (Revelation 2:7).
No man may turn his back in the day of battle or refuse to go to the holy war. We must fight if we would reign, and we must carry on the warfare till we overcome every enemy, or else this promise is not for us, since it is only for "him that overcometh...." We are to overcome the false prophets who have come into the world and all the evils which accompany their teaching. We are to overcome our own faintness of heart and tendency to decline from our first love. Read the whole of the Spirit's word to the church at Ephesus.
If by grace we win the day, as we shall if we truly follow our conquering Leader, then we shall be admitted to the very center of the paradise of God and shall be permitted to pass by the cherub and his flaming sword and come to that guarded tree, whereof if a man eat, he shall live forever. We shall thus escape that endless death which is the doom of sin and gain that everlasting life which is the seal of innocence, the outgrowth of immortal principles of Godlike holiness. Come, my heart, pluck up courage! To flee the conflict will be to lose the joys of the new and better Eden; to fight unto victory is to walk with God in paradise.
Charles Spurgeon
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Wait for Peace
by Joyce Meyer
I will listen [with expectancy] to what God the Lord will say, for He will speak peace to His people. —Psalm 85:8
When God speaks, He gives us a deep sense of internal peace to confirm that the message we are hearing is truly from Him. Even if He speaks to chastise us, His Spirit of Truth leaves a calming sense of comfort in our souls.
When our enemy, the deceiver, speaks to us, he cannot give peace. When we try to solve things with our own reasoning, we cannot get peace because “the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death [death that comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter]. But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever]” (Romans 8:6).
Whenever you believe you hear God speak or make a decision based on something you believe He has said, use the scale of peace. If peace cannot hold its weight against the guidance you have heard, then don’t proceed with it. You don’t have to explain to others why you don’t have peace about it; you may not even know that yourself. You can simply say, “I do not have peace about this right now; therefore, it’s not wise for me to go ahead with it.”
Always wait until peace about doing what you think God has instructed you to do fills your soul. Peace is confirmation that you are truly hearing from God and that your timing is right to take action. Peace gives us confidence and faith, which enable us to be obedient to God’s instructions.
God’s word for you today: Wait for peace before you act.
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1/19/2012
The Wolf Man
By Max Lucado
Jesus arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. So, the men marveled, saying “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey him? Matthew 8:26-27
When I was six, my dad let me watch the movie, The Wolf Man. Boy, did he regret that decision!
I was convinced the wolf man spent each night prowling our den! To reach the kitchen from my bedroom I had to pass perilously close. More than once I woke up my dad. Like Jesus in the boat, dad was sound asleep in the storm.
He’d ask, “Now why are you afraid?”
I’d remind him of the monster. And with super-human courage, he’d escort me through the valley of the shadow of death, and pour me a glass of milk. I’d look at him and think, “What kind of man is this?”
God views our storms the way my father viewed my Wolf Man angst. Jesus got up, gave a command to the wind and the waves, and it became completely calm!
What kind of man is this? What kind of man, indeed!
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There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is to simply try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an opportunity of obtaining a larger measure of Divine grace.
Thus even the adversary becomes an auxiliary, and the thing...s that seem to be against us turn out to be for the furtherance of our way. Surely, this is to be more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
Blessed Rose of Sharon
Breathe upon our heart,
Fill us with Thy fragrance,
Keep us as Thou art.
Then Thy life will make us
Holy and complete;
In Thy grace triumphant,
In Thy sweetness, sweet.
A. B. Simpson
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Victory that overcomes the world
"This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4).
It is easy to love Him when the blue is in the sky,
When summer winds are blowing, and we smell the roses nigh;
There is little effort needed to obey His precious will
When it leads through flower-decked valley, or over sun-kissed hill.
It is when the rain is falling, or the mist hangs in the air,
When the road is dark and rugged, and the wind no longer fair,
When the rosy dawn has settled in a shadowland of gray,
That we find it hard to trust Him, and are slower to obey.
It is easy to trust Him when the singing birds have come,
And their canticles are echoed in our heart and in our home;
But 'tis when we miss the music, and the days are dull and drear,
That we need a faith triumphant over every doubt and fear.
And our blessed Lord will give it; what we lack He will supply;
Let us ask in faith believing--on His promises rely;
He will ever be our Leader, whether smooth or rough the way,
And will prove Himself sufficient for the needs of every day.
To trust in spite of the look of being forsaken; to keep crying out into the vast, whence comes no returning voice, and where seems no hearing; to see the machinery of the world pauselessly grinding on as if self-moved, caring for no life, nor shifting a hair-breadth for all entreaty, and yet believe that God is awake and utterly loving; to desire nothing but what comes meant for us from His hand; to wait patiently, ready to die of hunger, fearing only lest faith should fail--such is the victory that overcometh the world, such is faith indeed. --George MacDonald
Streams in the Desert
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View the fate of the ungodly from God's standpoint. - We are apt to consider it from that of our own pity, or commiseration, or tolerance of shortcoming. We judge lightly, because we dread too searching a judgment on ourselves. But we need sometimes to see sin as God sees it. Stand on Calvary and learn what sin is, and how much it has cost the Saviour. There, too, you will learn that God goes further than His servants' prayers. Though He may not be able to discover the ten, yet He will deliver the one righteous man. "His countenance doth behold the upright."
F. B. Meyer
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There is a sad lack of sincerity today, but let us not be blinded to the fact that sincerity is not the only virtue. I am not necessarily good, I am not necessarily right, I am not necessarily saved, because I am sincere. There is a call for new sincerity in every heart, yet that sincerity is but a stepping-stone. I may sincerely believe the earth is flat, and yet for all my sincerity the earth is... round. I may sincerely consider my friend to be a hero, and yet in spite of that my friend may be a scamp. I may sincerely be convinced Christ never arose, yet Christ did arise and is at the right hand of God today. Sincerity without humility is the obstinacy out of which fools are made. The truly sincere man is always humble, feels like a child amid God's infinite mysteries and cries in his heart, "Light, light, more light"; till God in His own way leads him there. And the light is light indeed, and the light indeed is love. And neither height nor depth, nor life nor death, nor any other creature, shall, separate him from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
George H. Morrison
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"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit."--Romans 8:5
None but those who are partakers of a heavenly birth feel heavenly realities to be their choice element, holy things their sweetest meditation, and the solemn worship of God their supreme delight. Look at this mark as a touchstone of divine lif...e; for to be spiritually-minded a man must be spiritual, and to be spiritual he must have received the Spirit and been made a partaker of that "kingdom of God which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17). Have you never found in reading the Scriptures a sweet peace distil over your soul, as the glorious promises came forth one after another as the stars in the evening sky, each one brighter and clearer, and you felt a blessed persuasion of your interest in them? When at the throne of grace, favoured with liberty of spirit and access to your heavenly Friend, have you never felt the peace of God to drop into your heart, and like oil upon the waves, to allay every rising of rebellion within? Have you never found, in conversing with the saints of God, a sweet flowing of heart to heart and soul to soul, and felt that such conversation left behind a blessed fragrance upon your spirit? Have you never in the house of prayer had your heart and affections drawn up to the things of God; and as you sat and heard Christ, his Person and work, his grace and glory set forth, faith was drawn out to believe, hope to cast forth its anchor, and love and affection to flow, so that you experienced a spirituality of mind, a heavenly calm, and a holy peace that touched every spring of your soul, and watered it as the river that went out of Eden to water the garden?
J. C. Philpot
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DEAD TO SIN
Romans 6:11, 12
Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts
Sin is the condition into which all descendants of fallen Adam are born (Romans 5:12). Sin is living our lives independently of God. It's the result of being deceived by Satan to believe that meaning and purpose in life may be achieved apart from a personal relationship with, and obedience to, the Creator of life (Deuteronomy 30:19, 20; 1 John 5:12). In the non-Christian, sin permeates the old nature, dominates the old self, and perpetuates the deeds of the flesh. Satan is at the heart of all sin (1 John 3:8). He deceives people into believing a lie and counsels them to rebel against God.
When you received Christ you died to sin and its power to dominate you was broken. Satan and sin have not died; they are still strong and appealing. But you no longer have to sin because you are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ (Romans 6:11). You are not dead to sin because you consider it so; you consider it so because it is so. In Christ you have already died to sin.
Paul goes on to say that we are not to use our bodies as instruments of unrighteousness (verse 13). If we do, we allow sin to rule in our mortal bodies. For example, it is virtually impossible for someone to commit a sexual sin and not use his body as an instrument of unrighteousness, allowing sin to rule. Ask the Lord to reveal to your mind how you have wrongly used your body, especially sexually. Renounce that wrong use and then submit your body to God as a living sacrifice. It is your responsibility not to let "sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts" (Romans 6:12).
Prayer: Loving Lord, I know that sin's power over me has been broken. Help me live today in the light of that truth by renouncing sin and submitting my body to You.
Neil T. Anderson
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Mouth Confession; Heart Belief
"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the LORD Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
There must be confession with the mouth. Have I made it? Have I openly avowed my faith in Jesus as the Savior whom God has raised from the dead, and have I done it in God's way! Let me honestly answer ...this question.
There must also be belief with the heart. Do I sincerely believe in the risen LORD Jesus? Do I trust in Him as my sole hope of salvation? Is this trust from my heart? Let me answer as before God.
If I can truly claim that I have both confessed Christ and believed in Him, then I am saved. The text does not say it may be so, but it is plain as a pikestaff and clear as the sun in the heavens: "Thou shalt be saved." As a believer and a confessor, I may lay my hand on this promise and plead it before the LORD God at this moment, and throughout life, and in the hour of death, and at the Day of Judgment.
I must be saved from the guilt of sin, the power of sin, the punishment of sin, and ultimately from the very being of sin. God hath said it -- "Thou shalt be saved." I believe it. I shall be saved. I am saved. Glory be to God forever and ever!
Charles Spurgeon
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1/18/2012
A Spirit of Fear
By Max Lucado
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7
Fear! It sucks the life out of the soul! And when fear shapes our lives, safety becomes our god. We worship the risk-free life!
The fear-filled cannot love deeply. Love is just too risky. No wonder Jesus wages such a war against fear.
Don’t be afraid. Take courage.
Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.
Jesus steps into the storm and asks, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?”
Fear may fill the world, but it doesn’t have to fill your heart! Hysteria is not from God. And Jesus doesn’t want you to live there! The promise of Christ is ... God has not given you a spirit of fear!
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A Spirit of Fear
By Max Lucado
... For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7
Fear! It sucks the life out of the soul! And when fear shapes our lives, safety becomes our god. We worship the risk-free life!
The fear-filled cannot love deeply. Love is just too risky. No wonder Jesus wages such a war against fear.
Don’t be afraid. Take courage.
Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.
Jesus steps into the storm and asks, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?”
Fear may fill the world, but it doesn’t have to fill your heart! Hysteria is not from God. And Jesus doesn’t want you to live there! The promise of Christ is ... God has not given you a spirit of fear!
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"That take and give for Me and thee" (Matt. xvii. 27).
There is a beautiful touch of loving thoughtfulness in the account of Christ's miracle at Capernaum in providing the tribute money. After the reference to Peter's interview with the tax collector, it is added, "When he came into the house Jesus prevented him," that is, anticipated him, as the old Saxon word means, by arranging fo...r the need before Peter needed to speak about it at all, and He sent Peter down to the sea to find the piece of gold in the mouth of the fish.
So our dear Lord is always thinking in advance of our needs, and He loves to save us from embarrassment, and anticipate our anxieties and cares by laying up His loving acts and providing before the emergency comes. Then with exquisite tenderness the Master adds: "That take and give for Me and thee." He puts Himself first in the embarrassing need and bears the heavy end of the burden for His distressed and suffering child. He makes our cares His cares, our sorrows His sorrows, our shame His shame, and "He is able to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities."
A. B. Simpson
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The story is told of a colored brother who, at a camp meeting, tried to give himself to God. Every night at the altar he consecrated himself; but every night before he left the meeting, the devil would come to him and convince him that he did not feel any different and therefore he was not consecrated.
Again and again he was beaten back by the adversary. Finally, one evening he came t...o the meeting with an axe and a big stake. After consecrating himself, he drove the stake into the ground just where he had knelt. As he was leaving the building, the devil came to him as usual and tried to make him believe that it was all a farce.
At once he went back to the stake and, pointing to it, said, "Look here, Mr. Devil, do you see that stake? Well, that's my witness that God has forever accepted me." Immediately the devil left him, and he had no further doubts on the subject. --The Still Small Voice
Beloved, if you are tempted to doubt the finality of your consecration, drive a stake down somewhere and let it be your witness before God and even the devil that you have settled the question forever.
Are you groping for a blessing, Never getting there? Listen to a word in season, Get somewhere.
Are you struggling for salvation By your anxious prayer? Stop your struggling, simply trust, and-- Get somewhere.
Does the answer seem to linger To your earnest prayer? Turn your praying into praise, and-- Get somewhere.
You will never know His fulness Till you boldly dare To commit your all to Him, and-- Get somewhere. --Songs of the Spirit Trust in Spite of How it Looks
Streams in the DesertSee More
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"For we are his workmanship."--Ephesians 2:10
Consider what is here declared of those who are saved by grace through faith--that they are God's "workmanship"--the fruit and product of his creative hand. All, then, that we are and all that we have that is spiritual, and as such acceptable to God, we owe to the special operation of his power. There is not a thought of our heart, word o...f our lips, or work of our hands, which is truly holy and heavenly, simple and sincere, glorifying to God or profitable to man, of which he is not by his Spirit and grace the divine and immediate Author. How beautifully is this expressed by the Church of old, and what an echo do her accents find in every gracious heart: "But now, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand" (Isa. 64:8). How suitable, how expressive is the figure of the clay and the potter. Look at the moist clay under the potter's hand. How soft, how tender, how passive is the clay; how strong, how skilful are the hands which mould it into shape. As the wheel revolves, how every motion of the potter's fingers shapes the yielding clay, and with what exquisite skill does every gentle pressure, every imperceptible movement impress upon it the exact form which it was in his mind to make it assume. How sovereign was the hand which first took the clay, and as divine sovereignty first took it, so divine sovereignty shapes it when taken into form.
J. C. Philpot
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A voyaging ship was wrecked during a storm at sea !
And only two of the men on it were able
To swim to a small, desert like island.
The two survivors, not knowing what else to do,
Agree that they had no other recourse
... But to pray to God.
However, to find out whose prayer was more powerful,
They agreed to divide the territory between them
And stay on opposite sides of the island.
The first thing the first man prayed for was food.
The next morning, the first man saw
A fruit-bearing tree on his side of the land,
And he was able to eat its fruit.
The other man's parcel of land remained barren.
After a week, the first man was lonely
And he decided to pray for a wife.
The next day, another ship was wrecked,
And the only survivor was a woman
Who swam to his side of the land.
On the other side of the island,
There was nothing.
Soon the first man prayed for a house,
Clothes, more food.
The next day, like magic,
All of these were given to him.
However,
The second man still had nothing.
Finally, the first man prayed for a ship,
So that his wife and he could leave the island.
In the morning, he found a ship docked
At his side of the island!
The first man boarded the ship with his wife
And decided to leave the second man on the island.
He considered the other man unworthy
To receive God's blessings,
Since none of his prayers had been answered.
As the ship was about to leave,
The first man heard a voice from Heaven booming,
'Why are you leaving your companion on the island?'
'My blessings are mine alone,
Since I was the one who prayed for them,'
The first man answered.
'His prayers were all unanswered,
And so he does not deserve anything.'
'You are mistaken!'
The voice rebuked him.
'He had only one prayer,
Which I answered.
If not for that, you would not have
Received any of my blessings.'
'Tell me,' the first man asked the voice,
'what did he pray for that I
Should owe him anything?'
'He prayed that all your prayers be answered.'
For all we know, our blessings are not
The fruits of our prayers alone,
But those of another praying for us.
When Jesus died on the cross
He was thinking of you!
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Roads and Paths
There may be some steep hills to climb,
some times when the road seems treacherous and you aren't sure which turn to take...
Times when you feel like you are on the brink of falling, and there may be many curves in the road.
As you make your way through the ups and downs of 2012, may you know God's presence with you through each tunnel, every steep climb, every curve, in the beautiful mountaintop experiences with Him, and through the slippery storms of life.
May He walk with you down through the valleys and up the mountains, take your hand and guide you through to the light, put a hedge around you to keep you safe,
help you to find joy and excitement in the roller coaster ride, and fill you with amazement at the beauty He provides along the way.
Take time to smell the flowers, to admire His handiwork along Life's railway; and may His love flood over you, fill you, and overflow in praise to Him for all He's done!
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Christ and His Children
"When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed" (Isaiah 53:10).
Our LORD Jesus has not died in vain. His death was sacrificial: He died as our substitute, because death was the penalty of our sins. Because His substitution was accepted of God, He has saved those for whom He made His soul a sacrifice. By death He became like the corn of wheat ...which bringeth forth much fruit. There must be a succession of children unto Jesus; He is "the Father of the everlasting age." He shall say, "Behold, I and the children whom Thou hast given me."
A man is honored in his sons, and Jesus hath His quiver full of these arrows of the mighty. A man is represented in his children, and so is the Christ in Christians. In his seed a man's life seems to be prolonged and extended; and so is the life of Jesus continued in believers.
Jesus lives, for He sees His seed. He fixes His eye on us, He delights in us, He recognizes us as the fruit of His soul travail. Let us be glad that our LORD does not fail to enjoy the result of His dread sacrifice, and that He will never cease to feast His eyes upon the harvest of His death. Those eyes which once wept for us are now viewing us with pleasure. Yes, He looks upon those who are looking unto Him. Our eyes meet! What a joy is this!
Charles Spurgeon
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1/17/2012
You Are Not Alone
By Max Lucado
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. Psalm 56:3
God said, “I will not forsake my people!”
The Lord is with us. And with Him near—everything is different. Everything!
Even a serious illness. Even death. You aren’t facing illness or death alone—the Lord is with you.
You may be facing marital struggles, but you aren’t facing them alone. The Lord is with you!
You may be facing debt, but you aren’t facing debt alone. The Lord is with you.
Your family may turn against you, but God won’t.
Your friends may betray you, but God won’t.
You may feel alone in the wilderness, but you are not. He is with you!
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"It is God which worketh in you" (Phil. ii. 13).
God has not two ways for any of us; but one; not two things for us to do which we may choose between; but one best and highest choice. It is a blessed thing to find and fill the perfect will of God. It is a blessed thing to have our life laid out and our Christian work adjusted to God's plan. Much strength is lost by working at a ventu...re. Much spiritual force is expended in wasted effort, and scattered, indefinite and inconstant attempts at doing good. There is spiritual force and financial strength enough in the hands and hearts of the consecrated Christians of to-day to bring the coming of Christ, to bring about the evangelization of the world in a generation, if it were only wisely directed and utilized according to God's plan.
Christ has laid down a definite plan of work for His Church, and He expects us to understand it, and to work up to it; and as we catch His thought, and obediently, loyally fulfil it, we shall work to purpose, and please Him far better than by our thoughtless, reckless, and indiscriminate attempts to carry out our ideas, and compel God to bless our work.
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The moment has come when you must get off the perch of distrust, out of the nest of seeming safety, and onto the wings of faith; just such a time as comes to the bird when it must begin to try the air. It may seem as though you must drop to the earth; so it may seem to the fledgling. It, too, may feel very like falling; but it does not fall--it's pinions give it support, or, if they fail, the pare...nt birds sweeps under and bears it upon its wings. Even so will God bear you. Only trust Him; "thou shalt be holden up." "Well, but," you say, "am I to cast myself upon nothing?" That is what the bird seems to have to do; but we know the air is there, and the air is not so unsubstantial as it seems. And you know the promises of God are there, and they are not unsubstantial at all. "But it seems an unlikely thing to come about that my poor weak soul should be girded with such strength." Has God said it shall? "That my tempted, yielding nature shall be victor in the strife." Has God said it shall? "That my timorous, trembling heart shall find peace?" Has God said it shall? for, if He has, you surely do not mean to give Him the lie! Hath he spoken, and shall He not do it? If you have gotten a word --"a sure word" of promise--take it implicitly, trust it absolutely. And this sure word you have; nay, you have more--you have Him who speaks the word confidently. "Yea, I say unto you," trust Him. --
J. B. Figgis, M. A.
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There must be wholeness in our surrender. - No part of our nature barred or curtained off from God. Every chamber must be freely placed at His disposal; every relationship placed under His direction; every power devoted to His service. All we have and are must be entirely His.
There must be wholeness in our intention. - The one aim of our Lord was to bring glory to His Father; and we ...should never be satisfied till we are so absolutely eager for the glory of Christ that we would seek it though at the cost of infamy to ourselves; and be as glad for another to bring it to Him, as we should be in bringing it ourselves.
There must be wholeness in our obedience. - It was clearly so with Abram. As soon as God left talking with His servant, he took Isaac and performed the rite which had just been enjoined.
F. B. Meyer
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"Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."--1 John 4:7, 8
If ever you have loved Jesus with a pure affection; if ever you have felt him near, dear, and precious to your soul, that love can never be lost out of your heart. It may lie dormant; it does lie dormant. It may not be sweetly felt in exerci...se; but there it is. "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha" (1 Cor. 16:22). You would be under this curse if the love of the Lord Jesus Christ were to die out of your heart. But this love is often sleeping. When the mother sometimes watches over the cradle and looks upon her sleeping babe with unutterable affection, the infant knows not that the mother is watching its slumbers; but when it awakes, it is able to feel and return its mother's caresses. It is so with the soul sometimes when love in the heart is like a babe slumbering in the cradle. But as the babe opens its eyes, and sees the mother smiling upon it, it returns the smiles, and stretches forth its arms to embrace the bending cheek; so when the eyes of the soul are opened to see the smiling face of Jesus stooping to imprint a kiss of love, or drop some sweet word into the heart, and there is a flowing forth toward him of love and affection--this is the power of love.
J. C. Philpot
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SPIRITUALLY ALIVE
1 John 5:11, 12 NIV
And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
When God breathed life into Adam, he was both physically and spiritually alive. Adam was spiritually alive because his soul was in union with God. We were never designed to be separated from God or to live independently of Him. We were born to be spiritually alive.
For the Christian, to be spiritually alive is to be in union with God. This concept is repeatedly presented in Scripture by the prepositional phrase in Christ . Being in Christ is the theme of the New Testament. Like Adam, we were created to be in union with God. But Adam sinned and his union with God, and ours as well, was severed. It is God's eternal plan to bring human creation back to Himself and restore the union He enjoyed with Adam at creation. That restored union with God, which we find in Christ, is the essence of our identity.
When you were born again, your soul was united with God and you came alive spiritually, as alive as Adam was in the garden before he sinned. As the New Testament repeatedly declares, you are now in Christ , and Christ is in you. Since Christ who is in you is eternal, the spiritual life you have received from Him is eternal. You don't have to wait until you die to get eternal life; you possess it right now!
The apostle John wrote, "He who has the Son has the life" (1 John 5:12). He probably remembered Jesus' statement to Martha: "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die" (John 11:25, 26). After Jesus said this to Martha, He added, "Do you believe this?" (verse 26).
The Word of God is clear: Because of Jesus, we will continue to live spiritually even after we die physically. Do you believe this?
Prayer: Dear Father, I declare my wholehearted belief that my spiritual life--eternal life--is in You. Help me live today with eternity's values in view.
Neil T. Anderson
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A Man Without Fear
"And He said, Certainly I will be with thee" (Exodus 3:12).
Of course, if the LORD sent Moses on an errand, He would not let him go alone. The tremendous risk which it would involve and the great power it would require would render it ridiculous for God to send a poor lone Hebrew to confront the mightiest king in all the world and then leave him to himself. It could not be ...imagined that a wise God would match poor Moses with Pharaoh and the enormous forces of Egypt. Hence He says, "Certainly I will be with thee," as if it were out of the question that He would send him alone.
In my case, also, the same rule will hold good. If I go upon the LORD's errand with a simple reliance upon His power and a single eye to His glory, it is certain that He will be with me. His sending me binds Him to back me up. Is not this enough? What more can I want? If all the angels and arch- angels were with me. I might fail; but if He is with me, I must succeed. Only let me take care that I act worthily toward this promise. Let me not go timidly, halfheartedly, carelessly, presumptuously. What manner of person ought he to be who has God with him! In such company it behoveth me to play the man and, like Moses, go in unto Pharaoh without fear.
Charles Spurgeon
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1/16/2012
Where’s the Path?
By Max Lucado
Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Matthew 28:19-20
There’s a story of a man on an African safari deep in the jungle. The guide assigned to him had a machete and was whacking away the tall weeds and thick underbrush.
The traveler, tired and hot, and a bit frustrated said, “Where are we? Do you know where you’re taking me? Where’s the path?”
The seasoned guide stopped—looked back at the man and said, “I am the path!”
We ask the same questions, don’t we? We ask God, “Where are you taking me? Where’s the path?”
And he, like the guide, doesn’t tell us. Oh he may give us a hint or two, but that’s all.
If he did, would we understand? Would we comprehend? No, like the traveler, we’re unacquainted with this jungle.
Jesus gives us a far greater gift. He says, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
He gives us himself!
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"Prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Rom. xii. 2).
There are three conditions in which the water in that engine may be. First, the boiler may be full and the water clean and clear; or, secondly, the boiler may not only be full but the water may be hot, very hot, hot enough to scald you, almost boiling; thirdly, it may be just one degree hotter and at the... boiling point, giving forth its vapor in clouds of steam, pressing through the valves and driving the mighty piston which turns the wheels and propels the train of cars across the country.
So there are three kinds of Christians. The first we will call cold water Christians, or, perhaps better, clean water Christians.
Secondly, there are hot water Christians. They are almost at the boiling point.
One degree more, we come to the third class of Christians, the boiling water Christians. The difference is a very slight one; it simply takes one reservation out, drops one "if," eliminates a single touch, and yet it is all the difference in the world. That one degree changes that engine into a motive power, not now a thing to be looked at, but a thing to go.
A. B. Simpson
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Faith Grows Amid Storms
"He hath acquainted himself with my beaten path. When he hath searched me out, I shall come out shining" (Job 23:10, free translation).
Faith grows amid storms"--just four words, but oh, how full of import to the soul who has been in the storms!
Faith is that God-given faculty which, when exercised, brings the unseen into plain view, and by which the impossible things are made possible. It deals with supernaturals.
But it "grows amid storms"; that is, where there are disturbances in the spiritual atmosphere. Storms are caused by the conflicts of elements; and the storms of the spiritual world are conflicts with hostile elements.
In such an atmosphere faith finds its most productive soil; in such an element it comes more quickly to full fruition.
The staunchest tree is not found in the shelter of the forest, but out in the open where the winds from every quarter beat upon it, and bend and twist it until it becomes a giant in stature this is the tree which the mechanic wants his tools made of, and the wagon-maker seeks.
So in the spiritual world, when you see a giant, remember the road you must travel to come up to his side is not along the sunny lane where wild flowers ever bloom; but a steep, rocky, narrow pathway where the blasts of hell will almost blow you off your feet; where the sharp rocks cut the flesh, where the projecting thorns scratch the brow, and the venomous beasts hiss on every side.
It is a pathway of sorrow and joy, of suffering and healing balm, of tears and smiles, of trials and victories, of conflicts and triumphs, of hardships and perils and buffetings, of persecutions and misunderstandings, of troubles and distress; through all of which we are made more than conquerors through Him who loves us.
"Amid storms." Right in the midst where it is fiercest. You may shrink back from the ordeal of a fierce storm of trial...but go in! God is there to meet you in the center of all your trials, and to whisper His secrets which will make you come forth with a shining face and an indomitable faith that all the demons of hell shall never afterwards cause to waver. --E. A. Kilbourne
Streams in the Desert
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Showing It Before Him
"I showed before him my trouble." Psa 142:2
What the trouble of the psalmist was it is impossible for us to say. It was so bitter in its onset that his spirit was overwhelmed within him.
In one of his sermons, Mr. Spurgeon touched on our ignorance of Paul's thorn in the flesh. He suggests that perhaps it is unspecified so that each of us may apply it to ourselves. And I think that the vagueness of the Bible is often of a deliberate intention in order that room may be left within its words for every variety of human need.
When Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled," He was not contemplating exemption for His own followers. He knew there would be troubles in their lives; what He enjoined was an untroubled heart. And one great help to an untroubled heart amid the thronging troubles of our lives is to be found in this practice of the psalmist. A brave man does not show his troubles before all the world. He tries to hide them and keep a smiling face in order that he might not be a discouragement to others. But to show before the Lord our troubles in the quiet moment when the door is shut is one of the secrets of serenity.
George H. Morrison
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God Cares
One feels, too, that David, like Abraham, had seen the day of Christ. His personal trouble was of concern to God. One hears it said so often that in the Old Testament the nation was the unit, and one remembers right through the Old Testament the insistence on the majesty of God. Yet here is a troubled and persecuted soul who dares to think that the God of all the earth has a... heart responsive to his very own trouble. He never dreamed it was a thing too petty for the concern of the infinite Jehovah. With a quiet confidence he showed it before Him who was the Maker of heaven and earth. And the wonderful thing is how this faith of David in the individual loving care of God was confirmed by great David's greater Son. Not a sparrow can fall without our Father. The very hairs of our head are numbered. If we, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto our children, how much more our Father? There would be no surprise in that precious teaching for one who could write in childlike trust, "I showed before him my trouble."
George H. Morrison
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"Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building filly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord."--Ephesians 2:20, 21
Christ is the Head of every member individually, as he is the Head of the whole body collectively. Growth of the body, from babyhood to manhood, is the growth of individual members in the body. If, then, I am a member of the ...mystical body of Christ Jesus, I shall grow. My growth may be so slow and gradual as to be scarcely perceptible; but it will be growth still. If I have union with Christ, I shall be supplied, at least in some measure, out of his fulness. He is my life, and he has promised, because he lives, I shall live also; and if I live by him, I shall live upon and unto him. Paul could say, "The life which I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God;" and also, "And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:15). By a sound gospel ministry our souls are fed. Christ is set before us in all the glories of his divine Person, in his Deity and Sonship, and in all the graces of his suffering humanity. His covenant characters and gracious relationships, his blood and righteousness, his death and resurrection, his ascension and glorification at the right hand of the Father, his present mediation and intercession, his sympathy as a once suffering but now exalted high Priest, and his ability to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him, are brought before us as the food of our faith; and as we taste that he is gracious, and feed upon him as the bread of life, there is a growth into him.
J. C. Philpot
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THE BELIEVER'S TENT
Genesis 2:7
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being
Biblically, life means to unite and death means to separate . When Adam became a living being, his soul was in union with his body. When he died, his soul separated from his body.
As long as you are alive, your soul is united with your body. But when that separation occurs, you do not cease to exist. Paul said that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). Your primary identity is not found in your physical existence. Paul said, "From now on we recognize no man according to the flesh" (2 Corinthians 5:16).
Even though your principal identity is more than physical, in this temporal life you cannot function without your physical body. Your immaterial self needs your material self, and vice versa. You need your physical brain to control your movements and responses, and you need your immaterial mind to reason and make value judgments. Your brain is like a computer and your mind is the programmer. The finest human brain can't accomplish anything in a corpse which lacks a mind. And the most brilliant mind cannot function in a brain damaged by Alzheimer's disease.
In 2 Corinthians 5:1-4 Paul referred to the believer's body as a tent, the temporary dwelling place of the soul. Using his illustration, I must confess that my tent pegs are coming up, my poles are sagging, and my seams are becoming frayed! At my age I'm just glad that there's more to me than the disposable earth suit I walk around in.
You don't exist for your body; it exists for you. That's why Paul said, "I beat my body and make it my slave" (1 Corinthians 9:27 NIV ). In order to fulfill your purpose for being here, you need to manage your body well through exercise, balanced diet and adequate rest.
Prayer: Lord, help me to not overemphasize or underemphasize the significance of my physical life but stay in step with Your view.
Neil T. Anderson
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Be Happy
by Joyce Meyer
The Lord is my Strength and Song; and He has become my Salvation. The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents and private dwellings of the [uncompromisingly] righteous: the right hand of the Lord does valiantly and achieves strength! —Psalm 118:14–15
Happiness is the result of a radical, outrageous relationship with God. If we want to walk in victory, we have to put some time into our relationship with the Lord. There is much to discover about His plans for us.
Our contentment won’t last if we are not obeying God by seeking Him with our whole heart. God wants us to really talk to Him and pay attention to His answers. Spend enough time with Him this morning to walk in victory all day.
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1/15/2012
You Need A Savior
By Max Lucado
“What is impossible with men is possible with God.” Luke 18:27 NIV
The rich young ruler thought heaven was just a payment away. It only made sense. You work hard, pay your dues, and “zap”—your account is credited as paid in full. Jesus said, “No way.” What you want costs way more than you can pay. You don’t need a system, you need a Savior. You don’t need a resume, you need a Redeemer. For “what is impossible with me is possible with God.”
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"As ye have received Christ Jesus so walk in Him" (Col. ii. 6).
It is much easier to keep the fire burning than to rekindle it after it has gone out. Let us abide in Him. Let us not have to remove the cinders and ashes from our hearthstones every day and kindle a new flame; but let us keep it burning and never let it expire. Among the ancient Greeks the sacred fire was never allowed ...to go out; so, in a higher sense, let us keep the heavenly flame aglow upon the altar of the heart.
It takes very much less effort to maintain a good habit than to form it. A true spiritual habit once formed becomes a spontaneous tendency of our being, and we grow into delightful freedom in following it. "Let us not be ever laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, but let us go on unto perfection; and whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same things."
Every spiritual habit begins with difficulty and effort and watchfulness, but if we will only let it get thoroughly established, it will become a channel along which currents of life will flow with divine spontaneousness and freedom.
A. B. Simpson
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Unbelief sees God through circumstances, as we sometimes see the sun shorn of his rays through smoky air; but faith puts God between itself and circumstances, and looks at them through Him.
F. B. Meyer
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It is one thing to comprehend by the intellect; it is altogether another to apprehend by the heart. There is no such teacher as God; and the mistake of our modern religious life is to receive so much from man, instead of waiting in rapt silence until God Himself communicates His truth to us. The conditions are purity of desire, cleanness of heart, and willingness to obey.
F. B. Meyer
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"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."--2 Corinthians 4:7
Be not surprised if you feel that in yourself you are but an earthen vessel; if you are made deeply and daily sensible unto what a frail body God has communicated light and life. Be not surprised if your clay house is often tottering; if sickness sometimes... assails your mortal tabernacle; if in your flesh there dwelleth no good thing; if your soul often cleaves to the dust; and if you are unable to retain a sweet sense of God's goodness and love. Be not surprised nor startled at the corruptions of your depraved nature; at the depth of sin in your carnal mind; at the vile abominations which lurk and work in your deceitful and desperately wicked heart. Bear in mind that it is the will of God that this heavenly treasure which makes you rich for eternity should be lodged in an earthen vessel. We are to carry about a daily sense of our base original to hide pride from our eyes. We are to be despised by others; and by none so much as by our own selves. We have ever to feel our native weakness, and that without Christ we can do nothing; that we may be clothed with humility, and feel ourselves the chief of sinners, and less than the least of all saints. We thus learn to prize the heights, breadths, lengths, and depths of the love of Christ, who stooped so low to raise us up so high.
J. C. Philpot
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OUR ESSENTIAL IDENTITY
Genesis 1:26
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness"
Adam was created physically and spiritually alive. He possessed eternal life from his first breath and enjoyed God's abiding presence in the Garden of Eden.
Furthermore, unlike the animal kingdom that operated by divine instinct, Adam was created in the likeness of God with a mind, emotions and will, giving him the ability to think, feel and choose. No other created being can make that claim.
After creating Adam, God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18). So He created a suitable helper for him: Eve. They both enjoyed a sense of belonging to God and each other. Not only that, God gave them a purpose: to "rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth" (Genesis 1:26). Adam and Eve didn't have to search for significance; they had it in their relationship with God. And because God was present with them, they lived in perpetual safety and security.
Eternal life, identity, purpose, significance, security and a sense of belonging are all attributes of mankind created in the image of God. Adam and Eve experienced these attributes in full measure, and we were destined to enjoy them too. But when Adam sinned, he died spiritually and forfeited everything God had provided. Being separated from God, Adam's glowing attributes became glaring needs.
As children of Adam born separated from God, we come into the world with these same glaring needs. We wander though life striving to make a name of ourselves, looking for security in temporal things, and searching for significance apart from God. Is it a hopeless quest? No! We are able to fulfill these needs by establishing a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. Everything Adam enjoyed in the garden before he sinned is now at our disposal.
Prayer: Loving heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to die for my sin so I may have eternal life. And thank You that in Christ my need for identity, significance, security and a sense of belonging can be met.
Neil T. Anderson
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1/14/2012
Let Him
By Max Lucado
“Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does.” I Corinthians 14:1 The Message
Loosen up. Don’t you have some people to hug, rocks to skip, or lips to kiss? . . .
It’s time to retire. Not from your job, just retire from your attitude. Honestly, has complaining ever made the day better? Has grumbling ever paid the bills? Has worrying about tomorrow ever changed it?
Let someone else run the world for a while.
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"Unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. iv. 13).
God loves us so well that He will not suffer us to take less than His highest will. Some day we shall bless our faithful teacher, who kept the standard inflexibly rigid, and then gave us the strength and grace to reach it, and would not excuse us until we had accomplished all His glorious will.
Let... us be inexorable with ourselves. Let us mean exactly what God means, and have no discounts upon His promises or commandments. Let us keep the standard up, and never rest until we reach it. "Let God be true and every man a liar." If we fail a hundred times don't let us accommodate God's ideal to our realization, but like the brave ensign who stood in front of his company waving the banner, and when the soldiers called him back he only waved it higher, and cried, "Don't bring the standard back to the regiment, but bring the regiment up to the colors."
Forward, forward, leave the past behind thee,
Reaching forth unto the things before;
All the Land of Promise lies before thee,
God has greater blessings yet in store.
A. B. Simpson
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Christ Sometimes Delays His Help
"I called upon him, but he gave me no answer" (S. of Sol. 5:6).
The Lord, when He hath given great faith, hath been known to try it by long delayings. He has suffered His servants' voices to echo in their ears as from a brazen sky. They have knocked at the golden gate, but it has remained unmovable, as though it were rusted upon its hinges.... Like Jeremiah, they have cried, "Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through." Thus have true saints continued long in patient waiting without reply, not because their prayers were not vehement, nor because they were unaccepted, but because it so pleased Him who is a Sovereign, and who gives according to His own pleasure. If it pleases Him to bid our patience exercise itself, shall He not do as He will with His own!
No prayer is lost. Praying breath was never spent in vain. There is no such thing as prayer unanswered or unnoticed by God, and some things that we count refusals or denials are simply delays. --H. Bonar
Christ sometimes delays His help that He may try our faith and quicken our prayers. The boat may be covered with the waves, and He sleeps on; but He will wake up before it sinks. He sleeps, but He never oversleeps; and there are no "too lates" with Him. --Alexander Maclaren
Be still, sad soul! lift thou no passionate cry, But spread the desert of thy being bare To the full searching of the All-seeing eye; Wait! and through dark misgiving, black despair,
God will come down in pity, and fill the dry Dead place with light, and life, and vernal air. --J. C. Shairp
Streams in the Desert
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God owns all; all the earth is His empire; wherever we travel we are within His dominion, breathe His air, are ministered to by His angels. We have a right to the best in all good things, since they are our Father's, and we are heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ.
F. B. Meyer
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When I trust a person, I do more than hope. When I hope, I do less than trust. To hope in God is therefore something different from a feeble and attenuated trust. It is to base every hope that burns within us on the profound recognition that God is. Base your hope, whatever your hope may be--and hopes are of a thousand different kinds--on the recognition that God reigns, and that God, the God of t...he whole Bible, a Father infinitely loving, has been revealed to us in the Lord Jesus. If that is false, if there is no such Being, our sweetest hopes are mockeries. We have nothing to build on but the sand. Our hopes may come to ruin at any moment. But if God is and we are sure of that, surer than we are of our hands or feet, then there is hope for us and for the world. Hope, my soul, because there is a God--that is what the psalmist really means. Hope, because He reigns. Hope, because He is on the throne. Hope, because He cares for you and loves you; because He cares for all the world and loves the world; because He so loved the world that He gave Jesus.
George H. Morrison
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"Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you."--2 Corinthians 6:17
If we are entangled in the love of the world, or fast bound and fettered with worldly anxieties, and the spirit of the world is rife in our bosom, all our profession will be vapid, if not worthless. We may use the language of prayer, but the hear...t is not in earnest; we may still manage to hold our head high in a profession of the truth, but its power and blessedness are neither known nor felt. To enjoy any measure of communion with the Lord, whether on the cross or on the throne, we must go forth from a world which is at enmity against him. We must also go forth out of self, for to deny it, renounce it, and go forth out of it lies at the very foundation of vital godliness. There must be "a mortifying, through the Spirit, of the deeds of the body;" a being "always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh;" and unless there is a going forth out of self by this self-crucifixion, there is no walking in hand with Christ, no manifest union, no heavenly communion with him; for there can no more be a partnership between Christ, the soul, and self than there can be a partnership between Christ, the soul, and sin.
J. C. Philpot
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You never lose esteem in your child's eyes when you do what God requires you to do. You gain esteem because you are an honest person, and in the process you are modeling what they need to do when they blow it. Children need models, not critics. Modeling is what establishes our credibility to "bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4).
Prayer: Lord, help me model a life of obedience and honesty before my children and others who look to me as an example. And when I fail, give me grace to admit my mistakes and resolve my conflicts.
Neil T. Anderson
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Rest Is a Gift
"Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew I 1:28).
We who are saved find rest in Jesus. Those who are not saved will receive rest if they come to Him, for here He promises to "give" it. Nothing can be freer than a gift; let us gladly accept what He gladly gives. You are not to buy it, nor to borrow it, but to receive it as a gift. Yo...u labor under the lash of ambition, covetousness, lust, or anxiety: He will set you free from this iron bondage and give you rest. You are "laden," yes, "heavy laden" with sin, fear, care, remorse, fear of death; but if you come to Him He will unload you. He carried the crushing mass of our sin that we might no longer carry it. He made Himself the great Burden-bearer, that every laden one might cease from bowing down under the enormous pressure.
Jesus gives rest. It is so. Will you believe it? Will you put it to the test? Will you do so at once? Come to Jesus by quitting every other hope, by thinking of Him, believing God's testimony about Him, and trusting everything with Him. If you thus come to Him the rest which He wilt give you will be deep, safe, holy, and everlasting. He gives a rest which develops into heaven, and He gives it this day to all who come to Him.
Charles Spurgeon
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1/13/2012
Pray About Everything
By Max Lucado
Call to me in times of trouble. I will save you, and you will honor me. Psalm 50:15
Want to worry less? Then pray more!
Rather than look forward in fear—in worry—look to God. Jesus taught people that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit.
Paul told believers, “Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.”
James said, “Are any among you suffering? Keep on praying about it!”
Regarding prayer, the Bible never blushes. Rather than worry about anything, “pray about everything!”
Everything? Diaper changes and dates? Business meetings and stopped up bathtubs?
Schedules and flight delays? Procrastinations and prognostications?
Really?
Pray about everything!
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"Thou shalt be to him instead of God" (Ex. iv. 16).
Such was God's promise to Moses, and such the high character that Moses was to assume toward Aaron, his brother. May it not suggest a high and glorious place that each of us may occupy toward all whom we meet, instead of God?
What a dignity and glory it would give our lives, could we uniformly realize this high calling!... How it would lead us to act toward our fellow-men! God can always be depended upon. God is without variableness or shadow of turning. God's word is unchangeable, and we can trust Him without reserve or question. Oh, that we might so live that men can trust us, even as God!
Again, God has no needs or wants to be supplied. He is always giving. "Rich unto all that call upon Him." The glory of His nature is love, unselfish love, and beneficence toward all His creatures. The Divine life is a self-forgetting life, a life that has nothing to do but love and bless.
Let us so live, representing our Master here, while He represents us before the Throne on high.
A. B. Simpson
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God Has Chosen Me
"I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction" (Isa. 48:10).
Does not the Word come like a soft shower, assuaging the fury of the flame? Yes, is it not an asbestos armor, against which the heat has no power? Let the affliction come--God has chosen me. Poverty, thou mayest stride in at my door; but God is in the house already, and He has chosen me. Sic...kness, thou mayest intrude; but I have a balsam ready--God has chosen me. Whatever befall me in this vale of tears, I know that He has chosen me.
Fear not, Christian; Jesus is with thee. In all thy fiery trials, His presence is both thy comfort and safety. He will never leave one whom He has chosen for His own. "Fear not, for I am with thee," is His sure word of promise to His chosen ones in "the furnace of affliction." --C. H. Spurgeon
Pain's furnace heat within me quivers, God's breath upon the flame doth blow; And all my heart in anguish shivers And trembles at the fiery glow; And yet I whisper, "As God will!" And in the hottest fire hold still.
He comes and lays my heart, all heated, On the hard anvil, minded so Into His own fair shape to beat it With His great hammer, blow on blow; And yet I whisper, "As God will!" And at His heaviest blows hold still.
He takes my softened heart and beats it; The sparks fly off at every blow; He turns it o'er and o'er and heats it, And lets it cool, and makes it glow; And yet I whisper, "As God will!" And in His mighty hand hold still.
Why should I murmur? for the sorrow Thus only longer-lived would be; The end may come, and will tomorrow, When God has done His work in me; So I say trusting, "As God will!" And, trusting to the end, hold still. --Julius Sturm
The burden of suffering seems a tombstone hung about our necks, while in reality it is only the weight which is necessary to keep down the diver while he is hunting for pearls. --Richter
Streams in the Desert
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"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you."--1 Peter 4:12
The "fiery trial," then, is not a strange thing which happens only to a few of the Lord's family, but is more or less the appointed lot of all. Do we not hear the Lord saying to his Zion, "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction?" All t...hen that are chosen must pass through the furnace of affliction, and all know experimentally the fiery trial, for by it they are made partakers of Christ's sufferings. But this is indispensable in order to be partakers of his glory. "If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." Thus they suffer with him, "that when his glory shall be revealed, they may be glad also with exceeding joy." And this suffering with and for Christ in the furnace of affliction salts the soul, preserves it from corruption, communicates health, gives it savour and flavour, is a token of interest in the everlasting covenant, and is a seal of friendship and peace with God.
J. C. Philpot
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BELIEVE IN GOD
Hebrews 11:6
Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him
The life of Wilma Rudolph, the great Olympic sprinter, is a remarkable story of faith. Wilma was born with health problems that left her crippled. "Will I ever be able to run and play like the other children?" Wilma asked her parents.
"Honey, you have to believe in God and never give up hope," they responded. "If you believe, God will make it happen." Taking her parents' counsel, she painfully struggled to walk. By the time she was 12, to the delight and surprise of many, Wilma no longer needed her braces. She went on to play basketball on her championship high school team and win three gold medals in the 1960 Olympics.
When you hear inspiring stories of faith like Wilma Rudolph's, do you sometimes wonder, "What could I accomplish if I took God at His Word?" Faith is the foundational principle of the Christian life. Believing who God is, what He says, what He has done, and what He will do defines the kingdom of God.
Furthermore, faith is the essence of the Christian's day-to-day activity. Paul wrote: "As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him" (Colossians 2:6). How did you receive Christ? By faith. How then are you to walk in Him? By faith. In Scripture, walking refers to the way you conduct your everyday life. Victorious Christian living and spiritual maturity are determined by our belief in God.
We tend to think of faith as some kind of mystical quality which belongs only in the realm of the spiritual. But everybody walks by faith. It is the most basic operating principle of life. The question is, in what or in whom do you believe? We are challenged to believe in God and take His Word seriously.
Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that Your Word stands forever in heaven. I can trust in You and Your Word despite my changing feelings and circumstances.
Neil T. Anderson
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Never Cast Out
"Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37).
Is there any instance of our LORD's casting out a coming one? If there be so, we would like to know of it; but there has been none, and there never will be. Among the lost souls in hell there is not one that can say, "I went to Jesus, and He refused me." It is not possible that you or I should be the first to whom ...Jesus shall break His word. Let us not entertain so dark a suspicion.
Suppose we go to Jesus now about the evils of today. Oh, this we may be sure -- He will not refuse us audience or cast us out. Those of us who have often been and those who have never gone before -- let us go together, and we shall see that He will not shut the door of His grace in the face of any one of us.
"This man receiveth sinners," but He repulses none. We come to Him in weakness and sin, with trembling faith, and small knowledge, and slender hope; but He does not cast us out. We come by prayer, and that prayer broken; with confession, and that confession faulty; with praise, and that praise far short of His merits; but yet He receives us. We come diseased, polluted, worn out, and worthless; but He doth in no wise cast us out. Let us come again today to Him who never casts us out.
Charles Spurgeon
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God Says, "You Can Trust Me"
by Joyce Meyer
Blessed … is the man who fears (reveres and worships) the Lord … He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is firmly fixed, trusting (leaning on and being confident) in the Lord. —Psalm 112:1, 7
God sometimes speaks by giving us peace deep inside our hearts. You may face situations in which everyone around you is telling you to trust God and be at peace, but the “how to” evades you. Fears are screaming at you, unnerving you, and threatening you. Friends are saying, “Everything will be all right,” but you find that hard to believe until God Himself speaks deep in your heart and says, “You can trust Me; I will take care of this. Everything really is going to be all right.”
In 1989, I went to the doctor for a regular checkup. He discovered a fast-growing type of cancer, and recommended surgery immediately.
As a result of this news, I struggled with tremendous fear. I had trouble sleeping, and there were times when fear hit me so hard I felt I was going to fall down. No matter how many of my family members or friends reassured me, I still battled great fear until very early one morning, about 3:00, God spoke deep inside my heart and said, “Joyce, you can trust Me.”
After that, I did not experience any sickening fear again. I was apprehensive as I waited for results on tests, but I was not terrified. I knew I was in God’s hands and whatever happened, He would take care of me.
As it turned out, I did not need further treatment. I ended up thankful instead of fearful—and that’s what can happen in any situation when we learn to hear God’s voice.
God’s word for you today: Trust God. He won’t let you down.
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1/12/2012
Only One You
By Max Lucado
From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works. Psalm 33:14-15 NKJV
The truth is—you were a brand-new idea from the mind of God!
Psalm 33:14-15 says, “From the place of His dwelling, He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually.”
You’re the only you God made! He made you and broke the mold! No one can duplicate your life.
Scan history for your replica—you won’t find it! You’re tailor made by God. God personally formed and made you. You’re not one of many! You’re it!
And if you don’t take full advantage of how God made you, we don’t get you. We miss out!
Think of it this way: you’re heaven’s Halley’s comet. And we have one shot at seeing you shine!
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"Ask and it shall be given you" (Matt. vii. 7).
We must receive, as well as ask. We must take the place of believing, and recognize ourselves as in it. A friend was saying, "I want to get into the will of God," and this was the answer: "Will you step into the will of God? And now, are you in the will of God?" The question aroused a thought that had not come before.
The g...entleman saw that he had been straining after, but not receiving the blessing he sought.
Jesus has said, "Ask and ye shall receive." The very strain keeps back the blessing. The intense tension of all your spiritual nature so binds you that you are not open to the blessing which God is waiting to give you. "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."
He tells me there is cleansing
From every secret sin,
And a great and full salvation
To keep the heart within.
And I take Him in His fulness,
With all His glorious grace,
For He says it is mine by taking,
And I take just what He says.
A. B. Simpson
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Weights Become Wings
"They shall mount up with wings as eagles" (Isa.40:31).
There is a fable about the way the birds got their wings at the beginning. They were first made without wings. Then God made the wings and put them down before the wingless birds and said to them, "Come, take up these burdens and bear them."
...
The birds had lovely plumage and sweet voices; they could sing, and their feathers gleamed in the sunshine, but they could not soar in the air. They hesitated at first when bidden to take up the burdens that lay at their feet, but soon they obeyed, and taking up the wings in their beaks, laid them on their shoulders to carry them.
For a little while the load seemed heavy and hard to bear, but presently, as they went on carrying the burdens, folding them over their hearts, the wings grew fast to their little bodies, and soon they discovered how to use them, and were lifted by them up into the air--the weights became wings.
It is a parable. We are the wingless birds, and our duties and tasks are the pinions God has made to lift us up and carry us heavenward. We look at our burdens and heavy loads, and shrink from them; but as we lift them and bind them about our hearts, they become wings, and on them we rise and soar toward God.
There is no burden which, if we lift it cheerfully and bear it with love in our hearts, will not become a blessing to us. God means our tasks to be our helpers; to refuse to bend our shoulders to receive a load, is to decline a new opportunity for growth. --J. R. Miller
Blessed is any weight, however overwhelming, which God has been so good as to fasten with His own hand upon our shoulders. F. W. Faber
Streams in the Desert
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"I am the door; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."--John 10:9
There is a finding pasture in providence. A sweet and healthy pasture indeed this is to watch the Lord's providential dealings with us spread through a long series of years. It is seeing the Lord's providential hand which makes the commonest temporal mercies sweet. Eve...ry nibble of grass or lock of hay which we can believe to be specially provided for us by the hand of that good Shepherd becomes thereby doubly sweet. But O what pastures in grace has God provided for his hungry sheep! Look at the promises and declarations, the sacred truths and heavenly consolations scattered up and down the Scriptures of truth. But of all spiritual pasture thus provided for the flock, the chiefest is the flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus. This is his own divine declaration: "For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:55). And every communication of grace to the soul out of the fulness of Christ, every promise applied with a divine power to the heart, every truth which drops with heavenly savour, every season of encouragement; in a word, every part of God's word which the soul can eat and feed upon is spiritual pasture. Thus the prophet found it of old: "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts" (Jeremiah 15:16).
J. C. Philpot
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The New Song
"He hath put a new song in my mouth." Psa 40:3
When anybody sings it is an outward token of an inward happiness. Despondent people very seldom sing. When a man sings as he walks the country road it means that he has a heart of peace. When he sings while he is dressing in the morning, it means that he gladly accepts another day.
George H. Morrison
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What is prayer? It is communication with God by which we express our dependence on Him. God knows what we need in our battle with the powers of darkness, and He is more ready to meet our needs than we are to ask. But until we express our dependence on Him in prayer, God may not act. In prayer we say, "You are the Lord, not I. You know what's best; I don't. I'm not telling You what to do; I'm askin...g." Prayer is a means by which God guides and protects His children.
Praying in the Spirit is God's way of helping us pray when we don't know how: "The Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us" (Romans 8:26). Helps (sunantilambano) depicts the Holy Spirit's role of coming alongside us in our condition of human frailty and spiritual vulnerability and bearing us to the other side of spiritual protection and victory.
Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that prayer is such a powerful weapon in my arsenal against the powers of darkness.
Neil T. Anderson
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"Loved unto the End"
"For the LORD will not cast off for ever" (Lamentations 3:31).
He may cast away for a season but not forever. A woman may leave off her ornaments for a few days, but she will not forget them or throw them upon the dunghill. It is not like the LORD to cast off those whom He loves, for "having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end." Some talk of... our being in grace and out of it, as if we were like rabbits that run in and out of their burrows; but, indeed, it is not so. The LORD's love is a far more serious and abiding matter than this.
He chose us from eternity, and He will love us throughout eternity. He loved us so as to die for us, and we may therefore be sure that His love will never die. His honor is so wrapped up in the salvation of the believer that He can no more cast him of than He can cast off His own robes of office as King of glory. No, no! The LORD Jesus, as a Head, never casts off His members; as a Husband, He never casts off His bride. Did you think you were cast off? Why did you think so evil of the LORD who has betrothed you to Himself? Cast off such thoughts, and never let them lodge in your soul again. "The LORD hath not cast away his people which he foreknew" (Romans 11:2). "He hateth putting away" (Malachi 2:16).
Charles Spurgeon
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1/11/2012
What Are You Worried About?
By Max Lucado
I was young, and now I am old, but I have never seen good people left helpless or their children begging for food. Psalm 37:25
What are you worried about?
We worry about the IRS, the SAT, and the TSA!
We worry that we won’t have enough money. And when we have enough money, we worry that we won’t manage it well.
We worry that the world will end before the parking meter expires. We worry what the dog thinks if he sees us step out of the shower. We worry that someday we’ll learn that fat-free yogurt was fattening!
Honestly now. Did God save you so you would fret? Would he teach you to walk just to watch you fall?
Would he be nailed to the cross for your sins and then disregard your prayers? Come on!
Is scripture teasing us when it reads, “He has put his angels in charge of you to watch over you wherever you go?” (Psalm 91:11)
I don’t think so either!
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"Hold fast till I come" (Rev. ii. 25).
The other day we asked a Hebrew friend how it was that his countrymen were so successful in acquiring wealth. "Ah," said he, "we do not make more money than other people, but we keep more." Beloved, let us look out this day for spiritual pickpockets and spiritual leakage. Let us "lose nothing of what we have wrought, but receive a full reward"; ...and, as each day comes and goes, let us put away in the savings bank of eternity its treasures of grace and victory, and so be conscious from day to day that something real and everlasting is being added to our eternal fortune.
It may be but a little, but if we only economize all that God gives us, and pass it on to His keeping, when the close shall come we shall be amazed to see how much the accumulated treasures of a well spent life have laid up on high, and how much more He has added to them by His glorious investment of the life committed to His keeping.
Oh, how the days are telling! Oh, how precious these golden hours will seem sometime! God help us to make the most of them now.
A. B. Simpson
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Keep Your Hands Off
"Neither know we what to do; but our eyes are, upon thee" (2 Chron. 20:12).
A life was lost in Israel because a pair of human hands were laid unbidden upon the ark of God. They were placed upon it with the best intent, to steady it when trembling and shaking as the oxen drew it along the rough way; but they touched God's work presumptuously, and they f...ell paralyzed and lifeless. Much of the life of faith consists in letting things alone.
If we wholly trust an interest to God, we must keep our hands off it; and He will guard it for us better than we can help Him. "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass."
Things may seem to be going all wrong, but He knows as well as we; and He will arise in the right moment if we are really trusting Him so fully as to let Him work in His own way and time. There is nothing so masterly as inactivity in some things, and there is nothing so hurtful as restless working, for God has undertaken to work His sovereign will. --A. B. Simpson
"Being perplexed, I say, 'Lord, make it right! Night is as day to Thee, Darkness as light. I am afraid to touch Things that involve so much; My trembling hand may shake, My skilless hand may break; Thine can make no mistake.'
"Being in doubt I say, 'Lord, make it plain; Which is the true, safe way? Which would be gain? I am not wise to know, Nor sure of foot to go; What is so clear to Thee, Lord, make it clear to me!'"
It is such a comfort to drop the tangles of life into God's hands and leave them there.
Streams in the Desert
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Let us go Down. Genesis 11:7
God comes down into human life. Though the world is corrupt and full of violence; though His arch-enemy has taught man to dread and hate Him; though attempts are on foot to resist Him in open rebellion, by making a unity apart from Him, and in exclusion of His cornerstone, yet He comes down.
He comes down to see. - He will not pronounce judgme...nt till He has satisfied Himself by personal inspection how things stand. He comes down to our bedrooms, and overhears the words we speak, the deeds we do there; to our home-life, and is a silent listener and observer of all its incidents; to our shops, warehouses, and bank-parlors, auditing our accounts, casting up the columns, examining our samples, our weights and measures, our advertisements and circulars. From Him no secrets are hid.
He comes down to punish. - " Let me alone, that I may destroy." Never forget the punitive side of God's character. How easily He asserts His power! He can disorganize the memory, breathe on the brain, touch one small nerve or muscle, and the best-concerted schemes fail. Why shouldst thou fear every day the fury of the oppressor, when God is at thy side!
He comes down to save. - If there be one Lot, He will bring him forth. What was the Incarnation, the descent to Calvary and the grave, but the coming down of the "us" of the blessed Trinity. He that ascended is the same that also first descended. He has come that He may heal our wounds, take us in His arms, and bear us with Him far beyond all principality and power. He is the way, by which we may pass from the confusion of Babel to the love of Pentecost, and the one speech of heaven.
F. B. Meyer
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"Watch and pray."--Mark 13:33
There is no keeping up faith except by prayer and watchfulness. As prayer declines in the bosom, so does the strength of faith. You may go on neglecting prayer and supplication until every grain of faith seems lost out of your bosom, and may come at last to think you never knew anything of a work of God upon your heart, and have been deceived in believin...g there was any grace there. By watchfulness also is the love of God maintained. Unless you watch against your besetting sins, against the snares spread for your feet, against the temptations that daily and hourly beset your path, against being overcome by the strength or subtlety of your unwearied foe, you are sure to fall; and if you fall you will bring guilt and bondage, darkness and distress into your mind, and cut off for a time all friendly intercourse with God. Therefore you must pray and watch; for without watchfulness, prayer is of little efficacy. And if we neglect the Scriptures, or read them carelessly, unbelievingly, they will do us little good. They must be read with believing eyes and heart, received as the revelation of God, and must be mixed with faith, or assuredly they will not profit us (Heb. 4:2). The life of God is a very deep, secret, and sacred thing in the soul. God, it is true, will maintain it; he will not leave his work unaccomplished; but unless we read and pray, watch and meditate, wage war against besetting sins, and seek the Lord's face continually, we shall find the strength and power of faith very sensibly decline; and if so, there is no comfortable walking with God.
J. C. Philpot
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SPRING-LOADED TOWARD THE SPIRIT
Galatians 5:16
Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh
When we first became Christians, we were like one-third horsepower lawn mower engines. We could accomplish something, but not very much because we weren't very mature. Our ambition as Christians is to become engines that can power earth-moving machinery--real powerhouses for the Lord. But neither a lawn mower nor a bulldozer can accomplish anything without gas. And neither can we accomplish anything apart from Christ (John 15:5). No matter how mature you are, you can never be productive unless you are walking in the Spirit.
When it comes to the choice between walking according to the flesh and walking according to the Spirit, our will is like a toggle switch. The new Christian's will seems to be spring-loaded toward fleshly behavior. He is still the unwitting victim of a thoroughly trained flesh which only knows how to operate independently of God. The mature Christian's will is spring-loaded toward the Spirit. He makes occasional poor choices, but he is learning to crucify the flesh and walk in the Spirit on a daily basis.
If you re hoping for a magic formula or a list of foolproof steps for walking in the Spirit, you will be disappointed. The moment you reduce the Spirit-filled walk to a formula or an intellectual exercise, you probably won't be Spirit-filled anymore.
The Holy Spirit is a "He," not an "it." Our walk with God is a personal experience, not a mechanical or legalistic formula. We see the immorality of fleshly indulgence everywhere, but simply preaching against it and telling people to shape up is not God's answer. The law is powerless to give life (Galatians 3:21). Reintroducing the law to believers won't work. But if we learn to walk by the Spirit, we won't carry out the desires of the flesh. Let's encourage others to do the same.
Prayer: Lord, I desire to be patient with others in their walk of faith as You are patient with me. Help me have a gracious response and a gentle answer to others today.
Neil T. Anderson
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Faith Sets the Bow
"And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud" (Genesis 9:14).
Just now clouds are plentiful enough, but we are not afraid that the world will be destroyed by a deluge. We see the rainbow often enough to pre- vent our having any such fears. The covenant which the LORD made with Noah stands fast, and we have no doubt...s about it. Why, then, should we think that the clouds of' trouble, which now darken our sky, will end in our destruction? Let us dismiss such groundless and dishonoring fears.
Faith always sees the bow of covenant promise whenever sense sees the cloud of affliction. God has a bow with which He might shoot out His arrows of destruction. But see, it is turned upward! It is a bow without an arrow or a string; it is a bow hung out for show, no longer used for war. It is a bow of many colors, expressing joy and delight, and not a bow blood-red with slaughter or black with anger. Let us be of good courage. Never does God so darken our sky as to leave His covenant without a witness, and even if He did, we would trust Him since He cannot change or lie or in any other way fail to keep His covenant of peace. Until the waters go over the earth again, we shall have no reason for doubting our God.
Charles Spurgeon
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1/10/2012
You’re Pre-Packed
By Max Lucado
There are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. I Corinthians 12:6
You were born pre-packed! God looked at your entire life, determined your assignment, and gave you the tools to do the job!
You do something very similar before you travel. You consider the demands of the journey and pack accordingly.
Cold weather? Bring a jacket. Business meeting? Carry the laptop.
Time with grandchildren? Better take some sneakers and pain medication!
God did the same with you. Joe will do research—install curiosity! Megan will lead a private school—an extra dose of management.
I need Eric to comfort the sick—include a healthy share of compassion. Denalyn will marry Max!—instill a double portion of patience.
Exodus 35:35 says: God has filled them with skill!
God packed you on purpose for a purpose!
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"Charity doth not behave itself unseemly" (I. Cor. xiii. 5).
In the dress of a Hindu woman, her graceful robe is fastened upon her person entirely by means of a single knot. The long strip of cloth is wound around her person so as to fall in graceful folds like a made garment, and the end is fastened by a little knot, and the whole thing hangs by that single fastening. If that were l...oosed the robe would fall. And so in the spiritual life, our habits of grace are likened unto garments; and it is also true that the garment of love, which is the beautiful adorning of the child of God, is entirely fastened by little nots.
If you will read with care the thirteenth chapter of I. Corinthians, you will find that most of the qualities of love are purely negative. "Love envieth not, love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave herself rudely, seeketh not her own, is not provoked, thinketh no evil." Here are "nots" enough to hold on our spiritual wardrobe. Here are reasons enough to explain the failure of so many, and the reason why they walk naked, or with rent garments, and others see their shame. Let us look after the nots.
A. B. Simpson
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Polish Comes Through Trouble
"He hath made me a polished shaft" (Isa. 49:2).
There is a very famous "Pebble Beach" at Pescadero, on the California coast. The long line of white surf comes up with its everlasting roar, and rattles and thunders among the stones on the shore. They are caught in the arms of the pitiless waves, and tossed and rolled, and rubbed together, and g...round against the sharp-grained cliffs. Day and night forever the ceaseless attrition goes on--never any rest. And the result?
Tourists from all the world flock thither to gather the round and beautiful stones. They are laid up in cabinets; they ornament the parlor mantels. But go yonder, around the point of the cliff that breaks off the force of the sea; and up in that quiet cove, sheltered from the storms, and lying ever in the sun, you shall find abundance of pebbles that have never been chosen by the traveler.
Why are these left all the years through unsought? For the simple reason that they have escaped all the turmoil and attrition of the waves, and the quiet and peace have left them as they found them, rough and angular and devoid of beauty. Polish comes through trouble.
Since God knows what niche we are to fill, let us trust Him to shape us to it. Since He knows what work we are to do, let us trust Him to drill us to the proper preparation.
"O blows that smite! O hurts that pierce This shrinking heart of mine! What are ye but the Master's tools Forming a work Divine?"
"Nearly all God's jewels are crystallized tears."
Streams in the Desert
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The Wealth of our Saviour's nature. - He loved all; He gave Himself for all; He became the Propitiation for the sins of all; through Him all will rise; and He is able to satisfy all from His royal heart. "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." There is not one child of man who may not find his consummation and bliss in Jesus, the One Man. All men are but broken lights of Him; and of all men that have ever lived He is the one flawless, sinless, perfect Man, the apex of the pyramid of humanity, the Head and Prince.
F. B. Meyer
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Known in Adversities
"Thou hast known my soul in adversities." Psa 31:7
One great comfort of assurance in this verse is that such knowledge is always very thorough. When someone has known us in adversities, then he has known us as we really are.
There is a sonnet by Blanco White, familiar to all the lovers of the beautiful, in which he develops the thought that but for the night, we should never know the stars. And so there is a very real sense in which we may say we never know a life till we have seen it in the darkness of adversity. When the sun is warm and all the leaves are green, you can scarcely see the cottage in the forest. But when the storm of winter sweeps the leaves away, then at last you see it as it is. It may be stronger than you ever thought, or it may be more battered and decayed, but always the winter shows it as it is.
Indeed, the revealing power of adversity strips the summer covering away. It shows us not in the setting of our circumstance, but as we are in naked reality. And therefore one who has known us in adversities, and been at our side in sorrow and calamity, knows us with an intimacy that probably nothing else can ever give. That is why the knowledge of a doctor is often more searching than that of any friend. That is why the knowledge of a wife often reaches to an unrivalled intimacy, for she has known her husband not only when all waswell with him and when the sun was shining on his head, but when his heart was wary and his body sick and all his hopes seemed crumbled into dust.
George H. Morrison
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The Condescension of God's Love
There was one other comfort for the psalmist at which our text hints unobscurely. He had been awakened through the knowledge that he speaks of to the infinite condescension of God's love.
A well-known German religious writer who has brought comfort to multitudes of mourners tells us how once he had a visit from a friend who was in great dis...tress. This friend had once been a very wealthy man, and now he had fallen upon evil days, and that very morning one of his old companions had passed him without recognition on the street. Then Gotthold, for such was the writer's name, took him by the hand and, pointing upward, said, "Thou hast known my soul in adversities."
It is one of the sayings of the moralist that the world courts prosperity and shuns adversity. There are rats in every circle of society who all hasten to leave the sinking ship. But what the psalmist had awakened to was this: the eternal God, who was his refuge, had known him and acknowledged him and talked with him when his fortunes were at their very blackest. Nothing but love could explain the condescension. He had found in God a friend who was unfailing. "If I ascend into heaven thou art there; if I make my bed in hell thou art there." So was the world made ready for the Savior who, when other helpers fail and comforts flee, never deserts us, never is ashamed of us, never leaves us to face the worst alone.
George H. Morrison
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IDENTIFYING A CHRISTIAN LEADER
2 Peter 2:1
There will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves
What comes to mind when you hear the terms false prophets and false teachers ? Many people tend to thing of Eastern mystics and gurus, the spokespersons for nonbiblical religions or dynamic cult leaders--people who are recognizably outside the boundaries of the Christian church. But the apostle Peter devoted an entire chapter in one of his letters (2 Peter 2) to false prophets and teachers who operate within the church. False teachers may operate in our churches disguised as workers of righteousness.
Notice that the lure of false teachers is not primarily their doctrine: "And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned" (verse 2). What does Peter mean by "follow their sensuality"? He is talking about Christians who evaluate a ministry based on the outward appearance and charm of its leaders. We say, "He's such a nice guy"; "She's a very charismatic person"; "He's a real dynamic speaker"; "She's so sweet and sounds so sincere." But is physical attractiveness or a syrupy personality a biblical criterion for validating a ministry or a teacher? Of course not! The issue is always truth and righteousness . A Christian leader should be identified by his commitment to the truth, his righteous life and his servant's heart.
Prayer: Dear God, keep me from playing to the grandstand; I want only to live for You. Keep me accountable as a person of truth, righteousness, and love, ever fearful of discrediting Your name.
Neil T. Anderson
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Divine Recompense
"He that watereth shall be watered also himself" (Proverbs 11:25).
If I carefully consider others, God will consider me, and in some way or other He will recompense me. Let me consider the poor, and the LORD will consider me. Let me look after little children, and the LORD will treat me as His child. Let me feed His flock, and He will feed me. Let me water His garden, and He... will make a watered garden of my soul. This is the LORD's own promise; be it mine to fulfill the condition and then to expect its fulfillment.
I may care about myself till I grow morbid; I may watch over my own feelings till I feel nothing; and I may lament my own weakness till I grow almost too weak to lament. It will be far more profitable for me to become unselfish and out of love to my LORD Jesus begin to care for the souls of those around me. My tank is getting very low; no fresh rain comes to fill it; what shall l dot I will pull up the plug and let its contents run out to water the withering plants around me. What do I see? My cistern seems to fill as it flows. A secret spring is at work. While all was stagnant, the fresh spring was sealed; but as my stock Rows out to water others the LORD thinketh upon me. Hallelujah!
Charles Spurgeon
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Accept God's Grace
by Joyce Meyer
[God] . . . is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. —Ephesians 3:20 NIV
... Life is hectic—and if you try to do everything yourself you’ll stay exhausted. Rushing and struggling to keep up the pace wears you out physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. But you can make some changes.
First, examine all your activities and allow the Holy Spirit to show you the things that drain your energy and don’t produce worthwhile fruit. Then be willing to give them up. You may even have to choose between the good and the best.
Second, learn to receive more of God’s grace. Grace is power—God getting involved and doing through you what you could never do on your own. His power can help you accomplish more than you could imagine. So accept His help and start enjoying life.
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1/09/2012
The Choice is Yours
By Max Lucado
Then they [those who rejected God] will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. Matthew 25:46 NIV
It would be nice if God let us order life like we order a meal.
“I’ll take good health and a high IQ, please!”
Would’ve been nice. But it didn’t happen. When it came to your life on earth, you weren’t given a voice or a vote. But when it comes to life after death, you were!
Have you been given any greater privilege than that of choice? You’ve made some bad choices in life, haven’t you? You’ve chosen the wrong friends, maybe the wrong career, even the wrong spouse. You say, “If only… if only I could make up for those bad choices.”
You can! One good choice for eternity offsets a thousand bad ones on earth
The choice is yours!
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"Not as I will, but as Thou wilt" (Matt. xxvi. 39).
"To will and do of His good pleasure" (Phil. ii. 13).
There are two attitudes in which our will should be given to God.
First. We should have the surrendered will. This is where we must all begin, by yielding up to God our natural will, and having Him possess it.
But next, He wants us to have the victorious will. As soon as He receives our will in honest surrender, He wants to put His will into it and make it stronger than ever for Him. It is henceforth no longer our will, but His will. And having yielded to His choice and placed itself under His direction, He wants to put into it all the strength and intensity of His own great will and make us positive, forceful, victorious and unmovable, even as Himself. "Not My will, but Thine be done." That is the first step. "Father, I will that they whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me." That is the second attitude. Both are divine; both are right; both are necessary to our right living and successful working for God.
A. B. Simpson
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Vineyards in the Wilderness
"I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness...And I will give her her vineyards from thence" (Hosea 2:14-15).
A strange place to find vineyards--in the wilderness! And can it be that the riches which a soul needs can be obtained in the wilderness, which stands for a lonely place, out of which you can seldom find your way? It would see...m so, and not only that, but the "Valley of Achor," which means bitterness, is called a door of hope. And she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth!Yes, God knows our need of the wilderness experience. He knows where and how to bring out that which is enduring. The soul has been idolatrous, rebellious; has forgotten God, and with a perfect self-will has said, "I will follow after my lovers." But she did not overtake them. And, when she was hopeless and forsaken, God said, "I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her." What a loving God is ours! --Crumbs
We never know where God hides His pools. We see a rock, and we cannot guess it is the home of the spring. We see a flinty place, and we cannot tell it is the hiding place of a fountain. God leads me into the hard places, and then I find I have gone into the dwelling place of eternal springs. --Selected
Streams in the Desert
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My Bow in the Cloud. Genesis 9:13
A covenant is a promise or undertaking, resting on certain conditions, with a sign or token attached to it. The rainbow on the raincloud, the Lord's Supper, the wedding-ring, are signs and seals of the respective covenants to which they belong. Whenever we see them we should bethink ourselves of the covenant. Whenever you see a rainbow, recall the cov...enant into which God has entered with thee; for as He has sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so His kindness shall not depart from thee, nor the covenant of His peace be removed. Three things are needed to make a rainbow.
A cloud. - When man's sin overshadowed Paradise, the bow of promise shone; and when the thunderclouds gathered about the Saviour's path, the Divine voice assured Him that as He had glorified the Divine Name by His life, He should glorify it much more by His death. When the black clouds of conviction, bereavement, soul-anguish beset thee, look out for the bow: it is always there, though sufferers do not always perceive it.
Rain. - There are no rainbows unless there be falling drops to catch and unravel the sunbeams. It may be that all evil is worse in its anticipation than in its endurance; but this is certain, that the big drops of sorrow have to patter on our souls before we can realize all that God is prepared to be to us.
Sunshine. - It is only when God comes into our grief that we can' see the treasures of Love and Grace which are stored for us in Him. We never know how great a blessing sorrow may be till we carry it into the light of the King's face. It is the dark canvas on which the artist produces his most marvellous effects.
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To be in communion with God through Jesus Christ--to know that He is ours and we are His--is the victory which overcomes the world. Such courage is not based on fancied power. It is based on the absolute and the eternal. It is not kindled by any glow of anger. It is kindled and kept by the eternal spirit. So can the weakest dare to stand alone, and dare to live alone, and dare to die alone, saying The best of all is, God is with us.
George H. Morrison
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Listen for His Purpose
by Joyce Meyer
Who is the man who reverently fears and worships the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way that he should choose. He himself shall dwell at ease . . . The secret [of the sweet, satisfying companionship] of the Lord have they who fear (revere and worship) Him.
—Psalm 25:12–14
It is God who wakes us each morning. If He didn’t keep us alive overnight, it wouldn’t matter what kind of an alarm clock we had! The prophet said, “God wakens me morning by morning, and He wakens me for a purpose so that I can hear; I am like a disciple who is taught” (See Isaiah 50:4).
Before you even get out bed, listen to hear what God has to say to you. It will be a good day if you start it with a ready ear, taking time to listen to Him.
God is eager to reveal today’s plan to you.
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Gaining by Giving
"The liberal soul shall be made fat" (Proverbs 11:25).
If I desire to flourish in soul, I must not hoard up my stores but must distribute to the poor. To be close and niggardly is the world's way to prosperity, but it is not God's way, for He saith, "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty." Faith...'s way of gaining is giving. I must try this again and again, and I may expect that as much of prosperity as will be good for me will carne to me as a gracious reward for a liberal course of action. Of course, I may not be sure of growing rich. I shall be fat but not too fat. Too great riches might make me as unwieldy as corpulent persons usually are and cause me the dyspepsia of worldliness, and perhaps bring on a fatty degeneration of the heart. No, if I am fat enough to be healthy, I may well be satisfied; and if the LORD grants me a competence, I may be thoroughly content. But there is a mental and spiritual fatness which I would greatly covet, and this comes as the result of generous thoughts toward my God, His church, and my fellow men. Let me not stint, lest I starve my heart. Let me be bountiful and liberal, for so shall I be like my LORD. He gave Himself for me; shall I grudge Him anything?
Charles Spurgeon
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1/08/2012
He Was God-man
By Max Lucado
“In Christ there is all of God in a human body.” Colossians 2:9 TLB
Jesus was not a godlike man, nor a manlike God. He was God-man . . . The maker of the world with a bellybutton . . .
What do we do with such a person? We applaud men for doing good things? We enshrine God for doing great things. But when a man does God things?
One thing is certain, we can’t ignore him. Why would we want to?
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"It is I, be not afraid" (Mark vi. 50).
Someone tells of a little child with some big story of sorrow upon its little heart, flying to its mother's arms for comfort, and intending to tell her the story of its trouble; but as that mother presses it to her bosom and pours out her love, it soon becomes so occupied with her and the sweetness of her affection that it forgets to tell its s...tory, and in a little while even the memory of the trouble is forgotten. It has just been loved away, and she has taken its place in the heart of the little one.
This is the way God comforts us Himself. "It is I, be not afraid," is His reassuring word. The circumstances are not altered, but He Himself comes in their place, and satisfies every need of our being, and we forget all things in His sweet presence, as He becomes our all in all.
I am breathing out my sorrow
On Thy kind and loving breast;
Breathing in Thy joy and comfort,
Breathing in Thy peace and rest.
I am breathing out my longings
In Thy listening, loving ear;
I am breathing in Thy answer,
Stilling every doubt and fear.
A. B. Simpson
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Delayed Blessings
"For the Vision is yet for an appointed time...though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry" (Hab. 2:3).
In the charming little booklet, Expectation Corner, Adam Slowman was led into the Lord's treasure houses, and among many other wonders there revealed to him was the "Delayed Blessings Office," where God kept certain thi...ngs, prayed for, until the wise time came to send them.
It takes a long time for some pensioners to learn that delays are not denials. Ah, there are secrets of love and wisdom in the "Delayed Blessings Department," which are little dreamt of! Men would pluck their mercies green when the Lord would have them ripe. "Therefore will the Lord WAIT, that He may be gracious unto you" (Isa. 30:18). He is watching in the hard places and will not allow one trial too many; He will let the dross be consumed, and then He will come gloriously to your help.
Do not grieve Him by doubting His love. Nay, lift up your head, and begin to praise Him even now for the deliverance which is on the way to you, and you will be abundantly rewarded for the delay which has tried your faith.
O Thou of little faith, God hath not failed thee yet! When all looks dark and gloomy, Thou dost so soon forget--
Forget that He has led thee, And gently cleared thy way; On clouds has poured His sunshine, And turned thy night to day.
And if He's helped thee hitherto, He will not fail thee now; How it must wound His loving heart To see thy anxious brow!
Oh! doubt not any longer, To Him commit thy way, Whom in the past thou trusted, And is "just the same today." --Selected
Streams in the Desert
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God remembered Noah. Genesis 8:1
He cannot forget thee, though all hearts that loved thee are cold in death, and though floods of trouble surge and break around. He comes nearest when there is none else to intercept His love. The floods but bear us nearer to His heart, above the tops of the highest hills. He could not forget because His honor was pledged. - There was a tacit understan...ding between Noah and Himself, that if His servant obeyed His mandate He would be responsible for the consequences that obedience might involve. There is no need to make bargains with God, as Jacob did. It is far better simply to obey, sure that whatever the highest honor may demand, God will be equal to it. He will have prepared more than we expected.
He could not forget, because He rode the waters with His child. - He said, "Come thou into the Ark," evidently He was inside; and when it is said that God shut him in, it was from inside that the door was locked. Whatever happened to Noah was an experience for his Almighty Friend. They had walked together on the earth; they now shared together the seclusion of the Ark. God is identified in the experiences of His saints. Their pangs, and tears, and waiting-hours are His. He can no more forget, than a mother her sucking child.
He could not forget, because Noah was a type of His beloved San. - Across the dark sea of death, the cross of Jesus has brought Him and His own: so that we now belong, not to the old world which is under the curse, but to the world of Resurrection-Life. The dark woes of Calvary were imaged there: how could God forget? Reckon on God's faithfulness: He will not leave thy soul in Hades.
F. B. Meyer
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Beholding and Inquiring
"One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after,' that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple." Psa 27:4
In this verse, so full of riches, we have the spiritual ambition of the psalmist, and the notable thing is how his single purpose resolves itself... into two parts. Just as the single seeds of many plants separate themselves out into two seed-leaves, and just as the sunshine, that most fruitful unity, breaks up, to put it roughly, into light and heat, so the spiritual ambition of the psalmist, of which he is speaking in this verse, reveals itself under two different aspects. One thing he desires of the Lord, and then that one thing shows itself as two things. He yearns to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His holy temple. And from this we gather that beholding and inquiring are but different aspects of one life, vitally interwoven with each other. They are not contrary nor contradictory like day and night or cold and heat. They are related elements in every life that is hungering and thirsting after God. All the experiences of the soul in its inward rest and never-ending searching may be summed up in beholding and inquiring.
George H. Morrison
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"I cried unto thee; save me, and I shall keep thy testimonies."--Psalm 119:146
If you know anything for yourself inwardly and experimentally of the evils of your heart, the power of sin, the strength of temptation, the subtlety of your unwearied foe, and that daily conflict betwixt nature and grace, the flesh and the spirit, which is the peculiar mark of the living family of heaven, ...you will find and feel your need of salvation as a daily reality. Think not that the only salvation to be felt and known is salvation past--salvation accomplished by the bloodshedding and death of the Son of God. There is salvation present--an inward, experimental, and continual salvation communicated out of the fulness of Christ as a risen Mediator. Don't you want to be daily and almost hourly saved? But from what? Why, from everything in you that fights against the will and word of God. Sin is not dead in you. If you are reconciled and brought near to God; if you have an interest in the precious blood of Christ; if your name is written in the Lamb's book of life, and heaven be your eternal home, that does not deliver you from the indwelling of sin, nor from the power of sin either, except as grace gives you present deliverance from it. Sin still works in your carnal mind, and will work in it till your dying hour. What then you want to be saved from is the guilt, filth, power, love, and practice of indwelling sin.
J. C. Philpot
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A NEW CREATURE
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come
Dan and Cindy were a fine young Christian couple who were preparing for ministry on the mission field. Then tragedy struck: Cindy was raped. As hard as she tried to get back to normal life, Cindy couldn't shake the horrible memories and feelings from her experience.
Six months after the tragedy, Dan and Cindy attended a church conference where I was speaking. During the conference Cindy called me in tears. "Neil, I know God can turn everything into good, but how is He going to do that?"
"Wait a minute, Cindy," I said. "God will work everything out for good, but He doesn't make a bad thing good. What happened to you was evil. God's good thing is to show you how you can walk through your crisis and come out of it a better person."
"But I just can't separate myself from my experience," she sobbed. "I've been raped, Neil, and I'll be a victim of that all my life."
"No, Cindy," I insisted. "The rape happened to you, but it hasn't changed who you are, nor does it have to control you. You were the victim of a terrible, ugly tragedy. But if you only see yourself as a rape victim for the rest of your life, you will never be free. You're a child of God. You can't fix the past, but you can be free from it."
All of us have a number of hurtful, traumatic experiences in our past which have scarred us emotionally. You may have grown up with a physically, emotionally or sexually abusive parent. Any number of traumatic, emotional events can clutter your soul with emotional baggage which seems to limit your maturity and block your freedom in Christ. You must renounce the experiences and lies that have controlled you and forgive those who have offended you.
As a Christian, you are primarily the product of the work of Christ on the cross. You are literally a new creature in Christ. The "old you" is gone; the "new you" is here.
Prayer: Father, thank You for working all things for good in my life, even the effects of evil attacks meant for my harm and destruction.
Neil T. Anderson
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Purity of Heart and Life
"Blessed are the are pure in heart: for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8).
Purity, even purity of heart, is the main thing to be aimed at. We need to be made clean within through the Spirit and the Word, and then we shall be clean without by consecration and obedience. There is a close connection between the affections and the understanding: if we love evil we cannot u...nderstand that which is good. If the heart is foul, the eye will be dim. How can those men see a holy God who love unholy things?
What a privilege it is to see God here! A glimpse of Him is heaven below! In Christ Jesus the pure in heart behold the Father. We see Him, His truth, His love, His purpose, His sovereignty, His covenant character, yea, we see Himself in Christ. But this is only apprehended as sin is kept out of the heart. Only those who aim at godliness can cry, "Mine eyes are ever towards the LORD." The desire of Moses, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory," can only be fulfilled in us as we purify ourselves from all iniquity. We shall "see him as he is," and "every one that hath this hope in him purifieth himself." The enjoyment of present fellowship and the hope of the beatific vision are urgent motives for purity of heart and life. LORD, make us pure in heart that we may see Thee!
Charles Spurgeon
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1/07/2012
Love Like God
By Max Lucado
“Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God.” Philippians 2:6 NLT
Need more patience? Drink from the patience of God (2 Peter 3:9). Is generosity an elusive virtue? Then consider how generous God has been with you (Romans 5:8). Having trouble putting up with ungrateful relatives or cranky neighbors? God puts up with you when you act the same. “He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” (Luke 6:35 NIV).
Can’t we love like this?
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"Now unto Him that is able to keep you from stumbling" (Jude 24).
This is a most precious promise. The revised translation is both accurate and suggestive. It is not merely from falling that He wants to keep us, but from even the slightest stumbling.
We are told of Abraham that he staggered not at the promise. God wants us to walk so steadily that there will not even be ...a quiver in the line of His regiments as they face the foe. It is the little stumblings of life that most discourage and hinder us, and most of these stumblings are over trifles. Satan would much rather knock us down with a feather than with an Armstrong gun. It is much more to his honor and keen delight to defeat a child of God by some flimsy trifle than by some great temptation.
Beloved, let us watch, in these days, against the orange peels that trip us on our pathway, the little foxes that destroy the vines, and the dead flies that mar, sometimes, a whole vessel of precious ointment. "Trifles make perfection," and as we get farther on, in our Christian life, God will hold us much more closely to obedience in things that seem insignificant.
A. B. Simpson
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Master Plowman
"Doth the plowman plow all day to sow?" (Isa. 28:24).
One day in early summer I walked past a beautiful meadow. The grass was as soft and thick and fine as an immense green Oriental rug. In one corner stood a fine old tree, a sanctuary for numberless wild birds; the crisp, sweet air was full of their happy songs. Two cows lay in the shade, the very picture ...of content.
Down by the roadside the saucy dandelion mingled his gold with the royal purple of the wild violet.
I leaned against the fence for a long time, feasting my hungry eyes, and thinking in my soul that God never made a fairer spot than my lovely meadow.
The next day I passed that way again, and lo! the hand of the despoiler had been there. A plowman and his great plow, now standing idle in the furrow, had in a day wrought a terrible havoc. Instead of the green grass there was turned up to view the ugly, bare, brown earth; instead of the singing birds there were only a few hens industriously scratching for worms. Gone were the dandelion and the pretty violet. I said in my grief, "How could any one spoil a thing so fair?"
Then my eyes were opened by some unseen hand, and I saw a vision, a vision of a field of ripe corn ready for the harvest. I could see the giant, heavily laden stalks in the autumn sun; I could almost hear the music of the wind as it would sweep across the golden tassels. And before I was aware, the brown earth took on a splendor it had not had the day before.
Oh, that we might always catch the vision of an abundant harvest, when the great Master Plowman comes, as He often does, and furrows through our very souls, uprooting and turning under that which we thought most fair, and leaving for our tortured gaze only the bare and the unbeautiful. --Selected
Why should I start at the plough of my Lord, that maketh the deep furrows on my soul? I know He is no idle husbandman, He purposeth a crop. --Samuel Rutherford
Streams in the Desert
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As God had commanded. Genesis 7:9
This is the secret of a Holy and Blessed Life. Most of our sorrows and disappointments have come on us because we have chosen our own path, and done according to our own will.
In obeying, we must sometimes walk in the dark. - When Noah began to walk with God, he knew not that it would lead him into collision with his generation, with the ...suggestions of common sense and experience, and with much that he held dear as life. But walking on each day, he grew strong to trust in the bare word of his Almighty Guide, and grasped it as men in the catacombs will keep their hand on a tiny string or cord, until the first streak of daylight appear. Obey absolutely the voice that speaks in thy heart; the way is dark, but it is the way.
In obeying, we must learn to wait. - For one hundred and twenty years the long-suffering of God waited, and during that weary period this true heart failed not. Then for seven days the patriarch waited within the closed doors. It is not easy to bear the long strain of endurance. To rush into the battle, to do something desperate, to strike for liberty - this is the choice of the flesh; but to live in hourly fear, to toil on without result, to see the years stealing away the bank or shoal on which our heart had erected its structures of hope - this is hardest of all, unless our hope is anchored beyond life's ebb and swell.
In obeying God others obey us. - How came it that these creeping things and flying fowls, these living creatures, clean .and unclean, entered the Ark so tamely and submissively? Surely a Divine constraint was upon them. When we are under authority, we can say, "Go," "Come," "Do this." All things serve the man who serves the Divine Master, Christ.
F. B. Meyer
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To wait on God is not just to pray to God, for many pray and never expect an answer. To wait on God is to pray with tense expectancy that the prayer we offer will be answered, for He is the answer of prayer. All prayer is not waiting upon God in the full and highest sense of the Old Testament. For a man may rise from his knees and forget the thing he prayed for and fail to keep on the lookout for an answer. Only when we pray and pray believingly, and climb the watchtower to see the answer coming, do we reach the fullness of that fine old term waiting upon God.
George H. Morrison
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"To be carnally-minded is death; but to be spiritually-minded is life and peace."--Romans 8:6
Just in proportion as our heart and affections are engaged on heavenly objects, shall we feel a sweet savour of heaven resting upon our spirit; and as we can only give back what we receive, every going forth of divine life from the soul below is but the fruit and effect of the incoming of th...at life from above. Christ is our life above (Col. 3:4); and as he by his Spirit and grace maintains the life of faith in the soul, it manifests itself in gracious actings upon himself. Without this spirituality of mind, religion is but a mere name, an empty mask, a delusion, and a snare. God does not take into heaven, into the fulness of his own eternal bliss, those whom he does not love, and who do not love him. It is a prepared people for prepared mansions. And this preparedness for heaven, as an inward grace, much consists in that sweet spirituality of mind whereby heavenly things become our only happiness, and an inward delight is felt in them which enlarges the heart, ennobles the mind, softens the spirit, and lifts the whole soul, as it were, up into a holy atmosphere in which it bathes as its choice element. This is "life," not the cold, dead profession of those poor carnal creatures who have only a natural faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the truths of his gospel; but that blessed life which shall never die, but live in the eternal presence of God when earth and all it holds shall be wrapped in the devouring flames. And it is "peace"--the Redeemer's dying legacy--whereby, as he himself fulfils it, he calms the troubled waves of the soul, stills every rebellious movement, and enthrones himself in the heart as the Prince of peace.
J. C. Philpot
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UNDERSTANDING WHO YOU ARE
Romans 8:14
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God
I enjoy asking people, "Who are you?" It sounds like a simple question requiring a simple answer, but it really isn't. For example, if someone asked me, "Who are you?" I might answer, "Neil Anderson."
"No, that's your name. Who are you?"
"I'm an American."
"No, that's where you live."
I could also say that I'm five feet nine inches tall and a little over 150 pounds--actually quite a little over 150 pounds! But my physical dimensions and appearance aren't me either. If you chopped off my arms and legs, would I still be me? If you transplanted my heart, kidneys or liver, would I still be me? Of course! Now if you keep chopping, you'll get to me eventually because I'm in here somewhere. But who I am is far more than what you see on the outside.
We may say with the apostle Paul that we "recognize no man according to the flesh." But we tend to identify ourselves and each other primarily by physical appearance (tall, short, stocky, slender) or by what we do (plumber, carpenter, nurse, engineer, clerk). Furthermore, when asked to identify ourselves in relation to our faith, we usually talk about our doctrinal position (Protestant, evangelical, Calvinist, charismatic), our denominational preference (Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Independent), or our role in the church (Sunday school teacher, choir member, deacon, usher).
But is who you are determined by what you do, or is what you do determined by who you are? That's an important question, especially as it relates to Christian maturity. I subscribe to the latter. I believe wholeheartedly that your hope for growth, meaning and fulfillment as a Christian is based on understanding who you are--specifically your identity in Christ as a child of God. Your understanding of who you are in Christ will greatly determine how you live your life.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, I know I am complete in You. Don't allow me to fall back into fleshly attributes today in an attempt to impress others or You.
Neil T. Anderson
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Always Growing
"Thou shalt see greater than these" (John 1:50).
This is spoken to a childlike believer, who was ready to accept Jesus as the Son of God, the King of Israel, upon one convincing piece of argument. Those who are willing to see shall see; it is because we shut our eyes that we become so sadly blind.
We have seen much already. Great things and unsearchable has the LORD showed unto us, for which we praise His name; but there are greater truths in His Word, greater depths of experience, greater heights of fellow- ship, greater works of usefulness, greater discoveries of power, and love, and wisdom. These we are yet to see if we are willing to believe our LORD. The faculty of inventing false doctrine is ruinous, but power to see the truth is a blessing. Heaven shall be opened to us, the way thither shall be made clear to us in the Son of Man, and the angelic commerce which goes on between the upper and the lower kingdoms shall be made more manifest to us. Let us keep our eyes open toward spiritual objects and expect to see more and more. Let us believe that our lives will not drivel down into nothing but that we shall be always on the growing hand, seeing greater and still greater things, till we behold the great God Himself and never again lose the sight of Him.
Charles Spurgeon
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1/06/2012
Your Failures
By Max Lucado
The righteousness of God is revealed through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…Romans 3:22
Perhaps the heaviest burden we try to carry is the burden of mistakes and failures. What do you do with your failures?
Even if you’ve fallen, even if you’ve failed, even if everyone else has rejected you, Christ will not turn away from you.
Psalm 68:19 says, “Praise the Lord, God our Savior, who helps us every day.” Every day!
Christ came first and foremost to those who have not hope. He goes to those no one else would go to and says, “I’ll give you eternity!”
Only you can surrender your concerns to the Father. No one else can take those away and give them to God.
What better way to start the day than by laying your cares at Jesus’ feet?
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"The body is not one member, but many" (I. Cor. xii. 14).
We have a friend who has a phonograph for his correspondence. It consists of two parts. One is a simple and wonderful apparatus, whose sensitive cylinders receive the tones and then give them out again, word for word, through the hearing tube. The other part is a common little box that stands under the table, and does nothing ...but supply the power through connecting wires.
Now, the little box might insist upon being the phonograph, and doing the talking; but if it should, it would not only waste its own life but destroy the life of its partner.
Its sole business is to supply power to the phonograph, while the latter is to do the talking. So some of us are called to be voices to speak for God to our fellow-men, others are forces to sustain them, by our holy sympathy and silent prayer. (Some of us are little dynamos under the table, while others are phonographs that speak aloud the messages of heaven.)
Let each of us be true to our God-given ministry, and when the day comes our work will be weighed and the rewards distributed.
A. B. Simpson
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Step Out Boldly
"When thou goest, thy way shall be opened up before thee step by step" (Proverbs 4:12, free translation).
The Lord never builds a bridge of faith except under the feet of the faith-filled traveler. If He builds the bridge a rod ahead, it would not be a bridge of faith. That which is of sight is not of faith.
There is a self-opening gate which is sometimes used in country roads. It stands fast and firm across the road as a traveler approaches it. If he stops before he gets to it, it will not open. But if he will drive right at it, his wagon wheels press the springs below the roadway, and the gate swings back to let him through. He must push right on at the closed gate, or it will continue to be closed.
This illustrates the way to pass every barrier on the road of duty. Whether it is a river, a gate, or a mountain, all the child of Jesus has to do is to go for it. If it is a river, it will dry up when you put your feet in its waters. If it is a gate, it will fly open when you are near enough to it, and are still pushing on. If it is a mountain, it will be lifted up and cast into a sea when you come squarely up, without flinching, to where you thought it was.
Is there a great barrier across your path of duty just now? Just go for it, in the name of the Lord, and it won't be there. --Henry Clay Trumbull
We sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty said, "Up and onward forevermore." Let us move on and step out boldly, though it be into the night, and we can scarcely see the way. The path will open, as we progress, like the trail through the forest, or the Alpine pass, which discloses but a few rods of its length from any single point of view. Press on! If necessary, we will find even the pillar of cloud and fire to mark our journey through the wilderness. There are guides and wayside inns along the road. We will find food, clothes and friends at every stage of the journey, and as Rutherford so quaintly says: "However matters go, the worst will be a tired traveler and a joyful and sweet welcome home."
I'm going by the upper road, for that still holds the sun, I'm climbing through night's pastures where the starry rivers run:
If you should think to seek me in my old dark abode, You'll find this writing on the door, "He's on the Upper Road." --Selected
Streams in the Desert
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Noah was just, perfect, walked with God. Genesis 6:9
The eyes of God went to and fro over the ancient world, where sin reigned unchecked, to discover one grateful spectacle. But they were doomed to disappointment, till they lighted on Noah. He found grace in the eyes of the Lord, because him only had God seen to be righteous in all his generation. Like Antipas, he dwelt where Satan's ...seat was, held fast the Divine name, and was God's faithful witness. Be thou loyal to God, my soul, though thou stand alone. There are three characteristics in the man who finds grace in the eyes of the Lord.
In himself he is Just. - Not faultless, as judged by the white light of eternity; but blameless, so far as his own consciousness is concerned. He wears ever the white flower of a blameless life. His strength is as the strength of ten, because his heart is pure. He exercises himself to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and man. This condition is only possible to faith, that opens the door of the heart to receive the life of God. Wouldst thou be just, welcome that Just One. Let Him live within thee.
Toward man he is Upright. - He does not keep his eyes bowing down to the ground in shame, or furtively looking around to gain a secret advantage; he looks the whole world in the face. His eyes reflect the integrity and purity of his soul; they beam with sincerity, unselfishness, and love.
With respect to God, he abides in Perpetual Fellowship. - This were worth our getting, though we parted with all our jewels to win it. To be tuned into one deep accord with the Divine nature; to answer to Him with one full, responsive chord; to be always found where God is, and never where He is not - that were life indeed.
F. B. Meyer
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"That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises."--Hebrews 6:12
Patience is necessary in order to prove the genuineness and reality of faith. The Lord generally--I may say invariably--does not accomplish his purposes at once. He usually--I might say almost invariably--works by gradations. Is not this the case in creation? Do we see ...the oak starting up in all its gigantic proportions in one day? Is not a tiny acorn committed to the ground; and is not the giant oak, whose huge limbs we admire, the growth of a century? Men and women are years growing up to their full stature. So spiritually. "He that believeth shall not make haste." Faith in the soul is of slow growth for the most part; for the Lord takes care that every step in the path shall be tried by the perplexities and difficulties that surround it. And he has appointed this that it may be a means of distinguishing the faith of God's elect from the faith of those who have a name to live while dead. They apostatize and turn away from the faith. Like the stony-ground hearers, they believe for a time, but in temptation fall away. The various hindrances of nature, sense and reason, sin, the devil, and the world get the better of them; thus they turn back, often give up all profession of religion, and die in their sins. But the Lord's people cannot so die. Their faith is of a lasting nature, because what God doth he doth for ever. Thus their faith stands every storm and endures for ever.
J. C. Philpot
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Help from Without
"Yea, I will help thee" (Isaiah 41:10).
Yesterday's promise secured us strength for what we have to do, but this guarantees us aid in cases where we cannot act alone. The LORD says, "I will help thee." Strength within is supplemented by help without. God can raise us up allies in our warfare if so it seems good in His sight; and even if He does not send us human assistance, ...He Himself will be at our side, and this is better still. "Our August Ally" is better than legions of mortal helpers.
His help is timely: He is a very present help in time of trouble. His help is very wise: He knows how to give each man help meet and fit for him. His help is most effectual, though vain is the help of man. His help is more than help, for He bears all the burden and supplies all the need. "The LORD is my helper, I will not fear what man can do unto me."
Because He has already been our help, we feel confidence in Him for the present and the future. Our prayer is, "LORD, by thou my helper"; our experience is, "The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities"; our expectation is, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, whence cometh my help"; and our song soon will be, "Thou, LORD, hast holden me."
Charles Spurgeon
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Simple, Believing Prayer
by Joyce Meyer
And when you pray, do not heap up phrases (multiply words, repeating the same ones over and over) as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their much speaking.
—Matthew 6:7
We must develop confidence in simple, believing prayer. We need the confidence that even if we simply say, “God, help me,” He hears and will answer. We can depend on God to be faithful to do what we have asked Him to do, as long as our request is in accordance with His will. Too often we get caught up in our own works concerning prayer.
Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that prayer is simply conversation with God. The length or volume or eloquence of our prayer is not the issue; it is the sincerity of our heart and the confidence we have that God hears and will answer us that are important. Sometimes we try to sound so devout and elegant that we get lost. If we could ever get delivered from trying to impress God, we would be a lot better off.
First Thessalonians 5:17 says, “Be unceasing in prayer [praying perseveringly]” or as the King James Version puts it, “Pray without ceasing.” If we don’t understand simple, believing prayer, that instruction can come down upon us like a very heavy burden. We may feel that we are doing well to pray thirty minutes a day, so how can we possibly pray without ever stopping? We need to have such confidence about our prayer life that prayer becomes just like breathing, an effortless thing that we do every moment we are alive.
We don’t work and struggle at breathing, unless we have a lung disorder, and neither should we work and struggle at praying. I don’t believe we will struggle in this area if we really understand the power of simple, believing prayer. We should remember that prayer is made powerful by the sincerity of it and the faith behind it.
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1/05/2012
Doubt—An Unwanted Visitor
By Max Lucado
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23
Doubt. He’s a lousy neighbor. An unwanted visitor. An obnoxious guest. And he’ll pester you. He’ll irritate you. He’ll criticize your judgment.
His aim is not to convince you, but to confuse you. He doesn’t offer solutions. Doubt only raises questions.
Had any visit from this fellow lately? If you find yourself going to church in order to be saved and not because you’re saved, then you’ve been listening to him.
If you find yourself doubting that God could forgive you again for that, you’ve been sold some snake oil.
If you’re more cynical about Christians than sincere about Christ, then guess who came to dinner?
I suggest you put a lock on your gate. I suggest you post a “Do not enter” sign on your door! Say no to doubt.
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"I know him that he will do the law" (Gen. xviii. 19).
God wants people that He can depend upon. He could say of Abraham, "I know him, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham all that He hath spoken." God can be depended upon; He wants us to be just as decided, as reliable, as stable. This is just what faith means. God is looking for men on whom He can put the weight of all His love, an...d power, and faithful promises. When God finds such a soul there is nothing He will not do for him. God's engines are strong enough to draw any weight we attach to them. Unfortunately the cable which we fasten to the engine is often too weak to hold the weight of our prayer, therefore God is drilling us, disciplining us, and training us to stability and certainty in the life of faith. Let us learn our lessons, and let us stand fast.
God has His best things for the few
Who dare to stand the test;
God has his second choice for those
Who will not have His best.
Give me, O Lord, Thy highest choice,
Let others take the rest.
Their good things have no charm for me,
For I have got Thy best.
A. B. Simpson
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I Heard a Still Voice
"There was silence, and I heard a still voice" (Job 4:16, margin).
A score of years ago, a friend placed in my hand a book called True Peace. It was an old mediaeval message, and it had but one thought--that God was waiting in the depths of my being to talk to me if I would only get still enough to hear His voice.
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I thought this would be a very easy matter, and so began to get still. But I had no sooner commenced than a perfect pandemonium of voices reached my ears, a thousand clamoring notes from without and within, until I could hear nothing but their noise and din.
Some were my own voices, my own questions, some my very prayers. Others were suggestions of the tempter and the voices from the world's turmoil.
In every direction I was pulled and pushed and greeted with noisy acclamations and unspeakable unrest. It seemed necessary for me to listen to some of them and to answer some of them; but God said,
"Be still, and know that I am God." Then came the conflict of thoughts for tomorrow, and its duties and cares; but God said, "Be still."
And as I listened, and slowly learned to obey, and shut my ears to every sound, I found after a while that when the other voices ceased, or I ceased to hear them, there was a still small voice in the depths of my being that began to speak with an inexpressible tenderness, power and comfort.
As I listened, it became to me the voice of prayer, the voice of wisdom, the voice of duty, and I did not need to think so hard, or pray so hard, or trust so hard; but that "still small voice" of the Holy Spirit in my heart was God's prayer in my secret soul, was God's answer to all my questions, was God's life and strength for soul and body, and became the substance of all knowledge, and all prayer and all blessing: for it was the living GOD Himself as my life, my all.
It is thus that our spirit drinks in the life of our risen Lord, and we go forth to life's conflicts and duties like a flower that has drunk in, through the shades of night, the cool and crystal drops of dew. But as dew never falls on a stormy night, go the dews of His grace never come to the restless soul. --A. B. Simpson
Streams in the Desert
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Enoch walked with God. Genesis 5:24
What an epitaph on this ancient saint! It is as clear-cut to-day as when first recorded here. We know nothing of Enoch but this brief record; but it tells us everything. It was not an act or a number of acts, but a high tone of life constantly maintained. Better to walk with God every day in calm, unbroken fellowship, than to have occasional rapturo...us experiences, succeeded by long relapses and backslidings. The Hebrew word might be rendered, "Enoch walked, and continued to walk."
Be sure to go God's Way. - He will not walk with thee in thy way, but thou mayest walk with Him in His. To this He calls thee. Each moment, and especially when two or three roads diverge, look up to Him, and say, "Which way art Thou taking, that I may accompany Thee?" It will not be so hard to forsake inviting paths and engaging companions, if only the eye is kept fixed on His face, and the track of His footsteps determines thy road beyond hesitation or dispute.
Be sure to keep God's Pace. - Do not run impetuously before Him; learn to wait His time: the minute-hand as well as the hour-hand must point the exact moment for action. Do not loiter behind in indolence or sloth. Be loyal and true to His ideals, and quick to obey His least commands.
Be sure to wear God's Livery. - He is in the light; the light is His chosen symbol; it ill becomes thee to wear the unfruitful works of darkness. Put them off, and put on the armor of light. Walk with Him daily in stainless robes, washed in the blood of the Lamb. Then thy fellowship shall be with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and with all holy souls everywhere.
F. B. Meyer
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"Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts."--Proverbs 31:6
The wise mother of king Lemuel gave her son gracious directions when she spake these words. It is when we begin to feel the misery into which we have been cast by sin, and thus become ready to perish, and of heavy hearts, that the pure wine of gospel grace is suitable to ...our lost condition. As the holiness and justice of God are discovered to the conscience, and we are made to see and feel the depths of the Adam fall, we look out of ourselves for a salvation which we could not find in our fallen nature or in our deeply corrupt and unbelieving heart. When, then, we obtain by living faith a view of the Son of God as a Mediator between God and men, when we see by the eye of faith the blood of the cross, and the full and complete atonement which he, as the Lamb of God, made for sin, then we heartily embrace him as "of God made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30). We see and feel that there is salvation in him and in no other (Acts 4:12); and as this salvation is seen to be worthy of God and suitable to us, as it answers all the demands of God's holy law, and glorifies it by rendering it an obedience as far excelling ours as heaven excels earth, and God surpasses man, we embrace it as our justifying righteousness and covering robe, from the eyes of him who, out of Christ, is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29).
J. C. Philpot
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SUCCESSFUL CHRISTIAN LIVING
Galatians 5:1
We are to grow up in all aspects into Him (Ephesians 4:15). It was for freedom that Christ set us free
There are two concepts which determine the victory and fruitfulness of a Christian. The first concept is maturity. Paul wrote: "We are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ . . . to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:15, 13). God has given us everything we need to grow to maturity in Christ (2 Peter 1:3). But Satan is opposed to our maturity and will do anything he can to keep us from realizing who we are and what we have in Christ. We must experience victory over the dark side before we can fully mature.
The second concept of the successful Christian life is freedom. Paul declared: "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1). This verse not only assures us that God wants us free, but also warns us that we can lose our freedom by returning to the law.
Before we received Christ, we were slaves to sin. But because of Christ's work on the cross, sin's power over us has been broken. Satan has no right of ownership or authority over us. He is a defeated foe, but he is committed to keeping us from realizing that. He knows he can block your effectiveness as a Christian if he can deceive you into believing that you are nothing but a product of your past, subject to sin, prone to failure, and controlled by your habits. As long as he can confuse you and blind you with his dark lies, you won't be able to see that the chains which once bound you are broken. You are free in Christ, but if the devil can deceive you into believing you're not, you won't experience the freedom which is your inheritance. I don't believe in instant maturity, but I do believe in instant freedom, and I have seen thousands of people set free by the truth. Once a person is free, you would be amazed at how quickly he or she matures!
Prayer: Lord, I rejoice that it was for my freedom that You came to set me free. Remind me today to walk in Your freedom.
Neil T. AndersonSee More
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A Wonderful Guarantee
"I will strengthen thee" (Isaiah 41:10).
When called to serve or to suffer, we take stock of our strength, and we find it to be less than we thought and less than we need. But let not our heart sink within us while we have such a word as this to fall back upon, for it guarantees us all that we can possibly need. God has strength omnipotent; that strength He can communica...te to us; and His promise is that He will do so. He will be the food of our souls and the health of our hearts; and thus He will give us strength. There is no telling how much power God can put into a man. When divine strength comes, human weakness is no more a hindrance.
Do we not remember seasons of labor and trial in which we received such special strength that we wondered at ourselves? In the midst of danger we were calm, under bereavement we were resigned, in slander we were self-contained, and in sickness we were patient. The fact is that God gives unexpected strength when unusual trials come upon us, We rise out of our feeble selves. Cowards play the man, foolish ones have wisdom given them, and the silent receive in the self-same hour what they shall speak, My own weakness makes me shrink, but God's promise makes me brave. LORD, strengthen me "according to thy word."
Charles Spurgeon
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The Master Builder
by Joyce Meyer
For [of course] every house is built and furnished by someone, but the Builder of all things and the Furnisher [of the entire equipment of all things] is God. —Hebrews 3:4
God is the Master Builder. Jesus is the Chief Cornerstone. God is the one who has to build us and equip us for the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Philippians 1:6 the apostle Paul writes to assure us, He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.
What he was saying to us is simply this: "It was God who started this work in you, and it is God who will finish it!" That means we should leave God alone to do His work. We need to stay out of His business and mind our own.
There are certain things only God can do. We are to do our part and let Him do His. We are to handle our responsibility but cast our care on Him. We are to confess our sins and failures to the Lord, confident that He will forgive us of those sins and failures and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, as He has promised in His Word (1 John 1:9).
We are to trust to Him the job of perfecting us for the work He has for us to do in this life. That takes the pressure off of us, which relieves us of the worry and anxiety we feel so often as we try to perfect ourselves.
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1/04/2012
He’s Faithful
By Max Lucado
If we are not faithful, God will still be faithful, because he cannot be false to himself. 2 Timothy 2:13”
We don’t get it!
Because God’s blessings are dispensed according to the riches of his grace, not according to the depth of our faith.
Why’s that important to know? So you won’t get cynical. Look around you. Aren’t there more mouths than bread? More wounds than physicians? More who need the truth than those who tell it?
So what do we do? Throw up our hands and walk away? Tell the world we can’t help them? No, we don’t give up!
We look up. We trust. We believe.
Christ has proven worthy. He never fails!
That’s what makes God—God.
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"Blessed is the man that walketh not" (Ps. i. 1).
Three things are notable about this man:
1. His company. "He walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful."
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2. His reading and thinking. "His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night."
3. His fruitfulness. "And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."
The river is the Holy Ghost; the planting, the deep, abiding life in which, not occasionally, but habitually, we absorb the Holy Spirit; and the fruit is not occasional, but continual, and appropriate to each changing season.
His life is also prosperous, and his spirit fresh, like the unfading leaf. Such a life must be happy. Indeed, happiness is a matter of spiritual conditions. Put a sunbeam in a cellar and it must be bright. Put a nightingale in the darkest midnight, and it must sing.
A. B. Simpson
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The Giants
"There we saw the giants" (Num. 13:33).
Yes, they saw the giants, but Caleb and Joshua saw God! Those who doubt say, "We be not able to go up." Those who believe say, "Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able."
Giants stand for great difficulties; and giants are stalking everywhere. They are in our families, in our churches, in our social life, in our own hearts; and we must overcome them or they will eat us up, as these men of old said of the giants of Canaan.
The men of faith said, "They are bread for us; we will eat them up." In other words, "We will be stronger by overcoming them than if there had been no giants to overcome."
Now the fact is, unless we have the overcoming faith we shall be eaten up, consumed by the giants in our path. Let us have the spirit of faith that these men of faith had, and see God, and He will take care of the difficulties. --Selected
It is when we are in the way of duty that we find giants. It was when Israel was going forward that the, giants appeared. When they turned back into the wilderness they found none.
There is a prevalent idea that the power of God in a human life should lift us above all trials and conflicts. The fact is, the power of God always brings a conflict and a struggle. One would have thought that on his great missionary journey to Rome, Paul would have been carried by some mighty providence above the power of storms and tempests and enemies. But, on the contrary, it was one long, hard fight with persecuting Jews, with wild tempests, with venomous vipers and all the powers of earth and hell, and at last he was saved, as it seemed, by the narrowest margin, and had to swim ashore at Malta on a piece of wreckage and barely escape a watery grave.
Was that like a God of infinite power? Yes, just like Him. And so Paul tells us that when he took the Lord Jesus Christ as the life of his body, a severe conflict immediately came; indeed, a conflict that never ended, a pressure that was persistent, but out of which he always emerged victorious through the strength of Jesus Christ.
The language in which he describes this is most graphic. "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be manifested in our body."
What a ceaseless, strenuous struggle! It is impossible to express in English the forcible language of the original. There are five pictures in succession. In the first, the idea is crowding enemies pressing in from every side, and yet not crushing him because the police of heaven cleared the way just wide enough for him to get through. The literal translation would be, "We are crowded on every side, but not crushed."
The second picture is that of one whose way seems utterly closed and yet he has pressed through; there is light enough to show him the next step. The Revised Version translates it, "Perplexed but not unto despair." Rotherham still more literally renders it, "Without a way, but not without a by-way."
The third figure is that of an enemy in hot pursuit while the divine Defender still stands by, and he is not left alone. Again we adopt the fine rendering of Rotherham, "Pursued but not abandoned."
The fourth figure is still more vivid and dramatic. The enemy has overtaken him, has struck him, has knocked him down. But it is not a fatal blow; he is able to rise again. It might be translated, "Overthrown but not overcome."
Once more the figure advances, and now it seems to be even death itself, "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." But he does not die, for "the life also of Jesus" now comes to his aid and he lives in the life of another until his life work is done.
The reason so many fail in this experience of divine healing is because they expect to have it all without a struggle, and when the conflict comes and the battle wages long, they become discouraged and surrender. God has nothing worth having that is easy. There are no cheap goods in the heavenly market. Our redemption cost all that God had to give, and everything worth having is expensive. Hard places are the very school of faith and character, and if we are to rise over mere human strength and prove the power of life divine in these mortal bodies, it must be through a process of conflict that may well be called the birth travail of a new life. It is the old figure of the bush that burned, but was not consumed, or of the Vision in the house of the Interpreter of the flame that would not expire, notwithstanding the fact that the demon ceaselessly poured water on it, because in the background stood an angel ever pouring oil and keeping the flame aglow.
No, dear suffering child of God, you cannot fail if only you dare to believe, to stand fast and refuse to be overcome. --Tract.
Streams in the Desert
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God calls us to help Him in keeping one another. - We are to watch for each other's souls; to consider one another to provoke to good works; to bear one another's burden; to exhort each other, to convert the wanderer from the path of the destroyer, and to wash stains from his feet. The cure of souls is the work of all the saints. But this is only possible to those who have been baptized into the Spirit of Christ. Remember that you have just as much love toward God, as you are willing to show toward the brother whom you have seen. "This commandment have we from Him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."
F. B. Meyer
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Our Value in His Sight
And then again God's gentleness reveals this to us--it reveals our abiding value in His sight. It tells us, as almost nothing else can tell us, that we, His children, are precious in His eyes. There are certain books upon my shelves at home with which I hardly bother to be gentle. I am not upset when I see them tossed about nor when they are handled in a rough w...ay. But there are other books that I could never handle without a certain reverence and care, and I am gentle because they are of value to me. And the noteworthy thing is that these precious volumes are not always the volumes that are most beautifully bound. Some of them are little tattered creatures that a respectable servant longs to light the fire with. But every respectable servant of a book lover comes to learn this at least about his master, that his ways, like those of another Master, are mysterious and past finding out. For that little volume, tattered though it may be, may have memories that make it infinitely precious--memories of school days or of college days, memories of the author who was well known to him. It may be the first Shakespeare that he ever had, or the first Milton that he ever handled, and he shall handle it gently to the end, because to him it is a precious thing. So I take it God is gentle because you and I are precious in His sight. He is infinitely patient with the worst of us because He values the worst of us so dearly. And if you want to know how great that value is, then read this text again and again: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish."
George H. Morrison
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BLOCKED GOALS
Ephesians 5:9
The fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth
One morning I rose early, had my devotions and started making a special breakfast for my family. I was stirring the muffin mix, singing and feeling great when my sleepy-eyed son, Karl, wandered into the kitchen. He grabbed a box of cereal and an empty bowl and headed for the table.
"Hey, Karl, just a second. We're not having cereal this morning. We're going to sit around the table together and have a big breakfast with muffins."
"I don't like muffins, Dad," he mumbled, opening the cereal box.
"Wait, Karl,: I insisted, starting to get annoyed. "We're going to sit around the table together and have a big breakfast with muffins."
"But I don't like muffins, Dad," he repeated.
I lost it . "Karl, we're going to sit around the table together and have a big breakfast with muffins!" I barked. Karl closed the cereal box, threw it in the cupboard, and stomped back to his room. My great idea had suddenly turned to shambles. I had to spend the next several minutes apologizing to Karl for my outburst.
Like me, I'm sure you have suffered your share of blocked goals. You had this great plan to do something wonderful for God, your church, your family, or a friend. Then your plan was thrown into disarray by hectic daily events over which you had no control. You didn't get your way at the board meeting. Your child decided to be the lead guitarist in a rock band instead of becoming a doctor like you planned.
When you base your life on the success of plans that are subject to people and circumstances, your life will be one long, emotional roller coaster ride. And the only way to get off the roller coaster is to walk by faith according to the truth of God's Word. Who you are must not be dependent on the cooperation of others or favorable circumstances. Decide to become the spouse, parent, leader or worker God wants you to be. No one can block that goal except you.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, show me today where I have allowed people or circumstances, instead of You, to determine what You want me to be.
Neil T. Anderson
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In Calm Repose
"I will make them to lie down safely" (Hosea 2:18).
Yes, the saints are to have peace. The passage from which this gracious word is taken speaks of peace "with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground." This is peace with earthly enemies, with mysterious evils, and with little annoyances! Any of these might keep us from ly...ing down, but none of them shall do so. The LORD will quite destroy those things which threaten His people: "I will break the bow and the sword, and the battle out of the earth." Peace will be profound indeed when all the instruments of disquiet are broken to pieces.
With this pace will come rest, "So he giveth his beloved sleep." Fully supplied and divinely quieted, believers lie down in calm repose. This rest will be a safe one. It is one thing to lie down but quite another "to lie down safely." We are brought to the land of promise, the house of the Father, the chamber of love, and the bosom of Christ: surely we may now "lie down safely." It is safer for a believer to lie down in peace than to sit up and worry.
"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures," We never rest till the Comforter makes us lie down.
Charles Spurgeon
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1/03/2012
Why Did He Do It?
By Max Lucado
He himself likewise shared in flesh and blood, that through death he might destroy the one who had the power of death, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were in bondage. Hebrews 3:15
Why do we do it? Endure the airports, cram the trunks of our cars and SUV’s? You know the answer. We love to be with the ones we love!
It’s the four-year-old running up the sidewalk into the arms of grandpa. The cup of coffee with mom before the rest of the house awakes. That moment when, for a moment, everyone is quiet as we hold hands around the table and thank God for family and friends and pumpkin pie!
We love to be with the ones we love.
May I remind you? So does God. He loves to be with the ones He loves. How else do you explain what He did? Between him and us there was a distance—a great span. And he couldn’t bear it. So he did something about it.
He gave up his place—and made himself—nothing! He did it for you and me.
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"Watch and pray" (Matt. xxvi. 41).
We need to watch for prayers as well as for the answers to our prayers. It needs as much wisdom to pray rightly as it does faith to receive the answers to our prayers.
We met a friend the other day, who had been in years of darkness because God had failed to answer certain prayers, and the result had been a state bordering on infidelity....
A very few moments were sufficient to convince this friend that these prayers had been entirely unauthorized, and that God had never promised to answer such prayers, and they were for things which this friend should have accomplished himself, in the exercise of ordinary wisdom.
The result was deliverance from a cloud of unbelief which was almost wrecking a Christian life. There are some things about which we do not need to pray, as much as to take the light which God has already given.
Many persons are asking God to give them peculiar signs, tokens and supernatural intimations of His will. Our business is to use the light He has given, and then He will give whatever more we need.
A. B. Simpson
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The Lord is My Strength
"The Lord hath sent strength for thee" (Ps. 68:28, PBV).
The Lord imparts unto us that primary strength of character which makes everything in life work with intensity and decision. We are "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man." And the strength is continuous; reserves of power come to us which we cannot exhaust.
"As thy days, so shall thy strength be"-strength of will, strength of affection, strength of judgment, strength of ideals and achievement.
"The Lord is my strength" to go on. He gives us power to tread the dead level, to walk the long lane that seems never to have a turning, to go through those long reaches of life which afford no pleasant surprise, and which depress the spirits in the sameness of a terrible drudgery.
"The Lord is my strength" to go up. He is to me the power by which I can climb the Hill Difficulty and not be afraid.
"The Lord is my strength" to go down. It is when we leave the bracing heights, where the wind and the sun have been about us, and when we begin to come down the hill into closer and more sultry spheres, that the heart is apt to grow faint.
I heard a man say the other day concerning his growing physical frailty, "It is the coming down that tires me!"
"The Lord is my strength" to sit still. And how difficult is the attainment! Do we not often say to one another, in seasons when we are compelled to be quiet, "If only I could do something!"
When the child is ill, and the mother stands by in comparative impotence, how severe is the test! But to do nothing, just to sit still and wait, requires tremendous strength. "The Lord is my strength!" "Our sufficiency is of God." The Silver Lining A Door Opened in Heaven "A door opened in heaven" (Rev. 4:1).
You must remember that John was in the Isle of Patmos, a lone, rocky, inhospitable prison, for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. And yet to him, under such circumstances, separated from all the loved ones of Ephesus; debarred from the worship of the Church; condemned to the companionship of uncongenial fellow-captives, were vouchsafed these visions. For him, also a door was opened.
We are reminded of Jacob, exiled from his father's house, who laid himself down in a desert place to sleep, and in his dreams beheld a ladder which united Heaven with earth, and at the top stood God.
Not to these only, but to many more, doors have been opened into Heaven, when, so far as the world was concerned, it seemed as though their circumstances were altogether unlikely for such revelations.
To prisoners and captives; to constant sufferers, bound by iron chains of pain to sick couches; to lonely pilgrims and wanderers; to women detained from the Lord's house by the demands of home, how often has the door been opened to Heaven.
But there are conditions. You must know what it is to be in the Spirit; you must be pure in heart and obedient in faith; you must be willing to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ; then when God is all in all to us, when we live, move and have our being in His favor, to us also will the door be opened. --Daily Devotional Commentary
"God hath His mountains bleak and bare, Where He doth bid us rest awhile; Crags where we breathe a purer air, Lone peaks that catch the day's first smile.
"God hath His deserts broad and brown--A solitude--a sea of sand, Where He doth let heaven's curtain down, Unknit by His Almighty hand." There We Saw the Giants
Streams in the Desert
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Where art thou Genesis 3:9
The cool of the day, when the breeze steals over the fevered landscape, is an appropriate time for man to hold fellowship with God. We need to have His hand laid on our throbbing temples, stilling, tranquillizing, shedding His serenity throughout our being. What the breath of evening is in summer, fellowship with God will be for thee, my soul; see that thou ...art not so absorbed with thy sins, thy love, or thy business, as to miss the tryst, when the sun is westering.
God misses His child. - That hour of fellowship was much to Adam, and it was more to God. Love, God's love, craves for fellowship.
As the musician for his lute, as the hart for the brook, as the mother for the twining arms and babbling talk of her child - so does God long for the free outpourings of His child's heart in prayer; misses them when withheld; is jealous when they are fitful and intermittent.
God seeks His child. - He did not wait till Adam found his way back to His side. But He hastened in search of him. So through the glades He comes to seek thee, O truant one! Where art thou, that for these many days thou hast withheld thyself from the hour of prayer? Wilt thou not say with the psalmist, "When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek?"
God mourns over His child. - These words, in one version, are rendered, Alas, for thee: as though the heart of God were wrung with sorrow for our loss, as well as His. But He does not content Himself with regret. By the pang of travail, by the prick of thorns, by the necessity of labor, by sacrifice and gifts of covering for our nakedness, He brings us back to Himself.
F. B. Meyer
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"Thy gentleness hath made me great." Psa 18:35
What exactly may be meant by greatness is a question that we need not linger to discuss. It is enough that the writer of this verse was conscious that he had been lifted to that eminence. That he had been in extreme distress is clear from the earlier verses of this chapter. His heart had fainted--his efforts had been in vain--his hopes h...ad flickered and sunk into their ashes. And then mysteriously, but very certainly, he had been carried upward to light and power and liberty, and now he is looking back over it all. That it was God who had so raised him up was, of course, as clear to him as noonday. He had sent up his cry to heaven in the dark, and to that cry His greatness was the answer. But what impressed him as he surveyed it all was not the infinite power of the Almighty; it was rather the amazing and unceasing gentleness wherewith that infinite power had been displayed. "Thy gentleness hath made me great," he cried. That was the outstanding and arresting feature. Tracing the way by which he had been led, he saw conspicuous a gentle ministry of God.
George H. Morrison
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"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."--John 12:32
Wherever Jesus is graciously and experimentally manifested to the soul, and made known by any sweet revelation of his glorious Person, atoning blood, and finished work, a secret yet sacred power is put forth, whereby we are drawn unto him, and every grace of the Spirit flows toward him as towards its at...tractive centre. Thus Jeremiah speaks of the saints of God as coming and singing in the height of Zion, and flowing together to the goodness of the Lord (Jer. 31:12). And thus Isaiah speaks to the church of God, "Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear [or as the word rather means, shall 'palpitate' with love and joy], and be enlarged" (Isaiah 60:5). This view of Christ by faith is what the apostle speaks of to the Galatians, as Jesus evidently set forth before their eyes (Gal. 3:1). As thus set before our eyes, he becomes the object of our faith to look at, ("Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth"); "the altogether lovely," to whom love flows; and the Intercessor within the veil in whom hope effectually anchors. As, then, the blessed Lord is revealed to the soul by the power of God, his glorious Person held up before the eyes of the spiritual understanding, his blood and righteousness discovered to the conscience, and his suitability to all our wants and woes experimentally manifested, the blessed Spirit raises up a living faith whereby he is looked unto and laid hold of, and thus he becomes precious to all that believe in his name.
J. C. Philpot
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GODLY GOALS AND DESIRES
Numbers 23:19
Has He [God] said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
One key to successful living is learning to distinguish a godly goal from a godly desire.
A godly goal is any specific orientation reflecting God's purpose for your life that does not depend on people or circumstances beyond your ability or right to control. Who do you have the ability and right to control? Virtually no one but yourself. The only person who can block a godly goal or render it uncertain or impossible is you.
By contrast, a godly desire is any specific orientation that depends on the cooperation of other people or the success of events or favorable circumstances you cannot control. You cannot base your self-worth or your personal success on your desires, no matter how godly they may be, because you cannot control all the people or circumstances that affect fulfillment.
When people or circumstances block our goals, we get angry. If our mentally perceived goal is uncertain, we feel anxious. If the goal appears impossible, we get depressed. But what God-given goal can be blocked, uncertain or impossible? With God all things are possible, and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. No one can keep us from being what God wants us to be except us.
Notice how God distinguishes between goals and desires. John wrote, "My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin" (1 John 2:1). Certainly God desires that we don't sin, but His status as God and His purposes cannot be blocked by anyone who exercises his will against repentance. But it is God's desire that everyone repent even though not everyone will.
God accomplished His goal when Jesus said, "It is finished." What God has determined to do, He will do, so we can be all that He created us to be.
Prayer: Lord, show me Your purposes for my life and help me make them my goals.
Neil T. Anderson
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Rest on a Promise
"The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it" (Genesis 28:13).
No promise is of private interpretation: it belongs not to one saint but to all believers. If, my brother, thou canst in faith lie down upon a promise and take thy rest thereon, it is thine. Where Jacob "lighted" and tarried and rested, there he took possession. Stretching his weary length upon the ground,... with the stones of that place for his pillows, he little fancied that he was thus entering into ownership of the land; yet so it was. He saw in his dream that wondrous ladder which for all true believers unites earth and heaven, and surely where the foot of the ladder stood he must have a right to the soil, for other wise he could not reach the divine stair- way. All the promises of God are "Yea" and "Amen" in Christ Jesus, and as He is ours, every promise is ours if we will but lie down upon it in restful faith.
Come, weary one, use thy LORD's words as thy pillows, Lie down in peace. Dream only of Him. Jesus is thy ladder of light. See the angels coming and going upon Him between thy soul and thy God, and be sure that the promise is thine own God-given portion and that it will not be robbery for thee to take it to thyself, as spoken specially to thee.
Charles Spurgeon
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1/02/2012
It’s a Choice
By Max Lucado
Be happy with those who are happy, and be sad with those who are sad. Romans 12:15
I often find it easier to “weep with those who weep” than I do to “rejoice with those who rejoice!”
The summer before my 8th grade year, I made friends with Larry. He was new, so I encouraged him to go out for our school football team. It was one of those good news—bad news things. The good news? He made the cut. The bad news? He won my position!
A few weeks into the season Larry broke a finger. I remember the day he stood at my front door holding up his bandaged hand. “Looks like you’re going to have to play,” he said. I tried to feel sorry for him, but … “weep with those who weep” was a lot easier for Paul to write than for me to practice!
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"I will cause you to walk in My statutes" (Eze. xxxvi. 27).
The highest spiritual condition is one where life is spontaneous and flows without effort, like the deep floods of Ezekiel's river, where the struggles of the swimmer ceased, and he was borne by the current's resistless force.
So God leads us into spiritual conditions and habits which become the spontaneous impu...lses of our being, and we live and move in the fulness of the divine life.
But these spiritual habits are not the outcome of some transitory impulse, but are often slowly acquired and established. They begin, like every true habit, in a definite act of will, and they are confirmed by the repetition of that act until it becomes a habit. The first stages always involve effort and choice. We have to take a stand and hold it steadily, and after we have done so a certain time, it becomes second nature, and carries us by its own force.
The Holy Spirit is willing to form such habits in every direction of our Christian life, and if we will but obey Him in the first steppings of faith, we will soon become established in the attitude of obedience, and duty will be delight.
A. B. Simpson
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The Answer is God
"For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?" (Rom. 3:3).
I think that I can trace every scrap of sorrow in my life to simple unbelief. How could I be anything but quite happy if I believed always that all the past is forgiven, and all the present furnished with power, and all the future bright with hope b...ecause of the same abiding facts which do not change with my mood, do not stumble because I totter and stagger at the promise through unbelief, but stand firm and clear with their peaks of pearl cleaving the air of Eternity, and the bases of their hills rooted unfathomably in the Rock of God. Mont Blanc does not become a phantom or a mist because a climber grows dizzy on its side. --James Smetham
Is it any wonder that, when we stagger at any promise of God through unbelief, we do not receive it? Not that faith merits an answer, or in any way earns it, or works it out; but God has made believing a condition of receiving, and the Giver has a sovereign right to choose His own terms of gift. --Rev. Samuel Hart
Unbelief says, "How can such and such things be?" It is full of "hows"; but faith has one great answer to the ten thousand "hows," and that answer is--GOD! --C. H. M.
No praying man or woman accomplishes so much with so little expenditure of time as when he or she is praying.
If there should arise, it has been said--and the words are surely true to the thought of our Lord Jesus Christ in all His teaching on prayer-if there should arise ONE UTTERLY BELIEVING MAN, the history of the world might be changed.
Will YOU not be that one in the providence and guidance of God our Father? --A. E. McAdam
Prayer without faith degenerates into objectless routine, or soulless hypocrisy. Prayer with faith brings Omnipotence to back our petitions. Better not pray unless and until your whole being responds to the efficacy of your supplication. When the true prayer is breathed, earth and heaven, the past and the future, say Amen. And Christ prayed such prayers. --P. C. M.
"Nothing lies beyond the reach of prayer except that which lies outside the will of God."
Streams in the Desert
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The Lord God put him into the Garden. Genesis 2:15
Thus God started man in an ideal home. Memories of Eden, exquisite as dreams, weave the background of human life. Fellowship with the Creator, who walked its glades; its river, trees, and fruits; its blessed companionship; its light and ennobling toils - how fair the picture!
The Garden of Eden. - That was God's ideal. Wh...en men point thee to the scars on the world's face, left by the trail of the Arab slaver, the march of the army, the decaying glory of human civilization, and ask how such things are consistent with God's love, point to that garden and say, "That is what the love of God meant for man; Satan and sin have wrought this."
The Garden of Gethsemane. - When man forfeited Paradise, the Saviour was revealed to regain it. He trod the winepress alone in the shadowed garden of the olive trees, that through its glades He might pass to His cross, and so make the wastes of sin bloom again as Eden. Is it wonderful that another Paradise is possible, when He sowed its seeds and watered the soil with His blood?
Turning wastes into gardens. - In Eden man wrought as God's fellow worker; and we are called each day to do something toward reconstructing the Lost Paradise. Find thy part in delving, sowing, watering, or tending the tender shoots! Seek that thine heart should be an Eden, kept sacred for thy King, and endeavor thy best to plant gardens where hitherto sand-wastes and thorn, thickets have prevailed. Then, "instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."
F. B. Meyer
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God's Gentleness Implies Our Illness
It always seems to me that tenderness and gentleness implies that we are sick. In our Father's sight we are all ailing children. We have all noticed how when one is sick everyone around grows strangely gentle. There is an exquisite gentleness, as many of us know, in the touch of a true nurse. Even rough, rude men grow very gentle, as is seen so oft...en in war, when they are handling a wounded comrade. When he was well they tormented him; they played their jokes on him and coined his nickname; but when wounded, stricken, bleeding, shattered, they showed themselves as gentle as a woman. And I often think that the gentleness of God, could we track it to its mysterious deeps, is akin to that of soldier and of nurse. We are a sin-sick race. We all have leprosy. We are full of "wounds and bruises and putrifying sores." They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. Love in magnificence may suit the angels. But in the world's great battlefield and hospital, Love binds on the cross and walks in gentleness. "Thy gentleness hath made me great."
George H. Morrison
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LIVE RESPONSIBLY TODAY
Matthew 6:34
Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself
Trusting God for tomorrow is a question of our worth. Jesus said, "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" (Matthew 6:26). Birds are not created ...in the image of God. We are! Birds will not inherit the kingdom of God, but we shall. Birds are mortal; mankind is immortal. If God takes care of the birds, so much more will He take care of us. That's why the apostle Paul could write, "My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippines 4:19).
Matthew 6:30,31 states: "If God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, O men of little faith? Do not be anxious then." God lays His own reputation on the line. If we trust and obey, He will provide. This is a question of God's integrity. "For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things....Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:32,34).
God's will is that we live responsibly today and trust Him for tomorrow. Are we people of little faith, or do we really believe that the fruit of the Spirit will satisfy us more than earthly possessions? Do we really believe that if we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we shall be satisfied? Do we really believe that if we seek to establish God's kingdom, God will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory? If we do, then we will seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to us (Matthew 6:33).
Prayer: Thank You, Lord for so faithfully caring for me. I gladly cast all of my cares about today to You.
Neil T. Anderson
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Get Up and Get Going
by Joyce Meyer
I am weary with my groaning; all night I soak my pillow with tears, I drench my couch with my weeping . . . Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping (emphasis mine).
—Psalm 6:6, 8
Even before we are totally awake, Satan is bidding to deceive us and is ready to plant defeating thoughts in our mind. He wants us to be hopeless, faithless, and negative. He definitely doesn’t want us to be positive when we get up. He wants us to have a bad attitude and be selfish and self-centered, full of hatred, bitterness, resentment, doubt, unbelief, and fear—to be mad at everybody,
But thank God, through Jesus Christ we have been redeemed from all of those negative patterns. We can resist the devil and trust God’s power in order to live victoriously today.
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1/01/2012
Go to Him
By Max Lucado
“God is our protection and our strength. He always helps in times of trouble.” Psalm 46:1-2
Ever feel as if you need to get away? So did Jesus. (Mark 1:35)
Ever have so many demands that you can’t stop for lunch? He can relate. (Mark 6:31) . . .
Do your friends ever let you down? When Christ needed help, his friends dozed off. (Matthew 26:40) . . .
When you turn to him for help, he runs to you to help. Why? He knows how you feel. He’s been there . . .
So go to him.
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"Redeeming the time" (Eph. v. 16).
Two little words are found in the Greek version here. They are translated "ton kairon" in the revised version, "Buying up for yourselves the opportunity." The two words ton kairon mean, literally, the opportunity.
They do not refer to time in general, but to a special point of time, a juncture, a crisis, a moment full of possibilities a...nd quickly passing by, which we must seize and make the best of before it has passed away.
It is intimated that there are not many such moments of opportunity, because the days are evil; like a barren desert, in which, here and there, you find a flower, pluck it while you can; like a business opportunity which comes a few times in a life-time; buy it up while you have the chance. Be spiritually alert; be not unwise, but understanding what the will of God is. "Walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, buying up for yourselves the opportunity."
Sometimes it is a moment of time to be saved; sometimes a soul to be led to Christ; sometimes it is an occasion for love; sometimes for patience: sometimes for victory over temptation and sin. Let us redeem it.
A. B. Simpson
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Have you come to the Red Sea place in your life, Where, in spite of all you can do, There is no way out, there is no way back, There is no other way but through? Then wait on the Lord with a trust serene Till the night of your fear is gone; He will send the wind, He will heap the floods, When He says to your soul, "Go on."
And His hand will lead you through-clear through--Ere the wate...ry walls roll down, No foe can reach you, no wave can touch, No mightiest sea can drown; The tossing billows may rear their crests, Their foam at your feet may break, But over their bed you shall walk dry shod In the path that your Lord will make.
In the morning watch, 'beneath the lifted cloud, You shall see but the Lord alone, When He leads you on from the place of the sea To a land that you have not known; And your fears shall pass as your foes have passed, You shall be no more afraid; You shall sing His praise in a better place, A place that His hand has made.
Annie Johnson Flint
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The Evening and the Morning were the First Day. Genesis 1:5
How different is God's method from man's! The creature works from day to night, his best is first; but darkness overshadows his fairest hopes and best-concerted schemes. The Creator's days begin with the preceding eve. He reckons the evenings and nights into the days, because out of them the day is born; they usher in the lig...ht, and recreate body and brain for the busy hours that follow.
Art thou disappointed in Christian work? - Remember that God wrought on through long dark ages, ere His schemes were evolved in order and beauty. Human schemes begin with blare of trumpet and roll of drum, but are soon plunged in darkness. The heavenly seed is sown in autumn shadows; the foundation-stone of redemption was laid amid the gloom of Calvary; the work that lasts generally begins amid disappointment, difficulty, and heart-break, but inevitably passes into the day.
Art thou passing through the bitterness of soul-trouble? - For weeks there has been no ray of comfort, no sign of deliverance. Yet every dark hour is hastening toward the dawn. Thou shalt see thy Beloved walking toward thee in the morning light.
Art thou in despair for the worm? - The times are dark, and threaten to get darker. But if the first creation began in the dark, can it be wondered at that the second must begin there to? But as the one emerged in daylight, so shall the other. The morning cometh; see the star of day standing sentry! Time, is bearing us to a day that shall never go down to night, but shall mount ever toward its meridian.
F. B. Meyer
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My friend, as with David so with us: of all our needs, our deepest need is mercy--mercy to pardon, mercy to receive, mercy while we live and when we die. Without a mercy infinite and boundless, there is no hope for any mortal man. Without a mercy glorious and flee, there is nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment. And I do not know of anywhere within this universe where there sounds out the ...silver bell of mercy save in that ministry of reconciliation which is the message of the house of God. I turn to nature and I don't find it. I search for it in vain among the hills. I hear it not in the song of any brook nor in the organ-music of the sea. But the moment I enter into the house of God, clear as a trumpet, soft as the breath of evening, I hear of a mercy that is high as heaven and deeper far than the abyss of sin. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Christ hath died, the just for the unjust. He is able to save unto the uttermost. My brother and sister, whatever else we need, that is the deepest need of every one of us, for without that mercy none of us can live, and without it none of us can die in peace. Cherish, then, all that is bright and beautiful in the world around you and in the sky above you. Walk with an open ear, as David did, for every accent of the great Creator. And then like David, poet-king and sinner, feeling your need of the everlasting mercy, say to your soul afresh this Lord's day, "As for me, I will come into thy house."
George H. Morrison
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"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."--Psalm 90:12
Casting our eyes back upon the year now past and gone, are there no mercies which claim a note of thankful praise? It is sweet to see the Lord's kind hand in providence, but sweeter far to view his outstretched hand in grace. Are we then so unwatchful or so unmindful of the Lord's gracious hand i...n his various dealings with our soul as to view the whole past twelve months as a dead blank in which we have never seen his face, nor heard his voice, nor felt his power? "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness?" (Jer 2:31,) the Lord tenderly asks. Has he been such to us also for twelve long and weary months? What! No help by the way, no tokens for good, no liftings-up of the light of his countenance, no visitations of his presence and power, no breakings-in of his goodness for all that long and dreary time--for dreary it must indeed have been for a living soul to have been left and abandoned of the Lord so long! If not blessed with any peculiar manifestations of Christ, with any signal revelations of his Person and work, blood and love, grace and glory, for such special seasons are not of frequent, occurrence, have we not still found him the Way, the Truth, and the Life? If we have indeed a personal and spiritual union with the Son of God, as our living Head, there will be communications out of his fulness, a supplying of all our need, a drawing forth of faith, hope, and love, a support under trials, a deliverance from temptations, a deepening of his fear in the heart, and that continued work of grace whereby we are enabled to live a life of faith on the Son of God.
J. C. Philpot
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THE HOLY SPIRIT'S GUIDANCE
Romans 8:14
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God
A young pilot had just passed the point of no return when the weather changed for the worse. Visibility dropped to a matter of feet as fog descended to the earth. Putting total trust in the cockpit instruments was a new experience to him, for the ink was still wet on the certificate verifying that he was qualified for instrument flying.
The landing worried him the most. His destination was a crowded metropolitan airport he wasn't familiar with. In a few minutes he would be in radio contact with the tower. Until then, he was alone with his thoughts. His instructor had practically forced him to memorize the rule book. He didn't care for it at the time, but now he was thankful.
Finally he heard the voice of the air traffic controller. "I'm going to put you on a holding pattern," the controller radioed. Great! thought the pilot. However, he knew that his safe landing was in the hands of this person. He had to draw upon his previous instructions and training, and trust the voice of an air traffic controller he couldn't see. Aware that this was no time for pride, he informed the controller, "This is not a seasoned pro up here. I would appreciate any help you could give me."
"You've got it!" he heard back.
For the next 45 minutes, the controller gently guided the pilot through the blinding fog. As course and altitude corrections came periodically, the young pilot realized the controller was guiding him around obstacles and away from potential collisions. With the words of the rule book firmly placed in his mind, and with the gentle voice of the controller, he landed safely at last.
The Holy Spirit guides us through the maze of life much like that air traffic controller. The controller assumed that the young pilot understood the instructions of the flight manual. His guidance was based on that. Such is the case with the Holy Spirit: He can guide us if we have a knowledge of God's Word and His will established in our minds.
Prayer: Lord, as this new year begins, I choose to be sensitive to Your voice and resolutely committed to doing Your will.
Neil T. Anderson
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The Bible's First Promise
"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15).
This is the first promise to fallen man. It contains the whole gospel and the essence of the covenant of grace. It has been in great measure fulfilled. The seed of the woman, even our LORD Jesus, was bruised in... His heel, and a terrible bruising it was. How terrible will be the final bruising of the serpent's head! This was virtually done when Jesus took away sin, vanquished death, and broke the power of Satan; but it awaits a still fuller accomplishment at our LORD's second advent and in the Day of Judgment. To us the promise stands as a prophecy that we shall be afflicted by the powers of evil in our lower nature, and thus bruised in our heel; but we shall triumph in Christ, who sets His foot on the old serpent's head. Through- out this year we may have to learn the first part of this promise by experience, through the temptations of the devil and the unkindness of the ungodly, who are his seed. They may so bruise us that we may limp with our sore heel; but let us grasp the second part of the text, and we shall not be dismayed. By faith let us rejoice that we shall still reign in Christ Jesus, the woman's seed.
Charles Spurgeon
