Faith is frightening

           Faith is frightening because it speaks of the death of the self.  It seems weak and useless because it undermines any role we might play in this salvation drama.  For faith is not an attitude we conjure up, like a cheerleader rousing a crowd, to show God we really mean it.  It is not mere intellectual assent that shows God we are thinking soundly.  Faith is not even a repentant and contrite heart that we work up to impress God with our humility.  Faith is the unexpected realization that something remarkable has happened in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ: our annihilation and our start over.

            More remarkable still: There are no conditions.  No bargains.  No back room deals.  Pure grace.  Grace as a gift.  No strings attached! ~~ Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today

I like it

           This is not that deep but I like it, “Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain...”  Come dance with me you will like it.

Sentimental ideas

          I don’t know what kind of sentimental ideas you have about Jesus. Just read your Bibles and they’ll go away. ~~ John Piper

Men are at odds

           Mother Basilea Schlink wrote these words, “Jesus, my Lord, so hated today.”  It is no secret that men as they are do not want God.  They are at odds with Him and His followers.  When it is to their convenience given an appropriate time they might want His Grace but…  They want some of His fringe benefits but not the living God himself.  They are full of excusses and claim that He interferes with their freedom.

Simply put

           Never will you arrive.  There is no more greater truth then the fact that God accept us as we are and our prayers as dismal as they are; haughty, prideful conceited, egocentric.  Keep praying for the prayers He want to answer and the heart to receive His answer.  Confess and begin again and, and again.

            

Kindle afresh

           Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, “Because of this I remind you to rekindle God’s gift that you possess [that is in you] through the laying on of my hands.” (2 Timothy 1:6, NET).

The Greek word for stir, anazopureo, "denotes 'to kindle afresh' or 'keep in full flame' ... [It] is used metaphorically here where 'the gift of God' is regarded as a fire capable of dying out through neglect. The verb was in common use in the vernacular of the time" (Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, "Stir, Stir Up," p. 600).

This gift of God, which comes to us through the laying on of hands, is His Holy Spirit (Acts 8:18). In essence, Paul likened God's Spirit to an ember in a dying fire; he encouraged Timothy to stir that live coal up, to fan it into flames.

It is not the structure that needs the torch, but the members.  It is not the institution that needs power, but the individuals who make it up.  Fire out of control spreads destruction and calamity, but fire under control brings warmth and growth.  No matter how many killing frosts have numbed a congregation, the fire of love can cause a thaw, breaking down old animosities, restoring human relationships, creating fellowship in the Spirit.

            The fire of love burns away the artificial distinctions that men set up, so that Christians can treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.  The fire of love sends up in smoke the centuries – old history of prejudice and establishes a genuine equality among people of different sexes and races.  The fire of love pierces the conscience, forcing a man to examine himself and to make right his relationship with God and man.

            Lord, You are the torch and we are the heather.  Set us ablaze! ~~ Sherwood E. Wirt, Decision 

Divine ability

           Men can no more press themselves into the Kingdom of Heaven than a camel can force himself through a needle’s eye.  The great lesson that the Savior was seeking to teach his disciples was not that of human inability but that of the divine ability, not that man cannot save himself, but that God can save him. ~~ Benjamin B. Warfield, The Power of God unto Salvation

Thy power

           News of stirrings of the Spirit or even outpourings of the Spirit in other parts is a means God commonly uses to foster a spirit of expectancy.  Every evidence of God’s willingness to bless in other places should be to every longing soul a most hopeful sign of impending revival.  ‘If God has done it there, may he not do it here also?’  This is the simple but reasonable ground of optimism.  There is nothing more calculated to quicken desire and expectancy in prepared hearts than the news of what God has done or is doing elsewhere.  When there comes news of striking conversions, of local movements of the Spirit, of touches of revival – if we may call them such – here and there, longing hearts will beat with quickened expectancy, and opened ears will hear God saying through these unusual events, ‘I work and who can hinder it?’ (Isaiah 43:13, RSV). ~~ Arthur Wallis, In the Day of Thy Power

Answers to those prayers

           Prayer is about bringing God into every situation and asking Him to change it from something natural into something supernatural so He can get all the glory. ~~ Joy Dawson, Jesus the model

Lord of everything

           God of the gaps?  No God is overwhelming, in the center, not in weaknesses but in strength; and therefore not in death and guilt but in man’s life and goodness….  God is the God of the whole world and we must stop pretending He wants only to live in those religious corners that we reserved for Him.

By the Grace of God

By the Grace of God, I am what I am

I am not what I ought to be —
ah, how imperfect and deficient!

I am not what I wish to be —
I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good!

I am not what I hope to be —
soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection.

Yet, though I am not what I ought to be,
nor what I wish to be,
nor what I hope to be,
I can truly say, I am not what I once was;
a slave to sin and Satan;
and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge,
“By the grace of God I am what I am.”

- John Newton, as quoted in The Christian Pioneer

The One

           All across the distance in space that is between us, you love to show me that you’re the One – God.  This dates from eternity itself.

Planning

           If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people. ~~ Chinese proverb

To fool

           The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. ~~ Richard Feynman

Responsibility

           It is the responsibility of every adult to make sure that children hear what we have learned from the lessons of life and to hear over and over that we love them. ~~ Marian W. Edelman

Holiness

           Holiness, like winning the race, will come only to the degree that we keep our eyes fixed on the Son of God.

To our left and to our right the world clamors for our attention. It shouts at us with lavish claims of something better, hoping to distract us from our focus and lead us into another lane. In the world of track, that’s grounds for immediate disqualification.

But warnings about disqualification are soon forgotten once the gun sounds. The only thing that will keep us running in the right direction is having our hearts fixed on Jesus. ~~ Sam Storm, When we look to Jesus

The Spirit

           No reader of the New Testament can fail to be struck by the constant reiteration in different forms of the idea that the normal experience of the Christian at that epoch was enhancement of power – ‘I can do all things’ – and enhancement attributed by them to the operation in and through them of a divine energy to which the community gave the name of ‘Spirit.’  Pentecost, the healing miracles of the Apostolic Age, the triumphant progress of [Christianity] through the Roman Empire, the heroic deeds of saints and martyrs – all these point to the sense of a power newly discovered. ~~ J. A. Hadfield, The Spirit

I walk

           I walk with the man of demonstrated character, a light unto this darkness.  I live with the catholic Jesus, the mystical Jesus, the space-time four Jesus; a power greater than myself which abides in a transcendent cloud right beside me.

Jesus loves

           Jesus loves you with a personal love.  And He is waiting for you to love Him with a personal love.  This love will bring the deepest fulfillment to your life. ~~ Mother Basilea Schlink (1904-2001)

Gift

           Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God. ~~ Leo Buscaglia

Future

           The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today. ~~ Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in1852

Joy

           Joy is not in things! It is in us! ~~ Benjamin Franklin

No man

           No man ruleth safely but he that is willingly ruled. ~~ Thomas a` Kempis

Smart

           It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. ~~ Albert Einstein

Jewishness

           World Magazine commented on the ministry of Moishe Rosen (the founder of Jews for Jesus) who passed on to glory earlier this year.  "In a farewell letter addressed to messianic Jews he warned against promoting Jewishness and Judaism as a priority saying 'I hope I can count on you to show love and respect for the Jewish people, but Jewishness and Judaism never saved anybody no matter how sincere". ~~ Rodney G. Lensch

Secret

           The secret of John Hyde’s power with God and with men – “Giving Thanks in Everything.” ~~ R. M`Cheyne Paterson

GRACE is

          Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. It is a self-existent principle inherent in the divine nature and appears to us as a self-caused propensity to pity the wretched, spare the guilty, welcome the outcast, and bring into favor those who were before under disapprobation." ~~ A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)