Post by JEM on Dec 3, 2006 1:16:52 GMT
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
In God is only good, in me is only ill
My ill but fdrasw His goodness forth
And me Heloves still
It's He whp saves me and freely pardon gives
I love because He loves me
I live because He lives
Words by H Bonar
My gracious Lord I accept your right
To every service I can pay
And call it my supreme delight
To hear your dictates and obey
Words by Philip Doddridge
God can only bless you when you are committed to being what He redeemed and called you to be.
To live any other way is to be lonely, fearful and unfulfilled. So be yourself and follow and finish the course set out for you. Paul wrote to Timothy ( 2 Tim 4 v 7) "I have finished my course". So complete what you start.Keep going whatever ever happens to try to prevent, delay, divert or stop you. Dont give up, nor give in.
Stop and think, since God is a creator, and he made us in his likeness, shouldn't we be creative too? Fear is one of our greatest ennemies. It numbs our spirit and incarcerates our creativity. Use what God's given. Use it or lose it.
Seize the day. Redeem the "now" moments of your life, - the time you are waiting for may never arrive.
Deut 8 : 18 KJV amplified " It is ( God ) that giveth thee power ( ideas, ability, creativity) to get wealth (or to do well)".
Voltaire, the French sceptic, once wrote from his Paris office "I will go through the forest of Scripture and girdle all the trees so that in one hundred years Christianity will be but a vanishing memory". Richard Dawkins does much the same today. The irony of Voltaire's words is that years later his office became a store room of the British & Foriegn Bible Society filled with Bibles awaiting transit to the huge international family of believers. Voltaire failled just as Richard Dawkins will too.
Challenged from year to year as it is The Bible most years remains the World best selling book, now available in whole or part in over 2000 dialects, Voltaire lay dying and on his death bed he realised he had been horribly wrong about Heaven and Hell and God and sin and lots else and died without hope.
Paul said "Pray without ceasing" We might say "Breathe without ceasing" after all we know what would happen if we stopped breathing. We cling to the breath in our bodies as if it's life. So just as breathing is indispensable to our natural life so prayer is indispensable to our spiritual life. Without it we die spiritually. So how's your prayer life? If we are in deep water is it time to come up for air? If we are in deep in any other respect is it time to come up for prayer?
Mark tells us 4 men brought their paralysed friend to Jesus and so determined were they to get to the front they lowered him through the roof. Jesus reponded by forgiving him his sins, and healing him. He left with a clean soul and a strong body. Faithful friends carry those they love in prayer into God's presence, How will God respond? We do not know? Those 4 men did not know that.
But we know this " When a believing perspn prays, great things happen. So let's be that kind of friend. Go ahead. Carry your loved ones, your family, you best mates, your new aquaintences, your neighbours, the criminal lunatics causing havoc on our streets who are paralysed by demonic power and deluded by satanic purpose, into the presence of Jesus. Then watch what happens and keep on keeping watch until it does, however long it takes.
We didn't become Christians in a day. It took me 15 years to just reach the start and that after 10 years of Sunday School, years of faithful preaching, lots of reading, caring and prayer and an awful lot of sinning. How long was it with you ? James 5 v 16 NCV "When a believing person prays, great things happen"
Teach me in times of deep distress to accept Your hand. my God
and in submissive silence learn the lessons of Your rod
In every varying mortal state,. each bright or dreary scene
Give me a meek and humble mind, still equal and serene
Then shall I close my eyes in death without one anxious fear
For death itself, my God, is life, if you are with me there.
Words from Ottiwell Hegibotham
God never wastes experience. If Moses had not been raised in the Palace,. Pharoah would probably have regarded him just as some crazy shepherd with a bad case of sunstroke, and killed him. But his past prepared him for his future, Because of his desert training he was able to protect and lead Israel through the Sinai wastelands. The very fact that he had been born into slavery, gave him the compassion to say"yes" to such a task. So dont run from your past. Learn from it. Pharoah had ordered the death of every male under two, yet he was raising one in his own palace who would liberate Israel and bring down his throne. "It is God who has made us what we are". Ephesians 2 v 10 TLB
My faith, it is an oaken staff
The travellers well loved aid.
My faith, it is a weapon stout
The soldier's trusty blade
I'll travel on and still be stirred
By silent thought or social word
By all my perils undeterred
A soldier-pilgrim staid,
My faith, it is an oaken staff
O let me on it lean
My faith, it is a trusty sword
May falsehood find it keen
Your Spirit, LORD, to me impart
Oh make me what you ever are
Of patient and courageous heart
As all true saints have been.
In God is only good, in me is only ill
My ill but fdrasw His goodness forth
And me Heloves still
It's He whp saves me and freely pardon gives
I love because He loves me
I live because He lives
Words by H Bonar
My gracious Lord I accept your right
To every service I can pay
And call it my supreme delight
To hear your dictates and obey
Words by Philip Doddridge
God can only bless you when you are committed to being what He redeemed and called you to be.
To live any other way is to be lonely, fearful and unfulfilled. So be yourself and follow and finish the course set out for you. Paul wrote to Timothy ( 2 Tim 4 v 7) "I have finished my course". So complete what you start.Keep going whatever ever happens to try to prevent, delay, divert or stop you. Dont give up, nor give in.
Stop and think, since God is a creator, and he made us in his likeness, shouldn't we be creative too? Fear is one of our greatest ennemies. It numbs our spirit and incarcerates our creativity. Use what God's given. Use it or lose it.
Seize the day. Redeem the "now" moments of your life, - the time you are waiting for may never arrive.
Deut 8 : 18 KJV amplified " It is ( God ) that giveth thee power ( ideas, ability, creativity) to get wealth (or to do well)".
Voltaire, the French sceptic, once wrote from his Paris office "I will go through the forest of Scripture and girdle all the trees so that in one hundred years Christianity will be but a vanishing memory". Richard Dawkins does much the same today. The irony of Voltaire's words is that years later his office became a store room of the British & Foriegn Bible Society filled with Bibles awaiting transit to the huge international family of believers. Voltaire failled just as Richard Dawkins will too.
Challenged from year to year as it is The Bible most years remains the World best selling book, now available in whole or part in over 2000 dialects, Voltaire lay dying and on his death bed he realised he had been horribly wrong about Heaven and Hell and God and sin and lots else and died without hope.
Paul said "Pray without ceasing" We might say "Breathe without ceasing" after all we know what would happen if we stopped breathing. We cling to the breath in our bodies as if it's life. So just as breathing is indispensable to our natural life so prayer is indispensable to our spiritual life. Without it we die spiritually. So how's your prayer life? If we are in deep water is it time to come up for air? If we are in deep in any other respect is it time to come up for prayer?
Mark tells us 4 men brought their paralysed friend to Jesus and so determined were they to get to the front they lowered him through the roof. Jesus reponded by forgiving him his sins, and healing him. He left with a clean soul and a strong body. Faithful friends carry those they love in prayer into God's presence, How will God respond? We do not know? Those 4 men did not know that.
But we know this " When a believing perspn prays, great things happen. So let's be that kind of friend. Go ahead. Carry your loved ones, your family, you best mates, your new aquaintences, your neighbours, the criminal lunatics causing havoc on our streets who are paralysed by demonic power and deluded by satanic purpose, into the presence of Jesus. Then watch what happens and keep on keeping watch until it does, however long it takes.
We didn't become Christians in a day. It took me 15 years to just reach the start and that after 10 years of Sunday School, years of faithful preaching, lots of reading, caring and prayer and an awful lot of sinning. How long was it with you ? James 5 v 16 NCV "When a believing person prays, great things happen"
Teach me in times of deep distress to accept Your hand. my God
and in submissive silence learn the lessons of Your rod
In every varying mortal state,. each bright or dreary scene
Give me a meek and humble mind, still equal and serene
Then shall I close my eyes in death without one anxious fear
For death itself, my God, is life, if you are with me there.
Words from Ottiwell Hegibotham
God never wastes experience. If Moses had not been raised in the Palace,. Pharoah would probably have regarded him just as some crazy shepherd with a bad case of sunstroke, and killed him. But his past prepared him for his future, Because of his desert training he was able to protect and lead Israel through the Sinai wastelands. The very fact that he had been born into slavery, gave him the compassion to say"yes" to such a task. So dont run from your past. Learn from it. Pharoah had ordered the death of every male under two, yet he was raising one in his own palace who would liberate Israel and bring down his throne. "It is God who has made us what we are". Ephesians 2 v 10 TLB
My faith, it is an oaken staff
The travellers well loved aid.
My faith, it is a weapon stout
The soldier's trusty blade
I'll travel on and still be stirred
By silent thought or social word
By all my perils undeterred
A soldier-pilgrim staid,
My faith, it is an oaken staff
O let me on it lean
My faith, it is a trusty sword
May falsehood find it keen
Your Spirit, LORD, to me impart
Oh make me what you ever are
Of patient and courageous heart
As all true saints have been.