September 11, 2011

  • 10 Years Ago

    “Now, we have inscribed a new memory alongside those others. It’s a memory of tragedy and shock, of loss and mourning. But not only of loss and mourning. It’s also a memory of bravery and self-sacrifice, and the love that lays down its life for a friend–even a friend whose name it never knew. “
    - President George W. Bush

August 27, 2011

  • a letter from the Devil?

    In our times of trial and temptation, Satan comes to us bringing lies: “You’re surrounded now and there is no way out. Greater servants than you have quit in circumstances no worse than this. Now it’s your turn to go down. You’re a failure, otherwise you wouldn’t be going through this. There’s something wrong with you and God is sorely displeased.”

    In the midst of his trial, Hezekiah acknowledged his helplessness. The king realized he had no strength to stop the voices raging at him, voices of discouragement, threats and lies. He knew he couldn’t deliver himself from the battle, so he sought the Lord for help.

    And God answered by sending the prophet Isaiah to Hezekiah with this message: “The Lord has heard your cry. Now, tell the Satan at your gate, ‘You’re the one who is going down. By the way you came here, you will also go out.’”

    Hezekiah had very nearly fallen for the enemy’s trick.

    The fact is, if we don’t stand up to Satan’s lies—if, in our hour of crisis, we don’t turn to faith and prayer, if we don’t draw strength from God’s promises of deliverance—the devil will zero in on our wavering faith and intensify his attacks.

    Hezekiah gained courage from the word he received, and he was able to say to Sennacherib in no uncertain terms: “Devil king, you did not blaspheme me. You liked to God himself. My Lord is going to deliver me. And because you blasphemed him, you will face his wrath!”

    The Bible tells us that God supernaturally delivered Hezekiah and Judah on that very night: “It came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses” (2 Kings 19:35).

    Believers today stand not just on a promise but also on the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

    And in that blood we have victory over every sin, temptation and battle we will ever face. Maybe you’ve received a letter from the devil lately.

    I ask you: Do you believe God has the foreknowledge to anticipate your every trial? Your every foolish move? Your every doubt and fear? If so, you have the example of David before you, who prayed, “This poor man cried, and the Lord delivered him.” Will you do the same?

    David Wilkerson. ((FB Devo. June 30, 2011)) http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/node/13886

June 16, 2011

  • be still

    "If you would know love, you must know pain." -Hind's Feet on High Places

    O Sovereign LORD, you are God! Your words are trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant. - 2 Samuel 7:28

    "Abraham believed God" (Rom. 4:3), and said to his eyes, "Stand back!"
    and to the laws of nature, "Hold your peace!"
    and to an unbelieving heart, "Silence, you lying tempter!"
    He simply " believed God." ~Joseph Parker

June 14, 2011

  • such a Jonah day... such a Jonah life...

    I love working with little children...

    I love their insight on the deeply simple things.

    This darling little child tells the story of Jonah. At first, I thought she had just been drilled in a script. But as I watched her other videos (I think she does it as a little way of entertaining herself), she tells the stories because they come ALIVE to her... May the stories come alive for you.

    <a href="">Jonah

June 13, 2011

June 11, 2011

  • Gentleness of Spirit

    "The servant of the Lord must be gentle"

    (2 Tim. 2:24).
    When God conquers us and takes all the flint out of our nature, and we get deep visions into the Spirit of Jesus, we then see as never before the great rarity ofgentleness of spirit in this dark and unheavenly world.

    The graces of the Spirit do not settle themselves down upon us by chance, and if we do not discern certain states of grace, and choose them, and in our thoughts nourish them, they never become fastened in our nature or behavior.

    Every advance step in grace must be preceded by first apprehending it, and then a prayerful resolve to have it.

    So few are willing to undergo the suffering out of which thorough gentleness comes. We must die before we are turned into gentleness, and crucifixion involves suffering; it is a real breaking and crushing of self, which wrings the heart and conquers the mind.

    There is a good deal of mere mental and logical sanctification nowadays, which is only a religious fiction. It consists of mentally putting one's self on the altar, and then mentally saying the altar sanctifies the gift, and then logically concluding therefore one is sanctified; and such an one goes forth with a gay, flippant, theological prattle about the deep things of God.

    But the natural heartstrings have not been snapped, and the Adamic flint has not been ground to powder, and the bosom has not throbbed with the lonely, surging sighs of Gethsemane; and not having the real death marks of Calvary, there cannot be that soft, sweet, gentle, floating, victorious, overflowing, triumphant life that flows like a spring morning from an empty tomb. --G. D. W.

    "And great grace was upon them all"

    (Acts 4:33).

    (Streams in the Desert, Back the Bible Daily Devotional)

May 29, 2011

  • so simple

    Miss Wiz'Beth posed a Deep Question to K-1 Bible Class: What is Loving your Neighbor?

    "When someone is squished and dey scrape der knee and den 'ou can gib dem a BANDAID." Jadon. Aged 5.

    ((why do Grown Ups complicate things so much?))

April 24, 2011

  • "Ready-to-halt, poor Fearing, and thou, Mrs. Despondency, and Much-afraid, go often there [the empty tomb]; let it be your favourite haunt, there build a tabernacle, there abide. And often say to your heart, when you are in distress and sorrow, "Come, see the place where the Lord lay." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

March 7, 2011

March 1, 2011

  • Remember

    Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr