Meditations of the day

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"We cannot exercise our faith beyond what we believe to be possible." -John G. Lake-

"I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking." -George MacDonald-

 

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“The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.” - Robert Farrar Capon-

 

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"Our task as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion" -N.T. Wright-

“When we begin to glimpse the reality of God, the natural reaction is to worship him. Not to have that reaction is a fairly sure sign that we haven’t yet really understood who he is or what he’s done.” -N. T. Wright

 

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"It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage." - Henry Ward Beecher-

 

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“The beauty of the ragamuffin gospel lies in the insight it offers into Jesus: the essential tenderness of His heart, His way of looking at the world, His mode of relating to you and me. 'If you really want to understand a man, don't just listen to what he says, but watch what he does.”

― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

“You will remember this when all else fades, this moment, here, together, by this well. There will be certain days, and certain nights, you’ll feel my presence near you, hear my voice. You’ll think you have imagined it and yet, inside you, you will catch an answering cry. On April evenings, when the rain has ceased, your heart will shake, you’ll weep for nothing, pine for what’s not there. For you, this life will never be enough, there will forever be an emptiness, where once the god was all in all in you.” - John Banville (The Infinities)-

 

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“God is not a celestial prison warden jangling the keys on a bunch of lifers--he's a shepherd seeking for sheep, a woman searching for coins, a father waiting for his son.” - Clarence Jordan-

 

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"Little self-denials, little honesties, little passing words of sympathy, little nameless acts of kindness, little silent victories over favorite temptations-these are the silent threads of gold which, when woven together, gleam out so brightly in the pattern of life that God approves." -Frederic Farrar-

"Our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise up, dust ourselves off, and move forward." -Dieter F. Uchtdorf-

 

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Do you continue to go with Jesus?

"You are they which have continued with Me in My temptations." Luke 22:28.

It is true that Jesus Christ is with us in our temptations, but are we going with Him in His temptations? Many of us cease to go with Jesus from the moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God shifts your circumstances, and see whether you are going with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh and the devil. We wear His badge, but are we going with Him? “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him.” The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going with Jesus in the life we are living now?

We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings round us. Never! God engineers circumstances, and whatever they may be like we have to see that we face them while abiding continually with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. The honour of Jesus Christ is at stake in your bodily life. Are you remaining loyal to the Son of God in the things which beset His life in you?

Do you continue to go with Jesus? The way lies through Gethsemane, through the city gate, outside the camp; the way lies alone, and the way lies until there is no trace of a footstep left, only the voice, “Follow Me.”

-Oswald Chambers-

 

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“Trust him. And when you have done that, you are living the life of grace. No matter what happens to you in the course of that trusting - no matter how many waverings you may have, no matter how many suspicions that you have bought a poke with no pig in it, no matter how much heaviness and sadness your lapses, vices, indispositions, and bratty whining may cause you - you believe simply that Somebody Else, by his death and resurrection, has made it all right, and you just say thank you and shut up. The whole slop-closet full of mildewed performances (which is all you have to offer) is simply your death; it is Jesus who is your life. If he refused to condemn you because your works were rotten, he certainly isn't going to flunk you because your faith isn't so hot. You can fail utterly, therefore, and still live the life of grace. You can fold up spiritually, morally, or intellectually and still be safe. Because at the very worst, all you can be is dead - and for him who is the Resurrection and the Life, that just makes you his cup of tea.” -R.F. Capon-

 

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"Believing in the resurrection does not just mean assenting to a dogma and noting a historical fact. It means participating in this creative act of God’s … Resurrection is not a consoling opium, soothing us with the promise of a better world in the hereafter. It is the energy for a rebirth of this life. The hope doesn’t point to another world. It is focused on the redemption of this one." -Jürgen Moltmann-

"God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him." -Jürgen Moltmann-

 

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“Some people could be given an entire field of roses and only see the thorns in it. Others could be given a single weed and only see the wildflower in it. Perception is a key component to gratitude. And gratitude is a key component to joy.” - Amy Weatherly-

 

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"Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes, the rest sit around and pick blackberries." -Elizabeth Barrett Browning-

 

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"Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,—but to feel the life in you down all the fibres of being, passionately and joyfully." -Elizabeth Barrett Browning-

“I heard the laughter of God in the midst of me and within the world, and all was suddenly changed. Old patterns and ideas were shattered and passed away — a new loveliness of LIFE was exposed to view.” -Walter C. Lanyon-

 

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There are aspects of the Lord that are better felt than telt.
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"God is the God of the animals in a far lovelier way, I suspect, than many of us dare to think, but he will not be the God of a man by making a good beast of him." -George MacDonald-

 

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“True faith rests upon the character of God and asks no further proof than the moral perfections of the One who cannot lie.” -A.W. Tozer-

“We can afford to follow Him to failure. Faith dares to fail. The resurrection and the judgment will demonstrate before all worlds who won and who lost. We can wait.” -A.W. Tozer-

 

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“Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God's love encompasses us completely. ... He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken.” - Dieter F. Uchtdorf-

 

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“Eternity will not be long enough to learn all he is, or to praise him for all he has done, but then, that matters not; for we shall be always with him, and we desire nothing more.” -F.W. Faber-

“We strain hardest for things which are almost but not quite within our reach.” -F.W. Faber-

 

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"We IMPART joy, blessing, praise, life, strength, healing and love.

The word "impart" has two main meanings:

1) to make known or to disclose (e.g., to impart knowledge);

2) to bestow a measure or quantity of (e.g., to impart happiness)

Both of these can be done by words - either written, or spoken, and both of these forms of using words readily apply to our life with God.

But more than this, we constantly impart who we are to those around us. We impart our moods and feelings; we impart our personality and character.

Of vital consideration is the imparting through our thoughts and prayers.

The most commonly used word for prayer in the Greek NT is "proseuchomai" --

"Eu" means "well, ease, and well-being;" the "chomai" is what makes it a verb. The "pros" is a prefix which basically means "toward."

So praying is "toward-eu-ing." It is thinking, speaking or mentally projecting "toward things being well, or toward well-being."

Through our spirits and our words, we project and thus impart to other people, and to situations, throughout creation, and, to God Himself.

Care should be taken concerning the "words of our mouths, and the meditations of our hearts."

-Jonathan Mitchell-

::Jonathan Mitchell's New Testament Translation::