Prayer For Today

Lord, rid us of every particle of self-reliance and teach us to trust fully in You alone. (inspired by J.I. Packer's book Knowing God, chapter 9)

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You Can Pray!

What a comforting thought that on any given day, you (as a blood-bought child of God) have access to the mighty sovereign King of the universe. He hears and answers the cries of those who have been redeemed by his son, the Lord Jesus. He cares. He loves you. He can do something about your troubles. We can pray.

"I have called upon You, for You will answer me, O God;
Incline Your ear to me, hear my speech.
Wondrously show Your lovingkindness,
O Savior of those who take refuge at Your right hand
From those who rise up against them.
Keep me as the apple of the eye;
Hide me in the shadow of Your wings." Psalm 17: 6-8

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"No Love to Jesus? Impossible!"

"Do you love Jesus?

You must light your torch of affection for Christ — at the altar of Calvary. You must go there, and learn and believe what the love of Jesus is to you: the vastness of that love; the self-sacrifice of that love; how that love of Christ labored and wept, bled, suffered, and died for you!

Can you stand before this love — this love so precious, so great, so enduring, so self-consuming, so changeless; and know that . . .
  for you was this offering,
  for you this cross,
  for you this agony,
  for you this scorn and insult,
  for you this death —
and feel no sensibility, no emotion, no love to Jesus? Impossible!

Do not be cast down, then, in vain regrets that your love to Christ is so frigid, so fickle, so dubious. Go and muse upon the reality and the greatness of the Savior's love to you — and if love can inspire love, while you muse, the fire will burn, and your soul shall be all in flame with love to Jesus!"
-- Octavius Winslow (1808-1878)

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God, What Are You doing?

Difficulties and troubles can be very useful.  Often they strip away the frivolity of our living and thinking and instead make us think seriously and search for meaning and truth that will help us stand in the storms of life. God intends trials to bring us back to Him.  In our pain we are more able to recognize our weakness, our inadequacy, our dependency, and our great need for God.  Trials make us grapple with questions like, "What do I really believe about God? And what in the world is He doing?"

Today I was reading J.I. Packer's classic book Knowing God.  In it (Chapter 9, God Only Wise), I found a quote that gives a great answer to that question, "God, what are you doing?", and will help us align our lives with his great purposes for us, even in trials.

"God's almighty wisdom is always active, and never fails. All his works of creation and providence and grace display it, and until we can see it in them we just are not seeing them straight.  But we cannot recognize God's wisdom unless we know the end for which he is working.  Here many go wrong.  Misunderstanding what the Bible means when it says that God is love (see 1 John 4:8-10), they think that God intends a trouble-free life for all, irrespective of their moral and spiritual state, and hence they conclude that anything painful and upsetting (illness, accident, injury, loss of job, the suffering of a loved one) indicates either that God's wisdom, or power, or both, have broken down, or that God, after all, does not exist.

But this idea of God's intention is a complete mistake: God's wisdom is not, and never was, pledged to keep a fallen world happy, or to make ungodliness comfortable.  Not even to Christians has he promised a trouble-free life; rather the reverse.  He has other ends in view for life in this world than simply to make it easy for everyone.

What is he after, then?  What is his goal?  What does he aim at?  When he made us, his purpose was that we should love and honor him, praising him for the wonderfully ordered complexity and variety of his world, using it according to his will, and so enjoying both it and him.  And though we have fallen, God has not abandoned his first purpose.  Still he plans that a great host of humankind should come to love and honor him.  His ultimate objective is to bring them to a state in which he is all in all to them, and he and they rejoice continually in the knowledge of each other's love--people rejoicing in the saving love of God, set upon them from all eternity, and God rejoicing in the responsive love of people, drawn out of them by grace through the gospel. 

This will be God's glory, and our glory too, in every sense which that weighty word can bear. But it will only be fully realized in the next world, in the context of a transformation of the whole created order. Meanwhile, however, God works steadily toward it.  His immediate objectives are to draw individual men and women into a relationship of faith, hope, and love toward himself, delivering them from sin and showing forth in their lives the power of his grace; to defend his people against the forces of evil; and to spread throughout the world the gospel by means of which he saves.

In the fulfillment of each part of this purpose the Lord Jesus Christ is central, for God has set him forth both as Savior from sin, whom we must trust, and as Lord of the church, whom we must obey."

Yes, the last line is in bold type because it reminds me that Christ is at the very center of all God is doing. Through him we have been saved from the impending wrath that was ours because of our sin, and on this side of the cross we need him every single day as we receive the grace to respond to life in a way that acknowledges the wisdom and love of our heavenly Father, who is behind it all.  What a comfort to know that we are in good hands.

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Take Heart

Anyone ever feel like a failure, or feel discouraged by the reality of your sin?

Take heart, Christian, because You are still alive, Jesus isn't done with any of us, and there is always hope when He is part of the equation. As a fellow sinner, I am daily comforted by the fact that God will never stop loving us:

" The Lord is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. He will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust." -Psalm 103:8-14

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Magnificent

I was first introduced to the music of Matt Redman when my daughter shared his song 10,000 Reasons with our church. So I bought his cd with the same name and have so enjoyed it.  One of my favorites songs now from that cd is called Magnificent, and it draws my heart to worship....

                                                                     "Magnificent"

You show Your majesty
In every star that shines
And every time we breathe
Your glory, God, revealed
From distant galaxies
To here beneath our skin

You are higher than we ever could imagine
And closer than our eyes could ever see
You are...

[Chorus]
Magnificent, You alone are holy
No one else as glorious as You
Magnificent, Jesus You are worthy
Who can shine as brightly as You do?
Magnificent
You're so magnificent

You're lighting up our lives
Illuminate our hearts
With everything You are

You are higher than we ever could imagine
And closer than our eyes could ever see
You are...

[Chorus]
Magnificent, You alone are holy
No one else as glorious as You
Magnificent, Jesus You are worthy
Who can shine as brightly as You do?
Magnificent
You're so magnificent
Magnificent
You're so magnificent

You are higher than we ever could imagine
And closer than our eyes could ever see
We are pouring out our hearts here in Your presence

[Chorus]
Magnificent, You alone are holy
No one else as glorious as You
Magnificent, Jesus You are worthy
Who can shine as brightly as You do?
Magnificent
You're so magnificent
Magnificent
You're so magnificent

**********

Hear it here on youtube.

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The Gospel

The Gospel is


That I was dead but Christ is my life
That I am empty but He is more than enough to fill me completely

That I fail constantly but He is sufficient for these things

That I am sinful but He is making me holy

That my filthy rags He has exchanged for a pure expensive robe

That I was lost in hatred but He has a stronger love

That I was bound in slavery but He obliterated my chains

That I was walking a road to destruction but He transferred me to the kingdom of light
That I am daily weak but He is Lord over all

That I am nothing yet He is everything and more.

                         -Savannah Shealy

My daughter, Savannah, is really good at writing encouraging things. True story!

Read more of her stuff here.

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