Lose this day loitering, ’twill be the same story
“To some Christians today, this world is not a sinking ship or a world reserved for fire. It is an international capitol building overrun with undesirables whom these believers plan to kick out. They will then take their place, renovating and governing it all themselves. Such thinking is symptomatic of a dying love for Jesus and a clinging to this world!” —David Wilkerson
“Some of my best men are women!” —William Booth
Did you know: Babies in the womb have beating hearts at only 21 days gestation, detectable brain waves at roughly 42 days, and can suck their thumbs and yawn?
Frank Turek is exactly right: Sex Is The New Religion.
“For decades social science has found that there is an optimal family structure for a child’s intellectual, emotional and physical flourishing: being raised in a home by her biological, married parents. All other arrangements—cohabiting biological parents, marriage with one step-parent, two adoptive parents or single parents—do not generally provide the same level of benefit.” Read more in this post about children raised by same-sex parents.
Hopefully none of my pastor friends ever do this!
Good reminder from John Maxwell: How Do You Become A Successful Failure?
Important health news: What stress does to your body.
Here are even more quotes from Oswald Chambers in his book Not Knowing Where, using the life of Abraham as the basis for a great study of our lives of faith. You can read my review of this book by clicking here, and you can see other quotes by clicking here and here.
“By means of intercession we understand more and more the way God solves the problems produced in our minds by the conflict of actual facts and our real faith in God. … Repetition in intercessory importunity is not bargaining, but the joyous insistence of prayer.”
“If I cannot see God in others, it is because He is not in me. If I get on my moral high horse and say it is they who are wrong, I become that last of all spiritual iniquities, a suspicious person, a spiritual devil dressed up as a Christian. Beware of mistaking suspicion for discernment, it is the biggest misunderstanding that ever twisted Christian humility into Pharisaism. When I see in others things that are not of God, it is because the Spirit of God has revealed to me my own meanness and badness; when I am put right with God on the basis of His Redemption and see those things in others, it is in order that God may restore them through my intercession.”
“The tendency to do instead of to devote oneself to God, is nearly always the sign of a smudged purity of relationship to God.”
“The error is putting prudence in competition with God’s will, weighing pros and cons before God when He has spoken. Always beware when you want other people to commend the decision you have made, because it is an indication that you have trusted your wits instead of worshiping God. … We have to watch that we use our wits to assist us in worshiping God and caring out His will, not in carrying out our own will and then asking God very piously to bless the concoction. Put communion with God on the throne and then ask God to direct your common sense to choose according to His will. Worship first and wits after.”
“We have to be careful lest we blind ourselves by putting up our own standards instead of looking at the standard God puts up. If we put a saint up as a standard, we blind ourselves to ourselves; it is personal vanity makes us do it. When we put God’s standard up, viz., Himself, there is no room for personal vanity.”
“The grace of God makes us honest with ourselves.”
“Always beware when you are perfectly certain you are right, so certain that you do not dream of asking God’s counsel.”
“Sanctification is not something our Lord does in me; sanctification is Himself in me.”
“The majority of us know nothing about waiting, we don’t wait, we endure. Waiting means that we go on in the perfect certainty of God’s goodness—no dumps or fear.”
“Your anxiety proves that you do not believe in the goodness of God an atom, and it postpones the time of His performance.”
“God’s ways turn man’s thinking upside down.”
Some great quotes from John Calvin on prayer…
“Oh Lord, Heavenly Father, in Whom is the fullness of light and wisdom, enlighten our minds by Your Holy Spirit, and give us grace to receive Your Word with reverence and humility, without which no one can understand Your truth.” —John Calvin
“O grant that we may learn to rely wholly on Your goodness.” —John Calvin
“Prayer is the spade with which we dig up all the promises in God’s garden.” – John Calvin
“Whenever men are to pray to God concerning any great matter, it would be expedient to appoint fasting along with prayer. Their sole purpose in this kind of fasting is to render themselves more eager and unencumbered for prayer… with a full stomach our mind is not so lifted up to God.” – John Calvin
I’ve said this before and I’m going to keep on saying it: Pornography is NOT a victimless indulgence. You cannot say, “It doesn’t hurt anyone for me to just take a little peek.”
Yes, it does hurt. Pornography websites make their money by views. So every time you go to a website, you are keeping someone enslaved in an industry that uses, abuses, and then discards women and children.
Parents, you need to be aware of the dangers of pornography. Fight The New Drug is coming to Cedar Springs for a special presentation on Friday, May 8. Get all of the details by clicking here.
Shelley Lubben used to work in the porn industry, so she knows firsthand what’s going on. She flat out states, “So when people click [on porn], they’re contributing to sex trafficking, they’re contributing to STDs, they’re contributing to people who are mostly alcohol to drug addicts.”
Shelley goes on to say, “Of course different girls are gonna wanna say they’re empowered by their sex work, because what you can’t beat, you’re gonna join. You don’t want people to think you’re weak when you’re in porn; you wanna act like you love it and you love rough stuff, and you love being violated, and called degrading names. It’s all just a pack of lies. People do porn because they need the money, and most of them don’t have other options or education.”
Shelley was asked what she would say to someone who is looking at porn. Read her words carefully―
“You’re contributing to your demise. And to your family’s demise, and your wife’s. I can’t tell you how many porn addicts have lost their families and jobs. It’s really sad. And they’re contributing to children being raped. … Just think, right now as I’ve been talking to you, there are little children that are being drugged and raped. How could anyone click on porn knowing that?” (emphasis added)
You can read more of Shelley’s interview by clicking here.
“Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man. A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.” ―C.S. Lewis
“True faith embraces Christ in whatever ways the Scriptures hold Him out to poor sinners.” —Jonathan Edwards
Going through difficult times might be beneficial for Christians, says Trevin Wax in his post How Social Ostracism Could Increase Our Love.
“Yet while a race remembers and relives its sufferings and wrongs, it is often unwittingly transformed, often into the very image of its oppressor. Moreover, bitterness anchors the mind in the past and takes the heart with it. There is no future and no sense of the possible. There is only the incessant churning. Soon it becomes an excuse, a room into which the heart can run to find justification for failure and wrongs of its own. The end comes after the isolation and the rage have run their course. Bitterness is the second sting of the wound, and its fruit is death.” ―Booker T. Washington
“Progress is impossible if you only attempt to do the things you have always done.” —Mike Krzyzewski
[VIDEO] Is there evidence for a literal Adam and Eve? Does it matter?
The order that words and phrases are listed in the Scripture is not haphazard nor random; each word is divinely inspired, even the order in which they appear. So look at the order in these verses:
Do you see it? Grace then truth/knowledge.
Our human tendency is to switch this order: we want truth and knowledge first. But the Bible never teaches this, and the One Who delivered the greatest words ever spoken never said this. Our tendency is to want to get the facts, and then choose which ones we’ll embrace because they “fit” with what’s comfortable to us. Then we argue with others over what we claim to be “truth” and get labeled as judgmental and haters.
Bottom line―We cannot know what “truth” is without first having received grace.
To fix this, we need to pursue grace, not more knowledge. We need to pursue Jesus. Look at the order again: IF you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. THEN you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:31-32).
Why can’t we know what truth is without having first received grace?
Jesus never talks about grace. Why? Because He IS grace.
For IN Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form giving complete expression of the divine nature. (Colossians 2:9, AMP)
...I am IN My Father, and you are IN Me, and I am IN you … Remain IN Me, and I will remain IN you… (John 14:20; 15:4)
And you are IN Him, made full and having come to fullness of life IN Christ you too are filled with the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—and reach full spiritual stature… (Colossians 2:10, AMP)
You grow in grace by growing in Christ. You grow in truth by growing in grace. When you are full of Christ―when He is IN you and you remain IN Him―then you are grace-full, and therefore you can also be truth-full. This is how you can reach full spiritual stature.
So here’s a question for you: How grace-full are you?
If you are around Cedar Springs this coming Sunday, I would love for you to join with us as we continue our series answering your questions with the greatest words ever spoken.
“You cannot have seen much of the Savior, unless you desire to let others see Him. Your piety is a mere sham if it does not lead to practical service.” —Charles Spurgeon
“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston Churchill
“Real security is in Heaven and thus earth affords only imitations.” —C.S. Lewis
“One thing I know, if you are free, then you are thinking about setting others free; and if you have no zeal for the emancipation of other men, you are a slave yourself. If you are free you hate all sorts of chains, all sorts of sin, and you will never willingly put on the fetters any more. You live each day, crying unto Him Who made you free at first, to hold you up that you fall not into the snare. If you are free, this is not the world for you; this is the land of slaves; this is the world of bondage. If you are free, your heart has gone to heaven, the land of the free. If you are free today, your spirit is longing for the time when you shall see the Great Liberator face to face.” —Charles Spurgeon
The Hubble Telescope is turning 25 years old. Here are some break-taking pictures that it has captured so far.
Seth Godin has a very intriguing question: What if you stopped doing what you are doing?
Antony Van Leeuwenhoek is the father of microbiology. Here is a very cool short biography about his work.
Parents and grandparents, Mark Merrill has a cool way to use technology to encourage your (grand)kids.
I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day;When I’m reading an Oswald Chambers book, I could practically highlight every line! Even when I restrain myself, I still find so much good material. I’ve already shared some quotes from Not Knowing Where, but I wanted to share a few more with you.
“In seeking the best we soon find that our enemy is our good things, not our bad. The things that keep us back from God’s best are not sin and imperfection, but the things that are right and good and noble from the natural standpoint.”
“Fanaticism is sticking true to my interpretation of my destiny instead of waiting for God to make it clear.”
“God will never have more power than He has now; if He could have, He would cease to be God.”
“Whenever God gives a vision to a saint, he puts the saint, as it were, in the shadow of His hand, and the saint’s duty is to be still and listen. Genesis 16 is an illustration of the danger of listening to good advice when it is dark instead of waiting for God to send the light (cf. Galatians 1:15-16). When God gives a vision and darkness follows, wait; God will bring you into accordance with the vision He has given if you will wait His time.”
“All God’s commands are enablings. Therefore it is a crime to be weak in His strength.”
“God never hastens and He never tarries. He works His plans out in His own way, and we either lie like clogs on His hands or we assist Him by being as clay in the hands of the Potter.”
“Faith is not a bargain with God—I will trust You if you give me money, but not if You don’t. We have to trust in God whether He sends us money or not, whether He gives us health or not. We must have faith in God, not in His gifts.”
“The relation is to be that of a child; fling yourself clean over on to God and wash your hands of the consequences, and John 14:27―‘My peace I give unto you’―becomes true at once. The profound realization of God makes you too unspeakably peaceful to be capable of any self-interest.”
“Faith is not the means whereby we take God to ourselves for our select coterie; faith is the gift of God whereby He expresses His purposes through us.”
“Beware of insulting God by being a pious prude instead of a pure person.”
“It is the attitude of a spiritual prig to go about with a countenance that is a rebuke to others because you have the idea that they are shallower than you.”
“Friendship with God is faith in action in relation to God and to our fellow men.”
“The most amazing evidence of a man’s nature being changed is the way in which he sees God, to say ‘God led me here’; ‘God spoke to me’; is an everyday occurrence to him.”
“It is not that we prepare a palace for God, but that He comes into our mortal flesh and we do our ordinary work, in an ordinary setting, amongst ordinary people, as for Him.”
You can read my review of Not Knowing Where by clicking here.
You can read other quotes from this book by clicking here.
Craig T. Owens 