John Maxwell, in his book Think On These Things, challenges us to think differently about the world around us. Here are six quotes on how we should think differently about those who are in need.
“The beauty of genuine concern is its willingness to become involved without being influenced by the ‘price tag.’”
“How many lives are wasted and destroyed because the world’s attitudes and actions toward needy people say ‘I couldn’t care less’? How beautiful this world would be if this unchristian philosophy was replaced with Christian attitudes until people would begin saying, ‘I couldn’t care more.’ If I am to say to my world, ‘I couldn’t care more,’ I must open my eyes and look for hurting people.”
“Jesus was concerned that others would see the hurts of humanity and respond with care. Too many times we, like the disciples, see only the problems of people. We feel the frustration of their failures and the weight of their weaknesses. We remember only the reliance upon our strength and forget our obligation to freely give what we have received.”
“My helping hand to a needy world is empty unless love is the motive. Material handouts are a poor substitute for love and understanding. People do not need more trinkets, they need more tenderness.”
“It is sad to realize that many people have needs that very few can meet. The reason? Most people concentrate their efforts on picking fruit instead of producing it.”
“The next time you want to help someone who is in difficulty, stop and think. Why not change your approach? Instead of ‘telling it like it is’ why not ‘tell it like it could be.’ Before you begin to question my motives, let me state that I am not asking you to be dishonest. I did not say, ‘Tell it like it could never be.’ I said, ‘Tell it like it could be!’ … When you ‘tell it like it could be’ you help others to see things more clearly. There is no better way to change a problem than to help someone see a solution. Many times people with problems become slaves to their situation because they can see nothing but problems.”
To read more quotes from Think On These Things, click here. To read a review of this book, click here. And to see quotes from John Maxwell and other notable thinkers that I post daily, please follow me on Twitter and Tumblr.
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
On Rituals And Vows To God
There is a use for ritual in a man’s religious life. Because anything is necessary at one time of life, it does not follow that it is necessary all through. … When a man is in a right relationship to God ritual is an assistance; the place of worship in the atmosphere are both conducive to worship. …
Any amount of futile religion is based on this line of things—“I have been eating too much, but now Lent has come and I will fast for a time.” There is nothing genuine in it, it has not the grip of God about it. When a man comes into the presence of God he refrains himself and remembers that he is not there to suffer from his own reactions, to get comfort for himself, to pray along the line of “O Lord, bless me.” He is there to refrain from his own personal needs and to get into the scope of God’s outlook. …
No man can keep himself a Christian, it is impossible; it is God Who keeps a man a Christian. … Jesus Christ came for the weak, for the ungodly and the sinful, and He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” not—“Blessed is the man who has the power to decide and to keep his vow.” Jesus Christ calls the man who says—“I cannot do it; others may have the strength, but I haven’t.” Jesus Christ says to such, “Blessed are you.” It is not our vows before God that tell, but our coming before God, exactly as we are in all our weakness, and being held and kept by God.
From Shade Of His Hand
These words from Oswald Chambers are his commentary on Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes 5:1-7. In this passage, Solomon warns against making hasty vows. Solomon says it’s better to remain silent than to make a vow and not follow through.
Chambers reminds us that it is impossible for us to keep a vow in our own strength. We don’t make vows to try to impress God, or as a part of a ritual, or because we think we need to do something special to “make up” for where we’ve fallen short. God wants us to come to Him in our weakness and say, “I can’t do this, but Christ in me can do this. I need Your help!” This is the posture and attitude that God honors and delights to help.
January is Sanctity Of Human Life month, and we want to especially circle this month in prayer. There is a helpful 21-day prayer for life guide that you can download for free by clicking here. If you have a smartphone or tablet, be sure to download the 21-day prayer guide app. You can access that by clicking here and then choosing either Android or Apple.
Christian, are you ready to do spiritual battle? You need to make sure you are properly equipped with all the armor God has for you. Check out my review of William Gurnall’s The Christian In Complete Armour by clicking here, and then enjoy this first set of quotes.
“Christ’s blood is the only wine which gladdens God’s heart and satisfies His justice at the same time. … No grape of our own harvest is pressed into this sweet cup. It is as if Christ says, ‘When [God] comes to comfort you with the forgiveness of your sins, He will take of mine, not anything of yours. I purchased your peace with God with My blood, not by your tears of repentance or morning for your sins.’”
“Unbelief is a sin-making sin. … It is a sin which holds out last on the battlefield, the one which the sinner is least aware of, and which the saint ordinarily conquers last. It is one of the chief fortresses to which the devil retreats when other sins are routed.”
“Do you take pleasure in choosing Christ? Do you go to Him not only for safety but also for delight? As the lover said of her bridegroom, ‘I sat down under his shadow with great delight’ (Song of Solomon 2:3). This must be a deliberate choice, wherein the soul seriously weighs the covenant Christ offers and then chooses Him.”
“Faith puts forth an assisting act in prayer. … It assist the soul with persistence. Faith is the wrestling grace. It comes up close to God, reaches out to Him, and will not easily take a denial. … Never before could the Christian know what to do with a promise in prayer until faith teaches him to press in to God with it, humbly yet boldly. … Prayer is the very breath of faith.”
“If a group of men and children were to wade through a brook no deeper than a man’s head, the men would have a definite advantage over the children. But if they tried to cross the ocean, the men as well as the children would need a ship to carry them. And only the insane would try to wade through without the help of a ship just because they are a little taller than the rest.”
“Beware of opposing the Spirit. Does He beam light from His Word into your understanding? Be careful what you do with this candle of the Lord that lights your mind; do not pride yourself in this new insight, or it may be snuffed out in an instant. If the Holy Spirit confirms the light in your understanding so that it sets your conscience on fire with the awareness of sin, do not resist Him. … satan longs for you to quench the Spirit by trying to calm your own conscience.”
“Christian, there are many delights which saints traveling to heaven meet on their way there, besides what God has for them at the journey‘s end. It is the Christian whose faith is strong enough to act upon the promise who finds and possesses these pleasures.”
“A person should no more sit down and be content in his unresolved doubt than one who thinks he smells fire in his house would go to bed and sleep. He will look in every room and corner until he is satisfied that everything is safe. … In spite of his doubts the true believer leans on and desires still to cling to Christ. While Peter’s feet were faltering beneath the water he was lifting up prayer to Christ.”
“Have you ever freely given yourself up to Christ? Everybody professes this, but the presumptuous soul, like Ananias, lies to the Holy Ghost by keeping back the most important part of what he promised to lay at Christ’s feet. The enjoyment of lust is entwined about his heart and he cannot persuade himself to deliver it up to God’s justice. His life is bound up in it, and if God will have it from him He must take it by force; there is no hope of gaining his consent. Is this the picture of your faith? If it is, you have blessed yourself in an idol; you have mistaken a bold face for a believing heart.”
“Faith strips away the veil from the Christian’s eyes so he can see sin in its nakedness before satan disguises it with flattering costumes. Faith enables the soul to recognize not only the nature of sin void of all true pleasure, but also the temporal quality of its frivolous elation. Faith persuades us not to give up God’s sure mercies for satan’s transient thrills.”
I will be sharing more quotes from this book soon. To be notified as soon as those quotes are posted, be sure to subscribe to my blog. In the meantime, every day I share inspiring quotes on Twitter and Tumblr, so make sure you follow me there too!
“What say we to our self-indulgence, our sloth, our love of ease, our avoidance of hardship, our luxury our pampering of the body, our costly feasts, our silken couches, our brilliant furniture, our gay equipages, our braided hair, our jeweled fingers, our idle mirth, our voluptuous music, our jovial tables, loaded with every variety of wine and rich viands? Are we Christians? Or are we worldlings? Where is the self-denial of primitive days? Where is the separation from a self-pleasing luxurious world? Where is the cross, the true badge of discipleship, to be seen save in useless ornaments for the body, or worse than useless decorations for the sanctuary? … A self-indulgent religion has nothing in common with the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ; or with that cross of ours which He has commanded us to take up and carry after Him, renouncing ease and denying self. …
“It is not so much our labour as our love that He asks; and with nothing less than love can He be satisfied. …
“It is not slothful service, or waning zeal, or failing liberality, or slackening warfare, that He complains. His remonstrance rather assumes the existence of much Christian fruitfulness; and even though there had been some failure in labour or endurance, that might have been more easily remedied; nor were these such a necessity to Him who filleth all in all. But it is over lost love that He laments. … Yet it is not love altogether lost; nor love turned into hatred. The failure has not got so far as this, nor descended to such a depth. It is of ebbing love He speaks, not love dried up wholly; it is love that has lost the freshness and the edge of other days; love that has sunk below the temperature at which it once stood. This is the substance of the complaint, the burden of the disappointment—the loss of half a heart!”
When I saw both John Newton and Charles Spurgeon put William Gurnall on their “must read” lists (I’ll share their quotes in a moment), I thought, “I have to get this book!” Although The Christian In Complete Armour was written by Gurnall over 360 years ago, the words ring just as true for Christians today.
In summary, The Christian In Complete Armour is an intensive look at the spiritual warfare preparations that the Apostle Paul lists in Ephesians 6:10-18. Gurnall opens his book with these sobering challenges to Christians:
“All may have a desire to be successful soldiers, but few have the courage and determination to grapple with the difficulties that accost them on the way to victory.”
“The fearful are those who march for Hell (Revelation 21:8); the valiant are those who take Heaven by force (Matthew 11:12). Cowards never won Heaven. Do not claim that you are begotten of God and have His royal blood running in your veins unless you can prove your lineage by this heroic spirit: to dare to be holy in spite of man and devils.” (emphasis mine in both quotes)
So piece by piece, step by step, William Gurnall explains the value of each of the Christian’s armaments. He tells us what we can expect when we employ them as God intended, and what we should fear if we fail to make use of each and every piece of equipment God has made available for His soldiers.
John Newton said, “If I might read only one book besides the Bible, I would choose The Christian In Complete Armour.”
And Charles Spurgeon noted, “Gurnall’s work is peerless and priceless; every line is full of wisdom; every sentence is suggestive…the best thought-breeder in all our library.”
Although a very old text, James S. Bell, Jr. has done a marvelous work in preserving Gurnall’s message, but presenting it to us in modern-day English. This is an excellent work for every Christian soldier to have on their shelf.
I would like for you to get a really clear picture in your mind of your best friend. This is someone you have opened your heart to, and they have opened their heart to you as well. This is the friend that encourages you when you’re down, but never when you’re on a self-destructive path. This is the companion that cries with you when something is broken, but who also challenges you to accept responsibility if you are the one who broke it.
Do you have that friend clearly in mind?
Now I’d like you to imagine if your interaction with your friend went something like this. Every day around 7 o’clock in the morning, you call your friend and say…
“Good morning! I’m so grateful you took my call. Listen, I’ve got a few things that I’d love for you to help me with today. I’ve been fighting a cold and I’d really like you to help me feel better. My Aunt Sally is in the hospital, and it would be great if you could stop in to see her. Also, that guy at work has really been on my nerves lately and so I need some insight on how to deal with that. It would so great if you could help me with all of this. If you do, I’ll be singing your praises to everyone I meet. Have a great day. Thanks!”
And then you hang up and never talk to your friend again until the next morning when the exact same scenario is repeated. How do you think your relationship would progress? Do you see your relationship getting deeper over time, or becoming more distant? I’m guessing that, like me, you don’t see a future in this relationship.
Sadly, this is how many people treat prayer! We come to God once a day with our list of concerns, ask Him for His help, then say “goodbye” and never think about Him again until the next day. Or until we find ourselves in desperate need.
But we forget: God never leaves us!
We also forget something even more vital—God wants us to talk with Him, and He wants to talk with us, as a friend to a friend.
Abraham was called a friend of God—Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend (James 2:23).
Moses, too, was also God’s friend—The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend (Exodus 33:11).
This isn’t something that was just for them, but it’s relationship that’s available for ALL of us—For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of His Son while we were still His enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of His Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God (Romans 5:10-11).
From the moment we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, His Holy Spirit took up residence in our heart. Before Jesus ascended to Heaven, He promised us, “I will talk to the Father, and He’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth” (John 14:16).
Amazing! Astounding! Mind-blowing! But totally true—Prayer is conversation with a Friend!
How would your day go differently if you kept up a conversation with your Best Friend all day long? How much more wisdom do you think you would receive? How many mistakes could you avoid if He was telling you which way to go and what to say?
You don’t have to live with the “what ifs.” He IS your constant Companion, your most loyal Friend, your wisest Counselor. All you have to do is keep the lines of conversation open!
Application questions:
How can I know God wants to be my Friend?
Have I been introduced to God?
How can I make the time to deepen my friendship with God?
If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back—
Craig T. Owens 