His heavens shall drop down dew (Deuteronomy 33:28).
“What the dew in the East is to the world of nature, that is the influence of the Spirit in the realm of grace. How greatly do I need it! Without the Spirit of God I am a dry and withered thing. I droop, I fade, I die. How sweetly does this dew refresh me!” (Charles Spurgeon)
May you find the refreshment of the dew of God’s Holy Spirit today!
Compassion means to not only feel what someone else is feeling, but then to make a move toward that person to help. In the life of Jesus you will often see the phrase “He was moved with compassion” and then Jesus taught or healed or acted to alleviate someone’s discomfort.
Pastors, we need to teach our congregations to be people of compassion: to feel the needs of those around them and then move to act in the love of Christ.
A.W. Tozer
“The multitudes that were so dear to Christ shall not be less dear to me. If I cannot prevent their moral suicide, I shall at least baptize them with my human tears. I want no blessing that I cannot share. I seek no spirituality that I must win at the cost of forgetting that men and women are lost and without hope. If in spite of all I can do they will sin against light and bring upon themselves the displeasure of a holy God, then I must not let them go their sad way unwept. I scorn a happiness that I must purchase with ignorance. I reject a heaven that I must enter by shutting my eyes to the sufferings of my fellow men. I choose a broken heart rather than any happiness that ignores the tragedy of human life and human death. Though I, through the grace of God in Christ, no longer lie under Adam’s sin, I would still feel a bond of compassion for all of Adam’s tragic race, and I am determined that I shall go down to the grave or up into God’s heaven mourning for the lost and the perishing.” —A.W. Tozer (emphasis added)
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.
The Production Of A Saint
The production of a saint is the grandest thing earth can give to Heaven. A saint is not a person with a saintly character: a saint is a saintly character….
A saint is a living epistle written by the finger of God, known and read of all men. A saint may be any man… who discovering himself at Calvary, with the nature of sin uncloaked to him, lies in despair; then discerning Jesus Christ as the Substitute for sin and rising in the glamour of amazement, he cries out—“Jesus, I should be there.” And to his astonished spirit, he receives justification from all his sinfulness by that wonderful Atonement.
Then, standing in that great light, and placing his hands, as it were, over his Savior’s crucified hands, his feet over His crucified feet, he crucifies forever his right to himself, and He baptizes him with the Holy Spirit and fire, substituting in his a new principle of live, and identity of holiness with Himself, until he bears unmistakably a family likeness to Jesus Christ.
From Christian Disciplines
YES!!
September 11, 2001, was a momentous, historical day. What do you remember about it?
You could choose to remember the acts of cowards—men who didn’t care whether they killed innocent people.
Or…
You could choose remember the acts of heroes—men and women who rushed into harm’s way to save lives … men and women who volunteered to serve in the US armed forces, police, and fire departments …. men and women who lined up to donate blood to help the wounded … men and women who spent countless hours sifting through rubble to find any who might have survived … men and women who gladly made personal sacrifices for the safety of fellow citizens … men and women who define the word PATRIOT.
September 11 is rightly called Patriots’ Day. It’s a day to remember heroes, not cowards.
Both parents and teens should arm themselves with the facts, biblical information, scientific research and solid common sense in Josh McDowell’s book The Bare Facts: 39 Questions Your Parents Hope You Never Ask About Sex.
Let me state it simply: parents, teens, and youth pastors all need to get this book.
Parents—Don’t wait for someone else to talk to your kids about sex and the strong urges their hormones are generating; take the lead and talk to your kids. This book is written in a question-and-answer format, so it would be an easy conversation starter to ask one of the questions Josh McDowell covers.
Teens—The information you are getting about sex, love, sexually-transmitted disease, and how-far-is-too-far from your peers is most likely wrong. Josh gives you the facts, and you need to arm yourself with truth.
Youth Pastors—You should be teaching this stuff! Will it feel awkward? Maybe. But I bet it’s a lot less awkward to talk to your students about purity than it is to counsel a brokenhearted teen who has become pregnant or contracted a sexually-transmitted disease. The discussion questions at the end of Bare Facts will help you in your 1-on-1 or small group discussion times with the students in your youth group.
What would be even better: Parent and teens and youth pastors reading The Bare Facts together. Get the information on the table and start talking about the truth.
I am a Moody Publishers book reviewer.
Every year I look forward to our Q Series, where I field questions folks have about spiritual matters. Not that I’m an expert, but I’m following the example of The Expert.
Jesus never tired of answering people’s longing questions. Sometimes He gave them a direct answer; sometimes He asked them a question in reply to their question; sometimes He answered their question with a story or parable. But one thing was always consistent: Jesus answered every question in a way that pointed people to His Heavenly Father.
That’s what I am attempting to do in our Q Series.
Yesterday I fielded questions about creation/evolution; Christ’s passion week and His death, burial, and resurrection; the names given to God; and even suicide. I pray each answer created a desire for others to dig deeper in Scripture and learn more about God.
In the book of Proverbs, Wisdom is personified as one calling out to those who want help to come to her with their questions. In the New Testament, James writes, “If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God for help.” So we need to keep asking The One who is The Truth.
If you would like to participate in our Q Series, please join us next Sunday at Calvary Assembly of God, or submit your question in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer it. But even if I can’t, you know where to go!
Our Impact youth group had a contest to see which school could raise the most money for Speed The Light (STL). STL helps missionaries purchase the equipment that will help them speed the light of the gospel around the world. Our Cedar Springs students, Kent City students, and missionaries are all winners!
Pastors, here’s some good counsel from Oswald Chambers—
“Oh for that man of God who will hand over to God that hearts God has called through him! It is not you who awakened that mighty desire in the heart; it is not you who called forth that longing in that spirit; it is God in you. Are you a servant of God? Then point them to Him.”
I love that! Point them to Him!
A nice touch I appreciated in Andrew Murray’s book Raising Your Child To Love God was the prayers he included at the end of each of the 52 chapters of this book. Below are some of the lines of prayer which I found noteworthy. If you would like to read some other quotes from this book, click here. If you would like to read my book review of this book, click here.
“Give us a deep sense of our holy calling to train their immortal souls for You and for our glory.”
“By my life, by my words, by my prayers, by gentleness and love, by authority and instruction, I would lead them in the way of the Lord. Be my helper, Lord.”
“As we see the power of sin and the world threatening our children, may we plead for them as for our own life.”
“O Father, open the eyes of all Your people, that in each little one You give them their faith may see an extraordinary child.”
“I acknowledge, Lord, that I do not sufficiently realize the value of my children or the danger to which they are exposed from the prince and the spirit of this world. Lord, teach me fully to recognize the danger and yet never to fear the commandment of the King. Open my eyes to see that in the light of heaven each child is a special child, entrusted to my keeping and training for your work and kingdom. Help me in the humility and watchfulness and boldness of faith to keep him sheltered, to hide him from the power of the world and of sin. May my own life be the life of faith, hid with Christ in God, that my child may know no other dwelling place.”
“O God, teach us to feel deeply that You have need of our children. For the building up of Your temple, in the struggle of Your kingdom with the powers of darkness, in the gathering of Your people from the millions of lost, You have need of our children. We give them to You. We will train them for You. We will wait in prayer and faith, and we beseech You to inspire them with a holy enthusiasm for the kingdom and its conquests.”
“Grant that I may always live worthy of all honor. And may the holy power to train young souls to keep Your commandments, to honor and serve You, be the fruit of Your own Spirit’s work in me.”
“Make our home a blessing to others, encouraging them to take a stand for You.”
“Teach me always to speak to him of Your love so that his heart will early be won to You. May my whole life be an inspiration, guiding him to what is pure and lovely, to what is holy and well pleasing to You.”
“Dear God, help me to teach my children the fear of the Lord by instruction, example, and the spirit of my own life. May thoughtfulness, truthfulness, and lovingkindness mark the conversation of my home. May the life of all in my care by holy unto the Lord. Daily I would show them, through Your grace, how departing from every evil, doing every good, and following after peace and holiness is what true fear of the Lord produces.”
“I am weak, but I know Your almighty power is working in me to keep me humble yet hopeful, conscious of my weakness yet confident in You.”
“O Lord, we draw nigh to You to claim the fulfillment of this promise on behalf of our beloved children. Lord, may they from their very youth have Your Spirit poured out upon them that even in the simplicity of childhood they may say, ‘I belong to the Lord.’”
“Because our child has been presented to You as Jesus was, may this be the beginning of a likeness that will take possession of his whole life. Give grace to Your servants. May we be worthy parents, guardians, and guides of this child who has been given to the Lord. For Your name’s sake. Amen.”
“May my daily experience of the way in which Your shepherd-love does its work be a lesson that teaches me how to feed my little flock. … Let Your holy love in my heart be the inspiring power of all my communion with You and with them. And let me so prove how wonderfully You are my Shepherd and blessed I am to be their shepherd.”
“O God, how we bless You for the promise that our home is to be Your home, the abode of Your Holy Spirit, and that in the happy life of love between parents and children, the Spirit of Your divine love is to be the link that binds us together.”
“Set me apart as a parent so to live as one baptized into Christ’s death that first my life and later my teaching may lead my child to experience this blessed life in Christ.”
“I come to You humbly confessing my sin. Often misbehavior in my children has been met by sinful response on my part. I know that this only discourages them. I want to be a parent who models patient love, helping them in their weakness, and by my example encouraging them with the assurance that they, too, can overcome difficulty.”
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.
Are You A Saint?
The New Testament idea of a saint is not a cloistered sentiment gathering around the head of an individual like a halo of glory, but a holy character reacting on life in deeds of holiness.
From Christian Disciplines
Artists usually depict saints the same way they depicted Jesus: Someone with an angelic face, a heavenly glow around the top of their head, looking longingly up into heaven.
In reality, saints aren’t solitary but are constantly involved with other people. If there’s a glow on their face, it’s probably a glow of glistening sweat. There are callouses on their hands, and dirt under their fingernails from helping others. And if they are looking up to heaven, it’s in a moment of prayer trying to discern what God wants them to do next.
A saint is busy trying to live more and more like Jesus, Who came to feed the hungry, heal the sick, encourage the brokenhearted, bring hope to the hopeless, and show the love of God in touchable ways.
Are you a saint?
Craig T. Owens 