TOMORROW please be in prayer for our Christian brothers and sister all over the world who are being persecuted and even martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ.
Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. (Hebrews 13:3)
“The Cross is the supreme moment in Time and Eternity, and it is the concentrated essence of the very nature of the Divine love. … The Self-expenditure of God for His enemies in the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, becomes the great bridge over the gulf of sin whereby human love may cross over and be embraced by the Divine love, the love that never fails.” —Oswald Chambers
“Paul stresses that in our sufferings the glory of Christ’s all-sufficient grace is magnified [2 Corinthians 12:9-10]. If we rely on Him in our calamity and He sustains our ‘rejoicing in hope,’ then He is shown to be the all-satisfying God of grace and strength that He is.” —John Piper
“The true believer has also a loving spirit as the result of Jesus’ grace. He loves God, therefore he loves God’s people and God’s creatures, and having this loving spirit he has next a zealous spirit, and so he spends and is spent for God, and this begets in him a heavenly spirit and so he tries to live in heaven and to make earth a heaven to his fellow-men, believing that he shall soon have a heaven for himself and for them too on the other side of the stream.” —Charles Spurgeon
This Sunday is the International Day Of Prayer (IDOP) for persecuted Christians around the world. Please remember to pray for our brothers and sisters, or join me on Sunday morning.
Many people give in to the temptation of pornography while staying in hotels. Josh McDowell give us 10 tips for staying porn-free while traveling.
J. Warner Wallace discusses why the appearance of complex design in biology is a problem for atheists and naturalists.
“America is witnessing a ‘capitalistic Christianity.’ The goal is no longer spiritual growth, but expansion in numbers, property, finances.” Read more from David Wilkerson’s post Capitalistic Christianity.
“Many persons today insist on coming into the church head first rather than heart first.”
“I am afraid that we in the church are making a great mistake by trying to make Christianity popular and pleasant. We have taken the Cross away and substituted cushions.”
“I wonder if the church has not failed this generation of young people by failing to make the Christian faith the thrilling, joyful, triumphant experience that it really is.”
“The greatest need in the church today is a spiritual revival that will drive her back to her knees and will cause her earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered.”
“There is a viewpoint prevailing in some areas of the church that its function is to change social structures, through political power and political pressure. In my opinion, this is not supported from the Bible. I think the biblical approach is to change men and men themselves will change society for the better.”
“I am convinced that if the church went back to its main task of preaching the Gospel and getting people converted to Christ it would have far more impact on the social structure of the nation than it can have in any other thing it could possibly do.”
All quotes from The Quotable Billy Graham (1966)
“Darkness comes. In the middle of it, the future looks blank. The temptation to quit is huge. Don’t. You are in good company…. You will argue with yourself that there is no way forward. But with God, nothing is impossible. He has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of pits than you can conceive. Wait. Pray without ceasing. Hope!” —John Piper
In another post, John Piper writes, “Christianity means change is possible. Deep, fundamental change. It is possible to become tender-hearted when once you were callous and insensitive. It is possible to stop being dominated by bitterness and anger. It is possible to become a loving person no matter what your background has been.” Read more in You Are Not Enslaved To Your Past.
“The depravity of man is on full display in the press as powerful and wicked people now openly suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” Check out this post on media distortion and disinformation.
Mental illness impacts so many people! Are we in the church handling it correctly? Check out 10 misconceptions about mental illness and faith.
“Remember, the more a person uses porn, the greater the amount and explicitness required to achieve the same level of satisfaction. This means more women and children are becoming commodities in this industry—and being forced to do these things we deem now as ‘disgusting.’ Studies prove that for some regular porn users, pornographic acts they found disgusting in the past now turn them on. And as you can imagine, it’s harder for the so-called ‘legit’ porn producers to hire people to do those extreme things. It’s much easier—and less expensive—for people to be kidnapped, devalued, dehumanized, and turned into nothing more than sex slaves.” —Anne Miller
[VIDEO] Rabbi Joseph Telushkin has some challenging words for us about how we speak about others—
[VIDEO]
The Dead Reckoning guys refute Bill Nye (the Science Guy) on his abortion claims—
“The message that needs to be shouted from the houses of high finance is this: Secular man, you are not nearly hedonistic enough! Quit being satisfied with the little 5 percent yields of pleasure that get eaten up by the moths of inflation and the rust of death. Invest in the blue-chip, high-yield, divinely insured security of heaven. Devoting a life to material comforts and thrills is like throwing money down a rat hole. But investing a life in the labor of love yields dividends of joy unsurpassed and unending: ‘Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. [And thus] provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.’ (Luke 12:33)” —John Piper
This is sadly funny: there are churches (and other organizations) around the globe who think they can be completely transformed without making any changes!
When you are reading your Bible, you can be praying your Bible too. Here are 4 prayers for Bible reading.
A good reminder from George Whitefield on what will cause Christianity to flourish.
This is a periodic 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.
Quick Snippets
(Normally I share a longer passage from Oswald Chambers, but his book Disciples Indeed contains so many short, power-packed statements, that I wanted to share a few of those with you.)
Which of these is your favorite?
Whenever is it not a good day for some quotes from C.S. Lewis?!
“It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.” —C.S. Lewis
“Obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality.” —C.S. Lewis
“The work of a Beethoven and the work of a charwoman become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly ‘as to the Lord.’ This does not, of course, mean that it is for anyone a mere toss-up whether he should sweep rooms or compose symphonies. A mole must dig to the glory of God and a cock must crow. We are members of one body, but differentiated members, each with his own vocation.” —C.S. Lewis
“The Resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reported in the Acts. The Resurrection, and its consequences, were the ‘gospel’ or good news which the Christians brought.” —C.S. Lewis
“An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God—that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying—the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on—the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life—what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself.” —C.S. Lewis
“Christ says ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the truth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’” —C.S. Lewis
No matter how loving Christians are, and no matter how carefully we present our beliefs, people will still be offended. Check out this short video from Alan Shlemon at Stand To Reason.
“I am considering not how, but why, [God] makes each soul unique. If He had no use for all these differences, I do not see why He should have created more souls than one. Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you. The mould in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you—you, the individual reader, John Stubbs or Janet Smith. Blessed and fortunate creature, your eyes shall behold Him and not another’s. All that you are, sins apart, is destined, if you will let God have His good way, to utter satisfaction.” —C.S. Lewis in The Problem Of Pain
“One doesn’t realize in early life that the price of freedom is loneliness. To be happy one must be tied.” —C.S. Lewis
Eric Metaxas asks, “What’s the difference between evolutionary theory and an octopus?” You will love his answer!
“We make a mistake as Christians if we hold the view that all non-Christian culture is worthless and should be avoided. This is simply not the case. God has given gifts for making culture to every human being, and very often those who do not know Him are capable of making artifacts, establishing institutions, or promoting conventions that actually are very useful for human flourishing. This is a measure of God’s common grace to all people. Believers must not despise such gifts, and we must not ignore or avoid them. … We do not repudiate those unbelieving aspects of culture which are good and useful. Rather, we appropriate all such forms, learning as much as we can about them and considering ways they might be put to use for the glory of God.” —T.M. Moore
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood wanted to rid society of “human weeds,” and in 1925 she wrote, “We must clear the way for a better world; we must cultivate our garden.” Read more here.
“There is no rule binding with iron force upon you, for we are not under law in Christ’s church, but under grace, and grace will prompt you to do more than law might suggest….” —Charles Spurgeon
“We wouldn’t dare rob somebody of his gold watch or bank account. Yet God states clearly that slandering someone’s name is robbery of the worst kind. And we can do it in the subtlest of ways: by pointing an accusing finger, questioning one’s character, passing on tidbits of gossip. Indeed, three of the most damning words we can speak are, ‘Have you heard?’ The mere suggestion of the question robs a person of something valuable. And it defiles our own mouth.” —David Wilkerson
Frank Turek has an interesting look at the Kim Davis situation in Kentucky.
“The reason we know so little about God’s wisdom is that we will only trust Him as far as we can work things out according to our own reasonable common sense.” —Oswald Chambers
“To know God in His glory is to know ultimate reality—defining beauty, goodness, and truth. It is to enter into the heart of reality itself and to glimpse eternity in a most personal, intimate, and loving way. This is what God desires for us, that our hearts might soar within His glory and rejoice in things too wonderful to express.” —T.M. Moore
“My greatest fear in life is standing before the Lord and hearing Him say, ‘I had so much more for you, but you held on too tightly.’” —Larry Burkett
“Give me good proofs of what you have alleged: it is not enough to say—in such a bush there lies a thief—in such a cave a beast; you must show him to me ere I shoot, else I may kill one of my straggling sheep.” —William Shakespeare
“A man must keep his friendship in constant repair.” —Samuel Johnson
Eric Metaxas asks, “Why would a national museum refuse to remove an exhibit honoring one of the leading racists of the 20th century?” Check out his profound answer.
Thank you, Bear Grylls, for giving us a great example to follow! May we all pray for our President.
Exactly right: Christians cannot stand by and do nothing about these precious people displaced by war.
A very interesting legal look at the Kim Davis situation in Kentucky.
There is a disconnection problem in the United States of America. Consider this:
And yet:
The Bible calls Christians “aliens and strangers in the world.” Perhaps the term “aliens” is not so much for what we say we believe, but how we live what we believe.
So Peter opens his letter to “strangers in the world” by telling Christians how to live in a way that can reconnect this disconnection.
Would your Earthling family members say you are graceful and peaceful?
Would your Earthling coworkers say you promote grace and peace on the job?
Would your Earthling neighbors say you make the neighborhood graceful and peaceful?
Would the Earthling business owners you frequent say your gracefulness and peacefulness is more evident than in the citizens of Earth?
Search me, God, and know my heart test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is ANY offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24).
If you’ve missed any messages in this series, you may find the complete list by clicking here.
Craig T. Owens 