“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 was reading Proverbs 3 this morning, and the opening words are, “My son, do not forget my teaching….” As if to emphasize why we shouldn’t forget how God tells us to live, Solomon lists at least 21 benefits that come from doing things God’s way―
A life worth living
Tranquility
Favor
Good reputation with God and people
God will keep you on track
Health and strength
Overflowing success
God’s discipline
Wisdom and understanding
Better return on investments
Riches and honor
Peace
Blessing
Safety
Sweet sleep
Fearlessness
Confidence
God’s friendship
A blessed home life
Grace
Honor
Now that’s a list worth having! And it’s all there for the one who will heed God’s Word and obediently live out what He says.
“‘Let him ask of God’ [James 1:5]; that is the advice of the Scripture. We are all so ready to go to books, to go to men, to go to ceremonies, to anything except to God. Man will worship God with his eyes, and his arms, and his knees, and his mouth—with anything but his heart—and we are all of us anxious, more or less, until we are renewed by grace, to get off the heart-worship of God.” —Charles Spurgeon
“Newly published research combining genetic, language, and demographic data challenges the idea of a single lineage of languages and human populations evolving out of Africa. Instead, the data supports the idea that multiple people groups have independent origins—a condition one would predict if the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel happened as described in the Bible.” Read more in Out Of Babel.
Dr. Tim Elmore always has great insight for parents, teachers, coaches―anyone working with youth. Don’t let the title of this fantastic post fool you, because it’s not just for athletes: Helping Athletes Navigate A Short-Term, Shortcut Mindset.
This is not a quote from Teddy Roosevelt…
…but it does, I believe, capture his mindset. This is a quote from one of my favorite US presidents: “We have a given problem to solve. If we undertake the solution, there is, of course, always danger that we may not solve it aright; but to refuse to undertake the solution simply renders it certain that we cannot possibly solve it aright.” ―Theodore Roosevelt
“Our mistake is that we want God to send revival on our terms. We want to get the power of God into our hands, to call it to us that it may work for us in promoting and furthering our kind of Christianity. We want still to be in charge, guiding the chariot through the religious sky in the direction we want it to go, shouting ‘Glory to God,’ it is true, but modestly accepting a share of the glory for ourselves in a nice inoffensive sort of way. We are calling on God to send fire on our altars, completely ignoring the fact that they are our altars and not God’s.” —A.W. Tozer
“We are atheists in this matter of prayer compared to the early church. Many today look upon secret prayer as hard work and boring, so they do it only occasionally. Can you imagine a husband and wife living in the same house, hardly ever speaking and yet in public speaking as if they were intimate? So some treat our blessed Lord! Prayer, hidden secret prayer, is the mightiest weapon God has given His people; yet it is neglected, disdained, and seldom used.” —David Wilkerson
“Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return.” —Emmanuel Swedenborg
“Now if God be wisdom, as truth and Scripture testify, then a true philosopher is a lover of God.” —Augustine
“There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” —Wendell Berry
“It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” —Wendell Berry
“Wherefore seeing that all Christians know that the death of the religious beggar amongst the dogs, licking his sores, was better than the death of the wicked rich man in all his silks and purples, what power hath the horror of any kind of death to affright their souls that have led a virtuous life?” —Augustine
“We have thus plainly before us the principle, that our Lord in His infinite wisdom and superabundant love, sets so high a value upon His people’s faith, that He will not screen them from those trials by which faith is strengthened.” —Charles Spurgeon
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
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.
Two Ways To Handle A Crisis
A man must decide whether he will be identified with the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, which will mean the turning out not only of the “old man,” but of the old responsible intelligence, the old bondage, the old legalism, the things which used to guide the life before, and the forming of a totally new mind.
It works out this way: in your practical life you come to a crisis where there are two distinct ways before you, one the way of ordinary, strong, moral, common sense and the other the way of waiting on God until the mind is formed which can understand His will.
Any amount of backing will be given you for the first line, the backing of worldly people and of semi-Christian people, but you will feel the warning, the drawing back of the Spirit of God, and if you wait on God, study His Word, and watch Him at work in your circumstances, you will be brought to a decision along God’s line, and your worldly “backers” and your semi-Christian “backers” will fall away from you with disgust and say, “It is absurd, you are getting fanatical.”
When you have to deal with a crisis, there are two options:
Use your common sense and the good ideas of others
Do it God’s way
God’s ways usually defy the world’s common sense.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts,” says God.(Isaiah 55:9)
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and…the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.(1 Corinthians 1:25; 3:19)
If you want to try to do it the “common sense” way, go ahead. God will let you try it, and a lot of people will encourage you to keep at it. But I think you will quickly find that the “God sense” way is so much better! Although very quickly your former “backers” and “cheerleaders” will look at you as a fanatic.
“There are two kinds of people: those who say to God ‘Thy will be done’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right then, have it your way.’” —C.S. Lewis
Some great quotes from John Calvin on prayer…
Craig T. Owens 