Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“Moses’ aim in knowing God’s ways is so that he may know God Himself. ‘Let me know Your ways that I may know You’ [Exodus 33:13]. … This is the great passion of our lives: to know God Himself by grace, and to make Him known by grace.” —John Piper

“However deep the mystery, however many the paradoxes involved, it is still true that men become saints not at their own whim but by sovereign calling.” —A.W. Tozer

“A thousand years of remorse over a wrong act would not please God as much as a change of conduct and a reformed life.” —A.W. Tozer

“To think that before the hills were formed, or the channels of the sea were scooped out, God loved me; that from everlasting to everlasting His mercy is upon His people. Is not that a consolation?” —Charles Spurgeon

As our kids get ready to go back to school, Kevin Belmonte has a great reminder why teachers deserve our thanks.

God is willing to let His name be mocked just to wake up the church and give one last trump to the world.” Read more in David Wilkerson’s post: Please Say It Isn’t So.

“It’s easy to forget who is the servant and who is to be served. The tool of distortion is one of satan’s slyest. When the focus is on yourself, you worry that your co-workers won’t appreciate you or your leaders will overwork you. With time, your agenda becomes more important than God’s. You’re more concerned with presenting self than pleasing Him. You may even find yourself doubting God’s judgment. … Guard your attitude. If you concern yourself with your neighbor’s talents, you’ll neglect your own. But if you concern yourself with yours, you could inspire both!” —Max Lucado

Watch out! It won’t be long until this is true in America: British Christians forced to hide beliefs.

Jonah Goldberg asks: If “evil” doesn’t apply to ISIS, then what does?

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & watching from today…

Surveys show that Christians who support same-sex “marriage” are also much more open to other unbiblical lifestyles. Read John Stonestreet’s post Package Deal.

“Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, Who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness.” —John Calvin

“God has provided His salvation that we might be, individually and personally, vibrant children of God, loving God with all our hearts and worshiping Him in the beauty of holiness.” —A.W. Tozer

Timely reading: Suicide Prevention Tips From A Survivor.

[VIDEO] Inspiring speech from a Little League coach after his team was eliminated from the Little League World Series.

I never thought I’d read the New York Times ask this question: Who Will Stand Up For The Christians?

Want A Happy Marriage? Here are three important things.

Links & Quotes

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Some interesting reading from today…

“A gracious Hand leads us in ways we know not, and blesses us not only without, but even against, our plans and inclinations.” —William Wilberforce

A cool article about George MacDonald’s influence on C.S. Lewis.

Ken Davis uses an optical illusion to make a fantastic point in his post Perception Or Reality?

The son of a Hamas founder confirms that this terrorist group targets civilians.

[INFOGRAPHIC] This is a win-win: Benaiah featured on The Overview Bible Project.

Praise God!! Millions of Muslims converting to Jesus Christ!

“Commend me to the Christian who says, ‘I bless God I am saved; now what can I do for others?’ The first thing in the morning he prays, ‘God help me to say a word to some soul this day.’ During the day, wherever he may be, he is watching his opportunity, and will do good if he can.” —Charles Spurgeon

“There’s a great deal of trust in the love of God, and a great deal of love in the trust of God.” —John Piper

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from this weekend…

Quebec just legalized euthanasia and requires every doctor to either euthanize legally qualified patients or cooperate in finding a doctor willing to provide a lethal injection. Victoria, Australia has a similar law requiring all doctors’ participation or complicity in abortion. Moreover, the American medical establishment already opposes conscience exemptions for abortion and the dispensing of contraception.” Read more in this scary post: Will Doctors Be Forced To Kill?

More scary medical news: Obamacare Driving Doctors Out Of Business. (So much for the claim “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”!)

So much for Islam being a “religion of peace”: ISIS Forcing Women To Undergo Genital Mutilation.

How would you like terrorists having a say in your internet activity? That is what will happen if ICANN is removed from US control.

“When we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for—then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men.” —John Owen

“Doctrinal controversy is both essential and deadly. The attitude toward controversy in various groups of Christians depends largely on which of these two they feel most strongly. Is it essential? Or is it deadly? My plea is that we believe and feel both of these. Controversy is essential where precious truth is rejected or distorted. And controversy is deadly where disputation about truth destroys exultation in truth.” —John Piper

“There is no getting at our God sometimes because of the multitude of our friends. But when a man is so poor, so friendless, so helpless that he has nothing, he flies into his Father’s arms, and how blessedly he is clasped there! So that, I say again, happy trouble that drives you to your Father! Blessed storm that wrecks you on the rock of ages!” —Charles Spurgeon

Links & Quotes

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Some great reading and watching from today…

[VIDEO] Thanks to my friend Rich for telling me about the friendliest restaurant in America.

“No state is so blessed as that wherein one is free from sin, is filled with innocence, and is fully supplied with the grace of God.” —Ambrose

[VIDEO] John Maxwell has a good reminder about the power of personal discipline.

There are few who can express the love of God as Charles Spurgeon in The Glorious Love Of The Father.

Tim Elmore shares some counter-intuitive thinking for preparing our kids for success.

“If you want to hear from Heaven you must seek it on your knees.” —D.L. Moody

“Don’t be forced into this false dichotomy. Truth and love are not at odds. Rather, for the sake of love, cherish the truth. Let this love for truth and truth for love govern the use of language….” —John Piper

“Who will grant me to find peace in You? Who will grant me this grace, that You would come into my heart and inebriate it, enabling me to forget the evils that beset me and embrace You my only good?” —Augustine 

Don’t buy into it when Islam is called a religion of peace: ISIS terrorists targeting Christians in Iraq.

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

Hobby Lobby: Good News, Bad News & A Warning.

In related news: Liberals’ Top 3 Absurd Hobby Lobby Claims.

And a scary news item: Obama White House seeking ways to circumvent the Hobby Lobby SCOTUS ruling.

Perhaps even scarier is this [VIDEO]: President Obama unapologetic about trying to bypass Congress.

Hamas (which is supported by the Obama State Department) murdered three Israeli teenagers.

All of this re-reminds me: The world needs Jesus. John Piper says, “Your life is too small if it is not connected to this great challenge. Not all Christians are missionaries. But all care about the mission. All are connected. And want to be connected. No Christian should go for months and never think about this greatest of all enterprises.” Read more in his post The Greatest Challenge In The World.

“Success is not final; failure is not final: it is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston Churchill 

“No scripture is exhausted by a single explanation. The flowers of God’s garden bloom, not only double, but seven-fold: they are continually pouring forth fresh fragrance.” —Charles Spurgeon

“Human knowledge must be understood in order to be loved; but Divine knowledge must be loved to be understood.” —Blaise Pascal

 

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“Therefore it is the duty of a brave man not to shut his eyes when anything threatens, but to put it before him and to search it out as it were in the mirror of his mind, and to meet the future with foreseeing thought, for fear he might afterwards have to say: This has come to me because I thought it could not come about. If misfortunes are not looked for beforehand, they quickly get a hold of us.” —Ambrose

Sad: The Presbyterian Church (USA) votes to NOT denounce infanticide. Seriously?!?

Turn off the tube: “The study involved more than 13,200 adults in Spain who were all college graduates, and were around 37 years old at the study’s start. Participants were followed for about eight years, over which there were 97 deaths. Those who watched three or more hours of TV a day were twice as likely to die over the study period, compared with those whose watched TV for one hour or less daily, the study found. And, oddly, even compared to other activities that are sedentary—like driving a car or using a computer—watching TV still appears to be deadlier.”

A good overview of ISIS in Iraq.

A challenging thought from Dr. Tim Elmore for anyone who works with students: Addictions: One Reason Not To Take The Easy Road.

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” —William James 

“Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.” —Peter Marshall

 

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire.” —John Witherspoon

Religious persecution alert: ISIS is eliminating Christians in Iraq.

“It is a serious fault if a believer is in want, and thou knowest it, or if thou knowest that he is without means, that he is hungry, that he suffer distress, especially if he is ashamed of his need…. If he is in prison, and—upright though he is—has to suffer pain and punishment for some debt (for though we ought to show mercy to all, yet we ought to show it especially to an upright man); if in the time of his trouble he obtains nothing from thee; if in time of danger, when he is carried off to die, thy money seems more to thee than the life of a dying man; what a sin is that to thee!” —Ambrose

[VIDEO] Detroit Tigers radio announcer Ernie Harwell broadcasting his last game.

Interesting: Why The First Hospital To Do Sex-Reassignment Surgeries No Longer Do Them.

“When the Middle East is fragmented in this horrible war, this savage, savage war between militant Shiites and militant Sunnis … the only place where you have freedom, tolerance, protection of minorities, protection of gays, protection of Christians and all other faiths is Israel,” said Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister. Read more about the wrong-headed decision of the Presbyterian (USA) Church to divest in Israel.

More young adults are having kids outside of marriage, and that is creating a dangerous environment for the kids.

“Kind words are the music of the world. They have a power which seems to be beyond natural causes, as if they were some angel’s song which had lost its way and come on earth. It seems as if they could almost do what in reality God alone can do—soften the hard and angry hearts of men. No one was ever corrected by a sarcasm—crushed, perhaps, if the sarcasm was clever enough, but drawn nearer to God, never.” —Frederick William Faber

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine love may rest ‘well pleased.’ To ask that God’s love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled, by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable.” —C.S. Lewis

“Our old history ends with the Cross; our new history begins with the resurrection.” —Watchman Nee

Chick-Fil-A closed for a very honorable reason.

A bit scary: Muslims’ attitude toward non-Muslims.

“It’s easy, and perhaps comforting, to think of all the things the church is doing to try to change the world. But the real question is, what are you doing? Sure, you go to church and try to live a good life. But how intentional are you when it comes to actually impacting the lives of the lost people you rub shoulders with every day?” —Mark Atteberry

“Whatever the currents of public opinion and governmental action, God’s message is constant and glorious. Whether it is a crime to defy Scripture or to defend it, the Church must preach it—both in season and out of season. This is her calling.” —Kairos Journal

Links & Quotes

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Here are the links to some interesting reading I found today.

Great news! U.S. Supreme Court Affirms Prayer At Government Meetings.

A sober word for pastors: “I fear that sometimes our own eloquence and our own concepts may get in the way, for the unlimited ability to talk endlessly about religion is a questionable blessing.” —A.W. Tozer

“The more of Heaven there is in our lives, the less of earth we shall covet.” —Charles Spurgeon 

Ladies, looking for a pro-life OB/GYN? Check out this directory.

Good: Why We Need To Start Taking The Sabbath Seriously.

Dr. Tony Evans on homosexuality, the church, and Christianity.

“When God causes us to have no mercy on our sins, then He has great mercy on us. When we are angry with evil, God is no more angry with us. When we multiply our efforts against iniquity, the Lord multiplies our blessings.” —Charles Spurgeon

Did someone say Islam was “a religion of peace”? Guess they forgot to tell these guys…