Links & Quotes

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“You have no idea the number of people that God may want to influence through you.” —Andy Stanley

“Proclaiming the gospel to a lost world cannot be just another activity to add to the church’s crowded agenda. It must be central to who we are. It forms our identity.” —Francis Chan

If you are job hunting, here is something to consider: Job recruiters don’t care about your GPA.

Ever wonder why politicians continue to fund the murderous practices of Planned Parenthood? Just follow the money. Look how much money Planned Parenthood gives to these politicians.

Max Lucado asks, “Does one prevailing problem stalk your life? Where does satan have a hook in you?” Read more in Max’s post Strongholds.

Links & Quotes

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“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

Transformation without changeThis 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.

Links & Quotes

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“Paul says ‘whatever you do’—even down to such everyday things as taking a meal—do it in order to glorify God [1 Corinthians 10:31]. Apparently there are ways of using culture—our table manners, language, style of dress, way of working, how we drive our car and care for our homes, the use we make of TV and films, the emails we write, the phone calls in which we become involved, and all the rest of our culture—there are ways of using such everyday things that will allow us to signal to the world around us that we are aware of an obligation in such cultural activities that extends beyond our own puny selfish interests. We seek the glory of God in our use of culture.” —T.M. Moore

“To be fully free, we must have the desire, the ability, and the opportunity to do what will make us happy forever. No regrets. And only Jesus, the Son of God Who died and rose for us, can make that possible. If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed [John 8:31-32].” —John Piper

Here is what is sad to me, many people buy into what George Lord Byron wrote, speaking of Socrates: “Well didst thou speak, Athena’s wisest son, ‘All we know is nothing can be known.’” We can know through our relationship with Jesus Christ.

“Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.” —C.S. Lewis

“Pleasure is not a quick fix, it can be a thief, it will undermine happiness. Eventually, pleasure loses its pleasure and becomes a prison.” —Andy Stanley

If you have ever been hurt by your church, first of all: my heart breaks with yours … that should never have happened. But if it did, this post may help you in overcoming your hurt.

We must be in prayer! Every five minutes, a Christian is martyred for their faith somewhere in the world.

[VIDEO] J. Warner Wallace, a cold case detective, talks about how he uses his investigative skills to explain the origin of life from non-life—

 

Links & Quotes

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“If my prayers are listless and unimpassioned, perhaps they reveal a heart that is self-assured and content with itself.” —T.M. Moore

“Our joy does not just rise from the backward glance in gratitude. It also rises from the forward glance in hope. In the end, the heart longs not for any of God’s good gifts, but for God Himself. To see Him and know Him and be in His presence is the soul’s final feast.” —John Piper

Fellas, this is a pretty good list: 10 ways to romance your wife. And both husbands and wives should check out The Secret Enemy in Your Marriage.

“The key to spiritual growth isn’t increased church attendance or involvement in spiritual activities. People don’t grow in Christ because they’re busy at church. They grow in Christ when they read and trust their Bibles.” Read more in Max Lucado’s post: Key To Spiritual Growth.

Carly Fiorina is so right about the Iran deal and Planned Parenthood. And what I love is that she links both of them to the moral foundation of the United States of America. Check out this 90-second video clip.

Thursdays With Oswald—Quick Snippets

Oswald ChambersThis 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.) 

  • “If we understood what happens when we use the Word of God, we would use it oftener.” 
  • “Everything the devil does, God over-reaches to serve His own purpose.”
  • “There is nothing so still and gentle as the checks of the Holy Spirit if they are yielded to, emancipation is the result; but let them be trifled with, and there will come a hardening of the life away from God.”
  • “My conscience makes me know what I ought to do, but it does not empower me to do it.”
  • “In the moral realm if you don’t do things quickly you will never do them.”
  • “Second thoughts on moral matters are always the deflections.”
  • “The greatest test of Christianity is the wear and tear of daily life, it is like the shining of silver, the more it is rubbed the brighter it grows.”
  • “We have to do more than we are built to do naturally; we have to do all the Almighty builds us to do.”
  • “When I began to be satisfied with where I am spiritually, instantly I begin to degenerate.”

Which of these is your favorite?

Links & Quotes

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“Culture becomes corrupt when it is employed according to the whims and passions of men rather than the purposes and standards of God. … When culture falls into this sorry state, it is the duty of those who perceive this condition to do whatever they can to redress it. Christians are the salt, light, and leaven of the world; it is our duty to take every thought, and all of culture, captive for obedience to Jesus Christ, to redeem culture from the destructive powers of sin and rebellion, so that it can be renewed for the purposes of God and His glory.” —T.M. Moore

“Surely the fertile brain of invention must be the Creator’s gift. … The puffing of steam from a kettle, or the falling of an apple from a tree have led thoughtful minds to discover great and important truths, and who shall attribute these circumstances to any but to ‘Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will,’ and Who gives wisdom to the wisest of the sons of men? Let us adore the mighty God, not only as we read our Bibles, but as we traverse the halls of art and science, and visit the exhibitions which in these days of ours are being reared on every side. Let us make man’s skill speak to us of God’s glory.” —Charles Spurgeon

Good teaching from John Maxwell on being a virtuous person—

 

A Half Dozen Quotes From C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis at his deskWhenever 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

Links & Quotes

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“There is something which we can do which God does. He does good to all His creatures, and we can do good also. He bears witness to His Son Jesus, and we can bear witness too. … Do you not see, brethren, that we stand on the same platform with the eternal God? When we lift our hand, He lifts up His eternal arm; when we speak, He speaks too, and speaks the same thing; when we purpose Christ’s glory, He purposes that glory too; when we long to bring home the wandering sheep, and to recall the prodigal sons, He longs to do the same.” —Charles Spurgeon

Great insight on the Kim Davis story. Check out what John Piper says.

This is a longer piece, but this attorney points out that same-sex “marriage” is not the law of the land.

Planned Parenthood is big business, and their business is abortion. Check out what they are teaching kids as young as 10-years-old about sexuality. With teaching like this, they are sure to have a steady stream of business!

For married couples, here is a healthy and healing way to handle your spouse’s sexual history.

Many people are crippled by guilt. I love the way my friend, Pastor Dave Barringer, addresses this topic in his post Done With Guilt.

 

Links & Quotes

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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.

Save Souls Sinking Into Hell

These are sobering words from Charles Spurgeon…

C.H. Spurgeon“Men can be so careless about the ruin of men’s souls. Let us hear the cry of ‘Fire! fire!’ in the streets, and our heart is all in trepidation lest some poor creature should be burned alive; but we read of hell, and of the wrath to come, and seldom do our hearts palpitate with any compassionate trembling and fear. If we are on board a vessel, and the shrill cry is heard, ‘Man overboard!’ whoever hears of a passenger wrapping his overcoat around him, and lying down upon a seat to contemplate the exertions of others? But in the church, when we hear of thousands of sinners sinking in the floods of ruin, we behold professed Christians wrapping themselves up in their own security, and calmly looking upon the labours of others, but not even lifting a finger to do any part of the work themselves. If we heard tomorrow in our streets the awful cry, more terrible than fire, the cry of ‘Bread! bread! bread!’ and saw starving women lifting up their perishing children, would we not empty out our stores? Who among us would not spend our substance to let the poor ravenous creatures satisfy the pangs of hunger? And yet, here is the world perishing for lack of knowledge. Here we have them at our doors crying for the bread of heaven, and how many there are that hoard their substance for avarice, give their time to vanity, devote their talents to self-aggrandisement, and centre their thoughts only on the world or the flesh! Oh! could you once see with your eyes a soul sinking into hell, it would be such a spectacle that you would work night and day, and count your life too short and your hours too few for the plucking of brands from the burning.” (emphasis added)