Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

[Guest]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Originally posted by CEW:
[qb] Jedi 1: I can sense your awe at how awesome and marvelous a God we serve! The quotation from John is one of those that if I start talking about it there is no stopping, but the majesty of the revelation never fails to warm my heart. The one from Jeremiah you quoted also happens to be one of my all time favorites.

"In the beginning...God." How awesome! Now, if we could only learn to put Him in the beginning of all we do! [/qb]

So true so very true! Now there is a reminder to me also because I got home this morning and dove straight way into some work and stuff I am trying to clear up before the New Year comes, and guess what? So I chat later got to go and start my devotions...btw. ever considered fasting on the 1 day of the year? I am! [img]/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Yvonne N.]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

From The Imitation of Christ (Thomas a Kempis)

It is good that we have sometimes some troubles and crosses; for they often make a man enter into himself...

It is good that we be someitmes contradicted; adn that men think inadequately of us, even though we intend and do well...

These things ...defend us from vain glory; for then we chiefly seek Father God for our inward witness, when outwardly we are condemned by men, and when there is no credit given unto us.

And therefore a person should rest himself so fully in Father God, that he need not to seek many comforts of men...

In the morning fix thy good purpose; and at night examine thyself what thou hast done, how thou hast behaved thyself in word, deed and thought...

[Guest]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Get real

There is no need to wish or to beg for anything more than you already have. Just open yourself up to the reality of abundance that is yours to live.

Do you really expect that you can experience true value without giving and living value yourself? Such thinking creates a solid, impenetrable wall between you and the abundance that can be yours.

Do you ignore the most sincere yearnings of your heart for the sake of getting ahead? Such a strategy will only keep you painfully behind.

The abundance of your life is real and it has no limit. So why would you ever invest your faith and your hope in those things that rust and crumble and decay?

Go instead with what is real, with what is lasting, with what can never be taken away. Pay heed to the blessed part of you that knows and appreciates such things.

Go with what is real. And all you could ever need or want is yours to live.

--- Ralph Marston

[Guest]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Fire Dance

In many tribal cultures, there are dances and rituals that members perform to please the gods they worship. Ceremonies for rain, cleansing rituals, sacrifices, and even fire dances keep their schedules full making sure their gods are happy and not mad.

It is as easy to make our walk with God complicated. We can as easily make the bible so complicated that it is hard to tell when the writing is right side up. The "fire dances" of the bible keep us so caught up we can barely face God daily, not sure if we are in good standing or not. While there is a few basic principles set forth for us to follow in the bible, they are there to ensure that we live a life that restores us to God's loving arms. They are not there to keep us performing a "fire dance" afraid at any moment that God's judgment will find us lacking in a performance or fear of failure.

God has already judged the world including us, other than death; we are worthy of nothing else. Nevertheless, God has restored us to Him through His son Jesus. Christ's death on the cross for us is the only performance we will ever need for God's love.

God does not want our performance, neither does God want ceremonies designed to get His approval of us. God wants us to just believe that He has our lives under His control and to live out the basics. God calls us to live out the basics and then believe that He will carry out the details of our lives.

Jesus said, "The first in importance is, 'Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.' And here is the second: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' There is no other commandment that ranks with these." Mark 12:29-31 (Message)

The simple basics are to believe in God with all of our hearts, soul, and strength and to show everyone we meet His love.

Part of maturing as a Christian is to enjoy the freedom that God has everything in His control. What may have looked like mistakes in the past are springboards to put you where He wants you to be today. It is impossible for anything to go wrong and nothing can be out of control when they are God's plans.

My Challenge to Us

We need to stop fretting about the past and areas where we have failed. There are no complicated "fire dances" that we need to perform and no intricate God's plan for us is simple and the path that we are to follow is basic. We need to believe that God is everything to us with finality. Second, we need to love Him with all we have and love others as much as we love ourselves. Everyone that made an impact for God in the bible did so by getting back to the basics that God designed for us. It is not hard or complicated, we just need to decide today to be mature and simply do what He has told us.

---Daily Wisdom, Gospelcom.net

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's...The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him...For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all. Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul.

--- From Psalm 103.

[Guest]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Dart Test...

A young lady named Sally, relates an experience she had in a seminary class, given by her teacher, Dr. Smith. She says that Dr. Smith was known for his elaborate object lessons.

One particular day, Sally walked into the seminary and knew they were in for a fun day.

On the wall was a big target and on a nearby table were many darts. Dr. Smith told the students to draw a picture of someone that they disliked or someone who had made them angry, and he would allow them to throw darts at the person's picture.

Sally's friend drew a picture of who had stolen her boyfriend. Another friend drew a picture of his little brother. Sally drew a picture of a former friend, putting a great deal of detail into her drawing, even drawing pimples on the face. Sally was pleased with the overall effect she had achieved.

The class lined up and began throwing darts. Some of the students threw their darts with such force that their targets were ripping apart. Sally looked forward to her turn, and was filled with disappointment when Dr. Smith, because of time limits, asked the students to return to their seats. As Sally sat thinking about how angry she was because she didn't have a chance to throw any darts at her target. Dr. Smith began removing the target from the wall.

Underneath the target was a picture of Jesus. A hush fell over the room as each student viewed the mangled picture of Jesus; holes and jagged marks covered His face and His eyes were pierced.

Dr. Smith said only these words... "In as much as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Matthew 25:40.

No other words were necessary; the tears filled eyes of the students focused only on the picture of Christ.

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Seeing and Seeking

"So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord." (Deuteronomy 8:3)

Life in this fallen world confronts us with a two-fold challenge. The difficulty is first to see that God is our deepest need and then to seek Him with the diligence that we should. The first is a problem of awareness -- our understanding must learn how important God is to us. The second is a problem of motivation -- our will must choose to seek God diligently. In both our understanding and our will, not to mention our emotions, we must learn to take God as seriously as He deserves to be taken.

If we don't see that God is what we most deeply need, we won't seek Him seriously. But even when we do see how basic our need for God is, it is often still the case that we don't seek Him as earnestly as we should. We simply fail to deal seriously with life's most significant issue. Why this is so is a question that ought to concern us daily.

Seeing the reality of our need and then seeking God require moment-by-moment effort. The decision to seek God with all our hearts can't be made once-for-all and then forgotten. In every single moment of choice we must exercise our will one more time, deciding again and again to maintain integrity to what we know is most important. "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." Such is our continual, lifelong challenge.

Not seeing our real need and not seeking God are failures that have disastrous consequences, even in the here and now. The human heart groans, longing to be filled up, and if we don't seek God as the object of our heart's desire, we will try to slake our thirst in other ways, pursuing substitute satisfactions until we have ruined ourselves. To devote our hearts to desires other than God is not only to waste our years in vanity -- it is to forfeit the deep joy for which we were created. What could be more tragic than to miss the triumphant satisfaction of our deepest desire simply because we didn't see our need and we didn't seek our God?

The children of Israel did not find in the manna all the sweetness and strength they might have found in it; not because the manna did not contain them, but because they longed for other meat.

--- John of the Cross

[Guest]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Good morning (((CEW))) my friend just want to say that I love you and thank you for the above post as it must be God's spirit that led you to write that for this morning I spend my devotional time meditating on just what you wrote there. And I thought of starting a new prayer thread but I decided to add my prayer to this thread instead.

Father in heaven when You called to me and said "seek my face" my heart responded "Your face O Lord I will seek". Lord I have struggled against myself and the challenges that You have placed before me to "work out my salvation with fear and trembling" often fighting against Your will for my life as my foolish pride would direct me to do otherwise.

Here I am again, before Your throne of grace, totally undone in the light of Your matchless love and mercy, acknowledging once more that I cannot love You more than You can love me, that there is nothing that I can do for You but that it is You who wills in me to do of Your good pleasure." Where does that leave me then but to seek You more and more so that I may be able to please You with my life minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day and with each year that You have granted me to live and each breath that I take. Lord I need You, for without You I am nothing and I can do nothing. Lord I want to love you with all my heart, with all of my soul and all of my mind and my might, for only then will I be able to love others or even myself. Lord You are perfect love, please fill up in me what is so lacking in love, that I may come to know what is the height, and depth and the length and breath, and to know the fullness of the love that Christ has bestowed upon us through His death at Calvary. Lord cause me to so desire you that I may willingly submit myself to fully know Your love, that I may cease to look to the vain things of this world for satiety, for it is only by knowing Your love that I will be able to fully trust You to provide for my every need both spiritually and physically. Lord I plead today take my will and so mold it that it bends to do of Your good pleasure for I acknowledge that for that reason You have created me. I desire to please You with every fiber of my being today. I thank You LORD that in You I have life, cause me to live it with the joy and liberality of a life that is completely submitted to You in perfect love, peace and harmony. Lord I make my prayer reckoning on the promises made to me by accepting Your precious gift of life at the shedding of Your blood for me at Calvary. Thank You Lord.

Amen.

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Jedi l: Bless your heart! It is my prayer that God will grant you the desires of your heart that are according to His will.

[Guest]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Remember me, my God, for good.

Thus says the LORD: "I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your bethrothal, when you went after Me in the wilderness." I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. I will visit you and perform My good word toward you. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thougts. I would seek God, and to God I would commit my cause-who does great things, and unsearchable, marvelous things without number. Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to You in order; if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

I will not leave you nor forsake you.
Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass. God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments. He will ever be mindful of His covenant.

Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands.

The LORD your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you in His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.

Neh. 5:19; Jer.2:2; Ezek. 16:60; Jer. 29:10-11; Isa.55:9; Job 5:8-9; Ps. 40:5; Josh. 1:5; Josh. 21:45; Num. 23:19; Deut. 7:9; Ps. 111:5; Isa. 49:15-16; Zeph. 3:17 (NKJV)

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

STAY IN HIS WILL

"Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!" (Matthew 12:50, NLT)

When I was a teenager, my parents had a lot to say about those that I hung around with. They were determined to screen my potential friends and make sure I went in a certain direction. This was not a pleasing experience for me; there were some that I wanted to be with that were not on their list.

They knew about things like the fact that we become who we spend a lot of time with. As much as we like to think that others do not affect us, they do. They take on a little of us and we take on a little of them. With the jobs that some of us have, it is important to associate with people outside of work that think the way we want to think. We want their attitude, not the attitude of many we work with.

If we choose those that are doing the will of the Father, we will be on track. Now, I did not say those that are Christians. Not all who profess that are in His will. I want to be considered Jesus' brother, so I want to be with others that are in His will. This helps me to stay there myself.

---Devotional: Pastor Dave.

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Desiring His Will

"And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt." (Mark 14:36).

There is no doubt that God has the ability to do all things and to deliver us from any situation. The question is; are we willing to allow His will to take precedence over our own comfort, and will. That is all that He is requiring of us; to be willing to go wherever he asks; to say what He wants us to say; to be what He desires for us to be. Being willing to turn to God with our hearts open and honest before Him and say "Whatever". It certainly is not easy, and there are no guarantees that where He leads will be where we want to go. It certainly was not comfortable for Jesus to lay down His life. If there would have been another way He could have done the will of His Father I'm sure He would have chosen it, but it was His Father's will that was His priority. His spirit was willing. Sometimes we become so accustomed to having our own way, our prayers become like a wish list. We can't say to Jesus I will follow you, but not that way, or I give you my life, except for this part. It is not negotiable. We can either make up our minds that we will take up our cross and follow, or not.

Prayer

Thank you for the opportunity to serve You. Because of Your decision to obey the will of the Father, I have received life. Words are inadequate to express my gratitude. I surrender my life to You. My spirit is willing but my flesh many times needs strength to follow. From my heart I will say, "Your will be done in my life". Amen.

--- God Today Devotions.

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Thoughts on Life

"I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit."

--- Dawna Markova

"To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury; and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasion, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony."

--- William Henry Channing

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Random Thoughts

"If you do not do the thing you fear, the fear controls your life." - Brian Tracy

"The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause." - Mark Twain

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Harold Whitman

"Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have." - Louis E. Boone

"There are two types of people - those who come into a room and say, "Well, here I am," and those who come into a room and say, "Ah, there you are." - Frederick Collins

"Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives." - William James

"Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fiber of character but strengthen it. Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before." - James Buckham

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

God Shouldn't Have Called You

There are many reasons why God shouldn't have called you. But don't worry. You're in good company.

Moses stuttered.
David's armor didn't fit.
John Mark was rejected by Paul.
Timothy had ulcers.
Hosea's wife was a prostitute.
Amos' only training was in the school of fig-tree pruning.
Jacob was a liar.
David had an affair.
Solomon was too rich.
Abraham was too old.
David was too young.
Peter was afraid of death.
Lazarus was dead.
John was self-righteous.
Naomi was a widow.
Paul was a murderer.
So was Moses.
Jonah ran from God.
Miriam was a gossip.
Gideon and Thomas both doubted.
Jeremiah was depressed and suicidal.
Elijah was burned out.
John the Baptist was a loudmouth.
Martha was a worry-wart.
Mary was lazy.
Samson had long hair.
Noah got drunk.
Did I mention that Moses had a short fuse?
So did Peter, Paul--well, lots of folks did.

But God doesn't require a job interview. He doesn't hire and fire like most bosses, because He's more our Dad than our Boss. He doesn't look at financial gain or loss. He's not prejudiced or partial, not judging, grudging, sassy, or brassy, not deaf to our cry, not blind to our need.

As much as we try, God's gifts are free. We could do wonderful things for wonderful people and still not be Wonderful. Satan says, "You're not worthy." Jesus says, "So what? I AM." Satan looks back and sees our mistakes. God looks back and sees the cross. He doesn't calculate what you did in '78. It's not even on the record. Sure. There are lots of reasons why God shouldn't have called us. But if we are magically in love with Him, if we hunger for Him more than our next breath, He'll use us in spite of who we are, where we've been, or what we look like.

I pray that as Christians, we will step out of our limitations into the unlimitable nature of who God is. Then our passion for God and our passion to communicate Him will make short work of our limitations.

~-- Author Unknown