Me: We might have sin that needs to be dealt with.
This is from the book God Works The Night Shift by Ron Mehl
What is sin?
It’s me trying to meet my own needs.
It’s me trying to walk without help.
It’s me trying to satisfy my own soul.
It’s me stubbornly refusing to let God, by His strong and gracious hand,
save me, keep me, and sustain me.
Lord, Help me today. I do not need to do this own my own. I can already tell that this will not work today. No, what I need is to surrender to you and for me to allow myself to be directed by you. I need to have love in my heart, forgiveness and a humble spirit. I need to have my focus be on you and not the past. Lord please guide me this day.
The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.
Bob was in his driveway, working on a friend’s 1971 Dodge Dart. The car was facing up a slight incline. Bob was lying under it in the gas-tank area, feet pointing toward the front. His friend had gone to the store to buy a replacement part.
“I had forgotten that removing the drive shaft gives you, in essence, four freewheeling wheels,” Bob explains. “Though the car was set in “park,” it started to roll backward.”
Bob attempted to scurry out from under. He almost made it, but the front wheel caught his left foot, pinning it be bending it forward toward the shin. His heart dropping. Bob saw that the slant n the driveway was enough to make the car roll, but not enough for the wheel to complete its revolution over his foot. He was stuck.
Pain exploded in waves. His foot felt as if it were being crushed into bits. Alerted by his shouts, Sandy and a neighbor woman came running.
“We’ll lift the wheel, Bob, and then you can get out!” Sandy cried.
But their efforts only made matters worse. Because of the incline, every time the women tried to shift the tire, they only pushed it farther up, resting even more weight on Bob’s whole leg. If the wheel could have turned completely over the foot, Bob could have gotten free, but it wouldn’t move far enough.
Soon there were at least seven other neighbors surrounding him. Some tried the same type of lifting, to no avail. “Everyone should have pushed the wheel from behind,” Bob says in retrospect, “but none of us was thinking clearly,” It seemed as if he would be trapped forever. Through a haze of pain and fear, Bob cried out, “God help me!”
Immediately, Bob saw a large man running toward him. The man reached the front of the car and quickly lifted the bumper high enough to raise the entire chassis off Bob’s foot. Bob groaned in relief and rolled free.
Everyone crowed around.
“Are you okay?” someone asked. “Should we take you for an X ray?” “No,” Experimentally, Bob wiggled his toes and flexed his ankle. The foot had no apparent injury. “It feels fine,” he told his relieved neighbors, getting up slowly.
Then Bob looked around for the large man who had so effortlessly lifted the car. “I was beginning to realize just how strong he would have had to be,” he says. “Allowing for the ‘springiness’ of the car springs, lifting a car ten to twelve inches would still leave a tire on the ground. You’d have to lift it a lot higher than that to get a wheel completely off a foot. And there was no one else lifting on that side when he came.”
There was no large man for Bob to thank, either. And no one remembered seeing him dash to Bob’s aid. “The tall guy, the one who came running across the lawn….?” Bob asked everyone, but was rewarded with stares and head-shaking.
“There was no one here but us,” the neighbors insisted, ” and we could certainly have noticed a stranger.” Nor did Sandy remember seeing anyone she didn’t know.
There was no service vehicles around, no deliveryman or any outsiders on Bob’s street that afternoon. No one had seen a car stop. More significantly, no one had seen or heard a car leave. There just wasn’t any explanation as to why the car had suddenly moved off Bob’s foot. Any logical explanation, that is.
by Joan Wester Anderson
Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.
This is from the book Reaching for the Invisible God by Philip Yancey
Berger responded with the observation that I was operating with a rather grandiose notion of radical obedience. Somewhere in a retirement home, he said, there is a Christian woman whose greatest fear in life is that she will make a fool of herself because she will not be able to control her bladder in the cafeteria line. For this woman, the greatest act of radical obedience to Jesus Christ is to place herself in the hands of a loving God every time she goes off to dinner.
Berger’s point was profound. God calls us to deal with the challenges before us, and often our most “radical” challenges are very “little” ones. The call to radical micro-obedience may mean patiently listening to someone who is boring or irritating, or treating a fellow sinner with a charity that is not easy to muster, or offering detailed advice on a matter that seems trivial to everyone but the person asking for the advice.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is from the book The Dynamics of Worship by James P. Gills, M.D.
Pride is a subtle thing and often exists where it is least expected, for one can even be proud of his humility! Pride in one’s own personal appearance leads that individual to give undue attention to himself or herself. Pride of gift leads to an ostentatious display of it and secret craving for applause. Pride of position leads its owner to adopt a condescending air to his fellow believers. Pride of possessions shows itself in self-complacency and boasting. Pride of one’s ecclesiastical position evidences itself in smugness and sanctimoniousness.
This will upset you. The problem is pride and it begins with you and me. I know that is hard to read. Start to examine your heart and spirit and we both find pride is there. So to move forward, the pride has to be dealt with. The pride has to stop.
2 Corinthians 5:9-10
So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
This is from the book Saint Augustine Confessions by Saint Augustine
Grant my prayer, O Lord, and do not allow my soul to wilt under the discipline which you prescribe. Let me not tire of thanking you for your mercy in rescuing me from all my wicked ways, so that you may be sweeter to me than all the joys which used to tempt me; so that I may love you most intensely and clasp your hand with all the power of my devotion; so that you may save me from all temptation until the end of my days.
Psalm 103:6
The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
This is from the book Why Jesus? by Ravi Zacharias
First, the innocent is attracted to climb a mountain. Then the innocent draws others into her orbit to keep her company as she climbs. The she seduced the others into believing that she has attained a higher status than the mountain and now has a transcendent perspective. Finally, she make it look as if all along, the mountain should have tried to scale her heights but i couldn’t, because it is not the mountain that created the climber but the climber that created the mountain and everything around it is the climber’s creation. Now when others come to the mountain, it is to find that the mountain actually leads to her.
Do not be fooled. A false teacher will point to themselves and not Christ. They may say verses of the bible and say things that relate to God. The truth is that it always ends up you serving them, and following their commands. At any time if you choose to followi the bible and that means you don’t do want they say, a persecution will come to you. When you find yourself in this situation. Get out! This is not someone God has anointed.
Psalm 103:5
who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
This is from the book No Wonder They Call Him the Savior by Max Lucado
My, what an ending. Or, better said, what a beginning! Don’t miss the promise unveiled in the story of Jesus. For those of us who, like the apostles, have turned and run when we should have stood and fought, this passage is pregnant with hope. A repentant heart is all he demands. Come out of the shadows! Be done with your hiding! A repentant heart is enough to summon the Son of God himself to walk through our walls of guilt and shame. He who forgave his followers stands ready to forgive the rest of us. All we have to do is come back.
No wonder they call him the Savior.
Joshua 1:8
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
