Me: Here, God, I pray for a fat bank account and a thin body (and please don’t mix them up again.)
This is from The Soul Winner by C.H. Spurgeon
Elisha was no common man when God’s Spirit was upon him, calling him to God’s work and aiding him in it. And you, devoted, earnest, prayerful teacher, remain no longer a common being. You have become, in a special manner, the temple of the Holy Spirit. God dwells in you, and you, by faith, have entered into the career of a wonder-worker. You are sent into the world not to do things that are possible to man, but those impossibilities that God works by His Spirit, by the means of His believing people.
O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness; Selah: Psalm 68:7 (KJV)
Prodigal: Lord, make my words gracious and tender, for tomorrow I may have to eat them!
This is from Romans by Donald Barnhouse
Robert Dick Wilson taught Hebrew at Princton Theological Seminary and one of his students was Donald Barnhouse. Barnhouse tells of his going back to seminary to preach after having graduated from there twelve years earlier. Dr. Wilson came into Miller Chapel and sat down near the front. There is something rather intimidating about going back to the school where you were trained and you teach Scripture to those who taught you.
At the close of the meeting Dr. Wilson came up to Donald Barnhouse and said, “If you come back again, I will not come to hear you preach. I only came once. I am glad that you are a big-godder. When my boys come back, I come to see if they are big-godders or little-godders, and then I know what their ministry will be.” Barnhouse asked him to explain.
“Well, some men have a little God and they are always in trouble with Him. He can’t do any miracles. He can’t take care of the inspiration and transmission of the Scripture to us. He doesn’t intervene on behalf of His people. They have a little God and I call them little-godders. Then there are those who have a great God. He speaks and it is done. He commands and it stands fast. He knows how to show Himself strong on behalf of them that fear Him. You, Donald, have a great God; and he will bless your ministry.” He paused a moment, smiled, said, “God bless you,” and walked out.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. Psalms 100:4 (KJV)
Me: Yes, Let me share this. Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don’t count on harvesting Golden Delicious.
This is from Chuck Swindoll
Do you remember when the cosmonauts made that primitive little journey around the earth the first time? They came back with their thumbs under their suspenders bragging, “We have been in the air. We have been around the earth. And we did not see God!” The following Sunday W.A. Criswell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, made a classic statement. He said, “Ah, if those cosmonauts had stepped out of their spacesuit, they would have seen God!”
O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory. Psalm 98:1 (KJV)
The Bible was a gift from Bob, my husband, but it seemed to belong as much to our son, Doug, as it did to me. Doug and I read it together. We shared it in Bible study groups. Together we underlined God’s promises. So when I received a new Bible, this familiar one became Doug’s own.
Doug married, and eventually he and his family moved into a house not far from ours. Driving an eighteen-wheeler, he spent long hours away from home. He kept a little leather pocket Bible with him in the rig, but he made sure that “our” Bible stayed safely at home.
Then one bitter winter afternoon, there was a fire. He and Marla and the three boys were in despair. “The whole house burned down,” Doug told us. “We lost everything.”
For a week, neighbors, family, and friends tried to help them. They supplied clothes, money, food, furniture, and many prayers. Then one day Marla came over, smiling.
“Mom,” she said, “look what I found in the rubble.” Into my hands she laid and old Bible, soaking wet, its leather cover shriveled and brittle, but with all the pages intact. Doug’s Bible-our Bible.
Immediately I began to dry it, first with a towel, then in the oven at 150 degrees. Slowly it became supple enough for me to turn its pages. When Doug came home, I said excitedly, “Open it up. Just let it fall open.”
The Good Book opened and Doug read a passage we had underlined: When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee….when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee (Isaiah 43:2).
Psalm 121 portrays the upward look: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills–from whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth” (verse 1). The upward look of a mature Christian is not to the mountains, but to the God who made the mountains. It is the maintained set of the highest powers of a man–not stargazing till he stumbles–but the upward gaze deliberately set toward God. He has got through the choppy waters of his elementary spiritual experience and now he is set God. “I have set the LORD always before me” (Psalm 16:8)–but you have to fight for it.
Then Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, “Stand up among us.” Mark 3:3 (KJV)
This is from Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver
“True love hurts,” Mother Teresa once said. “It always has to hurt.” And elsewhere she has written pointedly, “If you really love one another, you will not be able to avoid making sacrifices.” For many years, this tiny nun and her followers went out of their way to minister to the dying–first in Calcutta, India, and later around the world. Their ministry went far beyond simply holding hands and praying. They physically carried broken bodies in off the streets. They sponged out foul-smelling wounds. They got down on their knees to mop up accidents. They tenderly spooned warm food into toothless mouths.
Now that Mother Teresa is gone from this earth, her Missionaries of Charity still continue the work she began–work that again and again goes out of its way to love and serve. Why do they do it? If you ask them, their answer is clear and confident: “We do it because Jesus did.” And so must we.
Once again Jesus entered the synagogue, and a man with a withered hand was there. Mark 3:1 (KJV)
