How Does God Help Us?

 Can we do what God wants us to do if He helps us?

Yes, but how does He help us?

"We mean God is putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak. He lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think. He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another. 

When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters; that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons through us and holds our hand while we do it."

    --- From Mere Christianity by C S Lewis

As Soon as He Hears!

 "Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him. How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as He hears, He will answer you" (Isaiah 30:18-20).

He longs to extend His grace to us! He is eager to listen to us!

Keep the line open -- He is listening for you....right now...

This is our 'strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow'!

My Heart - Christ's Home?

"Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.

 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with Me" (Revelation 3:20).

                      Thoughts from Charles Spurgeon --

 "Are you saying, 'I wish that He would live in my heart and make it His dwelling place forever'?

Open the door, beloved, and He will come into your soul. He has been knocking continually.  He wants to eat with you because you provide the home, your heart, and you with Him because He brings the meal.

You would have an empty table if He did not bring the food.

Fling wide then the doors of your soul. He will come with that love you long to feel, that joy you seek to revive your spirit, and that peace to restore your life. Only open the door to Him, drive out His enemies, give Him the keys, and He will live there forever. What wondrous love that brings such a guest to dwell in such a heart!"

     It's time to make your heart Christ's home! (Ephesians 3:17).

[Remember, you have to open the door yourself -- the latch is on your side -- and invite Him in....and there is only room for One - it is not a lodging house!]

No Ordinary People

 Everyone is immortal. Everyone is going to live someplace forever...

   "There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.

But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, exploit --immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our play must be of that kind (and it is in fact the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority,  no presumption.

And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sin,  in spite of which we love the sinner." 

                                   -- C S Lewis, The Weight of Glory.

Everyone we see -- on the street, in the stadium or theater, in the grocery store, on Facebook -- everyone will live forever -- someplace.

The most loving and kind thing we can do is to ask them if they understand that.

Why don't we just ask?

Satan Wants Food - Our God wants Sons

 

A conversation between Satan's head demon recruiter and one of his new recruits - He is explaining how Satan's goals are different from The Enemy's (our God's) goals --

The Demon trainer is named Screwtape. He tells his new apprentice --

"To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours. But the obedience which our Enemy demands of men in quite a different thing. 

One must face the fact that all the talk about his love for men is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of himself, not because he has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to his. 

We want cattle who can finally become food; he wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in; he wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; he is full and flows over."

                    - From Screwtape Letters, by C S Lewis