Why are we allowed two?

          A great truth from G K Chesterton --

EVENING PRAYER

 "Here dies another day during which I have had eyes, ears, hands. And the great world around me, and tomorrow begins another. Why am I allowed two?"

A grateful heart - Why are we allowed so much? 2 days? 3? A whole string of days? A month? Even years!  

Days of grace...days to work with God to bring His Kingdom to earth....days with amazing creatures to remind us of His power and majesty...days of vibrant color that surround us...the eternal adventure of His Word to enthrall us...friends and family to share with us His limitless bounty...

It's all about gratitude!

MORNING PRAYER

As another poet said, "For the wonders that astound us, for the truths that still confound us, but most of all that love has found us! Thanks be to God!"  (Fred Green)

YES, it's all about gratitude. Make this a thanksgiving day!

Pay It Forward!

 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God" (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

As He comforts us we can comfort each other. That's how the church works! As He has been to us, let us be to each other.

Find someone today who needs comfort. That should be easy -- they're all around us. Remember...as He has been to us....

A Scared World - A Fearless Church

 

A reminder: A W Tozer said, "A scared world needs a fearless church!"

And this is a really scared world...and nation! Scared to death!

So be fearless today! Shout out the good news! There is hope in Jesus! Don't be afraid! Don't keep silent!

Be fearless today...remember...

LIFE IS NOT A DRESS REHEARSAL!

Creation or Re-Creation - Which is the most Difficult?

       Creation or Re-Creation -  which is the hardest?


One of my favorite saints, Bernard of Clairvaux, wrote this 900 years ago:*

     'Creation was not so vast a work as redemption; for it
     is written of man and of all things made...'He spoke the
     word and they were made' (Psalm 148:5)

     But to redeem the creation which sprang at His word, what               hardships He endured, what shames and pain He suffered!

     In the first creation He gave me myself, but in His new
     creation He gave me Himself, and by that gift restored to me
     the self I had lost.'

I love that idea....At creation He gave me myself, but at my
redemption He gave me Himself!

It's the history of the world - from creation to re-creation...all that matters is what He did in the first place and then later in the second place, and then what He will do in the future!

It's all about Him - history is simply his-story!


*From On Loving God, by Bernard of Clairvaux

Not all that sure? C S Lewis

Just as the Christian has his moments when the clamor of this visible and audible world is so persistent and the whisper of the spiritual world so faint that faith and reason can hardly stick to their guns, so well as I remember, the atheist too has his moments of shuddering misgiving, of an all but irresistible suspicion that old tales may after all be true, that something or someone from outside may at any moment break into his neat, explicable, mechanical universe.

Believe in God and you will have to face hours when it seems obvious that this material world is the only reality; disbelieve in Him and you must face hours when this material world seems to shout at you that it is not all.

No conviction, religious or irreligious, will, of itself, end once and for all this conflict in the soul.

Only the practice of Faith resulting in the habit of Faith will gradually do that.

          --From 'Religion: Reality or Substitute?'
                  in Christian Reflections, by C S Lewis