Who Knows God's Will? - Henry Blackaby

The Holy Spirit will never misunderstand the Father's will for your life. The Father has a purpose to work out through your life, and He places His Spirit in you so you don't miss it.

The Spirit's job is to guide you according to the Father's will. Then He enables you to do God's will. You are completely dependent on God for the knowledge and ability to accomplish His purposes.

That is why your relationship with Him is crucial. That is why you need to wait until you have heard a word from Him about His purposes and ways.

Jesus is your example of One who never failed to know and do His Father's will. Everything the Father purposed to do through His life, the Lord Jesus did immediately.

What was the key to His success? He was always rightly related to the Father! If you walk in a consistent relationship with God's provision--the provision of His Son, His Holy Spirit and His presence in your life--then you should never come to a time when you do not know the Father's will. Nor should there be a time when you are not enabled to carry out His will.

In Jesus we have the picture of a solitary life in a love relationship with God, consistently living out that relationship. He is the perfect example.

You and I quickly realize we are a long way from that. True! But the Christ who lived His life in complete obedience is fully present in you to enable you to know and to do His will.

We need to adjust our lives to God and consistently live out that relationship with absolute dependence on Him. He will never fail to lead your life into the middle of His purpose and enable you to do it.

         --From Experiencing God,
       by Henry and Richard Blackaby and Claude King

It's going to be a long day! - Sarah Young

Come to Me, and rest in My loving Presence.

You know that this day will bring difficulties, and you are trying to think your way through those trials.

As you anticipate what is ahead of you, you forget that I am with you -- now and always.

Rehearsing your troubles results in experiencing them many times, whereas you are meant to go through them only when they actually occur.

Do not multiply your suffering in this way!

Instead, come to Me, and relax in My Presence.

I will strengthen you and prepare you for this day, transforming your fear into confident trust.


Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.  Joshua 1:9

Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.  Matthew 11:28-30


He said, "Learn from Me....."

Oh well! - Sarah Young

Try to see things more and more from My perspective.


Let the light of My Presence so fully fill your mind that you view the world through Me.


When little things don't go as you had hoped, look to Me lightheartedly and say, "Oh, well!"


This simple discipline can protect you from being burdened with an accumulation of petty cares and frustrations.


If you practice this diligently, you will make a life-changing discovery: you will realize that most of the things that worry you are not important. If you shrug them off immediately and return your focus to Me, you will walk through your days with lighter steps and a joyful heart.


When serious problems come your way, you will have more reserves for dealing with them. You will have not squandered your energy on petty problems.


You may even reach the point where you can agree with the Apostle Paul, that all your troubles are light and momentary compared with the eternal glory being achieved by them.

A man's steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way?
Proverbs 20:24

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

Dean Koontz comments on Evil --

The devil and all his demons are dull and predictable because of their single-minded rebellion against truth. Crime itself --as opposed to the solving of it-- is boring to the complex mind, though endlessly fascinating to the simpleminded.

One film about Hannibal Lecter is riveting, but a second is inevitably stupefying.

We have a series hero, but a series villain quickly becomes silly as he strives so obviously to shock us.

Virtue is imaginative, evil repetitive.

~~~~~~

Some people misunderstand evil and believe it will relent, and because their misplaced hope inspires dark hearts to dream darker dreams, they are the fathers and mothers of all wars.

Evil does not relent; it must be defeated. And even when defeated, uprooted, and purified by fire, evil leaves behind a seed that will one day germinate and, in blooming, again be misunderstood.


---From Odd Apocalypse, by Dean Koontz
   

On whose side are you? Charles Spurgeon

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh

shall see it together. Isaiah 40:5

We anticipate the happy day when every knee will bow down before Christ; when the gods of the heathen shall be cast to the moles and the bats; when empty religion will be exploded, and the crescent of Mohammed will topple, never again to cast its harmful rays upon the nations; when kings shall worship before the Prince of Peace, and all nations shall call the Redeemer blessed.

Some despair of this.

They look on the world as a ship breaking up and going to pieces, never to float again. 

We know that the world and all that is in it will one day be burned up, and afterwards we look for new heavens and for a new earth; but we cannot read our Bibles without the conviction that --

Jesus shall reign where'er the sun

Doth his successive journeys run.

We are not discouraged by the length of His delays; we are not disheartened by the long period that He assigns to the church in which to struggle with little success and much defeat.

We believe that God will never tolerate this world, which has once seen Christ's blood shed upon it, remaining as the devil's stronghold.

Christ came here to deliver this world from the detested sway of the powers of darkness.

What a shout that will be when men and angels unite to cry "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God Almighty reigns!"

What a satisfaction it will be in that day to have had a part in the fight to have helped to break the arrows of the bow, and to have shared  in winning the victory for our Lord!

Happy are those who entrust themselves to this conquering Lord, and who fight side by side with Him doing their part in His name and by His strength!

How unhappy are those on the side of evil! It is a losing side, and it is a matter in whixh to lose is to lose and to be lost forever.

On whose side are you?