Re-Quotable Quotes for Today

 "God only wants for us what we would want for ourselves, if we were smart enough to want it." - Adrian Rogers

"If I were ever prosecuted for my religion, I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me!"-- John Wooden

  "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" (Matthew 6:34). Max Lucado says about this verse: "The key is this: meet today's problems with today's strength. Don't start tackling tomorrow's problems until tomorrow. You don't have tomorrow's strength yet. You simply have enough for today!"

  "Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while others are not responsible for what they themselves are doing today?"  -- Thomas Sowell

A Perfect Prayer

                                         

                                              A Perfect Prayer

The Book of Daniel (in the Old Testament) has some profound prayers.

I am thinking especially of His prayer in chapter 2. 

Daniel had been given the king's malicious command to not only interpret the king's dream but also to remind the king what the dream was about! A humanly- impossible task!

If Daniel failed then he and the others would be killed.

So Daniel prays for God to reveal the dream and its meaning to him. 

He begins his prayer of thanks for God's answer with grand proclamations of worship and praise: "Praise be to the Name of God forever and ever, wisdom and power are His..." he starts.

It is a short prayer.

As he ends he thanks God for answering: "You have made known to me what we asked of You. You have made known to us the dream of the king."

We learn from this that we should be specific in our requests, and then specific in what we are thanking Him for!

Asking Him to bless generally ('bless everybody in the world' we might say) is sometimes appropriate but maybe just a lazy approach when communicating with our loving Father!

Let's be like Daniel and tell our Father exactly what we want from Him and what we are thanking Him for! 

Wouldn't our earthly father prefer that?

The Scientist and the Theologian

Where did the scientist find the theologian? 

What's the end of the story?

Robert Jastrow's nightmare:

Robert Jastrow was a famous and highly influential astronomer and physicist. He was the founder and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He was a self-described and proclaimed agnostic, and sometimes atheist. He died in 2008. But before he died he wrote this:

    "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He had scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the highest rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

What's To Come?

An observation from Eric Metaxas --

"Conversion to faith in God is one of the great mysteries.

The signs of conversion are difficult to pinpoint, but one of them is this:

Many of those who have experienced it seems, now and again, to have a curious, distracted look, as though they have glimpsed something so beautiful they can never forget it, as though they've glimpsed the 'thing behind all things.'

And they have, and now they are turned toward it forever, toward that glorious faraway country that is their true home."

    -- From Everything You Always wanted to Know About God

[Part of that distracted look we display, for most of us, includes a longing, a yearning, a deep eagerness to get all "this" behind us and see Jesus face to face, and be with Him forever! YES, the best is truly yet to come and we know that! How can we help but display that?]

 

Working For God or With God?

 

Here's what Max Lucado says about it --

   "It's a wonderful day indeed when we stop working for God and begin working with God.

For years I viewed God as a compassionate CEO and my role as a loyal sales representative. He had His office and I had my territory. I could contact Him as much as I wanted. He was always just a phone or fax away. He encouraged me and supported me. 

Then I read 2 Corinthians 6:1 -- We are 'God's fellow workers.'

Fellow workers? Co-laborers?  God and I working together?

Imagine the paradigm shift this truth creates. Rather than report to God, we work with God. Rather than checking in with Him and then leave, we check in with Him and then follow. 

We are always in the presence of God. We never leave church. There is never a non-sacred moment. 

His presence never diminishes. Our awareness of His presence may falter, but the reality of His presence never changes." 

   From Just Like Jesus, Chapter 5, by Max Lucado

Each day, not "What do I have on my schedule today?"

But, "God, what we are doing today?"

That's because we are working with God now, not for God!