by Oswald Chambers
’By this we believe . . . .’ Jesus answered them, ’Do you now believe?’ —John 16:30-31
Now we believe. . . .” But Jesus asks, “Do you . . . ? Indeed the hour is coming . . . that you . . . will leave Me alone” (John 16:31-32). Many Christian workers have left Jesus Christ alone and yet tried to serve Him out of a sense of duty, or because they sense a need as a result of their own discernment. The reason for this is actually the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. Our soul has gotten out of intimate contact with God by leaning on our own religious understanding (see Proverbs 3:5-6). This is not deliberate sin and there is no punishment attached to it. But once a person realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and caused uncertainties, sorrows, and difficulties for himself, it is with shame and remorse that he has to return.
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by A.B. Simpson
Count it all joy—James 1:2
We do not always feel joyful, but we are to count it all joy. The word "reckon" is one of the key words of Scripture. It is the same word used about our death to self (Romans 6: 11). We do not feel dead. We are painfully conscious of something that would gladly return to life. But we are to treat ourselves as dead and neither fear nor obey the old nature.
So we are to reckon the thing that comes as a blessing. We are determined to rejoice, to say,
my heart is fixed, 0 God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise (Psalm 57:7).
This rejoicing by faith will soon become a habit and will bring continually the spirit of gladness and the spontaneous overflow of praise.
Then, although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation (Habakkuk 3:17).
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by Vance Havner
The things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel. Philippians 1:12
Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, Rejoice. Philippians 4:4
“WHICH HAPPENED” is not in the original, but the idea is. This world’s happiness should be spelled “happenness,” because it depends on what happens. Paul’s joy was not over the things which had happened unto him, things the world would call calamities. Yet he was happy because he knew that all things work together for good to the Christian. What men mean for evil God turns to good, as He did with Joseph.
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by A.W. Tozer
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children." Romans 8:16
However we may explain this mysterious "ground" within us, we will not have been long in the Christian way until we begin to experience it. We will find that we have within us a secret garden where no one can enter except our self and God. Not only does no one else enter, no one else can enter. This secret inner chamber is the sacred trysting place for Christ and the believing soul; no one among all our dearest friends has the open sesame that will permit him to enter there. If God is shut out, then there can be only everlasting loneliness and numb despair. Where God is not known in the inner shrine, the individual must try to compensate for his sense of aloneness in whatever way he can. Most persons run away to the world to find companionship and surround themselves with every kind of diversionary activity. All devices for killing time, every shallow scheme for entertainment, are born out of this inner loneliness. It is a significant and revealing fact that such things have in these last days grown into billion dollar enterprises! So much will men pay to forget that they are a temple without a God, a garden where no voice is heard in the cool of the day.
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by Isaac Watts
How divinely full of glory and pleasure shall that hour be when all the millions of mankind that have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God shall meet together and stand around Him, with every tongue and every heart full of joy and praise! How astonishing will be the glory and the joy of that day when all the saints shall join together in one common song of gratitude and love, and of everlasting thankfulness to this Redeemer! With what unknown delight, and inexpressible satisfaction, shall all that are saved from the ruins of sin and hell address the Lamb that was slain, and rejoice in His presence!
by Isaac Watts
HT The Berean Call
by T.A. McMahon
I find myself increasingly grieved these days by what I see taking place among those who profess to be evangelicals.
I know the term "evangelical" has undergone radical changes regarding its meaning and practice. Yet when I use the term, I’m going by a very simple definition: I’m referring to those who claim to accept the Bible alone as their authority for knowing and receiving God’s way of salvation and for living their lives in a way that is pleasing to Him.
Thirty years ago, it was young adult evangelicals who were used wonderfully by the Lord to help open my eyes to the fact that I was eternally separated from God and that the religious system I was depending on to get me to heaven was a false hope. That wasn’t easy for me to accept at the time. Although my commitment to the Roman Catholic Church had weakened during my late twenties, the attitude "I was born a Catholic, I’ll die a Catholic" was woven into the fabric of my mind.
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by Jim Fletcher
As the ostensibly cultured, British-educated Bashar Assad continues feasting on the blood of his countrymen (and women and children), I thought back a good long while at the Murder, Inc. legacy of the Assad family.
Hafez, the sociopath father of Bashar, was an efficient killer from the beginning.
His defense minister, Mustafa Tlas, was particularly sadistic to Israeli POWs during the Yom Kippur War. We learned just how bad it was after an elite Israeli counter-terrorism unit captured several Syrian officers, who were then exchanged for the POWs.
Then Hafez himself ordered the flattening (as in, like a parking lot) of Hama, a northern city that had a few too many brave souls critical of the regime back in 1982.
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