Those Far From God

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

Psalms 73:27 (ESV)

How does this apply in your life? ...in the life of family members?
How can you draw near to God and encourage others to do so? 

Are you Near to God?

But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. Psalms 73:28 (ESV)

Do your Work for God's Glory

Work as Unto God

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men

Col 3:23 (KJV)

Hold your Tongue

Guard your Tongue

What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? 13 Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.

Psalms 34:12-13 (KJV)

Take Dominion--God has commanded you to

Take Dominion

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Gen 1:28 (KJV)

Get away from People and Gathered to People

Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house

Gen 12:1 (KJV)

Abraham gave up the ghost…and was gathered to his people.

Gen 25:8 (KJV)

    After all communion we dwell upon islands, dotted over a great archipelago, each upon his little rock with the sea dashing between us; but the time comes when, if our hearts are set upon that great Lord whose presence makes us one, there shall be no more sea and all the isolated rocks shall be parts of a great continent . . . If we cultivate that sense of detachment from the present and of having our true affinities in the unseen, if we dwell here as strangers because our citizenship is in heaven, then death will not drag us away from our associates nor hunt us into a lonely land, but will bring us where closer bonds shall knit the “sweet societies” together, and the sheep shall couch close by one another because all gathered round the one Shepherd. Then many a tie shall be re-woven, and the solitary wanderer meet again the dear one whom he had “loved long singe and lost awhile.” –Alex. McLaren

Improving upon the Present for the Future

  Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord

Hosea 6:3 (KJV)

    The Lord has brought us into the pathway of the knowledge of Him, and bids us pursue that path through all its strange meanderings until it opens out upon the plain where God’s throne is. Our life is a following on to know the Lord. We marvel at some of the experiences through which we are called to pass, but afterwards we see they afforded us some new knowledge of our Lord….We have not to wait for some brighter opportunity; but by improvement of the present are to build ourselves a bridge to that future. –G Bowen

The Gospel must be Preached through our Talk AND our Walk

He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

1 John 2:6 (KJV)

   The preaching that this world needs most is the

sermons in shoes that are walking with Jesus Christ.

#ThoughtsfortheQuietHour

Love that Demands our All

Love not the world

1 John 2:15 (KJV)

    Love it not, and yet love it. Love it with the love of Him who gave His Son to die for it. Love it with the love of Him who shed His blood for it. Love it with the love of angels, who rejoice in its conversion. Love it to do it good, giving  your tears to its sufferings, your pity to its sorrows, your wealth to its wants, your prayers to its miseries, and to its fields of charity, and philanthropy, and Christian piety, your powers and hours of labor. You cannot live without affecting it, or being affected by it. You will make the world better, or it will make you worse.

     God help you by His grace and Holy Spirit so to live in the world as to live above it, and look beyond it; and so to love it that when you leave it, you may leave it better than you found it. –Guthrie

Friendly with the World or Friend of Sinners?

 

     If you are a friend of the World God says you are His enemy (read James). We are not to be “friendly with the World” but we are to share the Gospel out of love. Love that people are heading for Hell and need Jesus! Christians, we are no longer citizens of this earth but set apart unto God and citizens of Heaven!

We are Called to Live a New Life

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:4 (KJV)

   That is the life we are called upon to live, and that is the life it is our privilege, for God never gives us a call without its being a privilege, and He never gives us the privilege to come up higher and higher into the realities and glories of the resurrection life, knowing that your life is hid with Christ in God. Shake yourself loss of every incumbrance, turn your back on every defilement, give yourself over like clay to the hands of the potter, that He may stamp upon you the fullness of His own resurrection glory, that you, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, may be changed from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. –W. Hay Aitken

Beware of False Prophets

 

There are evil “religious, Christian” people out there --2 Peter 2:14-15,19

 

 

If You Can't do the Greatest Work

 

If we cannot do the greatest work, we may do the least. Our heaven will come out of the realization of the fact that…under God’s blessing that we working. –Joseph Parker

 

 

Don't you Want Anything?

Continue in prayer

Col 4:2 (KJV)

   Dost thou want nothing? Then I fear thou dost not know thy poverty. Hast thou no mercy to ask of God? Then may the Lord’s mercy show thee they misery. A prayerless soul is a Christless soul. Prayer is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus. –Spurgeon

What is Christ?

Christ is all, and in all.

Col 3:11 (KJV)

The service of Christ is the business of my life.

The will of Christ is the law of my life.

The presence of Christ is the joy of my life.

The glory of Christ is the crown of my life.

#ThoughtsfortheQuietHour

The Living God

the living God

Dan 6:20 (KJV)

   How many times we find this expression in the Scriptures, and yet it is just this very thing that we are so prone to lose sight of! We know it is written “the living God”; but in our daily life there is scarcely anything we practically so much we lose sight of as the fact that God is The Living God; that He has the same sovereign power, the same saving love towards those who love and serve Him as ever He had, and that He will do for them now what He did for others two, three, four thousand years ago, simply because He is the living God, the unchanging One. Oh, how therefore we should confide in Him, and in our darkest moments never sight of the fact the He is still and ever will be The Living God! –George Muller

The Will of God

not as I will, but as thou wilt.

Matt 26:39 (KJV)

   There are no disappointments to those whose wills are buried in the will of God. –Faber

 

 

If you're here, you have work to do

 

The very fact of a Christian being here, and not in heaven,

is a proof that some work awaits him.

–William Arnot

 

Ascend the Mountain and Look

 

  Go up the mountain, and the things in the plain will look very small; the higher you rise the more insignificant they will seem. Hold fellowship with God, and the threatening foes here will seem very, very unformidable. Another way is, pull of the curtain and gaze on what is behind it. …So the world’s hindrances and the world’s difficulties look very lofty till the cloud lifts. But when we see the great white summits, everything lower does not seem so very high after all. Look to Jesus, and that will dwarf the difficulties. –Alex. McLaren

 

 

My God shall Be my Strength

my God shall be my strength.

Isaiah 49:5 (KJV)

  Oh, do not pray for easy lives! Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come in you by the grace of God. –Phillip Brooks

 

Finding Rest

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

Heb 4:9 (KJV)

   How sweet the music of this first heavenly chime floating across the waters of death from the towers of the New Jerusalem. Pilgrim, faint under thy long and arduous pilgrimage, hear it! It is rest. Soldier, carrying still upon thee blood and dust of battle, heart it! It is rest. Voyager, tossed on the waves of sin and sorrow, driven hither and thither on the world’s heaving ocean of vicissitude, hear it! The haven is in sight; the very waves that are breaking on the seem to murmur—“So He giveth His beloved rest.” It is the long-drawn sigh of existence at last answered. The toil and travail of earth’s protracted week is at an end. The calm of its unbroken Sabbath is begun. Man, weary man, has found at last the long-sought-for rest in the bosom of his God! –Macduff

Walking the God's Path

Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths.

Psalms 25:4 (KJV)

   There is a path in which every child of God is to walk, and in which God alone can accompany him. –Denham Smith

Why people are so confused

People are so confused because the try to combine their beliefs with God instead of letting God determining their beliefs and social systems. Repent

You, Stand Firm in your Faith!

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. 2 Tim 3:12 (KJV)

But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived 2 Tim 3:13 (KJV)

continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them 2 Tim 3:14 (KJV)

Have to have an Education?

God uses the uneducated—Acts 4:13

Why the Early Church was Hated--a wake up call for American Christians

The Early Church was hated by the Romans b/c “Christians….serv[ed] only the true and living God, despised their false gods, spake against their idolatrous worshipping’s, and many times stopped the power of Satan working in their idols” –Foxe’s Book of Martyrs

Response to an Athiest

I don’t know of any atheist hospitals. Hospitals were largely started by Christians

How to Forgive

 

Forgive in light of What Christ forgave you of

 

What an Econmic Downturn does

“an economic downturn doesn’t so much cause problems as it reveals them.” Andy Stanley

Why these Emotions!

“Every big decision will have an emotional component” Andy Stanley

Why its meaningless and unfulfilling....

Without seeking the Lord all other things are meaningless and unfulfilling

Throw it To Jesus

 

Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee Psalms 55:22 (KJV)

From God or Not?

 

do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God

1 John 4:1 (ESV)

 

Grace cost the Cross

GRACE cost the CROSS

God’s

Righteousness

At

Christ’s

Expense

The only way your armor works

We must not confide in the armor of God, but in the God of this armor, because all our weapons are only mighty through God. William Gurnall

Is Christ getting attacked or You?

A lot of people will attack you for the message you deliver rather than attack Christ-Jeff Myers

The Errors of Machiavelli

Errors:

Machiavelli—book: the Prince

He says this is How to gain power:

1.     Tell people what they want to hear

2.     Give only the reasons people want to hear

3.     Cut corners here and there

4.     Assume all have a vicious side & it will come out when they are given a chance

You are Appointed and Anointed

He has anointed and appointed us to fulfill a purpose, a calling, a life mission. but don’t let Satan distract  you from it! the peace, trust, and faith that God is sovereign and has appointed and anointed you to fulfill a purpose, a life mission,  a calling; to administer God’s various forms of grace through your spiritual Gift will keep you humbled and confident in Christ’s power

Blessings for Waiting

God has many delightful things in store for those who wait upon Him #HughPyle

Wait on the Lord

 

 “Wait on the Lord,” we are told more than once in the Bible #Hugh Pyle

 

How to Never make a Mistake

You never make a mistake when you obey the will of God #HughPyle

Will you give God a Chance to Act?

 

God will lead you to the right girl or boy in His own good time if you will just give Him a chance #HughPyle

Ruth voluntary poverty for the sake of a Relationship

 

(Ruth) went with (Naomi) even though it was seemingly a life of loneliness and poverty #HughPyle

Being Christ-ian means giving up our

 

You can't be Christ-ian without giving up your independence, your pride, your selfishness - in other words, your will has to be totally surrendered.

The True mark of Intimacy

“Many will confide to you their secret sorrows, but the last mark of intimacy is to confide secret joys. Have we let God tell us any of His joys, or are we telling God our secrets so continually that we leave no room for Him to talk to us?” My Utmost For His Highest, June 3

The Anxieties of Yesterday

 

"At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays."

My Utmost for His Highest, Dec. 31

The Witchcraft of Control

    The witchcraft of controlling is so evil that we should be questioning ourselves to see if it is ever present and if it proves so, that we should eradicate and destroy it with the redemption and repentance that is found at the Cross.

How Maturity Develops

 

Maturity comes through times of testing (hardship, brokenness, assault, disaster).

How to learn obedience...and how to pray for your enemies

Obedience is truly learned (and tested!) in suffering and persecution. Pray for your enemies and those who persecute you—love them.

The Fruit of Godly Sorrow

Taking time to be real with yourself and God hurts and shows you where you’ve been selfish. But, the end result is repentance, forgiveness, and restoration. Praise God, Hallelujah!

What David did in Secret, Absalom did in Public

What David did in secret, Absalom did in public: murder and slept with concubines in a tent on the palace roof—so that the people could see and hear!

Your legacy matters.

What is a Church?

    A church isn’t a building, but a collection of believers that stay connected. They gather together and fellowship, they walk through life together.

Prosperity is...

Prosperity is having more food, water, and clothing than you need for today.

A Wise Question to Ask

What can I learn here and what can I give?

Losing when you've won

Sometimes even when I win I lose because of the way I do it.

You cannot do what God has called you to in your own strength

“You cannot do in your own strength what God has called you to do.”—Vincent Newfield #Philippians 4:18

How Cultivate an Ear that Hears God

“Supplements can’t work without the basics: milk, meat, and bread.”—Pastor Ed Sherrill, Jan. 15^th 2012, Hearing from God #3, How to Cultivate a Hearing Ear

Are you worried?

  All the sleep in the world can't cure worry. If you feel fatigued constantly, prayerfully examine yourself to see if you're living in a state of worry. If you find that you are, take courage! We have divine weapons which tear down Strongholds! 

Feelings often Lie

   Your feelings often lie to you. You may feel discouraged or defeated, but you serve a God who is all powerful, ever victorious, and eternally loving. Look to the Lord for your strength, don't focus on the circumstances or feelings that are getting you down--that's what the Enemy wants you to do. Instead, like Paul, learn to delight in suffering for the Master and in being weak because then even more of His strength will be shown through you.

“But you, be strong and do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.”

–2 Chronicles 15:7 NKJV

Billy Graham

“All transgression begins with sinful thinking. You who have come to Christ for a pure heart, guard against the pictures of lewdness and sensuality which Satan flashes upon the screen of your imaginations, select with care the books you read, choose discerningly the kind of entertainment you attend, the kind of associates with whom you mingle, and the kind of environment in which you place yourself. You should no more allow sinful imaginations to accumulate in your mind and soul than you would let garbage collect in your living room.”—Billy Graham

Laying Down your Peace?

“People who lay down their peace often have stopped praying with thanksgiving and praise. Followers of Jesus need a vibrant prayer life. As the gospel song says, They need to ‘stay in touch with God.’ They must avoid talking with God only about what they think they need, and regularly live with a thankful heart—giving thanks always in all circumstances for all things.” –Charles Stanley

A two-word blog

 

 

Pray first.

Are you Nourishing your Inner Man?

The Lord taught me that the first business I needed to attend to every day was to have my spirit happy in the Lord. My first concern shouldn’t be thinking of ways to serve the and glorify the Lord,  but rather, how to get my spirit into a happy state, and how to nourish my inner man. –George Mueller

Invest in your Children

Sow into your children your entire life, especially during their years at home: saturate them in the Word, Bible studies, prayer, family worship, and sound teaching.

What free's People?

 

The Truth—not tolerant silence—set’s people free.

I (Jesus) am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
John 14:6 

 

Sola Scriptura

Everything must be decided by Scripture.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

What determines your Spiritual Life?

The vigour of our spiritual life will be in exact proportion to the place held by the Bible in our life and thoughts.

George Müller

Following Jesus is the Right Response

 

When I came to see that Jesus Christ had died for me, it didn't seem hard to give up all for Him. It seemed just common, ordinary honesty.

C. T. Studd

The Living God has Spoken!

There is a living God;
He has spoken in the Bible;
He means what He says
and will do all He has promised.

Hudson Taylor

The Name of Jesus Drives Away Fear

How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds
In a believer's ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.

John Newton

Believe and Practice? Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Though we claim to believe the whole of Scripture, in practice we frequently deny much of it by ignoring it.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

A Man's Words when His Memory started failing--inspiring!

 

My memory is nearly gone;
but I remember two things;
That I am a great sinner, and
that Christ is a great Saviour.

John Newton

Acrostic for Faith

Acrostic for Faith

Forsaking
All
I
Trust
Him

--wholesomewords.org

Do you really love Christ?

Love to Christ is proved by doing
the things which He commands,
and not merely saying, "Lord, Lord."

C. H. Mackintosh

My Bible and I

My Bible and I

We've traveled together through life's rugged way,
O'er land and o'ver water, by night and by day:
To travel without it I never would try;
We keep close together, my Bible and I.

In sorrow I've proved it my comfort and joy,
When weak my strong tower which nought can destroy;
When death comes so near me 'tis thought I would die,
We still are together, my Bible and I.

If powers of evil against me would come,
And threaten to rob me of heaven and home,
God's Word then directs me to Him in the sky;
And nothing can part us, my Bible and I.

When evil temptations are brought to my view,
And I in my weakness know not what to do,
On Christ as my strength I am taught to rely;
And so we keep company, my Bible and I.

When life's path is ended; if Jesus should come
And take all his blood-purchased brethren home;
Or if, in long suffering, He waits till I die,
We'll never be parted, my Bible and I.

And when in the glory my Lord I behold,
With all His redeemed gathered safe in the fold,
My Bible and I close companions will be,
FOR GOD'S WORD ABIDES FOR ALL ETERNITY.
                                —Author unknown

Evangelism Minded?

Some want to live within the sound
Of Church or Chapel bell;
I want to run a rescue shop
Within a yard of hell.

C. T. Studd

Desire Peace but don't Sacrifice Truth for it

Peace is such a precious jewel that I would give anything for it but truth.

Matthew Henry

No Substitutes for Jesus

Christianity is Christ!

No one ever lost out by excessive devotion to Christ.

Christ is a substitute for everything,
but nothing is a substitute for Christ.

H. A. Ironside

Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine!

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh what a foretaste of Glory Divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of the Spirit, washed in His Blood.

Fanny Crosby

Just an Ordinary Day

Just An Ordinary Day

Sometime some ordinary day will come,
A busy day like this—filled to the brim
With ordinary tasks—perhaps so full
That we have little thought or care for Him.

And there will be no hint from silent skies,
No sign, no clash of cymbals, roll of drums;
And yet that ordinary day will be
The very day in which our Lord will come.
                      —Author unknown

Trying to Earn God's Approval? You Can't.

Salvation is a work of God for man,
rather than a work of man for God.

Lewis Sperry Chafer

Where's your source of power?

The secret of peace within, and power without, is to be always and only occupied with Christ.

E. Schuyler English

You Can't Save Yourself

 

Before an individual can be saved, he must first learn that he cannot save himself.

M. R. DeHaan

Do you Believe the Gospel?

The Gospel is of no profit except it be believed.

E. Schuyler English

When Not Doing Something is Sin

 

It is not only that sin consists in doing evil,
but in not doing the good that we know.

H. A. Ironside

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

James 4:17 (ESV)

The Testimony of Polycarp

Eighty and six years have I now served Christ, and he has never done me the least wrong; how, then, can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?

Polycarp

So you think it's a Secret

It may be a secret sin on earth,
but it is open scandal in heaven.

Lewis Sperry Chafer

Forgivness O How Sweet! It is the Gift, the Grace of God to Me

There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.

William Cowper

Is your Testimony matching

If lips and life do not agree, the testimony will not amount to much.

H. A. Ironside

Manifest the Truth

We are not only to renounce evil, but to manifest the truth.
We tell people the world is vain;
let our lives manifest that it is so.
We tell them that our home is above
and that all these things are transitory.
Does our dwelling look like it?
O to live consistent lives!

Hudson Taylor