As Joyce Meyer says, ‘We all have a past. No matter how bad your past is, you can get past your past. God can give you a new beginning; he can use you greatly and give you a future.’
Joyce Meyer, Everyday Life Bible (Faithwords, 2018), p.337 & Bible in One Year 2020 with Nicky Gumbel, day 112
“In the ‘little apocalypse’ in Mark’s Gospel, the main emphasis of Jesus’ teaching is not found in a particular programme of events or in signs; the main emphasis is found in Jesus’ repeated summons (repeated seven times in Mark 13) for us to be alert and ready for his coming, since nobody knows when it will take place. “What I say to you,” Jesus concludes in v37, “I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” The date of Jesus’ return remains a secret. Why? So that we will be kept in a state of readiness and full alert!”
Explore Bible notes
Sum tertius is a Latin phrase for, “I am third”: Meaning: put God first, your fellow man second and your own interests third.
If God wanted mankind to live in a permissive society He would have given us the Ten Suggestions instead of the Ten Commandments.
“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”
William Shakespeare
Hope is the foundational quality of all change.
“My wife and I married for better or for worse. I couldn’t do any better and she couldn’t do any worse!” – Herb True, motivational speaker
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”
Henry Ford (1863-1947)
“The most important thing we can do with our lives is to understand our purpose and release our potential so that we can plant seeds – seeds of hope, love, encouragement, and faith – in the lives of others.”
Keith Harrell, author and speaker
“O Jesus, if You don’t come today for Your waiting church, come in Spirit to my sighing heart and make it sing for joy.”
Charles H. Spurgeon
No pain, no gain. No cross, no crown. No suffering, no inheritance. That’s the way it is.
“It is impossible to do everything people want you to do. You have just enough time to do God’s will. If you can’t get it all done, it means you’re trying to do more than God intended for you to do (or, possibly, that you’re watching too much television). Purpose-driven living leads to a simpler lifestyle and a saner schedule.”
Rick Warren
Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, Zondervan Publishing, p.31
A pencil drawing depicting the Holy Trinity from the notebook of William Blake (1757-1827)
God calls you to a service far beyond anything you could ever imagine. You were put on Earth to make a contribution. You weren’t created just to consume resources — to eat, breathe, and take up space. God designed you to make a difference with your life. You were created to add to life on Earth, not just take from it. God wants you to give something back. The Bible says, “God … has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10 TEV). These “good deeds” are your service to the world. Whenever you serve others in any way, you are actually serving God (Colossians 3:23-24; Ephesians 6:7). What God told Jeremiah is also true for you: “Before I made you in your mother’s womb, I chose you. Before you were born, I set you apart for a special work” (Jeremiah 1:5a NCV). When most people think of this “special work,” they think of pastors, priests, and professional clergy, but God says every member of his family is to minister. In the Bible, the words “servant” and “minister” are synonyms, as are “service” and “ministry.” If you are a Christian, you are a minister, and when you’re serving, you’re ministering. Have you ever wondered why God doesn’t just immediately take us to Heaven the moment we accept his grace? Why does he leave us in a fallen world? He leaves us here to fulfil his purposes. Once you are saved, God intends to use you for his goals. God has a ministry for you in his Church and a mission for you in the world.
Rick Warren
Rick Warren (Source: taken from a daily reading plan from YouVersion Bible app.)
C.S. Lewis once described suffering as God’s megaphone through which He calls on people to turn to Him. “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” So suffering is used by God to act as a global conscience.”
Cited in It Makes Sense, by Stephen Gaukroger, 2003, Gold Hill: Scripture Union, p.15
There’s only one sure way you can know whether you really believe what you think you believe, say you believe, and ought to believe. Let God put your faith to the test. And don’t worry, He will. (…) A product that has never been tested to see if it can do what it claims it can do isn’t worth a whole lot. It’s the same with our faith.
Tony Evans
Tony Evans, Time To Get Serious, 1995, Illinois: Crossway Books, p.52-53
Confession without repentance is just bragging!
Andy Stanley issues this challenge: ‘Suppose you had seven credit cards in your purse of wallet and you lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the six and go to search for the missing one until you found it? I lost a credit card recently and never once pulled out the one I hadn’t lost to obsess over it. I felt no urgency about my un-lost credit card. I didn’t call a single person to say that I still had my American Express Card. But I did start calling around to see if anyone had seen my lost MasterCard. When you lose something important, you obsess over it; you get preoccupied with it. It’s pretty much all you think about. Remember the last time you couldn’t find your phone? Remember the embarrassing, ashamed-to-admit-it panic that started to filter across your common sense? You took no comfort in all the other un-lost electronic gadgets lying around your house, did you? You were on a mission. Why? You lost something important.
What does your church obsess over? What is your church preoccupied with? – Churches for churched people obsess over the most frivolous, inconsequential things. It’s why you dread your board meetings, your elder meetings, and your committee meetings. You rarely talk about anything important. You’re managing found people. I know you care about unfound people in your heart. But do you care in your schedule, your programming, your preaching style, or your budget? Do you know how much difference the care you feel in your heart makes in the life of someone far from God? None. No difference. Your dad loved you in his heart. But it was the love in his schedule that made the difference, wasn’t it? Do you really want to spend the rest of your ministry years feeling something you don’t do anything about? I hope not. (…) Jesus said there is more rejoicing in heaven over newly found people than people who haven’t been lost for a long time. Would you like to know why there’s not all that much rejoicing in your church? It’s a church full of found people. Come on, do you really want to spend your life managing what was lost to the neglect of what’s still lost?
Source: Andy Stanley, Deep and Wide, 2012, Michigan USA, Zondervan, p.314-316
“We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.”
Helen Keller (1880-1968), US author and lecturer, blind and deaf from infancy.
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
Martin Luther King (1929-1968), US Baptist minister and civil-rights leader.
“Real faith is when you don’t know exactly what to do but you walk in the wisdom and knowledge you have, believing that God is directing your steps. That is what faith is all about.”
Paul J. Meyer
If you give God the tithe, you’ll enjoy the 90 percent you keep 10 percent more. You’ll also discover that God can do more with the 90 percent than you can do with the 100 percent.
Mark Batterson
The gospel of salvation only makes sense when we remember and realise what we are being saved from: we are saved from God’s judgment. On judgment day – which will be the day when we die or the day Jesus returns, whichever comes first; on the Day of Judgment God will see that we are covered with the blood of the Lamb. We have accepted Jesus who took our sin upon himself at the cross. We have been forgiven and God’s judgment will pass-over us. We are saved from God’s judgment.
Some people might say, if God is choosing who is saved, doesn’t that undermine our own free will to choose and believe in Christ? Well, no, because we are free to choose Christ or to reject him. The Bible says that we all have the choice – all who believe in Jesus will be saved. ‘For God so loved the world – all of us – that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16). The Bible never describes God rejecting anyone who believes in Him; it never describes God turning away anyone who is seeking Him. Somehow, in the mystery of God, predestination works hand-in-hand with a person choosing him. God predestines who will be saved, but we must choose Christ in order to be saved. Both facts are equally true.
Source: www.gotquestions.org/Printer/predestination-PF.html#ixzz3Xswi48QN
Henry Blackaby observes: ‘Optimists don’t ignore the difficulties… but the knowledge of God’s presence prevents them from becoming discouraged…It’s impossible to stand in his presence and be a pessimist. If we focus on our problems they’ll seem gigantic. But as we focus on God we see our situation in perspective and are assured that all things are possible.’
Henry T Blackaby & Richard Blackaby, Experiencing God Day-byDay, 1998, Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman, p.193
“Our heavenly Father often sends troubles to test our faith. If our faith be worth anything, it will stand the test. It’s a poor faith that can only trust God when friends are true, the body healthy, and work or business prospers. True faith holds by the Lord’s faithfulness when friends are gone, when the body is sick, when spirits are depressed, and the light of our Father’s countenance is hidden. A faith that can say in the worst trouble, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” is heaven-born faith. The Lord is greatly glorified in the virtues of His people, which are His own handiwork. When “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope,” the Lord is honoured by these growing virtues… There must be night to bring out the beauty of the day. We would not be so supremely blessed in heaven if we hadn’t known the curse of sin and the sorrow of earth. Peace will be sweeter after conflict, and rest more welcome after toil. The recollections of past sufferings will enhance the bliss of the glorified.”
Charles H. Spurgeon
Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning By Morning, October 7
Repentance can be a dirty word in a society obsessed with tolerance, personal choice and individual rights. But because Jesus is God’s King, repentance is essential. Without repentance there is no salvation.
William Barclay said: “More people have been brought into the church by the kindness of real Christian love than by all the theological arguments in the world. And more people have been driven from the church by the hardness and ugliness of so-called Christians than by all the doubts in the world.”
Anger is always just one letter away from Danger
“It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the high achievement of triumph, and who at the worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th President of the United States
“Even the right decision is the wrong decision if it is made too late.”
Lee Iacocca, former chairman of Chrysler Motors
Why doesn’t God do something about all the evil and suffering in the world? – Friends, he has done something about it (He sent Jesus), He is doing something about it (God is not inactive or impotent), and one day soon He will do something about it, conclusively (when Jesus returns).
‘You are not under attack… the attack is under you. The enemy is under your feet and you are seated above him – in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So change your perspective. Yes the enemy may be attacking you, but you are not under his attack – you are over them. Speak and act as if you believe that.’
Source unknown
How to witness? Jesus said, let your light shine, don’t hide it or cover it up or put it under a bowl. Put it on the table. Let it shine for all to see. – We are to let the presence of Jesus shine through us. – One man said, ‘I want to believe in Richard Dawkins but he’s not as happy as you are!’ He ended up becoming a Christian. There is something really attractive and compelling when we let the light and joy and presence of Jesus shine through us. Seek to live a beautiful life and overwhelm people with kindness. If we demonstrate God’s extravagant and unconditional love, with acts of charity and kindness, it won’t be long before people are asking us: ‘Why are you doing this?’ And if someone asks you a question like that you can bet they want to know the answer… what motivates you.
In the Old Testament the prophet, Jeremiah, foretold of God’s promise to his people in exile. That same promise holds true to God’s people today: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). – God has plans for you; good plans, plans to prosper you; to give you hope and a future. BUT you’ll never discover what those plans are until you come to God, or come back to Him. You’ll never be what you ought to be until you’re doing what you ought to be doing.
Sometimes people say: ‘How do we know the words of the Bible haven’t been lost in translation; how do we know the Bible is accurate?’ The answer to that is simple: the accuracy of what has been written, copied, and passed down through the centuries is remarkable. The Bible is indeed a precise translation of the original texts. We know this because we can compare it to the original manuscripts. There are some 24,300 ancient manuscripts or fragments of scripture known to be in existence today. The oldest fragments of New Testament Scripture are a piece of papyrus containing part of John’s gospel dating back to between 117–138AD (which is exhibited in John Ryeland’s Library in Manchester), and three fragments of papyrus in Magdalen College, Oxford that have been dated to the third quarter of the first century (i.e. somewhere between 42–66 years after Christ’s death). Also in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. These contained fragments of every book in the Old Testament (except Esther), and included the complete book of Isaiah. The scrolls have been dated to around 100BC and the discovery of them has proved beyond any shadow of doubt that the Bible we have today is an authentic copy and translation of the original documents. So, the Bible is accurate, very accurate.
We should also remember that Jesus quoted scripture often. The only ‘Bible’ Jesus had at that time was the Old Testament, but Jesus is recorded as quoting verbatim from it nearly forty times (from thirteen different books), and he also referred to Scripture on many other occasions. But more than any of this, Jesus himself is the most compelling proof that the Bible is God inspired and true. Jesus fulfilled Scripture and, indeed, He will fulfil what few prophecies remain in the Scriptures when He returns. On the subject of the Bible being God inspired, or God-breathed, John Benton, author of Looking for the Answer, makes the valid point that the Bible’s prophetic teaching is ‘probably the most direct evidence for the special involvement of God with this book’.
Cited in Why Believe The Bible? by John Blanchard, 2004, Darlington: Evangelical Press, p.25, p.28
British people are a funny lot. We order a deep pan pizza, garlic bread, deep fried onion rings, large fries, a tub of double chocolate-chip ice-cream… and a DIET COKE! What’s all that about?
When Jesus went to the cross He didn’t go reluctantly with clenched fists, He went willingly with open arms and hands.
John Stott reminds us that Jesus’ foot washing is an example of humble service; it was also a parable of salvation. At first Peter refused to let Jesus wash his feet. In that case, Jesus said, Peter could not be in fellowship with him. And so next Peter requested the washing of his hands and head as well. And Jesus responded (John 13v10), “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean.” This washing is a picture of salvation: first there’s the bath and then there is a regular washing of the feet. When we first come to Jesus in repentance and faith, we are given a bath. Theologically it’s called “justification” (we receive a new status) or “regeneration” (we are born again), and spiritually this is acted out in baptism, which is unrepeatable. But in the course of our Christian lives we continue to fall into sin and we get splattered with mud in the dirty streets of the world: What we need is not another justification or bath but a daily forgiveness.
The resurrection of Christ proves that there is going to be a Judgment Day. Acts 17:31 says: “[God] has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.” This promise of future judgment helps us, as Christians, to live in this fallen world where evil pervades, and it assures us that one day justice will be done. – Think about it, if there was no Judgment Day some people would literally get away with murder.
“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude: be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humour, but without folly.”
Jim Rohn
“There are 24 hours or 1440 minutes in a day. Invest just 1% of your time each day to learning new material or skills (that’s just 15 minutes a day, rounding it up) and over the course of a year you will have invested an extra 91 hours in additional study time. That’s like going back to college for three whole weeks every year!
R. Ian Seymour
R. Ian Seymour, excerpt taken from Maximise Your Potential
Anti-Risk Campaign
Don’t look; you might see.
Don’t listen; you might hear.
Don’t think; you might learn.
Don’t walk; you might stumble.
Don’t run; you might fall.
Don’t decide; you might be wrong.
Don’t risk; you might fail.
Don’t live; you might die.
Anon
We are on the winning side and cannot lose. “Lo, I am with you always” makes ultimate defeat impossible.
A.W. Tozer
The church needs you and it doesn’t function as it should without you. Get involved; put your spiritual gifts to work. As a working definition: a spiritual gift is any manifestation of the Holy Spirit that enables you to minister to the needs of Christ’s body, the church.
Get involved, play your part in the building project, willingly and gladly, not reluctantly… not because you must, but because you want to, as an act of worship, dedicated to the Lord. If a believer holds off or refuses to get involved, if they do not use their spiritual gifts to serve, then they are depriving the church if what it needs. Again, the church needs you and it doesn’t function as it should without you.
Benjamin Franklin said, ‘For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost; for want of a rider the battle was lost!’ And all for the sake of a nail! Use your “nail”; your gift, and see how God will multiply your offering to bless others and you.
R. Ian Seymour.
Source: Og Mandino, 1990, A Better Way To Live, New York: Bantam, p.103
Motivation is a contraction of the words, ‘motive-in-action’ – it empowers us to act.
Motivation fuels our desire to progress, to grow and develop.
Motivation helps us to persist in the face of adversity.
Motivation enables us to see new opportunities and then seize new opportunities.
Motivation gives us the energy and desire to win.
Motivation is the key to success – it comes from within.
Motivation is not something that we are born with, nor is it something that is simple learnt – it is a state of mind; an attitude.
Motivation, like a fire, has to be ignited and then fed continually.
R. Ian Seymour
“I have never tried quitting and I have never quit trying.”
Dolly Parton, U.S. country and western singer/song-writer
Mark Batterson writes: ‘Sometimes a closed door is the very thing that gets us where God wants us to go. I’ve come to think of closed doors as divine detours. And while our failed plans can be incredibly discouraging and disorienting, God often uses the things that seem to be taking us off our course to keep us on His course. (…) If you feel like you are stuck in a [rut], here’s my advice: give Jesus complete editorial control over your life. You have to quit trying to write your own story. And you need to accept Jesus not only as Lord and Saviour but also as Author. (…) God is far more concerned with your future than you are. We put so much pressure on ourselves, as if the eternal plans of God are contingent upon our ability to decipher them. The truth is God wants to reveal them more than we want to know them. And if we think one misstep can frustrate the providential plans on the Omnipotent One, then our God is way too small. Not only does God want us to get where God wants us to go but He is awfully good at getting us there. He may not always reveal His plans or how or when we want Him to. But when we chase the Holy Spirit our future becomes His responsibility. “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.”
Do me a favour: Stop reading for a moment and take a deep breath. Now let it out. [Let go, let God.] God is in the business of positioning us in the right place at the right time. And that ought to give us an unshakeable sense of destiny even when we feel disoriented.
God is setting up divine appointments all the time. And as long as our motives stay pure and our spirits stay sensitive, He will make sure we meet the right people at the right time. That ought to buoy our spirits even when it feels like the ship is sinking! Pray for divine appointments all the time.
You never know how or where the Holy Spirit is going to reveal His plans. One trip, one meeting, one article, one class, one conversation can radically change the trajectory of your life. (…) What is required is a moment by moment sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. And you have to trust His promptings more than you trust your own plans. Instead of getting frustrated by fighting the wind, appreciate the fact that something uncontrollable and unpredictable will get you to where God wants you to go. (…) If you lose everything else, don’t lose you sense of humour. A sense of humour can get you through just about anything. I’m convinced that the healthiest and holiest people are the people who laugh the most. (…) All we can do is plant and water. God is the one who gives the increase. (…) Learn to enjoy the journey. (…) You have two options when you don’t like your circumstances: complain about them or make the most of them. (…) It doesn’t matter how long the delay or detour, God can make them work together for good.’
Mark Batterson, Wild Goose Chase, 2008, Colorado USA, Multnomah Books, Chapter 6, p.122-142
“Failing doesn’t mean I’m a failure; it just means I have not yet succeeded. It doesn’t mean I’ve accomplished nothing; it just means I’ve learned something. It doesn’t mean I’ve been a fool; it just means I’ve had the courage to take a risk. It doesn’t mean I’m inferior; it just means I’m not perfect. It doesn’t mean I’ve wasted my time; it just means I have a reason to start again. It doesn’t mean I should give up; it just means I have to try harder. It doesn’t mean I’ll never make it; it just means I need more patience. It doesn’t mean God has abandoned me; it just means He has a better idea!”
John Maxwell, leadership trainer and writer
The human mind is like a parachute: it only works properly when it is open! Similarly with change, it is only effective if people are open to it.
“We are not human beings on a spiritual journey, we are spiritual beings on a human journey.”
Stephen R. Covey
“I don’t know about you, but I’d rather reach 90% of my potential with plenty of mistakes than reach only 10% with a perfect score.”
John C. Maxwell (leadership guru and writer)
Why do we sin, or flirt with temptation and do what is not right? Isn’t it because, in one-way or another, we’re tired of living God’s way? We may feel that we’re literally too exhausted, or that we’re bored of it; or that we’ve lived God’s way enough today, or that’s it is all too much effort. Always we sin when we are weak or vulnerable. – When the devil turned up and tried to tempt Jesus to change the stones into bread, it was at the end of Jesus’ 40-day fast… when He was hungry, tired and vulnerable. – The devil still uses the same tactics today. Recognise when you are vulnerable: How is it with you? When you are away from home on business; on a works do and the drinks are flowing; scantily clad women in the office; the boss who compliments you, flirts or strokes your arm and delays his touch longer than just fleetingly; when you are tired or stressed? Recognise when you are vulnerable, arm yourself beforehand and avoid those situations whenever you can.
We can be Spirit-filled and not Jesus thrilled. That’s the enemy’s work. The enemy wants to oppress us and keep us down. The devil wants to rob us of our joy in the Lord. We must resist him!
“Progress is always fuelled by positive, optimistic, thinking. People are empowered by praise and encouragement.”
Rich DeVos, co-founder of Amway Corporation
“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”
Benjamin Franklin
Once you’re over the hill you pick up speed – same for life as for a bicycle! So do everything you can to keep on climbing the hill for as long as you can. Don’t retire and put yourself out to pasture. Keep working. Continue to use your talents to serve others. Share your knowledge and experience, don’t file it away. Look after your diet. Take regular exercise. Socialise. Have interests and hobbies. Keep climbing by always having something worthwhile to do.
R. Ian Seymour
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
Excerpt from The Baptist Beacon
The danger with email is that it enables people to respond very quickly when they are angry. However, by sounding off, you run the risk of making the finest speech you’ll ever regret! You are never persuasive when you’re abrasive! Leave it overnight. Read it again in the morning. Pressing the pause button gives us time to reflect.
If you could kick the person most responsible for all your troubles, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week!
“Attitude determines whether you are on the way or in the way.”
Keith Harrell
“A man who slurs a righteous person is like a man who spits at the sky. The spit does not reach or spoil the sky: it simply returns to spoil the face of the one who spat.”
Eastern proverb.
Seven days without reading the Bible makes one weak (spiritually)!
Everybody thinks of changing humanity but nobody thinks of changing himself.
Tolstoy
The only change that people like is the kind that jangles in your pocket!
“If your horse is dead, for goodness sake, dismount!”
Attributed to Eddy Ketchursid
“Imitate until you emulate, match and surpass those who launched you. It’s the highest form of thankfulness.”
Mark Victor Hansen
Jesus is for life, not just for Christmas!
When communication breaks down imagination takes over!
The time to deal with jealousy is when you notice yourself keeping score with what others have.
Author, John Dickson writes: “It is interesting that Darwin himself believed in God and didn’t view his theories as a threat to belief in God (at least not until later in life). [Charles Darwin graduated from Cambridge University with a B.A. degree in theology.] In fact, in his book, The Origin of Species, there is a reference to God as the Creator who “originally breathed life with its several powers into a few forms or into one”. In his later years Charles Darwin commented: “I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out guesses, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.”“
Source: A Sneaking Suspicion, by John Dickson, p.47
Many people think that science and Christianity are at odds with one another and that they contradict each other but I find the opposite to be true; I find that they complement each other. In the final analysis, science only ever seeks to answer the question, ‘How?’ but Christianity never attempts to answer that question: Christianity seeks to answer the question ‘Who’ not ‘How?’ Similarly, many people ask the question: ‘How can I know there is a God?’ and they may even turn to the Bible for answers, but the Bible never tries to prove that God exists, it simply assumes it, and from the very beginning. Indeed, the very first sentence of the Bible opens with the words: ‘In the beginning God…’ – assuming the existence of God from the very outset.
R. Ian Seymour
R. Ian Seymour, Empowered Personal Evangelism, Weybridge: New Wine Press (2014), p.30
If you find it painful to criticise someone, then you’re probably safe to do it. But if you take any pleasure in it, hold your tongue.
It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
Christianity is the largest movement of all time. It is the only movement that never loses a member through death!
To the Christian a cemetery is just a dormitory.
Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you make. Your commitments can develop you or they can destroy you, but either way, they will define you. Tell me what you are committed to, and I will tell you what you will be in twenty years. We become whatever we are committed to.
Rick Warren
Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, Zondervan Publishing, p.180
Trust in the Lord, and keep on keeping on… God will bring you through your trouble. Your testing will become your testimony.
‘Your destiny is something that unfolds. The word of God says: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart’ (Jeremiah 1v5). This phrase should fill you with a sense of destiny. It’s your spiritual birth right. God has ordained your days. Psalm 139v16: ‘All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.’ God has ordered your footsteps. Psalm 37v23 (NLT): ‘The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.’ [Relax, rejoice; your steps are being arranged by the Lord…whether you are aware of it or not. He hasn’t forgotten about you; He hasn’t taken his eyes off you, not even for a single second.] God has a plan to prosper you; to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). He has prepared good works in advance for you to do (Ephesians 2:10). And he did all of this before you were even conceived.’
Quote from Mark Batterson, Chase The Lion, (day 7 of a 7 day devotional on YouVersion Bible app.)
“I’ve never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline… I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour – the greatest fulfilment to all he holds dear – is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle, victorious.”
Vince Lombardi
“The course of least resistance makes crooked rivers and crooked men.”
William Danforth
“I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”
Thomas Edison (1847-1931).
Noah didn’t sit around waiting for his ship to come in; he set to work and built it.
Don’t delay, either Do it, Delegate it or Ditch it!
The human body has a remarkable quirk: Just pat a man on the back and watch his head begin to swell!
“I can live for two months on a good compliment.”
Mark Twain
“Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.”
Sir James M. Barrie (1860-1937), Scottish dramatist and novelist
What the world needs are more people who will apply to their jobs the same enthusiasm for getting ahead as they display in traffic.
“What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better.”
Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), slave trade abolitionist
“When I was young I observed that nine out of every ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), dramatist and critic
Jesus said, “According to your faith will it be done to you;”
Matthew 9:29 NIV1984
Keep the notion of mind that God is behind all things. Nothing happens in any particular unless God’s will is behind it. Therefore you can rest in perfect confidence in Him.
Oswald Chambers
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, (2000 edition), Worcester: Oswald Chambers Publications, p.204
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not;
As Thou hast been Thou for ever wilt be.
Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!
Thomas O. Chisholm (1866-1960)
“The greatest mistake a man can make is to be afraid of making one.”
Elbert Hubbard (writer)
“Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bare ourselves that, if the British Empire lasts for a thousand years, men will say; this was their finest hour.”
Winston Churchill (as the battle of Britain loomed)
“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), surgeon, lecturer, writer
Wherever you are, be there!
When you bury the hatchet, don’t bury it in your neighbour’s back.
“As every cat knows some things need to be buried.”
Ruth Bell Graham
“No man is an island.”
John Donne (1573-1631), English poet and preacher