Draw me! We will run after you! The king brings me into his apartments! We will be glad and rejoice in you! We will recall [when we were favored with] your love, more fragrant than wine. The upright [are not offended at your choice, but sincerely] love you. Songs Of Solomon 1:4
Remember his marvellous works that he hath done; his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth. Psalm 105:5
On January 16, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia lifted off for what was supposed to be a routine flight. Shortly after lift-off a piece of insulating foam from the shuttle’s external fuel tanks broke off and struck Columbia’s left wing. This action was caught on video, but it was presumed that no serious damage had occurred. However, serious damage had occurred. The foam from the fuel tanks punctured the wing’s thermal protection system.
The seriousness of the damage became evident when Columbia reentered the earth’s atmosphere on February 1. The damaged wing was no longer protected from the extreme heat caused during reentry. The shuttle disintegrated in midair killing all seven astronauts. NASA’s failure to correctly assess the damage prevented it from taking action that could have avoided the devastating results.
Mankind faces a similar but even more tragic situation. Shortly after creation, Adam sinned. With Adam as the head, the whole human race fell under God’s condemnation. Sin now rules every unregenerate heart, and if it had its way, it would destroy and damn every soul.
What Does God Think About Your Sin?
If you refuse to see your sin as God does, you cannot escape His eternal judgment. If you want to deny your guilt or hide your own sinfulness, you’ll never discover the cure for sin. And if you try to justify your sin, you’ll forfeit the justification of God. Until you understand how offensive your sin is before God, you can never know Him.
Sin is abominable to God-He hates it (cf. Deuteronomy 12:31). Sin is contrary to His nature (Isaiah 6:3; 1 John 1:5). It stains the soul and degrades humanity’s nobility. Scripture calls sin “filthiness” (Proverbs 30:12; Ezekiel 24:13; James 1:21) and likens it to a putrefying corpse-sinners are the tombs that contain stench and foulness (Matthew 23:27). The ultimate penalty-death-is the consequence of sin (Ezekiel 18:4, 20; Romans 6:3). The human race is in bad shape.
God wants you to understand how bad sin is and how terrifying its consequences are. You dare not take sin lightly or dismiss your own guilt frivolously. Quite the contrary-you should hate sin.
But sin tempts the best of saints, and even the godliest among us commit sin. David was a man who followed after God with all his heart (1 Kings 14:8); and yet he entered into temptation and committed unimaginable sin-adultery, deception, betrayal, and murder. And until God confronted David through the prophet Nathan, David denied his sin. That’s the natural tendency of every fallen sinner.
What Do You Think About Your Sin?
If a man of David’s caliber can fall so terribly, where does that leave you and me? If you’re honest, you’ll admit that you sometimes love your sin, delight in it, and seek opportunities to act it out. You know instinctively you are guilty before a holy God, yet you inevitably attempt to camouflage or disavow your sinfulness. In a word, you deny it, just like David did.
Like the rest of fallen humanity, your denial of sin falls into three general categories: you seek to cover it up, you try to justify yourself, and, most often, you are oblivious to your sin.
First, you try to cover up. That’s what King David tried to do when he sinned against Uriah. He had committed adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. When she became pregnant, David first plotted to make it seem as if Uriah was the father of the baby (2 Samuel 11:5-13). When that didn’t work, he schemed to have Uriah killed (vv. 14-17). That only compounded his sin.
For all the months of Bathsheba’s pregnancy, David continued to cover his sin (2 Samuel 11:27). Later, when David repented, he confessed, “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer” (Psalm 32:3-4).
Second, you attempt to justify yourself. Adam blamed Eve, whom he described as “the woman whom You gave to be with me” (Genesis 3:12, emphasis added). In blaming Eve, Adam was blaming God too. God, he reasoned, was responsible for the woman who victimized him.
You also try to excuse your wrongdoing by saying it’s someone else’s fault. Or you argue that you have a valid reason for sin. You convince yourself that it’s OK to return evil for evil (cf. Proverbs 24:29; 1
Thessalonians 5:15; 1 Peter 3:9). You can call sin a sickness, a mental condition, or a hormone imbalance; you can excuse yourself as a victim; you can even deny what you’ve done is really wrong. Your sinful heart is endlessly creative in finding ways to justify its own evil.
Third, you can be oblivious to your own sin. Whether in ignorance or presumption, you sin, and you sin often. That’s why David prayed, “Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins” (Psalm 19:12-13). It’s those “hidden faults” that God sees in plain daylight, and they are just as offensive to Him as the “presumptuous sins.” Because sin is so pervasive, you naturally tend to be insensitive to your own sin, just as a skunk is impervious to its own odor.
What Are You Going to Do About Your Sin?
Sin is a horrible malignancy for which there is no human cure. It is an incurable leprosy of the soul (Isaiah 1:4-6), and all humanity is sick with it from top to bottom, inside and out.
As a sinner, you cannot improve your own condition. Jeremiah 13:23 says, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil.” Your tears and sorrow can’t atone for your sin. Your “good” deeds can’t make amends for your wrong against God. Your prayers and personal devotion can’t soften your guilt or cover it in any way.
And don’t buy into the erroneous concept of purgatory-the fires of hell over a million lifetimes could never purify the soul from its own corruption or atone for its own sin. If you are looking for a do-it-yourself solution to the problem of sin, you only shackle yourself all the more securely to your guilt.
But there has to be a solution to our problem; there must be a way God can satisfy His perfect righteousness and still display His rich mercy toward sinners. I’m delighted to tell you that there is a solution to the human sin problem-it’s called the Gospel. The cross of Christ provided the way to God by enabling the only acceptable Sacrifice to atone for human sin once for all.
Our Lord, the sinless One, was the Lamb of God offered as a perfect sacrifice for sin (John 1:29)-it was the very purpose for which He came. “You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin” (1 John 3:5). Isaiah prophesied, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried…He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him” (Isaiah 53:4-5, emphasis added).
Jesus Christ “offered Himself without blemish to God” to cleanse our consciences (Hebrews 9:14). He paid the penalty to the fullest on our behalf. All the sins of everyone who believes are imputed to Christ, and He died for them. Jesus then rose from the dead to declare His victory over sin and death-”[He] was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification” (Romans 4:25).
Furthermore, God reckons all believers righteous in Christ-He accounts Christ’s righteousness to the believer. That’s the truth taught in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “[God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
God redeems those who believe and makes them new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17). If you are a believer, you know what I’m talking about. God gave you an entirely new nature, including a love for righteousness and hatred for sin.
If you’re unsure of your salvation, reading this should bring you to the point of despair. What can you possibly do to change your hopeless condition? Nothing. You are utterly dependent on God’s mercy. But if the cry of your heart is something akin to that of the Philippian jailer who said, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30), take heart-the Spirit of God is already working in you! Here is Jesus’ clear and concise command to the troubled sinner: “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
To repent is to “turn away from all your transgressions” (Ezekiel 18:30). It means confessing and forsaking your iniquities (Proverbs 28:13), and completely hating your sin (2 Corinthians 7:11). If repentance stresses turning away from sin and self, believing emphasizes what to turn toward-”Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved” (Acts 16:31).
You can’t lay hold of Christ while still clinging to your sin. Unless you pry your heart from the passing pleasures of sin, you’ll never see God. God’s salvation from the flames of an eternal hell involves a glorious liberation from the control of sin.
That’s good news! You can be set free from sin’s dominion of your life. Take hold of Christ, and take this gospel offer seriously. It may be your last opportunity!
Deuteronomy 12:31, Isaiah 6:3, 1 John 1:5, Proverbs 24:29
Adapted from The Vanishing Conscience © 1995 by John MacArthur.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s a really bad place.
Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.
Funny how everyone wants to go to heaven provided they do not have to believe, think, say, or do anything the Bible says. OR IS IT SCARY?
Funny how someone can say “I believe in God” but still follow Satan (who, by the way, also “believes” in God).
Funny how you can send a thousand ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing & many times don’t want to read it.
Funny how the lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene pass freely through the whole world, but the public discussion of Jesus is suppressed in the school and workplace.
FUNNY, ISN’T IT?
Funny how someone can be so fired up for Christ on Sunday, but be an invisible Christian the rest of the week.
ARE YOU LAUGHING?
Funny how when you go to forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it to them.
Funny how I can be more worried about what other people think of me than what God thinks of me.
ARE YOU THINKING?
NOT FUNNY IS IT?
By Adam.
His Website: Christintech.Org
Storm clouds gather. Problem is, they’re the wrong kind. We need rain desperately, but those clouds hold no rain. We need refreshment and renewal, a kind of inner relief. Like you feel when a sudden cloud cover blocks the burning rays of the sun and blows a cool breeze across the back of your neck. But the storm clouds I refer to bring no such relief.
These clouds are depressing, not unlike the kind Winston Churchill described in his first (of six) volumes on World War II, which he published in March of 1948 on the heels of that awful conflict. Interestingly, he titled that initial volume, The Gathering Storm. I cannot forget this terse, apt description of those months prior to the Nazi blitzkrieg which ultimately leveled much of London: “the future was heavy with foreboding.” Then, in eloquent brevity, the Prime Minister remembered the Fuhrer’s coming into power: “mighty forces were adrift; the void was open, and into that void after a pause there strode a maniac of ferocious genius, the repository and expression of the most virulent hatreds that have ever corroded the human breast—Corporal Hitler.1
Around the world today, men with similar traits direct their power-hungry dictatorships or uprisings with the same illogical sadism and cruel determination. What will happen next is anybody’s guess, which only darkens the harsh clouds about us.
Storm clouds without rain. War clouds without relief.
Then there’s the ever-present gloom-and-doom economy. News of vast industry cutbacks, rising unemployment rates, and all the exaggerated gossip that swirls around business lunches and nightly telecasts spread an atmosphere of grim pessimism as we focus on our own “foreboding future.”
Such clouds not only cast ominous shadows of uneasiness, they breed pessimism. And unless I miss my guess, many of you are paying more attention to the bad news according to CNN than you are to the good news according to Christ Jesus, our Lord. You’re better students of world geography, public polls, and the Wall Street Journal’s analysis of our times than you are of God’s sovereign hand in world affairs and His prophetic plan.
Lest you forget, He is still in charge. As the prophet Nahum stated so confidently: “The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet” (Nahum 1:3 NIV).
Stop. Read that again, only more slowly this time.
When God is in clear focus, His powerful presence eclipses our fears. The clouds become nothing more than “the dust of His feet.”
Seeing above the clouds won’t just happen, however. Not as long as we keep feeding our minds on daily doses of media madness and political pessimism. We need to release our fears and refresh our souls as we spend time in the quiet presence of the living Lord.
When we do, we are then able to get on with life with a lighter heart, better sight, and calmer spirit. We discover again how beautifully the truth sets us free.
I can’t promise that the clouds will be gone, but I can assure you, you won’t be the same. Gathering storm clouds don’t change overnight . . . but by learning to see above them, you’ll change. And in the final analysis, that’s what counts, isn’t it? Not removing the clouds, but seeing above them.
by Charles R. Swindoll
“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”” John 14:6
Have you ever stood in a book store and surveyed the number of books that have a number of ways to do most anything? There’s everything from 8 Minute Workouts to 8 Mindful Steps to Happiness to 7 Principles for Making a Marriage and 7 Days to Whiter Teeth. Remember Steven Covey’s, Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? He put the words “proactive” and “synergize” on the map.
An edition of U.S. News featured on the front cover “50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2006.” The inclusive list covered everything from flossing your teeth to enjoying a massage to joining a singing group. It seems that everybody writes or reads books that boil anything down to less than ten precise steps to accomplish any goal.
We live in a scientific and technological culture where people believe that every problem can be solved by applied techniques (six steps to a better whatever). How much has this way of viewing life shaped you?
Christian bookstores are not immune this way of thinking. Notice how much it looks like the self-help section of your local secular bookstore. Whether it’s a better marriage or a stronger prayer life, there are numerous books that offer it in six or seven easy steps.
Pastors run to church growth conferences to hear the latest “formula,” in however many steps the speaker may think it takes to grow their church. It all seems so right, so logical so reasonable. The sell books like 5 Good Minutes to Change Your Spiritual life and 100 Morning Practices to Help You Stay Calm and Focused All Day Long.
As Christians, we often think there is some magic formula out there to dramatically change us and make all of our problems go away overnight. Well, it isn’t quite that easy. A lot of self help, spiritual and otherwise are on the shelves of local book stores. Some contain sound advice and some are marginal, if not outright incorrect. Be careful what you load into your brain and be sure you know the core values of the author and don’t believe that a few steps practiced and applied in your life can remake you.
There is only one way and it is a one step process. Jesus said:, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). I suggest that if you really want to change your life this year, commit yourself to follow Him and read His Word every day.
In a world that tells us to conform, Jesus tells us to transform and to present ourselves as a living sacrifice.
So, for us all, may this be the year of transformation, the year of presentation, the year we surrender all we have to the one who holds the keys to joy, peace and contentment. The path to that goal is daily Bible reading, committed worship, not just in church, but in all we do. May this year be the year we renew our pledge to love God more, to seek His face and His plan for our lives more clearly and to draw close to His Word each and every day.
Right now is our most exciting time ever. Last year is history. Next year lies in the future, but this is the only time we will ever have to live right now. So let’s live it to the fullest, changing our lives and changing the lives of others.
Question: What is a goal that you have for the future, and how can your goal be used to honor God?
by John Grant
(John Grant is a former Florida State Senator and is a practicing attorney)
Hello guys, friends can be different things to different people, but here I’m particularly addressing real friendship, there’s something about friendship that’s so fascinating. Friends can lift you up, they can pull you down, and they can be like medicine to help you heal your wounds. They’re around when you have no one to talk to, they know all the things you do so you don’t need to hide things from them, and sometimes when you’re down their very presence could uplift you and get you smiling again J.
Dear reader, who is your friend? Who is that person that you could always count on?, someone who would never let you down, that person you have spent time both building and cultivating a relationship with, slowly getting to know each other, finding out what each other likes and what they love to do, that person who knows all your secrets? Truth is, we all need a friend, and not feeling the need of friendship could be more of insecurity; than independence.
The important message here is, our friends can make us or break us. Friendship is a good thing and one of the most important parts of our lives; the kind of friends you have or choose to have could either destroy your life or help you get one step closer to your destiny. There are some things to consider when choosing friends that need to be in your life and friends that don’t need to be in your life. These are things much deeper than “we get along” (though that is an important factor). Here are some important things to consider:
What kind of values do they add to your life: When we are around people they influence us, either positively or negatively, and they enable us to carefully study our friends and the values they have added to our lives. This could be a very good factor in determining if that friend is worth keeping, or if that friendship may not be the best.
How truthful are they to you?: When you do something you know is wrong, and it’s clearly obvious your friend knows so too, do they tell you it’s wrong or do they just support you in doing the wrong things? If a person truly loves you, as any person worth being called a friend should, they would tell you what you do is wrong, and help you work towards changing it. This is vitally important because, if you have an aspect of your character that drastically needs change, and your friend knows about it but keeps it from you, that could ruin you later on in life, and the chances of you changing it may be slimmer simply because you would feel that people previously around you accepted it and feel it’s not wrong, but if those who love you and who you spend most of your time with when you get into the teenage years point it out to you, you’re more likely to change.
No One is Perfect – We all have faults, and one of the duties of a good friend is to advise us on our faults, because as we probably all know it’s more difficult to see your own fault.
Whats the point of the friendship? – Yea, you read it right, “What is the point?” As friends what do you guys do together, do you add values to each other’s lives or do you take away from each other’s lives? This should help you decide if the friendship is an asset (Helping you get forward) or a liability (Pulling you back).
Is it hindering your most important relationships with your most important friend? – Is your friendship hindering your relationship with Jesus? Truth is, Jesus is your most important friend, he is the only friend who would never let us down, and who knows all our secrets and loves us.
I’m in no way saying ignore all your friends, what I’m saying is, maybe some friendships should be left at “Hello/Hi” while others could get a bit deeper?
Well it’s a new year, maybe it’s time to get rid of the liabilities in your life and bring in some assets ?
Have a Great Year,
Stay Blessed.
Do you want to launch this New Year with a better attitude? Be content, hopeful, optimistic, cheerful and refreshing to others, come what may? Do great things for Christ? Win souls? Reach teens? Care for an invalid or a bevy of preschoolers?
With God, nothing is impossible; and He can display His strength through you.
By ourselves, we cannot influence lives, overcome bad habits, build churches, convert souls, manage our tempers, appetites, or finances in a godly way. There’s nothing we can do for Christ in our own power.
But Jesus and us-well, that’s a different story. We can proclaim with Paul, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
Paul wasn’t talking about preaching to vast crowds, planting large churches, or wielding great influence, though God also allowed him to do those things. He was saying, “I can fulfill God’s will through Christ’s strength. I can do whatever He commands; indeed, I can even be content in chains.”
Impossible Quotes
This secret has fueled the lives of God’s workers in every generation. Thomas à Kempis, the medieval German monk, wrote, “O Lord, let that which seems naturally impossible to me become possible through Your grace.”
Commentator Matthew Henry said, “In all conflicts, let us remember that with God nothing is impossible; and as we read and hear His promises, let us turn them into prayers.”
Missionary Amy Carmichael told her workers, “When you are facing the impossible, you can count on the God of the impossible.”
Missionary statesman J. Oswald Sanders, wrote, “(God) encourages us to ask as freely for the impossible as for the possible since to Him all difficulties are the same size-less than himself.”
Oswald Chambers wrote in My Utmost for His Highest, “When once we see Jesus, He does the impossible thing as naturally as breathing.”
The dean of American prayer writers, E. M. Bounds, wrote, “Faith does the impossible because it brings God to undertake for us, and nothing is impossible with God.”
Chuck Swindoll said, “The One who directed that stone in between Goliath’s eyes and split the Red Sea down the middle and leveled that wall around Jericho and brought His Son back from beyond takes delight in mixing up the odds as He alters the inevitable and bypasses the impossible.”
Evangelist Michael Guido preached, “You cannot bring a burden too heavy for God to lift or a problem too hard for Him to solve or a request too big for Him to answer. God does things no one else can do.”
Charles Spurgeon, the Victorian Prince of Preachers, once thundered from his pulpit, “When you are dealing with Him who is omnipotent, faithful, and true, the things that seem utterly impossible will be those most likely to happen.”
Charles Wesley, studying Abraham’s faith as described in Romans 4:13, wrote a hymn of eleven verses about it, the most popular stanza of which says:
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to (God) alone;
Laughs at life’s impossibilities,
And cries, “It shall be done!”
And listen to this quote by Warren Wiersbe: “Our faith is not really tested until God asks us to bear what seems unbearable, do what seems unreasonable, and expect what seems impossible.”
Take one of these “impossible quotes” and make it your slogan for the new year. Learn to leave room for God and to partner with Him, for He alone can storm the impregnable, devise the improbable, and perform the impossible.
“For with God…”
Perhaps you have a problem only God can solve, and this is the year to trust it into His super-capable hands. Or perhaps God has called you to begin a new ministry. Look for situations where you can have an impact. Look for lives you can influence. Seek out places where you can serve.
The word “impossible” isn’t found in heaven’s dictionaries. Trust God for the impossible-miracles are His department. Our job is to do our best, letting the Lord do the rest.
He never gives in,
… we two shall win,
… Jesus and me.
——
This article was excerpted from Turning Points, Dr. David Jeremiah’s devotional magazine. Call Turning Point at 1-800-947-1993 for your complimentary copy of Turning Points.
• Turning Point (Tuesday, January 01, 2008)
Thanks to LifeWithoutLimbs.org for this beautiful article!
We esteem every day alike, but still, as the season suggests thoughts of Jesus, let us joyfully remember our dear Redeemer’s glorious birth. Who but He was ever longed for by such a multitude of hearts? When did angels indulge in midnight songs, or did God hang a new star in the sky? To whose, cradle did rich and poor make so willing a pilgrimage, and offer such hearty and unsought oblations? Well may earth rejoice; well may all men cease their labor to celebrate “the great birthday” of Jesus. Let gladness rule the hour; let holy song and sweet heart music accompany our soul in the raptures of joy. – CH Spurgeon
Some people say that life is short, I see that as true because life is simply a path to something greater, a way for you to decide where you spend eternity depending on your performance.l In principle, it’s the same way college or school is a way for you to decide where you take your life next depending on how well you perform and how seriously you take it. For this reason alone we see that life is nothing outside of Jesus because without God in the equation life would all be pointless. If we came from the Big Bang theory which was an accident, this would mean we are a product of an accident, we are a meaningless existence. However, think about this: Have you ever met anyone who believes they don’t have a purpose or even a destiny ? I for one have not, therefore, this alone is proof enough that we have a loving God that is the Creator!
Sometimes we forget what God means to us and we search for answers and explanations to questions even though the answer is inside us. With this knowledge that we now have it is extra important to live our life the way it should be lived, lead a life of purpose and ambition. Live a life that is for a reason which would ultimately glorify God
A lot of people make mistakes by looking at their present situation and give up on hope because they feel it’s too late to change or because they feel change is too difficult. However, let me tell you something: God thinks differently, through the bible God says “for I know the plans I have for you and they are not plans for bad but plans to give you a hope and a future”.
I see something called destiny written all over that, that is your destiny to achieve what God has for you, if you are doing anything else then that is not in line with God’s ultimate plan for your life! One thing God taught me is that he showed me it’s never too late for change and he never gives up on any humble heart that turns to him for forgiveness and redemption, he can take your life and turn it around, stop trying to do things you have always tried to do that has never worked.
Give God a serious try and let him work wonders through your life, I am living proof that this is true, I boldly say this because he has brought me a long way from a life that was taking me nowhere but to death and terrifying hell! I dare you to take a step today, cry out to God untill he changes you and saves you from your own self. Be humble about it, tell him that you need him in your heart, tell him that you have messed up if you are serious about change and be honest about your words, he won’t let you down! Take the first step to becoming the real you today! Let God change you! God bless.
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