When life seems empty
and there’s no place to go,
When your heart is troubled
and your spirits are low
When friends seem few and nobody cares
There is always God to hear your prayers.
So go to our Father when
troubles assail you,
For His grace is sufficient
and He’ll never fail you.
Helen Steiner Rice
“We are good at confessing other people’s sins, but if it is true repentance, we shall have as much as we can do to look after our own. When a man or woman gets a good look into God’s mirror, the Bible, he is not finding fault with other people; he is fully occupied at home.” – D. L. Moody
“Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!'” John 20:28 (NASB)
Jesus turned to Thomas and encouraged him to touch the scars in His hands and side. There is no indication that Thomas did so. To see Jesus was enough. And Thomas spoke the greatest confession found in the New Testament: “My Lord and my God!”
Thomas had come to believe that Jesus was alive; even more, that Jesus was divine. He was God. There is no deeper understanding than to realize that this One who had become flesh and lived among other human beings was not only human but shared the same nature as the Father Himself. Meeting the risen Lord enabled Thomas to make this confession. And this is the confession that all people need to make.
Jesus commended Thomas for his confession, but He knew that people in future generations would not have the same privilege of seeing the risen Lord with physical eyes. Others would have to believe without seeing. And God makes it possible for people to meet the risen Lord in other ways than seeing Him with their physical eyes. And in meeting Him, their troubled souls are quieted, they are commissioned to work, and they confess with Thomas, “My Lord and my God.”
“And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” Romans 13:11 (KJV)
What time is it? It is high time to awake out of sleep. It is time for us to be about the Father’s business–to lift up our eyes and look on the fields that are white to harvest, to see the laborers are few–and then to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send forth laborers. We need to be alert, we need to be on our toes, we need to be seeking the lost for Christ.
Present your body a living sacrifice, your members as instruments of righteousness unto God, and from this day forward go forth sowing seed that will bring forth a harvest of souls. God help us as believers to wake up and get on the job for Jesus. His coming is imminent: “Yes, I am coming quickly” (Rev.22:20).
“Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God’s love encompasses us completely…
He loves everyone of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful or broken.”
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
If I can endure for this minute
Whatever is happening to me,
No matter how heavy my heart is
Or how dark the moment may be–
If I can remain calm and quiet
With all the world crashing about me,
Secure in the knowledge God loves me
When everyone else seems to doubt me–
If I can but keep on believing
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade with the morning
And that this will pass away, too–
Then nothing in life can defeat me
For as long as this knowledge remains
I can suffer whatever is happening
For I know God will break all of the chains
That are binding me tight in the darkness
And trying to fill me with fear–
For there is no night without the dawning
And I know that my morning is near.
Helen Steiner Rice
“Our duty is to evangelize not compromise.” – shortfellow
True believers must not “let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high sounding nonsense that comes from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than Christ” (Col.2:8). 1 Peter 3:15 also commands that “if someone asks you about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.” In other words, we are to “gently instruct those who oppose the truth” (2 Tim. 2:24).
God is very serious about His children not compromising His Word with the values of the world. We must boldly present the truth of God’s Word. When the Word of God is given in all its power and purity there is a chance that the Word will soften hard hearts and cause those in error to “come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants” (2 Tim. 2:26).
(All Scripture from the New Living Translation)
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Romans 5:8-10 (NASB)
Even when we were enemies to God — wicked, lost, hopeless and without strength, dead in trespasses and sin — Christ died for the ungodly. Even though sin brought us under the condemnation of a holy God, through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ we can become children of God, accepted by Him. Through justification, our hearts can be made pure, filled with peace, joy unspeakable and full of glory.
I have peace because there is none to accuse. I have joy because there is none to condemn. I have hope because there is nothing that can separate me from the love of God. I am His, He bought me, He paid the purchase price of my redemption. He justified me through the shed blood of the spotless Lamb. I am His and He is mine — forever and forever.
“Grace is a message of unconditional love from the Father of the universe. It’s the free offer of the eternal life. And we can experience it all in the gritty now as well as in the sweet by and by.” Dudley Hall
“Grace is the voice that calls us to change and gives us the power to pull it off.” Max Lucado
Redbird's Roost 