Fellowshipping & Praise the Lord with Doc329 (23)

[doc329]

God knows us. He knows what we are; he knows also what he meant us to be; and upon the difference between these two states he founds his testimony concerning us.

He is too loving to say anything needlessly severe; too true to say anything untrue; nor can he have any motive to misrepresent us; for he loves to tell of the good, not of the evil, that may be found in any of the works of his hands. He declares, them "good", "very good", at first; and if he does not do so now, it is not because he would not, but because he cannot; for "all flesh has corrupted its way upon the earth."

God's testimony concerning man is, that he is a sinner.
He bears witness against him, not for him, and testifies that "there is none righteous, no, not one;" that there is "none that doeth good;" none "that understandeth;" none that even seeketh after God, and still more none that loveth him.

God speaks of man kindly, but severely; as one yearning over a lost child, yet as one who will make no terms with sin, and will "by no means clear the guilty." He declares man to be a lost one, a stray one, a rebel, a "hater of God;" not a sinner occasionally, but a sinner always; not a sinner in part, with many good things about him; but wholly a sinner, with no compensating goodness; evil in heart as well as life, "dead in trespasses and sins;" an evil doer, and therefore under condemnation; an enemy of God, and therefore "under wrath;" a breaker of the righteous law, and therefore under "the curse of the law."

 

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When you undertake a Christian ministry, what you can accomplish on your own may not seem very noteworthy. You try your best to serve God, but the results aren't always the graceful flowing "music" that you had hoped to achieve.

BUT -- with the helping hands of the Master, your efforts can be instantly transformed into something quite beautiful!

The next time you set out to accomplish great feats -- if everything seems to be going wrong -- listen carefully.
When you listen, you will hear the voice of the Master, whispering in your ear, "Don't quit. Keep playing."
Feel God's loving arms around you. Know that God's strong hands are playing in harmony with your hands -- filling in the gaps of your amateurish hesitations, turning your feeble efforts into a beautiful symphony -- the concerto of your life.
Remember, God doesn't call the equipped. God equips the called!

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the REACH of God's grace.
And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the NEED for God's grace.

 

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Exult in the Lord of grace!
Worship the Lord of grace Love the Lord of grace. Be happy in the Lord of grace. Let grace be grace - for your joy and his glory.
Wake up in the morning and remember: saved by grace, thank you God!
Go to work and remember: saved by grace, thank you God! Come home and remember: saved by grace, thank you Father!
Do a good deed for someone and remember: saved by grace, thank you Jesus!
Exult in the God of grace. Let your heart overflow with praise and thanks to him. Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord
(1 Corinthians 1:31; 2 Corinthians 10:17).

 

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We thank God for what He has done for us. We thank God for giving us brethren who live by His call, by His forgiveness, and His promise.
We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank God for what He does give us daily...
In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life.
Only he who gives thanks for little things receives big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts.

 

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Revelation1:5-6.

"UNTO Him who loveth us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father:To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen"

This great outburst of praise may well be called "the Glory Song." It glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ; it reveals also the Glory of those He has redeemed and will be heard throughout eternity.
There will never be a moment in the ages of eternity when this Glory song will be hushed or forgotten.

We begin to sing it here on earth. The more we know the Christ of God and His great love for us, the more we delight to praise and to worship Him.
Such worship of the heart in the power of the Spirit is the atmosphere of heaven upon earth. And some day we shall see Him whom we worship and adore in faith.

In that glorious moment, when we shall see Him as He is we shall realize for the first time the length and breadth, the heighth and depth of His love and know the Glory to which He has brought us. Then we and all the redeemed will sing this song in a better and more perfect way than we have ever done here.

"Thou art worthy * * * for Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign over the earth" (Rev.5:9,10).

 

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Ephesians 6:10-11
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

God wants to give you encouragement and strength, today. Strength to do what you know you should do. Inner strength from the Holy Spirit to do what you must do in order to rise to the place where God wants you to be. Where does God want you to be? In victory!
He wants you to be in victory in His name victory in your spirit, victory in your soul, your thought life and the things of your will, and victory in your emotions. He died so you could have victory over your physical body in every area, including deliverance from sickness, disease, bondage and bad habits.
God wants you to live in victory in every area of your life! Always.

Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. [Not your might- His might.]
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
If you're going to be victorious, you must understand that you cannot stand against Satan's work without the full armor of God.
But once you put on the full armor of God and His strength, you can stand against anything Satan has!

I would like to plant this seed!
Lord, with your gentle wings from above. Carry me through today, let me feel your love. I shall not worry about tomorrow, yesterday is gone.
Just carry me though today, Lord, that's where I belong.
Through all my trails and troubles, I know that you are there; Sometimes it's hard to see you through each tear and care.
Carry me through today, Lord, don't let me slip away.
Tomorrow may be taken from me, so carry me through today.

Yesterday really have gone, tomorrow might never come, all we have is today! Do the right thing.

 

[doc329]

A man bought a new hunting dog. Eager to see how he would perform, he took him out to track a bear. No sooner had they gotten into the woods than the dog picked up the trail. Suddenly he stopped, sniffed the ground, and headed in a new direction. He had caught the scent of a deer that had crossed the bear's path. A few moments later he halted again, this time smelling a rabbit that had crossed the path of the deer. And so, on and on it went until finally the breathless hunter caught up with his dog, only to find him barking triumphantly down the hole of a field mouse.

Sometimes we as Christians are like that. We start out with high resolve, keeping Christ first in our lives. But soon, our attention is diverted to things of lesser importance. One pursuit leads to another until we've strayed far from our original purpose.

 

[doc329]

As we think of the love of the Father to the Son, we see in the Son everything so infinitely worthy of that love. When we think of Christ's love to us, there is nothing but sin and unworthiness to meet the eye.
And the question comes:
How can that love within the bosom of the divine life and its perfections be compared to the love that rests on sinners? Can it indeed be the same love?
Blessed be God, we know it is so.
The nature of love is always one, however different the objects. Christ knows of no other law of love but that with which His Father loved Him. Our wretchedness only serves to call out more distinctly the beauty of love, such as could not be seen even in heaven.

With the tenderest compassion He bows to our weakness, with patience inconceivable He bears with our slowness, with the gentlest loving-kindness He meets our fears and our follies.
It is the love of the Father to the Son, beautified, glorified, in its condescension, in its exquisite adaptation to our needs.

 

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You have probably heard or read of what is called the higher, or the deeper life, of the richer or the fuller life, of the life abundant.
And you possibly know that some have told of a wonderful change, by which their life of continual failure and stumbling had been changed into a very blessed experience of being kept and strengthened and made exceeding glad.

If you asked them how it was this great blessing came to them, many would tell you it was simply this, that they were led to believe that this abiding in Christ's love was meant to be a reality, and that they were made willing to give up everything for it, and then enabled to trust Christ to make it true to them

 

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The Holy Spirit assists us in our prayers to our Father. Romans 8:26.

How can we who are mortal even know how to pray to Almighty God? God has made this provision for His children. The Holy Spirit intercede for us so our prayers are what they should be to the Lord.

You don't have to pester God to get his attention. You don't have to grovel. You don't have to flail yourself. You don't have to bite your lip and groan and moan and all of these kinds of things people do to show God they really mean business.
You need only to come to Him in sincerity expressing your need or praise.

If you ask and God says no then He knows that is best for you. Our complete trust in the Lord will help us to accept what is right for us. Without true faith in the Lord and understanding this principle we might grow disillusioned with God and sin against Him. We know that no matter what the circumstance, if we are truly trusting in Him, everything is alright and on course.

"Let all multiplicity be absent from your prayer. A single word was enough for the publican and the prodigal son to receive God's pardon. ... Don' t try to find exactly the right words for your prayer: how many times does the simple and monotonous stuttering of children draw the attention of their father!
Don't launch into long discourses, for if you do, your mind will be dissipated trying to find just the right words. The publican's short sentence moved God to mercy. A single word full of faith saved the thief on the cross."

 

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As we live this life of faith in this world, there will be times when we cannot see the way. There will be days when we will wonder how God could ever do anything with the likes of us!
There will be times when we will have to walk by faith and not sight. Of course, some people just can't do that!
If they can't see how it should be done, they won't do it!
If they can't explain it, then they avoid it. Those folks never grow!

The people God uses greatly are those who will walk obediently wherever the path of God leads them. Whether they understand it or not, whether they like it or not, whether they know what will happen or not.
Those are the people who get to see the Lord part the seas.
They see the multitudes fed. They get to walk on the water. They walk unharmed through the fiery furnaces and lion dens of life.
They live life by faith and they get to see the Lord do the impossible over and over again.

 

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When, where and how we are to serve Him!
Our job is to be available, willing, yielded, usable and faithful!
Let us not be shamed of the appoint of the Lord into His service, but let us determine that, by His grace,
we will fulfill His call on our lives for His glory!
Whatever your appointment by the King, it is great and it is to be fulfilled completely and faithfully so that He receives the glory due His great Name

 

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What does that mean?
Because of popular culture, where we hear the word "love" mis-used multiple times every day, we are confused. True love is not a "feeling," but rather it is "an attitude of kindness and loyalty that embodies itself in action." The words "I love you" are meaningless until they are backed up by deeds.

God repeatedly shows His love to every human being on the face of the earth, in many ways. He shows love by giving us life, and sending rain and sunshine on both the just and the unjust. He shows love by speaking to every man, woman and child through conscience and creation. Because of His love, everyone in the world knows that there is a God, and that He is powerful, wise and kind.

What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.

In Psalm 36 we are reminded that His love reaches to the heavens; His love is priceless; and His love is eternal.
May God keep us rejoicing in His love, and may we learn to love others as He loves us. Amen.

 

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God is represented in Scripture as having a family; and though some of this family are now on earth, yet in so being they are abroad and not at home, but all going home:

Ephesians 3:15, "Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." Heaven is the place that God has built for himself and his children.
God has many children, and the place designed for them is heaven; therefore the saints, being the children of God, are said to be of the household of God,

Ephesians 2:19 "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God."
God is represented as a householder or head of a family, and heaven is his house.

 

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To live by faith is a far surer and happier thing than to live by feelings or by works.
The branch, by living in the vine, lives a better life than it would live by itself, even if it were possible for it to live at all apart from the stem.

To live by clinging to Jesus, by deriving all from Him, is a sacred thing.
If even the most just must live in this fashion, how much more must I who am a poor sinner!
Lord, I believe. I must trust Thee wholly. What else can I do? Trusting Thee is my life. I feel it to be so.
I will abide by this even to the end.

 

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1 Peter 1:15-16
But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;
Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

Holiness is something that is really misunderstood. To the average person, holiness means to assume a pious attitude, to become almost abnormal in everyday life. It is thought to be a superficial thing.

My friend, the Lord wants you to be a fully integrated personality. He wants you to enjoy life and have fun. I don't mean the sinful kind of fun. but real delight and enjoyment in the life He has given you. Holiness is to the spiritual life what health is to to the physical life.
You like to see a person who is physically fine, robust, and healthy.
Well, holiness is to be healthy and robust spiritually. Oh, how we need people like this today

Is our holiness to be an attribute like God's holiness. Our God is absolutely perfect, and we will never, while we are in this life, reach that state.
I have met several who thought they had reached that state, but I could not find anyone who would agree with them that they had reached that level.
Then what does it mean to be holy as God is holy?

Our God is a complete, wonderful personality. Although you and I are mere human beings, we can be full grown, we can reach maturation. A beautiful little baby in a crib my win a blue ribbon, but if he is still a little baby in a crib seventeen years later, something is wrong. He should be a healthy young fellow turning out for football practice.
As Christians, we should be growing spiritually like that.

What can produce this kind of growth?
The Word of God.

 

[doc329]

Despite our infidelity, God remains faithful to us; despite the steps we take toward our own destruction, God continues to offer us a second chance at life. Such is the “depth and breadth and height” of God’s love.

God’s love is more dominant in John’s writings than anywhere else in the New Testament.
God is love; love is the mutual relationship between Jesus and the Father;
Jesus loves his disciples and says that their love of service and friendship is to be a hallmark of discipleship.
However, God does not force anything upon us. We are free to choose. We can accept God’s loving gestures, or refuse them.
Jesus tells Nicodemus that people can choose to believe or not believe in Christ; they can prefer darkness to the light.
There has always been a choice. Today the choice is ours to make. Will we make it?

Whoever does not believe in Jesus has already been condemned, because they loved darkness more than light.

Very few people choose against God, but can we honestly absolve ourselves of actions that resemble those described.
Do we heed the warnings of God’s messengers, or do we scoff at them - even silence them?
Confident of God’s merciful love, we are able to repent, return to God and start anew.
We can create a world based on cooperation rather than competition, on respect rather than discrimination. God’s love has been offered; the choice is ours.

 

[doc329]

Colossians 1:3, 4
We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints.

When I receive a compliment, it gives me a warm, inner glow. At times I have felt guilty for enjoying a commendation. After all, isn't that a form of pride?
But I have concluded that it is not wrong to feel good when we receive a sincere compliment because of something we have done.
By finding pleasure in being commended, we allow others to exercise their gift of encouragement. Their words can lift our spirits.
We also show that pride hasn't gained the upper hand in our lives when we praise others. A proud person is so preoccupied with himself that he doesn't notice what others do and has no desire to compliment them.

Give people a pat on the back when they deserve it. Compliment the child who does something well.
Encourage the man who keeps helping others even though he receives little appreciation from them.
Keep trying to please God and the people around you.

No need to feel guilty about feeling good when someone compliments you.

 

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Sometimes when circumstances of our lives break in upon us, it feels as if we are going to drown and probably we ask the same question that the disciples asked Jesus, "Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?" It feels as if when the waves are threatening to swamp our boat that God is asleep and is no where to be seen, no where to be found.

Thrown out of work, faced with an unexpected and frightening medical diagnosis, struggling with financial pressures, caught in a relationship which seems to be deteriorating and going no where, or a phone call that comes and all of a sudden the heart leaps in pain and anguish, we cry out in spite of ourselves, "Lord, can it be that I have looked to you, I’ve sought your help, I’ve discovered so many good things about your love, and yet here in this circumstance it seems that you don’t care, that you are not here, that you are sound asleep?

Don’t you care if we drown?"
And yet they did the right thing in the midst of those circumstances. They knew where to cry out. They knew who to cry out to. And the person they cried out to was the Savior. They were discovering more and more about His love, about His compassion, about His ability, and they woke Him with their cry.

In the account with the disciples we find that after the disciples had cried out, that Jesus got up. Then he did something that even the disciples, with their experience of Jesus, had not expected. Much of the turmoil in our lives isn’t simply the turmoil from the outer circumstances, it's the turmoil that churns within us, tearing us apart. We cry out to God and then to our astonishment we discover that God comes.
God is not absent, but present and God speaks to the storm that is within our turbulent and tossed spirits.

Though our questions are not finally answered yet and are left in the mystery of God’s love, still we see His comfort, His power, His presence, and His strength. His help is there for us. God, who knows our cry, knows what it means to be in a boat swamped by the storm and yet has the power to give peace and strength and help even of the midst of those difficult circumstances.

The disciples called out for peace and God met them at their point of need. We may call for peace and God, through Jesus Christ, will meet us at our point of need as well.
May this be true in your life this day and through the days ahead.

 

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Children, draw near to your Father, and He will embrace you in the arms of love! Come, you wandering sheep, return to your Shepherd! Come, sinners, to your Savior! Come, you ignorant, and illiterate, y0u who think yourselves the most incapable of prayer! you are more peculiarly called and adapted thereto. Let all without exception come, for Jesus Christ has called all.

Let not those come who are without a heart; they are not asked; for there must be a heart, that there may be love. But who is without a heart?
Come, give this heart to God; and learn how to make the donation.
All who are desirous of prayer may easily pray, enabled by those ordinary graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit which are common to all men.

Prayer is the guide to perfection and the sovereign good; it delivers us from every vice, and obtains us every virtue; for the one great means to become perfect, is to walk in the presence of God:
He Himself hath said, "walk in my presence and be ye perfect" (Genesis 17:1).
It is by prayer alone, that we are brought into this presence, and maintained in it without interruption.

You must then learn a species of prayer, which may be exercised at all times; which does not obstruct outward employments; and which may be equally practiced by priests, soldiers, children, tradesmen, laborers, women and sick persons: it cannot, be the prayer of the head, but of the heart; not a prayer of the understanding alone, which is so limited in its operations that it can have but one object at one time; but the prayer of the heart is not interrupted by the exercises of reason: indeed nothing can interrupt this prayer, but irregular and disordered affections: and when once we have tasted of God, and the sweetness of His love, we shall find it impossible to relish aught but Himself?

Nothing is so easily obtained as the possession and enjoyment of God, for "in him we live, move, and have our being;" and He is more desirous to give Himself into us, than we can be to receive Him.

All consists in the manner of seeking Him; and to seek aright, is easier and more natural to us than breathing. Though you think yourselves ever so stupid, dull, and incapable of sublime attainments, yet, by prayer, you may live in God Himself with less difficulty or interruption than you live in the vital air.
Will it not then be highly sinful to neglect prayer?