God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say 'thank you?' (William A. Ward)
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A neglected closet is the beginning of all spiritual decline. (My Utmost for His Highest)
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A jealous God will not be content with a divided heart; he must be loved first and best. (My Utmost for His Highest)
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You must not face the day until you have faced God, nor look into the face of others until you have looked into His. You cannot expect to be victorious, if the day begins only in your own strength. Face the work of every day with the influence of a few thoughtful, quiet moments with your heart and God. Meet Him alone. Meet Him regularly. Meet Him with His open Book of counsel before you; and face the regular and the irregular duties of each day with the influence of His personality definitely controlling your every act.(Streams in the Desert)
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The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early upon their knees. (Streams in the Desert)
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The devil didn't seem to know that the more you whip a servant of God who walks in the Spirit, the more praise you whip up from him! If you throw him in a crisis, tie him up with problems and troubles, he'll sing, shout and worship! (David Wilkerson Devotional)
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As the soldier fights for his captain, and is crowned in his captain's victory, so the believer contends for Christ, and gets his triumph out of the triumphs of his Master. "For him to live is Christ." Christ is the exemplar of our life. Where there is the same life within, there will, there must be, to a great extent, the same developments without; and if we live in near fellowship with the Lord Jesus we shall grow like him. We shall set him before us as our Divine copy, and we shall seek to tread in his footsteps, until he shall become the crown of our life in glory. Oh! how safe, how honoured, how happy is the Christian, since Christ is our life! (Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening Devotional)
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To choose to suffer means that there is something wrong; to choose God's Will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses God's will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. (My Utmost for His Highest)
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Notice God's unutterable waste of saints, according to the judgment of the world. God plants His saints in the most useless places. We say - God intends me to be here because I am so useful. Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use. God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is. (My Utmost for His Highest)
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Often God seems to place His children in positions of profound difficulty, leading them into a wedge from which there is no escape; contriving a situation which no human judgment would have permitted, had it been previously consulted. The very cloud conducts them thither. You may be thus involved at this very hour. It does seem perplexing and very serious to the last degree, but it is perfectly right. The issue will more than justify Him who has brought you hither. It is a platform for the display of His almighty grace and power. He will not only deliver you; but in doing so, He will give you a lesson that you will never forget, and to which, in many a psalm and song, in after days, you will revert. You will never be able to thank God enough for having done just as He has. (Streams in the Desert)
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It puzzles me; but, Lord, Thou understandest,
And wilt one day explain this crooked thing.
Meanwhile, I know that it has worked out Thy best--
Its very crookedness taught me to cling.
Thou hast fenced up my ways, made my paths crooked,
To keep my wand'ring eyes fixed on Thee;
To make me what I was not, humble, patient;
To draw my heart from earthly love to Thee.
So I will thank and praise Thee for this puzzle,
And trust where I cannot understand.
Rejoicing Thou dost hold me worth such testing,
I cling the closer to Thy guiding hand. (F.E.M.I.)
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Do you see what God is saying here? "If you really want to walk in the Spirit—if you really want my anointing—you need to seek more than direction from me. You need to come into my presence and get to know my heart, my desires! You see, I want to anoint you—to use you in my kingdom!" Beloved, forget direction—forget everything else for now! Allow the Holy Spirit to teach you the deep hidden things of God. Stand still in his presence, and let him show you the very heart of the Lord. That is the walk of the Spirit in the highest form! (David Wilkerson Devotional)
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Spending time in the presence of the Lord produces a manifestation of Christ to a lost world. (David Wilkerson Devotional)
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These pains and trouble here are like the type which the printers set; as they look now, we have to read them backwards, and they seem to have no sense or meaning in them; but up yonder, when the Lord God prints us off in the life to come, we shall find they make brave reading. (Martin Luther)
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I believe in the sun even if it isn't shining. I believe in love even when I am alone. I believe in God even when He is silent. (Author Unknown)
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Believers love Jesus with a deeper affection then they dare to give to any other being. They would sooner lose father and mother then part with Christ. They hold all earthly comforts with a loose hand, but they carry him fast locked in their bosoms. They voluntarily deny themselves for his sake, but they are not to be driven to deny him. It is scant love which the fire of persecution can dry up; the true believer's love is a deeper stream than this. Men have laboured to divide the faithful from their Master, but their attempts have been fruitless in every age. Neither crowns of honour, now frowns of anger, have untied this more than Gordian knot. This is no every-day attachment which the world's power may at length dissolve. Neither man nor devil have found a key which opens this lock. Never has the craft of Satan been more at fault than when he has exercised it in seeking to rend in sunder this union of two divinely welded hearts. It is written, and nothing can blot out the sentence, "The upright love thee." The intensity of the love of the upright, however, is not so much to be judged by what it appears as by what the upright long for. It is our daily lament that we cannot love enough. Would that our hearts were capable of holding more, and reaching further. Like Samuel Rutherford, we sigh and cry, "Oh, for as much love as would go round about the earth, and over heaven-yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten thousand worlds-that I might let all out
upon fair, fair, only fair Christ." Alas! our longest reach is but a span of love, and our affection is but as a drop of a bucket compared with his deserts. Measure our love by our intentions, and it is high indeed; 'tis thus, we trust, our Lord doth judge of it. Oh, that we could give all the love in all hearts in one great mass, a gathering together of all loves to him who is altogether lovely! (Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening Devotional)
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We are not alarmed because Satan hindereth us, for it is a proof that we are on the Lord's side, and are doing the Lord's work, and in his strength we shall win the victory, and triumph over our adversary. (Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening Devotional)
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For the rest of my life I'm going to trust that God is always at work in all things, and give him thanks long before my simplest prayers are answered. (Nancy Parker Brummett)
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We are not here to prove God answers prayer; we are here to be living monuments of God's grace. (My Utmost for His Highest)
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You may be very discontented with yourself. You are no genius, have no brilliant gifts, and are inconspicuous for any special faculty. Mediocrity is the law of your existence. Your days are remarkable for nothing but sameness and insipidity. Yet you may live a great life. John did no miracle, but Jesus said that among those born of women there had not appeared a greater than he. John's main business was to bear witness to the Light, and this may be yours and mine. John was content to be only a voice, if men would think of Christ. Be willing to be only a voice, heard but not seen; a mirror whose surface is lost to view, because it reflects the dazzling glory of the sun; a breeze that springs up just before daylight, and says, "The dawn! the dawn!" and then dies away. Do the commonest and smallest things as beneath His eye. If you must live with uncongenial people, set to their conquest by love. If you have made a great mistake in your life, do not let it becloud all of it; but, locking the secret in your breast, compel it to yield strength and sweetness. We are doing more good than we know, sowing seeds, starting streamlets, giving men true thoughts of Christ, to which they will refer one day as the first things that started them thinking of Him; and, of my part, I shall be satisfied if no great mausoleum is raised over my grave, but that simple souls shall gather there when I am gone, and say, "He was a good man; he wrought no miracles, but he spake words about Christ, which led me to know Him for myself." (George Matheson)
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Covet to get alone with God. If we neglect it, we not only rob ourselves, but others too, of blessing, since when we are blessed we are able to pass on blessing to others. It may mean less outside work; it must mean more depth and power, and the consequence, too, will be "they saw no man save Jesus only." (Streams in the Desert)
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To be left alone without God, would be too awful for words, but to be left alone with Him is a foretaste of Heaven! (Streams in the Desert)
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At times all of us experience fear. But don't allow fear to keep you from being used by God. He has kept you thus far; trust Him for the rest of the way. (Woodroll Kroll)
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There comes the baffling call of God in our lives also. The call of God can never be stated explicitly; it is implicit. The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him. It cannot be stated definitely what the call of God is to, because His call is to be in comradeship with Himself for His own purposes, and the test is to believe that God knows what He is after. The things that happen do not happen by chance, they happen entirely in the decree of God. God is working out His purposes. If we are in communion with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, we shall no longer try to find out what His purposes are. As we go on in the Christian life it gets simpler, because we are less inclined to say - Now why did God allow this and that? Behind the whole thing lies the compelling of God. "There's a divinity that shapes our ends." A Christian is one who trusts the wits and the wisdom of God, and not his own wits. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the leisureliness which ought to characterize the children of God. (My Utmost for His Highest)
-
Every difficulty that presents itself to us, if we receive it in the right way, is God's opportunity. Every temptation that comes is God's opportunity. When the "lion" comes, recognize it as God's opportunity no matter how rough the exterior. The very tabernacle of God was covered with badgers' skins and goats' hair; one would not think there would be any glory there. The Shekinah of God was manifest under that kind of covering. May God open our eyes to see Him, whether in temptations, trials, dangers, or misfortunes. (C. H. P.)
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Beloved, the Bible makes it very clear: When Jesus comes to you, he desires to baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire! The Holy Ghost brings fire—a red hot, consuming love for Jesus. Why are so many believers hot one minute and then cold the next, never totally yielded, never sold out? Is it because they refuse to let Jesus baptize them with the Holy Ghost?
"When [the Holy Ghost] is come, he will reprove…of sin" (John 16:8). Could it be that these believers are not convicted because the Holy Ghost has not yet been invited to take his rightful place in them? He is God's plumb line. Anything that does not measure up to Christ, he reveals—and he convicts us and empowers us to conform to his Word! Truly he becomes our Comforter in this, because as he convicts us of sin, he empowers us to forsake it. That is true comfort!
The Holy Ghost will never make you do anything stupid. But he may come upon you in such a way that sinners may think you are drunk! He is not welcome in many churches because he is thought to be too noisy, too upsetting, too unpredictable! (David Wilkerson Devotional)
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It puzzles me; but, Lord, Thou understandest,
And wilt one day explain this crooked thing.
Meanwhile, I know that it has worked out Thy best--
Its very crookedness taught me to cling.
Thou hast fenced up my ways, made my paths crooked,
To keep my wand'ring eyes fixed on Thee;
To make me what I was not, humble, patient;
To draw my heart from earthly love to Thee.
So I will thank and praise Thee for this puzzle,
And trust where I cannot understand.
Rejoicing Thou dost hold me worth such testing,
I cling the closer to Thy guiding hand. (F.E.M.I.)
-
Do you see what God is saying here? "If you really want to walk in the Spirit—if you really want my anointing—you need to seek more than direction from me. You need to come into my presence and get to know my heart, my desires! You see, I want to anoint you—to use you in my kingdom!" Beloved, forget direction—forget everything else for now! Allow the Holy Spirit to teach you the deep hidden things of God. Stand still in his presence, and let him show you the very heart of the Lord. That is the walk of the Spirit in the highest form! (David Wilkerson Devotional)
-
Spending time in the presence of the Lord produces a manifestation of Christ to a lost world. (David Wilkerson Devotional)
-
These pains and trouble here are like the type which the printers set; as they look now, we have to read them backwards, and they seem to have no sense or meaning in them; but up yonder, when the Lord God prints us off in the life to come, we shall find they make brave reading. (Martin Luther)
-
I believe in the sun even if it isn't shining. I believe in love even when I am alone. I believe in God even when He is silent. (Author Unknown)
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Believers love Jesus with a deeper affection then they dare to give to any other being. They would sooner lose father and mother then part with Christ. They hold all earthly comforts with a loose hand, but they carry him fast locked in their bosoms. They voluntarily deny themselves for his sake, but they are not to be driven to deny him. It is scant love which the fire of persecution can dry up; the true believer's love is a deeper stream than this. Men have laboured to divide the faithful from their Master, but their attempts have been fruitless in every age. Neither crowns of honour, now frowns of anger, have untied this more than Gordian knot. This is no every-day attachment which the world's power may at length dissolve. Neither man nor devil have found a key which opens this lock. Never has the craft of Satan been more at fault than when he has exercised it in seeking to rend in sunder this union of two divinely welded hearts. It is written, and nothing can blot out the sentence, "The upright love thee." The intensity of the love of the upright, however, is not so much to be judged by what it appears as by what the upright long for. It is our daily lament that we cannot love enough. Would that our hearts were capable of holding more, and reaching further. Like Samuel Rutherford, we sigh and cry, "Oh, for as much love as would go round about the earth, and over heaven-yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten thousand worlds-that I might let all out
upon fair, fair, only fair Christ." Alas! our longest reach is but a span of love, and our affection is but as a drop of a bucket compared with his deserts. Measure our love by our intentions, and it is high indeed; 'tis thus, we trust, our Lord doth judge of it. Oh, that we could give all the love in all hearts in one great mass, a gathering together of all loves to him who is altogether lovely! (Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening Devotional)
-
We are not alarmed because Satan hindereth us, for it is a proof that we are on the Lord's side, and are doing the Lord's work, and in his strength we shall win the victory, and triumph over our adversary. (Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening Devotional)
-
For the rest of my life I'm going to trust that God is always at work in all things, and give him thanks long before my simplest prayers are answered. (Nancy Parker Brummett)
-
We are not here to prove God answers prayer; we are here to be living monuments of God's grace. (My Utmost for His Highest)
-
You may be very discontented with yourself. You are no genius, have no brilliant gifts, and are inconspicuous for any special faculty. Mediocrity is the law of your existence. Your days are remarkable for nothing but sameness and insipidity. Yet you may live a great life. John did no miracle, but Jesus said that among those born of women there had not appeared a greater than he. John's main business was to bear witness to the Light, and this may be yours and mine. John was content to be only a voice, if men would think of Christ. Be willing to be only a voice, heard but not seen; a mirror whose surface is lost to view, because it reflects the dazzling glory of the sun; a breeze that springs up just before daylight, and says, "The dawn! the dawn!" and then dies away. Do the commonest and smallest things as beneath His eye. If you must live with uncongenial people, set to their conquest by love. If you have made a great mistake in your life, do not let it becloud all of it; but, locking the secret in your breast, compel it to yield strength and sweetness. We are doing more good than we know, sowing seeds, starting streamlets, giving men true thoughts of Christ, to which they will refer one day as the first things that started them thinking of Him; and, of my part, I shall be satisfied if no great mausoleum is raised over my grave, but that simple souls shall gather there when I am gone, and say, "He was a good man; he wrought no miracles, but he spake words about Christ, which led me to know Him for myself." (George Matheson)
-
Covet to get alone with God. If we neglect it, we not only rob ourselves, but others too, of blessing, since when we are blessed we are able to pass on blessing to others. It may mean less outside work; it must mean more depth and power, and the consequence, too, will be "they saw no man save Jesus only." (Streams in the Desert)
-
To be left alone without God, would be too awful for words, but to be left alone with Him is a foretaste of Heaven! (Streams in the Desert)
-
At times all of us experience fear. But don't allow fear to keep you from being used by God. He has kept you thus far; trust Him for the rest of the way. (Woodroll Kroll)
-
There comes the baffling call of God in our lives also. The call of God can never be stated explicitly; it is implicit. The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him. It cannot be stated definitely what the call of God is to, because His call is to be in comradeship with Himself for His own purposes, and the test is to believe that God knows what He is after. The things that happen do not happen by chance, they happen entirely in the decree of God. God is working out His purposes. If we are in communion with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, we shall no longer try to find out what His purposes are. As we go on in the Christian life it gets simpler, because we are less inclined to say - Now why did God allow this and that? Behind the whole thing lies the compelling of God. "There's a divinity that shapes our ends." A Christian is one who trusts the wits and the wisdom of God, and not his own wits. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the leisureliness which ought to characterize the children of God. (My Utmost for His Highest)
-
Every difficulty that presents itself to us, if we receive it in the right way, is God's opportunity. Every temptation that comes is God's opportunity. When the "lion" comes, recognize it as God's opportunity no matter how rough the exterior. The very tabernacle of God was covered with badgers' skins and goats' hair; one would not think there would be any glory there. The Shekinah of God was manifest under that kind of covering. May God open our eyes to see Him, whether in temptations, trials, dangers, or misfortunes. (C. H. P.)
-
Beloved, the Bible makes it very clear: When Jesus comes to you, he desires to baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire! The Holy Ghost brings fire—a red hot, consuming love for Jesus. Why are so many believers hot one minute and then cold the next, never totally yielded, never sold out? Is it because they refuse to let Jesus baptize them with the Holy Ghost?
"When [the Holy Ghost] is come, he will reprove…of sin" (John 16:8). Could it be that these believers are not convicted because the Holy Ghost has not yet been invited to take his rightful place in them? He is God's plumb line. Anything that does not measure up to Christ, he reveals—and he convicts us and empowers us to conform to his Word! Truly he becomes our Comforter in this, because as he convicts us of sin, he empowers us to forsake it. That is true comfort!
The Holy Ghost will never make you do anything stupid. But he may come upon you in such a way that sinners may think you are drunk! He is not welcome in many churches because he is thought to be too noisy, too upsetting, too unpredictable! (David Wilkerson Devotional)
