remember

"Did sin ever yield thee real pleasure? Didst thou find solid satisfaction in it? If so, go back to thine old drudgery, and wear the chain again, if it delight thee. But inasmuch as sin did never give thee what it promised to bestow, but deluded thee with lies, be not a second time snared by the fowler- be free, and let the rememberance of thy ancient bondage forbid thee to enter the net again!" -Spurgeon

my prayer yesterday

"O Lord, You have searched and know everything about me. You know me."

"I can never escape Your spirit! I can never escape Your presence!"

sometimes I think You don't know me, You don't know who I am, You don't know my heart and all that cumbers it...

I think You have forgotten me, You don't love me, You have left me alone. abandoned

but You were here, closer than any other, You never left me and You will never forsake me. "I cannot escape Your presence!"

...but You know me, like the hairs on my head, "You have searched me" and I am Your's.

from my heart, there is not a beat You have missed.

I will remember

"'Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has He in anger withheld His compassion?' Then I thought, 'To this I will appeal the years of the right hand of the Most High.' I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember Your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all Your works and consider all Your mighty deeds. Your ways, O God, are holy. What god is so great as our God? You are the God who perfoms miracles; You display Your power among the peoples. With Your mighty arm you redeemed Your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph." Psalm 77:9-15

close

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18

what God does

"God is crazy about you. He’s all over you like a glove. God waits for you, hanging on your every word. He loves to hear you call to Him. He has been relentlessly pursuing you since before you were born; He sacrificed His Son to remove the barriers to His love for you; and He has plans for you that go way beyond anything you can imagine. How do I know all this? I’ve been reading about it in the Bible for most of my life, and I know it in my heart, and I’m telling you about it because I figure if I keep on like this, I’ll eventually begin to believe it for myself. Appropriating God’s unconditional love is not as given as it might seem. Jesus said we were to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, but what if I have a problem loving myself? Then the reverse is most likely true; I won’t love anyone else either. The only way you disqualify yourself from experiencing the unconditional love of God is to think of yourself as better than most everybody (my particular version of it) or to think of yourself as worse than most everybody (I’ve actually got a little of this, too). How tragic to be measuring and comparing ourselves — trying to qualify for a love we’re already qualified for just by being alive! Here’s how to end all this nonsense. Accept God’s love for you as totally undeserved. You’re just as much a scoundrel as the next guy, but here’s the amazing thing, God’s crazy about you. He looks at you and sees beauty. Don’t ask why or how; just believe it. Believe it and you’ll start to see people that way too. Then loving your neighbor as you love yourself will be a lot easier because you don’t think of yourself as better or worse than your neighbor; you are simply both recipients of the amazing grace of God when neither of you deserves it. Since when do you love people just because they exist? Since you found out that’s what God does! So when it comes to loving yourself, do what God does: Look at yourself and see something beautiful. Soon you’ll see everyone else that way, too." -John Fischer

He will

"Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall." Psalm 55:22

"anxious care often leads to acts of sin. He who cannot calmly leave his affairs in God's hand, but will carry his own burden, is very likely to be tempted to use wrong means to help himself." -Spurgeon

perfect

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge

but the end, and the means... well

perfect love expels all fear

how perfect is our heavenly Father.

to take care

"I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out--plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for." Jeremiah 29:11 The Message

abandon

Matthew 6:25

"Jesus summed up commonsense carefulness in the life of a disciple as unbelief. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will squeeze right through our lives, as if to ask, 'Now where do I come into this relationship, this vacation you have planned, or these new books you want to read?' And He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.

'...do not worry about your life....' Don't take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the Word He puts in us? Is it the devil? No- 'the cares of this world' (Matthew 13:22). It is always our little worries. We say, 'I will not trust when I cannot see'- and that is where unbelief begins. The only cure for unbelief is obedience to the Spirit.

The greatest word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon." -Chambers

a Lord's prayer

"I'm not asking You to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They are not part of this world any more than I am. Make them pure and holy by teaching them Your words of truth. As You sent Me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give Myself entirely to You so they also might be entirely Yours." John 17:15-19

He led them

"He led them forth by the right way." Psalm 107:7

"Changeful experience often leads the anxious believer to enquire 'Why is it thus with me?' I looked for light, but lo, darkness came; for peace, but behold trouble. I said in my heart, my mountain standeth firm, I shall never be moved. Lord, thou dost hide Thy face, and I am troubled. It was but yesterday that I could read my title clear; to-day my evidences are bedimmed, and my hopes are clouded. Yesterday I could climb to Pisgah's top, and view the landscape o'er, and rejoice with confidence in my future inheritance; to-day, my spirit has no hopes, but many fears; no joys, but much distress. Is this part of God's plan with me? Can this be the way in which God would bring me to heaven? Yes, it is even so. The eclipse of your faith, the darkness of your mind, the fainting of your hope, all these things are but parts of God's method of making you ripe for the great inheritance upon which you shall soon enter. These trials are for the testing and strengthening of your faith—they are waves that wash you further upon the rock—they are winds which waft your ship the more swiftly towards the desired haven. According to David's words, so it might be said of you, 'so He bringeth them to their desired haven.' By honour and dishonour, by evil report and by good report, by plenty and by poverty, by joy and by distress, by persecution and by peace, by all these things is the life of your souls maintained, and by each of these are you helped on your way. Oh, think not, believer, that your sorrows are out of God's plan; they are necessary parts of it. 'We must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom.' Learn, then, even to 'count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.'" -Spurgeon

not alone

"There is hardly any human need stronger than the need to belong. We were created this way. Every one of us came out of a womb screaming for warmth, companionship and someone else’s heartbeat. We were rudely ripped out of that idyllic existence and thrust into a cold, impersonal, lonely world. No wonder babies cry. And the rest of our lives are spent trying to find that intimacy again. Everyone knows what this was because everyone had the same experience once — being so close to another that a heartbeat was a constant companion — and everyone knows that reuniting with others is a part of our common purpose in life. No man is an island. Is it any wonder Jesus prayed, 'My prayer for all of them [His disciples and us] is that they will be one, just as you and I are one, Father — that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me' (John 17:21). We were made to be together. We often think only in terms of our own spiritual lives and forget the fact that God is saving a people to come together for His glory. Salvation is not just an individual matter; it’s a group effort. It is when the church functions as a whole that we give evidence to who we really are—the Body of Christ. That’s the Body of Christ, not the Individual of Christ. No one of us can reflect, alone, who God made us to be. His will is expressed in all of us together. Together we are the Bride of Christ. (My grammar checker doesn’t like that last sentence because this concept challenges even our language. Since when is 'bride' plural?) I am not the Bride; you are not the Bride. We are only the Bride in completion with all other believers in history and in the world. This is all part of God’s plan to bring us back together where we can hear each other’s heartbeat and experience the oneness that Jesus has with the Father. Jesus prayed that we would be all wrapped together in our oneness—us in Christ, and Christ in the Father. I can’t really fathom this; I only know it’s very warm and intimate in there. So what does this mean for you and me today? It means we are not alone. We know where we belong. We need to give priority to our relationships with other believers because who we are depends on it. There is no such thing as individual spiritual growth. Check your calendar; arrange some lunches; invite some neighbors over. Time put into people is time committed to God and His purposes." -John Fischer

afterward

"How happy are tried Christians, afterward. No calm more deep than that which succeeds a storm. Who has not rejoiced in clear shinings after rain?... It is peace, sweet, deep peace, which follows the horrible turmoil, which once reigned in our tormented, guilty souls." -Spurgeon

simple focus

"The people who influence us the most are not those who detain us with their continual talk, but those who live their lives like the stars in the sky- simply and unaffectedly." -Chambers

it's okay

"this life has shown me how we're mended and how we're torn

how it's okay to be lonely as long as you're free

sometimes my ground was stony

and sometimes covered up with thorns

and but only You could make it what it had to be"

Rich Mullins, from Elijah

finished work

"Within us are still lusts and evil imaginations. But I rejoice to know that the day is coming when God shall finish the work which He has begun; and He shall present my soul, not only perfect in Christ, but perfect through the Spirit, without spot of blemish, or any such thing." -Spurgeon

a little while

"How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog- it's here a little while, then it's gone." James 4:14

a hope

"'I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord. 'They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.'" Jeremiah 29:10-11

be patient

"Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone." 1 Thessalonians 5:14

to be real

"Shall I not be as real as the things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they are." -Emerson

sweet assurance

"I am with you always." Matthew 28:20

fortune

"When a man becomes dear to me I have touched the goal of fortune." -Emerson

presence

"The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer." -Bonhoeffer

the privilege

"It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you." James 4:8

"People who bore one another should meet seldom; people who interest one another, often." -Lewis

"To Him be the glory both now and forever." 2 Peter 3:18

help me

"He who hath helped thee hitherto (1 Samuel 7:12) Will help thee all thy journey through." -Spurge

the small things

“It’s not the big things you say, it’s the little things you do.”

"From the vows at a wedding to a promise to get together with a friend 'one of these days,' we make a lot of promises we either cannot or do not intend to fulfill. This makes for poor business and even worse friendships. We would be better off to focus in on the little things we can do. How can we be considered trustworthy to a relationship? By the little things we do to keep our promises, not the big things we say. Actions always speak louder than words, and what we do builds a believable credibility about us. Of course we cannot always do everything we promise because we are fallible creatures. All of those brave enough to look in a mirror will find faults. But for those who are willing to make things right with those they have wronged, the power of Christ is available to forgive, restore and get you back to doing the little things that really count. After all, He’s the master of the little things. He’s a God who always keeps His promises down to the smallest detail." -John Fischer

"I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world." John 17:15

"It is a sweet and blessed event which will occur to all believers in God's own time—the going home to be with Jesus. In a few more years the Lord's soldiers, who are now fighting 'the good fight of faith' will have done with conflict, and have entered into the joy of their Lord. But although Christ prays that His people may eventually be with Him where He is, He does not ask that they may be taken at once away from this world to heaven. He wishes them to stay here. Yet how frequently does the wearied pilgrim put up the prayer, 'O that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest;' but Christ does not pray like that, He leaves us in His Father's hands, until, like shocks of corn fully ripe, we shall each be gathered into our Master's garner. Jesus does not plead for our instant removal by death, for to abide in the flesh is needful for others if not profitable for ourselves. He asks that we may be kept from evil, but He never asks for us to be admitted to the inheritance in glory till we are of full age. Christians often want to die when they have any trouble. Ask them why, and they tell you, 'Because we would be with the Lord.' We fear it is not so much because they are longing to be with the Lord, as because they desire to get rid of their troubles; else they would feel the same wish to die at other times when not under the pressure of trial. They want to go home, not so much for the Saviour's company, as to be at rest. Now it is quite right to desire to depart if we can do it in the same spirit that Paul did, because to be with Christ is far better, but the wish to escape from trouble is a selfish one. Rather let your care and wish be to glorify God by your life here as long as He pleases, even though it be in the midst of toil, and conflict, and suffering, and leave Him to say when 'it is enough.'" -Spurgeon

be transformed

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind... Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." Romans 12:2-3