GOLDEN WORDS
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your
Father which is in heaven.
Matthew 5:16
You had better take time to pray until Jesus is glorified in your eyes; then you will be
able to make Him glorious to others.
Semple McPherson
Daily Meditations by Pat Nordman ©
May 5
"To all...who are loved by God and called to be saints..." Romans 1:7;
"As for the saints in the land, they are the noble, in whom is all my delight."
Psalm 16:3 RSV.
"What is a saint?
A JEWEL in disguise.
A PRINCE in peasant's garbs.
An immortal LIFE in dying flesh.
An AMBASSADOR of the King Eternal, detained on foreign soil.
A MONARCH at the foot of the throne, waiting for his crown.
A ROYAL SLAVE in a prison of clay, preparing for a mansion.
A TRAVELER on a rocky road, bound for the streets of gold.
A WATCHMAN of the midnight hills, to greet the everlasting Day.
A DIAMOND in the rough, being polished to shine as the stars.
A NUGGET of gold in the crucible, to be refined from its dross.
A PEARL in the oyster, to be delivered from the body of flesh.
A LAMP in a dark, dark night, soon to blaze forth with everlasting light.
A STRANGER in the midst of enemies, hurrying on to live in everlasting fellowship.
A FLOWER in a garden of briars, soon to unfold its petals where the Rose of Sharon
blooms." Unknown.
Saints are persons who are sanctified, not sanctimonious. They walk and talk and live a
practical life. Saints are willing to get hands dirty and hearts broken, as our Jesus did.
Oswald Chambers tells us, "A saint is a bundle of specially qualified reactions. For
every possible circumstance in life, there is a line of behaviour marked out in advance
for us; it is not stated in black and white, we have to be so familiar with God's Book
that when we come to a crisis the Spirit of God brings back to our memory the things we
had read but never understood, and we see what we should do. God is making characters, not
mechanisms."
Pat Nordman ©
May 6
"Your gentleness has made me great." 2 Samuel 22:36, Psalm 18:35, TLB.
There is only one place in the Bible where Jesus gives us a description of Himself:
"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:29. Above all other equal excellences,
Jesus is gentle. Herein is our faith, hope and love, knowing without a shadow of a doubt
that He is affinity as well as infinity.
Throughout the Gospels we find Jesus meeting all in a tender spirit of concern and
consideration. He asks us to be and to do the same: "Be completely humble and
gentle..." (Ephesians 4:2); "Those who oppose him he must gently instruct"
(2 Timothy 2:25); "Let your gentleness be evident to all" (Philippians 4:5);
"But do this with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15).
We know that God is Creator and Judge but, when it comes to our daily living, we yearn to
know Him as gentle and compassionate, above all other virtues. Our earth is made up of
many elements, but the element of gentleness seems to have seeped to the bottom, right on
through the mud of precipitation and insatiability. God does not want it so.
Jesus' greatest power was and is His graciousness; it was and is His eternal drawing card,
His charisma, His presence. We cringe from those who would attack our character, even if
it isn't all we know it could be. This is why we go to Jesus; we know He respects what we
are, while He asks not demands that we know and love Him to our perfection. His gentleness
is the spring from which we drink; it nourishes us to worthier thoughts and actions, and a
nobler life for Him and His.
Excerpts from today's Spurgeon's Devotions |
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| "I will be their God, and they shall be my people." - 2 Corinthians 6:16 |
"He that handleth a matter wisely shall find good: and whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he." - Proverbs 16:20 |
The whole world is God's; the heaven, even the heaven of heavens is the Lord's, and he reigneth among the children of men; but of those whom he hath chosen, whom he hath purchased to himself, he saith what he saith not of others--"My people" In this word there is the idea of proprietorship. |
Without wisdom, man is as the wild ass's colt, running hither and thither, wasting strength which might be profitably employed. Wisdom is the compass by which man is to steer across the trackless waste of life... |
| Spurgeon's Morning for May 6 | Spurgeon's Evening for May 6 |
| "We dwell in him." - 1 John 4:13 |
"All the days of my appointed time will I wait." - Job 14:14 |
Will you take Jesus and "dwell in him?" See, this house is furnished with all you want, it is filled with riches more than you will spend as long as you live. |
A little stay on earth will make heaven more heavenly. Nothing makes rest so sweet as toil; nothing renders security so pleasant as exposure to alarms. |
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Current Bible Question ?
Thomas - often called Doubting Thomas - is also known as who?
Previous question and Answer:
How many years did it take to build the temple in the time of Jesus?
Forty-six years John 2:20
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Close—Est by Cathy Vinson
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How close is close? It seems we can think of God as a distant relative who can be easily fooled by our nail filing, check balancing, newspaper reading as they share with us over the phone. Just give them a few word responses here and there, and behold, we have the depth of relationship we desire! The problem is we are hurting ourselves by actually believing this is "close." We are merely religious. Throughout the Scriptures, God notices. "...their hearts are far from Me" He has said. He notices because His way is to give His fullest heart and attentiveness. His way is hidden inside these words: "He had by Himself purged our sins..." (Heb 1:3). If He did it Himself, there was no distance or insincerity, no halfheartedness. It was close. It is close...close enough to TOUCH us. What is true religion as we feel our needs and those around us? I find it expressed in the following words of AWTozer: "But the man who has been taught even slightly by the Spirit of Truth...cannot love a God who is no more than a deduction from a text...'We must see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and our hands must handle the word of life.' Nothing can take the place of the TOUCH of God..."? Might we get spoiled by such a God as this! It would then be unthinkable to go one step into a day without the assurance that daily He seeks to touch us, that He will be to us a Father, and we will be to Him a son. yet. © Send a note to Cathy Vinson
, the writer of this devotion. |
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More Whispers from the Wilderness
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