Meditations of the day

[FineLinen]

"The work of Christ on the cross did not influence God to love us, did not increase that love by one degree, did not open any fount of grace or mercy in His heart.

He has loved us from old eternity and needed nothing to stimulate that love. The cross is not responsible for God's love; rather it was His love which conceived the cross as the one method by which we could be saved. God felt no different toward us after Christ had died for us, for in the mind of God Christ had already died before the foundation of the world. God never saw us except through atonement. The human race could not have existed one day in its fallen state had not Christ spread His mantle of atonement over it. And this He did in eternal purpose long ages before they led Him out to die on the hill above Jerusalem. All God's dealings with man have been conditioned upon the cross." ~A.W. Tozer

 

[FineLinen]

"The grace of God is like: here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't be complete without you. Here is your world...

BEAUTIFUL

...and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid, I am with you. Nothing can separate us." ~Eugene Peterson

 

[FineLinen]

"The mother eagle teaches her little ones to fly by making their nest so uncomfortable that they are forced to leave it and commit themselves to the unknown world of air outside. And just so does our God to us. He stirs up our comfortable nests, and pushes us over the edge of them, and we are forced to use our wings to save ourselves from fatal falling. Read your trials in this light, and see if you cannot begin to get a glimpse of their meaning. Your wings are being developed." ~Hannah W. Smith

 

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"Who has a harder fight than he who is striving to overcome himself." ~ Thomas a Kempis

 

[FineLinen]

“Those who have entirely lost the ability to see the transcendent reality that shows itself in all things, and who refuse to seek it out or even to believe the search a meaningful one, have confined themselves for now within an illusory world, and wander in a labyrinth of dreams. Those others, however, who are still able to see the truth that shines in and through and beyond the world of ordinary experience, and who know that nature is in its every aspect the gift of the supernatural, and who understand that God is that absolute reality in whom, in every moment, they live and move and have their being—they are awake.” ~ David B. Hart

"O Shepherd. You said you would make my feet like hinds feet and set me upon high places. Well, he answered, the only way to develop hinds feet is to go by the paths which the hinds use." ~Hannah Hurnard

 

[FineLinen]

"Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God." -Eugene Peterson

 

[FineLinen]

"As for us, we have all of these great witnesses who encircle us like clouds. So we must let go of every wound that has pierced us and the sin we so easily fall into. Then we will be able to run life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us. We look away from the natural realm and we focus our attention and expectation onto Jesus who birthed faith within us and who leads us forward into faith’s perfection." ~TPT

 

[FineLinen]

"God's purposes are so vast and glorious, beyond all guessing now, that when they are achieved and consummated, all our sufferings and sorrows of today, even the agonies that nearly break our faith, the disasters that well nigh overwhelm us, shall, seen from that fair country where God's age long dreams come true, bulk as little as bulk now the pieces of a broken toy upon a nursery floor, over which, thinking that all our little world was in ruins, we cried ourselves to sleep." -Dr. Leslie Weatherhead

Behold, I make all things new!

 

[FineLinen]

"One touch of Christ is worth a lifetime of struggling." ~A.B. Simpson

"Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God's love encompasses us completely. He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken. ~Dieter F. Uchtdorf

 

[FineLinen]

"Prayer is not designed to inform God, but to give man a sight of his misery; to humble man's heart, to excite his desire, to inflame his faith, to animate his hope, to raise his soul from earth to heaven." ~Adam Clarke

"Justification by faith is an immediate response by God to believing faith. Being made the righteousness of God in Him is a progressive work." ~D.E. Johnson

 

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"The momentary lightness of our affliction is producing for us a transcendently transcendent everlasting burden of glory. What is being observed is temporary, what is not being observed is everlasting." ~A.E. Knoch

 

[FineLinen]

Today's word is not Hebrew or Greek, it's Inuit!

The word is issumagijoujunnainermik.

When missionaries first shared the gospel with the Inuit tribes in Alaska, they couldn't find any word in the Inuit language for forgiveness. So, they took a number of Inuit words and joined them to form a new word -- Issu-magi-jou-jun-nai-ner-mik -- and it became the Inuit word for forgiveness.

The individual words are "Not-being-able-to-think-about-it-anymore."

 

[FineLinen]

You see then, that the most anyone can do is point people to Jesus as the sole source of life. They may experience life through us, but we cannot give them life ourselves. To those bound up by organized religion, Jesus cries, "You search the Scriptures, because in them you think you have Life." You are content to read about Me, but you will not come to Me that you may have Life. Come to Me! Not, "memorize these three easy steps and attend the Church of your choice, "Come to Me! ~Chip Brogden

 

[FineLinen]

A young couple was visiting a renown jewelry store in New York City. They browsed through cases of magnificent diamonds with their gleaming yellow light along with many other splendid precious stones. Among those beautiful stones, one in particular caught his wife's eye. It was completely lusterless and didn't seem to be in the right place.

"That is one terrible looking stone, do you see that?", she said.

The curious husband asked a clerk if they could see the stone. The clerk opened the case, took out the stone and held it in his hand for a few minutes. When he opened it, there was a perfectly flawless stone. There was not a place on it that didn't gleam with the splendor of the rainbow. "How did you do that?", they asked in surprise.

"This is an opal", he replied. "It is what we call the sympathetic jewel. It only needs contact with the human hand to bring out its wonderful beauty."

 

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Third grader, on what his grandparents do

We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live in a big brick house, but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida .

Now they live in a tin box that has wheels, but its strapped to the ground. They ride around on their bicycles, and wear name tags, because they don't know who they are anymore. They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now, they do exercises there, but they don't do them very well. There is a swimming pool too, but they all just jump up and down in it with hats on.

At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out, and go cruising in their golf carts. Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And, they eat the same thing every night - early birds.

Some of the people can't get out past the man in the doll house. The ones who do get out, bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck.

My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and, says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too.

When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren.