Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.
-Lewis B. Smedes
Category: Water
Rise ‘n’ Shine!
For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
(Ephesians 5:14)
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Steeping in Reality
Steep your life in God-reality,
God-initiative,
God-provisions.
Don’t worry about missing out.
You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now,
and don’t get worked up
about what may or may not happen tomorrow.
God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up
when the time comes.
-Jesus
(Matthew 6:33,34 The Message)
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Hiding Place
“Come Away”
You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance.
(Psalm 32:7)
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Seriously?
Yesterday I scrambled down a deep ditch and through brambles and thickets and barbed wire looking for a pond I remembered that might still have colourful leaves around it.
“Oh Lord, please let this be worthwhile,” I prayed under my breath as I unsnagged my sweater from another monstrous Russian thistle.
“Secret Place” (click on photo to enlarge)
He answered.
Oh, Lord, you are seriously good. You gave me a gift of more than I imagined. Thank you.
And since he created me to be creative I played with the photos when I got home.
Here’s the thing, my other prayer yesterday was just wanting to know if he loved me. There are those out there who say I am deceived, I have disappointed my Lord and am heading for hell. In a still silent voice he spoke through riotous colour. “Seriously? What do you think? You just posted a scripture today about true believers having the mind of Christ available to them. Think with that mind.”
Right.
Father, out of Your honorable and glorious riches, strengthen Your people. Fill their souls with the power of Your Spirit so that through faith the Anointed One will reside in their hearts. May love be the rich soil where their lives take root. May it be the bedrock where their lives are founded so that together with all of Your people they will have the power to understand that the love of the Anointed is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. God, may Your fullness flood through their entire beings.
This is a doxology of praise to the One with power that is beyond understanding.
Now to the God who can do so many awe-inspiring things, immeasurable things, things greater than we ever could ask or imagine through the power at work in us, to Him be all glory in the church and in Jesus the Anointed from this generation to the next, forever and ever. (Ephesians 3:16-21 The Voice)
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Abide
“Abiding in the presence of God is learning to see Him in every situation.” -Graham Cooke
- My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device nor creed;
I trust the Ever-living One,
His wounds for me shall plead. - I need no other argument,
I need no other plea;
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.
-Eliza Hewitt, 1891
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Spiritual Depression: Clouds of Doubt or Unbelief?
Indeed I can put it, finally, like this; the ultimate cause of all spiritual depression is unbelief, for if it were not for unbelief even the devil could do nothing. It is because we listen to the devil instead of listening to God that we go down before him and fall before his attacks. -Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Christ never failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is can’t believe. Unbelief is won’t believe. Doubt is honesty. Unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light. Unbelief is content with darkness. -Henry Drummond
There are those who insist it is a very bad thing to question God. To them “why?” is a rude question. That depends, I believe, on whether it is an honest search, in faith, for His meaning, or whether it is the challenge of unbelief and rebellion. -Elizabeth Elliot
Ignorance asks for understanding. Unbelief asks for proof. -Bill Johnson
Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its trust, not in the living God, but in dying men. -A.W. Tozer
There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence. -John Calvin
All unbelief is the belief of a lie. -Horatius Bonar
Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29 )
Charis: Subject to Change 