These were a blessing to me this week and I hope they will be to you as well.

Quote of the week  from https://twitter.com/Spurgeon_

Blog of the week:

Seven Things a Daughter Needs from Her Father

Runner up:  Seven Practical Prayer Tips

Picture of the week:

Way back when I was in school – light-years ago – we had a saying whenever we wanted to check the correctness of our homework. We would simply ask, “what does the book say?” Today, my 6^th grader only has a couple of textbooks and she seldom is allowed to bring them home. In my day, most of my textbooks came home laden with hours of homework. As we worked through the answers, we always had to check our work with “what the book says.”

I find that in Christian circles these days, many have forgotten to ask that question: what does the book – the Bible –say? We have plenty of answers and we usually believe OURS are the correct ones and those who differ are wrong, eternally wrong. We have our answers because we are smart, because we’ve been Christian for so long, we just know what the right answer should be.

We no longer need God’s version of “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sallie,” because we add, subtract, multiply, and divide by our own whims. We do not need God’s version of a dictionary, because we define what words mean according to our own understanding; words like marriage, sin, prosper. We do not need to know God’s history because we live in a more sophisticated world and the history we read about in the Bible is irrelevant to our day.

The trouble with the above paragraph is that it is all WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. We need to go back and see what the book says. Remember what Jesus said at the close of His classic Sermon on the Mount:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” – Matthew 7:24-27

Our own answers have gotten us in a mess. We need to stop figuring it out on our own, and find out what the book says – the Bible.  Our lives are an OPEN BOOK test.

I grew up in a Bible believing church where, as a young child, I had faithful teachers and pastors who invested time in my life to teach me God’s Word and to model it with their own lives. I also went to a Christian school where teachers interwove Bible truths with traditional learning. We learned that God was real and present in every part of our lives. We were required to memorize the Bible so that its truths were packaged “to go” in our hearts and readily available to us in our times of need.

Most of what I know about the Bible I learned at my church and school as a kid. Those teachings stuck with me, shaped me, comforted me, challenged me, and corrected me. They have been food to my soul.

For some reason, as we grow older, we start to look at those things we learned in our younger years as passé, and we challenge them, abandon them, or totally ignore them. Some of us find our way back, some don’t. For those of us who do, we wonder why we ever doubted, for we see so clearly in our more mature years the truthfulness of God’s Word and the value of its teaching. I wish there was some way that I could impress upon every young person just how “fool proof” a life built on God’s principles is.

Some never completely stray but still face the temptation to find sufficiency in things other than God’s Word. Maybe it’s their own ingenuity or skills, or the teaching of the latest guru, but for some reason they think they know better than God. He lets us try our own thing knowing all the while where we will wind up . . . flat on our faces.

I am thankful for all those who invested in me, and I hope that I am proving to be a profitable return on your investment. As I get older, I see more and more that I can trust God’s Word. I commend God’s Word to you. Let’s get back in the Word. Let’s learn it and live it, read it and heed it. It works.

But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. – 2 Timothy 3:14-17

Just wanted to use the space today to share with you some of what I have read that has blessed me this week.  I hope these reads are a blessing to you as well.

Waiting Well – Tony Evans

The real problem isn’t the waiting – it’s what happens in our hearts while we wait.

For too many of us, waiting creates a downward spiral of impatience, frustration, selfishness and anger in our hearts. While waiting in line, we find flaws with the people in front of us.

And if this is how we respond to other people, what happens in our hearts when God makes us wait?

Click here to read the rest at Tony Evans’ blog

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“God often hides His blessing in trouble or trial, which makes it all the sweeter when it comes our way.” AW Tozer

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Seven Reasons Churches Are Too Busy – Thom Rainer

So how did churches get so busy? How did their calendars fill up so quickly that it left no breathing room for members and staff? There seems to be seven major contributing factors.

Click here to read those seven factors in the rest of Dr. Rainer’s blog.

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One of the things I am trusting God to accomplish through this latest challenge in my life is to use me to encourage others in their trials. One of the Scripture passages I claimed early in this ordeal is 2 Corinthians 1:3-5. Some good will come through my trials if I am able to help others going through trials of their own. With that in mind, I want to share with you how God spoke to me this past weekend through another blog.

Consider this verse from Job 23:10:

 But He knows the way that I take; when He has tried me, I shall come out as gold.

Some things worth noting in this verse begin with the truth that God both knows and sees what is happening in our lives. I have to admit, there are times lately that I feel I am “out of sight, out of mind” to people. I can rest assured, however, that I am neither out of God’s sight or His mind, and I am ESPECIALLY not out of His heart. The same holds true for you if you are experiencing a time of great testing in your life. Rest assured that God sees and knows where you are.

Also, God has a purpose and plan for the circumstances of our lives. Nothing happens to us by accident, not even those things that we deem “bad.” Remember this truth: GOD NEVER WASTES YOUR TEARS. Romans 8:28 reminds us that God uses all things – the good, the bad, the seemingly indifferent – for our good and His glory if we are one of His. Verse 29 reminds us that God uses all of our circumstances to conform us to the image of Jesus, and we remember He endured suffering for us for the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2).

Trials will never be easy, but we can endure them by looking up to the One who sees and knows us and looking forward to the eventual outcome – the good that God will bring from your present circumstances. I am going to hang in there, will you hang in there too? Let me know how I can pray for you.

Fire-breathing dragons, beautiful damsels in distress, brave knights in shining armor. As a child, I loved those stories. Then someone told me – and I just HAD to believe them – that dragons are fictional, they don’t exist. So I chalked it up to yet another childhood fantasy ruined by the growing up process. I resigned myself to the fact that dragons don’t exist.

As I have grown older, I have been enlightened to the REAL TRUTH – dragons DO exist! I know they exist because I have been burned by them on more than one occasion. These modern day dragons breathe the fires of criticism, sarcasm, and negativity out of their mouths. They burn with their words and the manner in which they use their words. Consider what the Bible says about these dragons:

The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. – James 3:6

You have probably experienced these kinds of dragons yourself. You may even have a face in mind as you read this. They criticize what others do while doing little themselves. They spew the flame of insinuation and innuendo. Their words blaze with bitter sarcasm. I have felt the singe of their fire and so have you. Whoever said, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” never met a dragon.

We are not called to be dragon-slayers, that job belongs to God, but we have been given the shield of faith in order to quench all the fiery darts of the devil – including the stinging burn of the dragon’s words. The shield of faith reminds me WHOSE I am. James reminds us that the fire from the mouth of our dragons originates from hell itself and anything that emanates from hell is nothing but a lie.

The shield of faith reminds us that we are children of the KING. He is the One we aim to please, not the dragon. What the dragon has to say to us and about us is inconsequential to what God thinks about us. If we let the fire burn us, if we begin to believe what those dragons say about us, we are in danger of becoming dragons too, and using our words to hurt others.

So the next time a dragon breathes fire at you, just take a moment to remember where that fire originated – the home of all lies. Turn that fire around and use it instead to ignite a sacrifice of praise on the altar of your heart. Thank God that what that dragon says is a lie, but that what God thinks about you is the TRUTH. Here is one little dagger from God’s sword that you can use to stab the next dragon who attacks you:

The Lord your God is in your midst,
    a mighty one who will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
    He will quiet you by His love;
He will exult over you with loud singing. – Zephaniah 3:17

I love neologisms. A neologism is a newly coined term, word, or phrase slowly making its way into mainstream language. My favorite neologism of late is obliviot, someone who is oblivious to his surroundings and makes an idiot of himself. Unfortunately, if I am not careful, I become a spiritual obliviot and miss God when He comes to me in the almost unnoticeable details of life.

Consider Moses as he was going about the daily routine of herding his father-in-law’s sheep just as he had done for 40 years. Not much changed in the daily scenery or schedule for a 15^th Century BC sheepherder. Then, suddenly, one day, something peculiar caught his eye. He almost missed it, but he didn’t.

Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”
– Exodus 3:1-3

What if Moses had not noticed this phenomenon? What if his profit margin had been foremost in his heart? What if, in boredom or frustration, he had been daydreaming of a better job? What if Moses had missed God?

What about us? How many times do we miss God each day because we are not looking for Him? What if that schedule “interruption” is actually divine initiative as God positions us so He can use us in someone’s life? What if we slowed down to notice the grandeur of God’s creation all around us and recognized Him in our day? What if God is trying to come to us in a gentle breeze, a child’s laughter, or a “chance” encounter (if there were such a thing)?

Let me encourage you to look around you today and look for God to show up. We understand from His Word that His presence is inescapable (Psalm 139:7-12), but today, tune into that presence and look for God to reveal Himself to you in some ways. There is an old saying, “The devil is in the details.” Although I loathe bogging down in details, I do not believe that saying is true. On the other hand, often God is in the details of our lives, lurking quietly hoping someone will notice Him and enjoy the blessings of His revelation for that day and time. Open your eyes; you don’t want to miss anything.

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. – Ephesians 5:15-16

Baseball is 90% mental, and the other half physical.” – Yogi Berra

“Stop and think.” – Jim’s guide to spiritual growth

OK, sure, Yogi’s math was a little off, but he expressed the important concept that baseball is a thinking man’s game. Every pitch requires each player on the field to instantly process and think through a myriad of choices. The pitcher and catcher must think about which pitch to throw. Then the hitter must determine the speed, location, and direction of a pitch, then decide whether to swing or not. (By the way, a hitter has 0.4583333 seconds before a 90 mph fastball reaches home plate!) As the pitcher delivers the pitch, each player reviews various assignments depending on if and where the batter hits the ball. That is why players and coaches devote a good part of practice to situational drills. Yes, baseball is a thinking man’s game.

So is our spiritual life. We cannot expect to grow or thrive in our spiritual development by accident. We grow by thinking about and pondering the right things. We call this discipline MEDITATION.

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. – Joshua 1:8

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. – Philippians 4:8

To meditate on something is to look deeply into its meaning and ponder its application. Quite simply, meditating is taking the time to stop and think about what God has said in His Word – what He has said specifically to you. In other words, stop and think.

Read it several times, each time emphasizing a different word to shine light from every angle and to observe the many reflections of God’s truth in the passage. After pondering the verse’s meaning, determine at least one specific way immediately to apply the verse to your life – your behavior, thoughts, or attitudes. Then to secure the truth indelibly in your mind, memorize the verse so that you can recall it at will and remind yourself of its truth on a regular basis.

With apologies to Yogi:

Spiritual growth is 90% mental, the other half behavioral.