I, a pilgrim of eternity, stand before Thee, O eternal One...

O Eternal God, though Thou art not such as I can see with my eyes or touch with my hands, yet grant me this day a clear conviction of Thy reality and power. Let me not go forth to my work believing only in the world of sense and time, but give me grace to understand that the world I cannot see or touch is the most real world of all. My life to-day will be lived in time, but eternal issues will be concerned in it. The needs of my body will be clamant, but it is for the needs of my soul that I must care most. My business will be with things material, but behind them let me be aware of things spiritual. Let me keep steadily in mind that the things that matter are not money or possessions, not houses or lands, not bodily comfort or bodily pleasure; but truth and honour and meekness and helpfulness and a pure love of Thyself.

For the power Thou hast given me to lay hold of things unseen:

For the strong sense I have that this is not my home:

For my restless heart which nothing finite can satisfy:

I give Thee thanks, O God.

For the invasion of my soul by Thy Holy Spirit:

For all human love and goodness that speak to me of Thee:

For the fullness of Thy glory outpoured in Jesus Christ:

I give Thee thanks, O God.

I, a pilgrim of eternity, stand before Thee, O eternal One. Let me not seek to deaden or destroy the desire for Thee that disturbs my heart. Let me rather yield myself to its constraint and go where it leads me. Make me wise to see all things to-day under the form of eternity, and make me brave to face all the changes in my life which such a vision may entail: through the grace of Christ my Saviour. Amen.  -John Baillie image

How Great Thou Art!

A young girl shares a sweet moment with her great grandmother when she serenades her with ‘How Great Thou Art.’

Then at the end something unexpected happens 💕

pic.twitter.com/ATtSlJ4IDS

— Kevin W. (@Brink_Thinker) June 3, 2023

Book: "A Praying Church", by Paul E. Miller

Hey all-I am reading "A Praying Church" by Paul E. Miller.  A great read-biblical, encouraging and a great reminder for the contempary church of the importance of corporate prayer in the body of believers. -PD

Excerpt: “The American church is functionally prayerless when it comes to corporate prayer,” he writes. “Of course, a remnant does the hidden work of prayer, but in most churches corporate prayer doesn’t function in any meaningful way.”

 

Cultivating a Praying Church with Paul E. Miller 

 Amazon

A Prayer for Memorial Day

A Prayer for Memorial Day

Holy God, your love is stronger than death,

and your life-giving power has no end.

We commend to your eternal care

all who have died in the service of others,

even as we lament the violence of war.

Comfort and sustain all those who mourn.

Heal the wounded body, mind, and spirit.

Bring justice, freedom, and dignity to all people

and bring an end to war throughout the earth

so that all may know your promised peace;

through Christ, the resurrection and the life.

-David Gambrell

O God of burning, cleansing flame...

O God of burning, cleansing flame:

Send the fire!

Your blood-bought gift today we claim:

Send the fire today!

Look down and see this waiting host,

And send the promised Holy Ghost;

We need another Pentecost!

Send the fire today!

God of Elijah, hear our cry:

Send the fire!

And make us fit to live or die:

Send the fire today!

To burn up every trace of sin,

To bring the light and glory in,

The revolution now begin!

Send the fire today!

It’s fire we want, for fire we plead:

Send the fire!

The fire will meet our every need:

Send the fire today!

For strength to always do what’s right,

For grace to conquer in the fight,

For power to walk the world in white:

Send the fire today!

To make our weak hearts strong and brave:

Send the fire!

To live, a dying world to save:

Send the fire today!

Oh, see us on Your altar lay,

We give our lives to you today,

So crown the offering now we pray:

Send the fire today!

-William Booth 

National Day of Prayer 2023: Praying for America

Thursday May 4th, 2023

God is sovereign and nothing comes as a surprise to Him. Whether we face fluctuating economics, threats from abroad, unrest at home, or other troubling circumstances, our Heavenly Father is not caught unaware. Through prayer, we are able to tap into His wisdom, strength, protection, and peace. He stands ready to respond to our needs when we humbly ask for divine intervention in the affairs of men.

As we Pray for America whose pledge of allegiance recounts that we are “one nation under God,” and whose currency states that it is “in God we trust,” we want Americans to encounter the God who rules over their country. “He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals His thoughts to man, He who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth—the LORD God Almighty is His name.” -Amos 4:13 NIV

He is the One who gave us this promise in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” As we humbly and diligently seek Him, we’ll be changed, and we’ll see transformation in America through prayer!

HOW TO PRAY FOR AMERICA - BY PRAYING INTO SEVEN CENTERS OF INFLUENCE IN OUR NATION

The day may bring many strange things to us...

The day may bring many strange things to us, perplexing or painful or disappointing; but this stands strong: our prayer has not been turned away, nor His loving kindness.   -Amy Carmichael

What was our Lord thinking about as He walked along the roads of Galilee...

What was our Lord thinking about as He walked along the roads of Galilee, so often alone? What were His thoughts in times of repose during the journeys by boat that He liked making with His disciples after a day's exhausting preaching? What occupied His mind among the hills where He liked to go alone, without even the disciples? The answer, we may think, is easy: He was thinking of men, of sinners and their salvation, and what He had to do to effect that salvation.

But, surprising as it may seem to us, it wasn't with us that Jesus was concerned. The constant object of His meditation, the natural orientation of His heart and mind and soul, the food that constantly nourished Him, was His Father. ...Louis Everly

He is risen, He is risen!

He is risen, He is risen!

Tell it out with joyful voice:

He has burst his three days' prison;

Let the whole wide earth rejoice:

Death is conquered, man is free,

Christ has won the victory.

Come, with high and holy hymning,

Chant our Lord's triumphant day;

Not one darksome cloud is dimming

Yonder glorious morning ray,

Breaking o’er the purple east,

Symbol of our Easter feast.

He is risen, He is risen!

He hath opened heaven's gate:

We are free from sin's dark prison,

Risen to a holier state;

And a brighter Easter beam

On our longing eyes shall stream.

-Joachim Neander image

LORD, God of my salvation...

LORD, God of my salvation;

I cry out day and night before you.

Let my prayer come before you;

incline your ear to my cry!

 

For my soul is full of troubles,

and my life draws near to Sheol.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit;

I am a man who has no strength,

like one set loose among the dead,

like the slain that lie in the grave,

like those whom you remember no more,

for they are cut off from your hand.

You have put me in the depths of the pit,

in the regions dark and deep.

Your wrath lies heavy upon me,

and you overwhelm me with all your waves.

 

You have caused my companions to shun me;

you have made me a horror to them.

I am shut in so that I cannot escape;

my eye grows dim through sorrow.

Every day I call upon you, O LORD;

I spread out my hands to you.

Do you work wonders for the dead?

Do the departed rise up to praise you?

Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,

or your faithfulness in Abaddon?

Are your wonders known in the darkness,

or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

 

But I, O LORD, cry to you;

in the morning my prayer comes before you.

O LORD, why do you cast my soul away?

Why do you hide your face from me?

Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,

I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.

Your wrath has swept over me;

your dreadful assaults destroy me.

They surround me like a flood all day long;

they close in on me together.

You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;

my companions have become darkness.

-Psalm 88 

My faith looks up to Thee!

My faith looks up to Thee,

Thou Lamb of Calvary, Savior divine!

Now hear me while I pray, take all my guilt away,

O let me from this day be wholly Thine!

 

May Thy rich grace impart

Strength to my fainting heart, my zeal inspire!

As Thou hast died for me, O may my love to Thee,

Pure warm, and changeless be, a living fire!

 

While life’s dark maze I tread,

And griefs around me spread, be Thou my Guide;

Bid darkness turn to day, wipe sorrow’s tears away,

Nor let me ever stray from Thee aside.

When ends life’s transient dream,

When death’s cold sullen stream over me roll;

Blest Savior, then in love, fear and distrust remove;

O bear me safe above, a ransomed soul!

-Ray Palmer

The Lord Jesus loves his people so much...

Then He poureth water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded. -John 13:5

 

The Lord Jesus loves his people so much, that every day he is still doing for them much that is analogous to washing their soiled feet. Their poorest actions he accepts; their deepest sorrow he feels; their slenderest wish he hears, and their every transgression he forgives. He is still their servant as well as their Friend and Master....humbly, patiently, he yet goes about among his people with the basin and the towel. He does this when he puts away from us day by day our constant infirmities and sins....It is a great act of eternal love when Christ once for all absolves the sinner, and puts him into the family of God; but what condescending patience there is when the Saviour with much long-suffering bears the oft recurring follies of his wayward disciple; day by day, and hour by hour, washing away the multiplied transgressions of his erring but yet beloved child!....While we find comfort and peace in our Lord’s daily cleansing, its legitimate influence upon us will be to increase our watchfulness, and quicken our desire for holiness. Is it so?  ...CH Spurgeon image

Hosanna, loud hosanna, the little children sang...

Hosanna, loud hosanna, the little children sang;

 Through pillared court and temple the lovely anthem rang.  

To Jesus, who had blessed them close folded to His breast,  

The children sang their praises, the simplest and the best.

 

From Olivet they followed mid an exultant crowd,  

The victor palm branch waving, and chanting clear and loud.  

The Lord of men and angels rode on in lowly state,  

Nor scorned that little children should on His bidding wait.

 

“Hosanna in the highest!” that ancient song we sing,  

For Christ is our Redeemer, the Lord of Heaven our king.  

O may we ever praise Him with heart and life and voice,  

And in His blissful presence eternally rejoice! .

-Jeanette Threlfall

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God...

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.  And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.  And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.  And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.  For nothing will be impossible with God.”  And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. -Luke 1:26-38

“At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky...

“At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky 

And flinging the cloud and the towers by, 

Is a place of central calm: 

So here in the roar of mortal things, 

I have a place where my spirit sings, 

In the hollow of God’s Palm.”

-Edwin Markham

May the Strength of God pilot us...

May the Strength of God pilot us.

May the Power of God preserve us.

May the Wisdom of God instruct us.

May the Hand of God protect us.

May the Way of God direct us.

May the Shield of God defend us.

May the Host of God guard us.

Against the snares of the evil ones.

Against temptations of the world

May Christ be with us!

May Christ be before us!

May Christ be in us,

Christ be over all!

May Thy Salvation, Lord,

Always be ours,

This day, O Lord,

and evermore. Amen.

...St. Patrick image

A genuine Christian should be a walking mystery...

A genuine Christian should be a walking mystery because he surely is a walking miracle. Through the leading and the power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian is involved in a daily life and habit that cannot be explained. -A.W. Tozer

Ye hills, lift up your voices...

Ye hills, lift up your voices; let the shaggy woods upon your summits wave with adoration. Ye valleys, fill the air with the bleatings of your sheep and the lowing of your cattle. Ye that have life, if ye have voices, tune his praise; and if ye walk in silence, let your joyful motions show the thanks ye cannot speak. O, ye trees of the field, clap your hands; ye winds, in solemn harmony chant to his glory. 

Thou ocean, with thy myriad waves, in all thy solemn pomp, thy motion to and fro, forget not him who bids a thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain, and write no furrow on thy ever youthful brow. 

And you, ye storms, howl out his greatness; let your thunders roll like drums in the march of the God of armies; let your lightnings write his name in fire upon the midnight darkness; let the illimitable void of space become one mouth for song; and let the unnavigated ether, through its shoreless depths, bear through the infinite remote the name of him who is ever good and doeth good. -CH Spurgeon image

Lord make me as holy...

“Lord make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be.”

— Robert Murray M'Cheyne

You will never find Jesus so precious....

You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation—a rock rising above the storm.   

 -Robert Murray M’Cheyne

What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God...

What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now, as they must do at the last day. For each of us the time is surely coming when we shall have nothing but God! Health and wealth and friends and hiding places will all be swept away and we shall have only God. To the man of pseudo faith that is a terrifying thought, but to real faith it is one of the most comforting thoughts the heart can entertain.

It would be a tragedy indeed to come to the place where we have no other but God and find that we had not really been trusting God during the days of our earthly sojourn. It would be better to invite God now to remove every false trust, to disengage our hearts from all secret hiding places and to bring us out into the open where we can discover for ourselves whether we actually trust Him. This is a harsh cure for our troubles, it is a sure one! Gentler cures may be too weak to do the work. And time is running out on us. -A.W. Tozer

Ash Wednesday: O Lord, the house of my soul is narrow...

O Lord, the house of my soul is narrow; enlarge it that thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous, O repair it! It displeases thy sight; I confess it, I know. But who shall cleanse it, or to whom shall I cry but thee? Cleanse me from my secret faults, O Lord, and spare thy servant from strange sins. 

-St. Augustine, Confessions

Send out your light and your truth;

    let them lead me;

let them bring me to your holy hill

    and to your dwelling! -Psalm 43:3

Transfiguration of Jesus: These are the divine wonders we celebrate today...

These are the divine wonders we celebrate today; this is the saving revelation given us upon the mountain; this is the festival of Christ that has drawn us here. Let us listen, then, to the sacred voice of God so compellingly calling us from on high, from the summit of the mountain, so that with the Lord’s chosen disciples we may penetrate the deep meaning of these holy mysteries, so far beyond our capacity to express. Jesus goes before us to show us the way, both up the mountain and into heaven, and - I speak boldly - it is for us now to follow him with all speed, yearning for the heavenly vision that will give us a share in his radiance, renew our spiritual nature and transform us into his own likeness, making us for ever sharers in his Godhead and raising us to heights as yet undreamed of.

 

Let us run with confidence and joy to enter into the cloud like Moses and Elijah, or like James and John. Let us be caught up like Peter to behold the divine vision and to be transfigured by that glorious transfiguration. Let us retire from the world, stand aloof from the earth, rise above the body, detach ourselves from creatures and turn to the creator, to whom Peter in ecstasy exclaimed: Lord, it is good for us to be here.  -St. Athanasius on the Transfiguration image

Asbury Professor: We’re Witnessing a ‘Surprising Work of God’...

Tom McCall

February 13, 2023

"...As an analytic theologian, I am weary of hype and very wary of manipulation. I come from a background (in a particularly revivalist segment of the Methodist-holiness tradition) where I’ve seen efforts to manufacture “revivals” and “movements of the Spirit” that were sometimes not only hollow but also harmful. I do not want anything to do with that.

And to be perfectly clear, this is nothing like that. There is no pressure or hype. There is no manipulation. There is no high-pitched emotional fervor.

To the contrary, it has been mostly calm and serene. The mix of hope and joy and peace is indescribably strong and indeed almost palpable—a vivid and incredibly powerful sense of shalom. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is undeniably powerful but also so gentle.

The holy love of the triune God is apparent, and there is an inexpressible sweetness and innate attractiveness to it. It is immediately obvious why no one wants to leave and why those who must leave want to come back as soon as they can..."  the rest

"I found myself with Unspeakable Joy and Awe" - Evan Roberts (Welsh Revival)

“We are just sitting with him, it’s just deeply gentle and deeply loving; it’s just a glimpse of what I think HEAVEN WILL LOOK LIKE.” - Alison Perfater (Asbury Student Body President)#asburyrevival 🔥 pic.twitter.com/qWxU1ugImm

— Greg Gordon (@gregjgordon) February 13, 2023

"This is Revival it isn't hype. It's ordinary people crying out for a move of God."

Are you hungry for more of God? Have a posture of "heart cry" for God's work. Go "low"

He will touch you where you are.#asburyrevival 🔥 #moveofgod pic.twitter.com/2bFMHhJbIF

— Greg Gordon (@gregjgordon) February 13, 2023

Holy Spirit power...

I fear that if you take the preaching throughout the Church of Christ and ask why there is, alas! so little converting power in the preaching of the Word, why there is so much work and often so little result for eternity, why the Word has so little power to build up believers in holiness and in consecration,—the answer will come: It is the absence of the power of the Holy Ghost. And why is this? There can be no other reason but that the flesh and human energy have taken the place that the Holy Ghost ought to have. -Andrew Murray

Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God!

From subtle love of softening things,

From easy choices, weakenings,

(Not thus are spirits fortified;

Not this way went the Crucified;)

From all that dims Thy Calvary,

O Lamb of God, deliver me.

 

Give me the love that leads the way,

The faith that nothing can dismay,

The hope no disappointments tire,

The passion that will burn like fire;

Let me not sink to be a clod:

Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God!

-Amy Carmichael

Earth breaks up, time drops away...

Earth breaks up, time drops away,

In flows heaven, with its new day

Of endless life, when He who trod,

Very man and very God,

This earth in weakness, shame and pain,

Dying the death whose signs remain

Up yonder on the accursed tree,—

Shall come again, no more to be

Of captivity the thrall,

But the one God, All in all,

King of kings, Lord of lords,

As His servant John received the words,

“I died, and live for evermore!”

-Robert Browning 

Around us is a world lost in sin...

“Around us is a world lost in sin, above us is a God willing and able to save; it is ours to build the bridge that links heaven and earth, and prayer is the mighty instrument that does the work.” -E.M. Bounds

Hosanna to the King Of David’s ancient blood...

Hosanna to the King

Of David’s ancient blood;

Behold, he comes to bring

Forgiving grace from God:

Let old and young

Attend his way,

And at his feet

Their honors lay.

 

Glory to God on high;

Salvation to the Lamb;

Let earth, and sea, and sky,

His wondrous love proclaim:

Upon his head

Shall honors rest,

And every age

Pronounce him bless’d.

-Isaac Watts  image

We are anchored in God...

For a spiritual life is simply a life in which all that we do comes from the centre, where we are anchored in God: a life soaked through and through by a sense of His reality and claim, and self-given to the great movement of His will. 

-Evelyn Underhill

He comes to us in the brokenness...

He comes to us in the brokenness of our health,

in the shipwreck of our family lives,

in the loss of all possible peace of mind,

even in the very thick of our sins.

He saves us in our disasters, not from them.

He emphatically does not promise to meet

only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery:

He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing.

-Robert Farrar Capon

Your helplessness is your best prayer...

Your helplessness is your best prayer. It calls from your heart to the heart of God with greater effect than all your uttered pleas. He hears it from the very moment that you are seized with helplessness, and He becomes actively engaged at once in hearing and answering the prayer of your helplessness.  -O. Hallesby

Prayer and a holy life are one...

Prayer and a holy life are one. They mutually act and react. Neither can survive alone... We are in danger of substituting churchly work and a ceaseless round of showy activities for prayer and holy living. A holy life does not live in the closet, but it cannot live without the closet. If, by any chance, a prayer chamber should be established without a holy life, it would be a chamber without the presence of God in it. ...E.M. Bounds

Happy New Year 2023!

"For you shall not go out in haste,
    and you shall not go in flight,
for the Lord will go before you,
    and the God of Israel will be your rear guard."

 -Isaiah 52:12

Security from Yesterday. "God requireth that which is past." At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.

Security for Tomorrow. "For the Lord will go before you." This is a gracious revelation, that God will garrison where we have failed to. He will watch lest things trip us up again into like failure, as they assuredly would do if He were not our rereward. God's hand reaches back to the past and makes a clearing-house for conscience.

Security for Today. "For ye shall not go out with haste." As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him. 

-Oswald Chambers image

Love came down at Christmas...

 Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love Divine;

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and Angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,

Love Incarnate, Love Divine;

Worship we our Jesus:

But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,

Love be yours and love be mine,

Love to God and all men,

Love for plea and gift and sign.

...Christina Rossetti image

Merry Christmas to all the readers of this blog!
Raymond and Pat Dague

Fear not because your prayer is stammering...

Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble, and your language poor. Jesus can understand you. Just as a mother understands the first lispings of her infant, so does the blessed Saviour understand sinners. He can read a sigh, and see a meaning in a groan. -JC Ryle

Christ, whose glory fills the skies!

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,

Christ the true, the only Light,

Sun of Righteousness, arise!

Triumph o'er the shades of night:

Dayspring from on high, be near;

Daystar, in my heart appear.

Dark and cheerless is the morn

Unaccompanied by thee;

Joyless is the day's return,

Till thy mercy's beams I see,

Till they inward light impart,

Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.

Visit then this soul of mine!

Pierce the gloom of sin and grief!

Fill me, Radiancy Divine;

Scatter all my unbelief;

More and more thyself display,

Shining to the perfect day.

-Charles Wesley