Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me...

 

Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me

I Set My Hope On Jesus...

 

 I Set My Hope: Keith & Kristyn Getty, Matt Boswell, Matt Papa

God has called us to shine...

God has called us to shine, just as much as Daniel was sent into Babylon to shine. Let no man or woman say that they cannot shine because they have not so much influence as some others may have. What God wants you to do is to use the influence you have. Daniel probably did not have much influence down in Babylon at first, but God soon gave him more because he was faithful and used what he had.  

-Dwight Lyman Moody

My God is All I Need...

 

 CityAlight: My God is All I Need/My God is So Big

Highlights Of The 1904-1905 Welsh Revival

Bill Muehlenberg

September 8, 2023

Excerpt: 

There are plenty of highlights one can look at when discussing the issue of revival. Here I want to look at one of the two major revivals that broke out in Wales – the one of 1904-1905. There were actually many revivals in Wales, and I have already examined the Welsh Revival of 1859 in another piece.

Read it all! image

Heaven-sent revival is an incredible thing. One can only pray, “Do it again Lord”.

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved...

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.  

-Colossians 3:12-17

Kindness has converted more sinners 

than zeal, eloquence, or learning.

-Frederick William Faber

If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy...

If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy, we must go this way of renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God He will sooner or later bring us to this test. Abraham’s testing was, at the time, not known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one he did, the whole history of the Old Testament would have been different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.  

-A.W. Tozer image

Time for Another Great Awakening...

September 3, 2023

By Jeff Lukens

We live in an age of unbelief.  The foundations of American life are eroding.  America is entering an uncharted, revolutionary time.  We are no longer the America of our founders or even the America that existed twenty years ago.  We are in trouble, and a cataclysm of ominous events may soon overwhelm us.  We need a national spiritual revival.   

Two seminal revival movements were such game-changing events in American history that historians were compelled to call them Great Awakenings.  The First Great Awakening in the mid-1700s created the moral climate for the Declaration of Independence and the founding of a new country, conceived in liberty, that would truly become a light to the nations. 

The Second Great Awakening in the mid-1800s was even more potent and culminated with Abraham Lincoln and the abolition of slavery.  As a result of this movement, the United States has liberated more people economically, politically, and spiritually than any other nation in history.

The problems of America today cannot be solved by politicians or our broken culture.  We need another Great Awakening on a scale and resolve equal to the first two.  There are some hopeful signs this may be happening.  Read it all! image

O, my friends, we are leaky vessels...

A great many think because they have been filled once, they are going to be full for all time after; but O, my friends, we are leaky vessels, and have to be kept right under the fountain all the time in order to keep full. If we are going to be used by God we have to be very humble. A man that lives close to God will be the humblest of men. I heard a man say that God always chooses the vessel that is close at hand. Let us keep near Him.  -Dwight Lyman Moody

The New Testament begins with the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ...

The New Testament begins with the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. No part of the Bible is so important as this, and no part is so full and complete. Four distinct Gospels tell us the story of Christ’s doing and dying. Four times over we read the precious account of His works and words. How thankful we ought to be for this! To know Christ is life eternal. To believe in Christ is to have peace with God. To follow Christ is to be a true Christian. To be with Christ will be heaven itself. We can never hear too much about Jesus Christ.  -J.C. Ryle 

“Yes, for Him I want to be kept...

“Yes, for Him I want to be kept. Kept for His sake; kept for His use; kept to be His witness; kept for His joy! Kept for Him, that in me He may show forth some tiny sparkle of His light and beauty; kept to do His will and His work in His own way; kept, it may be, to suffer for His sake; kept for Him, that He may do just what seemeth Him good with me; kept, so that no other lord shall have any more dominion over me, but that Jesus shall have all there is to have;—little enough, indeed, but not divided or diminished by any other claim.”   -Frances Ridley Havergal

Holiness...

Holiness comes not of blood—parents cannot give it to their children: nor yet of the will of the flesh—man cannot produce it in himself: nor yet of the will of man—ministers cannot give it you by baptism. Holiness comes from Christ. It is the result of vital union with Him. It is the fruit of being a living branch of the True Vine.   -J.C. Ryle

“Everything that God brings into our life...

“Everything that God brings into our life 

is directed to one purpose: 

that we might be conformed to the image of Christ.” 

-Erwin W. Lutzer

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

“The ability of God is beyond our prayers...

“The ability of God is beyond our prayers, beyond our largest prayers! I have been thinking of some of the petitions that have entered into my supplication innumerable times. What have I asked for? I have asked for a cupful, and the ocean remains!  I have asked for a sunbeam, and the sun abides!  My best asking falls immeasurably short of my Father’s giving: it is beyond what we can ask.”  –J. H. Jowett

There are many of us that are willing to do great things for the Lord...more

There are many of us that are willing to do great things for the Lord; but few of us willing to do little things... Look at that wonderful sermon that [Jesus] preached to that lone woman at the well of Samaria. He was tired and weary, but he had time and the heart to preach to her. This is but one of many instances in the life of the Master from which we may learn a precious lesson. If the Son of God had time to preach to one soul, cannot every one of us go and do the same?  

-Dwight Lyman Moody image

The Death of Church and Pub

by Carl R. Trueman

8/24/23

Excerpt:

The nature of community is changing. The old village has gone. One can lament the passing of parish churches and village pubs, but the type of community that birthed them has gone forever. But the human need for community—rich, real, personal community—will exist as long as our individual identities are tied up with looking into the faces of those who are “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.” In other words, that need will exist as long as we are human beings made in God’s image. And the answer is hospitality. Churches and Christians need to think about what this looks like in our modern world as much as they think about other aspects of the faith. And the good news is that the very things Christian decry in our current culture, from its superficiality to its instability to its hopelessness—make this a time of unparalleled opportunity.  

Full essay here-excellent!  image

Behold, I have refined you...

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; 

 I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. 

 -Isaiah 48:10 

As sure as God puts His children in the furnace of affliction, 

He will be with them in it.  ~Charles Spurgeon

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice...

 

Pastor Rob Burns: Peace Within

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.  Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand;  do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.  What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. -Philippians 4:4-9

Let us pardon those who have wronged us...

Let us pardon those who have wronged us. For that which others scarcely accomplish—I mean the blotting out of their own sins by means of fasting and lamentations, and prayers, and sackcloth and ashes—this it is possible for us easily to effect without sackcloth and ashes and fasting, if only we blot out anger from our heart, and with sincerity forgive those who have wronged us.  -St. John Chrysostom