><//>--------------------Thought for the Day
What am I going to do today for Messiah, or the Body of Christ? Is there someone I should call on the telephone or someone I should go to see? Is there a letter or an email I should write? Are there even any thoughts like this in my mind or is every one of them about myself and my own? Is there an opportunity somewhere to advance the work of Jesus, which I have been putting off or neglecting? If so, will I do it today? Will I be done with procrastination and do what I have to do today? Tomorrow may be too late. How do I know there will be a tomorrow for me? How about getting out of my easy chair and getting going?
Do I feel that the body of Christ can depend partly on me today?
><//>--------------------Meditation for the Day
Faith – Vision
Turn your eyes to behold Me. Look away from sordid surroundings, from lack of beauty, from the imperfections in yourselves and those around you. Then you, who have the Faith – Vision, will see all you could and do desire in Me.
In your unrest behold My calm. My rest. In your impatience, My unfailing patience. In your lack and limitation, My Perfection.
Looking at Me you will grow like Me, until men say to you, too, that you have been with Jesus.
As you grow like Me you will be enabled to do the things I do, and greater works than these shall you do because I go unto My Father.
From that place of abiding, limited by none of humanity’s limitations, I can endue you with the all-conquering, all miracle-working Power of your Divine Brother and Ally.
><//>--------------------Prayer for the Day
Father, we pray that we may keep our eyes trained above the horizon of ourselves. We pray that we may see infinite possibilities for spiritual growth. Amen.
A Disciple’s Reflections: On Being 'Left Behind'
Beloved, from time to time the Spirit comes unto me with a word of caution regarding spiritual readiness and maturity. I naturally take this as a word for me, but I pass it on for those who can relate to it and benefit from it as I do.
If only it was something complicated, then we would have excuse. We could say, well Lord, we wanted to be more like you, it’s just we’re so dumb and your word can be so complicated.
Thank Heaven, beloved, our God cannot be duped by our attempts to weasel out of our responsibility by what I call spiritual dwarfism.
God has built us in such a way that if we just keep our eyes on Messiah, on Jesus, after a fashion we would begin to act and look as He does. It would take some time, but that’s all, just time. It’s a no-brainer. We are without excuse.
I must confess, I don’t read the Bible as much as I should. There are those times that my heart has been so resentful with God at the condition of my life that I can hardly pray. Sound familiar? Yet, I can’t help but to think about Jesus throughout the day, no matter what. I quietly remember how he responded when dishonored and disrespected by His enemies. I remembered the pity and patient love he displayed in the face of His slow learning disciples. I sometimes picture in my mind His using the word FRIEND to the very one who had just betrayed Him unto death.
I also consider how he lived without an intimate loved one in the carnal sense. He went through puberty, adolescence, and adulthood with all the pressures for intimate companionship as we experience and yet He remained unto His own and sinless.
When He said, I have overcome the flesh, He meant that His Spirit had become King, taking authority, over His body and mind; not His body and mind as King over His Spirit, which is more often than not the very state in which most believers are to be found.
The question for us each day is a simple one. Where are we going to focus our attention? Is it going to be family, business, or some other interest of ours? Or is it going to be the Lord and His interests that are going to be the center of our thinking.
We seem to become that which we are involved in. It seems to be some kind of law or principle at work in this world.
I have a friend who had a deep New York accent to his speech all his life. Some years ago he moved to Virginia, and then to Alabama. When we had an occasion to meet a little while ago, I couldn’t get over the southern drawl that flowed in his speech. He didn’t take special classes on southern drawl, it just happened because he was around it all the time.
This is just how it is with Jesus. The more time we spend with Him as the center of our lives, the more we become like Him. Reading the Bible is not enough, and often bible study and seminary leave us puffed up in our intellectual pride.
I’m talking about realizing that the Bible is Jesus on paper. It is when we feel its heartbeat and dwell with it in all our affairs that we begin to take on His likeness. Bible study will not do it, nor will Bible Schools or institutions that prepare men and women for ministry. Sorry, they only get in the way in most cases. It simply takes spending time with the living Jesus, and there just aren't any substitutes for the Master Himself.
Did you ever meet people who study the bible, but don’t really walk with Jesus? Well, I’ll leave the answer to that one up to you.
I really don't want to be left behind, nor do I wish anyone I know to be left behind. Were anyone to ask me where to begin this intimacy. I suggest believers should check out the Beatitudes. We shouldn't study them, but rather we should eat them. We do best to take them in, meditate upon them and most of all pray the Lord for the wisdom and power to apply them to our lives each and every day..
Let us consider the Great Commission, beloved. When we check it out in our Bibles, let's see if it says to make "believers" of all men. No, it says that we should make "disciples" of all men. There's a big difference between the two that is rarely mentioned in our churches. Let us all make the right choices and find that we're not left behind.
There's a Wedding Supper we should all wish to attend. I desire to be there, and be rightly attired.
I take this as a word from the Spirit to me, but if one can relate to the message... then all the better. I desire all my friends to be at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb.
For He Is With Us
"And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him."
– John 8:29
A young man named Michael Blake suffered through poverty while writing screenplays that for years were never accepted. He admits, "I slept on a lot of floors," as friends would let him stay at their homes. Then he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph system, which is currently in remission. But then he did something that would radically alter his life. He wrote a book that sold 30,000 copies. It was not a massive best seller, but Kevin Costner liked it and made the movie Dances with Wolves from it. Now the book has sold over 2 million copies, and Michael has won the Oscar for the movie adaptation.
He now enjoys speaking in schools and to homeless children. "I tell them that if you stay committed, your dreams can come true. I am living proof of it. I left home at seventeen and had nothing but rejection for twenty-five years. I wrote more than twenty screenplays, but I never quit."
I hope none of us will quit. No matter how challenging our situation is. "God is with us."
Our Prayer: Dear God, thank you for the promise that nothing can separate us from Your love. Amen.
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Please have a blessed day, be hopeful, be encouraged, and know you are not alone.
“God Calling” compiled by A. J. Russell.
"Twenty-Four Hours A Day" Hazelton – adapted.
Ron Newhouse writes For He Is With Us.
Barry Gray writes A Disciple’s Reflections.
