Prayer

Oswald Chambers explained prayer by saying, “We are based on the platform of Reality in prayer by the Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not our earnestness that brings us into touch with God, nor our devotedness, nor our times of prayer, but our Lord Jesus Christ’s vitalizing death; and our times of prayer are evidences of reaction on the reality of Redemption, so we have confidence and boldness of access into the holiest. What an unspeakable joy it is to know that we each have the right of approach to God in confidence…”

 

The Holy Spirit and You

Andrew Murray wrote about receiving the Holy Spirit: “Just as the Lord Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to Peter, He is willing to give the Holy Spirit to you. Are you willing to receive Him? Are you willing to give up yourself entirely as an empty, helpless vessel, to receive the power of the Holy Spirit, to live, to dwell, and to work in you every day?”

 

Temptation

G. Campbell Morgan wrote about the nature of temptation: “As to the purpose and method of Satan, his first purpose is to lure man into some position outside the will of God. His method is that of appealing to something perfectly lawful in itself, but suggesting that it should be satisfied by an unlawful method.”

 

Prayer Expresses a Relationship

D. Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote about prayer: “What, then, is prayer? …I suggest that we must inevitably come to the conclusion that prayer, to the Christian, to God’s man, is something natural and almost instinctive; prayer is something which is expressive of the relationship between the child and the Father.”

 

Endurance of Suffering

Arthur W. Pink wrote about the endurance of suffering: “One second of glory will outweigh a lifetime of suffering. What are years of toil, sickness, battling with poverty, sorrow in any or every form, when compared with the glory of Immanuel’s land! One drink from the river of pleasure at God’s right hand, one breath of Paradise, one hour amid the blood-washed around the throne, will more than compensate for all the tears and groans of earth.”

 

Maturity

Oswald Chambers wrote what it means to be mature in Christ: “The surest sign that you are growing in mature appreciation of your salvation is that as you look back you never think now of the things you used to bank on before. Think of the difference between your first realisation of God’s forgiveness, and your realisation of what it cost God to forgive you; the hilarity in the one case has been merged into holiness, you have become intensely devoted to God who forgave you.”

 

Worship

Max Lucado said this about God’s ability to change us through worship: “He loves to change the faces of his children. By his fingers, wrinkles of worry are rubbed away. Shadows of shame and doubt become portraits of grace and trust. He relaxes clenched jaws and smoothes furrowed brows. His touch can remove the bags of exhaustion from beneath the eyes and turn tears of despair into tears of peace.”

 

Hope

David Jeremiah wrote about a Christian’s hope: “Sooner or later in all of our lives we come to a fork in the road where we have to make a choice. Either we go on putting our trust in our own strength and in that which others may offer us in the human realm, or we choose the other realm and make our journey toward God. Hope in God is a decision we make. It is something that we choose.”

 

Kindess

“Kindness is a virtue of grace,” R. C. Sproul wrote about kindness. “It involves a willingness to keep one’s power and authority in check. It does not crush the weak. It is thoughtful and kind. It manifests the judgment of charity, tempering justice with mercy.”

 

Direction

Ethan Wayne, youngest son of actor John Wayne, said this about knowing your direction in life: “If we were out riding horses, or motorcycles, I might say something like, ‘I keep hitting rocks.’ He’d say, ‘Don’t look at them–look at where you want to go.’ He taught me to look at where I want to go. It works for a bicycle, a motorcycle, a horse–and life.”