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| Humble yourself and cease to care what men think. A meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather,... he has stopped being fooled about himself. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He has obtained a place of soul rest. The old struggle to defend himself is over. |
| Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice may it be only in praise. If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only of myself. |
| God does not judge the condition or quality of His church by how good the meetings are on Sunday morning, but by how good the people are on Monday morning. The main calling of our life is more than just knowing the truth - — it is having that truth become our life. |
| The fruit of the Spirit is not push, drive, climb, grasp and trample...Life is more than a climb to the top of the heap. |
| When God wants to do an impossible task He takes an impossible man and crushes him. |
| Too many Christians become bitter and angry in the conflict. If we descend into hatefulness, we have already lost the battle ... We must cooperate with God in turning what was meant for evil into a greater good within us. This is why we bless those who would curse us: It is not only for their sakes but to preserve our own soul from its natural response toward hatred. |
| Most of us know perfectly well what we ought to do; our trouble is that we do not want to do it. |
| Character is not built by battling and excitement alone. The harvest is not ripened by the thunderous forces of nature, but by the secret silent invisible forces. So the best qualities of our spiritual lives are matured by quietness, silence and commonplace. |
| Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To these I commit my day. If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek his grace. And then when this day is done, I will place my head on my pillow and rest. |
| The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that's where it's at. |
| The cost of true greatness is humble, selfless, sacrificial service. The Christian who desires to be great and first in the kingdom is the one who is willing to serve in the hard place, the uncomfortable place, the lonely place, the demanding place, the place where he is not appreciated and may even be persecuted. Knowing that time is short and eternity is long, he is willing to spend and be spent. He is willing to work for excellence without becoming proud, to withstand criticism without becoming bitter, to be misjudged without becoming defensive, and to withstand suffering without succumbing to self pity. |
| When reputation (which is what everybody knows about us) becomes more important than character (which is what God knows about us), we have become hypocrites! |
| All of us have wondered at times why God doesn't do more to fix our problems. But our human eyes often fail to see that God isn't rushing to change our circumstances because he is concerned with a much more serious problem - our character. While you struggle with the woes of this world, God's main occupation is preparing you for the world to come. The focus of what God is doing in your life takes place in you, not around you. |
| Charles Spurgeon and his wife would sell, but refuse to give away, the eggs their chickens laid. Even close relatives were told, "You may have them if you pay for them." As a result some people labeled the Spurgeons greedy and grasping. They accepted the criticisms without defending themselves, and only after Mrs. Spurgeon died was the full story revealed. All the profits from the sale of eggs went to support two elderly widows. Because the Spurgeons were unwilling to let their left hand know what the right hand was doing (Matthew 6:3), they endured the attacks in silence. |
| Charles Haddon Spurgeon said meekness is being submissive to God's will and responsive to His Word. When He directs you to do something, He will tell you the manner in which to do it. If His will requires gentleness, He will help you to be tender. If it requires boldness, His power will surge through you to accomplish what He asks. |
| Some Christians seem to think that all the requirements of a holy life are met when they are very active in successful Christian work. And because they do so much for the Lord in public they feel a liberty to be cross and ugly and un-christ like in private. This is not the sort of Christian life I am depicting. If we are to walk as Christ walked, we must be in private as well as in public, at home, as well as abroad. It must be every hour, all day long, and not as stated points or certain fixed occasions. |
| Our values determine our evaluations. If we value comfort more than character, then trials will upset us. If we value the material and physical more than the spiritual, we will not be able to count it all joy! If we live only for the present and forget about the future, the trials will make us bitter, not better. |
| The little troubles and worries of life may be as stumbling blocks in our way, or we may make them stepping-stones to a nobler character and to Heaven. Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things. |
Let us be an example to our children and
5:35 AM
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Labels:
cost of discipleship,
Following Jesus
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