Most Christians are being crucified on a cross between two thieves: Yesterday’s regret and tomorrow’s worries.
If you are going to live by faith, then expect your faith to be tested. A faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted.
If you look to others you will be distracted; if you look to yourselves you will be discouraged; but if you look to Christ you’ll be delighted.
Four Lessons on Life 1. Never take down a fence until you know why it was put up. 2. If you get too far ahead of the army, your soldiers may mistake you for the enemy. 3. Don’t complain about the bottom rungs of the ladder; they helped to get you higher. 4. If you want to enjoy the rainbow, be prepared to endure the storm.
In our universe there is God and there are people and things. We were made so that we should worship God, love people and use things. However if we worship ourselves, we will ignore God, start loving things and begin to use people.
Nothing paralyzes our lives like the attitude that things can never change. We need to remind ourselves that God can change things. Outlook determines outcome. If we see only the problems, we will be defeated; but if we see the possibilities in the problems, we can have victory.
When you and I hurt deeply, what we really need is not an explanation from God but a revelation of God. We need to see how great God is; we need to recover our lost perspective on life. Things get out of proportion when we are suffering, and it takes a vision of something bigger than ourselves to get life’s dimensions adjusted again
Trusting God means thinking and acting according to God’s word in spite of circumstances, feelings, or consequences.
God doesn’t bless us just to make us happy; He blesses us to make us a blessing.
We have little control over the circumstances of life. We can’t control the weather or the economy, and we can’t control what other people say about or do to us. There is only one area where we have control–we can rule the kingdom inside. The heart of every problem is the problem in the heart.
You do not move ahead by constantly looking in a rear view mirror. The past is a rudder to guide you, not an anchor to drag you. We must learn from the past but not live in the past.
You are a Christian because somebody cared. Now it’s your turn.
God doesn’t always change the circumstances, but He can change us to meet the circumstances. That’s what it means to live by faith.
The greatest judgment God can send on His people is letting them have their own way.
We must never mistake the process for the result…there is suffering; but this is only the process. God isn’t going to stop with the process; He wants to produce the final result. Suffering leads to glory; shame leads to honor; weakness leads to power. This is God’s way of doing things.
If the only way I can make myself look good is to criticize you, something is seriously wrong with me.
After all, a crisis doesn’t make a person; it reveals what a person is made of.
Real contentment must come from within. You and I can not change or control the world around us, but we can change and control the world within us.
If life is to have meaning, and if God’s will is to be done, all of us have to accept who we are and what we are, give it back to God, and thank Him for the way He made us. What I am is God’s gift to me; what I do with it is my gift to Him.
Faithfulness in the small things will lead to blessing in the big things.
He knows when we go into the storm, He watches over us in the storm, and He can bring us out of the storm when His purposes have been fulfilled.
We do not understand and then obey: that is instruction. We obey by faith, and then we understand: that is illumination.
The devil tempts us to bring out the worst in us, but the Father tests us to bring out the best in us.
Never underestimate the importance of simply being physically present in the place God wants you. You may not be asked to perform some dramatic ministry, but simply being there is a ministry.
Life’s trials are not easy. But in God’s will, each has a purpose. Often He uses them to enlarge you.
