God's Word on That

Tag: Daily Slice

  • Failure Is Not Final

    In his weakness man is not able to sustain any relationship without eventually needing to forgive and be forgiven. Failing doesn’t make us failures; it makes us experienced.

    My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my spirit (Psalm 73:26).

    Failure is the line of least persistence. Good judgment usually comes from experience.  Unfortunately, experience usually comes from bad judgment. Yet that is all we are – the sum of our experiences. Time, talent, treasures — all these are entrusted to us with the expectation of getting them back improved upon.

    Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail (Lamentations 3:22). Strengthen me according to Your Word (Psalm 119:28) O Lord, for Your promises preserve my life (Psalm 119:50). You are my stronghold, my defense, the God who shows me loving-kindness (Psalm 59:17).

    Dismiss feelings of frustration – 90 percent of it is rooted in self-pity and always interferes with positive action. Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape.

    I earnestly pray that I walk worthy of You, my Lord God, fully pleasing You and desiring to please You in all things, and being fruitful in every good work. I aim to increase my knowledge of You, loving God. And so I pray that I am being strengthened with all power according to Your glorious might, that I may have great endurance and patience (Colossians 1:10-11).

    I love You, O Lord, my strength! You are my [unmoving] Rock, my [surrounding] fortress, and my [ever-present] deliverer. You, O God, are my rock in whom I take refuge [from all weariness]. You are my shield [from all unpleasantness] and the horn of my salvation [from all difficulties], my [glorious] stronghold (Psalm 18:1-2). I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation… I can do everything though Him who gives me strength (Philippians 4:12-13).

    Father God, help us to be the best we can at this moment.

    May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17).

    We all fail, but God strengthens and lifts us back up.

  • Love Expresses Itself

    God is love, and it is the nature of love to express itself. True love is treating others as God would. God is a God of relationships. He prioritizes love over labor.

    I say: Don’t resist violence! If you are slapped on one cheek, turn the other too. If you are ordered to court, and your shirt is taken from you give your coat too (Matthew 5:39-40). I say: Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way you will be acting as true sons of your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:44-45).

    God knows how to raise, train, and guide His children. All He needs is a cooperative child. If we stay in the light, we are stronger for it, and the world around us is blessed.

    If someone mistreats you because you are a Christian, don’t curse him; pray that God will bless him (Romans 12:14). When we are cursed, we bless (1 Corinthians 4:12).

    Jesus maintained that the proper way to keep any commandment was to fulfill the purpose for which it was given.

    Everything – all – no matter what we say; no matter what we do – it is to be offered as a gift to God with Jesus’ name, power, and honor attached. It is the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ Jesus that must be the springboard for everything we do.

    So whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through [and for] Him (Colossians 3:17).

    We are to let His love shine through us onto everything we do.

  • Judge Not

    A pearl lost in mud is not less valuable; a pearl coated with balsam is not more valuable. We have our value from our Father, and how and where we live cannot change it. (Sayings of Yeshua)

    The qualification for judging is not knowledge; we all possess that in some degree and can grow in knowledge as we set our minds to that task.  But the qualification for judging is achievement in goodness, and none of us is perfect there. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, for what is essential is invisible to the eye.

    We do not focus on what is seen but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18). Stop judging by mere appearances (John 7:24).

    No condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). So who are you to criticize your brother? (Romans 14:10) Let us no longer criticize one another, but instead decide not to put a stumbling block or pitfall in your brother’s way (Romans 14:13).

    Seek God’s wisdom that you be slow to condemn and quick to show compassion. Try not to focus on blame or justice or retribution, but on future life-affirming options. Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots.

    Therefore encourage one another and build each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11). Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up (Romans 15:2).

    “I don’t hate my enemies.  After all, I made them!” (Red Skelton) Be forgiving, for most people are doing the best they can. Be kind to unkind people because they need it most. And be kinder than necessary to everyone you meet, because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

    Let us not judge others, for we are all like hobos in line at the same soup kitchen.

  • Little Things Matter

    God Said, “I, the Lord, have called you into righteousness. I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the gentiles; to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from their prisons, and to release from their dungeons those who sit in darkness” (Isaiah 42:6-7). Therefore I must do what I can with what I have to be a healer, a caregiver, and a messenger of hope.

    Jesus said to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, and cast out demons — to give as freely as I have received (Matthew 10:8). The more I pay attention to fixing the small piece of world I see each day, the more I see what needs to be fixed in my world each day.

    A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough (Galatians 5:9). Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much (Luke 16:10).

    We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, for God regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.

    Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. So consider each day as a gift; and use each to your full ability. For who knows when we will no longer be able to do so. Jesus came to set the earth on fire, and He wants to use you as His kindling.

    It doesn’t matter how little we think we are, we were chosen to influence our sphere of the world.

  • Making Wise the Simple

    Simplicity influences all things including outward manners… Then even your faults will turn to good, humbling you without depressing you. When God intends to make use of you for His glory, either He will take away your failings or overrule them to His own ends.

    I am simply discharging the trust committed to me (1 Corinthians 9:17)

    Act on whatever God may make known to you. Accept whatever may seem strange to you. Anxiety comes from not sufficiently accepting whatever happens as coming from God. From the moment you give up all self-will, and seek absolutely nothing but what God wills, you will be free from all your anxiety.

    Be content with doing well what little depends upon you. Let yourself be humbled. Calmness and silence under humiliation are of great benefit to the soul! Do not get angry about what people say. Let them talk while you try to do God’s will. You must be friendly without counting on their friendship. Only see God’s hand in what they do. He wounds and comforts us by using them. [You truly only have one enemy.]

    Simply let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’, and your ‘no’, ‘no’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one (Matthew 5:37).

    The consolation of knowing that we are where we are by God’s providence is quite inexhaustible! While we have that, nothing can matter. Blessed are they who throw themselves headlong and blindfolded into the arms of “the Father of all Compassion and the God of all Comfort”. Nothing remains for them, except to know Him better and better.

  • Let Us Continually Pray

    To ‘pray’ is to ‘desire’ or ‘long for’ — but to desire what God would have us desire. True prayer is simply another name for the Love of God. Pure love is in the Will alone. It loves without feeling, as faith believes without seeing.

    The heart in which the true love of God and true desire exist never ceases to pray. Love, hidden in the depths of the soul, prays without ceasing, even when the mind is drawn another way. Such a hidden desire in the soul ceaselessly draws God’s mercies.

    Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

    The Spirit helps us in our weakness; we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express (Romans 8:26).

    Talk with God with the thoughts that your heart is full of, whatever the Spirit brings into mind. If you enjoy the presence of God, tell Him so. Tell Him your hopes, your fears, your joys and sorrows. But when you tell Him about your miseries, ask Him to cure them. Tell Him without hesitation everything that comes into your head with the simplicity and familiarity of a child sitting on its parent’s knee.

    When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites… When you pray, go into your own room, shut the door and pray to your Father privately… And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like that, for your Father knows what you need before you ask (Matthew 6:5-7).

    Growth in prayer is indicated by growth in simplicity and steadiness in attitude. Our communion with God becomes a simple and familiar union, far beyond the need for words. Simplicity is a rightness of the soul. Sincerity is actually a virtue below simplicity. Simplicity consists of a middle ground in which we are neither giddy nor too composed. God wants us child-like, not childish.

  • Under The Pruning Shears

    The great Francois Fenelon (1651-1715) came to believe strongly that God is a living, active presence in a Christian’s life. He believed that more often than not, God is speaking to us in the so-called circumstance of life. If we look at them on a merely human plane, we may become confused, discouraged and or totally disillusioned with life; elf-pity and accusation of others may be our daily bread. But if we look to them as being part of God’s loving dealings with us, weaning us away from what is false and binding us more firmly to what is eternal, we begin to “hear God’s Word coming through these conditions.

    We must yield ourselves to God and do according to His light what, at that time, seems best. But without hesitation, because hesitation would be confusing. First we must make our decision, then even if we have made a wrong decision, wrong will be turned to right by our right intention. God can do that! God will never blame us for what we have done for lack of advice as long as we are yielding ourselves to the simplicity of His Spirit.

    God does not leave the soul at rest until He has made it supple and pliable by bending it from all sides. Flexibility and promptness in yielding to these stirrings is what advances the soul the most.

    God does not allow our inner light to go any further than our strength for sacrifice. We would be frightened if we could see to how many things we still cling! We try to discover all our weaknesses, and God directs us in this search. But He refuses us a vision beyond our state of acceptance. He does not allow us to see in our hearts what it is not yet time to take away from them.

    Let us then be content to follow without looking ahead, or judging others on their journeys. All the light which is given us from one moment to another, this is our daily bread… Let us be content to be faithful to the light of the present moment. It carries with it all that we need to prepare us for the light of the moment to follow. And this sequence of blessings – which connects one moment with another, like links of a chain – prepares us consciously for the further sacrifices which we have not even glimpsed.

    Let us submit to God’s way with us, for He is the only one to make us beautiful.

  • Eternity vs. Time

    Eternity is not “a long time” but the “absence of time”. All that God has destined for you has been planned out in heaven.

    Surely You have granted me eternal blessings and made me glad with the joy of Your presence (Psalm 21:6). God… called you to His eternal glory (1 Pet 5:10), for the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:23). He has set eternity in the hearts of men (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

    Remember God is eternal and that He operates in an eternal time frame. You are neither eternal nor divine, but you are eternally united to Christ’s divinity. Praise Him for that.

    His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to His eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ephesians 3:10-11)

    This is not our home. We were made to shine forth a better world.

  • Be Perfect

    Seek to take each assignment as God’s gift given by the One who loves you and knows you the best.  Some spiritual leaders define progress to mean:

    • To will nothing of self and everything of God
    • Cheerfully performing each day’s round as God appoints it for us
    • Seeking nothing
    • Refusing nothing
    • Finding everything in the present moment
    • Allowing God, who does everything, to do His pleasure in and by us without the slightest resistance on our part.

    I haven’t quite gotten there yet, but am working on it. I must try to reason little and to do much. I know I should be extremely distrustful of my intellect and my own ideas of perfection, for that will be a great step toward becoming perfect in God’s eyes.

    Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

    Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on (Philippians 3:12).

    God tells me: My grace is sufficient… My power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

    No, I cannot reach perfection, but I can strive to be like Him more and more. All I need to worry about is striving to following in His footsteps. For Jesus already sees me as perfect. My job now is to allow Him to work in me to make me holy.

    By one sacrifice [that of Christ Jesus Himself] He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy (Hebrews 10:14).

    Let us follow the path of holiness, for that makes us beautiful in God’s eyes.

  • Listen For the Lord

    O, how rare it is that the soul is sufficiently stilled to let God speak! God does not cease speaking, but the noise of the creatures without and of our passions within deafen us and stop up our hearing. God’s sole desire is to impart Himself. He cannot find where to set His foot in souls so full of themselves. I was once as wise as any; thinking I saw everything. But when we have silenced everything within us in order to listen to God, we sense that we know everything without really knowing anything. Then we perceive that before this took place we were utterly ignorant of everything we thought we understood. Now we feel that we see nothing, can do nothing, and are nothing in ourselves. But in this state we find everything we need from moment to moment in the infinity of God. There we find the daily bread of knowledge and of everything else, without storing it up.

    “Be still, and know that I am God…” The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress (Psalm 46:10-11).

    Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes (Psalm 37:7).

    I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name (Isaiah 45:3).

    God would choose to see in us a single heartedness that can contain as much more of His wisdom as it contains less of our own. He desires to create in our heart the childlike disposition so distasteful to the spirit of fallen man. The great point is to renounce our own wisdom, and to be ready to give up approval of everyone around us whenever the path in which God leads requires it.

    For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who did believe (1 Corinthians 1:21)… Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24).

    His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to His eternal purpose that He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ephesians 3:10-11).

    The Lord is a lifeline – if we place our trust in Him, He will be faithful to lift us out of dark places and set us fully in the Light. While we knowingly spend time on the relationship with God, our life will go well.

    Let us be still in body, soul, and spirit; and know that God sustains us.