December 1, 2001
God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies grey and threatening; when our lives have no music in them, and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their courage. Flood the path with light, run our eyes to where the skies are full of promise; tune our hearts to brave music; give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our spirits that we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey with us on the road of life, to Your honour and glory.
Augustine
Works and Biography
December 2, 2001
Faith is rest, not toil. It is the giving up all the former weary efforts to do or feel something good, in order to induce God to love and pardon; and the calm reception of the truth so long rejected, that God is not waiting for any such inducements, but loves and pardons of His own goodwill, and is showing that goodwill to any sinner who will come to Him on such a footing, casting away his own poor performances or goodnesses, and relying implicitly upon the free love of Him who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.
Horatius Bonar
Website
December 3, 2001
Jesus, like any good fisherman, first catches the fish; then He cleans them.
Mark Potter
December 4, 2001
And the longer you delay, the more your sin gets strength and rooting. If you cannot bend a twig, how will you be able to bend it when it is a tree?
Richard Baxter
Website
December 5, 2001
A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes...and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent .
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Bonhoeffer Home Page
December 6, 2001
You cannot see faith, but you can see the footprints of the faithful. We must leave behind "faithful footprints" for others to follow.
Dr. Dennis Anderson
December 7, 2001
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
Samuel Johnson
Informational Website
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Can Martha Have A Mary Christmas?: Untangling Expectations and Truly Experiencing Jesus Please support this ministry site. |
December 8, 2001
While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight; while children go hungry, as they do now I'll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight; I'll fight to the very end!
General William Booth
Biography
December 9, 2001
Depend upon it, if you are bent on prayer, the devil will not leave you alone. He will molest you,, tantalize you, block you, and will surely find some hindrances, big or little or both. And we sometimes fail because we are ignorant of his devices... I do not think he minds our praying about things if we leave it at that. What he minds, and opposes steadily, is the prayer that prays on until it is prayed through, assured of the answer.
Mary Warburton Booth
December 10, 2001
I have seen many men work without praying, though I have never seen any good come out of it; but I have never seen a man pray without working.
James Hudson Taylor
James Hudson Taylor Biography
December 11, 2001
If your heart takes more pleasure in reading novels, or watching TV, or going to the movies, or talking to friends, rather than just sitting alone with God and embracing Him, sharing His cares and His burdens, weeping and rejoicing with Him, then how are you going to handle forever and ever in His presence... ? You'd be bored to tears in heaven, if you're not ecstatic about God now!
Keith Green
Last Days Ministries
December 12, 2001
Our knowledge of God is paradoxically not of him as the object of our scrutiny, but of ourselves as utterly dependent on his saving and merciful knowledge of us. It is in proportion, as we are known to him that we find our real being and identity in Christ. We know him in and through ourselves in so far as his truth is the source of our being and his merciful love is the very heart of our life and existence.
Thomas Merton
Website.
December 13, 2001
To have faith is to rely upon Christ, the Person, with the whole heart. It is not the understanding of the mind, not theological opinion, not creed, not organization, not ritual. It is the koinonia of the whole personality with God and Christ,... This experience of communion with Christ is itself the continual attitude of dependence on the Saviour which we call faith.
Kokichi Kurosaki
One Body in Christ
December 14, 2001
What are our lame praises in comparison with His love? Nothing, and less than nothing; but love will stammer rather than be dumb.
Robert Leighton
December 15, 2001
We can do nothing, we say sometimes, 'we can only pray'. That, we feel, is a terribly precarious second-best. So long as we can fuss and work and rush about, so long as we can lend a hand, we have some hope; but if we have to fall back upon God -- ah, then things must be critical indeed!
Arthur John (A. J.) Gossip
Online Article.
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Can Martha Have A Mary Christmas?: Untangling Expectations and Truly Experiencing Jesus By Brenda Poinsett For most women, the mention of Christmas creates visions of meals to cook, gifts cards to mail, parties to organize, and tons of events to attend. It's easy to feel empty and lose sight of Jesus. Speaker and author Brenda Poinsett, a confessed "Martha," offers tender insights, practical suggestions, and touching stories that show you how to calm down and slow down the Christmas season. This year, you can truly experience Jesus and have a Mary Christmas. |
December 16, 2001
There are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one of them. As the Christian life is, above all things, a state of union with Christ, and of union of his followers with one another, love of the brethren is inseparable from love of God. Resentment toward any human being cannot exist in the same heart with love to God. The personal relationship to Christ can only be realized when one has "come to himself" as a member of His Body, the Christian fellowship.
William T. Ham
December 17, 2001
It is no strain of metaphor to say that the love of God and the wrath of God are the same thing, described from opposite points of view. How we shall experience it depends upon the way we shall come up against it: God does not change; it is man's moral state that changes. The wrath of God is a figure of speech to denote God's unchanging opposition to sin; it is His righteous love operating to destroy evil. It is not evil that will have the last word, but good; not sorrow, but joy; not hate, but love.
R. J. Campbell
December 18, 2001
There is more hid in Christ than we shall ever learn, here or there either; but they that begin first to inquire will soonest be gladdened with revelation; and with them He will be best pleased, for the slowness of His disciples troubled Him of old. To say that we must wait for the other world, to know the mind of Him who came to this world to give Himself to us, seems to me the foolishness of a worldly and lazy spirit. The Son of God is the teacher of men, giving to them of His Spirit -- that Spirit which manifests the deep things of God, being to a man the mind of Christ.
George Macdonald
The Golden Key Website
December 19, 2001
I know the power obedience has of making things easy which seem impossible.
Teresa of Avila
Biography
December 20, 2001
The cross is laid on every Christian. It begins with the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death -- we give over our lives to death. Since this happens at the beginning of the Christian life, the cross can never be merely a tragic ending to an otherwise happy religious life. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther's, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time -- death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at His call. That is why the rich young man was so loath to follow Jesus, for the cost of his following was the death of his will. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and His call are necessarily our death and our life.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Bonhoeffer Home Page
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Where is Christ at Christmas? Tracts, 25 By Billy Graham Billy Graham's inspirational messages are always from the heart and reach hearts. These Christmas tracts will change lives at just the right time. |
December 21, 2001
Of all the spirits, I believe the spirit of judging is the worst, and it has had the rule of me, I cannot tell you how dreadfully and how long... This, I find has more hindered my progress in love and gentleness than all things else. I never knew what the words, "Judge not that ye be not judged," meant before; now they seem to me some of the most awful, necessary, and beautiful in the whole Word of God.
Frederick Denison (F. D.) Maurice in a letter to his mother..
Biography
December 22, 2001
We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.
Brother Lawrence
Biography And Works
December 23, 2001
I know I can't do a thing to earn my salvation but now that I am His, I will do everything in my power to show Him how much I love him and I live to please the One I love who has transformed me with HIS love.
Katherine Walden
I Lift My Eyes Web Ministries
December 24, 2001
Eternal God, this holy night is radiant with the brilliance of your one true light. May that light illuminate our hearts and shine in our words and deeds. May the hope, the peace, the joy, and the love represented by the birth in Bethlehem this night fill our lives and become part of all that we say and do. May we share the divine life of your son Jesus Christ, even as he humbled himself to share our humanity. Amen.
Rev. Richard J. Fairchild
Kir-Shalom
December 25, 2001
Christmas Creed.
I believe in Jesus Christ and in the beauty of the gospel begun in Bethlehem.
I believe in the one whose spirit glorified a little town; and whose spirit still brings music to persons all over the world, In towns both large and small.
I believe in the one for whom the crowded inn could find no room, and I confess that my heart still sometimes wants to exclude Christ from my life today.
I believe in the one who the rulers of the earth ignored and the proud could never understand; whose life was among common people, whose welcome came from persons of hungry hearts.
I believe in the one who proclaimed the love of God to be Invincible:
I believe in the one whose cradle was a mother's arms, whose modest home in Nazareth had love for its only wealth, who looked at persons and made them see what God's love saw in them, who by love brought sinners back to purity, and lifted human weakness up to meet the strength of God.
I confess my ever-lasting need of God: The need of forgiveness for our selfishness and greed, the need of new life for empty souls, the need of love for hearts grown cold.
I believe in God who gives us the best of himself. I believe in Jesus, the son of the living God, born in Bethlehem this night, for me and for the world.
Anonymous
December 26, 2001
When you say that a situation or a person is hopeless, you are slamming the door in the face of God.
Charles L. Allen
December 27, 2001
To give heart and mind to God, so that they are ours no longer - to do good without being conscious of it, to pray ceaselessly and without effort as we breathe - to love without stopping to reflect upon our feelings - such is the perfect forgetfulness of self, which casts us upon God, as a babe rests upon its mother's breast.
Jean Nicolas (J N) Grou
Being Devoted to God
December 28, 2001
Lord, remove every barrier the enemy has put in place, so that the only barrier which remains is the cross itself.
Jon Reid
December 29, 2001
Many things--such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly--are done worst when we try hardest to do them.
(Clive Staples) C. S. Lewis
Into The Wardrobe
December 30, 2001
In a Christian community, everything depends upon whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain. Only when even the smallest link is securely interlocked is the chain unbreakable. A community which allows unemployed members to exist within it will perish because of them. It will be well, therefore, if every member receives a definite task to perform for the community, that he may know in hours of doubt that he, too, is not useless and unusable. Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of the fellowship.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Bonhoeffer Home Page
December 31, 2001
The man that believes will obey; failure to obey is convincing proof that there is no true faith present. To attempt the impossible God must give faith or there will be none, and He gives faith to the obedient heart only.
Man the Dwelling Place of God
A. W. Tozer
The Works of A. W. Tozer
November 2001 // January 2002 //
