Only Grace Can Accomplish

“If you know these things, happy are ye if ye do them” (John 13:17).

Remember, that the greatest danger to your child is not the evil outside them; it’s the sin inside them that is the greatest of all threats to their well-being. We have noticed that much of parenting today, especially in the church community, centers around a perimeter of human wisdom. Rigidity along with ritual brings about a conformity that does not help conform that child to the image of Christ. In the end that child runs and we wonder what happened to that training?

The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus would not have been necessary if all we needed were a bunch of rules, ingenuity, and insight. Jesus came to solve the dilemma of sin. It is only through Him that a parent can supervise a child in the way he or she should go. We are losing children to this culture because many kids are conformed to a parent’s wishes instead of the power of God.

Some parents don’t seem to care, while others who are in the minority do, but both sets of parenting will fall short of the glory of God when the functionality of doing is used more than receiving the mystery life-giving breath of God. The most dangerous thing in a young person’s life is his blindness to the depth of his own spiritual need. Only the Spirit of God can open the eyes of that child, and it is only the Spirit of God who will lead the dad and mom to an open field of parenting in freedom.

 

 

 

 

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    “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me” (Romans 15:30).

          R.A. Torrey, a great man of prayer,  became the president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and later the Dean of Biola in Los Angeles. Ever wonder how it all started for Reuben Archer Torrey, this great man of God?

          Reuben was a young student at Yale when he was overcome with guilt and shame of his sinful lifestyle. Sin had taken him down a dark road and it about killed him. One night in 1875, overcome with his sinfulness, he looked for a razor there at his wash basin. He was trying to locate the instrument, not to shave, but to end his life. He had rebelled against his father and mother’s upbringing in the church and it now was costing him dearly.

          Reuben did not know, but his mother was on her knees far away in another city,  praying earnestly for her son’s salvation. Reuben became burdened also, and knelt there by his bed, and prayed to God and was found by Him. Prayer became special to this dear man after this time. His salvation resulted from his mother praying and in his own praying.

       What about us? Are we praying earnestly, fervently, time-consumingly? If we were saved because of someone else’s prayer life, should we not consider that God is wanting to reciprocate that very act in our lives?

  • You Can Not

    “This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all” (I John 1:5).

    Mark Twain said these words, “You can’t pray a lie. I found that out.” Have we realized that God is looking for men and women who live a life that is pure and holy before Him? Do we not understand that the way the Lord communicates to us is a life that is filled with the aroma of Christ?

    Our salvation and prayer life is not dependent upon us. Our lives are not dependent upon our living it out. Our goals are not His nor are our ways. God began a new work in us when we were redeemed by the blood of Christ. He cleansed us and claimed us for His own. Now until we understand that we don’t know how to pray.
     
    Our fellowship with God and what we have in Him, and our lives being constantly cleansed, which is abiding in Him and our allowing the Spirit of God to work in us, how?–    through the Word of God, the church of God, the sufferings of life–all of which God will use to speak to us. This is how we pray. Not with a lie but with truth. Too many say they pray but their lives are no where ready to receive God’s prayer request.

  • From Rubble to Rejoicing

    “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

    Many of us maybe have come out of the wreckage of damaged lives. But because of God’s offer of forgiveness and His ability of rebuilding broken lives we can be lifted and secured in faith. Praise the One, the Only One, who can! We can be used again for His glory and majesty to bring honor, glory, unto the Almighty.

    The Bible is filled with stories of saints who have served God in the most of trying circumstances. Noah was a shipbuilder and he preached and worked for one hundred and twenty years to get others to go with him. Joseph was a slave who later became prime minister of Egypt. Moses and Joshua fought through much pain and sorrow as military generals and leaders of God’s people.

    God takes those who are willing and calls us away from the rubble of exiled living to the rejoicing of having rebuilt lives and homes. Many do not escape the damage done to their lives or even the damage they have caused themselves. But there are some who excelled in Christ. They go through life with faith in God, facing the trials, opposition, and setbacks of life with the strong, secure defense that God provides.

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  • Pleasure Seekers

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    There is a way that seems right unto man, but afterwards it yields death. When mankind refuses to recognize the operation or the working of the will of God, then he or she will find death and loss at the end of their pleasure seeking.

     

    There are too many people, especially the youth of today, who are in desperate need of some mentors who will love them to Jesus. God is looking for someone to get up from the table and work with the God of orphans. There are too many women who have been abused by men’s lusts. God is looking for someone to come alongside and to love them to the bosom of Christ.

     

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    It is God who gave us all things to enjoy. And it is God who will take it away. Push yourself away from the table of pleasure and go get someone and feed them the bread of life.

     

  • Affair Matters

     

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         When I was a kid, I used to go the fair. It was a big deal in those days. We would have a great time eating cotton candy, riding the little Ferris Wheel, playing games in the arcade, and walking on the sawdust. When you went to a fair, you left all the responsibilities of normal life behind, at least for a little while. Life was lots of fun at the fair.

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  • Prayer That Works

    “To him whom my soul loveth, who wakens me morning by morning and helps me rise with “wings as an eagle.”

    It takes prayer and it takes work to meet with God.  Prayer and Work seem to be an oxymoron.  What are they doing in the same sentence?  The two words together seem so contradictory, like jumbo shrimp, civil war — or child safe!  Prayer and Work seem to be opposite concepts.  Yet we have discovered that prayer that doesn’t work, doesn’t work!

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    He will do anything to keep you from loving your Savior.  He wants you to stay in bed until the last moment and he wants you to rise not with the “wings of eagles” but with the “forlorn look of a tired soul.”  Find in Jesus your all in all.  Develop your fellowship with Him through your prayer conversation with your God and your Father.