WORTHY TO REPEAT

I love a good “Quote”, and as I run across them, I oftentimes will write them down or jot them down in my phone! They can be a little bite-size chunk of wisdom, or a gentle decadent breeze from an unknown wind. Sometimes they provide me a glimpse, into the mind of a real genius. But, most times they plant a simple thought or seed of an idea that will prompt me to consider something of importance in my life, that I may have overlooked elsewhere. They also help me to extend my vision and even re-invent myself, in how I view the world around me. But more times than not, I will run across a quote, that becomes therapeutic to me, as they become a miniature story or even a reminder from God, concerning a work that He may be doing in my life. Often times, little quotes and sayings will help to alleviate the worries and stresses that tend to accumulate in my heart and mind. I even love the fact that the scriptures are broken down into small verses to help me easily recall and remember the Words of the Living God, that I love. It must be grand to come up with such profound statements, that jar the mind to stop and give thought, to consider, concerning something. Since my early days of learning to write a complete sentence, I have piddled around with writing songs, poetry, stories, news’s paper articles, Bible Studies, devotions and other things. Yet, it is the smallest of quotes with the biggest impact or punch, that I love the most, yet I have the hardest time myself, condensing my own words into. So whenever I run across a statement that attracts my attention, and causes me to pause, I know that it is worthy enough to repeat and pass along to others. Today, I want to share a few of them.

Loving on you today,
Bren
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Labor to grow better under all your afflictions, lest your afflictions grow worse, lest God mingle them with more darkness, bitterness and terror. John Owen

God sweetens outward pain with inward peace. Thomas Watson

Not to be afflicted is a sign of weakness; for, therefore God imposed no more on me, because he sees I can bear no more. Joseph Hall

When we grow careless of keeping our souls, then God recovers our taste of good things again by sharp crosses. Richard Sibbes

The winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory. Richard Sibbes

“I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen.” John Steinbeck

Before you talk, listen. Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try.” Ernest Hemingway

HAVE YOU CROSSED THE LINE?

If we like the prophet Hosea would experience our pain similar to what God experiences His pain, we would be much quicker to turn back when we sin. Life for the person who turns their back on God is often characterized by guilt and dissatisfaction. But the true born again believer who has been living in a lifestyle of backsliding in sin, knows deep down that their spiritual unfaithfulness will ultimately take its toll and they are simply buying their time, enjoying their sin for a season. The prophet Hosea well understood the pain and heartache of backsliding. But he also knew of the grace and mercy of being restored from such a place for those who would seek it, for he wrote in Hosea 14:4  “I (God) will heal their backsliding.” God’s people had continued to backslide and hurt God. In order for the man that God had choose to mediate His message to his people, his bizarre task would be to take to himself a wayward wife that would be an unfaithful spouse. Which in turn, brought Hosea similar pain to what God was feeling towards an unfaithful Israel. Hosea made it clear in the last chapters of his book that despite the pain that God’s people had caused Him, He still promised healing, forgiveness and fruitfulness if they would return to Him. ”I will heal their backsliding.” He said, “I will love them freely…those who dwell under His shadow shall return”. Hosea 14:4-7.

Restoration waits for us, when we seek it with remorse and brokenness. God did not leave Israel His treasured people, in exile, alone. The prophet Ezekiel tells us that God made Himself to be a sanctuary and refuge for His people as they were suffering from the consequences of their wrong choices. When life is falling apart around you because of wrong choices; realize that sin always cuts you off from the very strength and provision you may need to get your through your troubled times. God’s people were sent into a foreign and wayward country because of their sin. The prodigal son in the New Testament sinned, as he decided in his heart that he was going to leave the presence of his father to seek the wayward life in the foreign country. How deeply the parallel runs between those two. Remember this, that our sin will always lead us to a foreign place away from God. Yet, God is never so far that He will not hear a broken and contrite heart, ready to repent and be restore into His presence; where God Himself removes the old heart of stone that was vile and detestable towards Him and replaces it with a heart of flesh that longs to follow after Him in obedience. Ezekiel 11:16-20 As the God of mercy and grace offered Israel forgiveness and restoration, even so today He offers you and I, and all who truly are repentant if we would be broken and willing to change I John 1:9. Do you feel like you have crossed a line with God? Have you been making spiritually poor choices lately sweet friend that have caused you to slip away from the Lord into the back country far away from God? It’s not too late to make a fresh start! Turn to Jesus the One who died to bring you out!

Loving on you today,

Bren

LIVING WITH REGRETS

Regrets come in a long list and while they are not always the case, they are often times the result of sin in our life. Maybe you have been divorced or have had to file for bankruptcy because you mismanaged your resources out of fleshly decisions or no longer speak to your children or a family member because of an unresolved dispute. If this is the case, it is almost assuredly the result of some wrong choice made by someone sowing a seed of sin.  Maybe it is not even your sin but the sin of someone that has left you with regrets.  We must acknowledge that this is a fallen world and we all mess up all the time.  Romans 3:10 says, "There is no one righteous, not even one."  This verse is one of many that shows us that we all mess up from time to time.  Even when we try in our best efforts to do good, we fall short and cannot always achieve in doing so. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 7 where he seems to have a discussion with himself and seems frustrated with the fact that even when he tried to do the right or good thing, he simply failed to do it.  We all fall short, all the time.  And because we often times fall short, we will face difficult consequences from those short comings.  There is a penalty for our sin.  Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Death does not have to be the end. God not only gives eternal life, but He gives us abundant life as we are obeying Him.

What those verses in Romans show us is that we are simply all messed up; fallen created beings.  Because we fall short, we will have hard times in this life and often regrets from those shortcomings.  We handle our regrets by doing what God tells us to do in the scriptures.  One place to find answers and comfort is found in the book of Psalms.  Those 150 chapters are filled with broken and contrite hearts crying out to God with often times laments and asking God for His help.  The writers of Scripture do not try to cover up or act like they have it all together, but simply cry out to God for help in their personal lives, letting the chips fall where they may.  Looking to the Psalms gives us the reassurance that what God did for David, He will do for us as we work through our problems or regrets staying humble, obedient and open minded to the will of God in our lives.  Inquire of the Lord for yourself. For he is not so far, that He will not hear the prayer of His saints when they cry out to Him in brokenness. Psalm 4:1 says, "Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God, Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer." We may not know the exact circumstances of this Psalm but the principle is clear.  We have a God who hears our every prayer.  We have a God that is righteous and cares about our every care and distress.  We have a God who shows us mercy even when we don't deserve it.  The rest of that Psalm reveals how God is patient with us, even when we stray and run after things other than Him.

The God of the Bible is the one true God that loves us and cares for our every care and hurt.  He does not delight in seeing us go through hardship or pain but often times, that is where we grow in Him.  We often grow spiritually through hardships and trials  according to James Chapter 1.  We must learn how to live each moment reliant fully on God alone.  We should model our prayers and our life like the writers of Scripture as they are not afraid to tell God what is on their hearts, nor tell of the great mistakes that they have made. God can handle our thoughts and our prayers, He is bigger than we can conceive.  For we all will have things happen in our life that we wish were different, that is why they are called regrets.  But those regrets should never be allowed to control us or keep us bound by their sinful power.  Nor should we allow our regrets to smother our Christian witness. In one of the memorable stories that Jesus told  shortly before He was to be betrayed and crucified, Jesus told His disciples that all of the 12 disciples would fall away and deny him. Peter strongly opposed Jesus and tried to correct Him by saying "even if all the others fall away, I won't".  Jesus told Peter that he, would deny Him three times before the rooster crowed and of course it happened just as Jesus had said. Do you think that Peter regretted this?  Absolutely, he did!  However, after Jesus restored Peter on the beach shore in John 21, he was able to move on and continue to serve the Lord. As a matter of fact, it was after Peter had been restored that he serve the Lord in a greater way than ever before.  While Peter never forgot his sin of denial he chose not to dwell on it and be defeated by it. He realized that the only way that he could move forward was to allow God's forgiveness to be his covering for his wrongdoing. Like Peter, we may never forget our own personal regrets in life, but how we respond to them will be the determining factor of the victory that we receive. We should all come to a similar realization that the life that God wants for us is not a life filled with dwelling on our regrets and sin but by living a victorious life.  The God that we serve has power over sin and death and He is the One that will day by day give us victory over them as well.  Today, pray to God like the writers of the Psalms and allow Him to lift the burden that you need taken away and give Him the glory for great thing he has done. Praise Him til the hurt goes away!

Loving on you today,

Bren

THE REGRET OF NOT ENDURING SOUND DOCTRINE

When I was a young girl my Mother sacrificed her hard earned money for me to take piano lessons. I wanted to play the piano more than anything in the world. So I thought. Being hard headed and lazy, practicing every day became too routine for me and having somewhat of an ear for music, I found that I could play cords on the piano and gave up those boring lessons. The sad fact was that I never learned to play correctly and it cost me never learning to read music. I must say that I have had much regret over the years in giving up, because there have been many, many times that God could have used that talent in my life, had I made more effort and took advantage of the opportunity that my Mother provided me and learned how to play properly. If only I had endured and not give up! Oh the regret of falling short of that opportunity!

Thinking on that past regret in my life, put me in mind of another regret. The regret that many people will have in their lives by not enduring sound doctrine.  The word for Endure in the Greek is, “anechomai” it means to hold oneself up against, to put up with, bear with, endure, forbear, or to suffer. In I Timothy 4:3 God’s Word warns us of those that will not endure the preaching, teaching, correction and exhortation of sound doctrine in the last days. That in the last days people would no longer be willing to tolerate or put up with straight Bible teaching as they did in the former days. Like my giving up piano lessons because the effort it took me to endure until I had learned, there will be many people who will listen to the hearing of the gospel and some even trying it out for a while, but when hardships, convictions, discipline and trials come, they will not endure and will fall away.  While it is hard sometimes to hear the truth, it is not always pleasing to us. It often times goes far against our fleshly grain and causes conviction that produces in us a shame that is meant to lead us to repentance and oftentimes, causes us discomfort in one way or another. However, the reward to those that will stick with it and endure the rebuke of godly teaching  where sound doctrine is being taught, regardless of how it makes them feel in their flesh will reap a crown of victory and enjoy knowing the peace of God in their lives as they endure until the end. For they know that through the teaching of sound doctrine, they are being spiritually edified and are not offended by it. For they know that it is for their good. To those that would declare that preaching should always be motivational and uplifting and not necessarily doctrinal or reproving, I would say to them the same thing that I said to my children when raising them and now to my grandchildren, do the right thing and you will not have to endure the hardships of correction and discipline and when other hardships come, you will be able to stand your ground and not sink in the many potholes that are under foot. Knowing truth alone does not bring peace or set you free. It is obeying truth, that produces the fruit of peace in our lives and it is that fruit of truth, that sets us free.  However, Paul did not say that in the last days people would listen to truth or they would not accept truth, he said, that they would not endure it. That means that, they would not keep on obeying it. Instead Paul chose a word that indicated the truth of sound doctrine being something that requires us to, “hold oneself up against, to put up with, bear with, endure, forbear, suffer through." Oftentimes God’s Word hurts us to the very core of our being and convicts us even to the depths of our hearts, and thank God for it. Thank God that we have the opportunity to hear the message of Salvation and instructions to a better way of living. Let us be faithful in enduring sound doctrine because, it is for our good and benefits us in an everlasting way.

There are many things in life that can be difficult to endure. However, in the last days the Bible tells us that many will not be able to endure the truth that is within the pages of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s modern Christianity is marked by an inability, to handle sound Bible doctrine. The Bible is a difficult book to read; not because of hard words, but because of the truth it contains. The Bible is a sword and it will cut on our wicked hearts through both personal Bible study or hearing the Word of God preached or taught.  Many are departing from the faith today than ever before and in their apostasy have demonstrated that they could not endure sound doctrine and are heaping to themselves teachers that are introducing new doctrinal institutions in this age that pats them on the head and tells them that they are good and everything will be alright.  The marks which identify and distinguish these modern apostates are men and women who are taking truth and mixing it with just the amount of lies that it will take to win people over to a new way of thinking. Adhering to the Scriptures, as our only standard and rule of faith and practice is our only hope. For the true believer, our refusal to depart from the Bible as our standard of morality and faith, which provides us with a clear plumb line for reforming society, reclaiming drunkards, converting sinners, and evangelizing the world is a task that we must endure not only for our own sake but for the sake of the lost who need the message of salvation in its rawest form, whether it offends people or not. In doing so, we may have to pay the price and be labeled as Hard-shells, Iron Jackets, Jesus Freaks and an opulence of other  titles indicative of anything, but a willingness to turn away from what we hold to be the truth, and not be allured by old fables and myths. I fear, that many more than we comprehend amongst the fellowship of true believers today are not of the true fold of Christ. I John 2:19 says, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us”. After Jesus had preached his parable concerning the wheat and the tare, his disciples ask him to break it down to their level of understanding and in doing so Jesus said, “ Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters to, first collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ Matthew 13:24-30. Jesus Himself was always making comments distinguishing people between those who are a part of His Kingdom and those who are not. God’s final judgment will be the ultimate turning point of separation between the true child of God and the one who claims but has no legitimate birth certificate, for their names are not found in the book of life.

Saint Augustine pointed out that there is an invisible distinction between the “wheat” and the “tares” and that they run through the church and it’s laity although they may not always be readily apparent.  It is not the job of the child of God to try and separate the sheep from the goat, for in many ways they favor, not just because the Church is acting like the world, but many of those that are in the world are acting like the church in some form or another. It is however, the job of the true sheep to love and plead sinners to come to Christ and help to restore and bring back those that have strayed, while there is still time. My regret of not learning to read music, does not compare to the regret of those who will stand before the great white throne judgment of God and say, “look what I have done in your name” and in sad response will be turned away and told, “depart from me, ye worker of inequity, for I never knew you”. For you see, they through their own demise very clearly demonstrated that they did not endure sound doctrine, not only because they did not finish the race that they may had started, but on account of not holding on to the sound doctrine that they had been taught, but instead, they heaped to themselves teachers that led them astray by words that satisfied their itching ears and made them feel good but never shed light on their sin and their need for repentance.

As Adrian Rogers would say, “…Salvation is not a cafeteria line where we say, “Well, I believe I’ll have a little Savior today, but no Lordship…” God demands Lordship and will accept nothing less than reigning on the thrones of our hearts. The scriptures themselves bears witness that, “There is a way that seems to be right, but in the end it leads to death.” Proverbs 16:25. Today sweet friend find God's Truth and cling to it with all your might! 

Loving on You today,

Bren

WHEN GOD TROUBLES YOU

If you believe in Murphy’s Law, then you know, “If anything can possibly go wrong, it will”! From personal experiences, we have all felt the casualties of when we least expect it, disaster in some form or another, always seems to hits! Well, let me remind you of another law that is at work all around us, yet we seldom give credit to the one who’s credit is due. That law, is the law of mercy and grace. You see when we least expect it, God delivers something good to us and we are surprised as His kind fortune drops in on us.  Yet fortune has nothing to do with it really. For it is the same act of God that brings the sun up and gently sets it down in the evening, day after day. It is an act that was set into motion when the first man and women sinned and suddenly found themselves in a grim situation brought on through their disobedience to God, yet even in their punishment they found mercy and grace that sustained them during their lifetime of reaping from the consequences of their actions.

 

There were other times and other people that God would shed mercy on and send grace to sustain them in their own difficult times.  Job said to his wife, when she was begging him to curse God and die over his grim situation in Job 2:10, that she was talking foolish. He ask her, should they not only receive good from God and not trouble as well…and by his meager understanding of God, He did not sin by what he said. Job understood that God teaches by trials, and every trial should be looked upon as sent, to teach us some lesson of importance. For the trials of the saints, what a different book the Bible would have been without those examples. How many records of the trials and troubles of believers are there today for us to turn to in times of grief, pain, trials and hardships that we do not understand. Who can be in trouble today, and not find a companion or kindred spirit from someone in God's Word, if we will go to it. The example that Job gives us alone is enough to encourage us to trust and wait until God reveals His plans in our situation. Everything Job had, was taken from him but his wife, and she appears to have been spared, to have been nothing more than trouble and a tempter for him. For all the ravaging of Job’s trials, the heartache and loss of his children, the physical discomfort beyond what most of us have or will ever experience, Job knew that somehow, in some way, the hand of God was involved in his test and that God had fenced up His way and had set darkness in his path according to Job 19:8. For many those trials would have turned them away from God, yet it did not Job, but only served to strengthen his inner trust, so that he still declared, "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." Job 19:25-27.

There are those times however, when God simply fences in our way and He sets darkness in our path. Yet it is through those times that we learn that God is working out other things through the dark moments and our understanding is enlarged to embrace new dimensions of His will and purpose for us. God will never sanction any evil or sin no matter what the situation, for He is Holy. He will however allow and even send afflictions, bereavements, losses, crosses, pains and sorrows. At times, likewise, he gives liberty to our enemies, and allows them to trouble us, and for a time to prevail against us. He sends good and evil sometimes in quick succession. For instances, He sent the fish to preserve the life of Jonah, and grew a gourd over his head to provide him shelter and screen him from the hot sun. But He also sent the worm to destroy the gourd which in turn destroyed his shelter to teach Jonah a life lesson. Who can read the life of Jacob or Joseph, of David or Daniel, and not see that the Lord sends good and evil upon his people.

 

As we learn gradually what we must, we also learn to cease our struggle and yield to His workings in us, and then and only then do we no longer think of our restraints in terms of punishment and judgment, but in pure "the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Heb. 12:11. For it is during those tight restraints and dark times, that we might share the experience that Job went through, when for a time he had no conscious sense of His presence, and he cried out, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him! That I might come even to His seat! Will He plead against me with His great power?  No; but He would put strength into me. - Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and back-ward, but I cannot perceive Him; on the left hand, where He works, but I cannot behold Him: He hides Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him.  But He knows the way that I take: when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Job 23:3, 6, 8-10, and this sweet friend is how you and I must look at our situations on every side. Like Paul we will affirm the same truth that He himself learned as he endured hardship, and declare, "Having come to this settled and firm persuasion concerning this very thing, namely, that He who began in you a work which is good, will bring it to a successful conclusion right up to the day of Christ Jesus." Phil. 1:6. So please sweet friend remember this, that in spite of your prayers and best efforts, as you see your situation worsen as God may be what appears to you, troubling you, hang in there, pray with a greater confidence and embrace those new dimensions of His will and purpose for your situation and know, just know that as you turn to Him through them, you will move them with more ease and peace, never to forget again that sometimes, God takes you through those troubled waters, not to drown you, but to cleanse you!

Loving on You,

Bren