From “Morning Thoughts” by Winslow

“Leaning upon her Beloved.” Solomon’s Song, 8:5

WHAT more appropriate, what more soothing truth could we bring before you, suffering Christian, than this? You are sick-lean upon Jesus. His sick ones are peculiarly dear to His heart. You are dear to Him. In all your pains and languishings, faintings and lassitude, Jesus is with you; for He created that frame, He remembers that it is but dust, and He bids you lean upon Him, and leave your sickness and its issue entirely in His hands. You are oppressed-lean upon Jesus. He will undertake your cause, and committing it thus into His hands, He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday. You are lonely-lean upon Jesus. Sweet will be the communion and close the fellowship which you may thus hold with Him, your heart burning within you while He talks with you by the way. Is the ascent steep and difficult? lean upon your Beloved. Is the path strait and narrow? lean upon your Beloved. Do intricacies and perplexities and trials weave their network around your feet? lean upon your Beloved. Has death smitten down the strong arm and chilled the tender heart upon which you were used to recline? lean upon your Beloved. Oh! lean upon Jesus in every strait, in every want, in every sorrow, in every temptation. Nothing is too insignificant, nothing too mean, to take to Christ. It is enough that you want Christ, to warrant you in coming to Christ. No excuse need you make for repairing to Him; no apology will He require for the frequency of your approach; He loves to have you quite near to Him, to hear your voice, and to feel the confidence of your faith and the pressure of your love. Ever remember that there is a place in the heart of Christ sacred to you, and which no one can fill but yourself, and from which none may dare exclude you. And when you are dying, oh! lay your languishing head upon the bosom of your Beloved, and fear not the foe, and dread not the passage; for His rod and His staff, they will comfort you. On that bosom the beloved disciple leaned at supper; on that bosom the martyr Stephen laid his bleeding brow in death; and on that bosom you, too, beloved, may repose, living or dying, soothed, supported, and sheltered by your Savior and your Lord.

 

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To Whom Will You Surrender?

This post To Whom Will You Surrender? by Lyn Leahz is a much needed truth many people could benefit from.  It deserves and needs to be shared and read by many.  I hope you’ll be one of them.

From “Morning and Evening” by C. H. Spurgeon

“Who of God is made unto us wisdom.”- 1Co_1:30

Man’s intellect seeks after rest, and by nature seeks it apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Men of education are apt, even when converted, to look upon the simplicities of the cross of Christ with an eye too little reverent and loving. They are snared in the old net in which the Grecians were taken, and have a hankering to mix philosophy with revelation. The temptation with a man of refined thought and high education is to depart from the simple truth of Christ crucified, and to invent, as the term is, a more intellectual doctrine. This led the early Christian churches into Gnosticism, and bewitched them with all sorts of heresies. This is the root of Neology, and the other fine things which in days gone by were so fashionable in Germany, and are now so ensnaring to certain classes of divines. Whoever you are, good reader, and whatever your education may be, if you be the Lord’s, be assured you will find no rest in philosophizing divinity. You may receive this dogma of one great thinker, or that dream of another profound reasoner, but what the chaff is to the wheat, that will these be to the pure word of God. All that reason, when best guided, can find out is but the A B C of truth, and even that lacks certainty, while in Christ Jesus there is treasured up all the fulness of wisdom and knowledge. All attempts on the part of Christians to be content with systems such as Unitarian and Broad-church thinkers would approve of, must fail; true heirs of heaven must come back to the grandly simple reality which makes the ploughboy’s eye flash with joy, and gladens the pious pauper’s heart-”Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” Jesus satisfies the most elevated intellect when he is believingly received, but apart from him the mind of the regenerate discovers no rest. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” “A good understanding have all they that do his commandments.”

From “Daily Meditation” by Rev. Geo. Bowen

“Lead us not into temptation.” – Mat_6:13.

If you ask me to show you a wise man, I will ask you to find for me a man who, morning, noon, and night, offereth to God this prayer. You find him, and you say to me, ” Why, this is a poor man, a mean man, an ignorant man, an obscure man; I asked him some ordinary questions, and he could not answer them. In his hand was a book, and he told me frankly that having no wisdom of his own, he was obliged to make use of that book. And yet you tell me he is the wisest of men. His wisdom multiplied ten thousand times would not equal the wisdom of some that are known to me.” To this I rejoin: Your wise man and mine are alike in one respect. They are exposed to a common danger. They have an enemy whose power enables him to laugh at all the wisdom of man, and whose malignity will bring everlasting ruin upon those whom he subjugates. Woe then to him who is foolish enough to trust in any wisdom of his own. He is daily led into temptation without knowing it, and daily succumbs; and day by day the fetters of the enemy are more strongly riveted upon him.

No man was ever so far advanced in the divine life, as not to need to utter these words. In fact the holiest breathe this petition with the most frequency. And if an angel should be sent from heaven into the midst of us, it would be ever upon his lips.

” This is a world of temptation, and it would be difficult so to dispose of ourselves as never to encounter temptation.” True: and many advantages flow to the Christian from the fact that he is exposed to temptation. His graces are thus strengthened. His self-knowledge is increased. He relies more implicitly upon the word of God. But the tempter knows how to combine circumstances, and so to adapt his wiles to the spiritual state of a man, as at times to bring an unexpected and powerful temptation to bear upon him. With reference to such temptations as these the Christian offers up this prayer. God gives a man the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit with regard to ordinary temptations, those that he is already familiar with; and gives him a spirit of prayer with regard to others, from which in answer to this prayer, he delivers him. There is one way of dealing with present temptations, and another way of dealing with those that are future. If, relying on our strength of faith, we cease to be apprehensive of new and subtle arrangements by which our affections may become entangled, we are almost certain to sustain damage.

If after all it pleases God to bring the petitioner into temptation, he is not brought into it as other men are. God will indicate, in the trying hour, the way of escape.
–

From “The Word For You Today” by Bruce Christian – Lifting Those Who Fall

So how do you approach people who need help?

LIFTING THOSE WHO FALL

It’s okay to confront somebody you believe is in the wrong, but not with a self-righteous attitude.  When church leaders insisted a woman “caught in the act of adultery” be stoned (See John 8:4 NLT), Jesus replied, “Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone” (v. 7 NLT).  Ouch!  One Christian author writes: “Are we aware of other people’s mistakes because they confided in us, or have we appointed ourselves the ‘moral police’ to justify examining the blemishes in everyone else’s behavior?  Is your goal to restore prodigals,,,,or do you have a hidden agenda to evaluate yourself by condemning those around you?  I’ve been confronted twice by other Christians.  One…a red-faced stranger who was furious with me for wearing knee-high leather boots with a short skirt to her church.  She called me a ‘Jezebel.’  The second was…a good friend who tenderly pointed out my pride in a specific situation.  The name-calling left a bruise on my soul….the compassionate rebuke turned me toward the forgiving arms of our heavenly Father.  God alone has the perfect combination of holiness and mercy to stand in judgment of the human heart.  The Bible says, ‘if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path.  And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.’  The only one who was worthy to condemn us, chose instead to pardon us…and in light of our own sinner-saved-by-grace (status)-when the Holy Spirit impresses you to confront someone who has messed up, do it with honesty, compassion, and humility.”

From “The Word For You Today” by Bruce Christian – Temptation (3)

     You have open doors before you all day long.  How do you choose which ones to go through?

TEMPTATION (3)

     Temptation enters through three doors: “The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.”  That’s how it entered the Garden of Eden.  “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food (the lust of the flesh), that it was pleasant to the eyes (the lust of the eyes), and a tree desirable to make one wise (the pride of life), she took of it’s fruit (Ge 3:6 NKJV).  Satan has no new tricks, he just dresses up the same old temptations in new attire.  “The lust of the flesh” is anything you recklessly go into debt for, manipulate for, or violate your integrity for.  “The lust of the eyes” has to do with your perception.  By the time you start seeing clearly, you’ve lost a great relationship or walked away from an opportunity, only to look back and say, “I was foolish.  If I’d only waited.”  “The pride of life” is the most subtle, therefore the most dangerous.  You need a certain amount of pride to succeed in life.  So when does pride cross the line?  When you start exalting yourself; when you neglect God and think your success is the result of your own effort;  when you can’t admit you’re wrong; when you’re willing to go all the way to the bottom; fighting and blaming others.  Someone who cannot repent cannot be restored.  After his affair with Bathsheba, David wrote, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps 51:17 NIV).

From “The Word For You Today” by Bruce Christian – Temptation (2)

     TEMPTATION (2) 

    Notice the three areas in which Satan tempted Christ:  (1)  Provision.  “Command that these stones become bread” (Mt 4:3 NKJV).  This addresses one of our greatest fears-that if we don’t look out for ourselves nobody else will.  So Jesus says: “Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’…. your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Mt 6:31-33 NKJV).  (2)  Protection.  Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and said, “If You are the Son of God, throw yourself down.  For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over You'” (Mt 4:5-6 NKJV).  This addresses another of our core fears-that God may not protect us.  Satan whispers, “You’re on the pinnacle of success right now, but you could easily go over the edge.”  When you start thinking like that-claim this promise: “In the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavillion” (Ps 27:5 NKJV).  (3)  Position.  “The devil took Him up an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’  Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan!  For it is written, You shall worship the Lord Your God, and Him only shall you serve.'” (Mt 4:8-10 NKJV).  Now, there’s nothing wrong with wanting provision, protection, and position.  The temptation is to try and get them through your own devices and for your own ends.

From “The Word For You Today” by Bruce Christian – Temptation

          Part of dealing with temptation is in how you view it.  A good word here.

 

TEMPTATION (1)

     Christ’s temptation in the wilderness answers two questions: (1) Who is tempted?  Everyone!  If Jesus was tempted, you’ll be tempted too.  Now, you can be victorious over temptation, but you can’t pray temptation away.  Satan tried different approaches with Jesus and he will do the same with you.  Being tempted doesn’t mean you’re not in the will of God, it just means that Satan doesn’t give up his rule in your life without a fight.  The battle begins the moment you decide to serve God, and the attacks come at you every day.  So, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes” (Eph 6:11 NIV).  (2)  When are you tempted?  When you have an important role to play in God’s plan you’re a high value target to the devil.  Matthew records, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”  But notice what had just taken place before this: “When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him.  And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'” (Mt 3:16-17 NKJV).  So temptation is a compliment; it proves you are called by God.    And it’s also a confirmation; it’s evidence that you are walking in His will.  Following His temptation, we read, “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee” (Lk 4:14 NKJV).  And you will too!

From 2000+ Illustrations (Source Unknown)

     Great wrongs happen by degree. 

Tracing Character to Its Source

During a thunder storm that contained high winds, a giant oak tree was blown down. The tree was thought to be in perfect health; that is, from outward appearance it seemed to be in good health since it was almost perfectly shaped and full of green leaves. However, the massive tree could not withstand the stress of the high wind because of deterioration on the inside. What started as a tiny corruption at the center of the tree had spread until that tremendous tree was so weakened that it was toppled by the wind.

One may reach a point where he forsakes God altogether. It is because he (like the tree) has decayed on the inside. Perhaps the deterioration started with a little lie or one small drink of beer or forsaking the assembly to go fishing or camping. Long before our feet carry us where we ought not go, and our hands do what they ought not do, the desire is in our hearts (Psa_119:9-11). With pure hearts we will be able to stand the stress of temptation and the stress of everyday living.