Your Serve

“And a scribe came up and said to Him, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever You go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’”
(Matthew 8:19,20)

“Jesus has many who love His kingdom in heaven, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire comfort, but few who desire suffering. He finds many to share His feast, but few His fasting.

All desire to rejoice with Him, but few are willing to suffer for His sake. Many follow Jesus to the breaking of the bread, but few to the drinking of the cup of His passion. Many admire the miracles, but few follow Him to the humiliation of the cross. Many love Jesus as long as no hardship touches them.”

–Thomas a Kempis

Adios

Simply put, if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can’t be my disciple.
(Luke 14:33, The Message)

“This is faith: a renouncing of everything we are apt to call our own and relying wholly upon the blood, righteousness and intercession of Jesus”

— John Newton

The Need of THIS Hour

“Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy; for I the Lord am holy.”
(Leviticus 20:7)

“Come, Lord, and abide with me. Come, and occupy alone the throne of my heart; reign there without a rival, and consecrate me entirely to thy service.”

–Charles Spurgeon

Waiting

Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.
(Luke 24:46-49) 

“This season of waiting is always an essential qualification for successful service. God would have His children realize the utter inadequacy of all human means to accomplish His gigantic purposes, that thus the praise and glory might be afterwards ascribed exclusively to Him. The disciples were given ten days to review the field of battle, to recognize the difficulties that bristled round on every side, to measure the adversaries’ strength, and to understand their own helplessness and weakness; thus were they driven to their knees in earnest, anxious prayer. Then came the answer. The promise was fulfilled, and the power stored up in the almighty Savior was brought down to His disciples in the person of the Holy Spirit.”

-Hugh D. Brown

What’s In Your Wallet?

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 
(Matthew 13:44)  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Christ is a jewel more worth than a thousand worlds, as all know who have Him. Get Him, and get all; miss Him and miss all.

–Thomas Brooks

Push Away From The Table

“And after fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.”
Matthew 4:2

Do you have a hunger for God? If we don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because we have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great. If we are full of what the world offers, then perhaps a fast might express, or even increase, our soul’s appetite for God. Between the dangers of self-denial and self-indulgence is the path of pleasant pain called fasting.

- John Piper -

Unseen Hand

“Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?”
Job 2:10, Holman 

I thank God for the Unseen Hand, sometime urging me onward, sometimes holding me back; sometimes with a caress of approval, sometimes with a stroke of reproof; sometimes correcting, sometimes comforting. My times are in his hand.

- Vince Havner -

The Call of the Bride

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” 
Ruth 1:16-18 

When a woman consents to marry a man, she (if she’s a Christian) should think about the relationship between Christ the Bridegroom and the Church, His Bride.  The Church responds to His call.  The Bride relinquishes her independence, her name, her destiny, her plans for a “life of her own” (remember Jesus’ words: “If anyone wants to follow Me, let him give up his right to himself”), her family, her home, and perhaps even her country to join the life of this man.  She accepts his destiny, his name, his future, and everything else as her own.  If she is called to be his wife, she is called to support and encourage him in the work God calls him to do. ..

…(The source of these perorations is not Why I Feel Good About Being Submissive, by Elizabeth Elliot [don't order it---there is no such book], but the Book of Books—check out what it says about Christ and His Bride, and then ask Him to help you live by that paradigm.  I’m asking everyday.)

Elizabeth Elliot
“Where Will Complaining Get You?”
November/December 1983 Newsletter

Beware

And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’  But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’
(Matthew 25:10-12, ESV)

Beware, I pray thee, of presuming that thou art saved. If thy heart be renewed, if thou shalt hate the things that thou didst once love, and love the things that thou didst once hate; if thou hast really repented; if there be a thorough change of mind in thee; if thou be born again, then hast thou reason to rejoice: but if there be no vital change, no inward godliness; if there be no love to God, no prayer, no work of the Holy Spirit, then thy saying “I am saved” is but thine own assertion, and it may delude, but it will not deliver thee.

-Charles Spurgeon

Perspective

Many years ago, Matthew Henry, a well-known Bible scholar, was once robbed of his wallet. Knowing that it was his duty to give thanks in everything, he meditated on this incident and recorded in his diary the following:

Let me be thankful, first, because he never robbed me before; second, because although he took my purse, he did not take my life; third, because although he took all I possessed, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.