Posts Tagged "spirit"
Awakened by the Spirit through a Song
A thoughtless young woman in Scotland was one day invited by an acquaintance to accompany her to a Moody and Sankey meeting. She declined to go, but on being further pressed, consented and went. She was not impressed by anything she heard in the course of the meeting. Indeed, she thought there was nothing in it,” and wondered why they should make so much ado about what seemed so common place.
The last hymn, “Yet There Is Room,” was being sung by Mr. Sankey alone. He had reached the last stanza: “Ere night that gate may close, and seal thy doom, Then the last long cry, No room, no room! No room, no room! Oh, woeful cry, No room!”
These last words of Dr. Bonar’s hymn fell upon the ears of the young woman like a sudden thunder clap she left the meeting, but the words went with her. “No room, no room!” still rang in her ears.
Conscience awoke at the sound of this warning bell. Nor could she rest until as she trusts, she found rest in the great Redeemer – Have you?
“Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,” (2 Timothy 1:8-9 KJV)
Read MoreTremendous Power in United Fellowship
“If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.“ (Matt 18:19 KJV)
Your prayer on earth rings a bell in heaven; rather, it pushes a button that releases power from heaven. Something happens every time you pray-unless a barrier between you and your brother blocks the current. Fellowship is just that important. If the circuit is cut, the circuit of Christ…your brother…you, you had better get to work at once on a repair job.
Prayer is a personal contact. It involves a strange three-cornered personal relationship which is: Jesus is with me if I am with my brother or my sister. When we get together He too is with us in a peculiar sense. Our relationship with Christ cannot be a self-centered, ingrown affair.
How sorely God’s cause needs prevailing, united prayer. How foolish, then, for us to let trifling differences separate us and hinder the flow of the Spirit in our prayers. The “agreement” that defeats the devil is no superficial, casual lip-asking; it is the outgoing of the depths of hearts that know only one desire…”as the hart panteth after the water brooks.” [Study Matt18:18-20; Acts 12:5-17]
Read MoreAffliction – The Soil of Growth and Beauty
A little girl walking in a garden noticed a particularly beautiful flower. She admired its beauty and enjoyed its fragrance. “It’s so pretty!” she exclaimed. As she gazed on it, her eyes followed the stem down to the soil in which it grew. “This flower is too pretty to be planted in such dirt!” she cried. So she pulled it up by its roots and ran to the water faucet to wash away the soil. It wasn’t long until the flower wilted and died.
When the gardener saw what the little girl had done, he exclaimed, “You have destroyed my finest plant!”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t like it in that dirt,” she said.
The gardener replied, “I chose that spot and mixed the soil because I knew that only there could it grow to be a beautiful flower.”
Often we murmur because of the circumstances into which God has “sovereignaly” placed us. We fail to realize that He is using our pressures, trials, and difficulties to bring us to a new degree of spiritual beauty.
“Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.” (John 4:35-38 KJV)
Read MorePromoting a neutral office environment
Our goal to promote a non-threatening and productive office environment is to establish language that is gender-neutral, ethnic-neutral, and age-neutral while celebrating our spirit of diversity.
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