Resource Manager Posted March 26, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 26 March 2014"The great choice in life is this: Am I to serve myself or my God? The inner world of my heart is by nature devoted to itself, it is bent toward selfishness and confines itself to its own narrow ends. God is willing to set me free. He awaits our cry."- H. TennantThoughts on the Psalms (1952) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resource Manager Posted March 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 27 March 2014"If I could believe that uninspired men chanced to produce the Bible, then I could believe that blind force chanced to produce the world. If I could refuse to believe in the Bible because it represents that God has sometimes used beasts of prey, or no less savage races of men, as the instruments of His vengeance, then I should also feel bound to believe that God could never allow such evils to prevail at all–and thus deny His very existence. There is no logical halting place between the position of the Christadelphian and that of the absolute atheist: no halting place for me between simple faith and utter folly."- Islip CollyerConviction and Conduct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resource Manager Posted March 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2014 28 March 2014"God is holy. He is unique and separate from His creation, He is other than man. We are called to holiness, to separation, to be saints. God reserves the right to declare who are His and who is holy. He has provided the means of our sanctification. His touch has extended to us, and we may be sanctified by His word, which is truth."- Philip HindeThe Attributes of God (1973) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resource Manager Posted March 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2014 29 March 2014"We are used to thinking of Hebrews 11 as the chapter of "faith", but the key word in this chapter is not "faith" but the word "by". The evidence for this is that Hebrews 11 is a chapter of works and not of beliefs. It shows us what God’s servants did by faith. By faith Abraham left Ur, sojourned in the land of promise, and offered up Isaac. By faith Sarah conceived Isaac. Theirs was a living faith, a faith by which they lived their lives. The apostle James describes it as showing faith by works (James 2:18). A profession of beliefs without a consistent way of life will only serve to condemn us as hypocrites. Without the works which Abraham performed, in particular the offering up of Isaac, there was no evidence that his belief was anything more than an intellectual conception. A living faith inevitably works out into actions: "Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect" (James 2:22)."- Stephen PalmerGreat and Precious Promises (1993) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resource Manager Posted March 31, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2014 30 March 2014"We want God to forget so much about us, and so, like the psalmist we cry: "according unto the multitude of your tender mercies blot out my transgressions." (Psalm 51:1) If it is hard for us now to forget the wrongs done to us, the insults flung at us, the cruel things said to us, and about us, let us remember Joseph and Jesus. They suffered long, and were kind. If, in spite of these examples, we still find it hard to forget and forgive, let us pray as the Psalmist: "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10)"- R. Alan OvertonJoseph (1940) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resource Manager Posted March 31, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2014 31 March 2014Numbers 14Proverbs 10Luke 23"THE TREE OF LIFE"What is paradise? It is not a common word in scripture. Jesus uses it in his last message, the book of Revelation, saying, “To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life , which is in the paradise of God.” [Revelation 2:7] Primarily it means a park, a garden - and Adam was put out of the first paradise to stop him eating of the tree of life.There is not the slightest indication that paradise means heaven. John’s Gospel states, “no one has ascended to heaven” [John 3:13]. In today’s 23rd chapter of Luke we read that oft quoted promise of Jesus to the repentant thief beside him on the cross that “you will be with me in paradise” [Luke 23:43]. It is important to realize Jesus is responding to the request the thief had made. “Jesus,” he said, “ remember me when you come in your kingdom” [Luke 23:42].What a tremendous testimony the words of the thief are to his belief in the future that lay before Jesus, in spite of what was happening,. Had he had been a follower but had gone astray? To the main disciples, all seemed lost in what had happened, but not to the thief, suddenly he had a perception of tremendous faith. Surely this was the reason Jesus made the promise, “Truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise” [Luke 23:43] You will have noticed that we put the comma after the word “today” – which then makes sense of what Jesus said. There are no commas in the original Greek.Those who think paradise means heaven ignore what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene when she met him on the resurrection morn, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father” [John 20:17] The death of Jesus was real, for 3 days he had ceased to exist! Let us have the faith of the thief on the cross – maybe we need a personal crisis in our life to challenge us to prove whether our faith is real.Today’s chapter in Proverbs 10 encourages us to think positively, “Whoever walks in integrity walks securely” [Proverbs 10:9] “The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life” [Proverbs 10:11] “The wise lay-up knowledge” [Proverbs 10:14] “Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life” [Proverbs 10:17] Our daily reading of God’s word is an essential reminder and re-enforcement of God’s instructions so that we keep on the pathway that leads to the paradise to come on this earth when Jesus returns.-------- DC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resource Manager Posted March 31, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2014 31 March 2014"As in Nature so in the written Word, God has concealed things and has called upon His servants to exercise their minds in searching for the treasures of divine wisdom. It has always been "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." Faithful men and women try to put the littles together and in the process find the mental exercise which brings their minds nearer to God."- I. CollyerPrinciples and Proverbs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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