THOUGHTS

March 26, 2020

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Now changed to

"Oh, the Places You Can't Go!"

Here's another quote from Dr. Seuss

"When you think things are bad,

When you feel sour and blue,

When you start to get mad,

You should do what I do.

Just tell yourself, Duckie,

You're really quite lucky!

Some people are so much more,

Oh, muchly, much-much more

unlucky than you."

Stay home.  Wash your hands.

This pandemic has proven to us how fragile we really are.

Family and friends have vulnerable health issues.

 But some family and friends go bravely on to help others.  

This is literally a deadly serious situation.

Our eyes are becoming more open to it every day.

Our hearts hurt for those who are hurting.

It is time to take the temperature of your soul.

"Faith is deliberate confidence

in the character of God

Whose ways you may not 

understand at the time."

Oswald Chambers

Here is one of my favorite quotes from "Streams in the Desert"...

"When God has deepened us, 

then He can give us His deeper truths,

His profoundest secrets

and His mightiest trusts."

Continuing with Colonel Brengle's "The Way of Holiness"...

"3.  The next thing is to believe that the blessing is for you.  Of course, if you do not believe that you can be cleansed from envy and jealousy, and quick temper and all sin, and be kept pure and good all the time, you will not seek for it."

"Satan will surely do all he can to discourage you, and make you doubt the possibility of holiness for yourself.  He will tell you that it is for other people, but not you...

Satan may tell you that you have failed so often that God will not now give you the blessing.  That is a lie of the devil's.  Don't believe it...He knows all about your failures, and pities you, and loves you still, and wants to give you the blessing far more than you want to receive it  Peter failed again and again during the three years he was with Jesus, and finally there was an awful failure during that sad hour when he cursed and swore that he did not know Him; but in spite of it all, Jesus loved him, and within a few weeks of that time, Peter got the blessing, and we find him winning three thousand souls in a single day."

"...To get the blessing, you must resist the devil, and believe that it is for you."

Prior to Peter's denial, one of the last things Jesus told him was, "Simon, Simon (Peter), behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." (Luke 22:31-32)  In the manner of harvest in biblical times, the grain was tossed in the basket and the heavy kernels fell while the wind blew the chaff away.  Again in Psalm 1:4 it says, "The wicked are not so, But they are like chaff which the wind drives away."  That's what these times are doing, not just in our world, but in our hearts.  1.  Fill your heart with God, and He will strengthen you in order to help others, like a grain of wheat.  2.  Don't allow your heart to be so empty that it blows away.  3.  Know Jesus Himself prays for us.