Jesus The Dilemma Dissolver!
My heart was in such a dilemma, but the Gentle One came and melted it all away, leaving me in eternal bliss.
Jesus nailed Man's Dilemma, yea My Dilemns, to that Tree.
All my ugliness, all my insanity, and my confusion were forever nailed to that blood-soaked Tree.
Jesus SPRUNG ME from my Dilemma when HUNG HE between heaven and earth.
My eternal worth and destiny hung in the balance as Jesus hung there in excruciating pain, arms spread wide open to me. "Father, forgive Dan, for he knows not what he does!"
As the hymn writer exclaimed, THE CROSS BEFORE ME - THE WORLD BEHIND ME, THOUGH NONE GO WITH ME - STILL I WILL FOLLOW.
How could I not follow such a One who followed the Father to the very point of death for me. I OWE HIM my wholehearted allegiance be the way sometimes straightened and narrow.
Gentleness, not Harshness, makes a man GREAT! O how my heart pursues His tenseness and gentleness.
Psalms 18:35 (KJV)
[35] Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.
Practice GENTLENESS on your wife or husband.
Practice TENDERNESS on your children.
1 Peter 3:4 (MSG)
[4] but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in.
1 Peter 3:1-5 (MSG)
1 Peter 3
CULTIVATE INNER BEAUTY
[3:1] The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated
[2] by your life of holy beauty.
[3] What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes
[4] but your inner disposition.
Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in.
[5] The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands.
What goes on in the inside of you will sooner or later come out in some shape, form or fashion! Either it will slip out of your mouth, show up in your choices, or come splashing out in your behavior.
Work on your HIDDEN MAN OF THE HEART. Spend quality time with God in prayer and scripture meditation shaping THE REAL YOU.
When it's time for The Lord to break my apothecary jar to pour me out on hurting humanity, I want pure golden oil to flow out, not some polluted mixture.
Lord, break me and pour me out on others! Don't let me die here in some kind of insulated holy huddle. I want to live the adventure of getting my hands dirty as I enter the ghetto of human pain with nothing to offer but the love of Jesus!
I have found, that as a preacher, I don't have to spend much time on preparing MY MESSAGES... my sermons. My messages come quick to me... easily! The calling to preach is a sheer gift of grace. It's a gift! But what I have to spend much time on is preparing MYSELF, to get myself broken and sweet before The Lord so He can use me. As the old saying goes, MORE IS CAUGHT THAN TAUGHT. I cannot minister true LIFE without first having gone through a process of spiritual death myself. Getting MYSELF out of the way is the constant challenge. PREPARATION OF THE HEART BEFORE THE LORD is of utmost consequence when it comes to ministering LIFE to others.
This JESUS THING is a HEART THING!
The Gospel is about matters of the heart, not about si many other things that men waste so much time on.
Stay away from all polluted pools of...
Stay away from anyone who distracts you from your divine purpose!
Don't waste time on people who can't discern your worth.
Don't waste precious energy on trying to figure out how to assuage your critics. Spend only enough time on a critic to forgive them quickly in prayer and them move on with the Lord. Stay on track. Keep your focus. If God wants to sway your critics, He can do so in time... His way.
Mike Murdock: Never spend more time on a critic than you would a close friend (or your own mother).
Critics come and go. Treasure your inner circle of friends.
Stop listening to so many voices!
Extract extreme pleasure from quality time spent with each person from your inner circle. Listening and watching each of your special others brings deep satisfaction.
God designed children to be the softeners of adult hearts. O how precious to watch a toddler or to gaze upon an infant. To listen to a young child or to watch their lightfootedness as they dance or play. How refreshing to see their smaller frames and their soft skin. Their facial expressions and their comments from the peanut gallery never cease to amuse me. What uncommon and lasting pleasure can be derived by simply being AWARE of the children around us and celebrating these 24K gold creations of God!
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