Thought-provoking sayings

Cutsy sayings, but with some thought-provoking results:

25 Things Worth Thinking About

1) Give God what’s RIGHT — not what’s LEFT.

2) Man’s way leads to hopeless end; God’s way leads to endless hope.

3) A lot of kneeling will keep you in good standing.

4) He who kneels before God can stand before anyone.

5) In the sentence of life, the devil may be a comma, but never let him be the period.

6) Don’t put a question mark where God puts a period.

7) Are you wrinkled with burden? Come to the church for a faith-lift.

8) When praying, don’t give God instructions — just report for duty.

9) Don’t wait for six strong men to take you to the church.

10) We don’t change God’s message; His message changes us.

11) All churches should be prayer-conditioned.

12) When God ordains, He sustains.

13) WARNING: Exposure to the Son may prevent burning.

14) Plan ahead — it wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.

15) Most people want to serve God, but only in an advisory position.

16) Suffering from truth decay? Brush up with your Bible on a daily basis.

17) Exercise daily! Walk with the Lord.

18) Never give the devil a ride — he will always want to drive.

19) Nothing else ruins the truth like stretching it.

20) Compassion is difficult to give away because it keeps coming back.

21) He who angers you controls you.

22) Worry is the darkroom in which negatives can develop.

23) Give Satan an inch, and he’ll be a ruler.

24) Be ye fishers of men — you catch them, and God will clean them.

25) God does not call the qualified; he qualifies the called.

Who is a Christian?

Who is a Christian? Romans 7.4

Lloyd-Jones

First, let us look at this verse as it gives us a general description and definition of the christian life. It is here for us on the surface.

It tells us immediately that to be a Christian means that we have an entirely new life. The Apostle speaks in terms of being ‘dead’ and ‘alive.’

To be Christian is nothing less than that. It involves a death and a rising. The difference, therefore, between the Christian and the non-Christian is obviously a radical one, and not merely something superficial.

To become a Christian does not mean that you just modify your former life a little, or adjust it slightly, or make it look a little better, or ‘brush it up’ as it were. There are many who conceive of Christianity in those terms.

To become a Christian, they think, means in the main that you stop doing certain things, and begin to do others. There is a slight adjustment in your life, a slight modification, some things are dropped, others added; there is some improvement, you live a better life than you lived before. All of that, of course, is quite true, but that alone is not Christianity.

Whatever our definition of Christianity is, it must include this idea of a death and a new life–nothing less than that. In other words, to be a Christian means to undergo the profoundest change that one can ever know. That is why the New Testament, in speaking of the way in which a person becomes a Christian, uses such terms as ‘Ye must be born again’, ‘a new creation’, a ‘new creature’. It is nothing less than regeneration. Naturally, generation is fundamental; it is the giving of life and bringing into being. Becoming a Christian involves regeneration, and the spiritual far surpasses the natural.

So here at once, and on the very surface, we are made to realize that to be a Christian is no small matter, and that the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is not a slight one. It is the greatest difference possible between two human beings. It is no other than the difference between life and death. That is why I say that the main trouble with most of us in the Church today is that our whole concept of the christian life is much too small. We seem to have lost this idea, though we may pay lip-service to it, that it involves as radical a process and as deep-seated a change as is conceivable. That is the first truth.

The second truth is that the man who has become a Christian is an entirely new relationship. That is what the Apostle is emphasizing here in particular.

To be a Christian means that you are now in an entirely new relationship to God. Before, your relationship to God was one through the Law; it is now through the Lord Jesus Christ. What a change that is! My whole standing is different; my position, my status as I stand before God, is altogether different from what it was before.

Here again is something which emphasizes the profound character of the Christian life. So as we talk about it we must always include this thought, that there has been an entire change in our relationship to God. We were ‘under law,’ we are now ‘under grace.’

The third truth is that as Christians we have an entirely new purpose in life, namely, ‘to bring forth fruit unto God’. The man who is not a Christian knows nothing of that purpose; he lives for himself, he brings forth fruit unto himself. He lives to satisfy himself; he is self-centered, entirely egocentric.

It matters not how good a man he appears to be; if he is not a Christian, he is always egocentric. He is proud of his morality, he is proud that he is not like other people, he looks at them with disdain. All along he is pleasing himself, coming up to this own standard, trusting his own efforts and endeavours. He revolves around himself. But the man who has become a Christian has an entirely new purpose, to ‘bring forth fruit unto God’. These are basic definitions of what it means to be a Christian.

The foruth general truth which here lies on the surface is that the Christian is a man who has been provided with an entirely new ability, a new power and strength. Certain things have happened to him in order that he should ‘bring forth fruit unto God’. He could not do that before; he can do so now. A new ability, a new power has entered into the life of this man.

There, I say, are four things which lie here on the very surface of this verse, and which are always true of the Christian.

A Life of Praise

A Life of Praise

Stephen M. Newman

When we look at worship, many of us see it as something we are to do once a week. For others it has become a daily part of our lives. When we look at the element of praise, the Bible is very clear on when and how we are to praise God. It is a very simple directive for the believer:
1. All the time
2. With everything you are
3. With a joyful heart
When we throw around the phrase “a sacrifice of praise,” do we really know what we are saying?. Hebrews 13:15 states that we are to, “Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name”.

First, continually means continually. That means all the time…non-stop. Second, continually means continually.

Psalm 34:1 says, “I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.”

Again, this is all the time…24/7. Is that what God meant? Does He expect us to spend all our time praising Him?

Psalms 103:1 says, “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name”.

“All my inmost being”. God doesn’t want a flippant offering of praise as we are walking into the church or as it crosses our minds. He wants everything that is in us to praise His name. He desires wholehearted praise from deep with us that is not inhibited by others. Too often we offer up praise that is not from our hearts. We voice it as if we were talking to a friend on the phone. Praise is a serious thing to God. Heaven is filled with it. He says that He is enthroned in the midst of it. Psalm 22:3 He even named the tribe to which Jesus would come out of “Judah” which means “praise”.

And lastly, we are to do it with joy. Psalm 9:2 says, “I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High”. Psalm 33:1 states, “Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him”.

How is this possible? You mean when I praise, I have to do it all the time, with all that I am, and joyfully as well? That’s a tall order to say the least. We have to remember, this is a God thing. When we accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior it was a serious decision. It can be compared to living in a place where Kings rule. We are to be totally loyal to the king. Our lives are to be submitted to his direction and will. We are subject to his authority. Those of us that live in the US have become soft in our understanding of what this means. We sit back and enjoy the good life when we are called to be servants…of God and man. We praise ourselves and others more than we do God.

I challenge you to take a look at your life as a child of God and as one who is called to be a worshiper of God. If we keep things in perspective, if we truly keep God first in our lives, the natural outflow will be a life filled with praise. Praise seems to be important to God. It should be important to us. Give Him praise merely for who He is and the rest will follow. He is worthy to receive our praise all the time, with a joyful heart, and with all we are.