• If you think your chosen pew is "sacred" and no one else should sit in your spot.
• If you think the Bible questions on Jeopardy are way too easy.
• If you know all the words to all the verses of Trust and Obey.
• If, when you're happy and you know it, you clap your hands, stomp your feet and say "Amen!"
• If you've ever carried your Bible in an empty casserole dish.
• If you brought that casserole dish to the last fellowship meal, and the main ingredient in it was cream of mushroom soup.

Heaven is not here, it's There. If we were given all we wanted here, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next. God is forever luring us up and away from this one, wooing us to Himself and His still invisible Kingdom, where we will certainly find what we so keenly long for.
Elizabeth Elliot, Keep a Quiet Heart

The sovereign God wants to be loved for Himself and honored for Himself, but that is only part of what He wants. The other part is that He wants us to know that when we have Him we have everything - we have all the rest.
A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

Sometimes when I'm faced with an unbeliever, an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we finished eating the magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believe there's a cook.
Ronald Reagan

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us. Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing - sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death - can that that love away.
Henri Nouwan

The sky is dark and sullen
The trees look so forlorn
The days are short, a chill sets in
A winter day is born.

I yearn for spring so long ago
The wren and meadowlark.

I long for gentle days of rain
A day so ever fair.

Beneath the dead decaying leaves
A bud does wait anew
To reach its arms up to the sky
When winter days are through.

Beyond the bitter winds that blow
A breeze awaits to greet
To bring in sun kissed golden rod
And tender grass so sweet.

Just as the winter fades away To this one hope I cling Will surely bring the spring.

Author/Written By:
Marilyn Ferguson

I gave you life through giving of myself My broken body and my blood poured out

So take and eat, and have my life within Remember that I have forgiven all your sins.

So as you remember all that I did for you My death on the cross, and all the beatings too

But more than that I rose from the dead And won the victory over Satan and of death.

In your union with me, even though you may die, You can know my victory and have eternal life.

But until that time, come often to my table Eat and drink of me for I am truly able

To conquer evil ~ that war against the Lord For I shall deliver those that I have called

And give unto you the peace I only give So you may be led and begin to really live.

© By M.S.Lowndes.

Hope is a word that every hurting heart understands.

Hope shines brighter than the brightest star on the darkest night.

Faith is bigger than the highest mountain. And God is greater than any obstacle in your path. Anything can be accomplished by those who fully put their hearts into it.

The time to start is now the place to start is here. May hope cast its special light upon your path and may God bless you.

"He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.

One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver."

She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?"

He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy - when I see my image in it"

If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

At this very moment, someone needs to know that God is watching over them. And, whatever they're going through, they'll be a better person in the end.

"Life is a coin. You can spend it anyway you wish, but you can only spend it once."

It is only a tiny rosebud, A flower of God's design; But I cannot unfold the petals With these clumsy hands of mine.

The secret of unfolding flowers Is not known to such as I. God opens this flower so sweetly, In my hands it will fade and die.

If I cannot unfold a rosebud, This flower of God's design, Then how can I think I have wisdom To unfold this life of mine?

So I'll trust in Him for His leading Each moment of every day. I will look to him for His guidance Each step of the pilgrim way.

The pathway that lies before me, Only my Heavenly Father knows. I'll trust Him to unfold the moments, Just as He unfolds the rose.

- Helen Steiner Rice