Don't Ruin Rest

From:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/why-time-management-is-ruining-our-lives

"One of the sneakier pitfalls of an efficiency-based attitude to time is that we start to feel pressured to use our leisure time “productively”, too – an attitude which implies that enjoying leisure for its own sake, which you might have assumed was the whole point of leisure, is somehow not quite enough. And so we find ourselves, for example, travelling to unfamiliar places not for the sheer experience of travel, but in order to add to our mental storehouse of experiences, or to our Instagram feeds. We go walking or running to improve our health, not for the pleasure of movement; we approach the tasks of parenthood with a fixation on the successful future adults we hope to create."

"...Friedrich Nietzsche, in what reads like a foreshadowing of our present circumstances. “Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.”"

From the Gospel Transformation Bible on Psalm 55

"Recalling that God is King allows the believer to calm his emotions (v. 19 ). He is calmed by the realization that his Shepherd-King “gives ear” to his “voice” and protects his soul in the battle (vv. 16– 19 ; 78: 72 ). The believer’s faith is reawakened when he remembers that God will bring justice upon the treacherous ( 55: 23 ). A fresh vision of a benevolent and all-powerful King creates a stable and steadfast faith, inviting other anxious souls to “cast [their] burden” upon the Lord rather than be cast about on the waves of doubt or even be cast down into the “pit of destruction” (vv. 22– 23 ; 1 Pet. 5: 6– 7 ). Even now, Christ rules over all ( Phil. 2: 9 )."

Waiting On God's Timing, Even With God's Vision

October 13th

Individual discouragement and personal enlargement

Moses went unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens. Exodus 2:11.

"Moses saw the oppression of his people and felt certain that he was the one to deliver them, and in the righteous indignation of his own spirit he started to right their wrongs. After the first strike for God and for the right, God allowed Moses to be driven into blank discouragement, He sent him into the desert to feed sheep for forty years. At the end of that time, God appeared and told Moses to go and bring forth His people, and Moses said—‘Who am I, that I should go?’ In the beginning Moses realized that he was the man to deliver the people, but he had to be trained and disciplined by God first. He was right in the individual aspect, but he was not the man for the work until he had learned communion with God.
We may have the vision of God and a very clear understanding of what God wants, and we start to do the thing; then comes something equivalent to the forty years in the wilderness, as if God had ignored the whole thing, and when we are thoroughly discouraged God comes back and revives the call, and we get the quaver in and say—‘Oh, who am I!’ We have to learn the first great stride of God—“I AM THAT I AM hath sent thee.” We have to learn that our individual effort for God is an impertinence; our individuality is to be rendered incandescent by a personal relationship to God (see Matthew 3:11). We fix on the individual aspect of things; we have the vision—‘This is what God wants me to do’; but we have not got into God’s stride. If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a big personal enlargement ahead.”

https://ref.ly/o/utmost/449219 via the Logos Bible Android app.

On Ephesians 1.22,23: Jesus' Sovereignty

DORET: "By the church he means the whole community of the faithful. This he calls the body of Christ and the fullness of the Father. This body he has filled with all gifts. He lives in it and goes about in it,* as the voice of prophecy says. But this will be more strictly so in the future life....In the present life God is in all, since his nature is uncircumscribed; but he is not all in all,* since some are impious and some lawless. Yet he lives in those who fear him and who put hope in his mercy. In the next life at any rate, when mortality has ceased and immortality is conferred and sin has no place any longer, he will be all in all."
* Lev 26.11,12
* 1 Cor 15:28

from 'Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture', Vol 8.

Key Thought. Summarizing A Great Book.

from "Waiting on God" by Andrew Murray.

"Dear Christian, begin to see that waiting is not one among a number of Christian virtues, to be thought of from time to time. But, it expresses that disposition that lies at the very root of the Christian life. It gives a higher value and a new power to our prayers and worship, to our faith and surrender, because it links us, in unalterable dependence, to God Himself. And, it gives us the unbroken enjoyment of the goodness of God: "The LORD is good unto them that wait for him.""

Mercy

"It is rich mercy. Some things are great, but have little efficacy in them, but this mercy is a cordial to your drooping spirits; a golden ointment to your bleeding wounds; a heavenly bandage to your broken bones; a royal chariot for your weary feet; a bosom of love for your trembling heart. It is manifold mercy. As Bunyan says, “All the flowers in God’s garden are double.” There is no single mercy. You may think you have but one mercy, but you shall find it to be a whole cluster of mercies."

Charles Surgeon

Simple & Powerful Reminder

God Is On Our Side
Andrae Crouch

We live in troubled times
Seems like the sun won't shine
When will we realize
God is on our side

He hides us in his arms
Protecting us from harm

It's good to realize
God is on our side

Nothing can separate
He gives us strength to take
All that this world may bring
God is on our side

God is on our side
God is on our side

Written by Andrae Edward Crouch, Luther Hanes • Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group

Thanks For The Reminder Oswald Chambers

“If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the leisureliness which ought to characterize the children of God.”

http://ref.ly/o/utmost/338610 via the Logos Bible Android app.

Nehemiah 9.5-7

““Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting.” “Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you. “You are the Lord God” http://ref.ly/BibleNIV.Ne9.5-7 via the Logos Bible Android app.

Ah

I'm reading Isaiah 26:12 via @Logos or http://classic.net.bible.org/verse.php?book=Isa&chapter=26&verse=12

Coolest pic EVER!

A Problem in the American Church Today

I can’t help but wonder in this age of soundbite overstatement, political polarity, increased tribalization and faux infuriation (on every side of every issue!)…is there is an opportunity for the church to embody the community of new-creation, to live as a prophetic witness juxtaposed against our nation’s tragic and deeply immoral original sin? To see life come out of the burnt ashes. And if we are to carry the Ministry of Reconciliation with integrity, representing the Gospel to every man, woman and child…how can we be reconciled to God without being reconciled to our brother and sister (even if we don’t know or understand the ways we have contributed to their suffering)?

Written by Doug Paul 
http://www.missioalliance.org/the-problematic-creative-class-when-a-generation-of-church-planters-only-reached-white-people/?platform=hootsuite

Lonely for My Home

Rich Mullins
'Land Of My Sojourn'

Jesus and Prayer

I wonder to what extent the (Messianic) Psalms were inspired by the HS for Jesus to meditate on during His incarnation AND for Jesus' countinue use as He currently intercedes for us!

Intimacy with God

Deliberately Cultivated http://blog.truthforlife.org/deliberately-cultivated

Being Humble Before God

Into Alignment http://blog.truthforlife.org/into-alignment

Why Not!

http://dailycoffeenews.com/2016/01/19/scaa-unveils-a-whole-new-coffee-tasters-flavor-wheel/

Great: Now I Want Sour Cream & Brown Sugar

“The revelation of God is whole and pulls our lives together. The signposts of God are clear and point out the right road. The life-maps of God are right, showing the way to joy. The directions of God are plain and easy on the eyes. God’s reputation is twenty-four-carat gold, with a lifetime guarantee. The decisions of God are accurate down to the nth degree. God’s Word is better than a diamond, better than a diamond set between emeralds. You’ll like it better than strawberries in spring, better than red, ripe strawberries.”

http://ref.ly/Ps19.7-9-10 via the Logos Bible Android app.

Being Happy in Any Circumstance Because Happiness Is from The Grace of God

from Mark L. Ward, Jr.'s post on Logo's Blog

"I decided not to take the lexicon’s word for it, using Logos’ Bible Word Study tool to dig a little deeper. I looked at the kinds of people who are makarios and the kinds of situations in which people are makarios. Paul is makarios to show up before Agrippa and testify about Jesus (Acts 26:2). Even God Himself is makarios (1 Tim 1:11). The kinds of circumstances in which people are makarios are the kinds of circumstances in which we in contemporary English would use the word “happy.”

...

But there’s an angle on that word “blessed” that I realized in my study. There’s a reason we use an English adjective that is almost like a passive verb: “blessed.” That’s because there’s a flavor in this word—the flavor of a hidden actor, or rather, Actor. And it shows up after you use the Bible Word Study (and specifically the LXX section). You get the sense as you look at use after use of “Happy are the so-and-so’s” that Somebody is making these people happy. Somebody is blessing them. How could Jesus say that people who are poor in spirit and who mourn and who are persecuted are makarios? Because God is gracing them at that moment. People who are poor in spirit get in that state because of God’s gracious action in their hearts."