Month: February 2024

“Following Jesus means walking where he walks, doing what he did, and teaching what he taught. Disciples of Jesus are not supposed to simply learn information, they are supposed to apply information into their lives in a way that leads to transformation.”

―  LINK: What ‘Following Jesus’ Really Means

Today’s  Daily Readings

As I gazed into the distant past of deepest space, I wondered, “Is God really beyond all of this?” God, unbound by time and space, isn’t just hanging out on a distant planet in a galaxy on the other side of the universe, waiting to bring his kingdom to earth. God is beyond the deepest depths of space and the distant past into which we look back through space-time. But when I first laid eyes on the SMACS 0723 image, I confess my wonder was mixed with doubt: Could he really be beyond all of this?

Yes. Our God, who spoke trillions of stars into existence, is somehow and in some way not only beyond the most distant galaxies but around them, and through them, in a hands-on way. As difficult as it is to comprehend the enormity of the universe, it’s even more difficult to understand that God is bigger than it and beyond it. Difficult to understand, yes. But maybe not difficult to believe.

― God Is Beyond and Behind the Enormous Universe

Today’s  Daily Readings

― King James Version, Public Domain

Today’s  Daily Readings

“Rejoice! Know that I am with you and for you and will never leave you; take courage that I will fight for you and be your shield and buckler and provide for you when you are old; I will supply your every need, I will give you victory over death, I have prepared a place for you in heaven” 

― Jan Karon, Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good

Today’s  Daily Readings

― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

Today’s  Daily Readings

“Our opportunities to give of ourselves are indeed limitless, but they are also perishable. There are hearts to gladden. There are kind words to say. There are gifts to be given. There are deeds to be done. There are souls to be saved.

As we remember that “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God,” (Mosiah 2:17) we will not find ourselves in the unenviable position of Jacob Marley’s ghost, who spoke to Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s immortal “Christmas Carol.” Marley spoke sadly of opportunities lost. Said he: ‘Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!’ ”  

― Thomas S. Monson

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”  

― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“The season of the world before us will be like no other in the history of mankind. Satan has unleashed every evil, every scheme, every blatant, vile perversion ever known to man in any generation. Just as this is the dispensation of the fullness of times, so it is also the dispensation of the fullness of evil. We and our wives and husbands, our children, and our members must find safety. There is no safety in the world: wealth cannot provide it, enforcement agencies cannot assure it, membership in this Church alone cannot bring it.
As the evil night darkens upon this generation, we must come to the temple for light and safety. In our temples we find quiet, sacred havens where the storm cannot penetrate to us. There are hosts of unseen sentinels watching over and guarding our temples. Angels attend every door. As it was in the days of Elisha, so it will be for us: “Those that be with us are more than they that be against us.” 

― Vaughn J. Featherstone

“But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God’s love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God.”   

― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

“We may believe in the deity and the salvation of Christ, and acknowledge ourselves to be sinners in need of his salvation, but this does not make us Christians. We have to make a personal response to Jesus Christ, committing ourselves unreservedly to him as our Savior and Lord … At its simplest Christ’s call was “Follow me.” He asked men and women for their personal allegiance. He invited them to learn from him, to obey his words and to identify themselves with his cause … Now there can be no following without a previous forsaking. To follow Christ is to renounce all lesser loyalties.”  

― John R.W. Stott, Basic Christianity