Month: August 2022

―   Jeremiah 33 Public Domain

How do you love yourself in the Biblical context?  You’ve worked hard to give yourself a good life. You treat yourself well, and regularly practice self-care. You have healthy self-esteem and a good sense of your worth.  In a kind and congenial way you have set boundaries, moral, financial, physical, and emotional in an ethical way.  You know the limits to which you can take your Saviour with you, so some places or activities you will not go or participate.  You have learned that “No.” is a complete sentence.  You allow the Holy Spirit to guide you in helping others, and being helped.  You pray!

Always remember to pray for your friends, for we never know what unmentioned need they may be struggling with.

“Over the souls of men spread the condor wings of colossal monsters and all manner of evil things prey upon the heart and soul and body of Man. Yet it may be in some far day the shadows shall fade and the Prince of Darkness be chained forever in his hell. And till then mankind can but stand up stoutly to the monsters in his own heart and without, and with the aid of God he may yet triumph.”

―   Robert E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can’t. If a thing is free to be good it’s also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”

―   C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity

“Mark 14: Jesus is falsely accused

Today’s chapter is Mark 14. Let’s look at verses 55 – 56: “Now the chief priests and all the council sought testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, but found none. For many bore false witness against Him, but their testimonies did not agree.”

https://www.patriotledger.com/story/lifestyle/faith/2012/03/24/mark-14-jesus-is-falsely/40073173007/

― Mark 14

“16 Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day.
17 For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!],
18 Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.” 

― 2 Corinthians AMPC

“God can take what Satan meant for shame and use it for His glory. Just when we think we’ve messed up so badly that our lives are nothing but heaps of ashes, God pours His living water over us and mixes the ashes into clay. He then takes this clay and molds it into a vessel of beauty. After He fills us with His overflowing love, He can use us to pour His love into the hurting lives of others.” 

― Lysa TerKeurst

“Take away from love the fullness of self surrender, the completeness of personal commitment, and what remains will be a total denial and negation of it.”

― Pope John Paul II, Love and Responsibility

““Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.”