Saturday, July 12, 2008

# 257: Stunning Short Notes and One Liners

This is a repeat of post # 140, which was first published on 4/16/06. As I reread it recently, I was impressed with some of the mind-provoking truths it presents. I believe new bloggers may also be impressed.

What follows are a few short themes for contemplation, meditation, and prayer. Many are something of an encapsulation of issues already covered in this blog. Others were more briefly touched upon, while some are new concepts. Study them; live them; they are great jumping-off points in one’s Christian walk.

In the Christian life, the main, if not the only, way to put prosperity and wealth in its proper place is to actually start experiencing the holy life of Jesus Christ.

Having Christ-like belief leaves little room for ego.

Only a big person who knows how important he/she really is can be truly humble without fear of losing any of his/her greatness.

Don't tell me about Christ; show me Christ.

To love people as Christ would is to tell and give them what they need and not what they think they need or want. In most cases, this kind of love will be blatantly rejected and called judgmental.

Do you know on exactly what day Christ will return to Earth, not in the sense that one can mark it on the calendar? Read on. We know that Jesus Christ will return at the end of time to square things up with mankind. If, at a given time, there was the remotest possibility that several more people would believe Him and be saved if He waited a few more days, would He wait? Certainly! He would wait and He will wait until the world is so evil that there is absolutely no chance of even one more person repenting and believing in Him. That is the day He will return. I think we are getting close to that day, don't you?

I want to ask you a two-part question. Don’t tell anyone your answer, but you must give yourself an honest answer, right from your heart. Don’t lie and tell yourself something that will make you feel good. If you do, you will only be cheating yourself. If your answer makes you feel bad, it might be closer to the truth. Here are the questions: 1) What is/are the most valuable thing/things in your life? 2) What is the greatest desire or aspiration in your life? By giving yourself honest answers you have revealed who your god is, your source of worship, and the name of your true religion.

The name of my religion for years has been “self-interest”—staying young and healthy—in the name of good and God. What a rude awakening I got when I found out. Now, my God is Jesus Christ. My life now displays Him as my source of worship.

When Christians are certain of their future, they can borrow from that future to meet present-day needs. In other words, since many live in the past, why can’t they live in the glorious future? Our belief in what the future will be is converted into reality by our faith.

How do you think Jesus Christ felt, being the Son of God? How do you think we should feel, by faith, having been given the same status as Jesus, which is being clones-of-Christ-in-the-making? Of course, we should feel the same way He did. When we do, oh what power we will have to believe and love as He did. Then we can rightly say, “Look out world; here we come.”

One of the biggest crimes against God that one of His own can commit is to waste time on things that do not spiritually enrich our lives—good, innocent, and important as they may seem and more.

We are not made Christ-like as a means in itself, but for God to bless others through us.

When we say we are Christians but our lives do not display Christ, what evidence remains to substantiate our claim?

It is immoral not to help those who truly have needs and actually cannot help themselves. Conversely, it is immoral to enable those whose needs are fraudulent.

When we suffer for the cause of Christ, He actually shares our pain with us.

To know the truth of Jesus Christ is great, but that truth must be put into practice to be of any value. To know this truth, which makes one feel knowledgeable and important of sorts, without having a desire or ability to live it, is much more deadly than not knowing any truth at all. In other words, the deception of having knowledge of the truth and thinking it is of value, without applying it, is a greater deception than being deceived by ignorance of that truth. Are any of us guilty of this?

When someone loves you in truth, their love is like a magnet; it can either attract or repel, hurt or bless. You choose.

Any religious worship is false if it doesn't bring us closer to God so that the world can see Christ more clearly through our lives.

Our personal defeats are a great instructor in that they can bring us to Christ and His victorious life.

When we purposely do not do all the good we can in our Christian life, will grace take up the slack? I don’t think so. Grace enables us to apply our maximum effort.

What and where a person is at present is not as important to God as the future. He looks at the true desires of one’s heart.

When we love someone, they are our business. Since they are our business, THEIR NEEDS ARE OUR DEBTS. Pour our lives into theirs. Love makes unity.

Grace does not release us from the responsibility to give our all; in fact, when we start to understand the value of grace, we realize that grace empowers us to give our all.

Satan has the ability to mimic, through his people, all that God does through His people. This is a solemn warning to examine the motives behind any life.

A face is worth a thousand words: As Abe Lincoln said years ago, “By the time a man is forty, he is responsible for what his face looks like.”

Debt is the worst kind of hidden poverty, since one usually doesn’t recognize it as poverty. If that is the case, this country is in sad shape with its $ 8 trillion debt and counting. It will be our downfall.

God hates it when we replace Him with religious rituals and formalities.

We all need attention. When our attention comes to us from God through faith, we don't need attention from men/women.

Although a clear conscience does not justify us in God's sight, we need a clear conscience as to our lifestyle to make sure we are not working for the enemy without knowing it.

What is of greatest value in one's life will take over and control that life.

A person can experience the future in the present when one is sure of what the future will be.

When we are living in God's will, everything that happens to us is according to God's will because He is in control. Praise The Lord.

No one is able to know Jesus Christ or even have a desire to do so, as long as any self-interest (ego) dominates that life.

The closer one gets to being like Jesus Christ, the more one will be misunderstood by the religious. It’s a very reliable barometer.

The face with a smile that is genuine will continue to smile even after it is slapped.

I read good into all that God allows to happen to me.

The sin that doesn't seem like sin to us, especially the kind we theologically rationalize, will get us if we don't recognize it as the sin it is.

To have God's love is to treat everyone equally, regardless of how we feel about them.

A person’s teaching must spring from one's Christian life that is lived in belief of and obedience to God, and not merely from religious books written by others; otherwise, words get passed on and then become the criteria for Christianity. Repeating, teaching must be based on Christian truth, and truth must be experienced to have any value in God’s sight.

The seal or mark of the presence of God's Spirit in a person is the holiness and love in one's life that springs from belief.

God never fails us; it is we who fail when we don't continue to believe and obey with our lives.

If there is no controlling, dominating purpose and direction in a person’s life, then there is no real reason for life, just existence.

Miracles are not for the comfort of the church, but to display the greatness and power of God in His people and all for His glory.

If obedience to His commands is LOVE for God, then disobedience to His commands is HATE for God. Amen.

The relationship we will have with Christ in eternity can be ours now through faith. In fact, we must experience it now, if even in a small way, to live as He requires.

When God gives someone more than he needs, though it may seem deserved since it came by his/her effort, it is to be used for others in need or to promote the gospel, and not for one’s pleasure or security.

An unbeliever grows older until final death. A believer grows newer day by day as he/she grows into the likeness of Christ, and culminates with true life at the end of spiritual growth in this temporal life.

“I don't want to go to that church; they are a bunch of nuts. They actually love their neighbor as themselves.” Is this said of your church?

The big difference between true Christianity and all of the other religions is that the othersthey may center on the desire to live a selfless life through self-improvement, whereas Christianity’s primary goal is to know and love God and care for others.

Only by doing what one believes, does one become what one believes.

Every Christian needs to believe the Father as Jesus did and then demonstrate Him to the world with the power of Jesus.

When someone does not give in to any of the body’s desires, excluding the essentials for existence, then one can be assured that they are living in Christ.

All doubt comes from the Devil. Everyone who doubts what God says is doing the Devil’s work. God says, “Love others.” Satan says, “Love and care for self.”

The truth doesn’t get much more hard-edged than the aforementioned. God bless all who take it to heart.

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