The matters we or the world might consider trivial, He cares about and wants to remedy. He longs to relieve our worries and has promised to supply our most fundamental needs.
Jesus never commanded believers to produce fruit. Fruit is the *purpose* of the branch, but it is not the *responsibility* of the branch. The branch cannot produce anything on it's own. However, if it remains attached to the vine, it will receive life-sustaining sap, nourishment, strength, everything it needs.
The Promised Land was a tangible representation of God's ultimate desire for His people, but they failed to comprehend His gift for at least three reasons: It was unconditionally promised, it was outrageously generous, and it was absolutely free. None of those make sense in the world as we know it...
At least one indication of unbelief is the tendency to measure life's challenges against our own adequacy instead of God's promises. To enter our Sabbath rest, we must put an end to self-reliance - trusting in our own abilities to overcome difficulties, rise above challenges, escape tragedies, or achieve personal greatness.
In the wilderness, God's covenant people struggled with a choice between feeding their bellies and nourishing their souls. God provided manna--a breadlike food that fell to the ground during the night--to sustain the wandering Israelites and to teach them how to value His Word more than physical fulfillment.
Israel's first king, Saul, looked like he was born for the role. He was tall, handsome, intelligent, and sensitive to God's leading. But he eventually lost most of his attractive qualities, the most important being obedience.
The wise men posit questions to which they may not always find immediate answers, but through their reflections God stimulates man in his search for truth - which in the last analysis is a search for God himself.
God never asked us to meet life's pressures and demands on our own terms or by relying upon our own strength. Nor did He demands that we win His favor by assembling an impressive portfolio of good deeds. Instead, He invites us to enter His rest.
I live my life in widening circle That reach out across the world. I may not ever complete the last one, But I give myself to it. I circle around God, that primordial tower. I have been circling for thousands of years, And I still don't know: am I a falcon, A storm, or a great song? [I, 2]
God deals us all different hands. How we play 'em is up to us.
The Lord did not create suffering. Pain and death came into the world with the fall of man. But after man had chosen suffering in preference to the joys of union with God, the Lord turned suffering itself into a way by which man could come to the perfect knowledge of God.
We can scarcely indeed look into any part of the sacred volume without meeting abundant proofs, that it is the religion of the Affections which God particularly requires. Love, Zeal, Gratitude, Joy, Hope, Trust, are each of them specified; and are not allowed to us as weaknesses, but enjoined on us as our bounden duty, and commended to us as our acceptable worship.
In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. This in my time is the danger. There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused. At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?
Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his mind.
Life...as God intended it enables us to live above the drag of fear, superstition, shame, pessimism, guilt, anxiety, worry, and all the negativity that keeps people from seizing each day as a gift from Him.
The crisis of physical hunger is essentially a crisis of faith. What or whom will you trust to meet your most basic needs? Will you trust the God who made human bodies, or will you seek your own way? (Deuteronomy 8:1-3)
If there is a god, or hundreds of them, I hope they will forgive me for the harm I may have inflicted on you by telling you exactly what happened.
To require God to prove that He is able and willing to fulfill His promises would be proof positive that one does not trust Him.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, as it pleases him, for he can do all things.
If God created shadows it was to better emphasise the light.
