Community Chat

[DoubleJ]

Life is what our thinking makes it. Lord, help me visualize myself richly
living each day, believing, achieving, and then succeeding.

Scripture for the day:

"We are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in
the body we are away from the Lord--for we walk by faith, not by sight." ~2
Corinthians 5:6-7

Meditation for the day:

We can know God by spiritual vision. We can feel that God is beside us. We
can feel God's presence. Contact with God is not made by the senses.
Spirit-consciousness can replace sight. Since we cannot see God, we can
perceive God by spiritual perception. God can span the physical and
spiritual with the gift to us of spiritual vision. Many persons, though
they cannot see God, have had a clear spiritual consciousness of God.
Although we are bound in a certain sense by space and time, we can know that
beyond those boundaries there is limitless space, eternity of time and God.

Prayer for the day:

I pray that I may have a consciousness of God's presence. I pray that God
will give me spiritual vision.

Hello my friends! Thank you, Juanita, for sending me the replies - if I'm
up to it tomorrow, I'll call corporate to see if they forgot about me and
their promises to fix it. My case with my cough is very unusual because I
had polio in my throat, and my cough is just a bunch of noise, but hard to
get my breath sometimes, so what I found lately instead of the cough meds,
is the box of melbac wine that Linus bought recently helps. Somehow it
clears the throat, takes away the tickle and let's me at peace, and I've had
a few uninterrupted naps today, not much just a little bit, and it sure
helps. This morning at breakfast - I started choking on toast, nothing
worked, first water, then Linus gave me some wine, and right away it took
care of it! Amazing. And a little wine is beneficial too, not the cough
syrups. So I'm just using that as medicine now. It's a dryer wine like Cab.
Thanks for all your prayers for us and remember you are in ours too.

You Give me Strength

Holy Spirit when I am weak, You give me strength to carry on.
You comfort me each time I seek Your loving arms to lean on.

You are the Father that I need. You have the wisdom that I lack.
You give me courage to succeed, when I alone, would have turned back.

I may have crosses in my life, but I will never know despair;
for when I seek you in my strife, I know so well you will be there.

THE POWER OF PRAYER
Author Unknown


When you receive this, say a prayer. That's all you have to do. There
is nothing attached. This is powerful. Just send this to four people
and do not break this, please. Prayer is one of the best free gifts
we can receive. There is no cost but there are a lot of rewards.
Let's continue praying for one another.

Creator God, I ask you to bless my friends reading this right now
Lord, show them a new revelation of Your love and power. Holy Spirit,
I ask You to minister to their spirit at this very moment.

Where there is pain, give them Your peace & mercy.

Where there is self-doubting, release a renewed confidence in Your
ability to work through them.

Where there is tiredness, or exhaustion, I ask You to give them
understanding, patience, & strength as they learn submission to Your
leading.

Where there is spiritual stagnation, I ask You to renew them by
revealing Your nearness, and by drawing them into greater intimacy
with You.

Where there is fear, reveal Your love, and release to them Your
courage.

Where there is a sin locking them, reveal it, and break its hold over
my friend's life.

Bless their finances, give them greater vision, and raise up leaders,
and friends to support, and encourage them.

Give each of them discernment to recognize the demonic forces around
them, and reveal to them the power they have in You to defeat it.

I ask You to do these things in Jesus' name.

In Christian love,
Your Friend in Jesus.

THE PERFECT MISTAKE
Author Unknown


My Mother's father worked as a carpenter. On this particular day, he
was building some crates for the clothes his church was sending to
orphanages in China. On his way home, he reached into his shirt pocket
to find his glasses, but they were gone. When he mentally replayed his
earlier actions, he realized what had happened; the glasses had
slipped out of his pocket unnoticed and fallen into one of the crates,
which he had nailed shut. His brand new glasses were heading for
China!

The Great Depression was at it's height and Grandpa had six children.
He had spent $20 for those glasses that very morning. He was upset by
the thought of having to buy another pair. "It's not fair," he told
God as he drove home in frustration. "I've been very faithful in
giving of my time and money to your work, and now this."

Months later, the director of the orphanage was on furlough in the
United States. He wanted to visit all the churches that supported him
in China, so he came to speak one Sunday at my grandfather' s small
church in Chicago. The missionary began by thanking the people for
their faithfulness in supporting the orphanage. "But most of all," he
said, "I must thank you for the glasses you sent last year. You see,
the Communists had just swept through the orphanage, destroying
everything, including my glasses. I was desperate. Even if I had the
money, there was simply no way of replacing those glasses. Along with
not being able to see well, I experienced headaches every day, so my
coworkers and I were much in prayer about this. Then your crates
arrived. When my staff removed the covers, they found a pair of
glasses lying on top.

The missionary paused long enough to let his words sink in. Then,
still gripped with the wonder of it all, he continued: "Folks, when I
tried on the glasses, it was as though they had been custom made just
for me! I want to thank you for being a part of that."

The people listened, happy for the miraculous glasses. But the
missionary surely must have confused their church with another, they
thought. There were no glasses on their list of items to be sent
overseas. But sitting quietly in the back, with tears streaming down
his face, an ordinary
carpenter realized the Master Carpenter had used him in an
extraordinary way.

There are times we want to blame God instead of thanking him! Perhaps
it is something we ought to try more often, "Thank you God for not
allowing my car to start this morning." He may have been saving your
life from a car accident. "Lord Jesus, thank you for letting me lose
my glasses; I'm sure they'll be put to good use or there is a lesson
to be learned."

TASTE MY JESUS

At the University of Chicago Divinity School each year they have what they
called "Baptist Day." On this day each one is to bring a lunch to be eaten
out of doors in a grassy picnic area. Every "Baptist Day" the school would
invite one of the greatest minds to lecture in the Theological Educational
Center.

One year they invited Dr. Paul Tillich. Dr. Tillich spoke for two and
one-half hours "proving" that the resurrection of Jesus was false. He quoted
scholar after scholar and book after book. He concluded that since there was
no such thing as the resurrection, the religious tradition of the church was
groundless, emotional mumbo-jumbo, because it was based on a relationship
with a risen Jesus, who in fact never rose from the dead in any literal
sense.

He then asked if there were any questions. After about 30 seconds, an old
dark-skinned preacher with a head of short-cropped wooly white hair stood up
in the back. "Doctor, I got one question." All eyes turned toward him. He
reached into his sack lunch and pulled out an apple and began eating it.

"Doctor Tillich ... CRUNCH, MUNCH, my question is a simple question, ...
CRUNCH MUNCH ... "Now I never read the books you read. CRUNCH MUNCH ... "and
I can't recite the Scriptures in the original Greek ... CRUNCH MUNCH ...
"And I don't know about Niebuhr and Heidegger ... CRUNCH MUNCH.

He finished his apple "All I want ta know is: This apple I just ate ... was
it bitter or sweet?" Dr. Tillich paused for a moment and answered in
exemplary scholarly fashion: "I cannot possibly answer that message, for I
haven't tasted your apple."

The white-haired preacher dropped the core of his apple into his crumpled
paper bag, looked at Dr. Tillich and calmly, "Neither have you tasted my
Jesus".

The 1000 plus in attendance could not contain themselves. The crowd erupted
with applause and cheers. Dr. Tillich thanked his audience and promptly
left.

Have you tasted Jesus?

If you have not tasted Jesus yet, do not wait ... He is delicious ...



Poisons of Shame

Sometimes I sit and wonder how my life got so screwed,
the drugs, the alcohol, the people been used.
At age fourteen, I was on the right track,
going to youth group, never conceived of doing crack.
My head held high for the Lord.
I would declare that people can't afford,
to walk through life without Him,
and lack forgiveness of their sin.
But little did I know,
that the devil wanted me so,
to do the things that God despises,
the things that the devil so aspires.
I took my first hit,
off a pot pipe and that was it.
It was escape for the pain hurt so bad,
so confused, I didn't even know I had.
That was that, I'd found my place,
I felt at ease, so showed my face.
From pot, to acid, to coke, to speed,
did it end just there? No, crack indeed.
As I filled up my body with the poisons of shame,
the feelings were churning and everyone was to blame.
Except for me of course, no way not me,
didn't want people to know the person I'd be.
If I acted myself, 'cause those feelings were bad,
as the drug use got worse, oh, so sad.
My mother said no, and I said yes.

The rebelling increased, my life was a mess.
Spent the next several years in a downward spiral,
searching for something, yet needing revival.
But never at all did the Lord leave my side,
just waiting for me to love and abide,
by His guidelines and rules meant to do one thing,
to protect us from pain, that can so badly sting.
Sin can leave scars, as it has done to me,
just by believing Satan's lie of, "taste it, you'll see."
Today I look back on my screwed up life,
the choices and decisions that led to strife.
And by the GRACE OF GOD, I am alive to say,
that I'm proud of who I am today.

Blessed Mother Teresa´s Wisdom

Smiles

"Peace begins with a smile."
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"Sometimes it is harder for us to smile at those who live with us, the
immediate members of our families, than it is to smile at those who are not
so close to us. Let us never forget: love begins at home."
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"I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish."
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"To smile at someone who is sad; to visit, even for a little while, someone
who is lonely; to give someone shelter from the rain with our umbrella; to
read something for someone who is blind; these and others can be small
things, very small things, but they are appropriate to give our love of God
concrete expression to the poor."