What Trash Does It Appear!

1John 2:17  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

What a brittle thing is all the glory, wealth, and honor of this vain world!

How empty, and what trash does it appear! 

And yet men sell their souls to grasp it, and at last pass away from it and find it all a phantom. 

How unceasing is Satan in forever bringing it before our eyes, in some form or other!  

What is all the pomp and wealth and rank of this poor fleeting world, in contrast with the glory that shall soon be revealed in all those who love His appearing?

The spirit of the world is eating out the very heart and life of true godliness!

~George Everard

Refined worldliness is the present snare of the Church of God!

~Horatius Bonar

James 4:4  Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

~Mary Winslow

Will Worrying Make Matters Any Better?

Matthew 6:27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

So it is useless to worry!

A short person cannot, by any amount of anxiety, make himself an inch taller.

Why, therefore, should he waste his energy and fret his life away in wishing he were taller?

One worries because he is too short another because he is too tall...

One because he too lean another because he is too fat...

One because he has a lame foot another because he has a mole on his face.

No amount of fretting will change any of these things!

People worry, too, over their circumstances.

They are poor, and have to work hard.

They have troubles, losses, and disappointments which come through causes entirely beyond their own control.

They find difficulties in their environment which they cannot surmount.

There are hard conditions in their lot which they cannot change.

Now why should they worry about these things?

Will worrying make matters any better?

Will discontentment cure the blind eye, or remove the ugly mole, or give health to the infirm body?

Will chafing make the hard work, lighter; or the burdens, easier; or the troubles, fewer?

Will anxiety keep the winter away, or keep the storm from rising, or put coal in the cellar, or put bread in the pantry, or get clothes for the children?

Even human reason shows the uselessness of worrying, since it helps nothing, and only wastes one's strength and unfits one for doing one's best!

The Christian gospel goes farther, and says that even the hard things and the obstacles, are blessings if we meet them in the right spirit.

They are stepping-stones lifting our feet upward...disciplinary experiences in which we grow.

So we learn that we should quietly, and with faith, accept life as it comes to us fretting at nothing, and changing hard conditions to easier if we can.

And if we cannot then we must use them as means for growth and advancement.

~J. R. Miller~

Unclean By Comparison

Rev 1:18  I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

Whenever the living God revealed Himself in some way to humankind in the Old Testament, terror and amazement were the reactions. 

People saw themselves as guilty and unclean by comparison! 

In the Book of Revelation, the apostle John describes the overwhelming nature of his encounter with the Lord of glory. 

Although a believer and an apostle, John sank down in abject humility and fear when the risen, glorified Lord Jesus appeared before him on Patmos. 

Our glorified Lord did not condemn John. 

He knew that John’s weakness was the reaction to revealed divine strength. 

He knew that John’s sense of unworthiness was the instant reaction to absolute holiness. 

Along with John, every redeemed human being needs the humility of spirit that can only be brought about by the manifest presence of God. 

Jesus at once reassured John, stooping to place a nail-pierced hand on the prostrate apostle, and saying, “Do not be afraid." 

~A. W. Tozer~

Not By Intellect, Reason, Or Emotion!

  

It is possible for a man to be marked by an analytical mind, so that he wants to argue out everything, reason out everything and subject everything to the microscope of his own brain, his own reason...

And just see the whole thing right through in that way not accept it until he can understand it like that. 

And so he becomes very analytical, very investigating in his mind over the thing...

And until he can have the very best answer to all his questions from every side, he is not going to accept it. 

That man will make very slow progress. 

The same will apply to one who thinks that by getting a mighty wave of religious emotion he is going to enter into the things of God. 

That is one of the great snares of the devil today. 

Religious emotion is no criterion; it is no ground of true spirituality.

Our knowledge of the Lord, the very remotest bit of it and the very first ray of it, depends upon our spirit being awakened and illumined by the Holy Spirit. 

Progress in the things of God is simply the growth of our inner man...

And not the acknowledgment of our intellectual capacity to grasp truth. 

We may have an increasing capacity, by reason of association and familiarity with truth, for grasping ideas and grasping truth and teaching. 

And that capacity may expand and expand until there is very little that is available to be grasped...

And yet with such there may be the very smallest measure of real spirituality.... 

The child of God is one whose spirit has been renewed... 

And who has, at the center of their being, a union and a communion with God...

Which is not the possession of any man by nature...

And which cannot come in any other realm but in the renewed spirit.

~T. Austin Sparks~