One for the HIP-Hop fans! π
One for the HIP-Hop fans! π

There was a man who heard about a very special ox and determined to have it for his own. He traveled all over the world. He spent his entire fortune. He gave his whole life to the search for this ox. At last, just moments before he died, he realized he had been riding it all the time.
Thomas Aquinas

Isaiah 40:21-31Β (VOICE)
Donβt you know, havenβt you heard or even been toldΒ from your earliest memories how the earth came to be?Β Who else could have done it except God, enthroned high above the earth?Β From such a vantage people seem like grasshoppers to Him.Β Who else but God could stretch out the skies as if they were a curtain,Β draw them tight, suspend them over our heads like the roof of a tent?Β
God reduces the rulers and judges,Β the rich and powerful of the earth, to nothing;Β They scarcely are planted, take root and start growing,Β before God blows a withering breath,Β And storm winds carry them away like chaff.Β The Holy One asks, βDo you really think you can findΒ someone or something to compare to Me? My equal?βΒ Look at the myriad of stars and constellations above you.Β Who set them to burning, each in its place?Β Who knows those countless lights each by name?Β They obediently shine, each in its place,Β because God has the great strength and strong power to make it so.
Why, then, do you, Jacob, inheritors of Godβs promise,Β you, Israel, chosen of GodβWhy do you say, βMy troubled path is hidden from the Eternal;Β God has lost all interest in My causeβ?Β Donβt you know? Havenβt you heard?Β The Eternal, the Everlasting God,Β The Creator of the whole world, never gets tired or weary.Β His wisdom is beyond understanding.Β God strengthens the wearyΒ and gives vitality to those worn down by age and care.Β Young people will get tired;Β strapping young men will stumble and fall.
But those who trust in the Eternal One will regain their strength.Β They will soar on wings as eagles.Β They will runβnever winded, never weary.
They will walkβnever tired, never faint.

A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in business and is the countersign of friends. It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and nature’s best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody until it is given away. Keep smiling- and let your smile be one of sincerity. Don’t just force it out to make a sale, to keep out of a fight, or for similar reasons. But smile from the heart out, making those who see you smile do likewise in a feeling of good fellowship.
James M. Tulloch

PRAYER. (I) by George Herbert
PRAYER the Churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heavβn and earth ;Engine against thβ Almightie, sinner’s towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six daies world-transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear ;Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,Church-bels beyond the stars heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices, something understood.
My Thoughts πΒ
A visiting minister read this poem to us on sunday and I thought I’d share it with you. I’ve never heard it before but i’m sure some of you will know it! π

The fact that the bible is full of murderers, cowards, adulterers, and mercenaries used to shock me. Now, it’s a source of great comfort.
Bono

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Reinhold Niebuhr

Every single person in our lives will disappoint us at some level. Some days they’ll be busy when we need them to be still; other days they’ll be self-centered when we need them to concentrate on us. Sometimes they’ll bruise us with hard words aimed right for the soft places in our soul. They won’t meet all our emotional needs. They can’t; they have too many needs of their own. They’re sinners just like us. Only our Creator can love us perfectly, the way He created us to be loved. His love is the only thing that can define us without destroying us.
Lisa Harper

The sermon of your life in tough times ministers to people more powerfully than the most eloquent speaker.
Bill Bright

One of the most powerful concepts, one which is a sure cure for lack of confidence, is the thought that God is with you and helping you. This is one of the simplest teachings in religion, namely, that Almighty God will be your companion, will stand by you, help you, and see you through. No other idea is so powerful in developing self-confidence as this simple belief when practiced. To practice it simply affirm “God is with me; God is helping me; God is guiding me.” Spend several minutes each day visualizing his presence. Then practice believing that affirmation.
Norman Vincent Peale

What other people think of me is becoming less and less important; what they think of Jesus because of me is critical.
Cliff Richard

Psalm 66:9Β (VOICE)
Praise the One who gives us life and keeps us safe,Β who does not allow us to stumble in the darkness.

Life’s short and we never have enough time for the hearts of those who travel the way with us. O, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.
Henri-Frederic Amiel

Revelation 21:5-9Β (VOICE)
And the One who sat on the throne announced to His creation,
The One: See, I am making all things new. (turning to me) Write what you hear and see, for these words are faithful and true. It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will see to it that the thirsty drink freely from the fountain of the water of life. To the victors will go this inheritance: I will be their God, and they will be My children. It will not be so for the cowards, the faithless, the sacrilegious, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all those who deal in deception. They will inherit an eternity in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
John sees an amazing sight. It is something no one had ever seen nor will ever see until that day arrives. Scene by blessed scene passes before the prophet. Finally he is transported to the end of history only to discover it is no end at all; it is a new beginning. The propheciesβevery last one of themβare coming true. Godβs plan will be accomplished on earth as it is in heaven when the new Jerusalem comes down and He lives among His people. All things will become new.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
(1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NRSV)
βLoveβ is one of those words which can have a range of meanings in English. We make the one word serve a multiplicity of circumstances. For example, βI love my wife and I love my childrenβ use the term in a different sense from βI love footballβ or βI just loved that holiday in Malta. There are many more instances we could use, and we understand the meaning of the word βloveβ by the way it is used.
But what do we mean when we apply the word to Jesus? The Bibleβ¦
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We give thanks this morning for the incredible beauty of this day, for the magnificence of life, and for our own individual potential still untapped. As we reflect on these blessings, we praise God for the good signs in our own lives- good signs of the past and good signs ahead.
Richard G. Capen, Jr.

Take those road hazards- the potholes, ruts, detours, and all the rest- as evidence that you were on the right route. It’s when you find yourself on that big, broad, easy road that you ought to worry.
Joni Eareckson Tada

There is nothing that can be done with anger that cannot be done better without it.
Dallas Willard

Oh, how horrible our sins look when they are committed by someone else.
Charles Swindoll

Loving Father, please help me to say the right words of love and affection to those whom I love so that when temptation comes, or when others try to draw them away from me, they will not doubt my love for them. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

He has great tranquility of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men. He will easily be content and pacified, whose conscience is pure. You are not holier if you are praised, nor the more worthless if you are found fault with.
Thomas Kempis

Daniel 12:3Β (VOICE)
Those who are wise will shine as bright as the sky at midday, and those who make the many righteous will shine as the stars forever and ever.

Only as man brings his life into harmony with God does that life have balance and meaning. Then man finds that he is not simply a mass of dancing dirt, coming from nowhere and going nowhere.
Henry Schmidt

The whole duty and blessedness of waiting on God has its root in this, that He is such a blessed Being, full, to overflowing, of goodness and power and life and joy, that we, however wretched, cannot for any time come into contact with Him, without that life and power secretly, silently, beginning to enter into us and blessing us. God is Love! God’s love is just His delight to impart Himself and His blessedness to His children. Come, and however feeble you feel, just wait in His presence. As a feeble invalid is brought out into the sunshine to let its warmth go through him, come with all that is dark and cold in you into the sunshine of God’s holy, omnipotent love, and sit and wait there, with the one thought: Here I am, in the sunshine of His love. As the sun does its work in the weak one who seeks its rays, God will do His work in you.
Andrew Murray

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry on as if nothing happened.
Winston Churchill

Children are not casual guests in our home. They have been loaned to us temporarily for the purpose of loving them and instilling a foundation of values on which their future lives will be built.
James Dobson

The more we know of God the more unreservedly we will trust him; the greater our progress in theology, the simpler and more childlike will be our faith.
John Gresham Machen

1 John 4:1-6Β (VOICE)
My loved ones, I warn you: do not trust every spirit. Instead, examine them carefully to determine if they come from God, because the corrupt world is filled with the voices of many false prophets. Here is how you know Godβs Spirit: if a spirit affirms the truth that Jesus the Anointed, our Liberating King, has come in human flesh, then that spirit is from God. If a spirit does not affirm the true nature of Jesus the Anointed, then that spirit does not come from God and is, in fact, the spirit of the antiChrist.[a] You have heard about its coming; in fact it is already active in the world. My children, you have come from God and have conquered these spirits because the One who lives within you is greater than the one in this world. But they are of this world, and they articulate the views of the corrupt world, which the world understands. We come from God, and those who know God hear us. Whoever is not from God will not listen to us. This is the way we discern the difference between the spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.
How can the words of prophets be tested to discover the truth? The most important question is whether they acknowledge that Jesus is fully God and fully human. In the first century, many people were so convinced that this material world was corrupt and evil that they couldnβt imagine how a perfect God could wrap Himself in imperfect skin. Many today still function as if the physical world is a bad thing; this understanding is demonstrated when they downplay the hope of bodily resurrection and emphasize the heavenly destination of souls. Implicitly, this belittles Jesusβ own incarnation and resurrection.
On the other hand, many people accept Jesusβ humanity but deny His divinity. He may have been a great teacher, they say, but certainly not the incarnation of God. However, Jesus made bold claims about who He was and what He came to do. These are not the things a great teacher would have said or done if they had not been true. It is fair to say that no other life has drawn so much scrutiny, and no other life has ever elicited such praise.

Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy.
Corrie Ten Boom

Ephesians 5:15-20Β (VOICE)
So be careful how you live; be mindful of your steps. Donβt run around like idiots as the rest of the world does. Instead, walk as the wise! Make the most of every living and breathing moment because these are evil times. So understand and be confident in Godβs will, and donβt live thoughtlessly. Donβt drink wine excessively. The drunken path is a reckless path. It leads nowhere. Instead, let God fill you with the Holy Spirit. When you are filled with the Spirit, you are empowered to speak to each other in the soulful words of pious songs, hymns, and spiritual songs; to sing and make music with your hearts attuned to God; and to give thanks to God the Father every day through the name of our Lord Jesus the Anointed for all He has done.
Wisdom is a rare commodity. Paul urges believers, then and now, to walk wisely. It involves living well every day. Time itself seems to be co-opted by dark forces. But when believers understand Godβs will, avoid drunkenness, and allow God to fill them with His Spirit, they are able to walk wisely and live well. The Spirit-filled life is not just for a special few; it is the normal Christian life, and it affects everything, including how we live in community and how we treat others at home.

Thanksgiving is good, but thanks-living is better!
Matthew Henry

Proverbs 25:21-22Β (VOICE)
If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat;Β if he is thirsty, give him something to drink,Β For your kind treatment will be like heaping hot coals on his head,Β it may cause a change in heart,Β and the Eternal will repay you.
Acts of kindness, especially when we know they are undeserved, awaken a slumbering conscience, stimulate sorrow, and perhaps even effect a change. They are the best ways to turn an enemy into a friend.

Psalm 56:11-13Β (VOICE)
In God I have placed my trust. I shall not let fear come in, for what can measly men do to me?Β I am bound by Your promise, O God.Β My life is my offering of thanksgiving to You,Β For You have saved my soul from the darkness of death,Β steadied my feet from stumbling so I might continue to walk before God,Β embraced in the light of the living.

There is no place for faith if we expect God to fulfill immediately what he promises.
John Calvin

1 Peter 3:8-9Β (VOICE)
Finally, all of you, be like-minded and show sympathy, love, compassion, and humility to and for each other, not paying back evil with evil or insult with insult, but repaying the bad with a blessing. It was this you were called to do, so that you might inherit a blessing.

Love people and use things. Donβt love things and use people.

Romans 8:28Β (NIVUK)
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
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