Showing posts with label WBC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WBC. Show all posts

Monday, November 13, 2023

Don't Wait Till You Are Old...

Yesterday, as part of the teaching team in a room full of beautiful,
eager, smart, rambunctious Gr. 4-6 Sunday School students,
I couldn't help but long and pray
 for each of them to choose Jesus while they are young;
to be saved from a bitter harvest of wasted years!

Yesterday's was a solemn lesson; Jesus' crucifixion,
stirring and touching tender hearts!
Will you pray for them, and for children the whole wide world over
to believe in and receive Jesus as their Saviour while they are young?!!

On Saturday I compiled  this post after listening to the message below...
and before listening to the message our speaker preached yesterday
also on prayer!!!

Click here then click Nov. 12, 2023) for yesterday's message

***
Devote yourselves to prayer, 
being watchful and thankful.
Col.4:2

***
Pray in the Spirit at all times, 
with every kind of prayer and petition. 
To this end, stay alert with all perseverance 
in your prayers for all the saints.

Below are some excerpts from Alistair's message;

Alistair Begg begins this message, (an address to students), with this;
 "The things I want to share with you are things
that are pressingly important to me.
They are personal things.
They are biblical truths.
They are necessary matters"...

 

If our prayer is meager 
it is because we believe it to be supplemental
 and not fundamental.

***
If we pray only when we feel like it
we will not pray very much at all.

***
More spiritual progress is made through failure and tears
than through success and laughter.

***
C.T. Stodd
If Jesus Christ be God and died for me
then no sacrifice that I could ever make for Him 
could ever be too great

***
Can I tell you how to amount to absolutely nothing for God?
Think of yourself more highly than you ought.

***
Humility is the very seed-bed
in which all of the graces and gifts of God
grow to their maturity

***
1 Pet. 5:6
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, 
that he may lift you up in due time.

***
I am not talking about our resolves.
I am not talking about our desires and designs.
I am talking about our doing!

***
I want to tell you,
"When I talk more than I pray,
When I study more than I seek God's help,
When I am tempted to think that when I am on my feet
I am at my most useful,
and when I am on my knees that I am
somehow filling in time that could be more beneficially exercised,
then I am declaring that I am on the wrong side
of this equation.
You see, since prayer is the  key area of our relationship
with our Heavenly Father, it is this area
that is most frequently under attack.
Indeed, I might safely say to you
that you will face no greater attack than in this area
because the evil one knows that the weaponry
that our Commander in Chief, namely Jesus,
has given to us is prayer and the ministry of the word of God.
Therefore He will come to confront us with our view of scripture
and to seek to call in question
the voracity and the sufficiency of God's word,
and he will at the same time seek to undermine any
deep-seated conviction that we have,
that it is imperative that we come to Him and cry out
'Abba, Father!' and that we seek His help
in every part of our journey.."

***
No Christian is greater than his/her prayer life

**
The secret to praying is
praying in secret

***
...but, in the matter of praying
how tragic that so many
have left so much
to so few...

***
Set your moral compasses now.
Take the high ground.
Go for the gold.
Live for Christ.
There is no good thing that the Lord withholds
from those whose walk is blameless

***

...and here is my prayer
for every boy and girl
the wide world over...

Don't wait till you are old
To seek the good and right 
Don't wait till worldly pleasure clouds
God's wellspring of delight 

Remember your Creator
While in your days of youth
Don't wait till you are old to mine
 God's Word for wealth of truth

But love the Lord today
With all your heart; don't wait
Till you are old, to start, because
Then it may be too late

This is my earnest plea
For every girl and boy
Don't wait till you are old, and life
Is full of wasted joy

This is my earnest plea
For children far and near
Don't wait till  God becomes a Voice
That you no longer hear

© Janet Martin

Eccles.12:1
Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, 
Before the difficult days come, 
And the years draw near when you say,
 “I have no pleasure in them”:

Isa.66:1-2
This is what the Lord says:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
Where will my resting place be?
2Has not my hand made all these things,
and so they came into being?”
declares the Lord.
“These are the ones I look on with favor:
those who are humble and contrite in spirit,
and who tremble at my word.


Sunday, July 3, 2022

Believer's Mandate

Sunday sermons aren't just for Sundays, are they?!!
Love is so much easier said than done, isn't it?!
Just a few thoughts after attending a beautiful wedding yesterday
and listening to a few inspired messages this morning!

This poem, by inserting the words 'ought to' between the words
 'we' and 'live'
may make it more relevant😅🙏

Love is a lifetime commitment on so many levels
in so many ways, to so many people
and above all to/through He who IS love



We live, not just to earn our daily bread and meat to eat
We live to learn better how to wash one another’s feet
We live to give because of what we have freely received
God’s gift of grace from the first moment we truly believed

We live to love God first then fellowman; all else is sin
We live to prove the righteousness and love of God within
We live to mirror Christ’s example of humility
Where pray, nothing is dearer than the truth that sets us free

We live to serve, not to be served, stirred by meek reverence
For He who loved us first and died for death’s deliverance
Then pray when temptation torments and cunning ploys compete
That love’s willing obedience will make our joy complete

For God so loved the world He gave His Son to pay sin’s debt
Once, and for all He overthrew the grave and conquered death
God is not mocked; if we confessed our sin and have believed
We ought to live to give because we have freely received

© Janet Martin

Due to laryngitis and a cough I decided it would be better
to worship from home this Sunday morning,

Links to a few sermons which
  partly inspired this poem!




Thursday, January 6, 2022

Lord, It's Hard To Be Humble

 

Sunday morning's message
esp. the part between 45-50+ minutes in,
really sparked a mental contemplation/conviction 
on my attitude; pride/humility/obedience/rebellion and
on how easily I want to become wise in my own eyes...

How brave am I?
How humble am I?
How true am I really?
Can I sing this song honestly without reserve?!!



The lack of true humility breeds wicked arrogance
It fuels fatal vanity and rebel’s recompense
It does not bend the knee or bow the head, strong in the Lord
But relies on logic instead of feeding on God’s Word

The fruit of true humility is generous and sweet
It watches for the enemy that preys on its defeat
Pride is a sly pretender full of destruction's death-sway
It resists full surrender to the Potter of the clay

The want of true humility, love’s bravest sacrifice
Grants no exceptions of me-me to reconcile its price
But obeys the greatest command; God first, then fellowman
It prays, not with phrase well in hand, but like the publican

The proof of true humility does not confuse or shout
Obedient sincerity leaves little room for doubt
Oh God, how often easily my best intentions slip
God, hone honest humility with honest fellowship

The feat of true humility is a long enterprise
How ever on guard I/we should be to root out all disguise
Because my/our very heart of hearts the God of gods can see
And only true love for Him imparts true humility

© Janet Martin

Rom.3:23
...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Prov.6:16-19
These six things the Lord hates,
Yes, seven are an abomination to [a]Him:
 A[b] proud look,
A lying tongue,
Hands that shed innocent blood,
 A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that are swift in running to evil,
 A false witness who speaks lies,
And one who sows discord among brethren.





Sunday, September 1, 2019

This Life We Have...


There's something about going to a funeral-visitation
and listening to what people remember about the deceased person that is a huge reality check...
the memory can be something that seemed like a little thing in the moment,
but made an impression quite unawares! 

So here's to the life we Have before it becomes the life we had!

As for man, his days are like grass—
he blooms like a flower of the field;
when the wind passes over, it vanishes,
and its place remembers it no more. 
Psalm 103:15-16

 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. 
What is your life?
 You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
James 4:14



So much of what we do may seem like nothing much at all
The days fly by as you and I reply to sundry call
Where in time’s seasoned swirl that twirls us round and round again
We might forget the awesome Yet that waits and who knows when
Life’s gauzy half-breath veil will fail and ope an Awesome Door
Where all that will remain is what we are remembered for

The give and take that sometimes shakes our will and wallets dry
The yes and no that in the moment is just a reply
The words we say that slip away through lips to listening ears
Melds moments into That which in a twinkle disappears
And thus Becomes the sum of all we said, did, took and gave
How very holy then, this one and only life we have

The plush brush that paints pictures on the canvas of the heart
Seems common but is sacred in its rendering of art
For graves can never gather into bearings cold and staid
The echoes warm with laughter or the memories we made
Where much of what we do may seem like nothing much at all
But shape, for those who yet remain the pictures they recall

...as all who've gone before cannot return to tell the worth
Of total compensation for what seemed so small on earth
Where now the days fly by like flashes on a phantom reel
But then, when the last breath is spent, The Ultimate Reveal
Where God forbid we turned our backs on His amazing grace
Until we open up our eyes and meet Him face to face

© Janet Martin

I wrote the first three stanzas before church
then the message spoke so clearly of The Big Picture I needed to squeeze in one more stanza!
Yes, making great memories is great but at the end of our lives if that is all we have it is not enough!
For all we can keep at the end of our lives is what we gave away!
Beginning with surrender of Self.

Here is a link to the message:
Free To Be Serving 
(one of my favourite quotes in this message is by Mother Theresa...
I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God
who is sending a love letter to the world.)

Job 34:11
For according to a man's deeds, He repays him; according to a man's ways, He brings consequences.

Matthew 16:27
For the Son of Man will come in His Father's glory with His angels, and then He will repay each one according to what he has done.