Category Archives: Quotes

Psalm 148 ~ Praise The Lord!

 

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
Praise Him in the heights!
Praise Him, all His angels;
Praise Him, all His hosts!
Praise Him, sun and moon;
Praise Him, all stars of light!
Praise Him, highest heavens,
And the waters that are above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
For He commanded and they were created.
He has also established them forever and ever;
He has made a decree which will not pass away.

Praise the Lord form the earth,
Sea monsters and all deeps;
Fire and hail, snow and clouds;
Stormy wind, fulfilling His word;
Mountains and all hills;
Fruit trees and all cedars;
Beasts and all cattle;
Creeping things and winged fowl;
Kings of the earth and all peoples;
Princes and all judges of the earth;
Both young men and virgins;
Old men and children.

Let them praise the name of the Lord,
For His name alone is exalted;
His glory is above earth and heaven.
And He has lifted up a horn for His people,
Praise Him all His godly ones;
Even for the sons of Israel, a people near to Him.
Praise the Lord!

Psalm 148: 1-14 (NASB)

Letters to Malcolm ~ Spritual Growth ~ C.S. Lewis ~ Quote

If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart.” And equally, if our heart flatter us, God is greater than our heart. I sometimes pray not for self-knowledge in general but for just so much self-knowledge at the moment as I can bear and use at the moment; the little daily dose.

Have we any reason to suppose that total self-knowledge, if it were given us, would be for our good? Children and fools, we are told, should never look at half-done work; and we are not yet, I trust, even half-done. You and I wouldn’t, at all stages, think it wise to tell a pupil exactly what we thought of his quality. It is much more important that he would know what to do next…

The unfinished picture would so like to jump off the easel and have a look at itself!”

I hate to add anything to a C.S. Lewis quote but here goes…lighten up on yourself, trust the Lord, thank Him for what He is doing in your life, be filled with contentment knowing He will accomplish what He wants with you, cooperate with what He is doing right now, rejoice that you are His child. Again I say rejoice dear ones!

Your Thoughts ~ Susannah Spurgeon ~ Romans 12: 1-2

Woman to Woman: “Share an important quote and what it means to you.”

 

A while back, Lana, at  Above the Clouds wrote about how Bible Study can be illustrated with these Matryoshka dolls. I’m paraphrasing but the idea is that there is always more to find, deeper to go. I’m going to use this illustration in how God has been going into my mind, revealing thoughts that need to be captured for Him. Thoughts within thoughts within thoughts. The quote I chose to segue off of is the following by Susannah Spurgeon:

“The God who can understand your thoughts ‘afar off’ has the power to restrain them; no, more than that; before they reach you, while they are yet distant and unexpressed, he will purify and cleanse them, so that they shall enter your heart as angel whispers, and pass your lips only as words of love and blessing.” ~ Susannah Spurgeon

A few years ago I started to memorize Romans 12:1-3. This proved to be a mind changing experience for me. God began working on me in regards to my mind. He showed me wrong (sinful) patterns of thought that I entertained in my mind. He started with obvious big bad thoughts “the big outer doll”, if you will. Then He opened up doll after doll to show me how the wickedness in my mind was infecting my heart.  These thought patterns, fantasies, scenarios, rebuttals, defenses, gave me bad attitudes toward loved ones and wrong justifications about my behaviour. I knew God wanted me to say no to them. He showed me with practice in obedience to say no each time the same patterns would force their way into my mind. I had to say no a lot before some would desist! This was revolutionary for me. Mind you, we still have many more dolls to work on. Just look at all of them in that photo! ) Sometimes I even try to put the same dolls back together. I am looking forward to the day that I’ll meet my Savior “face to face” by His grace with the last solid doll in my hand!

 

Romans 12: 1-2

I with Susannah want to be brave enough to pray, “Dear Master, I make your servant David’s prayer my own and say ‘Search me O God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

If you’d like to read an insightful, well written post on “The Grace of a Clean Heart” go to Paul Tripp’s blog. He has a wonderful series of posts on Psalm 51.

Here are more passages to consider:  Colossians 3:2; Psalm 26:2; Is. 26:3; Mt. 22:37; Rom. 8:5-7; Phil. 2:5

Romans Image courtesy of Snapshots of Joy. Click here to see more images.

Now you can go to My Many Colored Days to read more Woman to Woman posts…

When People Are Big and God is Small ~ Review

When People Are Big and God is Small – Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man ~ by Edward T. Welch

I am going to list the chapter headings so you have a better idea of what Welch covers in this book.

Part One: How and Why We Fear Others
2. “People will see me”
3. “People will reject me”
4. “People will physically hurt me”
5. “The world wants me to fear people”
Part Two: Overcoming the Fear of Others
6.   Know the Fear of the Lord
7.   Grow in the Fear of the Lord
8.   Biblically Examine your felt needs
9.   Know your real needs
10. Delight in the God who fills us
11. Love your enemies and your neighbors
12. Love your brothers and sisters
13. “The Conclusion of the Matter: Fear God and Keep His Commandments”

I enjoyed reading part two over part one. At the end of each chapter he has “for further thought” sections that are very helpful. This is a book that we all can benefit from reading.

The Dallas Morning News says ~”Need people less. Love people more. That’s the author’s challenge…He’s talking about a tendency to hold other people in awe, to be controlled and mastered by them, to depend on them for what God alone can give… [Welch] proposed an antidote: the fear of God…the believer’s response to God’s power, majesty and not least his mercy.”

This is a biblical, helpful, convicting, and encouraging read…

I’ll leave you with one more quote from the book, pg. 113 ~ Grow in the Fear of the Lord ~

The problem is clear: People are too big in our lives and God is too small. The answer is straightforward: We must learn to know that our God is more loving and more powerful than we ever imagined. Yet this task is not easy. Even if we worked at the most spectacular of national parks, or the bush in our backyard started burning without being consumed, or Jesus appeared and wrestled a few rounds with us, we would not be guaranteed a persistent reverence of God. Too often our mountain-top experiences are quickly over-taken by the clamor of the world, and God once again is diminished in our minds. The goal is to establish a daily tradition of growing in the knowledge of God.

That challenges me to ask: What is my daily tradition of growing in the knowledge of God?

Bed in Summer ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Bed in Summer

Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)


#1
Page Number:  14.  Illustrator:  Ruth M. Hallock
Publisher:  Rand McNally & Co.  Date:  1919

 

     In Winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle light.
In Summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

In Washington our summer evenings stay light as late as 10 PM. Fourth of July fireworks shows start late in Seattle. This poem reminds me of my husband and I trying to go to sleep at our normal 9-10 pm time with it being light outside.

www.zoppa.com/Nod/nodbook.html

Psalm 1 ~ The Way of the Righteous

 

Psalm 1 (ESV)

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

When People are Big and God is Small ~ Welch ~ Quote

The following quote comes from the book, When People Are Big and God Is Small (Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man) by Edward T. Welch. The quote comes from chapter 6 – Know the Fear of the Lord –

To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. (Isa. 40:25)

Some have called this “otherness,” this holiness, of God his transcendence. God is exalted above his people. He lives in a high and lofty place (Isa. 57:15). His judgement and mercy are above us, they are ultimately incomprehensible. As a result, we don’t use a reigning king or queen as our template for knowing God. To say that the Holy God reigns makes it impossible to use earthly kings as the model. The Holy God is unique, greater, and of a different kind than earthly kings. The Holy God is the original; the most glorious of earthly kings are only a dim reflection.

To make the holiness of God even more awesome, the transcendent God has come close to us. It would be one thing to know that God was gloriously transcendent and entirely separate from his creation. In such a situation we could become acccustomed to his lack of intervention in human affairs, and for practical purposes we could become our own gods. But our God is also the Immanent One who has revealed himself and become like us. He said, “I will be your God and you will be my people” (Lev. 26:12). He is near us. He will never leave us or forsake us (Heb. 13:5). He is so close he calls us “friends” (John 15:14). He is so close, the Scripture talks about Christ in you (Col. 1:27). Given his nature, this is virtually impossible for us to grasp. But, by God’s grace, we can grow in knowing his holiness, and this knowledge will both expel the people-idols from our lives and leave us less prone to being consumed with ourselves.

 http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/2000/nm/When_People_Are_Big_and_God_is_Small_Overcoming_Peer_Pressure_Codependency_and_the_Fear_of_Man

Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ ~ John Piper

I was really struck by this prayer by John Piper at the end of chapter 11 in this book.

A Prayer

Lord, thicken our skin. Not that we be less tender, but that we be less easily offended. Take away our bent to self-pity. Give us a passion for the truth that is stronger than our inborn passion for being praised. Forgive us, Father, for calling words unloving just because they were tough. Forgive us for attributing malicious motives to people when we don’t know their motives. Help us to learn from Jesus when to be tough and when to be tender. Guard us from justifying merely human anger with the hard sayings of Jesus. But don’t let us become so mushy that we can’t speak a firm word in season. We marvel at the words of our Lord Jesus. How unpredictable he was! No one ever spoke like he did. He is in a class by himself. We bow before him and shut our mouths. We are eager for him to speak – and to speak any way he pleases. We are the silent learners. He is the sinless teacher. We put our hands upon our mouths and take our place at his feet. Do with us as you please, Father. We are not your judge, nor the judge of how your Son speaks. Have mercy on us – tough or tender – and lead us to your everlasting joy. In the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus, amen.”

 Blessings on you this day…