Repent!!

Man cannot be righteous in God’s sight until he repents of his own expectation that he can be righteous in his own sight. God is not mighty toward man until man is weak toward God. 

[Edward Carnell]

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Joel 2:13 ...  And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

Isaiah 1:18 ... Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Job 33:26 ...  He shall pray unto God, and he will be favourable unto him: and he shall see his face with joy: for he will render unto man his righteousness. ❤

Give Your All ...

Let me forget the world and be swallowed up in the desire to glorify God.  I have received my all from God. Oh, that I could return my all to God! 

[David Brainard]

Joel 2:13 ... And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

Matthew 22:37 ... Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Romans 12:2 ... And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. ❤

Prodigals ...

     To all prodigal sons and daughters, it’s time to come home!

Luke 15:18-20 ... I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,  And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.  And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

Joel 2:13 ...  And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

Luke 15:10 ...  Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. ❤

New Begininngs ...

When God gives you a new beginning, don't repeat the old mistakes.

Joel 2:12-13 ...  Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. ❤

God's Strength...

Deny your weakness, and you will never realize God's strength in you. 

 [Joni Eareckson Tada]

1 Corinthians 1:25 ... Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

2 Corinthians 12:10 ... Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

Joel 3:10 ... Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.  ❤

Weak but Strong!!

Many a time He gives power to the faint, to those that are ready to faint away; and to those that have no might He not only gives, but increases strength, as there is more and more occasion for it.

To those who are sensible of their weakness, and ready to acknowledge they have no might, God does in a special manner increase strength; for when we are weak in ourselves, then we are strong in the Lord.

[Matthew Henry]

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Joel 3:10 ... Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:10 ... Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

1 Corinthians 1:25 ... Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.❤

Return To God!

When we find ourselves depressed, down, irritated, annoyed, or otherwise unhappy, we need to return to the source of our joy, and then we will see those circumstances that are sapping our joy in perspective. The circumstances of this life will pale into insignificance when compared to that which we have received from God. 

 [R.C. Sproul]

 

Zechariah 1:3 ... Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.

Joel 2:13 ...  And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

1 Peter 2:25 ... For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.❤ 

God Will Restore

It is God who says, "I will restore." Only the divine hand can do it. Christ is the restorer, for he has made atonement for us.

Wherever there is a Christian who is hurt by sin or sorrow, the face of the Christ on the cross, beams on it with healing in its beams. "By his stripes we are healed." By his wounding our wounds are cured. His visage was marred that the marring of sin in our faces might be changed to beauty. By his sorrows our sorrows are comforted.

[J. R. Miller]

Joel 2:25 ...  And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

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God is Calling ...

God is calling His Bride to see her unique beauty.  Many are dismayed and fragmented in this season by fear, worry and by the hurtful words of mere mortals, while the maker of the universe and butterflies waits and wants to show each one of us personally His vision for our individual lives. I see Jesus smiling with the sheer beauty of what His plans are for you beloved.

God wants to reveal to you inspired, joy-filled visions. Custom blueprints of your DNA destiny.  TODAY, allow the clamorous world to fade and learn to spend time with the presence of God (True Love). This is not only healing, it is 'revealing'.

Jesus always took time to shut out the world, to meet with His Father, in order to see 'His' beautiful purpose and plans for his life.

Jesus is sitting in your heart. He has a smile on His face and He has some blueprints with your personal name on them.

The greatest question is, "Will you make time to meet with Him?"

[Troi Nelson Cockayne]

Joel 2:16 … Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.❤

Saving Grace

Saving grace makes a man as willing to leave his lusts as a slave is willing to leave his galley,  or a prisoner is willing to leave his dungeon,  or a thief is willing to leave his chains,  or a beggar is willing to leave his rags!

[Thomas Brooks]

Joel 3:10 … Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

Hebrews 4:16 … Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

1 Corinthians 6:11 … And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.❤

Ministry At Home

In this simple way, by God's grace, a living testimony for truth is always to be kept alive in the land. The beloved of the Lord are to hand down their witness for the gospel to their heirs, and these again to their next descendants.

This is our first duty, we are to begin at the family hearth. He is a bad preacher, who does not commence his ministry at home. The heathen are to be sought by all means, and the highways and hedges are to be searched but home has a prior claim, and woe unto those who reverse the order of the Lord's arrangements.

To teach our children is a personal duty. We cannot delegate it to Sunday School Teachers, or to the church. These can assist us but cannot relieve us from the sacred obligation. Mothers and fathers must, like Abraham, command their households in the fear of God, and talk with their offspring concerning the wondrous works of the Most High God.

Parental teaching is a natural duty. Who is so fit to look to after child's well-being, as those who are the authors of his actual being? To neglect the instruction of our offspring is worse than brutish!

Family instruction is necessary for the nation, for the family itself, and for the church of God. By a thousand plots, atheism is covertly advancing in our land, and one of the most effectual means for resisting its inroads is left almost neglected, namely, the instruction of children in the faith. Would that parents would awaken to a sense of the importance of this matter. It is a pleasant duty to talk of Jesus to our sons and daughters, and the more so because it has often proved to be an accepted work, for God has often saved the children through the parents' prayers and admonitions.

May every house into which this counsel shall come, honor the Lord in this matter and receive His smile!

[Charles H. Spurgeon]

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Deuteronomy 6:6-9 … And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

Ephesians 6:4 … And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Joel 1:3 … Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.❤

Modern Day Machinery

Friends! the churches have no need for the modern machinery which has supplanted the simplicity of faith.

I truly believe, that if the Lord swept the church committees and schemes out of the universe, we would be better without them.

I hope the church will soon say, like David in Saul's clanking armor, "I cannot go with these" and with only her sling and her stone, confident in her God, I trust she will confront her foe.

 

We can do all things, if we can but trust Christ. But nothing is possible to your man-made schemes and systems.

God will sweep them away yet, and happy shall be that man who shall lead the van in their utter destruction!  Go up against her, take away her bulwarks, for they are not the Lord's; He did not ordain them, nor will He stand by them.

Act in faith, O people of God, and prove the power of prayer for "all things are possible to him who believes." Mark 9:23

The fact is, God does not need our power but our weakness. He does not need our greatness but our nothingness.

[Charles H. Spurgeon]

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1 Samuel 17:39 ... And David girded his sword upon his armour, and he assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And David put them off him.

Joel 3:10 ... Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.


Luke 18:27 ... And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.❤

My Grace is Sufficient

God allowed the crisis that closed around Jacob, on the night when he bowed at Peniel in supplication, to bring him to the place where he could take hold of God as he never would have done. From that narrow pass of peril Jacob came, enlarged in his faith and knowledge of God and in the power of a new and victorious life.

God had to compel David, by a long and painful discipline of years, to learn the almighty power and faithfulness of his God, and to grow up into the established principles of faith and godliness which were indispensable for his subsequent and glorious career as the king of Israel.

Nothing but the extremities in which Paul was constantly placed could ever have taught him, and taught the Church through him, the full meaning of the great promise he so learned to claim, My grace is sufficient for thee. And nothing but our trials and perils would ever have led some of us to know Him as we do, to trust Him as we have and to draw from Him the measures of grace which our very extremities made indispensable.

[A. B. Simpson]

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Joel 3:10 ... Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9 ... And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.


James 4:6 ... But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.❤

The Sins of Men

The sins of men, unless pardoned through the blood of Christ, shall be their everlasting destruction. For he who turns away from God turns his back upon eternal happiness. And he who cherishes iniquity warms the most venomous of serpents in his bosom!

Lost sinners owe their ruin to their willful hardness of heart, their abuse of divine mercy, and their indifference to God's salvation.

[George Lawson]

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Proverbs 1:32 ... For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

Joel 2:13 ... And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

Luke 15:7 ... I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.❤

Something Big

God often uses small matches to light up great torches.  No matter how small you feel in this world, he has something big in store for you.

[John Hagee]

Joel 3:10 ... Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

1 Corinthians 1:27 ... But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

1 Corinthians 2:9 ... But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.❤

The Hardhearted

Are there no exceptions? No, not one. Even the favoured race are thus described. Are the best so bad?  Then what must the worst be? Come, my heart, consider how far thou hast a share in this universal accusation, and while considering, be ready to take shame unto thyself herein thou mayst have been guilty.

The first charge is impudence, or hardness of forehead, a want of holy shame, an unhallowed boldness in evil. Before my conversion, I could sin and feel no compunction, hear of my guilt and yet remain unhumbled, and even confess my iniquity and manifest no inward humiliation on account of it. For a sinner to go to God's house and pretend to pray to Him and praise Him argues a brazen-facedness of the worst kind! Alas! since the day of my new birth I have doubted my Lord to His face, murmured unblushingly in His presence, worshipped before Him in a slovenly manner, and sinned without bewailing myself concerning it.

If my forehead were not as an adamant, harder than flint, I should have far more holy fear, and a far deeper contrition of spirit. Woe is me, I am one of the impudent house of Israel. The second charge is hardheartedness, and I must not venture to plead innocent here. Once I had nothing but a heart of stone, and although through grace I now have a new and fleshy heart, much of my former obduracy remains. I am not affected by the death of Jesus as I ought to be; neither am I moved by the ruin of my fellow men, the wickedness of the times, the chastisement of my heavenly Father, and my own failures, as I should be.

O that my heart would melt at the recital of my Saviour's sufferings and death. Would to God I were rid of this nether millstone within me, this hateful body of death. Blessed be the name of the Lord, the disease is not incurable, the Saviour's precious blood is the universal solvent, and me, even me, it will effectually soften, till my heart melts as wax before the fire.

 

[Charles H. Spurgeon]

 

 

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Ezekiel 3:7 ... But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.

Joel 2:13 ... And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

 

 

Psalm 51:10 ... Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.❤

His Spirit

God is pouring out His Spirit just as He said He would!

Proverbs 1:23 ... Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

Joel 2:28 ... And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:

Acts 2:27 ... And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:🕊 

Signs in the Heavens

Isaiah 13:10 … For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

Amos 8:9 … And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:

Joel 2:10 … The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:

Joel 2:30-31 … And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.  The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.

Matthew 24:29-30 … Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:  And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Luke 21:11 … And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

Luke 21:25 … And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;

Revelation 6:12 … And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; ❤

Repenting Tears

We are to find as much bitterness in weeping for sin as ever we found sweetness in committing it. Surely David found more bitterness in repentance than ever he found comfort in Bathsheba. Tears have four qualities: they are moist, salt, hot, and bitter. It is true of repenting tears, they are hot to warm a frozen conscience; moist, to soften a hard heart; salt, to season a soul decaying in sin; bitter, to wean us from the love of the world. And I will add a fifth, they are sweet, in that they make the heart inwardly rejoice.

[Thomas Watson]

James 4:8-10 … Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

Joel 2:13 … And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

2 Corinthians 7:10 … For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

Psalm 126:5 … They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. ❤

Appeal to Unbelievers

Don't let anything -- including your fears that you aren't "good enough" -- keep you from Christ.

[Billy Graham]

Romans 3:22-23 ... Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Joel 2:32 ... And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.

Acts 16:31 ... And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

John 3:16 ...  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.❤