God wouldn’t be much of a God if you could fully understand his nature. Humanity still hasn’t figured out most of creation. The Creator is far greater than that.
Excerpted from Dinner with a Perfect Stranger by David Gregory
Daily Reflection: What do you have a hard time understanding about the nature and character of God?
Through His magnificent grace, God can take the good, the bad, and the ugly experiences in your life and use them to make you unbelievably better at what He’s created you for, whatever that might be! He can take the good things that we remember most fondly, the bad things we might like to forget, and the ugly things that have shaped us into people we didn’t start out to be and use all of them to facilitate His individual purpose for each and every one of us.
Including you.
As Job said of God: “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted”(42:2). God is able to take and make whatever He wills. He can take whatever and whoever you are and make you into whatever and whoever you need to [ … ]
The busyness of today can shape our tomorrows. For better or worse, who and what I yield to today will affect who I become. We can’t accept every opportunity that comes our way, and we can’t always know which opportunity is the best to pursue or which doors we should walk through and which ones we shouldn’t.
Over the years I’ve discovered that I’m quite gullible, especially when it comes to bargains or a great sales pitch. Yet at the same time, I trust very few people, particularly when my children or grandchildren are involved.
Knowing I can trust God in any circumstance is a great help. He will guide me in the right direction, through the right doors, if I only will ask…and then listen for His answer.
Excerpted from Plain Wisdom by Cindy Woodsmall
Daily Reflection: How [ … ]
O how we need to see that Christ, not comfort, is our all-satisfying and everlasting treasure. So I conclude that magnifying the supremacy of God in all things and being willing to suffer patiently to help people see and savor this supremacy is the essence of love. It’s the essence of God’s love. And it’s the essence of our love for people. Because the supremacy of God’s glory is the source and sum of all full and lasting joy.
Excerpted from A Godward Heart by John Piper
Daily Reflection: When was the last time you savored the supremacy of God?
We all know who Jesus is. Right?
We preach and teach about His will and His ways; tell His stories by heart; celebrate Him in worship; and serve Him with enthusiasm. Yet underneath it all (if we are truly candid), there is a gnawing sense that there should be something well, more to this relationship.
Why is it that He often feels so far away? The distance between knowing Him and knowing about Him is vast. And the space between these two experiences separates the spectators from intimate participants.
Jesus intends for you to experience the pleasure and reassuring peace of His presence at the core of your life. He wants to be more than just another volume in your encyclopedia of biblical facts. He didn’t die for you to simply strike a deal guaranteeing heaven. He died for you to [ … ]
Author Tommy Barnett visited Better TV studios in New York City to discuss his new book The Power of A Half Hour.
Barnett offers practical ways to take back your life, thirty minutes at a time.
To watch, click here.
While most of my [Randy Alcorn] books are nonfiction, I’ve written seven full-length novels. Now, if I were to write a novel about lives without conflict, where characters get everything they want, where life marches on comfortably and no one ever loses anything, nobody would read it. Who likes a boring story? In fact, my central characters always face great conflict, turmoil, uncertainty, and suffering. Some die. That it makes for a far better story is my main reason for doing this. (We enjoy in fiction much that we do not enjoy in life.) So who am I to say that God shouldn’t write such things into his story, including my part?
In our lives God uses conflict not just to make the story better but to make us better. In life, not just literature, we repeatedly see that protection [ … ]
Frontier dangers cannot hold a candle to the risks one woman takes by falling in love
Click here to download chapter one of The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn.
In an act of brave defiance, Tamsen Littlejohn escapes the life her harsh stepfather has forced upon her. Forsaking security and an arranged marriage, she enlists frontiersman Jesse Bird to guide her to the Watauga settlement in western North Carolina. But shedding her old life doesnt come without cost. As the two cross a vast mountain wilderness, Tamsen faces hardships that test the limits of her faith and endurance.
Click here to download chapter one of The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn.
Bestselling author Shaunti Feldhahn was recently featured on Glamour.com concerning her newest release, The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages: The Little Things That Make a Big Difference. The article entitled “Want a Happy Marriage? 5 Simple Things Men Need From Their Wives and 5 Simple Things Men Need From Their Wives” offers ten slides from Feldhahn for both husbands and wives in how to make their marriage stronger.
For example, “Most of us think grateful thoughts but don’t actually say thank you,” Feldhahn says. “In my survey, this mattered to nearly all men, with 72 percent saying it deeply pleased them when their wife or girlfriend gave them props for their hard work. In fact, ‘thank you’ appeared to be the guy’s equivalent of ‘I love you.'”
To read the article, click here.
