Praise

Praise should always follow answered prayer, as the mist of earth’s gratitude rises when the sun of heaven’s love warms the ground. Has the LORD been gracious to you, and inclined His ear to the voice of your supplication? Then praise Him as long as you live. To forget to praise God, is to refuse to benefit ourselves, for praise, like prayer, is one great means of promoting the growth of the spiritual life. It helps to remove our burdens, to excite our hope, and strengthen our faith. It is healthful and invigorating exercise, which quickens the pulse of the believer and nerves him for fresh enterprises in his Master’s service. To bless God for mercies received is also the way to benefit our fellow men. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. Weak hearts will be strengthened, and drooping saints will be revived, as they listen to our songs of deliverance. Their doubts and fears will be rebuked, as we teach and admonish one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Praise is the most heavenly of Christian duties (Anonymous).

The Bible is a record of man’s complete ruin in sin and God’s complete remedy in Christ (Barnhouse).

Jesus can change the foulest sinners to the finest saints

Many a man lays down his life trying to lay up a fortune.

God’s grace is infinite love expressing itself through infinite goodness.

A.W. Tozer said it best, “It appears that too many Christians want to enjoy the thrill of feeling right but are not willing to endure the inconvenience of being right.

When we change the message of God, we change God of the message (Warren Wiesbe).

A partial gospel is no gospel at all, for there can be no good news when God has been left out (Wiesbe).

SOUL WINNING
Who can assure me that I shall before I die, see God’s church as it was in the old days when the Apostles cast their nets not for gold nor silver but for souls (Bernard of Clairvaux).

JESUS—THE WORD TO BE SPOKEN
Mother Teresa observed that every Christian should ask himself/herself three questions: “You need only to ask at night before you go to bed, ‘What did I do to Jesus today? What did I do for Jesus today? What did I do with Jesus today?’ You have only to look at your hands. This is the best examination of conscience” (Paul W. Powell).

BEING FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
Many a minister is praying for the filling with the Holy Spirit, yet he does not really desire it. He thinks he does, for the filling with the Spirit means new joy and power in preaching the Word, a wider reputation among men, and a larger prominence in the Church of Christ. But, if he understood what a filling with the Holy Spirit really involved, he would think less about its rewards. He would think more of how it would necessarily bring him into antagonism with the world, with unspiritual Christians, how it would cause his name to be “cast out as evil,” and how it might necessitate his going down to work in the slums, or even in some foreign land.

If he understood all this, his prayer most likely would be—If he were to express the real wish of his heart—“O God, save me from being filled with the Holy Spirit” (R. A. Torrey, How to Pray).

THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF ADVERSITY
The ability to rejoice in adversity depends in large part on our perspective of suffering. Paul looks at adversity from the vantage of God’s ultimate purpose in our lives. Rather than focus upon the immediate gratification of personal peace, and transitory happiness, he calls the Christian’s attention to several important long-range results of adversity (Romans 5:3-5):

• Suffering, if perceived from God’s perspective, results in perseverance, the ability to continue in spite of difficulties or opposition, to be steadfast in purpose. With this attitude, the Christian becomes a winner, an overcomer, a living demonstration of God’s supernatural power at work.
• Perseverance results in Christ-like character. The believer becomes stable, deeply rooted in Jesus Christ.
• Character builds hope—both dependence upon God in the present, and assurance of Christ’s future return (Charlie Riggs, Learning to Walk with God).