Forget the Past

You need to be liberated. Don’t carry over experiences from the past. In fact, don’t carry over good experiences from the past either. Learn what it means to experience something fully, then drop it and move on to the next moment, uninfluenced by the previous one. You’d be traveling with such little baggage that you could pass through the eye of a needle. ~ Anthony de Mello 

Answer Prayers

"The purpose of God is not to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we come to discern the mind of God." ~ Oswald Chambers

Effect of the Cross...

The effect of the cross is salvation, sanctification, healing, etc., but we are not to preach any of these, we are to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The proclaiming of Jesus will do its own work. 

~ Oswald Chambers

Fear of Death...

Let thy hope of heaven master thy fear of death. 
~ William Gurnall

Discipleship

If you would meet Him, the LORD of Lords, we wouldn’t have to put forty programs together to try to teach you to follow Him. As much as I believe in discipleship, most of us didn’t get properly discipled. I try to tell leaders all the time, "I can alleviate a lot of pressure from your life, by teaching you that you cannot disciple people that do not want to be discipled, regardless of how great your discipleship program is.

AND

You also can’t stop people from getting discipled who want to get discipled regardless of how sorry your discipleship program is."

That’s not a license to have a sorry discipleship program, but it is a revelation that when you get ready and you get hungry and you get serious about standing in God’s face, you don’t have to have a thousand people in the room, you don’t have to have the best youth building, you don’t have to have the highest budget, you don’t have to have the coolest music, you don’t have to have relevant pastors, you don’t have to have smoking lights. When the Spirit of God is in the room with a hungry soul, discipleship will take place!

~ Kevin Seymour

Pick Your Side...

Just as He makes His choice between the cross and this passing world, so must we.There is no middle ground. We have to pick sides. ~ Chris Tiegreen

Be Like Him...

"Has God been gracious? Be gracious. Has God forgiven? Forgive. Has God healed? Then heal. The Church is to mirror the Savior - the Bible calls it a reflection of His glory. The result is a community of grace. It lives grace, breathes grace, speaks grace." ~ Chris Tiegreen

Christian Character Is Not...

The expression of Christian character is not good doing, but God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit Divine characteristics in your life, not good human characteristics. ~ Oswald Chambers

Anger Hinders...

Anger does not bring about God's redemptive work; far more often it hinders what God is working to accomplish. ~ Henry Blackaby

Worship in Humility

As you worship, remember to humble yourself before your Creator--the One who loves you most. Be in awe.  ~M. Ellen

Continuous Love

An understanding, loving heart is the pinnacle of all human emotions…. We come closest to becoming Christlike when we are charitable and understanding of others. One may have many talents and knowledge but never acquire wisdom because he does not learn to be compassionate with his fellow man. Christlike love must be continuous and contemporary. ~ Marvin J. Ashton

He Cares...

Jesus takes to heart the sufferings of His friends. 

~ William Hendriksen

Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you. ~ 1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)

Give your burdens to the Lord,
    and He will take care of you.
    He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.

~ Psalm 55:22 (NLT)

Discipline Your Mind

The mind must be disciplined to know two extremes: our utter poverty of power and our indestructible position in Christ. ~ Chris Tiegreen

Is This Your Best Yes?

Whenever you say yes to something, there is less of you for something else. Make sure your yes is worth the less. ~ Lysa TerKeurst

Thankful for the Storm

God whispers to us through weakness, forms us through suffering, and answers our spirit’s deepest cries through the gap between ideal and real. 

~ Alicia Britt Chole

Travel Light

You need to be liberated. Don’t carry over experiences from the past. In fact, don’t carry over good experiences from the past either. Learn what it means to experience something fully, then drop it and move on to the next moment, uninfluenced by the previous one. You’d be traveling with such little baggage that you could pass through the eye of a needle. ~ Anthony de Mello 

Attempted Deceit

"The father of lies will try to deceive us in many ways. But he seems to have an over-arching strategy that is two-fold: (1) He wants to tell us we are more than we are. (2) he wants to tell us God is less than He is." ~ Chris Tiegreen

He Knows Your Needs...

The greatest proof that God knows our needs better than we do is His giving Eve to Adam. 

~ Erwin McManus

Would You Rather...?

I am on record, and I will be as long as I live, that I would rather lose a leg and hobble along throughout the rest of my life than to lose my sensitivity to God and His voice and to spiritual things. ~ A.W. Tozer

Working for Christ

'Working for Christ,' has today become the ultimate test for godliness among all but a few evangelical Christians. Christ has become a project to be promoted or a cause to be served, instead of a Lord to be obeyed. ~ A.W. Tozer

What Matters Most...

What matters most is not how happy our marriage was, how big our house was, how successful our kids were, not how many fun times we had or what fun we had on Friday night. It wouldn't be money fame or Pinterest followers...it would be forgiveness.

Most important thing we can get in this world is forgiveness. Not just in eternity, but NOW. It changes the way we look at ourselves and dramatically impacts how we treat others.

~ Author Unknown

Upside Down World

In an upside down world, it is always good to follow Jesus. In this fallen world, He was scandalous but for all the right reasons. The scandal of grace turns an upside-down world right-side up in God's economy. May we never stop speaking of the public scandal that took place on the cross. It is the one holy scandal that brings restorative justice to the perpetrators of all scandals that are grounded in sin. ~ John Comstock

Above Ground Level

Habakkuk had to go to the watchtower, raising himself above the ground level circumstances in order to see the King. 

~ Priscilla Shirer

Throw Your Burden Down

The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry, to equanimity, receptivity, and peace, is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium, those changes of the personal center of energy, which I have analyzed so often; and the chief wonder of it is that it so often comes about, not by doing, but by simply relaxing and throwing the burden down. ~ William James

Surrender

The boat I travel in is called Surrender. My two oars are instant forgiveness and gratitude—complete gratitude for the gift of life. I am thankful for the experience of this life, for the opportunity to dance. I get angry, I get mad, but as soon as I remind myself to put my oars in the water, I forgive. 

~ Balbir Matbur

Not What We Want...

God might not be doing what we want Him to do, but that doesn't necessarily make Him any less God. We just may have to broaden our focus in order to see Him. ~ Laurie Short

He Cares...

Jesus takes to heart the sufferings of His friends. 

~ William Hendriksen

Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you. ~ 1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)

Only Jesus

The Sermon on the Mount is not an ideal. It is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has altered my disposition and put in a disposition like His own. Jesus Christ (in us) is the only One who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount. 

~ Oswald Chambers

Eternal Inheritance

But you are not shaped by your history, contrary to what the psychiatrists have preached.You are shaped by your destiny. You are a child of God with an eternal inheritance. 

~ Chris Tiegreen

A Holy Church

He says He is coming back for a holy church, not a welcoming, community conscious, need oriented, outreach minded one.
~ John Bevere

This is not to say that God's church won't be all of those things just to say that without HIS holiness none of them are any different than the world. ~ Robin

Forming Your Character

"Do get on with your studies. Remember you are now forming the character of your future ministry, if God spare you. If you acquire slovenly or sleepy habits of study now, you will never get the better of it. Do everything in earnest. Above all, keep much in the presence of God. Never see the face of man till you have seen His face who is our life, our all." 

~ Robert Murray M'Cheyne

Living Out Your Mission?

How are you living out your mission? Are you drawing your strength from His power and authority? Or are you depending upon the props? Those who go through life carrying sacks of provisions find themselves powerless; they unwittingly confess a mistrust in His providence....Carry out your mission full of His strength and unburdened by your own. ~ Chris Tiegreen

Where is Your Focus

The people of the world focus on what they are overcoming. Christians focus on what they are becoming. 

~ Henry Blackaby

Five Senses

How much of your walk with God is based on your five senses? 

~ Chris Tiegreen

This Is My Way...Walk in It

How are you living life, work, ministry?  Is your motto, "Keep the Lord on board," with your strength growing steadily weaker?  Or, like Moses, do you stand still and go nowhere until you hear His whisper into your heart, "This is My way.  Walk in it."  

~ Author Unknown

The History of HIS Work

In the history of God's work you will nearly always find that it has started from the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but the steadfastly true to Jesus Christ. ~ Oswald Chambers

Victory

Private Victory precedes Public Victory. Algebra comes before calculus. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Living Together

In becoming human, Jesus becomes vulnerable to the world of human beings. He becomes vulnerable not only to the human capacity to touch and celebrate, but also to the many ways in which people diminish, betray, oppress and abandon one another. Even though he is vulnerable to these, he does not allow himself to be defined by them. Instead, he breaks apart the cycles of destruction, not just for himself but also for us, thereby offering us new ways of living together. ~ L. Gregory Jones