Today we honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the great civil rights leader who gave us one of the most celebrated lines in modern speech. Quoting an old spiritual, he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, and proclaimed to his listeners:
“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
“pray daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free.”
Charles Colson, Martin Luther King and Religious
“There is, therefore, something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart.”—St. Augustine
We play the fool when we allow hatred and jealousy to control our lives instead of love.
We play the fool when we disobey God, even in the smallest matters.
We play the fool when we attempt to justify the wrongs we have done.
OSWALD CHAMBERS
God engineers circumstances to see what we will do. Will we be the children of our Father in heaven, or will we go back again to the meaner, common–sense attitude? Will we stake all and stand true to Him? “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” The crown of life means I shall see that my Lord has got the victory after all, even in me.
We are all one human race, destined for judgment. Let us live together in peace and love and share the Gospel.
Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes
I’m just a symbol of a movement. I stand there because others helped me to stand there, forces of history projected me there.
We are made for the stars…
Let us join together in a great fellowship of love.
Heavenly Father, thank You for life, health, rewarding vocations, and peaceful living in this turbulent society.
God, teach us to use the gift of reason as a blessing, not a curse.
God, bring us visions that lift us from carnality and sin into the light of God’s glory.
Agape love, repentance, forgiveness, prayer, faith: all are keys to resolving human issues.
God, deliver us from the sins of idleness and indifference.
Lord, teach me to unselfishly serve humanity.
Lord, order our steps and help us order our priorities, keeping You above idols and material possessions, and to rediscover lost values.
Lord Jesus, thank You for the peace that passes all understanding that helps us to cope with the tensions of modern living.
Creator of life, thank You for holy matrimony, the privilege You grant man and wife as parents to aid You in Your creative activity.
Dear Jesus, thank You for Your precious blood, shed for the remission of our sins. By Your stripes we are healed and set free!
Dear God, You bless us with vocations and money. Help us to joyfully and obediently return tithes and gifts to You to advance Your Kingdom.
Deliver us from self-centeredness and selfish egos. Dear Heavenly Father, help us to rise to the place where our faith in You, our dependency on You, brings new meaning to our lives.
God, help us to believe we were created for that which is noble and good ; help us to live in the light of Your great calling and destiny.
Lord, help me to accept my tools, however dull they are; and then help me to do Your will with those tools. [Paraphrased]
Our Father God, above all else save us from succumbing to the tragic temptation of becoming cynical.
God, let us win the struggle for dignity and discipline, defeating the urge for retaliatory violence, choosing that grace which redeems.
Remove all bitterness from my heart and give me the strength and courage to face any disaster that comes my way.
God, thank You for the creative insights of the universe, for the saints and prophets of old, and for our foreparents.
God, grant that people over the nation rise up, use talents and finances that God has given them, lead the people to the promised land.
God, increase the persons of goodwill and moral sensitivity. Give us renewed confidence in nonviolence the way of love Christ taught.
We are made to live together.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for the ministering, warring, and worshipping angels You send to help keep and protect us in all our ways.
We are all one human race, destined for greatness. Let us live together in peace and love in a Beloved Community.
Have faith in God. God is Love. Love never fails. It is our prayer that we may be children of light, the kind of people for whose coming and ministry the world is waiting. Amen.
I believe that in these last days, God really wants to do a tremendous work through His church, but that can only happen when we come together and seek to build His kingdom, using the gifts and talents He has given each one of us, individually.
When asking the Lord to reveal His will, we shouldn’t expect instant answers. The discipline of waiting builds character, and besides, rushing the process may lead to a path that misses God’s best.
Take the time to seek Jesus’ plan for your life, remembering He'll provide all you need to follow Him.
from Dr. Charles Stanley
Faith is a personal issue and often demands that we give up what we can see for what we cannot see, but just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Let me share some ways to weaken your doubts and strengthen your faith:
Read the Bible consistently.
Romans 10:17
Turn to God constantly.
Mark 9:14-29
Focus on God continually.
Psalm 34:6
Seek out faith-builders persistently.
Ecclesiastes 4:12
There is a difference between empathy and sympathy. With accurate empathy we can correctly perceive the feelings of another person without being captured by that person's emotions.
If we sympathize, we may feel what our friend feels, preventing us from being objective in a helping relationship since we are likely to be caught up in our hurting friend's emotions.
There needs to be balance in our lives.
It is so important for us to recognize our gifts and talents come from the Lord and they are to be used to serve and glorify Him. When we work together, in unity, with the gifts God has given us, we serve in building the Kingdom of God. The Spirit is the source of all our natural gifts.
~Donald MacLeod~
When we're in the Lord's presence, listening to Him, praying to Him, we're going to have that compulsion to share with others what He's done--and continues to do--for us. We won't be able to contain it!
The ultimate ability of the law of God is its capacity to tutor people to Christ. "The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ." It is the plan of God to use His law to inform us about our great need for Jesus Christ. Remember the summaries of the law of God: "be holy, be loving, be perfect."
Keep your eyes on the goal and you won't have time to worry about the target or its size on your back.....
Keep your eyes on the goal and you will never lose.....
Some play to win the game, others play to win the championship....... Make short and long term goals....
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power
corrupts absolutely.
~Lord Acton~
Behind the Shrug there is always more!
It is universally recognized that what we do matters
less than why we do it.
~John R. W. Stott~
"No one experiences complete sanctification without going through the burial of the old life. You must agree with God and stop being the intensely striving kind of Christian you have been. Has there been a point in your life which you now mark as your last day? Is there a place in your life to which you go back in memory with humility and overwhelming gratitude, so that you can honestly proclaim, 'Yes, it was then that I made an agreement with God'?" --Oswald Chambers
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.~
The Christian life is an exchange. We exchange an old life for a new one. Bad habits with new ones. A sentence of death for the gift of eternal life. We replace fear with freedom.
You cannot be free and be controlled by fear. Perfect love casts out all fear...
It is a good thing to put up in your house the question, “What would Jesus do?” It answers nine out of ten of the difficulties of moral casuistry.
A modern take on ~C. H. Spurgeon~
No man has any business walking into a pulpit to entertain. He is there [instead] to present Calvary in all its fullness of hope and glory.
~A.W. Tozer~
Our current popular version of Christianity can be comfortable, humorous, superficial, entertaining, and worldly the wisdom is exposed by the lack of power to transform lives …
There are many of us that are willing to do great things for the Lord, but few of us are willing to do the little things.
~D.L Moody~
The ultimate ability of the law of God is its capacity to tutor people to Christ. "The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ." It is the plan of God to use His law to inform us about our great need for Jesus Christ.
Stop speaking words that allow the enemy to think he’s winning.
Marriage isn't a competitive race; it's a relay race. You will both win or lose together. It's so important to understand that you and your spouse are on the same team.
Although the law has some God-given inabilities, it is nevertheless good. "Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. It does have certain abilities, "if one uses it lawfully." One unlawful application of the law would be using it to obtain justification (a declaration of being righteous in God's sight). If anyone ever infers that attempted obedience to the law of God could potentially secure an overall verdict of "not guilty," that would be biblically forbidden.
The fundamental issue isn’t whether pleasure is good or bad; it’s that there is something deep inside of you that pleasure can never fill. From lines of cocaine to the finish lines of marathons, it can all end up being the same pursuit. The destination is always out of reach.
The greatest enemy to human souls is the self-righteous spirit which makes men look to themselves for salvation.
~Charles Spurgeon~
God is the Great Builder. He’s the One who built the universe by speaking it into existence; and then, when sin entered and His creation was separated, He sent His Son into the world so a bridge might be built back to Himself.
Dr. Mark Pitts
The highest point of the Christian experience is to press forward. It is a distinguishing trait in the character of every good man that he grows in grace...
~Gardiner Spring~
The church is like a river. If it gets wider instead of deeper it will lose its power. —Puritan Thomas Manton
We must take off our mind from every thing which might divert us in our Christian race from looking unto Jesus. —Puritan Isaac Ambrose, Looking Unto Jesus, 19
Christ hath satisfied justice and merited mercy; Christ hath satisfied the covenant of works by suffering what was due in point of transgression, and by discharging what was due in point of obedience. —Thomas Manton, Works 3:452
O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams. Augustine
It is easy to want things from the Lord and yet not want the Lord Himself, as though the gift could ever be preferable to the Giver. Augustine
Try to acquire the virtues you believe lacking in your brothers. Then you will no longer see their defects, for you will no longer have them yourself. Augustine
“The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.” - C.S. Lewis
Prayer must not be our chance work, but our daily business, our habit and vocation. As artists give themselves to their models... so must we addict ourselves to prayer. We must be immersed in prayer as in our element, and so pray without ceasing." –– Charles Spurgeon
“God's promises were never meant to be thrown aside as wastepaper; He intended that they should be used. God's gold is not miser's money but is minted to be traded with. Nothing pleases our Lord better than to see His promises put in circulation…” — Charles Spurgeon
To sin because mercy abounds, is the devil’s logic. - Thomas Watson
"Lay hold on Jesus, and keep hold on Jesus." — Charles Spurgeon
"The gospel is all about Christ from beginning to end." – Charles Spurgeon
"Jesus Christ deserves the best men to preach his cross, not the empty-headed." — Charles Spurgeon
The eye of the child drinks in far more than the ear. J.C. Ryle
We are not untied to any promise, but to 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵. Many take a promise, and go away with it. But alas! you are to take 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 in the promise, for there is no promise that pertains to any till they are one with Christ. —Puritan Thomas Manton, Works 3:450
The church is like a river. If it gets wider instead of deeper it will lose its power. —Puritan Thomas Manton
"Salvation cannot be accomplished by a bath." -John MacArthur, on baptism.
We are not equipping people to be the salt of the earth, if we’re teaching them a sugar-coated Gospel.
God has work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off his authority. - John Owen
If you know "someone" that is… - far from God - doesn't give a rip about church - is really, really good at sinning Don't give up on them. Pray for them. Point them to a Savior. No one is too far gone. I was once "someone" just like that, but thankfully Jesus saves!
People will question, “Do we really need Jesus to go to Heaven?” Listen, we need Jesus just to get out of bed in the mornings.
"You may want your listeners to take notes on much of the sermon, but when you get to Christ, you want them to experience what they were taking notes about." - Tim Keller
Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark; when high and learned ones do only pierce the air. -John Bunyan -
God is holy. And he will not lower his standard of righteousness to the level of our ignorance. Ignorance is not innocence. -A.W. Pink -
Did Christ finish His work for us? Then there can be no doubt but He will also finish His work in us. —John Flavel
“He foresaw my every fall, my every sin, my every backsliding; yet, nevertheless, fixed His heart upon me.” Arthur W. Pink
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” - C.S. Lewis
"The two Testaments are the two lips by which God hath spoken to us." -Thomas Watson.
People treat God’s sovereignty as a matter of controversy, but in Scripture it is a matter of worship. J.I. Packer
Truth without love is too hard; love without truth is too soft. John Stott
At the very worst, our gospel is better than the world at its best. Spurgeon
You cannot be free and be controlled by fear. Fear is the worst kind of tyranny and oppression. It hinders life and paralyzes its victims. Fear quenches the Spirit, and deceives us into forgetting our Heavenly Father. Ray Bentleys
Many people want a Savior, but not a Lord. However, Jesus doesn’t change according to our wants. He is both Savior and Lord. That is what we need.
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