"The story is told that one day the devil decided to put all his tools up for sale. On the date of the sale, the tools were lined up on a table. Each one was marked with its sale price. They were a treacherous lot of implements: there was one for pride, and one for jealousy, and envy, and so on. But set apart from the rest was a harmless looking tool. And it was quite well-worn, and yet it was priced very highly. 'What’s the name of this tool?' asked one customer, pointing to it. 'That is discouragement,' Satan replied. 'Well… why have you priced it so high?' asked the customer. 'Because it's more useful to me than all the others,' Satan replied. 'I can pry open and get inside a man's heart with that, even when I can't get near him with any of the other tools. It's badly worn because I've used it on almost everyone, since so few people know that it belongs to me.’ Unsurprisingly, the devil's price for discouragement was so high that the tool never sold." Jon Teasdale From the sermon "Ephesians 3 - Trusting in Christ - Do you depend on God in Prayer?" Jesmond Parish Church, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, October 18, 2015 |
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"As Jesus transfigured, He didn't try to be transfigured ...'OK, now, I'm going to really try to be transfigured'... no, His transfiguration was a natural consequence of His relationship with His Father. We don't try to be spiritual. Don't try to be godly, don't try to be good. Just trust, and live out of fellowship with Jesus Christ. Don't try to put anything on the outside that's not natural. No phoniness. ...[Your] 'transfiguration' means, people who are meeting you will meet Jesus."
Charles Price, "A Thanksgiving Church," October 12, 2014 (Peoples Church, Toronto) Two more links to flag to your attention:
Bible Gateway has added two new C.H. Spurgeon daily devotionals. You can subscribe to them on the Bible Gateway site, or you can access them at the links below. I've also added this information to the "Links" page, under "Blogs, devotionals, sites, and articles." Spurgeon at the New Park Street Chapel: 365 Sermons Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle: 365 Sermons I recently snuck a few new entries into the list of media resources on the "Links" page. One of them links to a page containing audio sermons by A.W. Tozer (1897-1963). I've started listening to some of these sermons. I find Tozer delightfully forthright and humble.
Here's the page -- may God use these sermons as He sees fit: Tozer Audio Sermons Today for me was one of those days I will mark on the calendar. Some of this I may explain later, but what I can tell you now is that this was a day of deep humbling for me. The Lord chastised me twice, and profoundly. I am still subdued and dazed by the honor.
Part two of the chastisement was the remarkable sermon below. This is one of the most important messages I've ever heard, so I felt led to share it with you. Here is the link to the Peoples Church Toronto sermon search, where you can find the sermon. "The Nature of True Discipleship" (scripture reference Luke 14:15-33) Charles Price, September 1, 2013 "It was a number of years before I discovered that one of the most dangerous things you can do is dedicate yourself to live for Jesus. I came to understand that the Christian life is not about dedicating and re-dedicating and re-re-dedicating, the Christian life is about dying: recognizing that in me there dwells no good thing, that the only One who can live the Christian life is Jesus Christ.
...By the way, never dedicate yourself to the will of God; never commit yourself to the will of God. Commit yourself to GOD, period, whose will it is. And He will work out His will, in your life and in your circumstances." ~ Charles Price, Prairie Bible Institute, "Christian Life Week" 2012 -- day 2, a.m. lecture, September 26, 2012 Prairie Bible Institute YouTube videos of all five talks, HERE Audio files of the same talks HERE (updated 2019 -- now on SoundCloud) I'm not terribly gifted in science (an understatement), but I suppose the Lord balanced this somewhat by giving me a gift for seeing patterns and analogies. This came in handy today as I was listening to Charles Price speak on Nehemiah 9. If you're interested in hearing the sermon, it's called "Building your wall -- with a renewed covenant," originally broadcast March 4, 2012 (you can find it using the Peoples Church sermon search, here).
Charles Price illustrated that we are to live the Christian life by giving God our weakness and depending on His strength. We don't sit passively waiting for God to do everything for us, nor do we work for God. We work hand-in-hand with Him. "My strength is made perfect in weakness," the Lord told Paul (2 Corinthians 12:9), who went on to say that for this reason, he would boast in his own weaknesses. ...Be honest -- has this statement not sometimes struck you as the tiniest bit outrageous? I have weaknesses that have been the bane of my existence. My heaviest burdens can be traced largely to my weaknesses, flaws, and inadequacies. I should boast in these things? A picture came to me today of how this divine teamwork operates. Paul's comment makes perfect sense when you look at it this way. Picture a simple machine, in which a few parts work together to perform a task. By themselves, the parts normally can't do anything. Place some wheels and an axle on the ground, and they just sit there. Put them together and apply force, and something remarkable happens.* In effect, what God means when He says "My strength is made perfect in weakness" is, cooperate with Me -- trust Me, and do as I ask -- and I will use you to accomplish My perfect purposes, not in your strength but My own. When a wheel or axle has its own agenda, the results are not pretty. No, a wheel or axle's purpose is fulfilled in submission to a higher agenda. Its weakness, so to speak, is its strength. Whatever repeatedly returns to overwhelm me, whatever defeats me day after day, I must see this as a potential ally, because it reveals my weakness in all its glory. And my weakness, submitted to Christ, becomes a conduit for His transcendent power. _____________________________________ *For how this something remarkable happens, click here. |
All thy sins were laid upon Him, Jesus bore them on the tree;
God, who knew them, laid them on Him, and, believing, thou art free. Joseph Denham Smith (c. 1817-1889) Praise reflection archives
May 2020
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...take root downward and bear fruit upward.
2 Kings 19:30 |