Doubly-Blessed

Happy Birthday Dad!
You are the best.
So thankful for you, born this day 22,
In the month of 11, the year 44;
An important date, for sure.
You’re now 77, a gift straight from heaven;
And today we’re all doubly-blessed.

Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:8-12, NIV)

Just to think of others and whisper, “Jesus,” is the noblest contribution most of us can ever make to other lives as well as our own. — Frank C. Laubach

Enoch lived in close fellowship with God. He lived 365 years, walking in close fellowship with God. (Genesis 5:22-24, NLT)

By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. “They looked all over and couldn’t find him because God had taken him.” We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken “he pleased God.” (Hebrews 11:5, MSG)

Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord;
Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word.
Make friends of God’s children, help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek.

Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret, with Jesus alone.
By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see.

Take time to be holy, let Him be thy Guide;
And run not before Him, whatever betide.
In joy or in sorrow, still follow the Lord,
And, looking to Jesus, still trust in His Word.

Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul,
Each thought and each motive beneath His control.
Thus led by His Spirit to fountains of love,
Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above.
— William D. Longstaff, “Take Time to Be Holy”

Though the Lord is great, he cares for the humble, but he keeps his distance from the proud. (Psalm 138:6, NLT)

Self-sufficient people don’t go to God with the same desperation and so never discover his love and his power on their behalf. — Tim Keller

Prayer is not an occasional exercise to which you turn now and then; it is a life attitude. It is the will to co-operate with God in your total life. It is an attitude rather than an act. You cannot expect God to come into the occasional, if you refuse him in the continuous. - E. Stanley Jones

Missing
By Ryan M. Roberts

I was reading in Mark 9 today and noticed something odd,
There is a verse missing in my Word of God.
Verse 44 is gone. I guess its message doesn’t sell.
I suspect its absence is because it starkly details Hell.

Like eye or hand that sins, this verse was cut, or plucked it seems;
In this pick and choose approach I find a Jeffersonian theme.
Not much has changed in you and me, from Mount Sinai until now;
We’re ever making a god our own, much like the golden cow.

If you’re sticking with me, on this awkward, odd excursion;
You’ll find the missing verse still in the King James Version.
Consequence for choices, newer Bible versions quell,
But even in their footnotes, the missing verse describes Hell.

It speaks of death and loss, and of fire never ending.
But against that backdrop stands a cross, and a loving Father sending,
His only Son to die for all, including you and me;
Yet even then, our pride rejects the verses we can see.

Like where it says God stays his hand, wanting all to repent;
He longs to live within our hearts, but not without consent.
It is our lives and minds he wants—our love, His final plea,
Draw near to God and you will find great grace and rich mercy.

Here at the close of this long rhyme, I’ve told all that I can tell,
We must decide if we’ll abide a God that includes Hell.
Consider this, the author of verse 44—the One we are dismissing,
He leaves the ninety-nine to find the precious one that’s missing.

If you glance at Jesus and gaze at evil, you cannot help being a pessimist. But if you gaze at Jesus and glance at evil, you cannot help being an optimist. For you see that evil has seeds of its own destruction in it. ... The word evil is the word live spelled backward. - E. Stanley Jones

Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! (Hebrews 12:2-3, MSG)