Sunday, October 30, 2016

Random Little Tidbits - October 2016





TidBit #1



This book was a quick read, just a couple of hours. This one is full of information, but nothing I hadn't see already.  I felt a little disappointed after finishing, as though I expected something more from the reading of this text. 


TidBit #2

Joshua 23:12-13 speak so loud to me.  If you cleave to the remnant of these nations and make marriages witth them, I (HE) will no longer drive them out, and they will be scourges, and traps, and thorns...

I am SO applying this to sin, my inability to control my temper, my lack of progress in losing weight...  I read something this morning by Joyce Meyer that talked about our 'want to' and this just all came together for me just now.  

I will never succeed at accomplishing my desires until I first let go of the old habits, the old hang ups, the old desserts, the old self and put on the new self, the self that I am in HIM the self that HE will make me.  

At the Joyce Meyer LoveLife Women's Conference this past weekend, Christine Caine said that HE won't do what we can do, HE will only do what we can't do.  And HE won't do what we can't, until we do do what we can do!  And what that basically says is HE is waiting for us to do our part!



TidBit #3


An online community.  Do your daily SOAK's and reflect on one chapter each day.  Then join one of their many facebook groups and discuss with other ladies in your area or around the globe. 
I started with James, now have completed Joshua.  Started Judges on October 17th.  So looking forward to it!  Love what the Holy Spirit has shared with me, and what He has shared with the other ladies in the group.  Am thankful for having someone to talk about each chapter with!

Update:  I studied James with the U.K. group, great ladies, very talkative and supportive!  I joined two others (closer to my time zone), thinking I would get more out of the study of Joshua.  They are not so talkative.  So glad I have the U.K. ladies!



TidBit #4


I really got a lot out of this study!  Even though I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of homework in each session.  The book is the size of all of Ms. Moore's studies, but only 5 weeks instead of the normal 8-10 sessions.  

Moore takes her time with 2 Timothy and for that I am glad!  Really diving in and digging out the Word from the text.  And Melissa's additional pages, I love, love, love that Moore is letting her take us even deeper into the studies.  

TidBit #5


God At The Center
He built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el: because there God appeared unto him. Genesis 35:7
After Jacob’s first memorable encounter with God in the wilderness, he called the place Beth-el, which means “the house of God.” Many years later, after he had suffered and sinned and repented, and discovered the worthlessness of all earthly things, he renamed the place, El-beth-el; literally “the God of the house of God.”
Thus Jacob had shifted his emphasis from the sacred place to the God he had met there. God Himself now took the center of his interest.
We need to consider that many Christians never get beyond Beth-el. God is in their thoughts but He has not been given first place. Faithfulness to the local church is a good thing; but when the church becomes so large and important that it hides God from our eyes, it may become a good thing wrongly used.
Always God must be first—and we ought never forget that the church was never intended to substitute for God! What is our primary interest? Is it Beth-el or El-beth-el? Is it my church or my Lord? Is it my creed or my Christ?
Father God, I want You to have first place in my life and in the lives of the people in my local church. Help us to focus on You so that we can enjoy Your presence wherever we are—at church, at home, in the office or on vacation.
Mornings with Tozer, by A. W. Tozer.




TidBit #6

Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning. C. S. Lewis


The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career.  C. S. Lewis

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. C. S. Lewis




TidBit #7


I purchased this book over a year ago, from Sondra Baras, when she came to visit our church.  I can't say I agree with everything she had to say, but she certainly shared information with us that I didn't have, and open my eyes to things of a Jewish nature.  I wish there were more people of Jewish descent that would sit with us and teach us the old ways!

This book, walks through the Torah, one Parsha portion each week.  And gives us even more information, from her perspective, that really was enlightening to me.  

I fully recommend this book!



TidBit #8

"Good works are not a means of salvation because we are saved by grace through faith. We are saved only on the grounds of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But, our good works are an evidence of salvation; and if we fail to do all the good we can, to all the people we can, at any time we can, by any means we can, we will be condemned at the judgment bar of God. Make no mistake about that."
Billy Graham








TidBit #9

Men and women who are out of fellowship with God, the Creator, still have an instinct towards some practice of worship. In most of our “civilized” circles, the practice of picking out what we like to worship and rejecting what we do not like is widespread.
This has opened up an entire new field for applied psychology and humanism under a variety of religious disguises. Thus, men and women set themselves as judges of what the Lord has said—and so they stand with pride and judge the Lord.
In the Bible, God takes the matter of worship out of the hands of men and puts it in the hands of the Holy Spirit.
It is impossible to worship God without the impartation of the Holy Spirit!
A. W. Tozer



TidBit #10

Postponing Obedience
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.Acts 16:31
A notable heresy has come into being throughout our evangelical Christian circles—the widely accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ only because we need Him as Savior, and that we have the right to postpone our obedience to Him as long as we want to!

The truth is that salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred Scriptures. Peter makes it plain that we are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience” (1 Peter 1:2).
It seems most important to me that Peter speaks of his fellow Christians as “obedient children” (vs. 14). He knew their spirituality—he was not just giving them an exhortation to be obedient.
The entire Bible teaches that true obedience to God and His Christ is one of the toughest requirements in the Christian life. Actually, salvation without obedience is a self-contradicting impossibility!
Humans do not want to admit it, but the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans long ago that “by one man’s disobedience” came the downfall of the human race (see Romans 5:19).
Dear Lord, I pray today for all the “nominal” Christians in our churches who are straddling the fence of faith. I pray that Your Spirit will impress upon them the need to become fully devoted followers of Christ who will become actively engaged in the battle for men’s souls.
A. W. Tozer






TidBit #11


John Wesley’s Advice on How to Vote in an Election

“October 6, 1774
I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them
1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy
2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and
3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.”
― John Wesley, The Journal of John Wesley


  
I'm putting this pic here, because I want you to know, that even though I think it might be a waste of time, I did my civic duty and cast my vote for the most qualified candidate!  Now it's up to God, do we get a leader that will lead us UP to HIM, or one that will sink us farther down?  Either way, I intend to follow Wesley's advice.  



TidBit #12

Opens November 2nd!  You wouldn't know it by what I have listed here that I've spent most of my month of October working on the Studio so that we can get it open.  There were a few set backs, with a procedure that I had to have.  But we open this week!  
Y'all come see us!





Meme Corner


 Some of these I designed myself, so be forgiving of the colors!