Comfort

Friend

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When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer

This is my comfort and consolation in my affliction: that Your word has revived me and given me life.

…breathe your wisdom over me so I can understand you. When they see me waiting, expecting your Word, those who fear you will take heart and be glad…comfort me so I can live, really live; your revelation is the tune I dance to.

But those who prophesy speak to people for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort.

But Jesus was quick to comfort them. "Courage, it's me. Don't be afraid."

May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.

Psalm 94:19 Psalm 119:50 Psalm 119:73 1 Corinthians 14:3 Matthew 14:27 Psalm 119:76 2 Corinthians 1:3

Often, the best comfort is just being there.

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Much more

Great Sand Dunes

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Desire without knowledge is not good— how much more will hasty feet miss the way!

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

So come on, let's leave the preschool finger-painting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ… there's so much more. Let's get on with it!

Proverbs 19:2 Matthew 6:26 Romans 5:15 Romans 5:17 Luke 11:13 Hebrews 6:1

Drawing close to Christ produces a growing Christlikeness.

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Call Come

Response

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"It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.

But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”

"Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I'll come right in and sit down to supper with you.

[ A Call to Holy Living ] So think clearly and exercise self-control. Look forward to the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.

All believers, come here and listen, let me tell you what God did for me. I called out to him… he most surely did listen, he came on the double when he heard my prayer.

Isaiah 65:24 Jeremiah 29:12 Luke 5:32 1 Peter 1:13 Revelation 3:20 Psalm 66:16

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Change Heart

It's coming

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Unless you repent (change your mind for the better and heartily amend your ways, with abhorrence of your past sins), you will all likewise perish and be lost eternally.

God will hear and humble them, even He Who ---because in them there has been no change [of heart], and they do not fear, revere, and worship God.

O people…surrender your pride and power. Change your hearts before the Lord, or my anger will burn like an unquenchable fire because of all your sins.

Then He began to censure and reproach the cities in which most of His mighty works had been performed, because they did not repent [and their hearts were not changed].

Bring forth fruit that is consistent with repentance [let your lives prove your change of heart]

A true Jew (believer) is one whose heart is right with God…it is a change of heart produced by God’s Spirit. A person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people.

Luke 13:5 Psalm 55:19 Jeremiah 4:4 Matthew 11:20 Matthew 3:8 Romans 2:29

In alarming situations, listen for God’s wake-up call.

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Promise Fulfilled

Journey

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I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: “O Lord, you are a great and awesome God! You always fulfill your covenant and keep your promises of unfailing love to those who love you and obey your commands.

My rightness and justice [and faithfully fulfilled promise] shall be forever, and My salvation to all generations.

This is why the fulfillment of God's promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God's promise arrives as pure gift.

But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God. Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe—Christ's life, the fulfillment of God's original promise.

For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!”

[Christ, the Messiah] is therefore the Negotiator and Mediator of an [entirely] new agreement (testament, covenant), so that those who are called and offered it may receive the fulfillment of the promised everlasting inheritance--

Daniel 9:4 Isaiah 51:8 Romans 4:16 Galatians 3:25 2 Corinthians 1:20 Hebrews 9:15

Faith is the key to answered prayer.

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Flow

Animas River

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Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them."

Above the floodwaters is God's throne from which his power flows, from which he rules the world.

To Rebecca a promise was made that took priority over genetics…(she) received a special assurance from God. What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don't do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative.

God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.

And the grace (unmerited favor and blessing) of our Lord [actually] flowed out superabundantly and beyond measure for me, accompanied by faith and love that are [to be realized] in Christ Jesus.

…the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.

John 7:38 Psalm 29:10 Romans 9:10 Ephesians 4:14 1 Timothy 1:14 Colossians 2:18

Pray as if everything depends on God; work as if everything depends on you.

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Old and New

Pay close attention now: I'm creating new heavens and a new earth. All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain are things of the past (old), to be forgotten. Look ahead with joy. Anticipate what I'm creating.

The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me because God anointed me. He sent me to preach good news…Messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit. Rename them "Oaks of Righteousness" planted by God to display his glory. They'll rebuild the old ruins, raise a new city out of the wreckage.


Tell the people, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will put an end to this proverb, and you will soon stop quoting it.’ Now give them this new proverb to replace the old one: ‘The time has come for every prophecy to be fulfilled!’

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

Now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.

So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

Isaiah 65:17 Isaiah 61:1 Ezekiel 12:23 2 Corinthians 5:17 Romans 7:6 Romans 8:12

I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life Ephesians 4:20

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Problems

Broken

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A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: "Do the problems of returning and rebuilding by just a few survivors seem too much? But is anything too much for me? Not if I have my say."

But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.

God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all.

Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem. As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it... It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process. The Holy Spirit confirms this: This new plan I'm making with Israel isn't going to be written on paper, isn't going to be chiseled in stone; This time "I'm writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts." He concludes, I'll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins. Once sins are taken care of for good, there's no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them.

I write this, dear children, to guide you out of sin. But if anyone does sin, we have a Priest-Friend in the presence of the Father: Jesus Christ, righteous Jesus. When he served as a sacrifice for our sins, he solved the sin problem for good—not only ours, but the whole world's.

Zechariah 8:6 Mark 4:17 Romans 5:3 Romans 8:3 Hebrews 10:11 1 John 2:1

When we put our problems in God’s hands, He puts His peace in our hearts.

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Built

Mt.Engineer

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God claims Earth and everything in it, God claims World and all who live on it. He built it on Ocean foundations, laid it out on River girders. For he laid the earth’s foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths.

Suddenly the Lord was up on his feet … Mount Zion, which he loves so much… There he built his sanctuary as high as the heavens, as solid and enduring as the earth.

For the LORD has built up Zion; He has appeared in His glory.

Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself.

And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Let them praise the name of God— it's the only Name worth praising. His radiance exceeds anything in earth and sky; he's built a monument—his very own people! Praise from all who love God! Israel's children, intimate friends of God. Hallelujah!

Psalm 24:1,2 Psalm 78:65,69 Psalm 102:16 Ephesians 2:20 Ephesians 2:22 Psalm 148:13

How foolish to worship the creation, when the Creator is so much greater.

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Glenn

Fire and Water

Branson

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God spread a cloud to keep them cool through the day and a fire to light their way through the night; They prayed and he brought quail, filled them with the bread of heaven; He opened the rock and water poured out; it flowed like a river through that desert— All because he remembered his Covenant, his promise to Abraham, his servant.

As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!

"I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Then he said, "It's happened. I'm A to Z. I'm the Beginning, I'm the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty…But for the rest—the feckless and faithless, degenerates and murderers, sex peddlers and sorcerers, idolaters and all liars—for them it's Lake Fire and Brimstone. Second death!"

You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.

Psalm 105:23 Isaiah 64:2 Matthew 3:11 Revelation 21:6 Psalm 66:12

Faith in Christ is not a leap into the dark; it’s a step into the Light.

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Glenn

Late

Never the same...

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I turned my head and saw yet another wisp of smoke on its way to nothingness: a solitary person, completely alone—no children, no family, no friends—yet working obsessively late into the night, compulsively greedy for more and more, never bothering to ask, "Why am I working like a dog, never having any fun? And who cares?"

If God doesn't build the house, the builders only build shacks. If God doesn't guard the city, the night watchman might as well nap. It's useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don't you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?

So be patient, brethren, [as you wait] till the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits expectantly for the precious harvest from the land. [See how] he keeps up his patient [vigil] over it until it receives the early and late rains.

Don't overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day. God isn't late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn't want anyone lost. He's giving everyone space and time to change.

Perhaps even yet they will turn from their evil ways and ask the Lord’s forgiveness before it is too late. For the Lord has threatened them with his terrible anger.”

This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

Ecclesiastes 4:7 Psalm 127:1 James 5:7 2 Peter 3:8 Jeremiah 36:7 Romans 13:11

Now is the time to choose and obey the Lord – later may never come.

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Glenn

Focus

Pure delight

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"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

While he was going on like this, babbling, a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and sounding from deep in the cloud a voice: "This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of my delight. Listen to him."

Jesus said, "What a generation! No sense of God! No focus to your lives! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring your son here."

But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don't we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.

Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said.

How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love.

Matthew 6:6 Matthew 17:5 Luke 9:41 Romans 3:31 Romans 4:19 Ephesians 1:3

If you want to be wise, focus on Jesus – listen to Him.

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Glenn

Freedom

Branson

I will say to the prisoners, ‘Come out in freedom,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Come into the light.’ They will be my sheep, grazing in green pastures and on hills that were previously bare.

I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.

The diligent find freedom in their work; the lazy are oppressed by work.

Now while they were talking about this, Jesus Himself took His stand among them and said to them, Peace ( freedom from all the distresses that are experienced as the result of sin) be to you!

And now, Lord, observe their threats and grant to Your bond servants [full freedom] to declare Your message fearlessly,

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were assembled was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they continued to speak the Word of God with freedom and boldness and courage.

Isaiah 49:9 Psalm 119:45 Proverbs 12:24 Luke 24:36 Acts 4:29 Acts 4:31

True freedom comes not from choosing our way, but from yielding to God’s way.

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Glenn

Done

Presence

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When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed at that very hour.

Jesus reached out and touched him, saying, "I want to. Be clean." Then and there, all signs of the leprosy were gone. Jesus said, "Don't talk about this all over town…. Your cleansed and grateful life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done."

Again I tell you, if two of you on earth agree (harmonize together, make a symphony together) about whatever [anything and everything] they may ask, it will come to pass and be done for them by My Father in heaven.

Jesus replied, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

Matthew 6:6 Matthew 8:13 Matthew 8:3 Matthew 18:19 Matthew 21:21 Matthew 25:21

Eyes of faith see God at work in everything.

LIFEgroups – together experiencing God

Glenn

Always

Maui

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"I am a good Jew, born in Tarsus in the province of Cilicia, but educated here in Jerusalem under the exacting eye of Rabbi Gamaliel, thoroughly instructed in our religious traditions. And I've always been passionately on God's side, just as you are right now.

Gazing intently at the high council, Paul began: “Brothers, I have always lived before God with a clear conscience!”

"I admit that I didn't always hold to this position. For a time I thought it was my duty to oppose this Jesus of Nazareth with all my might. Backed with the full authority of the high priests, I threw these believers—I had no idea they were God's people!—into the Jerusalem jail right and left, and whenever it came to a vote, I voted for their execution.

Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus…We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

Acts 22:2 Acts 23:1 Acts 26:9 Romans 3:21 Romans 5:1

The Bible is old, but its truths are always new.

LIFEgroups – together experiencing God

Glenn

Daybreak

Daybreak

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The People of Israel marched at God's command and they camped at his command…but the moment God issued orders they marched. If the Cloud stayed only from sunset to daybreak and then lifted at daybreak, they marched. Night or day, it made no difference—when the Cloud lifted, they marched.

On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times.

Oh! Teach us to live well! Teach us to live wisely and well! … Surprise us with love at daybreak; then we'll skip and dance all the day long.

What I tell you now in the darkness, shout abroad when daybreak comes. What I whisper in your ear, shout from the housetops for all to hear!

You, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know when the master of the household will return—in the evening, at midnight, before dawn, or at daybreak.

What a beautiful thing, God, to give thanks, to sing an anthem to you, the High God! To announce your love each daybreak, sing your faithful presence all through the night, Accompanied by dulcimer and harp, the full-bodied music of strings.

Numbers 9:17 Joshua 6:15 Psalm 90:12 Matthew 10:27 Mark 13:35 Psalm 92:1

The Bible is old, but its truths are always new.

LIFEgroups – together experiencing God

Glenn