Here are the links…
“Here we are able to watch noble souls struggling with their problems and with themselves. They talk to themselves and to their souls, baring their hearts, analysing their problems, chiding and encouraging themselves. Sometimes they are elated, at other times depressed, but they are always honest with themselves. That is why they are of such real value to us if we also are honest with ourselves.”
(Martin Lloyd Jones, Spiritual Depression)
“The Psalms have always been favorites of God’s people because they express honest human experience and emotion in the context of faith. In the Psalms you meet God where you are.”
(David Powlison)
“When you cannot trace God’s hand, you must trust God’s heart.”
(Charles Spurgeon)
On one particular occasion when he [Martin Luther] was greatly discouraged-which was not unusual for Luther-he was forcefully reminded of this by his wife, Katharine. Seeing him unresponsive to any word of encouragement, one morning she appeared dressed in black mourning clothes. No word of explanation was forthcoming, and so Luther, who had heard nothing of a bereavement, asked her, “Katharine, why are you dressed in mourning black?”
“Someone has died,” she replied.
“Died?” said Luther. “I have not heard of anyone dying. Whoever can have died?”
“It seems,” his wife replied, “that God must have died.”
(Sinclair Ferguson, Deserted By God?)
Links from the last seven days…
Some interesting quotes from the Transformers movie…
“No sacrifice, no victory”
(The Witwicky family motto)
“I will sacrifice myself to save you”
(Optimus Prime to Sam Witwicky)
In 1 Corinthians 5:9 Paul writes about a previous letter he wrote to the church in Corinth. If this letter was found, would it become the 67th book in the Bible?
No! If God had wanted this letter to be included in His Word, we can be sure that He would have made sure it was included. Unlike the two letters Paul wrote to the Corinthians that we have, this letter was never intended by God to be part of the Bible.
So if the letter was discovered today it won’t become book number 67!
In Esther 6 we see a reversal of fortunes. In Esther 6:11 we read: “So Haman took the robes and the horse, and he dressed Mordecai and led him through the square of the city, proclaiming before him, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honour.”“
Mordecai as a Jew was facing death because of the king’s edict. But now in Esther 6 his fortunes are reversed as God in his sovereignty works to remind the king of how Mordecai exposed an assassination attempt on the king resulting in him now being honoured.
This isn’t the only reversal of fortunes we read about in the Bible. Several hundred years later, the Lord Jesus Christ didn’t just face death he experienced death as He took upon Himself the sins of the world. But God demonstrated his sovereignty again by raising Jesus from the grave and exalted him to the highest place, the throne of heaven, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!
Because of Jesus we can know a reversal of fortunes in our own life. Through repentance and faith in Jesus we who were dead in our transgressions and sins; who were by nature objects of God’s wrath have been made alive in Christ and become a child of God.