Growth/Service

14: "Let me entreat of you, then, to give up all your efforts after growing, and simply to let yourselves grow. Leave it all to the Husbandman whose care it is, and who alone is able to manage it. No difficulties in your case can baffle Him. If you will only put yourselves absolutely into His hands, and let Him have His own way with you, no dwarfing of your growth in the years that are past, no apparent dryness of your inward springs of life, no crookedness or deformity in your development, can in the least mar the perfect work that He will accomplish."

15: "It is wonderful what miracles God works in wills that are utterly surrendered to Him. He turns hard things into easy, and bitter things into sweet. It is not that He puts easy things in the place of the hard, but He actually changes the hard thing into an easy one, and makes us love to do the thing we before so hated."

Is God in Everything?

12: "The truth really is that His care is infinitely superior to any possibilities of human care; and that He, who counts the very hairs of our heads, and suffers not a sparrow to fall without Him, takes note of the minutest matters that can affect the lives of His children, and regulates them all according to His own perfect will, let their origin be what they may. The instances of this are numberless. Take Joseph. What could have seemed more apparently on the face of it to be the result of sin, and utterly contrary to the will of God, than the action of his brethren in selling him into slavery? And yet Joseph, in speaking of it said, 'As for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.'"

13: Bondage or Liberty

"If a child of loving parents should get the idea that its parents would not give it food and clothing unless it earned them in some way, all the sweetness of the relationship between parent and child would be destroyed."

The last Difficulties

10: Concerning Temptation

"Sin makes an easy prey of a discouraged soul; so that we fall often from the very fear of having fallen."

11: Concerning Failures

"This life of union with God requires the utmost honesty with Him and with ourselves."

sooo blessed!

Today, I went shopping for shoes with my 12-yr-old brother, adopted from Russia. He was so wonderful. He kept apologizing for taking so long, but I wasn't in a hurry. He couldn't make up his mind or find his size. Poor guy had to have a cavity filled right beforehand, and he started to claim that his leg was going numb (he's still a little paranoid of the doctor/dentist!) The best part was when we got home though. A couple hours later, he came up to me and handed me three dollars. I was confused and asked what it was for. He looked at me and said, "Jesus." Misha is going to support me in my ministry as his tithe for his monthly allowance!

Nothing could bless me as much as that, but I also just found out that Dr. James White (the guy who shared the gospel when Lecrae began his relationship with Christ) is speaking at the San Diego Winter Conference!!!

I thought today was Friday

This morning God's Word just really jumped out at me.  I felt Jesus' love because of what I read about, (lately, the topic of temptation has been coming up a lot, and I love that I could learn more from the Bible on that subject today.)  On Tuesday, I asked my brother what I should read, and he said Luke.  Today I opened to Luke 4, where Jesus is tempted by Satan.  This part really made me think:

"And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, 'To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.' And Jesus answered him, 'It is written,

"You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'"

I thought, why didn't Jesus take charge of the whole world?  That would be pretty cool if Satan wasn't still ruling the earth.  But, obviously Jesus' obedience to only worship God was more important.  That made me realize that if Jesus wouldn't give in and worship anything beside God (for all the kingdoms and glory of the earth) then it is better for me not to worship anything except for my God.  

I felt the need to share these thoughts with my brother, but then I apologized for getting a little preachy.  His response was, "Yeah, I thought today was Friday"

Just now, I told him that if he hadn't suggested for me to read Luke, he wouldn't have gotten a sermon. My sister was like, "You went to church today!?"

difficulties concerning guidance and doubts

8:  "Some, however, may say here, 'But I thought we were not to depend on our unenlightened human understanding in Divine things.'  I answer to this that we are not to depend upon our unenlightened human understanding, but upon our human judgement and common sense enlightened by the Spirit of God."  

9:  "Look right at Jesus, and tell Him that you do trust Him, and that you intend to go on trusting Him.  Then let the doubts clamor as they may, they cannot hurt you if you will not let them in.  I know it will look to you sometimes as though you were shutting your door against your best friends...but deny yourself; take up your cross in this matter, and quietly but firmly refuse ever to listen to a single word."   

Difficulties...

5: "Difficulties Concerning Consecration"

"Come once more to Him, in a surrender of your whole self to His will, as complete as you know how to make it.  You must ask Him to reveal to you, by His Spirit, any hidden rebellion; and if He reveals nothing, then you must believe that there is nothing, and that the surrender is complete."  

6: "Difficulties Concerning Faith"

"You have trusted Him in a few things, and He has not failed you.  Trust Him now for everything and see if He does not do for you exceedingly abundantly, above all that you could ever have asked or even thought, not according to your power or capacity, but according to His own mighty power, working in you all the good pleasure of His most blessed will." 

7: "Difficulties Concerning the Will"

"If, therefore, you have in your will taken the steps of surrender and faith, it is your right to believe even now, no matter how much your feelings may clamor against it, that you are all the Lord's."