"If our satisfaction in Christ is so deep and strong,

that when other things fall away,

we still hold to Him,

then He is shown to be magnificent,

more valuable

than all those things we just lost."

~ John Piper, "Don't Waste Your Life"

 "Whoever LOSES

loses (ἀπόλλυμι) = to destroy; to put out of the way entirely, abolish, put an end to ruin; render useless

his LIFE

life (ψυχή) = that in which there is life; a living being; a living soul; the soul; the seat of the feelings, desires, affections, aversions

for My sake will find it."

Matthew 16:25

The Response. The Result.

"Hardened clay is brittle and easily damaged. If dropped, it can fracture into a thousand pieces...

Dropped wax, it only bends from the pressure of the fall. Impressionable and pliable, it can quickly be remolded.

People are like that. People who are hardened in their resolve against God are brittle, their emotions are easily damaged.

But those who bend to the will of God find perfect expression in however God molds them.

The same sun that hardens the clay,

melts the wax.

There is no change or variation in the sun itself. It's just the way the clay or wax responds.

Trials and sufferings will harden some just like breakable clay, baking in resentment and bitterness. The same circumstances can melt others, teaching them endurance. The trials have no value or intrinsic meaning in themselves. It's the way we respond to those trials that makes all the difference."

~Joni E. Tada

"Let me take refuge in the shelter of Your wings"

Psalm 61:4 

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."
Matthew 11:28

"How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings"

Matthew 23:37 

  

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty...He will cover you with His pinions, And under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark."

Psalm 91:1,4  

"a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God Than dwell in the tents of wickedness."

Psalm 84:10 

 "I said to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.'" 

Psalm 16:2

"Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings"

Psalm 17:8

"Whom have I...but You?"

Psalm 73:25 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat

FALLS

into the earth and

DIES

 

it remains

ALONE

but if it

DIES 

 

it bears

 much

FRUIT

 

 

He who LOVES his life

LOSES it,

and he who HATES his life in this world

will KEEP it to life eternal."

John 12:24-15

An Idol =

any person, possession, or position that I expect to do for me what only God can do.

"Are there any among the

IDOLS

of the nations who give rain?

Or can the heavens grant showers?

Is it not

YOU,

O Lord our God?

Therefore we hope in You,

For You are the one who has done all these things."

Jeremiah 14:22

"There are two kinds of people:
those who say to God,
'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says,
'All right, then, have it your way.'"

~C.S. Lewis

How We Become "__________"

"A choice made often enough becomes a habit.
And a habit reaps a personality
and a personality reaps a character
and a character reaps a destiny...

a man becomes what he is, a woman becomes what she is by a series of processes of thinking, choices he makes. Some people say, well how did that person ever get to be like...Made a choice and another choice to do the same thing again and it became a habit and it became a personality and it became a character and it's a determined destiny...'As a man (what?) thinketh in his heart, (what?) so is he.' Prov. 23:7"

~John MacArthur

(from sermon "Off With The Old, On With The New")

"My life is but a weaving betwixt my God and me;

I do not choose the colors He worketh steadily.

Oft times He weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride

Forget He sees the upper, and I the underside.

Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly

Will God unfold the pattern and explain the reason why.

For the dark threads are as needful in the Weaver's skillful hand

As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned."

~Grant Colfax Tullar

Following Him Wherever He Goes

“The words of the Lord hurt and offend until there is nothing left to be hurt or offended. Jesus Christ had no tenderness whatsoever toward anything that was ultimately going to ruin a person in his service to God. …If the Spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you can be sure that there is something in you that He wants to hurt to the point of its death.

“someone said to Him, ‘I will follow You wherever You go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’" (Luke 9:57-58) These words destroy the argument of serving Jesus Christ because it is a pleasant thing to do. And the strictness of the rejection that He demands of me allows for nothing to remain in my life but my Lord, myself, and a sense of desperate hope. He says that I must let everyone else come or go, and that I must be guided solely by my relationship to Him.”

~Oswald Chambers