As part of my morning quiet time, along with reading the Bible, I am currently reading Mark Batterson’s book, Primal. Here is part of what I read this morning, “The Holy Spirit has multiple channels of communication. He speaks through His creation. He speaks in a still, small voice. He speaks through sanctified desires, divine appointments, and open doors. He speaks through Spirit-prompted friends who care enough to rebuke, correct, and exhort. And thank God for all those frequencies. But His primary channel of communication is Scripture. When we open the bible, it’s like God opens His mouth. That’s how we get on His frequency. That’s how we tune in to his voice.”

Good words. Make sure you give God time to speak to you today by spending some reflective time in His word.

Tim

This morning I came across this quote by Theodore Roosevelt that I thought you might appreciate, as I did. Roosevelt  spoke these words before a crowd at speech The Hamilton Club in Chicago on April 10, 1899.

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually try to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even thought checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

Tim

This morning I read the chapter in C.S. Lewis’ classic, Mere Christianity, entitled, “The Great Sin”. Before going any farther, what would you say the great sin is? (more…)

My current series is entitled, “Friendships” and this week, in preparing for Sunday’s message, I came across several interesting quotes about friendships. Here they are. I hope you appreciate them as much as I do. Maybe one or more of them will help you in deepening your friendships. If you have any good quotes on friendships I encourage you to add it to the list with a comment to this post.

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” – Dale Carnegie (more…)

This is a picture of a bag of coffee beans that I took with my cell phone camera a few weeks ago while waiting for my coffee and bagel at The Daily Grind.  I’m not sure why I was so taken by it, but I bet I have looked at this picture twenty times since I took it. I think it’s because it reminds me of the high Christian virtue of endurance. The longer I am in ministry and the older I get it the more valuable this virtue becomes to me. I love the thrill of chasing lions and killing giants, but that doesn’t happen every day. In fact, some days are just pretty normal and bland and some days I experience defeat or discouragement. That is life and that is reality. But this statement reminds me that no matter what happened yesterday, God will give me a new day to fight the good fight, chase lions and giants.

I hope that if you are feeling a little down, discouraged, defeated or just emotionally flat today, that this quote on a bag of coffee beans may be a little bright spot of encouragement for you as it is for me.

Tim