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Showing posts with the label #fire

When suffering grows long

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  When suffering grows long… Pretense is cast away and the true colors of our faith are revealed. Questions surface, doubts speak, and endurance wears thin.  This is when we are purified by fire. How will we answer the questions?  How will we fight the doubts?  How will we keep going through the suffering when the endurance all but disappears?  The answer is simple. So simple in fact, that we easily overlook it.  We can’t. Our own resources are not enough to pull us through. And when we finally embrace that fact, we open ourselves up to One greater than our weakness.  He steps amid the rubble of our broken lives, sees the crushed self-will, the shredded self-confidence, the sense that all control is lost, and finds us in a place where He can do something with us.  For before the long season of suffering began, though we thought we had built up something He could use, He saw how we were trying to mix self in with His power. And He also saw the grea...

Light and Darkness

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Two kingdoms are at war in this world: the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of Light.  And every human you or I meet is in one kingdom or the other.  Everyone was born into the kingdom of darkness. But some have been transferred from that kingdom into the Kingdom of Light.  It is interesting to me how we expect so much from those who still live in that kingdom of darkness.  We expect them to love what is right and protect it.  We expect them to treat others with kindness and respect and for that kindness and respect to endure the harshest treatments.  We expect them to not fall for the enemy's lies and believe that God's ways are not really the right way.  But, really, should we expect so much from those who are under the sway of the wicked one?  Should we be surprised when they embrace wickedness wholeheartedly?  "...The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one." (1 John 5:19) Do we really think the wicked one would sway the worl...

Bonfires for Christ

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"God doesn't want us to be mere campfires; He wants us to be bonfires, raging infernos for Him." -Mark Cahill Burn brighter, dear Christian! Don't think for a moment that your light has reached its limit. Do you know who the light within you is? Jesus said that He is the light! Do you realize there is no limit to His power? Fear is one great hindrance to His power in our lives, and often we don't know how to stop the inevitable flow of fear... But "God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power and of love and of a sound mind." (2 Tim. 1:7)  First John 4:18 says, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."