YOU ARE VERY SPECIAL TO GOD

Did you know you’re very special to God?  It’s a fact.  He made you to be just what you are because He wants you that way, to play a unique role in the work of His kingdom.   And you can play that role better than anyone else.  I was reminded of this the other day by something James H. McConkey wrote:   Every life is a fresh thought from God to the world.  Every jewel gleams with its own radiance.  Every flower distills its own fragrance.  Every Christian has his own particular bit of Christ’s radiance and Christ’s fragrance which God would pass through him to others.

You are unique.  In the entire world there is no other person just like you.  The God of infinite variety never makes two leaves or two lives alike.  Every star, every snowflake is different, and every human being, too.  That’s why the Lord needs YOU.

Has it ever occurred to you that the Lord needs you?  Perhaps you’ve always thought it was the other way around: that you need the Lord.  Of course, that’s true, too. You do need the Lord; we all do.  We need Him every hour. Oh, how much we need Him!  For we are nothing without Him.  We need to acknowledge our weakness and our dependence on Him continually.

Queen Elizabeth 1 said, “They are most deceived that trust the most in themselves.”  Our trust must be in the Lord, not in ourselves.  We need to measure our smallness against His greatness and be clothed with humility.  Do you have this clothing?  Or are you scantily clad in this respect?

Modesty is becoming to the Christian, but our humility should not be such that we lose sight of our importance to God.

   Phillips Brook wrote:

There is not one life which the life-giver ever loses out of His sight; not one which sins so the He casts it away; not one which is not so near to Him that whatever touches it touches Him with sorrow or with joy.

In God’s eyes you are very precious.  He made you for His delight, and He is expecting something from you that He will get from no one else.

  Thomas Carlyle wrote:

The older I grow—and I now stand on the brink  of eternity—the more comes back to me that sentence in the Catechism I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its  meaning becomes:  “what is the chief  end of man? 
To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

You were made to enjoy Him—in this life and the next—and to be enjoyed by Him.

  He longs for you love and fellowship.  He desires your loyalty and service.

You are unique, and you have a unique opportunity to glorify your creator.

Cockney said:

 Just a hair’s breadth of shift in the focus of the telescope, and some man sees a vision

 of beauty which before had been all confused and blurred.  So, too, just that grain of individual and
personal variation in your life from every other person’s, and someone  sees Jesus Christ with a
clearness and beauty he would discern  nowhere else..

In you there is just a bit of change in the angle of the jewel—and, lo, some man sees the light!  In you there is
just a trifle of variation in the mingling of the spices—and behold, someone becomes conscious
of the fragrance of Christ.

                                                            (Copied from an old Church bulletin)

MARTHA,   MARTHA

No  time for  the Lord?

There’s time for the mending and making;

There’s time for the cooking and baking:

  For the letter I write or the friends I invite

 But what time do I give to my Lord?

There is time for the news on the air,

 To which I must listen with care;

For the claims of my health,

For the spending of my wealth,

But where is the time for my Lord; 

 There’s time for the digging and hoeing;

There’s time for the raking and mowing;

For the sowing of seeds,

And removing of weeds,

But what time do I give to my Lord? 

  Oh Master, forgive me, I pray;

I’m sorry—repentant==today.

From this hour make me wise,

And teach me to prize

This time that I spend with my Lord.

Patrick Henry’s Address

“Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature
 hath placed in our power.  Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty,
and in such a country as that which we posses, are invincible by any force which our
enemy can send against us.

Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battle alone.

There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations;
and who will raise up friends  to fight our battle for us.
The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone;
it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave…
 Is life so dear, or peace so sweet,
as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?

Forbid it, Almighty God!

I know not what course others may take;

But as for me,

Give me liberty or

Give me death!”

God And Freedom

When members of the US Second Continental Congress approved the remarkable document
known as the Declaration of Independence, they plainly declared their belief in God.

The drafters of this noble proclamation knew that the sweeping freedoms they were proposing
could work well only in a society where the Creator is acknowledged.  They affirmed that God has “endowed” all people with the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
because He values each of us.

Thomas Jefferson, who would become the third president of the new nation, was distressed
then, he would have a violent seizure now!

The founding fathers of the US loved the concept of individual freedom, but they did not have
 in mind a permissive lifestyle that allows us to do anything we please. 
True freedom can never be enjoyed by people who refuse to fear God.

The psalmist said:
 “Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves.”
 (Psalm 100:3)   We are responsible to God, because He has created us in love.

Today, recommit yourself to living as one of God’s people
 That’s the way to enjoy true freedom.

(Herb Vander Lugt--Our Daily Bread)

Every blessing in our nation

Is a gift from God above,

But we cannot know true freedom

Till we trust His grace and love

(Hess)

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”  (Psalm 33:12)

The Christian Home

The importance of the home cannot easily be overstated.

It is the great world-fountain of health or disease, of medicine or poison.

It is God’s best workshop or the devils best forge.

It is a supreme factor in the salvation or ruination of our race.

It is a determining factor in the solution of many problems.

As is the home, so will be the church, the state, and the nation.

By weakening the pillars of the home in the “interest” of the state, ancient Greece sealed its own doom. 
Because of corruption in the families, the boasted civilization of Rome could not endure.

 And today the threads of destiny of our own nation are being silently woven within the narrow
confines of our family circles.

Upon the walls of every institution which fails to include in its reckoning the home, no matter how
glowing its prospects may seem, no matter how sumptuous and hilarious its feasting may be there is
traced by secret hand the writing:

“Thou hast been weighed in the balance and found wanting.”

In the home where the Gospel of Jesus Christ lives and reigns there will be a true parenthood.

 A greater and holier work can scarcely be imagined

than to build a home,

to correctly rear a family,

 to root and ground one’s own in the truth,

 and to send them out as living epistles to

 glorify their God

 and

serve their fellowmen..

A neighbor once asked a mother, “Do you do any literary work?”

“Yes,” she replied, “I am writing two books.”

“What are their titles?”

“John and Mary,” she answered.

“My business is to write upon the hearts and minds of my children the lessons they will never forget.”

--Copied

Building A Home

The walls of a house are not made of wood, brick or stone, but of truth and loyalty.

Unpleasant sounds, the friction of living, the clash of personalities are not deadened by

Persian rugs or polished floors, but by

conciliation,

concession

and

self-control.

The house is not a structure where bodies meet, but a hearthstone upon which flames mingle, separate flames of souls which, the more perfectly they unite, the more clearly they shine and the straighter they rise toward Heaven.

Your house is your fortress in a warring world, where a woman’s hand buckles on your armor in the morning and soothes your fatigue and wounds at night.

The beauty of a house is harmony.

The security of a house is loyalty.

The joy of a house is love.

The plenty of a house is in children.

The rule of a house is service.

The comfort of a house is in contented spirits.

The maker of a house, a real human house, is God Himself, the same One who made the stars and built the world.

--Emmanuel Baptist News

George Washington’s Prayer

Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that
 Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy holy protection;-

That Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit
of subordination and obedience to government;-

To entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and
for their fellow citizens of the United States at large.

And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which was the characteristics of the Divine Author of our Blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things we can ever hope to be a happy nation.

Grant our supplication we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ,
our Lord.
Amen.

O Liberty, a priceless gift
Of which so many are bereft,
‘Twas bought with blood of men so brave.
And all they had they freely gave.
The Stars and Stripes to raise aloft,
The path they trod—it was not soft;
But filled with pain and misery.
They died to give us LIBERTY.
(-Lessie P. Perdue)


Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women --
When it Dies there, -
No constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.
While it lies there it needs No constituion,
No law, No court to Save It.

(Learned Hand, 1944)

Three Things

I know three things must ever be,
To keep a nation strong and free;
One is a hearthstone bright and dear
With busy, happy loved ones near;
One is a ready heart and hand
To love and serve and keep the land;
One is a worn and beaten way
To where the people go to pray.
So long as these are kept alive,
Nation and people will survive
God keep them, always, everywhere,
The Hearth,
The Flag, the
Place of Prayer.

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people
whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
The Lord looketh from heaven;
he beholdeth all the sons of men.”
 (Psalm 33:12-130)