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I've sort of been out of the blogging loop the past few months, for various and sundry reason. Primarily, because my heart has just been a mess...but I've also been busy with work and family and all of the holiday hoopla. I've also just really been distracted by my circumstances and discontentment.

So...on New Year's Eve, I decided to stay at home and take some time to really get before the Lord. I wanted a fresh start, a fresh perspective, and a renewed heart. Later, I'll share a little about what I got, but in the meantime here's a little something that was too good not to pass on...

I recieved this via e-mail from Nancy Leigh DeMoss at Revive Our Hearts.


Ten Questions for the New Year

1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?

3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?

4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?

5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?

6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?

7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?

8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?

9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?

10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

"Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it."—1 Thessalonians 5:24.

...Believer, let us often reflect with joy on the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, and honour the faithfulness of our God by a holy confidence in Him.

May our God bring home to you a sense of your safety in Christ Jesus! May He assure you that your name is graven on His hand; and whisper in your ear the promise, "Fear not, I am with thee." Look upon Him, the great Surety of the covenant, as faithful and true, and, therefore, bound and engaged to present you, the weakest of the family, with all the chosen race, before the throne of God; and in such a sweet contemplation you will drink the juice of the spiced wine of the Lord's pomegranate, and taste the dainty fruits of Paradise. You will have an antepast of the enjoyments which ravish the souls of the perfect saints above, if you can believe with unstaggering faith that "faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it."

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. COLOSSIANS 2:6

NEVER further than Thy cross;
Never higher than Thy feet;
Here earth's precious things seem dross;
Here earth's bitter things grow sweet.
Here we learn to serve and give,
And, rejoicing, self deny;
Here we gather love to live,
Here we gather faith to die. -- Elizabeth R. Charles

This I saw, that when a soul loves God with a supreme love, God's interests and his are become one. It is no matter when nor where nor how Christ should send me, nor what trials He should exercise me with, if I may be prepared for His work and will. -- David Brainerd

"God wants you to know that He knows your grief. He sees your suffering and He is with you." --My friend Velinda

Desire is, most often, a liar and a thief. -- me

Last night in our small group meeting, we talked a bit about the signs and wonders of God. During that discussion, some shared that the biggest sign/wonder/miracle in their life was salvation. This led to a time of sharing conversion testimonies. One began his own powerful story by saying "Never stop praying [for unsaved people in your life]." It was one of those Holy Spirit moments, when you can feel His presence, literally. I know I wasn't alone in being at once convicted of my own prayerlessness and discouragement in this area, and encouraged...even excited...to commend my people to prayer to God.

Then, this morning, I came across this:

"I have much people in this city."—Acts 18:10.

HIS should be a great encouragement to try to do good, since God has among the vilest of the vile, the most reprobate, the most debauched and drunken, an elect people who must be saved. When you take the Word to them, you do so because God has ordained you to be the messenger of life to their souls, and they must receive it, for so the decree of predestination runs. They are as much redeemed by blood as the saints before the eternal throne. They are Christ's property, and yet perhaps they are lovers of the ale-house, and haters of holiness; but if Jesus Christ purchased them He will have them. God is not unfaithful to forget the price which His Son has paid. He will not suffer His substitution to be in any case an ineffectual, dead thing. Tens of thousands of redeemed ones are not regenerated yet, but regenerated they must be; and this is our comfort when we go forth to them with the quickening Word of God.

Nay, more, these ungodly ones are prayed for by Christ before the throne. "Neither pray I for these alone," saith the great Intercessor, "but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word." Poor, ignorant souls, they know nothing about prayer for themselves, but Jesus prays for them. Their names are on His breastplate, and ere long they must bow their stubborn knee, breathing the penitential sigh before the throne of grace. "The time of figs is not yet." The predestinated moment has not struck; but, when it comes, they shall obey, for God will have His own; they must, for the Spirit is not to be withstood when He cometh forth with fulness of power—they must become the willing servants of the living God. "My people shall be willing in the day of my power." "He shall justify many." "He shall see of the travail of His soul." "I will divide him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong."

...and then I had another Holy Spirit moment. :)

I've been a believer since 1994. My family is still unsaved. Since Katrina, the Lord has allowed me to cultivate some very neat friendships at work. Not one of my new friends has even come to church yet. It is so easy to get a bit myopic and see nothing really happening. This has led to discouragement and prayerlessness. But this view isn't complete, and isn't even reality. I see resistance, failure even...but God. God says "I have many people in this City." God says, "They are Christ's property." God says, "[I] shall justify many." He also says that He intercedes for them. It is His heart that all men will know Him..before that great day. As such, He pursues them. He shows up on the map of their life and reveals Himself to them, though they may be resistant, stubborn, bent on refusing Him. And, if they are among the chosen He WILL win them. Just like He won me.

Father, thank you for testimonies. Thank you for irresistable grace. Thank you for men who faithfully recount your truth and promises to encourage us in due season.

“Look more at justification than sanctification. In the highest commands consider Christ, not as an exacter to require, but as a debtor, an undertaker, to work in you and for you. If you have looked at your resolutions, endeavors, workings, duties, qualifications, etc., more than at the merits of Christ, it will cost you dear.”

- Thomas Wilcox, Honey out of the Rock