Saturday, June 20, 2009

Requesting God's Specialists

In the foreword "Why Revival Tarries" by Leonard Ravenhill, A.W. Tozer wrote:

"Great industrial concerns have in their employ men who are needed only when there is a breakdown somewhere. When something goes wrong with the machinery, these men spring into action to locate and remove the trouble and get the machinery rolling again. For these men a smoothly operating system has no interest. They are specialists concerned with trouble and how to find and correct it.

"In the Kingdom of God things are not too different. God had always had His specialists whose chief concern has been the moral breakdown, the decline in the spiritual health of the nation or the church. Such men were Elijah, Jeremiah, Malachi and others of their kind who appeared at critical moments in history to reprove, rebuke, and exhort in the name of God and righteousness.

"A thousand or ten thousand ordinary Old Testament priests or New Testament pastors and teachers could labor quietly on almost unnoticed while the spiritual life of Israel or the Church was normal. But let the people of God go astray from the paths of truth and immediately the specialist appeared almost out of nowhere. His instinct for trouble brought him to the help of the Lord and of Israel.

"Such a man was likely to be drastic, radical, possibly at times violent, and the curious crowd that gathered to watch him work soon branded him as extreme, fanatical, negative. And in a sense they were right. He was single-minded, severe, fearless, and these were the qualities the circumstances demanded. He shocked some, frightened others and alienated not a few, but he
knew Who had called him and what he was sent to do. His ministry was geared to the emergency, and that fact marked him out as different, a man apart."


Lord, please send specialists to Your Church today---men and women who are not afraid to speak Your Truth no matter the cost.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Children Are Blessings

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD; the fruit of the womb is a reward. - Psalm 127:3

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands. - Anne Frank

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body. - Elizabeth Stone

You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. - Franklin P. Jones

If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much. - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One is roots; the other, wings. - Hodding Carter

While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about. - Angela Schwindt

There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child. - Frank A. Clark

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. - Phyllis Diller

Anyone who thinks the art of conversation is dead ought to tell a child to go to bed. - Robert Gallagher

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. - Frederick Douglass

If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others. - Haim Ginott

Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them. - Goethe