It's Service, Not Status, That

While Most Of Our Suffering Is Self- Inflicted, Some Is Caused By Or Permitted By God. This Sobering Reality Calls For Deep Submissiveness, Especially When God Does Not Remove The Cup From Us. In Such Circumstances, When Reminded About The Premortal Shouting For Joy As This Life's Plan Was Unfolded (job 38:7), We Can Perhaps Be Pardoned If, In Some Moments, We Wonder What All The Shouting Was About.

Those Who Turn Against The Church Do So To Play To Their Own Private Gallery, But When, One Day, The Applause Has Died Down And The Cheering Has Stopped, They Will Face A Smaller Audience, The Judgment Bar Of God.

Sometimes We Are So Busy Being The Hammer Or The Anvil, That We Forget Who Really Needs The Shaping.

You Must Not Mistake Passing Local Cloud Cover, For General Darkness.

It Is Understandable How Some People Could Give Way To This Kind Of Pervasive Pessimism, But We Speak Of A Gospel Which Brings Good Tidings Of Great Joy And This Must Be Reflected In Our Lives, If We Are To Be Believable Especially As We Suggest To Others That There Is, In Fact, Not Only A Better Way, But Also The Way. Scriptures That Speak Of Man As A Being Who "might Have Joy" Have More Impact When Falling From The Lips Or Pens Of Men And Women Whose Lives Give Fresh Evidence Of The Validity Of That Scripture.