A Constant Faithful

“Strengthen me Lord according to Your glorious might. Give me great endurance and patience and joy so that I may walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel. May I please You in all that I say and do. You alone are faithful to keep me from falling and to equip me for this so great an endeavor. May I, through Your great power, leave the aroma of sweet Jesus in my every encounter that I may change my sphere by bringing Your Presence to every circumstance You present me with today. Always for your glory alone and my good.” BHY

“We are never beyond the Shepherd’s eye. In our sorrows He observes us incessantly, and not a pang escapes Him; in our toils He sees all our weariness, and writes in His book all the struggles of His faithful ones. These thoughts of the Lord encompass us in all our paths and penetrate the innermost regions of our being. Not a nerve or tissue, valve or vessel of our bodily organization is uncared for: all the littles of your little world are thought of by our great God.” Charles Spurgeon

“Our moods may shift, but God's doesn't. Our minds may change, but God's doesn't. Our devotion may falter, but God's never does. Even if we are faithless, he is faithful, for he cannot betray himself (2 Timothy 2:13). He is a sure God. And because he is a sure God, we can state confidently, ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.’ And what follows the word surely? ‘Goodness and mercy.’ If the Lord is the shepherd who leads the flock, goodness and mercy are the two sheepdogs that guard the rear of the flock. Goodness and mercy. Not goodness alone, for we are sinners in need of mercy. Not mercy alone, for we are fragile, in need of goodness. We need them both. As one man wrote, ‘Goodness to supply every want. Mercy to forgive every sin. Goodness to provide. Mercy to pardon.’ Goodness and mercy -- the celestial escort of God's flock. If that duo doesn't reinforce your faith, try this phrase: ‘all the days of my life.’” Max Lucado

“Why was Job born? He was born for the same reason Adam was created. He was born for the same reason the earth was created. He was born, in part, for the same reason Christ was born and suffered and was crucified. We all exist to glorify God. On the Day of Judgement, when the mangled, burned, corrupted, and crucified limbs of God’s faithful are resurrected and made new, and when voices that died crying in pain are restored singing in praise, even Satan himself will bow in submission to the Lord who deserves all praise. This life is no simple matter of little lives living private dramas. We are, since Eden’s loss, united in celestial warfare with eternal consequences. We were born to stand; we are armed to fight. The good news is just that, through faith in Christ, we were born to win.” Frances Poston Bennett

“We don’t normally like being on the bottom. It’s just not the position we generally pick. It goes against our flesh. Yet, in the Bible’s economy you stoop to rise, you lower and God elevates. Therefore, rock bottom appears the perfect place to simply look up and the perfect time to begin building upon the solid foundation of the Rock of Christ. Often stripped of our dearest Delilah’s we are not too dissimilar to the returning prodigal. We have nothing but our will to bring – do we really ever have anything else? And Jesus says tenderly, ‘Come’. On Him you can depend. On Him you can count. On Him you can trust. He turns away no one. He will never let the righteous fall or blow away for that matter. His grip is firm and secure. Much akin to a young mother grabbing her two year old in busy traffic and yet so infinitely more. He dearly loves His children and He always causes them to stand because He is faithful and able to cause us to stand – no matter what wind blows.” BHY

“When God makes a covenant with us, God says: ‘I will love you with an everlasting love. I will be faithful to you, even when you run away from me, reject me, or betray me.’ In our society we don't speak much about covenants; we speak about contracts. When we make a contract with a person, we say: ‘I will fulfill my part as long as you fulfill yours. When you don't live up to your promises, I no longer have to live up to mine.’ Contracts are often broken because the partners are unwilling or unable to be faithful to their terms. But God didn't make a contract with us; God made a covenant with us, and God wants our relationships with one another to reflect that covenant. That’s why marriage, friendship, life in community are all ways to give visibility to God's faithfulness in our lives together.” Henri Nouwen

“Courage for the Christian is simply doing the next right thing through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results in God’s loving hands. He is always faithful to give the grace sufficient to meet each need as we need it. Courage is faith in action – not faith in ourselves but faith in Him.” BHY

“I rest with my whole soul upon the finished work of Christ, and I have not found anything yet that leads me to suspect I am resting where I shall meet with a failure. No, the older one grows, the more one gets convinced that he who leans by faith on Christ, rests where he never needs to be afraid. He may go and return in peace and confidence, for the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed, but God shall not change, and his purpose shall not cease to stand. Yes, God is worthy of our confidence. And I think we can say, by way of commending our God to others that we feel we can rest upon him for the future. We have been in strange places, and in very peculiar conditions in the past, but we were never thrown where we could not find in God all we needed; and we are therefore encouraged to believe that when death’s dark night shall come, with all its gathering of terror, we shall fear no evil, for the same God will be with us to be our succour and our stay. The Isle of Man has for its coat of arms three legs, and turn them which way you will, you know they always stand; and such is the believer—throw him which way you will, he finds something to stand on; throw him into death, or into life, into the lion’s den, or into the whale’s belly, cast him into fire, or into water, the Christian still trusts in his God, and finds him a very present help in time of trouble. ‘On whom dost thou trust?’ We can answer boldly, ‘We trust in him whose power will never be exhausted, whose love will never cease, whose kindness will never change, whose faithfulness will never be sullied, whose wisdom will never be nonplussed, and whose perfect goodness never can know a diminution.’” Charles H. Spurgeon