20120519

Time

Guard your mornings - and your evenings too

Thankfulness


Be thankful for what you have
You may soon have less

Grace and sin

As kind and gracious as God may be
We can still commit sin, so easily.

Things to remember

Remember your duty; Remember your call.
Remember the judgement; remember it all.


Fasting again



You cannot fast if you lack self-discipline
Fasting helps self-discipline

Fasting


Godly people probably fast

Pleasure


The pursuit of pleasure leads nowhere

Living and learning

You live and learn ... well, you live anyway.

(I've been saying this for years and was quite prepared to believe that I'd thought it up myself. Checking it on Google, though, I find some references to the phrase or similar so either I picked it up from elsewhere without realising or great minds think alike)

20120517

Prayer and theology


The elements of true prayer
Match the elements of true theology

Self-centredness

Self-centredness is probably more deep rooted in most of us than we realise

Outward and inward

In this life, often it's true,
Our outward and inward lives do not match up.
It's only up in heaven,
When the inward life will rule, we'll finally catch up.

Mundane focus

It is staggering to think of the extent to which our lives
focus on men and what they think
rather than on God and what he thinks.

Observation by Joni Mitchell


Don't it always seem to go that  you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone (as in her song Big Yellow Taxi)

20120515

Greed and need

Don't be greedy and don't forget the needy

The poor

There should be no poor
There could be no poor
There would be no poor
If not for sin in this world.
But while it remains there will be people who are poor.

Responsibility

If you fail with a little responsibility, you will probably fail with much.

Ten minutes

It's amazing what can be achieved in 10 minutes well spent.

A retreat

Never fail to reckon with the restorative power of a brief retreat

20120514

Repetition

It is a mistake to underestimate the power of repetition

Repetition Repetition Repetition

It is a mistake to underestimate the power of repetition

Babies

Babies - an endless source of fascination


The delight we have in babies is, maybe, akin
To God's delight in us.

When other men laugh

When other men laugh at what you hold dear
It fills you with wrath and dreadful fear.

To do - Prayer


How come prayer is always bottom of the "to do" list?

Reading and Prayer

Reading is feeding
And prayer is air.
Miss one you're bleeding,
Miss both, you're in a snare.

20120512

Back up

It always gets my back up
That I don't get your back up
(But you do!)

20120510

A difficult chair

I have a chair that's difficult.
Difficult - why difficult?
It's wooden - not soft but rather hard,
Not an easy chair at all.

Wisdom

True wisdom is to discover how little you know

Bible Knowledge

None of us know the Bible enough

Fear


Fear can so grip a person that mere words will not calm them.

Ministry Visiting

If you can at least visit one person a week may be you'll get somewhere

Crisis


When there is a crisis to be dealt with
One comes bounding out of bed.
Every day is a crisis.

The Book of Genesis


Ignorance of the Book of Genesis
Is worse than ignorance of your own family history.
Not to get to know its teaching
Is like tying both hands behind your back.

Tidiness


Tidiness saves time and is more efficient
But requires constant effort

20120507

Hymnody


Our English hymnody forms a rich heritage and store
One we can easily and usefully explore
One we'd be mad to ignore.

Before and after worship


What to do immediately before or after corporate worship
It is not easy to know.
It is worth giving thought to, nevertheless.

The means of grace

When we feel dead in making use of the means of grace*
That is the very time when we should especially seek to make use of them.

* ie prayer, Bible reading, the Lord's Supper, etc

In extremis

A man will try anything in extremity - even calling to God in prayer!

20120505

Change of scene


A change of scene has great power to invigorate.

Preaching

Ideas of great preaching vary greatly
But every believer wants to be moved.

Tiredness


Tiredness can be a great enemy to piety.
Take care.

Preaching Be yourself

When you preach
Be yourself
Don't play a part.
Always preach,
Every time,
Straight from the heart.

Temptation

 
While this earth's scenes you hear and see
From temptation you'll not be free.

Better, temptations will vary
Both in type and degree.

20120504

Bible reading

How vital to persist
In the daily reading of the Word.
No, no, never desist
From the daily reading of the Word.

Preaching a dialogue


True preaching is, at least to some extent, a dialogue.
The preacher must be responsive to his congregation.

Priorities

Doing what is worthwhile is often a matter of narrowing down -
Not doing certain things as much as you do others

Sin

Sin lurks in the least expected places

20120503

Bible Intake


Read, study, remember, meditate, apply -
Don't let God's Word simply run past your eye.

Dogmatism


Don't be automatic about being dogmatic.
Where dogmatism is unnecessary
Be less dogmatic, be a little less emphatic.

Cowardice, procrastination

Cowardice, procrastination -
Both of these bring real temptation.
They store up trouble for another day
They do not make the trouble go away.

Laziness


We have a duty lethargy to spurn
And to stir ourselves up to good deeds in turn

Excuses


Don't make the sins of others an excuse
For your own moral laxity

20120502

Bad news


How sobering when our first unuttered reaction to bad news is - I'm glad it wasn't me.

Busyness


When you are too busy
Rushing off here and there
The things that go, sadly,
Are the quiet and solitary
Like planning, thinking, reading, prayer.

Patience

Part of being patient is using your waiting time wisely.

Prayer again


Pray specifically,
Pray expectantly

Prayer

Remember to pray when you're praying - and when you're not!

Preparation

Prepare to be prepared

20120501

Danger


A man will risk all for a moment of pleasure,
He will walk to the edge and so lose his treasure.

Illustrations

No-one can match the Puritans for illustrations - but we should at least try!

Long ministries

The devil has a thousand ways of getting men separated from their congregations.