A Thought for Today 28-04-2011

Colossians 1:12-14

We thank the Father who has made it possible for us to share in the saints’ inheritance of light. He has taken us out of the power of darkness and created a place for us in the kingdom of the Son that he loves. In him, we gain our freedom and the forgiveness of our sins.

"What you applaud you encourage, but beware what you celebrate..."
(Ravi Zacharias)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHnZRZiCYHE&feature=related

A Thought for Today 27-04-2011

Ephesians 4:23-24

Let your spirits be renewed so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth.

"I think the reason we sometimes have the false sense that God is so far away is because that is where we have put him. We have kept him at a distance, and then when we are in need and call on him in prayer, we wonder where he is. He is exactly where we left him."
(Ravi Zacharias)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RWEllqh5J0

A Thought for Today 26-04-2011

Acts 13:30-33

God raised Jesus from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had accompanied him from Galilee to Jerusalem: and it is these same companions of his who are now his witnesses before our people. We have come here to tell you the Good News. It was to our ancestors that God made the promise but it is to us, their children, that he has fulfilled it, by raising Jesus from the dead. As scripture says in the second psalm: You are my son: today I have become your father.

“Have you ever wondered what you would do to frighten Lazarus after he’d been raised from the dead? What would you do to threaten him? Lazarus, I’m gonna’ kill you? Caligula says, ‘I’m going to kill you.’ He says, ‘Ha, ha, ha.’ He says ‘stop ha, ha, ha-ing. I’m going to kill you as I’m killing all the Christians.’ He doubles over in uncontrollable laughter, comes up for air and says, ‘Caligula haven’t you heard? Death is dead! Death is dead!’ How do you frighten somebody who has already been there and knows the one who’s going to let him out?
(Ravi Zacharias)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3kc1jDahU4

A Thought for Today 22-04-2011

Isaiah 53:4-5

And yet ours were the sufferings he bore, ours the sorrows he carried. But we, we thought of him as someone punished, struck by God, and brought low. Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed.

Jesus lived His life for you—then he gave His life to you. Now He wants to live His life through you!
(Jacquelyn K. Heasley)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI-l9ug7S7A&feature=player_embedded

Weekly Blessing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3JEDcdFCdE&feature=player_embedded

A Thought for Today 21-04-2011

Hebrews 2:9-10

We have seen Jesus crowned with glory and splendour because he submitted to death; by God’s grace he had to experience death for all mankind. As it was his purpose to bring a great many of his sons into glory, it was appropriate that God, for whom everything exists and through whom everything exists, should make perfect, through suffering, the leader who would take them to their salvation.

Salvation is not some felicitous state to which we can lift ourselves by our own bootstraps after the contemplation of sufficiently good examples. It is an utterly new creation into which we are brought by our death in Jesus' death and our resurrection in his. It comes not out of our own best efforts, however well-inspired or successfully pursued, but out of the shipwreck of all human efforts whatsoever.
(Robert Farrer Capon)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-IuTZU3j2Y

A Thought for Today 20-04-2011

1 Timothy 2:4-6

God our saviour wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth. For there is only one God, and there is only one mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Christ Jesus, who sacrificed himself as a ransom for them all. He is the evidence of this, sent at the appointed time.

“Christ is no Moses, no exactor, no giver of laws, but a
giver of grace, a Savior; he is infinite mercy and goodness, freely and bountifully given to us.”
(Martin Luther)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdf0Qyhc82Q&playnext=1&list=PLF16357DA6DEECE6D

A Thought for Today 19-04-2011

1 Corinthians 1:18-19

The language of the cross may be illogical to those who are not on the way to salvation, but those of us who are on the way see it as God’s power to save. As scripture says: I shall destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing all the learning of the learned.

"You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason."
(Plotinus)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAian48rpRA&feature=related

A Thought for Today 18-04-2011

Jeremiah 18:20

Remember how I stood in your presence to plead on their behalf, to turn your wrath away from them.

Discernment is God's call to intercession, never to faultfinding.
(Corrie Ten Boom)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b_gB6C6Z_w&NR=1

A Thought for Today 13-04-2011

Hebrews 9:28

Christ offers himself only once to take the faults of many on himself, and when he appears a second time, it will not be to deal with sin but to reward with salvation those who are waiting for him.

In the liberation of all no one remains a captive! At the time of the Lord's passion the devil alone was injured by losing all the of the captives he was keeping.
(Didymus, 370 AD)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY0qHJ_dLag

A Thought for Today 12-04-2011

1 Corinthians 1:18-19

The language of the cross may be illogical to those who are not on the way to salvation, but those of us who are on the way see it as God’s power to save. As scripture says: I shall destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing all the learning of the learned.

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.”
(Daniel J Boorstin)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8fSjtPLuBQ&feature=related

A Thought for Today 11-04-2011

Jeremiah 18:20

Remember how I stood in your presence to plead on their behalf, to turn your wrath away from them.

Christianity is not a formula, but the Person of Jesus Himself. Never think that Christianity is a matter of adjusting behavior, but rather, of letting Christ live through us in His strength and power.
(Malcolm Smith)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKGDyZlT_44&feature=related

A Thought for Today 08-04-2011

James 1:27

In the eyes of God our Father, pure unspoilt religion is this: coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world.

The ultimate measure of a person is not where one stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where one stands in times of challenge and controversy.
(Martin Luther King)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRYj3sfu2Pk&feature=related

Weekly Blessing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fIYLoFijNek

A Thought for Today 07-04-2011

Hebrews 10:35-36

Continue to have confidence, since the reward is so great. You will need endurance to do God’s will and gain what he has promised.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
(Helen Keller)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsM2eFJO8J0&feature=related

A Thought for Today 06-04-2011

Zechariah 1:3-4

Return to me, says the Lord of Hosts, and I will return to you. Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the prophets in the past cried ‘Turn back from your evil ways and evil deeds’ but they would not listen.

It is perilously easy to have amazing sympathy with God's truth and remain in sin.
(Oswald Chambers)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2drg8FtBg

A Thought for Today 2011

Zechariah 1:3-4

Return to me, says the Lord of Hosts, and I will return to you. Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the prophets in the past cried ‘Turn back from your evil ways and evil deeds’ but they would not listen.

A Thought for Today 05-04-2011

Micah 7:7-9

For my part, I look to the Lord,

my hope is in the God who will save me;

my God will hear me.

Do not gloat over me, my enemy:

though I have fallen, I shall rise;

though I live in darkness,

the Lord is my light.

I must suffer the anger of the Lord,

for I have sinned against him,

until he takes up my cause

and rights my wrongs;

he will bring me out into the light

and I shall rejoice to see the rightness of his ways.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
(Martin Luther King Jnr.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xboucW89gUU

A Thought for Today 04-04-2011

Isaiah 58:6,7

Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me – it is the Lord who speaks – to share your bread with the hungry, and shelter the homeless poor, to clothe the man you see to be naked and not turn from your own kin?

I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate-it's apathy. It's not giving a damn. (Leo Buscaglia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okrbhFdUvt8

A Thought for Today 01-04-2011

Isaiah 55:3

Pay attention, come to me; listen, and your soul will live.

"Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand."
(Bodie Thoene)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAzbLWfnbq4&feature=fvwrel