“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:25-28.

The Lord wants to give each of us a “heart of flesh” so that we will be pliable and responsive to Him.

When touched by the finger of God, a tender heart yields to the pressure and assumes the form He desires, much like a lump of clay that allows the potter to determine the shape of the vessel.

To aid in this process, God has sent the Holy Spirit to indwell each believer and awaken responsiveness in him or her.

By yielding to the Spirit’s promptings with ready obedience, the heart becomes increasingly tender and sensitive to His leading.

The Lord is able to impart greater understanding of His Word to a soft heart because it has faithfully accepted and obeyed previous teachings.

Any resistance to God will result in hardening.

But those who are accustomed to intimacy with Christ—which is the result of submission to Him—will be quick to deal with sin and return to the place of obedience and blessing.

People with tender hearts stay closely connected to the body of Christ, seeking to build up and encourage others in their walk of faith.

Such individuals are not only receptive to what God wants to tell them; they are also teachable, in that they are willing to listen and are open to being corrected by others.

This week when you read your Bible and pray, let your heart be soft toward the words of God.

As He pokes His finger into each hard area, listen to His instructions, and rely on the Spirit’s power to help you yield and obey.

Let Him shape you into a beautiful and useful vessel.

(PR)

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“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).

I believe that God desires all His children to be successful, significant, satisfied, and secure!

From birth you have been developing in your mind a means for experiencing these values and reaching other goals in life.

Consciously or subconsciously you continue to formulate and adjust your plans for achieving these goals.

But sometimes your well-intended plans and noble-sounding goals are-
– not completely in harmony with God’s plans and goals for you.
“How can I know if what I believe is right?” you may be wondering.
“Must I wait until I am 45 years old or until I experience some kind of mid-life crisis to discover that what I believed was wrong?”

I don’t think so.
I believe that God has designed us in such a way that we can know on a regular basis if our belief system is properly aligned with God’s truth.

God has established a feedback system which is designed to grab your attention so you can examine the validity of your goal.

That system is your emotions.
When an experience or relationship leaves you feeling angry, anxious or depressed, those emotional signposts are there to alert you that you may be cherishing a faulty goal which is based on a wrong belief.

If our goals are blocked, we become angry.
If our goals are uncertain, we feel anxious.
If we perceive our goals as impossible, we become depressed because the heart of depression is hopelessness.

Can any God-given goal be blocked, uncertain or impossible?
Put another way, if God wants something done, can it be done?

Of course!
The question is:
Do we have a biblical understanding of success, significance, satisfaction and security?

When we see and pursue these values from God’s perspective-
– we will reach our goals because they are God’s goals for us.

May God help you recognize whether your goals are in line with His.
And make the proper adjustments in your belief system.

(PR)

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If someone asks if you’re aware of God-
What will you say?

Maybe you’d reply, “I go to church, read my Bible, and pray all the time. I’m definitely aware of God.”

But the real question is this:
Are you aware of God’s presence and activity in your daily life?

This second question makes it a bit more personal, doesn’t it?
It refers to God being in our daily lives all the time.
We’d like to have that constant awareness of God’s presence.

But it’s difficult.
When hardships and trials come from nowhere, we sometimes feel confused.
We may feel like God has left us so alone.

During difficult times, we might pray even harder and longer.
We plead for help, but see little result.

The problem is that our prayers usually revolve around our desires.
Even when communicating with God, we may be aware only of ourselves, leaving the Lord out of the matter entirely.

At that point-
We may find we’re not really talking to the Father at all.
We’re talking to ourselves!

Soliloquy! (an act of speaking one’s thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers)

Perhaps we’re focusing on the problem and actually wishing for the ability to handle it on our own.

We can, in effect, become completely blind to how God may be working.

Read Second Kings 6:15-17.
You will get a clear picture of what happens when we remove our self-centered blinders and truly see God’s hand at work.

Open your eyes!
You may be shocked to discover the help God has already sent your way.

(PR)

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Why does God allow problems in your life? What is God telling you with the problems He permits in your life?

The problems you face will either defeat you or develop you!
– depending on how you respond to them! Unfortunately most people fail to see how God wants to use problems for good in their lives. They react ‘foolishly’ and resent their problems rather than pausing to consider what benefit they might bring. Here are few ways God wants to use the problems in your life:

God uses problems to DIRECT you. Sometimes God must light a fire under you to get you moving. Problems often point us in a new direction and motivate us to change. Is God trying to get your attention? Proverbs 20:30.

God uses problems to INSPECT you. People are like tea bags……if you want to know what’s inside them, just drop them into hot water. Has God ever tested your faith with a problem? What do problems reveal about you? James 1:2-3.

God uses problems to CORRECT you. Some lessons we learn only through pain and failure. It’s likely that as a child your parents told you not to touch a hot stove. But you probably learned by being burned. Sometimes we only learn the value of something….health, money, a relationship……by losing it. Psalm 119:71-72.

God uses problems to PROTECT you. A problem can be a blessing in disguise if it prevents you from being harmed by something more serious. Genesis 50:20.

God uses problems to PERFECT you. Problems, when responded to correctly, are character builders. God is far more interested in your character than your comfort. Your relationship to God and your character are the only two things you’re going to take with you into eternity. Romans 5:3-4.

Here is the point:
God is at work in your life –
– even when you do not recognize it or understand it. But it’s much easier and profitable when you cooperate with Him!

(PR)

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“Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21).

In all honesty, by the time Jesus got to Bethany, Mary and Martha were pretty upset. Martha, specifically, was quite outspoken. And sure enough, there she was to meet the Lord as He came walking into Bethany.

Loose paraphrase: “Lord, with all due respect, You didn’t come through. We told everyone, ‘Jesus is our friend. We will send Him a message, and He will come and heal Lazarus. You watch. He cares about us. He loves us.’ Then You come strolling in here a few days later. Now my brother is beyond sick. He is dead.”

Jesus said, “Your brother will rise again” (v 20).

“I know that, Lord. I know he will rise in the final resurrection,” Martha replied.
He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (v 25–26).

“Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world” (v 27).

Martha wasn’t getting it. She wanted a healing; Jesus wanted resurrection. Yes, He loved Lazarus. But
– He wanted to do something more dramatic.

In the same way, we say, “Lord, you have to do this. . . .” But do we ever stop and think that God may want to do more? Do we ever stop and think that God might want to do abundantly above and beyond that which we could ask or think?

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21).

(PR)

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In his book, Men in Midlife Crisis-
Jim Conway uses the Chinese definition of the word, “crisis,” which means “opportunity and danger.”

Life has many crises!
How we navigate through these turbulent waters means-
– the difference in a shipwrecked life or a life of victory.

You may be in the middle of a crisis or you may face one in the future.
It can be a dangerous time, but also a time for great opportunity.

The danger is to panic and make rash decisions with negative long-term consequences.
The opportunity is to depend on God for strength.

To do this calls for:

• Prayer in seeking God’s grace and strength.
• Bible study in seeking God’s guidance and will.
• Obedience in seeking God’s glory and honour.

Trust God to guide you through the storm!

Take things one day at a time for Jesus said:
“Don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself.Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Are you in a crisis?
It’s a time of great danger and opportunity.

Be aware of the dangers, but don’t retreat from the crisis.
Become a better person in the process by His grace and help!

(PR)

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“The Evening and the Morning were the First Day” (Genesis 1:5). 

How different is God’s method from man’s!
The creature works from day to night!
His best is first.
The Creator’s days begin with the preceding eve.

To Him-
Evening first!
Then morning!!

Are you disappointed in Christian life/work?
Remember that God wrought on through long dark ages-
– before His plans were evolved in order and beauty!

The foundation-stone of redemption was laid amid the gloom of Calvary!!
Are you passing through the bitterness?

For weeks there has been no ray of comfort, no sign of deliverance.
Yet every dark hour is hastening toward the dawn.

You shall see your Beloved walking toward you in the morning light.
Are you in despair?

The times are dark, and threaten to get darker.
But if the first creation began in the dark,

Can it be wondered at that the second must begin there to?
But as the one emerged in daylight, so shall the other.

The morning comes!
See the star of day standing sentry!

“For…weeping may remain for a night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning!” Psalm 30:5.

(PR)

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Toward the end of the nineteenth century-
Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel awoke one morning to read his own obituary in the local newspaper:
”Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who died yesterday, devised a way for more people to be killed in a war than ever before, and he died a very rich man.”

Actually, it was Alfred’s older brother who had died.
A newspaper reporter had bungled the epitaph.
But the account had a profound effect on Nobel.

He decided he wanted to be known for something other than developing the means to kill people efficiently and for amassing a fortune in the process.

So he initiated the Nobel Prize-
– the award for scientists and writers who foster peace.

Nobel said:
”Every man ought to have the chance to correct his epitaph in midstream and write a new one.”

Few things will change you as much as looking at your own life as though it were finished.
What kind of legacy will you leave behind one day-
– when you are gone from this earth?

Will your children, grandchildren, and family members remember you-
– as one who followed obediently after the Lord each day of your life?

You and I are surrounded by people-family, friends, and acquaintances-who are watching the words we use and the things we do in this life.

It’s not too late to begin writing your epitaph.
Strive to leave a legacy-
– that will bring others to Jesus.

Ask the Lord to make your life a testimony-
– of His love and grace to those around you and those you leave behind.

(PR)

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In 1818, a boy named Louis was sitting in his father’s workshop in France.
His father was a harness maker and Louis loved to sit and watch his father work.

One day, he said, “Father, I want to be a harness maker like you one day.”
To which the father replied, “Why not start now?”

He took a piece of leather, drew a design on it, and instructed his son to use the hole puncher and hammer to follow the pattern.
The man set him off to work with a warning to be careful.

Young Louis was excited to begin his new job, but when he hit the hole puncher, it flew out of his hand and pierced his eye.
He immediately lost his sight in it as a result.

Later, sight in his other eye failed, and Louis became totally blind.
Several years later, Louis was sitting in a garden when a friend handed him a pine cone.

Louis ran his fingers over the cone, and suddenly an idea came to him.
This idea eventually led to the creation of an alphabet of raised dots on paper so that others who were blind could feel and interpret what was written.

As a result of his accident, Louis Braille opened up a new world for the blind!
To some, this type of tragedy would have been the thing that would have sent them into depression and isolation.

But as believers, we know that all things happen for a reason-
—God’s divine purpose and plan. Jeremiah 29:11.

God has mapped out every day and detail of our existence.
When tragedy strikes, don’t be alarmed.

Thank God for His promises of hope and a future, even when tragedy strikes.
Know that God is in control. Psalm 47:8.

And that all things work together for His glory and your good! Romans 8:28.

(PR)

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“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28). 

How wide is this assertion of the Apostle Paul!
He does not say, “We know that some things,”
-or “most things,”
-or “joyous things,”

But “ALL things.”
And all things “work!’
They are working!
– not all things have worked,
– or shall work!

But it is a present operation!
At this very moment-
– when some voice may be saying, “Thy judgments are a great deep,” the angels above, who are watching the development of the great plan, are with folded wings exclaiming:
“The LORD is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. ” Ps. 145:17.

All things “work together!”
It is a beautiful blending!!

Many different colours, in themselves raw and unsightly, are required in order to weave the harmonious pattern.
Many separate tones and notes of music, even discords and dissonances, are required to make up the harmonious anthem.

Many separate wheels and joints are required to make the piece of machinery.
Take a thread separately, or a note separately, or a wheel or a tooth of a wheel separately, and there may be neither use nor beauty discernible.

But complete the web, combine the notes, connect the separate parts of steel and iron, and you see how perfect and symmetrical is the result.

Here is the lesson for faith:
“What I do you know not now!
But you shall know hereafter!!”

(PR)

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