No neutral

“We just can’t have that kind of stuff in here. We have so many different people from different backgrounds in here. You probably don’t understand. We have to be careful. We just have to keep things neutral…”

Inside I was screaming...
No, NO! YOU don’t understand.
There is no neutral.
There’s not a spot of the face of this earth we can get away from it all, and say, ‘we’re ok here, this is neutral’.

I left: slightly bewildered, and amazed. She was a professing Christian, why couldn’t she see it…?

But then I remembered.
I’m just beginning to see it, to see this. The overwhelming truth, that we are in a battle and there’s no fence to ride. There is no topic, no aspect of life, no situation we find ourselves in that cannot either be brought into the captivity of Christ, or Satan.

I’m sorry. I just can’t find any fences.

Disturb us, Lord...

Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

with the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wilder seas

Where storms will show Your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push back the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,

Who is Jesus Christ.
Francis Drake

When we know God as it is our privilege to know Him, our life will be a life of continual obedience. DA 668

Two types of benevolence.

“In a mountainous region, in the south-western part of the state of New York, there are innumerable little rills, running in different direction, some, whose sources are within a mile of each other, taking opposite courses. Interspersed throughout the same region are a multitude of little lakes, opening their placid bosoms to the sun, as is rays fall obliquely upon them through the mountains, converting the little ripples which play upon their surface into the appearance of a thousand sparkling gems. The careless observer, as he gazes with rapture upon the broad surface of the lovely lake, takes no notice of the little rill that murmurs its quiet way through the forest. Yet while the beautiful lake, in apparent self-complacency, opens its fair bosom to the admiring gaze of the passing stranger, the modest rill is patiently pursuing its unwearied course along the sides of the mountains, through deep ravines, and across the verdant vale, mingling with sister rills, increasing in size, swelling into streams, till stream meets stream, and river meats river, forming, in one direction, the noble Susquehanna, in another, the majestic St. Lawrence, and, in a third, the mighty Mississippi, - pouring incessantly a flood of water into the ocean.

So, while a few splendid acts of charity may, like the quiet lake, contribute to the self-complacency of their authors, and draw upon them the admiring gaze of the multitude, it is the aggregate of the little rills that must form the great streams of benevolence, which are to flow on and fertilize the earth, and fill it with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the face of the great deep.
Young Lady’s Guide pg. 236-237

“To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). Even the work of the Holy Spirit upon the heart is to be tested by the Word of God.
The Spirit which inspired the Scriptures, always leads to the Scriptures. {1SM 43.2}

Is what you’re living for...

....worth dying for…?

"....thou hast holden me by my right hand."

“Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.
So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.
Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.” Psa 73:21-26