Sharing some favorite Christmas books today
A Christmas Carol
by
Charles Dickens
God Is In The Manger
by
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Women of Christmas
by
Liz Curtis Higgs
Corrie’s Christmas Memories
by
Corrie ten Boom
Read more about → Corrie’s Christmas Memories
Please share your favorite Christmas books in the comments below
Summer of Prayer Series
Selecting things for the Summer of Prayer is enjoyable and a little challenging. It is causing me to realize that having an abundance of material on prayer means the best is sometimes hidden from easy view. The true treasures can be found and like all treasure, it is well worth the effort.
Here are some powerful insights from Corrie ten Boom on the subject of prayer.
45 minutes with Corrie ten Boom
Want to learn more about Corrie?
Visit the Corrie ten Boom Page
“If you know God’s hidden companionship, your prayer will become a conversation instead of a soliloquy.” – Corrie ten Boom
One reason why the discipline of prayer is not attractive is that people do not know how to pray. Their stock of words is soon exhausted, and they do not know what else to say. This happens because they forget that prayer is not a soliloquy where everything comes from one side, but it is a dialogue where God’s child listens to what the Father says, replies to it, and then asks for the things he needs.
Read a few verses from the Bible. Do not concern yourself with the difficult parts in them; you can consider these later. Take what you understand, apply it to yourself, and ask the Father to make His Word light and power in your heart. Thus you will have material enough for prayer from the Word which the Father speaks to you. You will also have the liberty to ask for things you need.
Keep on in this way, and prayer will become at length, not a place where you sigh and struggle, but a place of living fellowship with the Father in heaven. Prayful study of the Bible is indispensable for powerful prayer. The Word prayerfully read and cherished in the heart by faith will, through the Spirit, be both light and life within us.
– Andrew Murray
I challenge you to slowly read the Corrie ten Boom quote again.
Think about it and perhaps ask yourself some questions.
Please share your thoughts in the comments below ♥
But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. -Mark 16:6
The precious blessing of Easter is that we have a living Saviour! The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed! We yearn to keep the precious blessing of Easter in our hearts throughout the year. Lord Jesus. Will You, through Your Holy Spirit, fill our hearts with the knowledge and surety that You live. – Corrie ten Boom
Please open your Bible and join me in reading Luke chapter 24.
Wow, don’t you love this chapter?
The disciples must have been overwhelmed with uncontainable joy.
And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. –Luke 24:52-53
Ask Jesus to show Himself to you today as you walk along with Him.
I pray we respond to our Risen Lord Jesus in the same way the disciples did.
Blessings
Lynn
Let’s visit with Corrie ten Boom today.
We have a Father in heaven who is almighty. Trust Him and you will experience miracles. Is your future a friend this morning? Remember that God is in control.
We see Your miracles every day, Father, if we only open our eyes to them.
Trust in him at all times, O people
pour out your heart before him
God is a refuge for us
Psalms 62:8
“Father and Mother lived on the edge of poverty, and yet their contentment was not dependent upon their surroundings. Their relationship to each other and to the Lord gave them strength and happiness.”
Lord Jesus, with You close, what else do we really need? With Your love, we have the best; without Your love, we are truly poor, whatever our circumstances.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. – Psalms 46:1
We don’t need to know the answers because we have Jesus. Truly Jesus is the answer to our every need, question, desire and so much more. Our part is to believe and trust in Him.
So many times we wonder why God allows certain things to happen to us. We try to understand the circumstances of our lives, and are left wondering. But the Holy Spirit shows us that God does not make mistakes.
We cannot begin to understand Your aims, Father, and without that understanding, our lives often seem to be a great maze. But we know You see the end of the path. and we trust You to guide us through all the turns and blind alleys.
When Corrie ten Boom spoke to audiences, she would often hold up the back side of a piece of embroidery with hundreds of tangled threads hanging from it. Many wondered if she was holding up the wrong side by mistake. As she held up the messy side of the embroidery she would ask “Does God always grant us what we ask for in prayers? Not always. Sometimes He says ‘No’. That is because God knows what we do not know. Look at this piece of embroidery. The wrong side is chaos. But look at the beautiful picture on the other side- the right side.” Then she would flip the cloth over and reveal an elaborately embroidered crown- symbolizing our crown of eternal life. The crown was intricately stitched and had threads of many colors, including gold, silver, and pearls. “We see now the wrong side; God sees His side all the time. One day we shall see the embroidery from His side, and thank Him for every answered and unanswered prayer.”
This beautiful poem that Corrie ten Boom often shared was written by an unknown author. It is titled The Tapestry of My Life or The Weaving.
My Life is but a weaving
between my Lord and me;
I cannot choose the colors
He worketh steadily.
Oft times He weaveth sorrow
And I, in foolish pride,
Forget He sees the upper,
And I the underside.
Not til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly,
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver’s skillful hand,
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.
As Christians, what should our reaction be to current events today?
We are observing the rapid decline of values and way of life that we enjoyed for so long here in the United States. The Christian community is responding in many ways, but not all are ways that I recognize as Christian. I see some responses that make me cringe. I am referring to those who are engaging in mean spirited debate motivated by anger. Also those who claim to be followers of Jesus but are following the culture of the day instead. Yes, I could go on with descriptions of other responses but the point of this post is to find the answer to the question. What was the question??
As Christians, what should our reaction be to current events today?
To find the correct answer always go back to the Book. The Bible has much to tell us about living in this world in all kinds of circumstances. Right now much of the current events are connected to leaders and soon to be leaders of the country. Election, election …Sometimes the subject is the only one covered in the daily news. So I’m just going to focus on one portion of scripture concerning leaders in this blog post. I will focus on other scriptures that address living in our changing culture in future posts.
1 Timothy 2:1-8 J.B. Phillips
Here then is my charge: First, supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings should be made on behalf of all men: for kings and rulers in positions of responsibility, so that our common life may be lived in peace and quiet, with a proper sense of God and of our responsibility to him for what we do with our lives.
In the sight of God our saviour this is undoubtedly the right thing to pray for; for his purpose is that all men should be saved and come to realise the truth. And that is, that there is only one God, and only one intermediary between God and men, Jesus Christ the man. He gave himself as a ransom for us all—an act of redemption which happened once, but which stands for all times as a witness to what he is.
I was appointed proclaimer and messenger of this great act of his, to teach (incredible as it may sound) the Gentile world to believe and know the truth.
I want the men to pray in all the churches with sincerity, without resentment or doubt in their minds.
Question: As Christians, what should our reaction be to current events today?
Answer: Prayer should be the first response
May I suggest that we keep these verses handy to remind ourselves of what we should be doing.
Corrie ten Boom tells about something that happened concerning this subject in her book “In My Father’s House”. The time was 1914 when one after another, countries of the world issued declarations of war. Corrie writes about her father and a weekly prayer meeting. Her father’s name was Casper ten Boom. The following is a short section from the book.
Father continued to pray for the Queen and the government of Holland, as he always had. We were very patriotic and loyal to Queen Wilhelmina and her prime minister, Abraham Kuyper, who was also a prominent theologian.
A division of purpose developed in our weekly prayer group. “Casper, it’s not right to pray for those in government,” some of the people said. “The world is evil-Satan is prince of this world and we should only look at the Kingdom of God.”
But Father said, “As Christians we are in the world, but not of the world. We must not give over our country to the enemy, because then we would be disobeying 1 Timothy 2 which says ‘First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.’ “(vs. 1,2).
As the weeks and months of World War I went on, the pietists became more uncomfortable as Father, Betsie, and I continued to pray for our government. The difference in these basic beliefs drove the group apart. The others began to draw more and more into their spiritual shells, until we could no longer meet together for prayer.
I invite you to visit the Corrie ten Boom page to learn more about her.
This is what Joni Eareckson Tada says her response is to news stories. She says “I use what I’ve learned as fodder for prayer and intercession (there’s hardly a time I turn off the news that I don’t pray about what I’ve watched).”
I love her way of stating her prayer reaction. I want to begin to see each news story that I hear about as a call to prayer. How about you? Are feeling overwhelmed with bad news? Let us go to the King with everything immediately.
Please leave a comment because I would love to hear from you.
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Have you ever purchased an important item and found that the operation manual was missing? Depending on what the item is, the manual can be extremely important. The manual reveals information that you need to be able to use the item properly and safely. A manual includes directions for assembly, troubleshooting guide…
Corrie ten Boom said “there is a complete manual, which we need to study, time and time again, which is the Bible. You may say, “But I don’t understand it.” No, we can’t understand it, not by ourselves. But the Lord Jesus promised us in Acts 1:8, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” And the Holy Spirit will give you understanding, strength, and faith.”
Bible reading and study is for all believers. The Holy Spirit will gently guide you along on a special study program just for you. If you love to study and are able to learn new things easily, that’s great. But, natural abilities and study skills are not required. As Corrie’s quote above says, you will have the ability to learn because of the Holy Spirit.
I sometimes think about how wonderful it must have been to actually sit at the feet of Jesus. What could be better than being with Jesus, listening to Him, as the disciples were able to do? However, Jesus says we are actually better off now than the disciples were when they sat with Him.
In John 16:7, Jesus says “It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”
The Holy Spirit is just like Jesus in the flesh except the Holy Spirit is within us. Jesus sent the Spirit to help us, to be our guide, teach, remind and enable us. So we have all we need to learn at the feet of Jesus today because we have the promised Holy Spirit within us.
Sit with the Word at His feet ♥
The following is a little story that Corrie ten Boom told to share about God’s care for us. This story is found in her book Each New Day.A little girl cried because her very old doll was broken. Her father said, “Bring me your doll.” Then he repaired it. Why did that grown up man give his time to mend such a worthless ugly doll? He saw the doll through the eyes of the little one, because he loved his little daughter. So God sees your problems through your eyes because He loves you.
Father, what a joy it is to know that we are Your children and live within Your constant care. ~ Corrie ten Boom
The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. The righteous cry out and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart And saves such as have a contrite spirit. – Psalm 34:15,17-18
Hurt, sadness, pain, confusion… bring it all to the Lord. Visit Corrie ten Boom page for more about her ♥
