If God has called us, let's not spend time looking over our shoulder to see who is following. Dare to be different. Life is so full of people who follow the same push-and-pull, poor, plodding people who, other than name, try to pretend they're exactly the same.

Helen Marshall has once said that God made each of us different; there never will be a replica soul made of you or of me. The charm, the glory of all creation rests on this very deviation. Your charm, your own glory, too, lies in being uniquely you, lies in being true to your best, that part of you different from all of the rest. 

According to evangelist, Billy Graham, to deny self is to become a nonconformist; that the Bible tells us not to be conformed to this world either physically or intellectually or spiritually.    

A young man came to Dwight L. Moody, a famous American evangelist, and said, "Mr. Moody, I want to be a Christian, but must I give up the world?" Moody characteristically replied, "Young man, if you live the out-and-out Christian life, the world will soon give you up."

One of the outstanding ironies of history is the utter disregard of ranks and titles in the final judgments men pass on each other. The final estimate of men shows that history cares not an iota for the rank or title a man has borne, or the office he has held, but only the quality of his deeds and the character of his mind and heart.

Florence Nightingale, who left wealth and comfort for poverty, war, and disease to nurse the sick, wrote in her diary: "I am thirty years of age, the age at which Christ began His mission. Now no more childish things, no more vain things. Now, Lord, let me think only of Thy will."  Years later, near the end of her illustrious, heroic life, she was asked for her life's secret, and she replied: "Well, I can only give one explanation. That is, I have kept nothing back from God."

David Livingstone, the great missionary and explorer, said of his life: "People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt we owe to our God be called a sacrifice?

Is that a sacrifice which brings its own best reward in healthful activity, the knowledge that one is doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter?

It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say, rather, it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then, with less of the common conveniences of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink, but let this be only for a moment.

All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice! We ought not to talk of this when we remember the great sacrifice made by Him who left His Father's throne on high to give Himself to us.”

Let's learn from the following poem written by Maltbie D. Babcock:

Be strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift.
Shun not the struggle; face it.

Be strong!
'Tis God's gift.
Say not the days are evil, who's to blame?
And fold the hands and acquiesce--O shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely…
…In God's name.

Be strong!
It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day how long,
Faint not, fight on!
Tomorrow comes the song.

You have to have conviction or you can't live! And then you have to do something about your conviction, or you can't stand to live with yourself! It's better to die for something than to live for nothing. It is so easy to make excuses-legitimate, logical, reasonable, acceptable excuses-why you can't make it, why you shouldn't be expected to make it. And in most cases most people will accept your excuses, because they don't have the faith either and in excusing you they're excusing themselves. But is God going to excuse you?-David Brandt Berg

You cannot stop the man of faith!   You cannot dissuade him! You cannot divert him! He'll go on, with or without you, or right over you, if necessary!

Tim Pedrosa

If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. -Vincen cat Van Gogh
Courage is the discovery that you my not win, and trying even when you know you can lose.


 

Tim