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.
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Tim
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