"Does God Exist?" Debate!
Friday, May 25, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Veterans Against War!
Veterans symbolically discard service medals at anti-NATO rally
Posted: 23 May 2012 03:37 AM PDT
By Mary Wisniewski, Reuters, 20 May, 2012
CHICAGO (Reuters)—Nearly 50 U.S. military veterans at an anti-NATO rally in Chicago threw their service medals into the street on Sunday, an action they said symbolized their rejection of the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some of the veterans, many wearing military uniform shirts over black anti-war t-shirts, choked back tears as they explained their actions. Others folded an American flag while a bugle played “Taps,” which is typically performed at U.S. military funerals.
“The medals are supposed to be for acts of heroism. I don’t feel like a hero. I don’t feel like I deserve them,” said Zach LaPorte, who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006.
LaPorte, a 28-year-old mechanical engineer from Milwaukee, said he enlisted in the Army at 19 because he felt there were few other options. At the time, he could not afford to stay in college.
“I witnessed civilian casualties and civilians being arrested in what I consider an illegal occupation of a sovereign nation,” LaPorte said.
A veteran from New York who only gave his name as Jerry said: “I don’t want any part of this anymore. I chose human life over war, militarism and imperialism.”
The veterans had hoped to present their medals to a NATO representative. The closest they could get was the fence ringing the McCormick Place convention center about a block from where U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders were meeting. The veterans threw their medals toward the convention center.
Matt Howard, 29, who served in the Marines from 2001 to 2006, said the rate of suicides among veterans returning from the wars is high.
“These medals are not worth the cloth and steel they’re printed on. They’re representative of failed policies,” said Howard, a spokesman for Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Former U.S. Army Sergeant Alejandro Villatoro, 29, of Chicago, served during the Iraq 2003 invasion and in Afghanistan in 2011.
He said he suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression and gave back three medals—one “War on Terrorism” medal, one for participating in the Iraq war and a NATO medal from the Afghanistan war. He said he wants the war in Afghanistan to end.
“There’s no honor in these wars,” said Villatoro, before he threw away his medals. “There’s just shame.”
Changing Deeply Ingrained Habits and Mindsets
By Maria Fontaine
Download Audio (10.6MB)
We all know that personal change doesn’t come easily. It’s especially difficult to change a habit, first reaction, or mindset that has been with you for practically your whole life. It’s almost impossible to change such things. Note the word “almost.” It is possible! But because habits can be so very deeply ingrained, it often requires the added boost of supernatural power to perform the miracle of change. Your desperation, along with your will to work hard, will enable the Lord to help you to make the change that you desire.
Following is a message from Jesus with practical tips regarding achieving long-lasting change and overcoming deeply ingrained habits, reactions, and mindsets.
He said:
Change is a word of tremendous power! Change affects every sphere of the earth and the heavens, and is, in great part, the driving force behind all things. Almost everything that is a great accomplishment, a forward advancement, a noble achievement, is aproduct of change. Change has been the wings of every great man or woman—famous or infamous—throughout history. Those who have launched out to do new things, to experiment, to remedy problems, to find solutions, to pioneer, to achieve the impossible, to take great strides for mankind, have been embracers of the word “change.”
How is it then that so many dread change when it comes to their personal lives? Yes, change is difficult, and it’s not always positive. People can change for the worse rather than for the better. But in this case I am speaking of change as a tool for any man, woman, or child who wishes to cause an effect, make a difference, help another, better themselves, or allow Me to bring about forward motion, movement, and progress through them.
You don’t have to accept your circumstances. You don’t have to be satisfied with the way you are, the way you think, or the way you feel. You can change things! Your weaknesses can be strengthened, your faith can grow, your spirit can soar, your endurance can be prolonged. There’s not one person on this earth, saved or unsaved, who can’t change something in their life or world for the better.
However, you, as Christians, know Me, and thus can ask for My help in making changes—and can then experience changes that would normally be beyond your power, but are not beyond Mine.
Those who allow Me room to work in their lives see great change—mental change, emotional change, physical change. Change can result in many positive manifestations, such as healing, increased happiness, better health, more love, increased enjoyment in your circumstances or surroundings, greater trust, more confidence, assurance, peace, delight, joy, laughter, fulfillment, satisfaction, and on the list goes!
The fruits of change make up a long list, and these are gifts and blessings that all My children want and sincerely desire and seek. So often My children pray for these gifts that come as a result of change, but they don’t want the change itself. They don’t see that the two are interlocked, that the change comes before the gifts and blessings. In order to receive the personal blessings of change, you have to let go of self and fear and worry, and entrust your life to My hands.
Many pray and cry out to Me for help to overcome their sins, weaknesses, and inabilities. I long to help them. I love to help them. But they must allow Me the opportunity to change them. Depending on the request and the situation, some change can be effected quickly; other changes take more time. Some changes seem more doable; other changes seem to be more miraculous and even impossible.
When a negative habit is long-standing, many people have difficulty letting go of it. You may want to get rid of it and obtain victory, but because it’s been a part of you for so long, you can lack faith that you can actually make the change.
But as you are yielded, willing, receptive, obedient, humble, and open to My voice, I will give clear instructions to you, or will lead you to godly counsel and help in making the change. If you follow My counsel and do what I tell you, and if you are willing to persevere and not give up, you will find the change that you seek.
Additionally, you must believe that you can change, and that I will help you. Anyone can change with My help, and in order to help bring about a great change in your life, I ask you to believe My promises and come to Me with your heart full of them, claiming them and standing on them.—Even if you have to pray, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”1 The one who believes and believes and continues to believe is the one who gets great answers and sees great changes.
Changing something in your life that needs improvement is not an easy road, but it is a road of great reward. Those who are willing to fight and struggle through the land of personal change will inherit the promises and see the fulfillment of their labors.
There’s hardly a greater joy than to see a beautiful change in someone’s heart and life, to see the manifestation of such a powerful miracle. It’s not what they’ve done, or what I alone have done, but what we have done together—a teamwork and close partnership of one who yields to his or her Master, and the Master who gives them a gift. They then take the gift and utilize it, and reap the blessings and benefits.
In order to make big and lasting changes, it helps if the person wants change and wants it badly. It’s not enough to think, “Oh, sure, that would be great if I could change and become a more considerate person, or someone who is less sensitive.” You have to want it, to even be desperate for it. Change is not handed to you on a silver platter; you must actively desire it and be willing to put forth the effort necessary. You must, through diligence and desperation, take the steps that I show you to take if you are to make progress and reap the good results.
So, what are some simple steps that you can take to change in an area that you’ve struggled with long and hard? What if, despite all your trying and desperation and prayer, you don’t seem to be getting anywhere? What if you still seem to be at square one, and you feel like resigning yourself to always being that way? Is there hope for you? Yes, there certainly is!
I’ll give you some suggestions of steps you can take if you are looking to bring about change in your life, which you can personalize by coming to Me about your situation. Sometimes I might suggest fervent prayer with others. Other times you might benefit from humbly making yourself accountable to those you’re close to by asking them to help you. Yet other times regular desperate private prayer, between you and Me, would be the boost in the spirit that is needed.
I will give you what you need in order to gain the victories through lasting change that you are seeking. Here are some general points that may be a help and guide to you:
1) Thank Me for the ability to change that I make available to you, through My power.
2) Outline on paper the areas that you feel you wish to change in. It can be helpful to concentrate on one at a time in order to devote your attention to it fully.
3) Seek Me for the faith that you can change, and that I will help you at every step.
4) Read faith-building Word to increase your faith in My power to change. Read about the miracles that I’ve done throughout the ages.
5) Ask yourself how badly you want this change. Are you willing to make sacrifices and work hard for it? Is it worth it to you? Be ready to fight for as long as it takes, knowing that the rewards are high as you receive the change that you’ve requested.
6) Come before Me and ask Me in prayer for the specific change that you want. Be willing to ask for prayer from others. There is great power and an added boost in showing your humility and dependence on Me in this way.
7) Receive promises from Me about the change that I can help you achieve. Ask Me what your part should be and I will give you instructions to follow. Ask Me for specific ways to react, to respond, in order to form new habits, contrary to your old ways of doing things, seeing things, and responding to things.
8) Praise Me for working in your life. Praise Me for changing you. Praise, praise, praise! Don’t allow yourself to doubt or become discouraged if you think you’re not changing. Refuse to give in. The victory and change is yours, so claim it by faith. Then put feet to your prayers and faith by continuing to work hand in hand with Me, as I tell you how to keep progressing to the victory and eventual reward.
The most important point is the state of your heart. The humble, desperate, and yielded heart I will not despise. I will work with you for months and even years, if need be, to give you the change that you desire. I will be your personal counselor and I will never give up on you. Even if your progress is slow, progress will be made. I will anoint and empower you and give you dispensations of grace and supernatural strength and encouragement to continue on, even when you fall and make mistakes.
I love to effect change, and I especially love the delight and joy it brings to one of My children to see that I have done the miracle for them, with them, and through them. As we work together, I am able to create the miracle of change in your heart and life, and this is a beautiful and wonderful thing.
Don’t despair over something that isn’t right in your life—ask Me to help you to changeit! It’s often a long road, and there are difficulties along the way, but the victory is well worth it.
Hang in there! Change, though painful, costly, and sometimes almost unbearable, is worth it. If you ask for My help, I’m more than willing to give it to you.
Originally published December 2000. Updated and republished May 2012.
Read by Bethany Kelly.
1 Mark 9:24.
copyright@thefamilyinternational
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Himself- A.B.Simpson
By A. B. Simpson
Download Audio (13.4MB)
I wish to speak to you about Jesus, and Jesus only. I often hear people say, “I wish I could get hold of Divine Healing, but I cannot.” Sometimes they say, “I have got it.” If I ask them, “What have you got?” the answer is sometimes, “I have got the blessing”; sometimes it is, “I have got the theory”; sometimes it is, “I have got the healing”; sometimes, “I have got the sanctification.” But I thank God we have been taught that it is not the blessing, it is not the healing, it is not the sanctification, it is not the thing, it is not the it that you want, but it is something better. It is “the Christ”; it is Himself.
How often that comes out in His Word—“Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses,” “Himself bare our sins in his own body on the tree”!1 It is the person of Jesus Christ we want.
I once saw a picture of the Constitution of the United States, very skillfully engraved in copper plate, so that when you looked at it closely it was nothing more than a piece of writing, but when you looked at it at a distance, it was the face of George Washington. The face shone out in the shading of the letters at a little distance, and I saw the person, not the words, nor the ideas; and I thought, “That is the way to look at the Scriptures and understand the thoughts of God, to see in them the face of love shining through and through; not ideas, nor doctrines, but Jesus Himself as the Life and Source and sustaining Presence of all our life.”
I prayed a long time to get sanctified, and sometimes I thought I had it. On one occasion I felt something, and I held on with a desperate grip for fear I should lose it, and kept awake the whole night fearing it would go, and, of course, it went with the next sensation and the next mood. Of course, I lost it because I did not hold on to Him. I had been taking a little water from the reservoir, when I might have all the time received from Him fullness through the open channels. I went to meetings and heard people speak of joy. I even thought I had the joy, but I did not keep it because I had not Himself as my joy.
At last He said to me—oh, so tenderly—“My child, just take Me, and let Me be in you the constant supply of all this, Myself.” And when at last I got my eyes off my sanctification, and my experience of it, and just placed them on the Christ in me, I found, instead of an experience, the Christ larger than the moment’s need, the Christ that had all that I should ever need who was given to me at once, and forever! And when I thus saw Him, it was such rest; it was all right, and right forever. For I had not only what I could hold that little hour, but also in Him, all that I should need the next and the next and so on, until sometimes I get a glimpse of what it will be a million years afterwards, when we shall “shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of our Father,”2 and have “all the fullness of God.”3
And so I thought the healing would be an “it” too, that the Lord would take me like the old run-down clock, wind me up, and set me going like a machine. It is not thus at all. I found it was Himself coming in instead and giving me what I needed at the moment. I wanted to have a great stock, so that I could feel rich; a great store laid up for many years, so that I would not be dependent upon Him the next day; but He never gave me such a store. I never had more holiness or healing at one time than I needed for that hour.
He said: “My child, you must come to Me for the next breath because I love you so dearly I want you to come all the time. If I gave you a great supply, you would do without Me and would not come to Me so often; now you have to come to Me every second, and lie on My breast every moment.” He gave me a great fortune, placed thousands and millions at credit, but He gave [me] a cheque-book with this one condition, “You never can draw more than you need at the time.” Every time a cheque was wanted, however, there was the name of Jesus upon it, and so it brought more glory to Him, kept His name before the heavenly world, and God was glorified in His Son.
And now, thank God, I have Him, not only what I have room for, but that which I have not room for, but for which I shall have room, moment by moment, as I go on into the eternity before me. I am like the little bottle in the sea, as full as it will hold. The bottle is in the sea, and the sea is in the bottle; so I am in Christ, and Christ is in me. But, besides that bottleful in the sea, there is a whole ocean beyond; the difference is that the bottle has to be filled over [and over] again, every day, evermore.
Now the question for each of us is not “What think you of divine healing?” but “What think you of Christ?”4 There came a time when there was a little thing between me and Christ. I express it by a little conversation with a friend who said, “You were healed by faith.” “Oh, no,” I said, “I was healed by Christ.” What is the difference? There is a great difference. There came a time when even faith seemed to come between me and Jesus. I thought I should have to work up the faith, so I labored to get the faith. At last I thought I had it; that if I put my whole weight upon it, it would hold. I said, when I thought I had got the faith, “Heal me.” I was trusting in myself, in my own heart, in my own faith. I was asking the Lord to do something for me because of something in me, not because of something in Him. So the Lord allowed the devil to try my faith, and the devil devoured it like a roaring lion, and I found myself so broken down that I did not think I had any faith. God allowed it to be taken away until I felt I had none.
And then God seemed to speak to me so sweetly, saying, “Never mind, my child; you have nothing. But I am perfect Power, I am perfect Love, I am Faith, I am your Life, I am the preparation for the blessing, and then I am the Blessing, too. I am all within and all without, and all forever.” It is just having “Faith in God.”5 “And the life I now live in the flesh, I live,” not by faith in the Son of God, but “by the faith of the Son of God.”6 That is it. It is not your faith. You have no faith in you, any more than you have life or anything else in you. You have nothing but emptiness and vacuity, and you must be just openness and readiness to take Him to do all. You have to take His faith as well as His life and healing, and have simply to say, “I live by the faith of the Son of God.” My faith is not worth anything. If I had to pray for anyone, I would not depend upon my faith at all. I would say, “Here, Lord, am I. If you want me to be the channel of blessing to this one, just breathe into me all that I need.” It is simply Christ, Christ alone.
The Apostle Paul tells us that there is a secret, a great secret which was hidden from ages and from generations,7 and that simple secret is just this: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”8
Years ago I came to Him burdened with guilt and fear. I tried that simple secret, and it took away all my fear and sin. Years passed, and I found sin overcoming me and my temptations too strong for me. I came to Him a second time, and He whispered to me, “Christ in you,” and I had victory, rest and blessing.
Then the body broke away in every sort of way. I had always worked hard, and from the age of fourteen I studied and labored and spared no strength. I took charge of a large congregation at the age of twenty-one; I broke down utterly half a dozen times and at last my constitution was worn out. Many times I feared I should drop dead in my pulpit. I could not ascend any height without a sense of suffocation, because of a broken-down heart and exhausted nervous system.
I heard of the Lord’s healing, but I struggled against it. I was afraid of it. I had been taught in theological seminaries that the age of the supernatural was past, and I could not go back from my early training. My head was in my way, but at last the Lord whispered to me the little secret, “Christ in you”; and from that hour I received Him for my body as I had done for my soul. I was made so strong and well that work has been a perfect delight. …
Then, again, I had a poor sort of a mind, heavy and cumbrous, that did not think or work quickly. I wanted to write and speak for Christ and to have a ready memory, so as to have the little knowledge I had gained always under [my] command. I went to Christ about it, and asked if He had anything for me in this way. He replied, “Yes, my child, I am made unto you Wisdom.” I was always making mistakes, which I regretted, and then thinking I would not make them again; but when He said that He would be my wisdom, that we may have the mind of Christ, that He could cast down imaginations and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, that He could make the brain and head right, then I took Him for all that. And since then I have been kept free from this mental disability.
I used to write two sermons a week, and it took me three days to complete one. But now, in connection with my literary work, I have numberless pages of matter to write constantly besides the conduct of very many meetings a week, and all is delightfully easy to me. The Lord has helped me mentally, and I know He is the Saviour of our mind as well as our spirit.
Well, then, I had an irresolute will. I asked, “Cannot you be a will to me?” He said, “Yes, my child, it is God who worketh in you to will and to do.”9 Then He made me to learn how and when to be firm, and how and when to yield. So, too, I came to Him for power for His work and all the resources for His service, and He has not failed me.
And so I would say, if this precious little secret of “Christ in you” will help you, you may have it. Take it and go on working it out, through time and eternity—Christ for all, grace for grace, from strength to strength, from glory to glory, from this time forth and even for evermore.
1 Matthew 8:17; 1 Peter 2:24.
2 Matthew 13:43.
3 Ephesians 3:19.
4 Matthew 22:42.
5 Mark 11:22.
6 Galatians 2:20.
7 Colossians 1:26.
8 Colossians 1:27.
9 Philippians 2:13.
Download Audio (13.4MB)
I wish to speak to you about Jesus, and Jesus only. I often hear people say, “I wish I could get hold of Divine Healing, but I cannot.” Sometimes they say, “I have got it.” If I ask them, “What have you got?” the answer is sometimes, “I have got the blessing”; sometimes it is, “I have got the theory”; sometimes it is, “I have got the healing”; sometimes, “I have got the sanctification.” But I thank God we have been taught that it is not the blessing, it is not the healing, it is not the sanctification, it is not the thing, it is not the it that you want, but it is something better. It is “the Christ”; it is Himself.
How often that comes out in His Word—“Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses,” “Himself bare our sins in his own body on the tree”!1 It is the person of Jesus Christ we want.
I once saw a picture of the Constitution of the United States, very skillfully engraved in copper plate, so that when you looked at it closely it was nothing more than a piece of writing, but when you looked at it at a distance, it was the face of George Washington. The face shone out in the shading of the letters at a little distance, and I saw the person, not the words, nor the ideas; and I thought, “That is the way to look at the Scriptures and understand the thoughts of God, to see in them the face of love shining through and through; not ideas, nor doctrines, but Jesus Himself as the Life and Source and sustaining Presence of all our life.”
I prayed a long time to get sanctified, and sometimes I thought I had it. On one occasion I felt something, and I held on with a desperate grip for fear I should lose it, and kept awake the whole night fearing it would go, and, of course, it went with the next sensation and the next mood. Of course, I lost it because I did not hold on to Him. I had been taking a little water from the reservoir, when I might have all the time received from Him fullness through the open channels. I went to meetings and heard people speak of joy. I even thought I had the joy, but I did not keep it because I had not Himself as my joy.
At last He said to me—oh, so tenderly—“My child, just take Me, and let Me be in you the constant supply of all this, Myself.” And when at last I got my eyes off my sanctification, and my experience of it, and just placed them on the Christ in me, I found, instead of an experience, the Christ larger than the moment’s need, the Christ that had all that I should ever need who was given to me at once, and forever! And when I thus saw Him, it was such rest; it was all right, and right forever. For I had not only what I could hold that little hour, but also in Him, all that I should need the next and the next and so on, until sometimes I get a glimpse of what it will be a million years afterwards, when we shall “shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of our Father,”2 and have “all the fullness of God.”3
And so I thought the healing would be an “it” too, that the Lord would take me like the old run-down clock, wind me up, and set me going like a machine. It is not thus at all. I found it was Himself coming in instead and giving me what I needed at the moment. I wanted to have a great stock, so that I could feel rich; a great store laid up for many years, so that I would not be dependent upon Him the next day; but He never gave me such a store. I never had more holiness or healing at one time than I needed for that hour.
He said: “My child, you must come to Me for the next breath because I love you so dearly I want you to come all the time. If I gave you a great supply, you would do without Me and would not come to Me so often; now you have to come to Me every second, and lie on My breast every moment.” He gave me a great fortune, placed thousands and millions at credit, but He gave [me] a cheque-book with this one condition, “You never can draw more than you need at the time.” Every time a cheque was wanted, however, there was the name of Jesus upon it, and so it brought more glory to Him, kept His name before the heavenly world, and God was glorified in His Son.
And now, thank God, I have Him, not only what I have room for, but that which I have not room for, but for which I shall have room, moment by moment, as I go on into the eternity before me. I am like the little bottle in the sea, as full as it will hold. The bottle is in the sea, and the sea is in the bottle; so I am in Christ, and Christ is in me. But, besides that bottleful in the sea, there is a whole ocean beyond; the difference is that the bottle has to be filled over [and over] again, every day, evermore.
Now the question for each of us is not “What think you of divine healing?” but “What think you of Christ?”4 There came a time when there was a little thing between me and Christ. I express it by a little conversation with a friend who said, “You were healed by faith.” “Oh, no,” I said, “I was healed by Christ.” What is the difference? There is a great difference. There came a time when even faith seemed to come between me and Jesus. I thought I should have to work up the faith, so I labored to get the faith. At last I thought I had it; that if I put my whole weight upon it, it would hold. I said, when I thought I had got the faith, “Heal me.” I was trusting in myself, in my own heart, in my own faith. I was asking the Lord to do something for me because of something in me, not because of something in Him. So the Lord allowed the devil to try my faith, and the devil devoured it like a roaring lion, and I found myself so broken down that I did not think I had any faith. God allowed it to be taken away until I felt I had none.
And then God seemed to speak to me so sweetly, saying, “Never mind, my child; you have nothing. But I am perfect Power, I am perfect Love, I am Faith, I am your Life, I am the preparation for the blessing, and then I am the Blessing, too. I am all within and all without, and all forever.” It is just having “Faith in God.”5 “And the life I now live in the flesh, I live,” not by faith in the Son of God, but “by the faith of the Son of God.”6 That is it. It is not your faith. You have no faith in you, any more than you have life or anything else in you. You have nothing but emptiness and vacuity, and you must be just openness and readiness to take Him to do all. You have to take His faith as well as His life and healing, and have simply to say, “I live by the faith of the Son of God.” My faith is not worth anything. If I had to pray for anyone, I would not depend upon my faith at all. I would say, “Here, Lord, am I. If you want me to be the channel of blessing to this one, just breathe into me all that I need.” It is simply Christ, Christ alone.
The Apostle Paul tells us that there is a secret, a great secret which was hidden from ages and from generations,7 and that simple secret is just this: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”8
Years ago I came to Him burdened with guilt and fear. I tried that simple secret, and it took away all my fear and sin. Years passed, and I found sin overcoming me and my temptations too strong for me. I came to Him a second time, and He whispered to me, “Christ in you,” and I had victory, rest and blessing.
Then the body broke away in every sort of way. I had always worked hard, and from the age of fourteen I studied and labored and spared no strength. I took charge of a large congregation at the age of twenty-one; I broke down utterly half a dozen times and at last my constitution was worn out. Many times I feared I should drop dead in my pulpit. I could not ascend any height without a sense of suffocation, because of a broken-down heart and exhausted nervous system.
I heard of the Lord’s healing, but I struggled against it. I was afraid of it. I had been taught in theological seminaries that the age of the supernatural was past, and I could not go back from my early training. My head was in my way, but at last the Lord whispered to me the little secret, “Christ in you”; and from that hour I received Him for my body as I had done for my soul. I was made so strong and well that work has been a perfect delight. …
Then, again, I had a poor sort of a mind, heavy and cumbrous, that did not think or work quickly. I wanted to write and speak for Christ and to have a ready memory, so as to have the little knowledge I had gained always under [my] command. I went to Christ about it, and asked if He had anything for me in this way. He replied, “Yes, my child, I am made unto you Wisdom.” I was always making mistakes, which I regretted, and then thinking I would not make them again; but when He said that He would be my wisdom, that we may have the mind of Christ, that He could cast down imaginations and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, that He could make the brain and head right, then I took Him for all that. And since then I have been kept free from this mental disability.
I used to write two sermons a week, and it took me three days to complete one. But now, in connection with my literary work, I have numberless pages of matter to write constantly besides the conduct of very many meetings a week, and all is delightfully easy to me. The Lord has helped me mentally, and I know He is the Saviour of our mind as well as our spirit.
Well, then, I had an irresolute will. I asked, “Cannot you be a will to me?” He said, “Yes, my child, it is God who worketh in you to will and to do.”9 Then He made me to learn how and when to be firm, and how and when to yield. So, too, I came to Him for power for His work and all the resources for His service, and He has not failed me.
And so I would say, if this precious little secret of “Christ in you” will help you, you may have it. Take it and go on working it out, through time and eternity—Christ for all, grace for grace, from strength to strength, from glory to glory, from this time forth and even for evermore.
Once it was the blessing,
Now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling,
Now it is His Word.
Once His gifts I wanted,
Now the Giver own;
Once I sought for healing,
Now Himself alone.
Once ’twas painful trying,
Now ’tis perfect trust;
Once a half salvation,
Now the uttermost.
Once ’twas ceaseless holding,
Now He holds me fast;
Once ’twas constant drifting,
Now my anchor’s cast.
Once ’twas busy planning,
Now ’tis trustful prayer;
Once ’twas anxious caring,
Now He has the care.
Once ’twas what I wanted,
Now what Jesus says;
Once ’twas constant asking,
Now ’tis ceaseless praise.
Once it was my working,
His it hence shall be;
Once I tried to use Him,
Now He uses me.
Once the power I wanted,
Now the Mighty One;
Once for self I labored,
Now for Him alone.
Once I hoped in Jesus,
Now I know He’s mine;
Once my lamps were dying,
Now they brightly shine.
Once for death I waited,
Now His coming hail;
And my hopes are anchored,
Safe within the vail.
Published on Anchor May 2012. Read by Simon Peterson.
2 Matthew 13:43.
3 Ephesians 3:19.
4 Matthew 22:42.
5 Mark 11:22.
6 Galatians 2:20.
7 Colossians 1:26.
8 Colossians 1:27.
9 Philippians 2:13.
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