BELIEVE YOUR BELIEFS (A Continuation)

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Hebrews 11:1

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

There are many who make light of  Christians gathering together on a Sunday morning for worship, but I chastise them for their chastisement.  And, in so doing, I remind them that they never get up any morning that they do not worship something. 

            There is no human being alive who does not worship something.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  It may well be things worthy of worship but nevertheless it is worship...wealth, power... add to the list as you will.

            As you have celebrated communion I would trust you have been overwhelmed with gratitude that God does not care if you are as stubborn as a mule, as mean as a wild cat or as stupid as an ox.  All He cares is that you are His child, and for you He died on a cross, and that at such a time as this, you let its meaning sink in.

            The next time you try to define communion to yourself, or someone else, think of it as something that does not so much define what God does as who God is.  And what is that?  Well, at the communion table He is downright Teutonic in that He forgives a wretch like you and me. 

            And why do I say Teutonic?  Because in that language the word wretch meant “wanderer.”  And that is what each of us is whenever we to come to the communion table; a wanderer, a prodigal son or daughter, a lost sheep.

            And what we bring to this table is hope.

  “Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you peace.”  “Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.” (Psalm 31:24)  “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Faith.  If you see faith as a verb rather than a noun, as an active force that helps you to go in the right direction more often than the wrong, then your faith is that proverbial rock upon which to build your house.

            And what I hope you never bring to the communion table is the feeling that to win out in life you have to do it all by yourself.

            By way of example, let me tell you a story about the great magician Houdini.  As you most likely know this great escape artist claimed there was no jail in America that could hold him, and he always proved he was right.  Until, one day, he was locked in a jail in a small mid western town where everything went terribly wrong.  It was very cold, below freezing really, and when the jail cell doors clanged shut he hoped he would be able to get out in record time because despite his self-discipline he was most uncomfortable.  Left to himself, he extracted from a secret place in his belt a small piece of metal, strong and flexible.  Then time lengthened and he could not pick the lock. He grew frantic.  It was two hours and his fingers were stiff and no longer functioning very well.  Soon he was bathed in sweat and feeling increasingly miserable but still the lock would not open.  Finally in frustration he leaned against the door and as he did it swung open.  It had never been locked.

            That is the message of the communion table.  Christ has come to the door of your soul and unlocked it.  It doesn’t take any special magic to open it.  All you have to do is open it yourself and welcome Him in. 

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Poor Richard's Almanack for the 20th Century

Sixty Plus and Not Holding

Boundaries Unlimited

I Am

The ABC"s of Parenting and Grandparenting

Letters to America

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BELIEVE YOUR BELIEFS (Give Them Spiritual Muscles

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Hebrews 11:1

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

How can we keep our faith from being a weak and fruitless thing?  How can we not be foolish little men and women groveling in the dark shadows of overeager egos. 

       Well, first we must do more than just pray.  We must believe in our own prayers.

       Would you like for me to tell you what hell is like?  Now there is a first class challenge, but let me give it a try anyway.  Well, I think actually I can describe it quite well.  Try being an aetheist.  Try looking at life’s beginning, middle and end and coming up with a blank. 

       Try passing a cemetery, realizing that one day your own body will lie there and then think to yourself, immortality is only a dream.”  Try substituting goodies from the devil rather than blessings from the Savior.

       I like the way the blind man who had been healed by Jesus reacted to the true story, which was his life.  You might say he was caught between the rock and the hard place, being confronted by the leaders of the synagogue as to the character of this man named Jesus who had just given Him back his sight.  Finally, exasperated with their questions, he simply confronted them back, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know, but one thing I do know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”  

       Einstein put it well when he said, “Truth is what stands the test of experience.”  So, yes, I have read the Bible and soul to soul discussed Jesus with other Christians.  I have attended conferences and listened to inspirational addresses.  I have been all the right places and listened to all the right things.  But bottom line, what really counts is that I have experienced God.  I have felt the power of the Holy Spirit.  I know my Savior lives and that this communion table is a place of awe.  

       “Whereas I was blind, now I see.” 

Well, how is your spiritual eyesight?  With 20/20 sacred vision do you see God as wise and personal?  A god who knows what to do, and how and when?  Do you believe that your wisdom is proof of His greater wisdom, your personality proof that His attachment to man is equally as personal?  Do you believe that whatever you see, feel, touch and ask questions about, He both made and understands?  Are you speechless before the fact that the greatest gift you have and will ever have is a gift not made with hands but fashioned by your heavenly Father in His heavenly workshop?

       Once, there was a little boy who (was crippled by) polio and had very low self-esteem. Each time his mother would leave him at Sunday School he would ask if he could wear her locket.  “She thought I liked the locket,” he would often relate in later years.  “It wasn’t that.  I really didn’t like the locket, but I felt I wasn’t worth coming back for and I knew she would come back for the locket.” 

There are more people than I like to remember who have told me they don’t feel worthy to come to church.  I reprimand them, reminding them that they are because the Lord loves them.  Often they continue to argue that they are not – they are sinners.  (Of course, they are sinners – we all are sinners, only Jesus was perfect.  That’s why we need God’s forgiveness.)  But some never get the message.

       Yes, we live in a sick world with a lot of sick people chasing dross and calling it golden.  And yes, Christianity is the medicine to save it from its delirium.    

Yes, science can shoot a satellite into space, but it cannot shape a character.  Psychiatry can free a man from his neurosis, but only God can free a man from his sin.  A good singer can hold an audience in the palm of his or her hand, but only God can grasp their souls.

BUT DO NOT  FORGET.. God loves you and you don’t have to wear a special locket around your neck or jump through some special hoops.  All you have to do is believe and accept His love and forgiveness for being paralyzed sometimes when it come to doing His will and following His commandments.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

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Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

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http://www.magnuspress.com/

 

OR GO TO AMAZON.COM

 

       AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM and amazon.com Kindle

OTHER BOOKS BY REV. WYRICK 

 

Poor Richard's Almanack for the 20th Century

Sixty Plus and Not Holding

Boundaries Unlimited

I Am

The ABC"s of Parenting and Grandparenting

Letters to America

 

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DON'T DROWN IN MEDIOCRITY!

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“Choose you this day whom you will serve.  As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua 24:14

“Do you know what excellence demands?  It demands that you be better than yourself.” (Ted Engstrom ***)  It isn’t required that you be 100 % better in one thing.  It simply means that you strive to be 1 percent better in more than one thing. (rewrite of quote from Jan Carlzon ****)  If you forget everything I write, remember this, “Those who settle for mediocrity are always at their best.”  Let me say that again, ‘Those who settle for mediocrity are always at their best.”  (Anonymous)

Do you have a jar of Smuckers jam in your refrigerator?  Did you know that if you weighed it, it would weigh more than the label says it does?  You see, Smuckers doesn’t care whether their customers weigh it or even that some heavenly set of scales might one day weigh it, all they care about is doing their best and then a little more…no matter who knows it.

Get this kind of attitude and your life will smell of roses rather than stink with rot.

There is a word, responsibility, that is normally thought of as one word.  Try thinking of it as two; response and ability.  In short, how you have trained your abilities to respond to life is essentially who you really are. When things go wrong some people just respond by doing nothing and being nothing.  Others take the initiative and try to solve whatever the problem is.

And then there are others...

During World War II, a Spitfire pilot awoke one morning deciding he didn’t want to fight anymore.  He knew that many of his comrades also weren’t terribly enthused about rushing up into the wild blue yonder to be shot down and killed, but they kept on doing it anyway.  He decided he didn’t want to keep on doing it.  He just wanted to stay alive and he didn’t care how he did it.  So he devised a clever plot of self-preservation that would also get him declared a hero in the process. 

He was a good pilot and so he was reasonably sure he could ditch his plane and survive. Therefore, during the next dogfight he simply put his plane in a dive, flattened out just before hitting the water and was soon safely floating in his life raft while death raged in the clouds above.  Men were dying, but he was safe.  It had worked out exactly as he had planned it.  Picked up by the French Resistance, for two days he was treated as a courageous hero. On the third day, he shot himself.  He had been given the gift of Time but he could not accept the responsibilities that went with it.   He had survived, but mere survival can be a curse rather than a blessing.  It happens all the time.

In Bridgeport, Connecticut, there is a small grave stone that reads, “Aunt Fanny—She Hath Done What She Could.”

  Her birth certificate officially listed her as Fanny Crosby.  And though you may not recognize the name, most of you have spent your life singing many of her hymns.. She wrote over 9,000 of them; Blessed Assurance; All the Way My Savior Leads Me; Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross; Rescue The Perishing; Tell me the Story of Jesus; Praise Him, Praise Him. .The list goes on and on as did her faith, her dedication and the use of her abilities to the maximum. 

When she penned “Praise Him, Praise Him,” she wrote it from a life that had started out behind the eight ball, and never could see around (it) that eight ball, because at the age of six weeks she went blind.  Like all of us, she was given the gift of Time.  Like all of us, she had abilities and choices to make.  Her choice was to make the best of the worst.

Her hymns were set to music by every popular American melody maker of the nineteenth century.  She was the guest of six Presidents and a personal friend to Grover Cleveland.

And because she must have firmly believed “I am but one, but I am one, I cannot do everything, but I can do something; Therefore, what I can do, by the grace of God, I will do.”  (author unknown) she went out and did it.  Sightless but filled with heavenly insight she supped at the table of the Lord and rose back up filled with spiritual energy beyond compare.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

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          "Positive, powerful utterances...skillfully enhancing our understaning and appreciation of Lincoln...(Lt. Colonel C.A.Olsen (Ret.) Asbury College (Professor Ret.)

          "Wyrick has authored a wonderful examination of the spirituality of one of American history's most devoutly religious leaders...a pleasant and readable book that has a rich depth of information.  (Maynard Pittendreigh, Presbyterian Minister)

          "THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN is an extremely well written book...it is both scholarly and very readable.  I came away impressed at Mr. Wyrick's portrayal of that President with an altered and enlarged vision of the man. (William Hoffman, Award winning fiction writer, author of Blood and Guile, and Wild Thorn.)                                             

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ARE YOU AS CLOSE TO GOD AS YOU WANT TO BE? (Continuation of Series)

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God put in us a desire to relate to Him and worship Him on a regular basis. In a sense, to seek the light of Christ and keep that light on all the time.  Not just at an occasional Sunday morning service, or when a fox hole experience drives us to our knees - but always on.  To make God something more than a spiritual Web Site to occasionally visit.

In short, to increase your confidence in God go for an all-out swim in the great ocean of God’s love, rather than a brief wade in some psychological substitute pond.

          He is a minister today, but once, when he was a little boy of five, he had an experience he would never forget.  In his own words, I relate his story:

“I had my first experience with the presence of God when I was 5 years old. Arriving home from my half day of kindergarten, I usually ate lunch with my mom and then hurried off to play.  When I would run out of things to do, I would resort to another favorite game, spying on my mom. And so, on this particular afternoon, I stood outside her bedroom and pressed my ear to the closed door.

“I heard a familiar sound, the voice of my mother, talking to God in prayer.   Suddenly I felt as if something had reached underneath that door and wrapped itself around me while she prayed.

“I felt the hair on my arms stand up, and my spine begin to tingle.

“I had an acute awareness that something good was happening all around me as my mother worshipped God with tender words of prayer and adoration.

“What happened? There was something going on in that room that was not of this world.  Something that was impossible to express with words.  There was a conversation being conducted between heaven and earth.”

Have you had that sort of experience yourself?  And if your child or grandchild overheard you pray, would it cause them to have this sensation?  

What I’m talking about is the difference between singing songs about God and singing songs to God.  The difference between talking about God and talking to God.  Becoming emotional about God rather than working hard not to become emotional about God.

Realizing that true worship isn’t tied to Sunday or the calendar.

What was it Jesus said… “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be satisfied.”

Oh, people can go for a long while with far apart times of feasting at the table of the Lord.  Just as people in the concentration camps went without much food for weeks and months and even years, and some even survived, but when the allies arrived, they were mere shadows of their former selves.

So it is if we do not, on a regular basis, feed our souls; we are shadowy skeletons of what we might otherwise have been..

What I am saying is to take to heart the ongoing message of any nutritionist, “You are what you eat.”  So too, if our spiritual diet is the equivalent of spiritual fast foods, we will suffer from spiritual starvation, if not a spiritual death.

So how to change one’s spiritual diet?  Indeed, how to want to change one’s spiritual diet?

Part of an answer is found in the following Greek legend:

The young man came to the old theologian and asked, “How can I find - really find - God?  Really experience Him?”

The old theologian answered by commanding, “Follow me.”  And he led him down a rocky path toward the sea. 

He continued to walk right into the sea itself, and said to the young man, “Come, continue to follow me.”

          And when they stood side-by-side, up to their waists in the undulating waves, the old man, with a surprisingly strong grip, grabbed the young man by his neck and thrust him beneath the surface.  

The more the young man struggled, the harder he felt himself being pushed down. 

Finally when he was sure he would drown, he felt the grip lessen and he rose gasping for breath.

“When you want God as badly as you just wanted air, then you will find him in the way you were asking.”

(TO BE CONTINUED)

CHRISTIAN CHARACTER

 

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          At the entrance to a tree farm in Canada is a sign that reads, "The best time to plant a tree was twenty-five years ago.  The second best time is today."

          If you haven't already planted the seeds for a good Christian character, the second best time is today. 

          Of course, the seeds of Christian character are spread by doing...and even more so by apologizing when we fail to do so.

          Apologize?  Well, would that child of yours learn from your humility better than from your prideful anger.  And what of a friend who you spat out at and then turned to and said, "Joe/Jane, I'm sorry..I'll probably do it again but I am truly sorry and I am trying to improve."  Word it however you want...but can an apology really hurt?

          And learn from the examples of what not to be or not to do.

          2 Peter 1:5-7 - And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; [6] And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; [7] And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

          Having read it...think on it...involve your thinking processes in it...allow yourself to be absorbed in these passionate truths.

          Practice Christian character over and beyond where you can feel what you are doing...if your compassion is sluggish and sometimes hard to find...practice it anyway.  If you patience is absent more often than present...repeat the name of Jesus over and over again in your head and heart...and his truth will come crashing through or fighting its way through your stubbornness...but one thing is for sure...there is a reward for spiritual persistence.

           “Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers,
fear God, honor the king.”
1 Peter 2:17

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Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

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        DO YOU HAVE A HISTORY BUFF IN YOUR FAMILY?...Why not give THIS HIGHLY ACCLAIMED  BOOK

        To buy Neil's 9th book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN or other of his books click on the following

http://www.magnuspress.com/

OR GO TO AMAZON.COM

       AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM and amazon.com Kindle

OTHER BOOKS BY REV. WYRICK

Poor Richard's Almanack for the 20th Century

Sixty Plus and Not Holding

Boundaries Unlimited

I Am

The ABC"s of Parenting and Grandparenting

Letters to America

http://www.magnuspress.com/OurProducts2.html 

    

HOW TO LESSEN ANXIETY

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Can you imagine the kind of spiritual strength the Apostle Paul must have had to handle all the anxious moments he endured? When we read of his travels it may be easier to believe that he was a super Christian. You know, like Superman, impervious to all the slings and arrows

thrown at him. But no where in the Bible is he described that way… only that he was a true believer. Wandering and preaching his message - a message sometimes so rejected he was thrown into jail - and yet always trusting in the Lord. Keeping on when most people would have said, "I gave it a good try but enough already."

But loyal Jesus-people do that...find that special spiritual strength and don't become most people.

One of the great anxieties of today is what I call THE ANXIETY OF STUFF. You know, the acquiring of more than we can afford so we can worry about not being able to pay for what we should have known better than to buy in the first place.

A staggering statistic explains why this anxiety is rife in America today. The average American spends 10 percent more than they earn in pursuit of the good life. A staggering statistic!

I love the way one person defined this kind of anxiety - a gap between one's demands and one's resources. We have become too impatient to wait till we can really afford something so we actually choose the problems this “gap” causes.

Robert Kanigel describes it this way, “The right to choose is as American as apple pie (or pumpkin pie or Boston cream pie or pecan pie).”

There used to be such a thing as delayed satisfaction. As a little boy growing up during the depression, I waited through 4 Christmases to get a flying toy I so badly wanted. Don’t misunderstand me, I would have much preferred it that first Christmas, but in those days in my family if you couldn't afford it, you didn't get it. It was that simple. And it was just as good 4 years later as it would have been without the waiting.

I doubt that would happen today. The average 21st century parental response is, my child wants it – I MUST get it for him or her. NOW!

And of course the kids agree with this wholeheartedly – only perpetuating the Anxiety of Stuff.

“For every thing there is a season,” says the writer of Ecclesiastes.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh

A time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to break down, and a time to build up.

(Ecc. 3:2-7 rearranged)

And perhaps that is a good place to begin when we are overwhelmed with the anxiety of loss...

be it personal loss or financial loss or the loss of health...or... Get on with it, with whatever is left. Study the speed of the season in which we find ourselves and adjust to that speed. Find a rhythm that works and adapt to that rhythm.

I've done that with my accidents and illnesses, slowed down and adapted and not fussed about it when I couldn't speed up as soon as I wanted. Affirmed that God is in charge and that my time is overlaid with the timelessness of eternity.

So cool it. You know anxiety has not so much to do with what is happening to us as our response to what is happening to us.

It is our choice as to whether we apply the anxiety multiplication table or develop inner spiritual strengths that stabilize our emotions.

Develop inner spiritual strengths? Are you asking, How do I do that? By prayer and Bible reading? Of course, but another very practical way to lower your anxiety level is to think less of yourself and more of others.

Being selfish and self-centered can only make you more anxious; but if you give more than you want to get, help more than you want to be helped, you will be so over-whelmed with others you will have little time or energy left to be so anxious about yourself.

This is over simplification, I know, but it has worked for others, so try it.

ARE YOU AS CLOSE TO GOD AS YOU WANT TO BE?

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Matthew 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.

This morning I want to introduce you to two people…and both of them are you – but the choice of which you are, God has left up to you.

To begin this introduction, I want you to imagine that it is tomorrow morning and YOU #1 has been away from home no more than five minutes when another one of those road hogs with piggish precision almost takes off your front bumper.

Of course, you lay on your horn.  And you honk again, but longer and louder this second time.  At the next traffic light you pull up beside his car and let him know, by all the unacceptable ways you know that you are angry with him.  That at that moment, a hanging or guillotine would be too good for him.

At work, still carrying this hot-under-the-collar mood, you are rude to customers or other office staff, or anyone who comes in contact with you.  The me-first, brutish behavior of the man in that car has ruined your day and you just can’t, or won’t, let go of it.

At the end of the day you slam the front door as you walk into your home and wearing a scowl fit for a King who has been crossed by another kingdom, you take out your lingering anger on your poor unsuspecting spouse.

That was the first you of the two of you.

Now, let me introduce YOU #2.

Again imagine that it is tomorrow morning and you have been away from home no more than five minutes when another one of those road hogs with piggish precision almost takes off your front bumper.

Momentarily you start to lay on your horn but instead, you lay down a prayer, “Lord, save me from meeting brutish behavior with more of the same.” 

You’ve held your anger in check and you feel good about it.  This is who you are and who you have become. 

So you continue to pray for that individual in the other car: 

“Dear Lord, perhaps he’s just had an argument with his spouse.  Or maybe he’s always like this; rude and thoughtless and wearing a “me-first attitude” as if it were a crown and he were King of the Road.  Whatever is his problem, Lord, I pray for the both of us for life is too short for two angry individuals to act like fools.

And as a strange, wonderful kind of peace descends, you continue: “Thank you, Lord, for the privilege of my Christianity and my ability to sometimes act like that is what and who I am.”

For yes, you can remember the times when you did not pray.  Instead met anger with anger that did not help the day, nor help the night when you angrily crossed your own threshold hours later.

And having prayed to Christ and acted a little more Christ-like, the confidence you have in your God, has grown by leaps and bounds for you have prayed to be a better person, a Christian person, and He has answered your prayer.

Part of the peace you feel is caused by the fact that you are not surprised for He has promised, “I am come that you might have life and that you mighty have it more abundantly.”

       My first pastorate was a rural community in Virginia.  When I arrived there in 1954, I learned that the area had actually only had electricity for six years.  Because I was a city boy, it seemed incredible that they had only enjoyed this modern convenience since 1948.

       However, I was told a story that seemed even more incredible, but the teller of the story assured me it was true.  

A woman had had electricity installed in her house at great expense but the power company noticed that her meter showed she was using almost no electricity at all.  Fearing that there was a problem she had not reported, they sent a meter reader to check on the matter. 

He saw that the power was indeed working properly and so asked the woman, “Do you use the electricity?” 

She replied, “Of course we do.  We turn it on every night so we can more easily see to light our gas lights and then we turn it off.”

Ridiculous?  Yes.  Having all that power and not using it.

But some do that with God, don’t they?  Saving real prayer power for only really big problems.  Someone is sick and dying, a major decision needs to be made and prayer time is then ratcheted up to full force.

Understandable?  Unfortunately, yes. 

But why not place this confidence in God for minor moments and decisions, as well?  For there is a real danger here, this lack of confidence in and prayer toward the living God.  If we are not careful, one day those ever-so-occasional prayers will become so seldom a truck could be driven through the space left since last a real deep confidence-in-God prayer was lifted up.  And then Bible readings stretch weeks and months apart. 

As I said in the beginning – God has left the choices up to each of us.  So consider where you put God in your daily life and the results of that assignment.

       If you seldom think of God in your busy days, your confidence in Him will be at low ebb because the best way to weaken a relationship is to fail to relate.

All that power and peace available, and passed by.  Sad…truly sad.

It’s not what God has in mind when he made us

“The Lord said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1:26,27)

Our God gave us a mind (spirit), so that we could know Him.

Our God gave us a heart (emotions), so that we could love Him.

Our God gave us a will (freedom of choice), so that we could decide to obey Him.

Believe it...act on it.

(to be continued)

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