A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

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At the back of many churches is a clock. It reminds us we are mortal. Behind the preacher is a cross. It reminds us that we are also immortal. We are both because of Easter.

One thing is for sure, if one knew only the beginning of the Easter story, a very bad beginning, and not the magnificent ending, it certainly wouldn’t foster a religion. But Jesus, come to call on the road to Emmaus, to Mary, in the Upper Room, and then the Ascension – now victory reigned.

Easter is not the only time God’s children muse about what happens when life’s candle flickers and then goes out. But, yes, it is the time most do consider a little more deeply the questions - Where did I come from and where do I go? What kind of mountaintop experience awaits me after I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death?

Inevitably everyone upon this earth must die. One day, the insurance salesperson sells no more policies, the banker figures no more percentages, the preacher writes and delivers a last sermon. And then the great question comes face to face with the great answer.

One does not have to be tired of life to talk about death. Men accept that flowers wither and fade yet they plant gardens. There is dawn and there is dusk. A great symphony has a final crescendo. I’d like to live to be a hundred, if I can keep my health, but I sure am curious about what it’s going to be like if I fail to reach 101.

Do you believe in Easter? If you do, you are less afraid to live and not afraid to die. Believing in Easter earns you a box seat in heaven and a steady standing place on earth. A stablized, rather than a shaky, soul. It’s knowing that when you say, “Hello, God” He hears you and will answer back.

It is being able to say “Jesus” with as much ease as you name a friend. What it is…is a relationship. And when you have that with your heavenly Father…you are blessed beyond compare.

Psalm 31:5
Into your hands I commit my spirit,
redeem me, O Lord, the God of truth.

And, yes, if this site or the One A Day site has met any of your needs share it with a friend. Just have them go to “Google Search” and type in “Wyrick’s Writings”

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And, yes, maybe they will back track a few weeks to read other of my musings.

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UNBELIEVABLE, ASTOUNDING, AWESOME

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.

These thoughts are added to each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday)
(Use in your personal or church newsletters)

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

Oh, how Jesus must have suffered knowing that one of his disciples was a traitor. Judas willing to sell his immortal soul for a financial transaction of 30 pieces of silver. The equivalent of $19.28 today.

Or on the Mount of Olives, laying the future all out for his disciples, yet they not even being able to stay awake to pray with Him. How terribly alone He must have felt.

Then came the trial, the horrible scourging and stumbling through the Genneth Gate and along the Via Dolorosa carrying on his weary and wounded shoulders the heavy cypress cross bar. And finally, Golgotha – wind swept, lonely Golgotha.

The gathered crowd no longer shouting hosannas as He was crucified and died. Then it was all over. The Master - dead. No heart beat. No hope. All that was left, a borrowed tomb and frightened followers.

Ask any one of them what kind of a week it had been up to that moment and they would tell you without hesitation, “Terrible! Positively awful. Pure chaos. Couldn’t have been worse.”

That’s right, no one would be saving palm fronds as souvenirs.

And that was what it would all have remained; a terrible, miserable downer of a week best forgotten. A dream become a nightmare…except for an unbelievable, astounding, awesome Resurrection.

And, yes, if this site or the One A Day site has met any of your needs share it with a friend.

Just have them go to “Google Search” and type in “Wyrick’s Writings”

Or CLICK ONthe URL http://wyrickswritings.blogspot.com/

And, yes, maybe they will back track a few weeks to read other of my musings.

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…His presentations have been called equal to Hal Holbrook and were presented all over the world.

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.

These thoughts are added to each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday)
(Scroll down to read previous thoughts)
(Use in your personal or church newsletters)

CHECK OUT JANUARY 15TH I STARTED A SIX DAY SERIES ON ANGER ON MY OTHER BLOG. SEE BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS.

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

Thoreau used to say that he always returned a borrowed axe sharper than when he received it.

When your last pulse beat has ended, when your last breath has been taken, when your soul goes up as your body lays down, will you have taken the life given you and made it sharper than when you received it?

One man wrote of his destiny this way. “I have reached my three score years and ten and suddenly I realize how much I have wasted my life.

All the little minutes, the little hours, that have grown into a lifetime I have cluttered with little deeds of selfishness until I have created a giant called greed that now rules me.

I trampled the hearts of my mother and father and wife by a thousand different little acts of meanness. I have, for a lifetime, been building a house called ME; stone by stone by stone and it is too late to reshape the stones. Too late to rebuild the house.”

But he was wrong.

It is never too late.

It is never too late to add a little act of kindness, a small word of encouragement, a tiny unselfish deed that will never make the evening news, but can begin to remake a life.

The challenge of making our destiny of little things better or worse is with us as long as we shall live. With our destiny of little things it is really possible to do a lot with very little. It is also possible to do nothing with a lot.

And, yes, if this site or the One A Day site has met any of your needs share it with a friend. Just have them go to “Google Search” and type in “Wyrick’s Writings”
Or CLICK ON THE URL http://wyrickswritings.blogspot.com/

And, yes, maybe they will back track a few weeks to read other of my musings.

DO YOU HAVE A BLOG OR FACEBOOK? IF YOU ENJOY THESE WRITINGS COULD YOU
CALL ATTENTION TO THIS BLOG? IF YOU DO, THANKS IN ADVANCE

CLICK ON THE TO RIGHT SIDE OF THIS SCREEN WHERE IT READS “CLICK HERE TO WATCH NEIL AS WESLEY, LUTHER, FRANKLIN & LINCOLN”…His presentations have been called equal to Hal Holbrook and were presented all over the world.

A MASTERPIECE OR A MESS?

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.

These thoughts are added to each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday)
(Scroll down to read previous thoughts)
(Use in your personal or church newsletters)

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

We have a longer period of infancy than any other creature. Our brain less finished at birth.

And the molding of that life – a masterpiece or a mess – we take one baby step at a time. That is how it is. We have not just time on our hands, we have ourselves on our hands. And the powers of habit-making and habit-breaking that are always with us.

Harry Emerson Fosdick, a great preacher of not that many years ago, once wrote,
“Where others lie, we are clever: where others cheat, we are shrewd; where others are bad-tempered, we are righteously indignant.”

We do play such games with ourselves.

In the days of the Spanish Inquisition, one of the ways they used to break a man’s spirit, was to put him in a cell so small he could neither fully stand up nor lie down. In fact, he simple could not extend himself in any direction. They would leave him in this condition until he did one of two things; he either gave in or went mad.

This is what life is all about. We were made for extension, for improvement, for being a little closer to God and godliness today than yesterday. When we do not extend ourselves, we go a little mad.

And, yes, if this site or the One A Day site has met any of your needs share it with a friend. Just have them go to “Google Search” and type in “Wyrick’s Writings”
Or CLICK ON the URL http://wyrickswritings.blogspot.com/

And, yes, maybe they will back track a few weeks to read other of my musings.

DO YOU HAVE A BLOG OR FACEBOOK? IF YOU ENJOY THESE WRITINGS COULD YOU
CALL ATTENTION TO THIS BLOG? IF YOU DO, THANKS IN ADVANCE

CLICK ON THE TO RIGHT SIDE OF THIS SCREEN WHERE IT READS “CLICK HERE TO WATCH NEIL AS WESLEY, LUTHER, FRANKLIN & LINCOLN”…His presentations have been called equal to Hal Holbrook and were presented all over the world.

LEAVE YOUR FRIENDS AND EVEN STRANGERS SPEECHLESS

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.

These thoughts are added to each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday)
(Scroll down to read previous thoughts)
(Use in your personal or church newsletters)

CHECK OUT JANUARY 15TH I STARTED A SIX DAY SERIES ON ANGER ON MY OTHER BLOG. SEE BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS.

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

LEAVE YOUR FRIENDS AND EVEN STRANGERS

When was the last time you said something nice about someone and indeed said it to the person themselves?

If so will the people you compliment be left speechless? Most likely, because people don’t compliment each other very often. They would rather wait until a person is dead and then stand around at the cemetery saying what a great person they were.

SO…Dare to be different. Dare, this very day, to do nothing more than walk up to a friend and say, “Thank you.”

I’m serious. Look around right now, and pick out someone you’ve known, loved and appreciated for years and walk up to them and say, “Thank you, Louis; Thank you, Bruce; Thank you, Jean; Thank you, Jane….”

Think how wonderful it will be to have such words of love and appreciation echoing all around. And just don’t think about it – lovingly, considerately, out-goingly DO IT!

And oh yes…name why…”For being such a good friend” “For setting such a good example for me to live by” “For the good deeds I know you do all the time”…etc. be original, creative…it shouldn’t be that hard…for certainly you can think of something to think everyone and anyone at least once.

When you do it I will say thank you for the richness of these two little words to someone’s life. Thank you…thank you…thank you…

You think it’s a good idea but you would be too embarrassed. Too embarrassed to say something nice? Are you too embarrassed to sometimes say something mean? To speak out in anger? Why then, is it so hard to be nice?

Tomorrow…that’s right…if you have put it off… say something nice about some-one to that someone.

“Thank you, Joe.” And Joe may fall of his chair.

“I appreciate that, Mary.” And Mary may be dumbfounded.

But I can guarantee, even if you don’t explain why you said something nice, whoever received your praise will feel good all the rest of the day because you made it obvious they have been a good and positive influence in your life.

I know that rude, crude and forgetful are in, but we are Christians.

Be nice, even if you have built up a reputation for being grumpy. Smile, even when you don’t feel like it.

We are supposed to be more loving, more considerate, more forgiving with heavenly goals dancing in our heads. We are expected to be able to say thank you with more ease.

Dare to be different. Dare to let angel-thoughts run wild along the avenues of your soul.

And, yes, if this site or the One A Day site has met any of your needs share it with a friend. Just have them go to “Google Search” and type in “Wyrick’s Writings”
Or CLICK ON THE URL http://wyrickswritings.blogspot.com/

And, yes, maybe they will back track a few weeks to read other of my musings.

DO YOU HAVE A BLOG OR FACEBOOK? IF YOU ENJOY THESE WRITINGS COULD YOU
CALL ATTENTION TO THIS BLOG? IF YOU DO, THANKS IN ADVANCE

CLICK ON THE TO RIGHT SIDE OF THIS SCREEN WHERE IT READS “CLICK HERE TO WATCH NEIL AS WESLEY, LUTHER, FRANKLIN & LINCOLN”…His presentations have been called equal to Hal Holbrook and were presented all over the world.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.

These thoughts are added to each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday)
(Scroll down to read previous thoughts)
(Use in your personal or church newsletters)

CHECK OUT JANUARY 15TH I STARTED A SIX DAY SERIES ON ANGER ON MY OTHER BLOG. SEE BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS.

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/


What if on a Sunday morning all of the names of the church members and regular attendees were put in the offering plate and every Sunday those in attendance would each pull out a name, and to that person he or she had to report in on Sunday afternoon.

List all they had done the last week, and thought, and followed through on, and what Christian deeds had done or failed to do…good, bad and indifferent.

What would be the results?

Well, first, would everyone stop coming to church?

Quite probably.

Reporting in to God is hard enough. Reporting in to each other could be downright embarrassing.
For there is what we say we ought to do, and what we actually do.

What we say is talk. What we do is commitment.

What is commitment? Well, many people are more than willing to serve God as long as it is in an advisory capacity.

If your name were “Winter” and you were 32 years old and you shared with me what you had been busy doing, you would tell me that in the last seven years you had visited 4,122 Starbuck stores and drunk half a cup of coffee in each and every store.

You would tell me that it was your lifelong goal to visit each and every Starbuck’s that exists. It would be a monumental task because Starbuck’s opens ten new company- operated outlets around the world every seven days.

You would tell me that to achieve this objective you have been traveling and sleeping in your car with no air conditioning and that it smells like stale coffee. You would gloat that on one recent trip through Oregon you actually visited 28 stores in one single day. If I asked you why you were doing this, you would reply, “Starbuck’s is my life. I can’t foresee myself stopping. It is just too rewarding an experience.”

And I would weep and you would have no idea why I was weeping for you, because you would be totally committed, but why and to what end?

And, yes, if this site or the One A Day site has met any of your needs share it with a friend. Just have them go to “Google Search” and type in “Wyrick’s Writings”
Or type in the URL http://wyrickswritings.blogspot.com/

And, yes, maybe they will back track a few weeks to read other of my musings.

DO YOU HAVE A BLOG OR FACEBOOK? IF YOU ENJOY THESE WRITINGS COULD YOU
CALL ATTENTION TO THIS BLOG? IF YOU DO, THANKS IN ADVANCE

CLICK ON THE TO RIGHT SIDE OF THIS SCREEN WHERE IT READS “CLICK HERE TO WATCH NEIL AS WESLEY, LUTHER, FRANKLIN & LINCOLN”…His presentations have been called equal to Hal Holbrook and were presented all over the world.

DO YOU COURT CIVINE MADNESS?

 

DO YOU COURT DIVINE MADNESS?

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.
These thoughts are added to each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday)
(Scroll down to read previous thoughts)
(Use in your personal or church newsletters)

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

In this wonderful opportunity called living, do you regularly consider giving your all toward sowing healing rather than destruction?

Making harmony rather than discord?

Creating peace rather than strife?

Making the world a better place to live in rather than living in such a manner people will be glad when finally you leave it? I’m sure your answer is yes, of course I want to be a good, loving human being. But now having said, yes, you are faced with the challenge of actually doing it.

Plato called love, “divine madness.” And to those who have heard but not completely understood the Lord’s teachings, the kind of love He calls for must really seem a little off the wall. Yet it is His commandments to follow an unselfish love that can keep us from being inhumane.

In simple terms, you cannot prayerfully think on the Lord, and hate your fellowman. You cannot pray to God, and mouth obscenities toward another human being.

Or, as that oft sung hymn relates, “Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” I’d like to make an insert “carry everything WITH LOVE to God in prayer.”

TO VIEW NEIL'S OTHER BLOG CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL
URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

THE BATTLEFIELD OF SELF

THE BATTLEFIELD OF SELF

Genesis 6:9-14
Noah was a righteous man,
blameless among the people of his time,
and he walked with God.

When I consider commitment, I often think of Noah and the God-ordered Ark.

Of how challenging and comforting it is to read of a man so committed to God he could ignore the ridicule of his neighbors and keep on keeping on for a total of 120 years.

Without paralyzing pride to slow him down, nothing was too small for him to do. He readily cut the timbers, patiently crafted the planks, with honest fortitude chiseled the wood and bored the holes, until finally one day he had constructed a massive monument to the will of his Heavenly Father.

If he had given this 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high ship a name, it would have had to be Commitment.

Now when it comes to a heavenly command to commitment it is highly doubtful you will ever be asked to build an ark or anything near that size as a giant monument.

However, you have already been commanded to make your life a monument. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)

I’m sure you all have your own mental description of what commitment is, but have you ever considered that actually it is a battlefield?

A place where your best self constantly battles your worst self? Were I to ask you which self do you want to win, your answer would be immediate and sincere. You would reply, “I want that self that does not just talk victory to win.

I do not want to be a victim of my own weak and willy-nilly follow through in things I have committed myself to do. I have said, ‘Lord, here am I take me.’ That is what I want to do. That is who I want to be.”

Remember Nicodemus?

Most anyone who has read the Bible knows he was a Pharisee, a leader among the Jews. An insider who proudly boasted to Jesus, “I know who you are. You are a teacher from the hills of Galilee. We know you come from God.”

He spoke with pride. A theologian who had the right answer. But, bright and shining student that he was, he still he had come by night to have a secret conversation with the Nazarene.

What happened next was a natural outgrown of the piercing way Jesus had in getting to the heart of a matter. Jesus looked at him, saw his fear that others might find out how he felt about Him, saw his reluctance to commit to the truth and said in so many words, “Talk is cheap but birth is final. Nicodemus, you must be born again.”

Suddenly, it was no longer a conference to gain knowledge, but a call to commitment.

Now it was not just a visit in the night, but a call to make it a pilgrimage. And Nicodemus wasn’t illuminated. He was confused and for a short while he was plain scared.

“How can anyone be born again after growing old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb?” he asked.

“Nicodemus,” the Bible does not have Jesus call him by name but I like to think that at such a personal time of the soul searching, He did. Simply, softly with a warm, kind, teaching voice, “Nicodemus, God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not (be lost) but may have eternal life.”

And in this very personal time, as we talk about our souls, remember He says again, “Nicodemus, Neil, John, Grace, Florence, whatever your name is…God so loved you and me that He included us in that promise. He really did.

What was the response of Nicodemus? Well, it is worth noting that one time in the Temple when the crowds were shouting for Jesus’ scalp, one man would stand up to defend Him. And the name of that man? Nicodemus.

Born again, energized, motivated. The widow who gave all her money; the Syrophoenician woman who gave all her pride; the Samaritan who gave all his gratitude; the Roman Centurion who gave all his will; John the Baptist who gave all his body and his zeal; Simon Peter who gave all his mind; Mary of Bethany who gave all her heart.” (paraphrase of comments made by Glenn Clark in his book, “A Man’s Reach”) The magic word is all.

Not part time but full employment of the soul. A life not falling away from its best by blaming heredity, or environment, or people, or places or things. Rather a life reaching up and saying “Being born again is one whale of a step but if I am going to consider it I certainly ought to go all the way.”

Robert Browning put it well, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.”

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.

These thoughts are added to each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday)
(Use in your personal or church newsletters)

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.
These thoughts are added to each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday)
(Scroll down to read previous thoughts)
(Use in your personal or church newsletters)

What if on a Sunday morning all of the names of the church members and regular attendees were put in the offering plate and every Sunday those in attendance would each pull out a name, and to that person he or she had to report in on Sunday afternoon.

List all they had done the last week, and thought, and followed through on, and what Christian deeds had done or failed to do…good, bad and indifferent.

What would be the results?

Well, first, would everyone stop coming to church?

Quite probably.

Reporting in to God is hard enough. Reporting in to each other could be downright embarrassing.
For there is what we say we ought to do, and what we actually do.

What we say is talk. What we do is commitment.

What is commitment? Well, many people are more than willing to serve God as long as it is in an advisory capacity.

If your name were “Winter” and you were 32 years old and you shared with me what you had been busy doing, you would tell me that in the last seven years you had visited 4,122 Starbuck stores and drunk half a cup of coffee in each and every store.

You would tell me that it was your lifelong goal to visit each and every Starbuck’s that exists. It would be a monumental task because Starbuck’s opens ten new company- operated outlets around the world every seven days.

You would tell me that to achieve this objective you have been traveling and sleeping in your car with no air conditioning and that it smells like stale coffee. You would gloat that on one recent trip through Oregon you actually visited 28 stores in one single day. If I asked you why you were doing this, you would reply, “Starbuck’s is my life. I can’t foresee myself stopping. It is just too rewarding an experience.”

And I would weep and you would have no idea why I was weeping for you, because you would be totally committed, but why and to what end?

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

WHAT KIND OF VISION IS THE LEADER OF YOUR BAND OF THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS?

\WHAT KIND OF VISION IS THE LEADER OF YOUR BAND OF THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS?

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.

These thoughts are added to each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday)

A young man had hated his parents for ten years. They had quarreled and he was not a forgiving person. He didn’t just hold a grudge, he embraced it.

There was a barrenness about his soul that made him unable to feel at ease, either with the world or the inner world of his spirit.

And then one day he found Christ.

And the commandments to love his fellowman and his God with equal vigor overwhelmed him, and his faith became a living thing. He began to trust more and lose his temper less and his favorite hymn became “What a friend I have in Jesus.” He had heard about being born again and now he was and when one night he took stock of how he had changed, he wept with joy.

I have not yet seen one of them, but there are now movies with alternate endings. The story line is changed just enough to reach different conclusions. You get to pick the one you like best. A fascinating idea.

And that is how it is with us and our own lives. If along the way you had reacted differently to certain things, consider how the whole script of your life would have been altered.

It is a “What if “ game we all have played. What would have happened if we had done this or that? Gone here or there? Made a political or theological turn to the right or left? Met this person or that person rather than ones we did meet? You have chosen certain people as your friends, a certain pattern of life to follow, whether to make God number one or further down the list.

What if? When it comes to life and its choices, it is not an idle question.

In your everyday life, how often do you ask yourself, what would Jesus do in this situation? Or do you just wing it? Is faith a factor in your life rather than an aside? There is a difference.

In this colorful world what does your faith look like? Is it a bright and shining thing? Or is it often tattle-tale grey? In the spectrum of your soul it makes a difference, it really does.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish…” says the book of Proverbs. (29:18)

The writer Katherine Logan wrote, “If a vision is of God then it is a vision that comes in advance of a task well done.” (rewritten)

Whoever we are, whatever we do, intermingling a strong faith with life makes us a stronger person, a better person, less of a me-first person.

 

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

WHAT IS A PRAYER FENCE?

WHAT IS A PRAYER FENCE?

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.

I like to call what I am talking about “The Building of a Prayer Fence” A prayer fence to protect ourselves from our worst selves.

We usually know our own particular weaknesses; the places where we have far less control than we would like. Places where we speak before we think and act before we consider what is wise or prudent. So, visualize a fence, this prayer fence that will keep in your best and keep out your worst.

But just how do you build a fence that works? By holy redundancy. Constant repetition, repeating your needs and the needs of the world ad infinitum.

Believing that if something is worth praying for once, it is worth praying for again and again. Jesus makes no bones about this holy truth. He actually tells us to set up the habit of repeated prayers. “Pray without ceasing.”

An early Greek theologian, Clement of Alexandria, put it this way, “Prayer is keeping company with God.” Let me add a word – keeping CONSTANT company with God.

 

THESE THOUGHTS ARE ADDED TO EACH SUNDAY, TUESDAY AND THURSDAY
FOR THE NEXT few postings MY THOUGHTS WILL BE AIMED AT SPEAKING OF AND TRYING TO GIVE SOME SOMETIMES NEW INSIGHTS INTO PRAYER.

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

SOME RECENT POSTINGS ON MY OTHER BLOG “ONE A DAY YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS”…To view them go to “Google Search” type in “Neil Spiritual Vitamins” Or type in the URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

BE A WARMER!
A SIX DAY SERIES ON ANGER BEGINNING ON FRIDAY
WHOEVER SAID FUSSING AND FUMING WAS BEST? HE COULD HAVE KILLED HIM BUT HE DIDN’T
JUST AN ORDINARY INSECT 

ARE YOU WRITING HAPPINESS WITH FADING INK?
HAVE YOU GONE BLIND OR IS IT THAT YOU JUST HAVEN’T OPENED YOUR EYES
THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING IMPORTANCE
DON’T LOSE YOUR PRAYER WHILE PRAYING

And, yes, if this site or the One A Day site has met any of your needs share it with a friend. Just have them go to “Google Search” and type in “Wyrick’s Writings”
Or type in the URL http://wyrickswritings.blogspot.com/

And, yes, maybe they will back track a few weeks to read other of my musings.

DO YOU HAVE A BLOG OR FACEBOOK? IF YOU ENJOY THESE WRITINGS COULD YOU
CALL ATTENTION TO THIS BLOG? IF YOU DO, THANKS IN ADVANCE

CLICK ON THE TO RIGHT SIDE TOP OF THIS SCREEN WHERE IT READS “CLICK HERE TO WATCH NEIL AS WESLEY, LUTHER, FRANKLIN & LINCOLN”…His presentations have been called equal to Hal Holbrook and were presented all over the world.

OVER ONE AND A HALF BILLION

OVER ONE AND A HALF BILLION


Did you know that there are 1.6 billion plus Christians in the world?

And it all started out with 12 less one.

Judas wasn’t the best of ground for the words of Christ to grow on. That’s an understatement to say the least.

12 less one to 1.6 billion. That’s a pretty good increase.

That’s a lot of seeding and growing and expanding. For all the times the soil was bad and nothing happened there are 1.6 billion Christians alive right at this moment who threw away the thorns, dug up the rocks, tilled the paved path and grew a faith.

Quite something, eh what?

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.

THESE THOUGHTS ARE ADDED TO EACH SUNDAY, TUESDAY AND THURSDAY

(Scroll down to read previous thoughts)
(Use in your personal or church newsletters)

FOR THE NEXT few postings MY THOUGHTS WILL BE AIMED AT SPEAKING OF AND TRYING TO GIVE SOME SOMETIMES NEW INSIGHTS INTO PRAYER.

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

TALK TO THE ONE WHO KNOWS YOU

TALK TO THE ONE WHO KNOWS YOU

This is a continuation of a series of Lenten thoughts appropriate to the remembering our Christ with all the awe He truly deserves.. Please consider sharing these Lenten thoughts with a host of your friends.

THESE THOUGHT ARE ADDED TO EACH SUNDAY, TUESDAY AND THURSDAY

These thoughts are added to each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday)
(Scroll down to read previous thoughts)
(Use in your personal or church newsletters)

FOR THE NEXT few postings MY THOUGHTS WILL BE AIMED AT SPEAKING OF AND TRYING TO GIVE SOME SOMETIMES NEW INSIGHTS INTO PRAYER.

To view my other blog “One A Day, Your Spiritual Vitamins”
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

Sheryl Crow is a singer, not a preacher, but when she sings her song “Light In Your Eyes” she nevertheless preaches a sermon. Perhaps you have heard it, even sung it to yourself. Whether yes or no, it goes, “You gotta talk to the One who made you. Talk to the One who understands. Talk to the One who gave you. All the light in your eyes.”

It is no small thing, this sometimes gentle - sometimes agonizing cry from our immortal souls. This ability to be able to talk with God anytime we want is much more than a long distance call, it is a call completely unlimited by either space or time. It has about it the touch of mortality, for we are mortal when we do it. It has about it the touch of immortality for part of knowing God is that communication with Him is now and evermore shall be. It is about that One who does not slam His door in our face for as Sheryl sings in her song, “Talk to the One who understands.”


SOME RECENT POSTINGS ON MY OTHER BLOG “ONE A DAY YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS”…To view them go to “Google Search” type in “Neil Spiritual Vitamins”
Or CLICK ON THE URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/