STRETCH YOUR SOUL (Continuation of series)

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To stretch our souls, we should, with vigor and enthusiasm, join the Psalmist and his thought,

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.” (Psalm 42)

There is loneliness you may be experiencing it at this very moment. You awoke in the middle of the night and your checklist of friends and family had shrunk.

Death, sickness, too many have moved to another city or state…or for yet another reason, a friendship or relationship that was, isn’t anymore. And it hurts and no, God has not died, but you have died inside.
Or, your health has been deteriorating and you see no light at the end of the tunnel.

Or, temptation is alive and well in the host of your days and you are weary from fighting it.

So then, what to do?

Start a marathon session with your soul.

Catch up on lost time by talking and arguing with any parts of your soul that have started to drift.

Tell you soul to fill in the faithless gaps with God. Tell it once. Tell it a hundred times. Tell it a thousand times, if you must.

Why so much repetition? Because our faith in our God requires more than an occasional reference to it. “What a friend we have in Jesus?” Well now, don’t we want to be around a friend, and refer to a friend more than occasionally?

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CAN GOD SMILE? CAN GOD CRY?

 

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CAN GOD SMILE?  CAN GOD CRY?

 

Isaiah 48:17-19

 

This is what the Lord says – your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:                                

I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you what is best for you,

who directs you in the way you should go.

If only you had paid attention to my commandments,
         your peace would have been like a river,
         and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

Your descendants would have been like the sand,

Your children like its numberless grains;

Their name would never be cut off nor destroyed from before me.

And what exactly was this Prophet of so long ago saying?

 

Well, he certainly isn’t mincing words.  God is admonishing us, “I told you what to do.  I gave directions so you would not get lost.  All you had to do was pay attention.”

In other words, our peace and well-being would be great like a river because the created and the Creator would be in harmony flowing together.

It was 1913, and Bill Stiles, one of the last members of the Jesse James gang, was planning another train robbery.

 

On the day before the robbery as he was walking down the street he saw a policeman walking toward him.

He ducked into the first doorway available.  It was the door to the Union Rescue Mission.  He walked clear to the front and sat down.

In a few minutes the service began.  As he was wont to tell the story many times in the years that followed, and it was a story that brought him to tears each time he told it,

“I wasn’t paying much attention to the sermon for my mind was on the robbery I was planning the next day.  I felt a little uneasy for I had left my  suitcase in my room and in it was some of the soup (a mixture of nitroglycerine and some other high explosives) and my guns. I thought to myself, this service has got to end.  I’ve got to get out of here.

          As soon as it was over and I started to get up to leave, a woman came over and sat down next to me. 

She began to talk about God.

          I stopped her and said ‘I’m an atheist.”

Then I started to get up and leave…but I couldn’t…my legs wouldn’t work.

          They were fastened to that seat and floor by a power not of this earth.

A man came up and began to speak with me about the Lord…and since I couldn’t move my legs…I listened…

          And we talked about my giving myself to the Lord…and the more I resisted…the stronger seemed the force that held me down.

          Finally, and I cannot explain it…not really…I said, “Alright!” And right there I gave myself to the Lord.

          And as you may have guessed, this is what happened.  When I rose up I was as light on my feet as if I had wings.  And my heart was beating so fast I thought it would come out of my chest. 

          And …I never did rob that train the next day.

And I personally think God smiled twice when that happened.  

                              First, when someone was not ashamed to talk about Him. 

And second, when the someone who was being talked to responded positively and gave his life to Him.

And when Bill Stiles said “yes”…said it with his head and heart…gave up a way of life for the ways of God…he found what all the stolen gold had never brought - Peace! 

  

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THE GALILEE GALLERY AND OTHER NEW TESTAMENT CHARACTERS YOU OUGHT TO KNIOW BETTER

 

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To better understand Jesus and the earthly world in which He lived,
it is important to know those around Him.


THE APOSTLES
OF THE MANY WHO FOLLOWED JESUS, HE CHOSE ONLY TWELVE TO BE HIS APOSTLES.

Twelve Minus One

PETER THE ROCK (JOHN 1:42) SIMON was a fisherman, the son of a successful fisherman named Jona, and the brother ofAndrew, another fisherman.

With the Sea of Galilee so near fishing was a dominant trade in their region. Indeed, you might say it was the family business. It was Andrew who heard John the Baptist introduce Jesus to the gathered throng proclaiming, "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world."

Promptly rushing to Simon he shared what he had heard and made sure his brother met Jesus.

It was a meeting made in heaven and blessed by destiny for Jesus immediately gave Simon a new surname and from then on this disciple was called PETER, THE ROCK.

 However the name not withstanding, Peter was only human so that total renunciation of the world was a stretch he had to achieve in bits and snatches.

He exclaimed, "Lord, I am ready to go with Thee both into prison and to death," but then when it counted, he denied that he even knew Jesus. Indeed, did so three times Apostle? Commitment? It was a struggle that became an achievement because after the resurrection he so strongly proclaimed his faith that he even defied the Roman

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V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at MAGNUS PRESS

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STRETCH YOUR SOUL (2nd in Series)

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Yes, men sell their soul to the Devil and give their soul to God.

Which is why each of us think about our souls and that quite often.  We want to profit our souls by prayer and listening to the Word and thinking on godly thoughts and not shrinking our souls because we have put them on the back burner.  A heavenly nutrition program is one way of putting it.

There are always trials and tribulations.

He was neither a preacher nor a theologian with countless degrees, but his was a soul that knew God on a first name basis.  It is why when all four of Horatio Spafford’s daughters perished at sea, he still was able to write a hymn so many of us have sung, and more than once.

   “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

   When sorrows, like sea-billows, roll;

   Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

   It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

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ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

 

 

 

TO WATCH NEIL WYRICK IN HIS ONE MAN DRAMAS (Presented to millions all around the world) (Ben Franiklin, Martin Luther, Charles Wesley and Abraham Lincoln (this Lincoln film takes 11 seconds to download but is worth the wait)

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V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at MAGNUS PRESS

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CHRISTIANITY BY REFLEX (Last in series)

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It is not enough to admire Jesus, however extravagantly; or worship him, however devoutly; but to follow him, which is after all is all he asks us to do.  If it can be said that his standards are too high and cannot be attained, there still remains the undimmed glory of the quest.

Would you give yourself to a quest that has the strength of eternity in it?  Then remember that “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”  (Matthew 4:4)

It is a basic truth.  If you give yourself to the cheap, the tawdry and the worthless; you cannot help but become cheap, tawdry and worthless yourself.

I firmly believe that there is something high and holy in every man or woman until in a short, or sometimes more lengthy period of time, each kills it in themselves.

Shout too many curses and too few prayers and slowly but surely your soul will shrivel and began to die.

I was ordained in 1954 and in all the years since that privileged moment I have seen a lot of bad but I have also seen a lot of good.

I have seen a host of folk redeemed, whom it seemed were beyond redemption.

Changed, though most around them would have said it could never happen.

For often, though not often enough, someone catches the spark of the Nazarene.

And catches on fire.

And a heart dedicated to hate trades in this miserable sickness for love.

And a member of the male gender becomes…

A father redeemed by the love of God and loves his children with like- minded patience and love.

And becomes a loving husband

And lives each day more and more as a child of God.

And a member of the female gender becomes…

A mother worthy of the name, and blessed is the child who is the recipient thereof.

And becomes a loving wife

And lives each day more and more as a child of God.

IF THIS BE MADNESS, this thinking of other people before yourself and of God often and well.  Then follow such madness for there is the hope of heaven in it.

It is certainly better than spending your life

trying to get all you can, keep all you can and let the other fellow get by as best he can.

To every person who lives as if they believe that Christianity and Christ teachings are madness…I say, “If this be madness then perhaps we should double check our definition of sanity.” 

Yes, I tell you this…my friends…you name me most of the pain and problems that you know of today and I will tell you that a tremendous, overwhelming percentage of them have come from breaking God’s commandments.

IT MAY BE MADNESS to imagine a world in which our noble thoughts have been translated into noble deeds. 

It may be madness to imagine a world no longer selfish, or foolish, or temperamental, or angry, or doubting or sinful. 

But if this be madness, then perhaps we should pray that everyone go mad.

Do you know what our greatest problem is?  We are addicts.  Addicted to compromise.  Why?  Because it is easier than taking a stand.

“Because thou art lukewarm, I will spew the out of my mouth” says the Bible.

And we in reply give the excuse “But I can’t stand the heat.”

We are a strange breed; mankind.  We will organize and sacrifice and drive ourselves with an incessant urge to win wars against enemies from without; but we will not exert half the effort to defeat the enemies from within. 

If we used half the dedication to win the battle of the soul we would come out such victors on the field of living that it would be difficult to believe.  But we don’t.

We battled in Europe and Vietnam and Korea and Iraq and are still battling in Afghanistan.  But the battle on the fields of eternity?  That battle I fear too often we fight as if we are trying to lose it.

 

“WHICH IS BETTER TO BE?  A WINDOW OR A DOOR” ” “BE A RAINBOW SEARCHER AND FINDER” “IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

 

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

 

TO WATCH NEIL WYRICK IN HIS ONE MAN DRAMAS (Presented to millions all around the world) (Ben Franiklin, Martin Luther, Charles Wesley and Abraham Lincoln (this Lincoln film takes 11 seconds to download but is worth the wait)

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

 

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V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at

MAGNUS PRESS

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE GALILEE GALLERY (2nd in series)

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To better understand Jesus and the earthly world in which He lived,

it is important to know those around Him.

SIMEON (Luke 11:25)

Israel had for too long a time been under one domineering rule after the other and SIMEON, like other devout Jews was earnestly waiting for the coming of the Messiah.

The prophets had been quite specific. Malachai had said it would happen before the destruction ofthe Second Temple in Jerusalem. Daniel had laid out an exact place and time of arrival. Micah named Bethlehem and Isaiah predicted a virgin birth.

" ... Let me not see death until I have looked upon the Deliverer," Simeon prayed, and his prayer was answered. Guidance came in a vision, and thus it was that he entered the Temple the day the infant Jesus was brought there by Mary and Joseph.

In his heart there was no doubt and so he "took him in his arms" and with great fervor blessed God. He was ready now to die, "Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation •.."

JOHN mE BAPTIST (John 1:6)

Zechariah, a Temple priest, and Elizabeth were old and childless when the angel Gabriel promised a son would be born of them -JOHN. Since Elizabeth and Mary, mother of Jesus, were cousins, John and Jesus were cousins.

Few would argue that John the Baptist was anything but a lonely man, wandering alone in the wilderness as he did. It was a journey he made early on in his life as a way to purification. He had followers from every quarter, but to those who wondered if he were the Messiah, he said, "I am not the Christ but I am sent ahead of Him."

It was this John who baptized Jesus when He was thirty years old. And all gathered there heard John say, "Behold the lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world." It was a propbecy and proclamation ofwhich he had no doubt.

Ater the baptism a voice boomed from afar, "This is my son in whom I am well pleased." The missiOll ofODe man, John, ended. The mission of another who was both the Son of Mah and the Son of God...began.

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V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at MAGNUS PRESS

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

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

STRETCH YOUR SOUL (1)

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STRETCH YOUR SOUL

There is a story often told about Martin Luther, the Father of our Protestant faith, of how he had been moping about for more days and nights than were good for him and those around him.

Finally, his wife appeared one morning dressed totally in black. “Katherine,” he asked, “Why are you dressed as if in mourning?”

“Someone has died,” she replied.

“Why have I not heard? Who was it?” asked Luther

“It seems,” his wife responded, “that God must have died.”

Luther got the point.

No, God is not dead, but we must be alive to that fact.  Stretch our souls in the workout room of the spirit.  Because a soul flabby from lack of use cannot bear the burdens that inevitably come to all of us.

 

If someone were to ask you, “What is my soul?”  How would you answer?  Your soul?  Oh, you could give the dictionary description, “the immaterial essence of an individual life.”  But that’s about as satisfactory an answer as feeding on boiled cardboard or fried cellophane.

So then “What is the soul?”

Well, first and foremost, it is the eternal you.  It is not captive to the calendar by any way or means.

It is like a great ear as it reacts to all it hears from sources here on earth and from the heaven-sent voice of God.

It has muscles in the sense that if not used it shrivels and almost dies.  I say almost because it is never too late for a man or woman to begin a workout program for this most important part of our being.

Secondly, one very special quality of our souls, they are color blind.  For all our earthly foolishness, ultimately we are brothers and sisters beneath the Fatherhood of our living God.  To argue otherwise is to create a world of fenced-in ruts.  In God’s world where stretched souls live, there are no neighborhood restrictions because the world, the whole world, is our neighborhood.

One isn’t very far into the book of Genesis before the subject of the soul leaps off the pages, “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

We are further into the first book of the Gospels when Matthew warns us of the soul’s importance, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”  (Matthew 16:26)

Indeed, have you ever noticed that men sell their soul to the Devil?  But give their soul to God?

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

“WHICH IS BETTER TO BE?  A WINDOW OR A DOOR” ” “BE A RAINBOW SEARCHER AND FINDER” “IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS

ONE MAN DR

AMATIZATIONS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

TO WATCH NEIL WYRICK IN HIS ONE MAN DRAMAS (Presented to millions all around the world) (Ben Franiklin, Martin Luther, Charles Wesley and Abraham Lincoln (this Lincoln film takes 11 seconds to download but is worth the wait)

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

 

http://www.speakerneil.com/

V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at MAGNUS PRESS

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

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