When they saw the star they shouted joyfully.
[Matt 2:10 NET]
We who look for Jesus ought to be joyful; it is no credit to our Lord when we look as though we were seeking His grave. The dull looks of Christ’s followers have injured Him in the sight of the world. Let us, then, smile as we go, for we have the star if we will look up and put ourselves in the right path.
~ Thos. Champness ~
But Jesus, paying no attention to what was said, told the synagogue ruler, “Do not be afraid; just believe.”
[Mark 5:36 NET]
Be not downcast if difficulties and trials surround you in your heavenly life. They may be purposely placed there by God to train and discipline you for higher developments of faith. If He calls you to “toiling in rowing,” it may be to make you the hardier seaman, to lead you to lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and, above all, to drive you to a holier trust in Him who has the vessel and its destinies in His hand, and who, amid gathering clouds and darkened horizon and crested billows is ever uttering the mild rebuke to our misgivings “Said I not unto thee, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God.”
~ Macduff ~
When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and discovered that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized these men had been with Jesus.
[Acts 4:13 NET]
A Christian should be a striking likeness of Jesus Christ. You have read lives of Christ, beautifully and eloquently written, but the best life of Christ is His living biography, written out in the words and actions of His people. If we were what we profess to be, and what we should be, we would be pictures of Christ; yea, such striking likenesses of Him that the world would not have to hold us up by the hour together, and say, “Well, it seems somewhat of a likeness”: but they would, when they once beheld us, exclaim, “He has been with Jesus; he has been taught of Him; he is like Him; he has caught the very idea of the holy Man of Nazareth, and he works it out in his life and every day actions.”
~ Charles H. Spurgeon ~
And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him.
[1 John 4:16 NET]
God is love; and it is good, as it is true, to think that every sun–ray that touches the earth has the sun at the other end of it; so every bit of love upon God’s earth has God at the other end of it.
~ Mark Guy Pearse ~
For he will order his angels to protect you in all you do.
[Ps 91:11 NET]
Count no duty too little, no round of life too small, no work too low, if it come in thy way, since God thinks so much of it as to send His angels to guard thee in it.
~ Mark Guy Pearse ~
because everyone who has been fathered by God conquers the world. This is the conquering power that has conquered the world: our faith.
[1 John 5:4 NET]
The world conquers me when it succeeds in hindering me from seeing, loving, holding communion with, and serving my Father, God. I conquer it when I lay my hand upon it and force it to help me to get nearer Him, to get more like Him, to think oftener of Him, to do His will more gladly and more constantly. The one victory over the world is to bend it to serve me in the highest things, the attainment of a clearer vision of the divine nature, the attainment of a deeper love to God Himself, and a more glad consecration and service to Him. That is the victory when you can make the world a ladder to lift you to God. When the world comes between you and God as an obscuring screen, it has conquered you. When the world comes between you and God as a transparent medium you have conquered it. To win victory is to get it beneath your feet and stand upon it, and reach up thereby to God.
~ Alex. McLaren ~
While he was with them, he declared, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait there for what my Father promised, which you heard about from me.
[Acts 1:4 NET]
Tarry at a promise till God meets you there. He always returns by way of His promises.
~ Selected ~
