Art of Life

Psalm 16:11 “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

LORD, it is not life to live,
If Thy presence Thou deny;
Lord, if Thou Thy presence give,
'T is no longer death to die.
Source and giver of repose,
Singly from Thy smile it flows;
Peace and happiness are Thine;
Mine they are, if Thou art mine.

We live from day to day, as it were, by chance; and forget that human life itself is as much an Art, governed by its own rules and precepts of perfection, as the most complicated profession by which that life is maintained or adorned.

The art of life consists in taking each event which befalls us with a contented mind, confident of good. This makes us grow younger as we grow older, for youth and joy come from the soul to the body more than from the body to the soul. With this method and art and temper of life, we live, though we may be dying. We rejoice always, though in the midst of sorrows; and possess all things, though destitute of everything.

Hurry Up, God

 Psalm 70:1-5 “Make haste, O God, to deliver me! Make haste to help me, O Lord! Let them be ashamed and confounded Who seek my life; Let them be turned back^[a] and confused Who desire my hurt. Let them be turned back because of their shame, Who say, “Aha, aha!”  Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; And let those who love Your salvation say continually, “Let God be magnified!”

Has God ever been slow in your life? He was in David's. This undoubtedly was one of the psalms written when David was being harassed by King Saul. So he cries out, "Lord, why don't You do something? You're being awfully slow."

Have you ever pondered the delays of God? He is never in a hurry, but once He starts to work, watch out! He patiently accomplishes His work. David pleads, "Make haste, make haste" (v. 1). He repeats his plea in verse 5: "I am poor and needy; make haste to me, O God!

You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay." If right now it seems as though God is tarrying instead of working, if it seems as though He is delaying instead of acting, what should you do? Seek Him and wait on Him and love Him. Verse 4 says it beautifully: "Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; and let those who love Your salvation say continually, 'Let God be magnified!"' We've seen that phrase before. David, when he was sinking, said, "I . . . will magnify Him with thanksgiving" (Ps. 69:30).

Here's a good lesson for us. When God is not moving as rapidly as we think He should, when our timetables do not coincide, what should we do? Rejoice in Him, love Him and magnify Him. Let Him worry about the timetable. God is always working, and we know that all things are working together for good (Rom. 8:28). But He waits for the right time to reveal His victories. Let Him watch the clock.

God's delays are a part of your character-building process. The next time God gives you a delay, encourage yourself by remembering that He never stops working for you, and He knows when and how to help you. Submit to His timetable and His care.

Titanic Tragedy Radios Life Messages To Us Today

 Titanic tragedy radios life messages to us today

“Oh, they built the ship Titanic,   

to sail the ocean blue

And they thought they built a ship

that the water couldn’t go through.

But the good Lord raised his hand,

said the ship would never land.

It was sad when the great
ship went down.”

Or so the version went that we sang at Camp Wise, in Chardon, Ohio, in the 1970s, a song that had been sung at summer camps for the previous 50 years, is sung still, and might very well be sung forever.

Exactly 100 years this Sunday, the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, taking the lives of 1,500 passengers. With a weekend sure to be dedicated to its memory, the question is: why? Why this shipwreck? What about it so resonates in the public’s mind? The Lusitania, torpedoed in 1915, took 1,198 lives and is a trivia question. Nobody sings about it.

The obvious answer is that the Titanic story has something for everybody. There is luxury and poverty, heroism and cowardice, its midnight iceberg rendezvous a payback for the boast of being “unsinkable.” Movies and books keep the memory alive, as does its presence in the language — almost everybody knows what rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic means.

As the son of a radio operator, who grew up listening to the urgent chirpings of Morse code coming out of the Hammarlund Super Pro radio receiver displayed in his den, the part of the Titanic story that always gets to me is the heroic tale of the Marconi operators, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride.

As the junior radioman — he was just 22 — Bride had the night shift. It was just after midnight, April 15, 1912, and he was telling Phillips to go to bed, when the captain stuck his head into the wireless room.

“We’ve struck an iceberg,” Captain Edward Smith said. “You better get ready to send out a call for assistance.”

Ten minutes later Smith was back, telling them to start calling for help.

Phillips began tapping out “CQD” ­— “CQ” meant “calling all stations” and “D” meant “distress” — as well as the ship’s location and call letters, “MGY.”

“He flashed away at it and we joked while he did so,” Bride recalled. “All of us made light of the disaster.”

Bride told Phillips that here was his opportunity to send an “SOS.”

“It’s the new call and it may be your last chance to send it,” Bride said. “We picked up first the steamship Frankfurt. We gave her our position and said we had struck an iceberg and needed assistance.”

Phillips reached the Cunard liner Carpathia. “Come at once!” he signaled. The liner replied it was 58 miles away and “coming hard.” Phillips told Bride to tell the captain. “I went through an awful mass of people to his cabin,” he later said. “The decks were full of scrambling men and women.”

Over the next two hours, as the ship slowly sank, Phillips kept sending out distress signals, hoping to find a closer ship ­— there was one, but its radio operator had gone to sleep. Bride kept tabs on what was going on outside.

“I went out on deck and looked around. The water was pretty close up to the boat deck. There was a great scramble aft, and how poor Phillips worked through it, I don’t know,” Bride later recalled.

Phillips suggested “with a sort of a laugh” that Bride look out and see if all the people were off in the boats, or if any boats were left. Bride found one collapsible boat left, only because the men were having an “awful time” trying to get it free. Captain Smith returned to the radio shack one last time.

“Men,” the captain said. “You have done your full duty. You can do no more. Abandon your cabin. Now it’s every man for himself.”

“I looked out,” Bride said. “The boat deck was awash. Phillips clung on sending and sending. He clung on for about 10 minutes, or maybe 15 minutes after the captain had released him. The water was then coming into our cabin. He was a brave man. I learned to love him that night and I suddenly felt for him a great reverence to see him standing there sticking to his work while everybody else was raging about.”

Bride returned to the collapsible boat, and was holding onto it when a wave crested over the deck and washed it away. He turned for one last look at the ship, “smoke and sparks were rushing out of her funnel.” Bride lost hold on that boat and had to swim through the icy water to the other boats, as the band played “Autumn” on deck. Hands pulled him into another lifeboat. Phillips perished.

For me, the Titanic radio operator story is a metaphor for life. It signals to us something about duty and perseverance in the face of difficulty. You’re not the captain. You didn’t design the ship. You don’t own it. But you stay at your station, no matter what, tapping out your messages with all the skill you have, as long as you can, until relieved.

Life of Valor

The introduction to the entire Life of Valor resource by former Navy SEALs Clint Bruce and Jeff Bramsteadt, based on the film Act of Valor.

The Code shapes the life and values of each and every Navy SEAL. Without it, they would be lost. Our life in Christ is the same.

Matthew Zavala

John 14:1-6

The Way, the Truth, and the Life

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.”

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Pray in Times of Trouble

Jonah 2:7 “When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.”

"Dear God, I pray that thru my journey in life that I follow Your will and not my own emotions. I want to do what You want me to do for my job, spouse, and lifestyle. Lead me and make me someone after your own heart. Amen."

Watch Your Words!

Proverbs 12:18 “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me!” At one time or another, all of us have sung this schoolyard song. But have you ever stopped to consider how incredibly untrue it is?

Granted, name-calling isn’t going to break any bones or have the same physical effect of hurling debris at someone. But let’s be honest—sometimes words inflict wounds that run deeper and last longer. Words have a powerful impact!

We see this portrayed perfectly in Proverbs 12:18. It says there’s a person whose words are like a sword piercing someone’s heart. You know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of words like that. Something is said that utterly cuts you down. It leaves you limping and lying on the battlefield of life.

On the flip side, there are also people whose words promote health. What they say has a way of infusing fresh life and vitality into us. We’re revived and invigorated to press on instead of dwelling in discouragement. Our circumstances haven’t changed, but our spirit has been strengthened by the “tongue of the wise.”

Words are powerful. They can damage and destroy, or they can encourage and edify. Again, we’ve been on the receiving end of this reality. But now we need to consider our role on the other side.

God has given most of us the capacity to communicate, to express ourselves through what we say. Remember, our words have a powerful impact on others, and we should be constantly watching our words to make sure they’re promoting health instead of piercing hearts.

Ephesians 4:29 “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear”

Fitting Into God's Foolishness

1 Corinthians 1:21, Paul gives us an interesting insight into how you and I please God.

“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”

God's methods are astounding.  To bring men and women into His family through the foolishness of preaching!  When people hear the gospel preached and believe it, God is pleased.

Now how is the gospel preached?  Through your life and mine.  Every one of us has been entrusted by God with some gift to communicate the gospel.  Perhaps you have been entrusted by God with unusual wealth.  Or maybe a marvelous singing voice, or the ability to communicate, or perhaps the skill to assimilate facts.

Whatever it is, God has put something in each of us that somehow fits into His great master plan of winning this lost world to Jesus Christ.

God has chosen to use these weak, fallible vessels to share the simple gospel message that the world is separated from Him because of sin.  In His mercy, God reached down to the human race when He sent His own Son, Who willingly gave up His life on the cross and died for our sins.  The price was paid.  God's eternal justice was satisfied.  And the Holy Spirit raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

That is the message our world so desperately needs to hear today!  God is pleased when you share that "foolishness."  So however God has gifted you, use that gift today to present a living Jesus to our dying world!

What’s At The Heart

Psalm 51:6 “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.”

Have you ever gone to a sawmill and watched them process timber? They take a big log out of the woods that may have bumps and knots on it, and they lay it on a cradle, running it through a saw, cutting off one side. Then they bring it back, turn it, and run it through again to cut off another side. When they’re finished, if you stand and look down it, it’s perfectly straight. But if you look at the end of it, the heart is still crooked. That’s the way it is with some individuals who are outwardly living the Christian life. But Jeremiah 17:9 warns the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. We need regeneration. We must be born again.

Winning Walk

Psalm 119:165 “Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.”

(Form Dr. Ed Young) Some years ago I was jogging through Houston’s Memorial Park, and took a painful fall. My problem was that I relaxed my focus on the path to speak to another runner. Before I knew it I had stumbled and thudded to the ground, gashing my head and face. As we move through the world, it’s vital we keep our eyes on God’s path. If we do that we need not fear stumbling. For the ancient Jews, that meant constant observance of the Law. But in the New Covenant, watching the path means keep our eyes on our Forerunner, Jesus Christ. 

Do You Believe?

John 11:25-26 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? 

Here was a house where the fear of God was, and on which his blessing rested; yet it was made a house of mourning. Grace will keep sorrow from the heart, but not from the house. 

When God, by his grace and providence, is coming towards us in ways of mercy and comfort, we should, like Martha, go forth by faith, hope, and prayer, to meet him. When Martha went to meet Jesus, Mary sat still in the house; this temper formerly had been an advantage to her, when it put her at Christ's feet to hear his word; but in the day of affliction, the same temper disposed her to melancholy. 

 It is our wisdom to watch against the temptations, and to make use of the advantages of our natural tempers. When we know not what in particular to ask or expect, let us refer ourselves to God; let him do as seems him good. To enlarge Martha's expectations, our Lord declared himself to be the Resurrection and the Life. In every sense he is the Resurrection; the source, the substance, the first-fruits, the cause of it. The redeemed soul lives after death in happiness; and after the resurrection, both body and soul are kept from all evil forever. When we have read or heard the word of Christ, about the great things of the other world, we should put it to ourselves, 

 Do we believe this truth? The crosses and comforts of this present time would not make such a deep impression upon us as they do, if we believed the things of eternity as we ought. 

When Christ our Master comes, he calls for us. He comes in his word and ordinances, and calls us to them, calls us by them, calls us to himself. Those who, in a day of peace, set themselves at Christ's feet to be taught by him, may with comfort, in a day of trouble, cast themselves at his feet, to find favor with him.

The Spiritual Soldier

Luke 14:33 “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

The people were following Jesus in great numbers, but for the wrong reasons. So He made a series of statements intentionally designed to thin out the ranks. He wanted to be left with those who really wanted to follow Him, truly committed disciples and soldiers.

Jesus laid out plainly what is necessary to be His disciple, to be a soldier in His service. In essence, Jesus said, "If you want to follow Me, you must love Me more than anybody else."

If someone is trying to hold you back, say to that person, "I'm sorry, but I am following Christ. If you want to walk with me, come on. You can be a spiritual soldier with me."

A spiritual soldier must also forsake all he or she has for Jesus. That means you take everything in your life and say, "This belongs to you, Lord."

That is what it means to be Jesus' disciple. That is what it means to be His soldier: you love Him more than anyone, more than anything—just as He loves you!