(Archived - New Link in Post) Prayers Request Thread!

See God In His Creation

"But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you." Job 12:7-8

Taking the time to get away and enjoy the outdoors is a pleasurable endeavor for just about anyone. But for a man of God, these activities offer something more, something of a truly spiritual nature.

One of the great things about fishing, hiking, camping, or any other activity that takes place in the outdoors is just being in the places where you can enjoy those things. These are the settings where you see God's handiwork clear of man-made distractions.

No, the creation is not God Himself, but you can learn some great truths about His nature and character by looking at the wonder of what He has created. So the next time you head out to enjoy nature, remember to think of your heavenly Father. It's in those settings where you just enjoy His company, maybe even hear His voice, away from the word's noise.

Father, I thank You for how You speak to me through Your creation. Fill my heart with an awe of Your glory, creativity, and power, I ask.

Taken From: 3-Minute Devotions for Men

True Obedience In Civil And Religious Oppression

Christopher Goodman (c 1521-1603)

But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye-Acts 4:19

There is nothing to be compared to true obedience in preserving the Commonwealth of towns, cities, and kingdoms or maintaining true religion, Christian peace, and concord. For by that means, every man is instructed how to render into God His due honor and  glory, and to man that which his office requires. Even so, nothing is more hateful to God, neither more harmful to man, than to be so bewitched with Satan's false illusions that they are not able to distinguish between obedience and disobedience. But as men without all judgment and natural sense, they take the one for the other, being in themselves plainly contrary. That alone is the cause of all disorder and lamentable confusion where with the entire world is both this day, and has been also from the beginning most miserably defaced and oppressed.

For when vile man, replenished with pride, vainglory, and gross ignorance, measures obedience with the crooked line of his own corrupt judgment and not with the infallible truth of God's holy Word, he must prefer his own decrees, fantasies, and ordinances to comfortable laws and living precepts of God his Creator. Then in place of justice, he receives injustice; for right, wrong; for virtue, vice; for law, will; for love, hatred; for truth, falsehood; for plain dealing, dissimulation; for religion, superstition; for true worship, detestable idolatry; and to be brief, for God, Satan, for Christ, Antichrist; and with Antichrist, he receives such plagues of God and disorder among men as are this day set before our eyes to behold in all places throughout the universal world and have been likewise even from the beginning.

Faith Note

Faith is the whole man in action, but primarily the inner man. We must know; therefore, how to win our battles within before waging them without. Indeed, every battle is in fact won of victory within, and the spoils of victory gathered outside.-The Spontaneous You

Faith Note

We must use faith. We do use faith. No man has ever lived his life without it.

Faith alone makes all the facts of life, known and unknown, facts of personal experience to each of us. We breath by faith, and the air is ours; we eat by faith, and the food nourishes us.-The Liberating Secret

Faith Note

I have to leap into the unknown, I have to go beyond reason. From the center of my personality, called in the Bible my spirit or my heart, I have to make a deliberate choice, a leap into the dark.-The Spontaneous You.

O Gracious Light Phos bilaron

O gracious Light,

pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven, 

O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!

Now as we come to the setting of the sun,

and our eyes behold the vesper light,

we sin thy praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Thou art worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,

O Son of God, O Giver of life,

and to be glorified through all the worlds.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen

Taken from: The Book of Common Prayer

Hi friends.

I don't want to scare you. Is it the enemy who is going after my thoughts/feelings? I have the sickness of CFS/ME (cronique fatigue syndrom) and have to stay in bed/cauch all day. I can manage that. But now these feelings/thoughts come to me the 1/2 of the day that I'm d y i ng. Well - I'm not afraid of that because Jesus Christ has saved me and I'm going to heaven. I know we have authority over thoughts/feelings through Christ - so - is there any of you who could ask God to take authority and forbid these thoughts/feelings to dwell in my mind in the name of Jesus Christ.