Ralph Marston

When a huge trial comes your way and stays there for awhile, it seems as if it tries to become a part of you. If you are not careful, it can change your whole personality and make you go from being cheerful and lively to bitter, depressed or moody. God never intended for you to carry a huge burden on your own with no help from Him in any way.

Matthew 11: 28-30

Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

The following quote is from Charles Finney, who explains it very well.

1. Then let it be understood that Christ’s real yoke, or the true service of Christ, is never hard. His real yoke is never heavy. It is self-will and selfishness that at any time fault the yoke or the service of Christ.

2. If what we call religion is burdensome, it is not Christ’s yoke, it is not Christ’s religion. If we make an uphill business of it, and if we find it “hard to obey, and harder still to love,” Christ says to us, Who has required this at your hand? What I require of you is a love-service, not this slavish service. If you love me not, if you do not serve me from love, I abhor your doings. Let no one think himself truly religious whose religion is a bondage, and not the highest liberty.

3. Whatever is hard in religion is made so by our want of heart, our want of love, our want of confidence; and is therefore not Christ’s yoke at all. It is not true religion, it is not Christian liberty, but legal bondage.

4. All truly religious duties are easy. If we make them hard, they are not a love-service, and not what Christ requires. If we make them hard we spoil them. If we go complainingly about his service, grumbling about the difficulties and the hardness of his service, he loathes our bondage, he cannot accept it.

I know that many times I have lived in huge bondage because I took on burdens and problems that I should have given to God and left with Him to work out when the time was right.

Charles Finney has written such an awesome definition of the difference between living in bondage and living in freedom.

Make the choice right now that you will choose the way of Christ’s yoke of freedom!

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Oh that we could really understand the scope of what He accomplished through His death on the cross. It would radically change our lives forever. I pray that God will truly help me understand!

Amazing Love Video

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Handbook for Victorious Christian Living - practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

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We never find Adam afraid of God, nor of any manifestation of Deity while he was in Paradise an obedient creature, but no sooner had he touched the fatal fruit than he found that he was naked, and hid himself. When he heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, Adam was afraid and hid himself from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

Sin makes miserable cowards of us all. See the man who once could hold delightful converse with his Maker, now dreading to hear his Maker’s voice and skulking in the grove like a felon, who knows his guilt, and is afraid to meet the officers of justice. Beloved, in order to remove this dread nightmare of slavish fear from the breast of humanity, where its horrible influence represses all the noblest aspirations of the soul, our Lord Jesus Christ came in the flesh.

From a sermon entitled “God Incarnate, The End Of Fear,” delivered December 23, 1866.

The Daily Spurgeon

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Handbook for Victorious Christian Living – practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

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He was given a slingshot to play with out in the woods. He practiced in the woods; but he could never hit the target. Getting a little discouraged, he headed back for dinner. As he was walking back he saw Grandma’s pet duck.

Just out of impulse, he let the slingshot fly, hit the duck square in the head and killed it. He was shocked and grieved! In a panic, he hid the dead duck in the wood pile; only to see his Sister watching! Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing.

After lunch the next day Grandma said, “Sally, let’s wash the dishes.”

But Sally said, “Grandma, Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen.” Then she whispered to him, “Remember the duck?’

So Johnny did the dishes.

Later that day, Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing and Grandma said, “I’m sorry but I need Sally to help make supper.”

Sally just smiled and said, “Well, that’s all right because Johnny told me he wanted to help.”

She whispered again, “Remember the duck?” So Sally went fishing and Johnny stayed to help.

After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally’s; he finally couldn’t stand it any longer. He came to Grandma and confessed that he had killed the duck. Grandma knelt down, gave him a hug and said, “Sweetheart, I know. You see, I was standing at the window and I saw the whole thing, but because I love you, I forgave you. I was just wondering how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.”

Thought for the day and every day thereafter:

Whatever is in your past, whatever you have done, and the devil keeps throwing it up in your face (lying, cheating, debt, fear, bad habits, hatred, anger, bitterness, etc.) whatever it is, you need to know…
God was standing at the window and He saw the whole thing.

He has seen your whole life… He wants you to know that He loves you and that you are forgiven. He’s just wondering how long you will let the devil make a slave of you. The great thing about God is that when you ask for forgiveness; He not only forgives you, but He forgets. It is by God’s grace and mercy that we are saved.

God is at the window!

When Jesus died on the cross; He was thinking of you!
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The most splendid future will always depend upon the necessity to release the past; You cannot move forward in life unless you learn from your past mistakes and move on.

Anonymous

Psalm 103: 10 -12

He (God) hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions (sins) from us.

I think we all know someone who is stuck in the past. It doesn’t always have to be something bad that keeps them there, even though we mostly think of it that way. Sometimes people have a period of time when everything just seems to go fantastic. They have no major financial problems, things go well with family members, and everything just seems to fall into place all around; then they get stuck, wish they could continue to stay there forever, and can’t seem to move forward even though circumstances may have changed for the worse.

Many parents would like to go back to the time when their children were smaller and living at home. Living in the past has a tendency to make us forget the bad things and remember all the great ones.

We all make mistakes and do things we are not proud of. Some of our mistakes are humongous and may have messed up our life and affected the lives of our family members; then other mistakes are just everyday ones that would be considered small, but still have affected us greatly.

There can also be bad things done to you that you have no control over. As terrible as they might be, you still must confront them and let God minister healing to you. There is no way to move forward as long as you are stuck in the past. Don’t let Satan convince you that you are better off staying where you are because moving forward would be too painful. All he wants is to keep you trapped and living the same pain over and over again. He never has your best interest at heart, where God ALWAYS does.

Satan can use guilt in a mighty way and for a variety of reasons. He is a master at telling you that you are not worthy of forgiveness, and puts ideas into your head that God will never be able to use you again or restore you.

Satan is also the father of all lies, and you must recognize that and tell him to leave you alone in the Name of Jesus, and mean it with all your heart.

Read the Bible and find out the truth. Then when Satan tries to tell you a lie, you can easily recognize it and tell him that he has no authority over you any more.

He may try to drag you down for awhile, but every time you refuse to believe his lies, you are gaining more and more ground towards living a life of victory.

Just as the Bible verses above say, when you ask God to forgive you with a truly repentant heart, the sin is gone from your life right then and He forgets about it. It is covered under the Blood of Jesus and you are now clean.

NEVER again let Satan make you believe you are not worthy of forgiveness, because that is a lie.

When you have been forgiven, do whatever the Holy Spirit tells you as far as making things right with others. You need to truly seek His guidance and follow it. Don’t have too much pride to go to someone and make things right if that is what He tells you to do.

Do whatever you have to do in order to move on with your life. We all make mistakes, but God can cleanse, purify, and restore our heart and life in a miraculous way.

Make sure that you do whatever it takes to walk in God’s peace and joy again.

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Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

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People need help in different ways, and sometimes what they think they need will ultimately bring them down.

We can each do our part by asking the Holy Spirit to show us exactly what we can do to help; He knows what will be best for them and it will always be the right thing at the right time.

Ask the Holy Spirit to give you compassion for others and the wisdom to know how to help them.

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Every Christian knows someone who has never believed in Jesus as His personal Savior, and most of us have someone in our own extended family. We see the same people everyday and many times they may never know that we are a Christian because we don’t talk about it.

Hell is a literal place, and every person (good or bad) will go there who has not accepted Jesus as personal Savior. This video really made me think about how I need to have a much greater passion for the lost. God expects me to live my life in a way that others will know that I have something they desperately need.

You don’t have to be a preacher, professor, or Bible theologian; just tell them what a difference God has made in your life. Let them see that you handle problems differently and have a peace and joy that can only come from your Heavenly Father.

What you do has a much greater impact on others than what you say. Talk is cheap, but actions are gold. Ask God to give you a heart for the lost and live your life in a way that truly shows how Great your God is.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFZ1pt0WX5c&feature=related]

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As a mother myself, it is hard to even imagine the horrible pain that Mary must have felt as she watched her beloved son being beaten almost to the point of death; then if that wasn’t enough, he had to carry his own cross to be crucified and endure the pain and humiliation of that even though He had done nothing to deserve this kind of horrible death.

I feel sure that those graphic images stayed in her mind for many years to come. Only a mother’s love could have kept her standing there at the foot of the cross.

Even though she knew Jesus had supernaturally come from God to perform a specific task, she still loved Him dearly as any good mother would love her child and must have missed Him terribly when He had to leave.

Spend some time today contemplating the awesome love that Jesus displayed for you when He died on the cross for your sin.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0xLkI4FPBk]

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Handbook for Victorious Christian Living

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As my life has gotten busier, this is one requirement that I have made for myself – to live in the present with everything I do.

I don’t always achieve it 100% of the time, but I really try because I don’t want to be doing one thing and thinking about all the other things I need to do, or how far behind I am in certain areas. I never really enjoy anything when I let myself fall into that trap.

I get overwhelmed very easily because when I am in that mode, I basically think from a standpoint of fear. All that does is cripple you so that you cannot look at things in a logical or creative way. All you see is how overwhelmed you are.

God is pleased with living in the present, because when you live each moment to the fullest you are more open for Him to speak to you about His plans. You will have much more peace for yourself and live in more harmony with others.

Make the choice today that you will live in the “present” and enjoy each moment to its very fullest. Just think of how much better your life can be.

Check out my other sites:

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living

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This is just another thing that shows you the glory of God, and how He cares for the smallest of details in His creation. If He cares this much for a plant, how much more does He care for you.

I am continually amazed at how much He loves me even though I mess up and disappoint Him with my actions. God draws each of His children to Him and wants to show us just how much He really loves us.

I want to always be “twining” for God like this vine does for the stick that it will wrap around to grow on.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTljaIVseTc&hl=en&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1]

Please check out my other sites:

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Power of the Living Word

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