 “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26) “It’s a painful irony that the very things that may have kept us safe growing up ultimately get in the way of our becoming the parents, partners, and/or people we want to be.” Brene’ Brown “I knew a man who lost his heart. His wife did not have it, and his children did not have it, and he did not seem as if he had it himself…He did not seem to have a heart. A poor woman owed him a little rent. Out she went into the street. He had no heart. A person had fallen back a little in the payment of money that he had lent him. The debtor’s little children were crying for bread. The man did not care who cried for hunger, or what became of the children. He would have his money. He had lost his heart. I never could make out where it was until I went to his house one day, and I saw a huge chest. I think they called it an iron safe: it stood behind the door of an inner room; and when he unlocked it with a heavy key, and the bolts were shot, and the inside was opened, there was a musty, fusty thing within it, as dry and dead as the kernel of a walnut seven years old. It was his heart. If you have locked up your heart in an iron safe,” so that you are not free to give yourself fully to your relationship with others, let alone with God, get it out.” Charles Spurgeon A loving heart! GiGi❤️
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 “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” (James 4:14) “You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through your veins. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.” Brene’ Brown “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow; it is a raven’s croak of evil omen. Today, today, today, today, today; that is the silver trumpet of salvation, and he that hears it shall live. God grant that we may not forever be crying out, ‘tomorrow,’ but at once give our hearts to him!” Charles Spurgeon Live life to the fullest today. GiGi❤️  “How long shall ye halt between two opinions?” (1 Kings 18:21a) Being true to yourself is one of the perks of serving the one and only true living God. It is when one gives God their heart, all of it, that one is truly free and accepting of oneself, the good, bad and ugly. Sometimes, “we are torn between desperately wanting everyone to see our struggle so that we can stop pretending and desperately doing whatever it takes to make sure no one ever sees anything except what we’ve edited and approved for posting.” Brene Brown “Do not be shilly-shallying any longer. Let your heart go one way or the other. If the devil be worth loving, give him your heart, and serve him; but if Christ be worth loving, give him your heart, and have done with hesitation. Turn over to Jesus once for all. Oh, may his Spirit turn you, and you shall be turned, and his name shall have the praise!” Charles Spurgeon No more “Shelly-shallying,” just be who God made you to be, YOURSELF! GiGi❤️  “Why could we not drive it out?” (Matthew 17:19) The Lord will not have us always be in a rut. Therefore, he does what men do sometimes when they divert traffic by putting detours up to turn travelers off from one side of the road to another. In that way, the epileptic child was put right in the disciples' road, so that they should not go on sleepily doing the same work without heart and without thought. This strange case wakes them up; they have something to deal with now that is very different from what they were doing before. The Lord has come and disrupted the routine, the mundane, the rut. The child’s condition wakes them up; similar to how the Lord permits us sometimes to have trouble in the church, or a shock in the family, that we may wake right up. He will not allow us to go on mechanically any further, not another hour or day with no spiritual life in us. Getting out of the rut will require us to exercise our faith. GiGi❤️ Taken from, The Secret of Failure: March 1st, 1896, Delivered by C. H. SPURGEON, 
“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6) It is said of Midas, that he had the power to turn everything into gold by the touch of his hand; and it is true of faith—it can turn everything into gold. Yet, the Lord is not pleased when we do not exercise our faith. Charles Spurgeon “Believing in the resurrected Christ leads to salvation but, to please God, what we believe has to be put into practice.” Faith is practicing what we believe. GiGi❤️  “Beloved, after all it is but a light thing to render to our heavenly Father our poor thanks, after He has given us our lives. To give Him thanks is the least we can do. He gives us breath—shall we not breathe out His praise? He fills our mouth with good things—shall we not speak well of His name?” Charles Spurgeon  “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25) Charles Spurgeon understood that when it came to faith, some will choose little faith over great faith. Some will choose to be an owl rather than an eagle. Why? Because it is easier and requires less work. Some will “love darkness, and fly about its gloom and misery,” rather than do the work to increase their faith and rise above into the light. Yet, whatever morsel of faith we have, it will require our preserving it. And if we want to increase it, it will require us to do the work. “Take care of your faith, my friends; for it's very often so weak, that it demands all your attention. I do not know whether any of you feel that your faith is too strong; but I never feel mine to be strong enough. It seems to be exactly strong enough to bear the day's troubles. I could not afford to lose even the tiniest bit of it; it is just enough, and no more. As for some of us, our faith is so weak that the least trouble threatens to devour it. The goat passes and nips its tender shoot, the winter chills and freezes it; it is almost ready to die. And my faith very often hangs upon the feeblest thread; it appears ready to expire. Take care of your faith, Christian take care of your faith. If you have to leave something outdoors and neglect it overnight, whatever you do, do not leave that little child of faith. Do not allow it to be exposed to the frost, be sure to bring your faith inside to keep it warm. Take care of faith, for it is so weak generally, it needs to be well preserved.” Exercising your faith strengthens it. GiGi❤️  “And nothing shall be impossible unto you.” (Matthew 17:20b) It will take more than us talking faith; life will require us to activate it. In some cases, faith must rise to prayer, and must manifest itself mainly by prayer, or else nothing will happen. I am afraid that these disciples were so satisfied with the way they normally conducted healing, that they proceeded to work upon this epileptic child without prayer. The Savior says, "This kind—this sort of devil—this peculiarly furious kind of demon—will not go out by the exercise of ordinary faith. It must be faith that rises into prayer.” The mountain will be moved and the strong sycamore tree will be uprooted, “if faith is strong.” “The devil is mighty, but God is almighty.” GiGi❤️ The Secret of Failure, February 25, 1886 by C. H. SPURGEON 
“And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed.” (Matthew 17:20) When the disciples came upon the epileptic child and found their prayers could not deliver the child as they had for so many others, they were baffled. They wondered why was it that their prayers were not effective? There must have been great frustration and derision. “I think our Lord intends that we should often have something fresh come across our path to keep us from getting into ruts. It is a very bad thing for anyone when even the Christian life gets to be merely mechanical,” even our prayers. “If we are to do the Lord’s work, and to do it successfully, we must have faith in him…we must look beyond our former successes, we must look for a present anointing by the Holy Spirit.” “‘We could not do it; we could not cast him out’…We cannot, but he can.” GiGi❤️ Taken from Charles Spurgeon: February 25, 1886, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 42  ”Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” (1 Peter 3:8-9) “Acceptance gives us the power to move forward in relationships. Hurting other people feels terrible. But it happens, and instead of wallowing in our sorrow, we take responsibility for the pain we’ve caused, listen intently to understand the other persons suffering, offer a genuine apology, and revitalize your commitment to acting with compassion.” Acceptance requires humility.. GiGi❤️ |
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