Anything under God's control is never out of control.

Attitude is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, money, circumstances, than failures and success, than what other people think, say, or do. It is more important than appearance, ability, or skill. It will make or break a business, a home, a friendship, an organization. The remarkable thing is I have a choice every day of what my attitude will be. I cannot change my past. I cannot change the actions of others. I cannot change the inevitable. The only thing I can change is attitude. Life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it.

We must cease striving and trust God to provide what He thinks is best and in whatever time He chooses to make it available. But this kind of trusting doesn't come naturally. It's a spiritual crisis of the will in which we must choose to exercise faith.

Fortunately, God made all varieties of people with a wide variety of interests and abilities. He has called people of every race and color who have been hurt by life in every manner imaginable. Even the scars of past abuse and injury can be the means of bringing healing to another. What wonderful opportunities to make disciples!

Grace has to be the loveliest word in the English language. It embodies almost every attractive quality we hope to find in others. Grace is a gift of the humble to the humiliated. Grace acknowledges the ugliness of sin by choosing to see beyond it. Grace accepts a person as someone worthy of kindness despite whatever grime or hard-shell casing keeps him or her separated from the rest of the world. Grace is a gift of tender mercy when it makes the least sense.

When the Lord makes it clear you're to follow Him in this new direction, focus fully on Him and refuse to be distracted by comparisons with others.

Your call will become clear as as your mind is transformed by the reading of Scripture and the internal work of God's Spirit. The Lord never hides His will from us. In time, as you obey the call first to follow, your destiny will unfold before you. The difficulty will lie in keeping other concerns from diverting your attention.

Fortunately Jesus didn't leave [the disciples]-or any of us-without hope or direction. Where we fail, Jesus succeeded. The only One who as able to recognize and follow His purpose from the beginning was Jesus. He alone was able to obey consistently and please God completely. And His divine mission was to make a way for each of us to do the same.

It takes faith to find personal significance in your relationship with God rather than how much money you earn, how beautiful you look, how many toys you own, how many trophies you collect, or how much territory you conquer and control.

God gave laws to His people to bless them, not to burden them. Every rule either elevates the quality of human life or restores one's relationship with God after a breach. He makes no extraneous demands and He is never capricious.

God doesn't work on our timetable. He has a plan that He will execute perfectly and for the highest, greatest good of all, and for His ultimate glory.

Choose to view life through God's eyes. This will not be easy because it doesn't come naturally to us. We cannot do this on our own. We have to allow God to elevate our vantage point. Start by reading His Word, the Bible...Pray and ask God to transform your thinking. Let Him do what you cannot. Ask Him to give you an eternal, divine perspective.

The size of a challenge should never be measured by what we have to offer. It will never be enough. Furthermore, provision is God's responsibility, not ours. We are merely called to commit what we have - even if it's no more than a sack lunch.

God never calls His people to accomplish anything without promising to supply their every need.

God has called His creation to find satisfaction in a personal relationship with Him, and stop trying to manage the world by conforming it to our expectations, and to allow Him to govern His creation. He continues to say through an ancient Hebrew worship song, "Be still and know that I am God!

To be "in Christ" is to place one's trust in Him for salvation from sin. To be "in Christ" is to trust His goodness, not our own; to trust that His sacrificial death on the cross paid the complete debt of death we owe for our sin; to trust that His resurrection gives us eternal life instead of relying upon our own ability to please God. To be "in Christ" is to claim, by faith, the free gift of salvation. To be "in Christ" is to enjoy a completely restored relationship with our Father in heaven by virtue of His Son's righteous standing.

Choose to view life through God's eyes.

Boldness in the course of a noble fight is worth the risk...If you stand on truth, you'll only regret your timidity later, but you'll never regret being bold.

Sin may have the power to kill and destroy, but God is the Creator of life. He can create it from nothing, and He can restore it from death.(John 11:25-26)

Jesus never commanded believers to produce fruit. Fruit is the *purpose* of the branch, but it is not the *responsibility* of the branch. The branch cannot produce anything on it's own. However, if it remains attached to the vine, it will receive life-sustaining sap, nourishment, strength, everything it needs.

The matters we or the world might consider trivial, He cares about and wants to remedy. He longs to relieve our worries and has promised to supply our most fundamental needs.

In the wilderness, God's covenant people struggled with a choice between feeding their bellies and nourishing their souls. God provided manna--a breadlike food that fell to the ground during the night--to sustain the wandering Israelites and to teach them how to value His Word more than physical fulfillment.

Israel's first king, Saul, looked like he was born for the role. He was tall, handsome, intelligent, and sensitive to God's leading. But he eventually lost most of his attractive qualities, the most important being obedience.

God never asked us to meet life's pressures and demands on our own terms or by relying upon our own strength. Nor did He demands that we win His favor by assembling an impressive portfolio of good deeds. Instead, He invites us to enter His rest.

God presents the Sabbath rest as a shelter we can enter. (Hebrews 4:1-11)

Life...as God intended it enables us to live above the drag of fear, superstition, shame, pessimism, guilt, anxiety, worry, and all the negativity that keeps people from seizing each day as a gift from Him.

The crisis of physical hunger is essentially a crisis of faith. What or whom will you trust to meet your most basic needs? Will you trust the God who made human bodies, or will you seek your own way? (Deuteronomy 8:1-3)

While God, for the most part, allows this cosmos [creation] to work according to the laws of nature, there is never a time when He is not actively involved in every detail of life.

When we panic, we instinctively turn to our own internal resources because we doubt Him.

Jesus didn't come to earth to establish a new religion. He came to restore a broken relationship. He came to make the primary, primary again. The secondary activity of obedience to the law of God was always intended to serve the primary activity: to love God and enjoy Him forever. When that is primary, the secondary becomes a labor of love, a joyful, and "easy" burden to bear. (Matthew 11:28-30

Faith itself cannot accomplish anything, yet without faith, no one can fly.

To require God to prove that He is able and willing to fulfill His promises would be proof positive that one does not trust Him.

The Promised Land was a tangible representation of God's ultimate desire for His people, but they failed to comprehend His gift for at least three reasons: It was unconditionally promised, it was outrageously generous, and it was absolutely free. None of those make sense in the world as we know it...

It's not enough merely to believe there is a God. You must believe in the God who is there.

At least one indication of unbelief is the tendency to measure life's challenges against our own adequacy instead of God's promises. To enter our Sabbath rest, we must put an end to self-reliance - trusting in our own abilities to overcome difficulties, rise above challenges, escape tragedies, or achieve personal greatness.

Elizabeth's barreness and advanced age--a double symbol of hopelessness--became the means by which God would announce to the world that nothing is impossible for Him.

Consistent, Timely encouragement has the staggering magnetic power to draw an immortal soul to the God of Hope. The one whose name is Wonderful Counselor.

The devil, darkness, and death may swagger and boast, the pangs of life will sting for a while longer, but don't worry; the forces of evil are breathing their last. Not to worry...He's risen!

[Jesus] tilted His head back, pulled up one last time to draw breath and cried, "Tetelestai!" It was a Greek expression most everyone present would have understood. It was an accounting term. Archaeologists have found papyrus tax receipts with "Tetelestai" written across them, meaning "paid in full." With Jesus' last breath on the cross, He declared the debt of sin cancelled, completely satisfied. Nothing else required. Not good deeds. Not generous donations. Not penance or confession or baptism or...or...or...nothing. The penalty for sin is death, and we were all born hopelessly in debt. He paid our debt in full by giving His life so that we might live forever.

Someone has said,”Education is going from an unconscious to conscious awareness of one’s ignorance.”..No one has a corner on wisdom. All the name-dropping in the world does not heighten the significance of our character. If anything, it reduces it. Our acute need is to cultivate a willingness to learn and to remain teachable.

If you allow it, [suffering] can be the means by which God brings you His greatest blessings.

Deep, contended joy comes from a place of complete security and confidence [in God] - even in the midst of trial.

Jesus has prepared the way and has made following our destiny possible, whereas we are helpless by ourselves. We can find and fulfill our purpose by responding to the clear, simple call of Jesus Christ: "Follow Me." He is the doorway to fulfilling our destiny, where our divine design and God-ordained purpose live in perfect harmony.

Peter's destiny lay along a different path from John's. And your calling is unlike anyone else's. But the call remains the same: "Follow Me!

We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.

While I wholeheartedly believe in choosing to approach every challenge with a great attitude, I don't mean that we should abandon authenticity and live in fantasyland.

Joy is a deeply felt contentment that transcends difficult circumstances and derives maximum enjoyment from every good experience.

Peter must have thought, "Who am I compared to Mr. Faithfulness (John)?" But Jesus clarified the issue. John was responsible for John. Peter was responsible for Peter. And each had only one command to heed: "Follow Me." (John 21:20-22)

Good intentions and earnest effort are not enough. Only Jesus can make an otherwise futile life productive.

Whatever we do, we must not treat the Great Commission like it's the Great Suggestion.

Let your passion become a passionate pursuit of Me. And as you follow, the sheep will follow.' (John 21:20-22)

In order to cease our striving, we must transfer our trust away from our own abilities, our own accomplishments, our own strength, and place it on His provision.

The abundance Jesus offers is a spiritual abundance that transcends circumstances, like income, health, living conditions, and even death. The abundant life is eternal.

Which should be an excellent reminder that when God tells you to do something, you’d better do it; He always has a reason.

After Peter came to recognize his own inadequacy, his utter inability to fulfill his destiny apart from obedience to his only true responsibility, he became a rock-solid leader. As his story unfolds in the book of acts, we can clearly see that when Peter kept his eyes on Jesus and followed Him, others followed to. And they followed by the thousands. Needed today: more Peters.

Isn't God the one who urges us to "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord"? Why do we always think that means singing? Seems to me the most obvious joyful sound on earth is laughter... I've seen folks quote verses like "Rejoice in the Lord always" while their faces look like they just buried a rich uncle who willed everything to his pregnant guinea pig. Something is missing.

God doesn't mock us. He never gives us a goal that we cannot accomplish in His strength. I want to assure you, you can glorify God, you MUST glorify God. But you have to determine deep within your heart that you're going to do it His way.

Hope doesn't require a massive chain where heavy links of logic hold it together. A thin wire will do...just strong enough to get us through the night until the winds die down.

Give us an intense distaste for things that displease You and a renewed pleasure in things that bring You honor and magnify Your truth.

...goals not bathed in prayer or brought in humility before the Lord turn out to be downright useless. They don't go anywhere. They don't accomplish anything.

...when you trust the Lord God to give you the next step, when you wait in humility upon Him, *He* will open the doors or close them, and you'll get to rest and relax until He says, 'Go.

While God is not the author of evil and He never prompts or condones sin, nothing occurs without His sovereign oversight. Others may choose to do evil deeds and God's people may suffer in the short term, but He will transform the evil intentions of evil people into opportunities for the enrichment of those in His care.

When you suffer and lose, that does not mean you are being disobedient to God. In fact, it might mean you're right in the center of His will. The path of obedience is often marked by times of suffering and loss.

Like sin itself, Satan appeals to the senses. He originated and perfected the art of disguising evil as good.

What's God saying to you now? "All things are possible to him who worries?" No. "All things are possible to him who attempts to work it out?" No. "All things are possible to him who believes. --Man to Man: Chuck Swindoll Selects His Most Significant Writings for Men

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters.Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.

When I have a wrong attitude, I look at life humanly. When I have a right attitude, I look at life divinely.

If you life is an example of glorifying God, others won't see your good works and glorify YOU, because they'll know what you are doing is for God's glory.

Believe me, once you have tasted worship—the kind of worship that captures your heart and rivets your full attention on the living Lord—nothing less satisfies. Nothing else even comes close. Once you have tasted true worship, you will never want to play church again.

If your motive is in any way to promote greatness for yourself, you're in the wrong calling.

...ask yourself, "Who's getting the glory in this ministry?" You see, if we do ministry OUR way, it won't be for His glory, because our ways are not His ways.

I cannot at the same time accept the glory and give God the glory... Glorifying God means being occupied with and committed to His ways rather than preoccupied with and determined my own way. It is being so thrilled with Him, so devoted to Him, so committed to Him that we cannot get enough of Him!

The ministry of the church is a genuine concern for others. We need to stop talking about it and start doing it. Rise.Rise and shine, friend. Everyone you meet today is on heaven's Most Wanted list.

In many (most?) churches there are programs and activities... but so little worship. There are songs and anthems and musicals... but so little worship. There are announcements and readings and prayers... but so little worship.

In solitude, struggles occur that no one else knows about. Inner battles are fought here that seldom become fodder for sermons or illustrations for books. God, who probes our deepest thoughts during protracted segments of solitude, opens our eyes to things that need attention. It is here He makes us aware of those things we try to hide from others.

[Jesus] plan called for action, and how He expressed it predicted its success. He didn't say "you *might* be my witnesses," or "you *could* be my witnesses," or even "you *should* be my witnesses." He said "you *will* be my witnesses.

In other words Jesus went into the desert to confront His enemy and throw down the gauntlet. He would prove Himself to be the legitimate shepherd of Israel by overcoming the temptations that had undone all of Israel's previous kings, including His mighty ancestor, King David.