Refreshing Our Spirits With Scripture

 3.6- Do you think you are too short or too tall?  The devil roams about on the earth accusing the children of God of things that are not true.  He tempts us to not trust God.  He lies about God's love for us.  If you are short here are some things you can do just as well as anyone else. Look for Jesus.  Look for him in the poor, the prisoners, the sick, the lonely the immigrant.  The broken and fallen. You can pray for crowds of people who are also seeking to connect with God and His love. You can move.  You can get into a better position to see Jesus than you have been in the past. You can receive Jesus into your home.  When you invite anyone into your home it blesses them greatly to see that kind of openness and trust.  Hospitality is a trust.  Have you been invited into a home as a guest.  You can let them know how this blessed you.  Who is the last person who invited you  to stay in their home with them for a while.  Let them know how this blessed you.   Whether you are short

 4.5- Today is the ninth year since we started planning and doing our ministry back in North Texas and it has been a joyful time. Teaching, writing and encouraging and being encouraged. An explosion of opportunity has come out of being slowed down by covid. I am sad about the many friends we have lost. The long haul consequences have been terrible. Please keep praying for these people and their families. Sheila and I have started to need canes and walkers to move about so we have a smaller circle of movement. Still, we are so blessed to have each other after 54 years. Our gin rummy score during the pandemic is about 250 to 230 and I will not say who leads. We have kids, grandkids and sibs who visit us when covid has allowed. We have beloved friends we connect with by text, phone, Zoom, FB, Twitter and Instagram. We are truly blessed and we want to thank God and all of you. There is an ambition we get from a 2,000 year old verse. "Make it your ambition to.. -lead a quiet life

 3.5- Things we could be anxious about. War. A covid plague. Death to those we love.  The church having been hit hard by people not being able to get together. Philippians 4.   6  Do not  [ e ] be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.   7  And the peace of God, which surpasses all  [ f ] comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

 3.4- My fire alarm. It has a problem. It is new and yet is not functioning exactly right. It chirps when there is no fire. It might be the power, but it is connected to the power of the house. It might be the back up battery is low, but that shouldn’t be because it is almost new. It has gone off at about 4 or 5 am for the last few days. This causes a variety of sleeping problems for us and we have a way of resetting it, but that seems to last only for 24 hours. There are noises it makes when I think it should be quiet. This reminds me of some teaching I have received since I was old enough to hear and remember what teachers have said to me. Larry, you need to not talk so much. I was called loquacious Larry by one teacher. I asked her what it meant and she said that I needed to go look it up. About 3,000 years ago a wise man wrote words that went something like this, “Better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you are fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” 2,000

 3.3- Practicality Practicality is the ability to live Christianity in a way that touches others profoundly, simply and quickly. It is patterning my life after Jesus’, doing good everywhere I go. 1 Corinthians 11. 11  Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. Ephesians 4. 32  Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving each other,  just as God in Christ also has forgiven  [ y ] you. Ephesians 5. 5  Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;   2  and walk in love, just as Christ also loved  [ a ] you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God  [ b ] as a fragrant aroma.

 3.2- A Designed Deficiency                     Isaiah 22:8-11                        David H. Roper     There’s a natural spring that rises on the east side of the city of Jerusalem. In ancient times it was the city’s only water supply and was located outside the walls. Thus it was the point of Jerusalem’s greatest vulnerability. The exposed spring meant that the city, otherwise impenetrable, could be forced to surrender if an attacker were to divert or dam the spring.     King Hezekiah addressed this weakness by driving a tunnel through 1,750 feet of solid rock from the spring into the city where it flowed into the “Lower Pool” (2 Kings 20:20;     2 Chronicles 32:2-4). But in all of this, Hezekiah “did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago” (Isaiah 22:11). Planned what?     God Himself “planned” the city of Jerusalem in such a way that its water supply was unprotected. The spring outside the wall was a constant reminder that the inhabitan

 3.1- The Leaning Tower                        Matthew 7:24-27                                Adam Holz     You’ve probably heard of the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, but have you heard of the leaning tower of San Francisco? It’s called the Millennium Tower. Built in 2008, this fifty-eight-story skyscraper stands proudly—but slightly crookedly – in downtown San Francisco.     The problem? Its engineers didn’t dig a deep enough foundation. So now they’re being forced to retrofit the foundation with repairs that may cost more than the entire tower did when it was originally built – a fix that some believe is necessary to keep it from collapsing during an earthquake.     The painful lesson here? Foundations matter. When your foundation isn’t solid, catastrophe could ensue. Jesus taught something similar near the end of His Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7:24-27, He contrasts two builders, one who built on a rock, another on sand. When a storm inevitably came, only the hous

 2.28- " God Resists the Proud "                     I Peter 5:5                        Max Lucado     When the mighty fall, the fall is mighty.                                                                            One minute King Nebuchadnezzar was on the cover of "Time® Magazine." The next, he was banished like a creature and munching on grass ( Daniel 4:1-33 ). We are left with a lesson: God hates pride.     God resists the proud because the proud resist God. Arrogance stiffens the knee so it will not kneel, hardens the heart so it will not admit to sin. The heart of pride never confesses, never repents, never feels the need for forgiveness. Pride not only prevents reconciliation with God; it prevents reconciliation with people. How many apologies have gone unoffered due to the lack of humility?     Pride comes at a high price, my friend. Don't pay it. Choose instead to stand on the offer of grace: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the