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Feb.21.07: Light for the Day"Faithfulness and Work"
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-- 1 Peter 4:10-11 10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, Faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. -- 1 Corinthians 10:31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, Do it all for the glory of God. -- Colossians 3:17, 23 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, Do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, Giving thanks to God the Father through Him. 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, As working for the Lord, not for men. God, I don’t have great faith, but I can be faithful. My belief in You may be seasonal, but my faithfulness will not. I will follow in the way of Christ. I will act as though my life and the lives of others matter. I will love. I have no greater gift to offer than my life. Take it. -- Real Live Preacher For all your days prepare and meet them ever, when you are the anvil, bear -- when you are the hammer, strike. A blacksmith works at his forge, using his well-muscled arm to strike hearty blows on the hot bars of iron before him. His project is a great chain, the kind used to hold the anchor of a ship. The blacksmith does his work faithfully and well. Every link is made of good metal, and all are soundly welded together. Months, then years, go by. The old blacksmith dies and is forgotten. A ship sets out to sea and on its voyage, is engulfed by a raging storm. The captain orders that the anchor be cast. Fierce winds and high waves threaten the vessel. The entire crew, and most of the passengers, know their fate depends on whether the chain will hold their ship to the anchor. All through the dark night and raging storm the anchor holds fast and at last, the storm abates. All aboard greet the dawn with gladness and a hymn of thanks-giving to God for their deliverance. Does the story have a hero? Of course. The one who wielded a simple hammer and anvil with skill and good conscience -- steadily doing his work and riding out the waves of his own life to create the best he could for others. How many such heroes are there, unsung, yet true? You can be one, too. -- GLDB -- Galatians 5:22-23 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, Faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. -- Hebrews 3:6-8 6 But Christ is Faithful as a Son over God’s house. And we are His house, if we hold on to our courage and the Hope of which we boast 7 So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear His voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert." (2 Chron. 7:14) -- Matthew 24:45-46 45 Who, then, is the Faithful and wise servant? The master will put that person in charge of giving the other servants their food at the right time. 46 That servant will be blessed if his master finds him doing this job when he comes. -- 2 Timothy 2:12-13 12 If we endure, we will rule with Him. If we disown Him, He will disown us. 13 If we are unFaithful, He remains Faithful because He cannot deny Himself. -- 3 John 1:3-6 3 It gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your Faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 5 Dear friend, you are Faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you. 6 They have told the church about your love. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. -- Romans 14:7-8 7 It’s clear that we don’t live to honor ourselves, and we don’t die to honor ourselves. 8 If we live, we live to honor the Lord; and if we die, we die to honor the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. -- 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 23 May the God who gives peace make you holy in every way. May He keep your whole being -- spirit, soul, and body -- blameless when our Lord Jesus Christ comes. 24 The One who calls you is Faithful, and He will do this. -- Romans 12:12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, Faithful in prayer. -- 2 Timothy 2:15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by Him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the Word of Truth. -- 1 Timothy 4:12, 16 12 Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. 16 Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. -- Galatians 1:10 Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant. -- 1 Thessalonians 2:3-4 3 So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery. 4 For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. -- 2 Corinthians 3:5-6 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant -- not of the letter but of the Spirit; For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. -- Hebrews 13:18 Pray for us. We are sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honorably in every way. -- Proverbs 3:1-10 1 My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, 2 for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity. 3 Let love and Faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. 4 Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. 7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. 8 This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. 9 Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; 10 then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. -- Proverbs 16:3 Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. -- Psalms 33:4-5, 8, 11-12 4 For the Word of the LORD is right and true; He is Faithful in all He does. 5 The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of His unfailing love. 8 Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere Him. 11 But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations. 12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people He chose for His inheritance. -- Psalms 57:10-11 10 For great is Your love, reaching to the heavens; Your Faithfulness reaches to the skies. 11 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let Your glory be over all the earth. + FAITHFULNESS + Integrity combined with faithfulness is a powerful force and worthy of great respect. -- Real Live Preacher Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles. -- Confucius Never confuse the faith with the supposedly faithful. -- Randy K. Milholland. An honest man is the noblest work of God. -- Alexander Pope + WORK + If you do not wish for His kingdom do not pray for it. But if you do you must do more than pray for it, you must work for it. -- Ruskin Pray as if everything depended upon God and work as if everything depended upon man. -- Francis C. Spellman Teach us, O Lord, the disciplines of patience, for to wait is often harder than to work. -- Peter Marshall In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you. -- Leo Tolstoy Work is not always required... there is such a thing as sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected. -- George McDonald It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity. -- Mahatma Gandhi It is impossible to enjoy idling unless there is plenty of work to do. -- Jerome K. Jerome Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them. -- Paul Hawken, Good leadership consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people. -- John D. Rockefeller It's not the hours you put in your work that counts, it's the work you put in the hours. -- Sam Ewing Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy. -- Jim Hightower One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. -- Elbert Hubbard You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough. -- Joe E. Lewis I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently. -- Ernest Hemingway By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day. -- Robert Frost The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them. -- Robert Frost The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work. -- Robert Frost It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you could hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction. -- Beecher We don't work for each other, We work with each other. -- Stanley C. Gault Threats don't work with the person who's got nothing to lose. -- Maduro Ash One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. -- B. Russell No matter how much pressure you feel at work, if you could find ways to relax for at least five minutes every hour, you'd be more productive. -- Dr. Joyce Brothers I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun. -- Thomas A. Edison Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. -- Aristotle Brains first and then Hard Work. -- Eeyore Dreams never hurt anybody if you keep working right behind the dreams to make as much of them become real as you can. -- Frank W. Woolworth When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. -- R. Buckminster Fuller If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. -- Sir Joshua Reynolds Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. -- Theodore Roosevelt If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things. -- Plato Intellectual "work" is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. -- Mark Twain Let us be grateful to Adam, our benefactor. He cut us out of the "blessing" of idleness and won for us the "curse" of labor. -- Mark Twain It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you: the one to slander you, and the other to bring the news to you. -- Mark Twain A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized. -- Fred Allen I never feel age ... If you have creative work, you don't have age or time. -- Louise Nevelson My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there. -- Indira Gandhi If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus Z. Work is x; y is play; and Z is keeping your mouth shut. -- Albert Einstein And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. -- Isaiah 32:17 Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love. -- David McCullough Get happiness out of your work or you may never know what happiness is. -- Elbert Hubbard |