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Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

Remember this: Coals stay hot if they stay close together, but they grow cold if they’re isolated. You know those last coals left in your fire? If you want to keep them burning, you push them together. If you let one of those hot coals get off by itself, pretty soon the fire will go out.

That’s the way it is in the body of Christ when it comes to revival. That’s why you need to stay close to other people who are serious about seeking God.

You need to have among your friends those who are pursuing God with all their hearts. Why? Because you need the encouragement, you need the accountability, you need the prayer, and you need people in your face saying, “Why are you whining? Are you bitter? How’s your time with God been? Are you walking in the Spirit? How can I pray for you? What’s God doing in your heart?”

We need to be asking each other those questions, keeping our hearts close to each other as we seek to stay close to the Lord.

~Nancy Leigh DeMoss in “The Soil“

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Beauty Supplements

Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

Suppose you knew a teenage boy who said, “I want to think much on all occasions of my dying.”

We might worry about a young man like that. But these words actually came from Jonathan Edwards, who wrote seventy resolutions for his life before the age of twenty.

Edwards was wise enough to realize he needed to make the most of life since death would be a reality.

He said, “I frequently hear people in old age say how they would live if they were to live their lives over again.” So here’s a young man looking at older people, and he hears them say, “I’d like to do this differently if I could live my life again.”

Edwards didn’t want that to happen to him, so he thought through the end of his life while he still had time to shape it. He wrote, “Resolved, that I will live as I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age.”

What could you do today that will be an investment in tomorrow?

~Nancy Leigh DeMoss in “On All Occasions“

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Beauty Supplements

Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

The source of most of the problems people have in their Christian lives relates to two things: either they are not worshiping six days a week with their life, or they are not worshiping one day a week with the assembly of the saints. We need both.

If you go to church only when it is convenient, you will never be very fruitful as a Christian. You can’t thrive spiritually on your own; you need to have the spiritual stimulation of fellow believers. We live in such an easy-come, easy-go, casual, flippant society that people don’t make consistent, faithful commitments, and then they wonder why they fail.

The answer is clear. Our spiritual growth and stability cannot flourish without the support and mutual encouragement of other Christians.

~John MacArthur in Worship: The Ultimate Priority

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Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

They say that I am growing old; I’ve heard them say times untold,
In language plain and bold – but I am not growing old.
This frail old shell in which I dwell is growing old, I know full well!
But I am not the shell.
What if my hair is turning gray; gray hairs are honorable they say.
What if my eyesight’s growing dim; I still can see to follow Him
Who sacrificed His life for me – upon the Cross at Calvary!

Why should I care if times old plough has left its furrows on my brow?
Another house, not made with hands awaits me in the Glory Land.
What though I falter in my walk and though my tongue refuse to talk?
I still can tread the narrow way; I still can watch and praise and pray!
The robe of flesh I’ll drop and rise to seize the everlasting prize
I’ll meet you on the streets of gold and prove I am NOT growing old.

~by Ernest Barkaway as shared by Joni Eareckson Tada in “Gray-Haired Splendor,” Joni and Friends Daily Devotional, March 30, 2012

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Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

I used to think that the doctrine of omniscience was anything but reassuring. When I was young, my parents often said, “We may not know what you do, but God does. He sees everything.” I thought of that as a threat, something that only made me fearful of doing anything wrong. 

To be sure, God’s omniscience is an effective deterrent to sin. God is one teacher who never leaves the room. Second Corinthians 5:10 tells us that someday we will be called to account for all the things that we’ve done in the body. And 1 Corinthians 4:5 says that the Lord will “bring to light the things hidden in darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts.” That is a powerful motivation to live righteously.

My parents were right; God knows everything we do. And yet His correction is always with love. Peter denied the Lord three times at His crucifixion. In John 21, the Lord confronted Peter and asked, “Do you love Me?” (v. 16). Peter assured the Lord that he loved Him. The Lord asked again—a total of three times. Finally Peter said, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You” (v. 17). Peter appealed to Jesus’ omniscience rather than his own visible behavior to verify his love.

First John 3:19-20 says, “We…will assure our heart before Him, in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” God’s omnipotence does more for us than merely act as a watchdog; it is a source of our confidence and assurance, for by it He sees beyond our disobedience and failure, to a heart of love for Him.

~John MacArthur in Worship: The Ultimate Priority

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Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

Worship is to the Christian life what the mainspring is to a watch, what the engine is to a car. It is the very core, the most essential element.

Worship cannot be isolated or relegated to just one place, time, or segment of our lives. We cannot verbally thank and praise God while living lives of selfishness and carnality. That kind of effort at worship is a perversion. Real acts of worship must be the overflow of a perpetually worshiping life.

In Psalm 45:1, David says, “My heart overflows with a good theme.” The Hebrew word for “overflow” means “to boil over,” and in a sense that is what praise actually is. The heart is so warmed by righteousness and love that, figuratively, it reaches the boiling point. Praise is the boiling over of a hot heart. It is reminiscent of what the disciples experienced on the road to Emmaus: “Were not our hearts burning within us?” (Luke 24:32).

As God warms the heart with righteousness and love, the resulting life of praise that bubbles up and overflows is the truest expression of worship.

~John MacArthur in Worship: The Ultimate Priority

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Did you know there’s no such thing as a standstill Christian? We’re either walking forward or backward in our faith…never standing still! Never should we be in neutral—it’s impossible to be in neutral; and if we are, then we’re drifting, and you’d better believe were drifting backward! No one ever drifts forward in the Christian faith.

Again and again, the writers of the New Testament urge believers to not only walk in faith, but in the right direction. Philippians 3 says, “forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal of knowing Christ Jesus better.” Other translations say that we need to press on and strive.

Oh, friends, there’s no room for being neutral or passive. Life in Christ is one long string of forward-thinking action verbs: grow, reach, put on, press on, follow, run, weep, produce, and hold. And all of it brings us closer to Jesus Christ!

~Joni Eareckson Tada in “The Standstill Christian“

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Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. —Isaiah 30:18 

I have longed for many things over the years… 

Today’s verse tells us what God longs for: “The Lord longs to be gracious to you.” The word ‘longing’ is only used this way twice in scripture—the other time is when Jesus longed to gather the people of Jerusalem under his wings. Notice something about God’s longings? They are focused not on things, but on people…His heart’s desire is to benefit his people that they might glorify him. 

Oh, how unlike my yearnings are from God’s! Too often my desires are about what I want rather than what I desire to see happen in others. How often do I actually yearn for God to be glorified and his kingdom advanced? 

The journey of the Christian is to strive to be more and more like God. Take a giant step in that direction today by asking the Lord to cleanse and refine your longings. A good place to begin is with James 4:8 where it says, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded” (KJV).

~Joni Eareckson Tada in “God’s Longings” January 16 Daily Devotional

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Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. —II Corinthians 4:16 

My first week of New Year’s resolutions is behind me. Truth is I am not big on making them (it’s probably because I never keep them)…

There is, however, one resolution worth considering. Second Corinthians 4:16 states that the inner man—your inner being, the new creation—must be renewed day by day. It’s a necessity.

The inner man has to be daily nourished, whether it’s January 7th, 8th, 9th, February, March, summer or fall. Too often we feed our inner being only on Sunday mornings, or when we hear a good sermon, or during a monthly Christian luncheon or a seasonal Bible retreat. Many of us allow the year to wear us down because we ignore this simple fact—our fellowship with God must be renewed day by day. Our inner being metabolizes quickly and just one day of neglect will bring on spiritual malnutrition. 

I pray “that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3:16 KJV). Covenant with God today to invite his Spirit to replenish you as you spend time in his Word and in prayer. It’s a must. It’s one resolution you can’t afford not to keep. It’ll make this year happy.

~Joni Eareckson Tada in “A Right Resolution” January 7 Daily Devotional

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Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

Let me say…for those who are unmarried, single women, for whatever reason at this stage of life, don’t pursue marriage as the ultimate objective. Now, I’m saying whether you’re 18 or 28 or 68, whatever, pursue God. Marriage is not the ultimate objective.

Now, marriage in the will of God is a wonderful gift, but it’s not the ultimate gift. If God is pleased for you to remain single…don’t pine away those days, those months, those years, and don’t fritter away your life with meaningless and trivial pursuits.

I can’t say that strongly enough, and I’m saying that from the heart of a single woman. I want to live a purposeful life, a meaningful life, a useful life…

Listen, most of you women who are married someday will be widows. I don’t know if it’s most. Many at least. Maybe most. You don’t know how long God will have you in this season of life, so whatever season of life God has you in, don’t waste it. Use it for God’s glory. If you’re single, spend those years in devotion to Christ in offering up your life as an offering to Him.

~Nancy Leigh DeMoss in “A God-Centered Life“

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Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

I have learned to pray, “Lord, incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness” [Ps. 119:36]. There are days when I don’t even want to pick up the Bible. But I know if I succumb to a ho-hum attitude toward the Word of God, my spirit will shrivel, my faith will shrink, and my hope will become dull and dim. So I plead, “Lord, don’t let me get away with this! Put the ‘want-to’ in my heart, persuade it, bring it around, predispose it. Please, incline my heart to your Word and don’t let me covet anything in its place!“ 

Another prayer is from Psalm 86:11, “… give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” My heart is fragmented and often I find it going every which way. I’m thinking about laundry to pick up, a project to finish for Sunday school, a birthday card I need to put in the mail, a ‘warning’ light on my dashboard that needs to get checked out. So many things vie for my heart’s undivided attention. So I ask God to gather the fragments, get my heart together, and unite it to fear his name. 

~Joni Eareckson Tada in “Incline My Heart,” December 11 Daily Devotional

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Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

Because women have been created with a specific call to relationship—to be their husbands’ helpers (Gen. 2:18)—it is very easy for them to idolize and live for relationships with men, to look to men as the source of their identity and purpose. Many young women, in particular, are tempted to see themselves as having worth only if they are in a relationship with a man…Frequently, what girls wear, who they hang around with, and what forms of media they embrace are intrinsically tied to getting or keeping the attention and approval of boys…

Of course, the gospel provides a young woman with the ultimate antidote to the worship of any human’s acceptance and approval. The antidote is the worship of the One she was created to worship, Jesus Christ. He, the God-man, can become her identity as she hears Him call her to come and worship Him and find her life in Him rather than in any other man (Col. 3:4). He welcomes and assures her that, although she is an idolater, she is also loved and welcomed by the only Man whose opinion really matters. She doesn’t need to attach herself to anyone other than Him, for in Him she has everything she needs (Phil. 4:19). He is her Bridegroom. She is clothed in His righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21). She is complete in Him (Col. 2:10).

~Elyse Fitzpatrick in “Young Women, Idolatry, & The Powerful Gospel“

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Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

I’m realizing that the sin I need removed daily is precisely my narcissistic understanding of spiritual progress. I think too much about how I’m doing, if I’m growing, whether I’m doing it right or not. I spend too much time pondering my failure, brooding over my spiritual successes, and wondering why, when it’s all said and done, I don’t seem to be getting that much better. In short, I spend way too much time thinking about me and what I need to do and far too little time thinking about Jesus and what he’s already done.

And what I’ve discovered, ironically, is that the more I focus on my need to get better the worse I actually get. I become neurotic and self-absorbed. Preoccupation with my performance over Christ’s performance for me makes me increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective. After all, Peter only began to sink when he took his eyes off Jesus and focused on how he was doing.

~Tullian Tchividjian in “Rethinking Progress“

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Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

Do you want the world to lose its appeal? Then crowd out worldliness by filling your affections with the cross of Christ. Crucify the world as a dead and undesirable thing by meditating on the love of the Savior. Resist the bait of the world by gazing at the wondrous cross. For it is “the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” wrote Paul, “by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).

Charles Spurgeon urged us to “dwell where the cries of Calvary can be heard.” If we will do this, then the things of this world will indeed “grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”…

What should consume our thoughts and affections is not resisting worldliness but the glory and grace of God revealed at the cross. We must take the sin of worldliness seriously, to be sure…but its eradication is not an end in itself. Resisting worldliness is absolutely vital but not ultimately most significant.

Jesus Christ is most important. We must fight worldliness because it dulls our affections for Christ and distracts our attention from Christ. Worldliness is so serious because Christ is so glorious.

~C.J. Mahaney in Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World

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Your daily dose of true beauty advice…

One reason we are so harried and hurried is that we make yesterday and tomorrow our business, when all that legitimately concerns us is today. If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there.

Let us submit the list to Him and ask Him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.

~Elisabeth Elliot

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