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You make the call: Abide with Jesus and get to know Him--or go your own way without Him and get toasted. Which will it be? The Lord also gives us a beautiful promise in the next couple of verses of that passage. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved..
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Diane Moody |
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We completely blow it, ignoring the fact that the vineyard will only bear fruit if we take care of the vine. "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you . . . " The only way we will ever get to know God is by reading His Word. It's all there. He's written it all out for us. Everything we ever need to know about the God of the universe--the God who made you and me, the God who is able to provide every answer to every question we will ever..
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Diane Moody |
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Through the course of my life, I've attended a lot of different churches. From time to time I would hear murmurings in some of those congregations, something along the lines of, "I'm just not being fed spiritually here." I can't tell you how many times I've heard those exact words, no matter where I attended church. Such a strange concept to me. Whenever I heard it, I was always a little tempted to tie a bib around the person's neck and twi..
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Diane Moody |
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Kay Arthur put it this way: "If we do not know our God and His ways, our prayer lives will be impotent and ineffective."2"
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Diane Moody |
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Now, when I read back through my journals of those rocky times, I wonder why my family didn't just put me in a strait- jacket and check me into someplace called Sunnydale or Happy Hills. Somewhere in a galaxy far, far away. What's especially peculiar to me as I think back on this time in my life is the fact that I never stopped to realize my depression and frustration might stem from a spiritual problem. I've told you before I've been a Chr..
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Diane Moody |
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We're all guilty of getting caught up in the world we live in and demoting God to the back of the bus. Or, like Briana's character in Chapter 6, we grant Jesus access into only certain parts of our lives, in no uncertain terms.
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Diane Moody |
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Giddy? Moi? How did I go from near despair--threatening to walk away from my faith in God forever--to giddy? I realized there could be only one explanation: God. He made good on His promise to love me, warts and all, and He showed up to meet me where I was--bitter and exhausted and spiritually out of gas. I offered Him seven days, He offered me unconditional love for all eternity. And for the first time in my life, I realized it was okay to..
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Diane Moody |
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News flash: God wants you. He wants a relationship with you. That's why He made you. And I have to be honest with you here. If you don't have much interest in spending time with God, I have to wonder about your salvation.
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Diane Moody |
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The focus of that week was "learning how to listen to the voice of God" in what was dubbed "My Quiet Time with God." You have to admire the camp leaders' intent, but let's be honest. Most pre-adolescents are clueless about such deeply spiritual goals, let alone the discipline to follow through on a daily basis. Still, good little camperettes that we were, we trekked across the campground after our counselors told us to find our "special pla..
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Diane Moody |
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John Bunyan once said, "In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart." If it's the desire of your heart to grow in your walk with your Lord and Savior, then you understand prayer must be a purposeful matter of the heart."
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Diane Moody |
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The most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the surrounding influence and qualities produced by that relationship.1
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Diane Moody |
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Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" (Matthew 6:8). Then why should we ask? The point of prayer is not to get answers from God, but to have perfect and complete oneness with Him. If we pray only because we want answers, we will become irritated and angry with God. We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the way we expect, and our spiritual irritation shows our refusal to identify ..
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Diane Moody |
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In Blue Like Jazz author Donald Miller addresses this subject from a startling perspective. I believe the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God.1
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Diane Moody |
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Life without prayer is like watching TV on an ancient twelve-inch black-and-white TV set. The picture is snowy and distorted, and no matter how much aluminum foil you wrap around those rabbit ears, you can't see a thing. Life with a personal prayer relationship with God is like watching TV on a sixty-inch flat-screen in high definition, with surround-sound speakers and a picture so clear you think you're right there on the eighteenth hole i..
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Diane Moody |
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The best we can do is thank God for the gift of each new day then live it to the fullest.
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Diane Moody |