Beyond Today[ English | Vietnamese ] Short Description: Carefully selected quotations from today's top Christian authors provide insight and guidance to readers facing new challenges. A perfect tract to give to those who are graduating, changing jobs, moving away, or taking other big steps in the journey of life. Full Text: The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, but the purpose
of the first step is the whole journey. It is not the other way
around. Some advice for you as you continue life’s journey: Know Your PurposeWhat does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to
walk humbly with your God. What is my goal? What is my chief end? It is essential to recognize that I am
created in the image of God for the purpose of reflecting His image. Sin marred
that image, but through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that
image can be restored. Sovereign grace regenerates me so that I can believe and
empowers me so that I can reflect the image of God. Set PrioritiesHe asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The
most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is
this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than
these.” We can exalt diet over duty, dress over devotion, work over witness, music
over motive, form over function—the list is endless. Instead, may we put God
first, and demonstrate that by consistently spending time with Him in His Word
and in prayer. Find StrengthI can do everything through him who gives me strength. Recognize your weaknesses and rely totally on God’s resources. Then He will
hear your prayers and minister to your needs. That’s where happiness
begins. Work HardWhatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not
for men. Work challenges us—makes us grow in character, skill, and creativity.
Learning to take responsibility for hard work, day-in and day-out over the long
haul, develops perseverance, one of the major traits God wants to build into our
lives. Take Time to RestBe still before the LORD, and wait patiently for him. When we are suffering from too much work or the hubbub of lots of people in
our days, it is so sweet to withdraw in peace and quietness. For those of us who
know Jesus, this can be our most recreational place. There we find ourselves in
green pastures with sweet water to drink. Stick With It!Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not
lacking anything. Life can knock the stuffing out of us. Testing and temptation can surface in
different ways and different places in our lives. It can be a pathway to
fearful, dark thoughts. It can be an excuse to enter the soggy marsh of
self-pity. Or simply the quest to “get even” that starts out looking like
justice. Testing is an individual matter. But God promises, “No temptation has
overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not
allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will
also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13,
NKJV). Know that God will be with You Beyond Today . . .The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave
you nor forsake you. God really is there. He really does exist, and He made us for Himself.
Knowing that He is there, and therefore that we do not live in a silent
universe, changes everything. To know that we can speak, and there is Someone
who will answer fills the vacuum of life that would otherwise be present. And
then, when we realize His love for us as individuals—that Christ really did die
for us as individuals, for us personally—life is entirely
different. [God] does not change. He will be tomorrow as He was yesterday. We can depend
on Him to be faithful, reliable, trustworthy. He has said He understands us. We
are told that the promises He made centuries ago are just as true today—not just
true in the academic sense of truth, but true to you and me personally. His
truth makes a difference in our present lives, as well as to our part and place
in eternity. Excerpted from Beyond Today, ©2000 by Good News Publishers/Crossway Books.
© 2003 Good News Publishers. Used by permission.
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