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A Abundance
There are some years in South Africa when locusts swarm the land and eat all the crops. They come in hordes so thick that the sun is even blocked out. The crops are destroyed, and an impoverished winter follows. The "years of the locust" are feared and dreaded.
The year that follows the "year of the locust," however, is a year of plentiful abundance! The dead bodies of the previous year's locusts serve as fertilizer for the new seeds, and the crops swell from the land.
In life, there are seasons of deep distress and afflictions that sometimes eat away our abundance. Yet, the promise of God is that "we will reap, if we faint not." The years that follow the storms and plagues of life can be abundant years, thanks to God's providential work.
Source: Ron Hembree, Fruits of the Spirit, Baker 1969.
Topics/Tags: Restoration; Abundance; Endurance
In 1975, a mighty tornado swept through Louisville, Kentucky, tearing across the Crescent Hill neighborhood in which The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is located. Many professors' homes were damaged. Dr. Harold Songer tells how the backyard of his friend and fellow professor, Dr. Thomas Smothers, was particularly hard-hit. Many majestic old trees were felled, and the backyard looked barren following the storm.
Songer continues, though, to describe how Smothers' backyard was awash with unexpected new growth the following spring. The same storm which destroyed the old growth had also spread the seeds which would bring new growth.
In life, there are seasons of deep distress and afflictions that sometimes eat away our abundance. Yet, the promise of God is that "we will reap, if we faint not." The years that follow the storms and plagues of life can be abundant years, thanks to God's providential work.
Source: Harold Songers, New Testament Professor, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Topics/Tags: Restoration; Growth; Endurance; Abundance
A pure, honest, and stable spirit is not distracted by a lot of activity. He does everything to honor God and is at rest within himself. He seeks to be free from all selfishness.
Thomas À Kempis (C. 1380-1471)
Fulfillment comes as a by-product of our love for God. And that satisfaction is better than we ever imagined. God can make the pieces of this world's puzzle fit together; he helps us view the world from a new perspective.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941- )
God's restrictions not only hold us down, but they also hold us up. We will never achieve fulfillment unless he is in control .
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941- )
Source: Edythe Draper, Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian World (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992).
Topics/Tags: Fulfillment; Abundance
People can meet superficial needs. But only God can meet our deep needs.
Forrester Barrington
Until we have learned to be satisfied with fellowship with God, until he is our rock and our fortress, we will be restless with our place in the world.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941- )
You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
Source: Edythe Draper, Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian World (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992).
Topics/Tags: Abundance; Fulfillment
Abundance, like want, ruins man.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Source: As quoted in Bob Phillips, Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts & Funny Sayings, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1993), p. 3.
"To laugh often amid much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you lived."
"This is to have succeeded. "
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988), p. 388.
A fellow who had been reared in the city bought a farm and several milk cows. In the feed store one day he complained his best cow had gone dry.
"Aren't you feeding her right?" asked the store owner.
"I'm feeding her what you've been selling me," said the man.
"Are you milking her everyday?"
"Just about. If I need six or eight ounces of milk for breakfast, I go out and get it. If I don't need any, I don't get it--I just let her save it up."
The feed store owner had to explain it doesn't work that way. With cow's milk, like God's presence, you take all that's there, or you eventually have nothing.
Asking for God's power in six-ounce doses, or asking sporadically only at our convenience, may mean that for us, the source dries up.
Source: Don Aycock, Franklinton, Louisiana, Leadership, Vol. 6, no. 3.
Topics/Tags: Spiritual Power; Abundance; Gifts from god, spiritual
"Discipline begets abundance. Abundance, unless we use utmost care, destroys discipline. Discipline in its fall pulls down with it abundance."
-- Anonymous
Source: Leadership, Vol. 3, no. 4.
Topics/Tags: Discipline; Abundance
"Who with a little cannot be content, endures an everlasting punishment."
- Robert Herrick
Source: - _Instant Quotation Dictionary_, p. 99.
Topics/Tags: Discontent; Possessions; Abundance
Dr. Thomson relates how "in the clefts of a precipice over hanging Wady el Kurn [in Palestine], swarms of bees made their home." A man was let down over the rock by ropes and, wearing protective gear to protect him from assault from the bees, extracted one of the largest quantities of honey ever found in one place.
Such an incident is reminiscent of the expression of Moses in his farewell song: "He made him to suck honey out of the rock." (Deut. 32:13). Our Lord is able to provide us with abundance!
Source: Wight, Customs Of The Bible
Topics/Tags: Honey; Abundance; God, provider
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