Like Sugar in our Tea!

Got this little devotional in my email. Thought I would share it here.

Like Sugar in our Tea!

by James Smith, "Comfort for the Christian"

"Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things!"
Matthew 6:32

God will display His wisdom--in promoting the eternal welfare of all His children.
God's ways are not our ways.
They are always profoundly wise;
and His wisdom will in the end
stand conspicuous and glorious
n His paternal dealings with all of His children.

"For what son is not chastened by his father?" Hebrews 12:7
Beloved, if God is our Father--He will chastise us!
We need it!
We deserve it!
We shall have it!

But He will mix mercy with every affliction.
Like sugar in our tea--it sometimes lies at the bottom,
and needs stirring up!

But there is always mercy there!
A cup of unmixed wrath was put into the hands of Jesus
that such a cup might never be put into our hands!

There is sweetness, in the bitterest cup which our Father gives us!

Let us therefore look for the sugar--as we sip the bitter potion!

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May we all sip our tea with gratitude especially in the most difficult of times.
It isn't easy to be thankful when things are rough.
We don't all go through the same things either,
but our God is with each of us
and knows our hearts, our hurts, our desires.
He knows our failings, and our successes.
He knows us and loves us as we are.

I can be up one day and down the next,
but God is forever the same,
holding and enfolding us in His tender loving care,
telling us all will be well.

May I keep my heart fixed on Him
as I walk my journey in this life.

Fearfully and wonderfully made

O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.

Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising,
thou understandest my thought afar off.

Thou compassest my path and my lying down,
and art acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not a word in my tongue,
but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.

Thou hast beset me behind and before,
and laid thine hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
I will praise thee;
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:
marvellous are thy works;
and that my soul knoweth right well.

My substance was not hid from thee,
when I was made in secret,
and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Thine eyes did see my substance,
yet being unperfect;
and in thy book all my members were written,
which in continuance were fashioned,
when as yet there was none of them.

How precious also are thy thoughts unto me,
O God! how great is the sum of them!


Taken from the KJV Bible Psalm 139.

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Hazelyn McComas said: "This is what I believe: We were with God in the beginning. I do not understand that exactly - what we looked like, what we did all day, how we got along, any of it. Then we were sent here. And I am not sure that I understand that very well, either. And I believe that we are going home to God someday, and what that will be like is as much a mystery to me as any of the rest of it.

"But I believe those things are true and that what we have here on earth in between is a longing - for the God that we have known and for the God that we are going home to."

Our being known by God does not begin when we first recognize it or when we acknowledge it or even when we make our first struggling attempts to come to grips with what it might mean for the creator of the universe to know us and choose us. It begins at the beginning, when we are first imagined into being.

The journey between the dreaming and the coming true is a journey. A journey made through silence and longing where, if we will listen, we can hear the whisper of the Dreamer (God) echoing deep within us, calling us to become what the Dreamer sees when our names were first whispered.

Excerpt from the book "Between the Dreaming and the Coming True - The Road Home to God by Robert Benson.

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

John 1:1-4


May we all stop to listen to that still small voice,
that whispers to each of us,
in love, in faithfulness, in forgiveness.
May we learn each day,
and may we look forward to,
with great joy and longing,
seeing Jesus our Creator and God,
face to face.

The Eternal God ...

The eternal God is thy refuge,
and underneath are the everlasting arms
Deuteronomy 33:27

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The eternal God is thy refuge,.... God is eternal,
from everlasting to everlasting;
the Ancient of days,
before all things, and all time;
which is, and was, and is to come:

the same is true of Christ, who is the everlasting Father,
or Father of eternity, the true God, and eternal life;
as appears from his nature, having the whole fullness,
all the perfections of deity in him;
from his office, as Mediator, in which he was set up from everlasting;
from his concern in eternal election,
in the everlasting covenant,
and in the creation of all things out of nothing.

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and underneath are the everlasting arms;
that is, of God, which are the support of his people,
and their protection, safety, and security;
such as the arms of his everlasting love,
which encircle them, and compass them about as a shield

Scripture from the KJV Bible

Commentary by Dr. John Gill (1690-1771)

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