"Go to the dark alleys and the darker dwellings of the poor. Go in the spirit of that God to whom the soul of the poor man is as precious as your own. Go in the spirit of Him who for our sakes was poor, and had no where to lay His head. Go in reliance on that omnipotent grace which can raise up the most fallen, cleanse the most polluted, enrich the poorest with more than royal wealth, console the deepest sorrows, and sanctify the sorest trials of life. Go cheerfully, for into the darkest dwelling you carry the light of life. And think not that you alone visit these humble habitations. God is there, -- Christ is there, -- angels are there. Feel their presence; breathe their love; and through your wise, unwearied, effectual labors, may the poor man's dwelling become a consecrated place, the abode of love, "The house of God and the gate of heaven." William Ellery Channing. 

Man, when I read this it made my eyes well up; please Lord, when I see a poor brother struggling under the weight of loss, addiction, homelessness, sorrow or at his worst, let me see Him through your eyes and say, Thats the one I want to help!

 

Are we planting seeds in the desert?

We often hear our job is to plant seeds and another will water and God will give the increase, but when we plant a seed, before we do, we labor to cultivate the soil, to fertilize it and to protect it. When one waters they seek the water and either fetch it, or dig a well or build reservoirs or make irrigation ditches, We labor we are engaged, we are personally involved. We don't walk through the barren soil sticking seeds where there is little or no chance of it growing; does not the parable of the sower teach us so? Evangelism without love is planting in the desert. All the Bible teaches us that, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." Evangelism, in general, is personal, and without love will be in vain.

 

 This photo is so disturbing, so many children today are exposed to books, TV shows and movies that rob them of innocence, condition their tender hearts towards evil and replace purity with evil. 

                                      Guard their hearts!

 

When I saw this beautiful woman, and how she had been disfigured by some person's rage, it immediately reminded me of Christ's stern command to "Seek justice, show mercy and be faithful." The world, religions, races and cultures are in chaos, and more than ever, Christ is the answer! Help me Lord work for you! Disturb me Lord! Let me not live in slumber.

 I like both of these quotes, the top one states what I think is true, and the reaction part, well, that's something we all have to work on. 

The bottom one is also one I like, and I suppose we all like to think we're that way, but some people are very much at ease in crowds and around strangers, that's not me. 

 

  "The only power to oppose evil is love - strong, enduring love -- a  benevolence which no crime or wretchedness can conquer, and which therefore can conquer all. Miserable indeed will your position be if this spirit does not possess you, if a deep sympathy with your suffering fellow-creatures does not compel you, as it were, to seek their homes and identify with them. 

Nothing but Christ's spirit, that which carried Him to His cross, can carry you through your work. Go then, with this love, and it will be mightier than the sword of the magistrate, or the armies of monarchs to conquer evil. This spirit will touch the heart which has hardened itself against all other influences. It will pierce the conscience which is impregnable against the most vehement rebuke. It will say to the reckless transgressor, in the only language he can understand, that he is not an outcast from his race; and it will reveal to the desponding sufferer a love higher than your own, and bring back his lost faith in God. William Ellery Channing. 

   

"Strive, each of you, to bring at least one human being, in the next five years, to the happiness for which God made him. Awaken him to some inward spiritual growth. Strive to raise him above the crushing necessities of the body, by turning him to the great purpose of his being. Show him that the fountain of all happiness is within us, and that this fountain may be opened alike in every soul. Show him what a near union he may form with God; and what a benevolent influence he may exert in his narrow sphere; what heroism may be exercised by sacrificing for others, and how that sacrifice may be turned to glory; and how heaven may begin in the most unprosperous conditions on earth. Surely he who can carry such truths to any human being is charged with a glorious mission, a "Great Commission" from above." William Ellery Channing.  

"If you extract the precious from the worthless, 

you will become my spokesman." Jer. 15:19 

That verse struck me, it reminds me of Romans 8:28

The verse in its entirety says - 

"If you return, then I will restore you --

You will stand before me; 

and if you extract the precious from the worthless,

you will become my spokesman." 

 "We all stumble in many ways", and life can be so harsh for some, words fail to describe; but if we return to the Lord He will reveal the precious soul shaping lessons in even the most tragic circumstances, and those precious things will tune your heart to the needs of others and you will have a message to speak.

 

"The tongue is like a sharp razor." Ps. 52:2

"The tongue is a fire." Ja. 3:6

Which of us has not been betrayed by a lying tongue? Who has not felt loss, anguish and hurt by a deceitful tongue of another, or our own. 

But a soothing tongue, a healing tongue, is a tree of life. Ps. 15:4

 O Lord, may I guard my heart and curb my tongue!

   "This moral, spiritual interest in the poor, we should express and make effectual, by approaching them, by establishing an intercourse with them, as far as consists with other duties. We must live with them, not as another race, but as brethren. Our Christian principles must work a new miracle, it must expel the spirit of caste. The outward distinctions of life must seem to us not "a great gulf" but superficial lines, which the chances of a day may blot out, and which are broad only to the narrow minded."  William Ellery Channing. 

   "Our whole connection with the poor should tend to awaken in them the consciousness of their moral powers and responsibility, and to raise  them in spirit and hope above their circumstances. They should be aided to know themselves, by the estimate we form of them by our love and compassion. They should be rescued from self-contempt by seeing others impressed with the great purpose of their being. We may call the poor unfortunate, but never call them low. If faithful to their light, they stand among the high. They have no superiors, but in those who follow a brighter, purer light; and to withhold from them respect is to defraud their virtue of a support which is among the most sacred rights of mankind. Are they morally fallen and lost? They should still learn, in our unaffected concern, the worth of the fallen soul, and learn that nothings seems to us so fearful as its degradation." William Ellery Channing. 

   "There is no art so divine as that of reaching and quickening other minds. Do not tell me you are unequal to this task. What! you call yourselves educated, and yet lack the power to approach and aid your unimproved (Depressed, grieving, addicted, impoverished, imprisoned, sick and downcast) fellow-creatures? Of what use is education if it does not fit us to receive and give freely in our various social connections? How wasted has been our youth if it has taught us only the dialect and manners of a select class, and not taught us the language of humanity, not taught us to mix with and act on the mass of our fellow-creatures? How far are you raised above the poor, if you cannot comprehend, guide, or sway them? The chief endowment of a social being -- I mean the power of imparting what is true and good in your own souls -- you have yet to learn.                                      You cannot learn it too soon." William Ellery Channing.

 

"Love your neighbor as yourself". 

  "You are not immediately kindled into anger and wrath against yourself, nor do you express it with such violence, though you have often done yourself more injury by your own sins than all other persons ever could do you. You do not bear malice against yourself, nor hate yourself, though you have, perhaps, some evil qualities belonging to you, and are long in patience with yourself and you forgive yourself easily: learn then to be patient and forgiving to your neighbors." Isaac Watts. 

     "To wear away life in unproductive harmlessness, is innocent no more." Martineau. 

   Hunger, thirst, sickness, the refugee and foreigner, those in need of clothing and those imprisoned, are problems we will always have with us. On the great day of judgment, how we responded now will be all that matters then.  Matt. 25:31-46

   These are excerpts from Isaac Watts book about learning how to converse and debate. He's talking about our natural tendency to defend our position. 

 "It is exceedingly hard to dispute without gaining some invisible prejudice and good liking for the opinion we defend. So devoted are we to ourselves, that self love too easily engages our favor to the cause we have espoused, and for no other reason than because we espoused it. Though we may have had no kindness before for an opinion that we maintain for disputing sake, yet if a plausible and smiling argument for it occurs in our hasty thoughts, how prone are we to hug the creature of our brain, and be almost in love with the opinion for the sake of argument and we are insensibly captivated to esteem any thing that proceeds from ourselves. There is a certain wantonness of wit in youth, and a pleasing ambition of victory, which works in a young warm spirit, much stronger than a desire for truth. Upon the first sight of an objection against our arguments, our thoughts are strangely hurried away to ransack the brain for a reply, and we torture our invention to make our side have the last word." 

  "Awake o sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Eph. 5:14                                       

  "There comes a time to all of us when the sense of responsibility starts up within us and rebukes our pursuit of ease; it tells us that we are living, and life is fast and once for all, and life ends in eternity, and is embosomed everywhere in God; and it bids us to spring up from our collapse of selfishness and sleep, and take up the full dimensions of our strength, and go forth to do much, if it be possible, and at least to do it worthily and well."   James Martineau. 

  "Religion is a subject open to all minds. Its great truths have their foundation in the soul itself, and their proofs surround us on all sides. God has not shut up the evidence of His being in a few books and locked up in the libraries of colleges and professors, but has written His name on the heavens and on the earth. His word, taught by Jesus Christ, was not given to scribes and lawyers, but taught to the poor, to the mass of men, on mountains, in streets and on the sea-shore. 

  It is sometimes said that the multitude may think on the common business of life, but not on higher subjects, and especially on religion. This, it is said, must be received on authority; on this, men in general can form no judgment of their own. But this is the last subject on which the individual should be willing to surrender  himself to other's diction. In nothing has he so strong an interest. In nothing is it so important that his mind and heart should be alive and engaged. In nothing has he readier means of judging for himself. In nothing, as history shows, is he more likely to be led astray by such as assume the office of thinking for him." William Ellery Channing  1Jn. 2:27