if only

"a Christian worker has to learn how to be God's noble man or woman amid a crowd of ignoble things. never make this plea - 'if only I were somewhere else!' all God's men are ordinary men made extraordinary by the matter He has given them. paul's whole heart and mind and soul were taken up with the great matter of what Jesus Christ came to do... we have to face ourselves with the one central fact - Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

'I have chosen you.' keep that note of greatness in your creed. it is not that you have got God but that He has got you. here, in this college, God is at work, bending, breaking, moulding, doing just as He chooses. why He is doing it, we do not know; He is doing it for one purpose only- that He may be able to say, 'this is My man, My woman.' we have to be in God's hand so that He can plant men on the Rock as He has planted us.

let Him have His way."
-oswald chambers

for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them

when our children meet together,

they meet with the risen Christ and are taught to know and follow Him.

"for me, sunday school was more than a refreshing experience... the stories were about the power of God at work in ordinary people. in the sunday school stories, past and present, is the sap of my spiritual fervor."
-cliff schimmels, i learned it first in sunday school

we have something to give

"if you are a Christian, you are by nature a giver."
-john piper, speaking on acts 20:35 (in everything i did, i showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: "it is more blessed to give than to receive.")

why would we be told about this blessing if there wasn't a way to experience it? why would the bible say He loves cheerful generosity if it's something we can't exhibit?

Father, help us to think like you. help us reject thinking that says we have nothing of value to contribute; help us know that because of the cross and through friendship with you, we have something worthwhile to give.