Tozer Devotional-Do You Know Where You are Going?

Do You Know Where You are Going?

It is a simple axiom of the traveler that if he would arrive at the desired destination he must take the right road. How far a man may have traveled is not important; what matters is whether or not he is going the right way, whether the path he is following will bring him out at the right place at last. Sometimes there will be an end to the road, and maybe sooner than he knows; but when he has gone the last step of the way will he find himself in a tomorrow of light and peace, or will the toward which he journeys be a of trouble and distress, a of wasteness and desolation, a of darkness and gloominess, a of clouds and thick darkness? The inspired prophet Jeremiah says (and for that matter all the holy prophets who have spoken since the world began say) and our Lord and His apostles say that man does not know the way; indeed he hardly knows where he should go, to say nothing of the way he should take to get there. The worried Thomas spoke for every man when he asked, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? That is the truth and we had better face it squarely: the way of man is not in himself. However severe the blow to our pride, we would do well to bow our heads and admit our ignorance. For those who know not and know they know not, there may in the mercy of God be hope; for those who think they know there can be only increasing darkness.

http://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer?id=716

Titanic II

Mark Wilkinson purchased a 16-foot boat for fishing and recreation. Apparently he was not superstitious, because he christened his boat Titanic II after the ill-fated luxury ship that hit an iceberg and sank in 1912. Titanic II’s maiden voyage out of a harbor in Dorset, England, went well. But when Wilkinson headed back, the boat started taking on water. Soon he was clinging to a rail waiting for rescue. Wilkinson reportedly said, “It’s all a bit embarrassing, and I got pretty fed up with people asking me if I had hit an iceberg.” This was followed by an eyewitness who said, “It wasn’t a very big boat—I think an ice cube could have sunk it!”

The story of Titanic II is quite ironic. But it also makes me think of the original Titanic and the danger of misplaced trust. The builders of that ocean liner were absolutely confident that their ship was unsinkable. But how wrong they were! Jeremiah reminds us: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord” (Jer. 17:5).

All of us are tempted to seek security in people or things. How often we need to be reminded to forsake these false confidences and turn back to God. Are you putting your trust in something other than Him?

When we put our trust in You, Lord, We’ll be like a tree that’s growing Beside waters that are flowing, Bearing fruit and standing strong. —Sper

Those who put their trust in God will never be disappointed.

http://odb.org/2012/10/27/titanic-ii/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+odb%2Ffeed+%28Our+Daily+Bread%29

Tozer Devotional-The Director of Our Way

The Director of Our Way

Among the many wonders of the Holy Scriptures is their ability frequently to compress into a sentence truth so vast, so complex, as to require a whole shelf of books to expound. Even a single phrase may glow with a light like that of the ancient pillar of fire and its shining may illuminate the intellectual landscape for miles around. An example is found in Jeremiah 10:23. After the Lord had spoken of the vanity of idols and had set in contrast to the gods of the heathen the glory of the living God, the King of Eternity, the prophet responded in an inspired exclamation that very well states the whole problem of humankind: O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. The prophet here turns to a figure of speech, one which appears in the Scriptures so frequently that it is not easy to remember that it is but a figure. Man is seen as a traveler making his difficult way from a past he can but imperfectly recollect into a future about which he knows nothing. And he cannot stay, but must each morning strike his moving tent and journey on toward-and there is the heavy problem-toward what?

http://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer?id=715

Love We Can Trust

Perhaps the most painful statement a person can hear is, “I don’t love you anymore.” Those words end relationships, break hearts, and shatter dreams. Often, people who have been betrayed guard themselves against future pain by deciding not to trust anyone’s love again. That settled conviction may even include the love of God.

The remarkable thing about God’s love for us is His promise that it will never end. The prophet Jeremiah experienced devastating circumstances that left him emotionally depleted (Lam. 3:13-20). His own people rejected his repeated calls to respond to God’s love and follow Him. At a low point, Jeremiah said, “My strength and my hope have perished from the Lord” (v.18).

Yet, in his darkest hour Jeremiah considered God’s unfailing love and wrote, “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I hope in Him!’” (Lam. 3:22-24). A person may vow to love us forever yet fail to keep that promise, but God’s love remains steadfast and sure. “He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you” (Deut. 31:6). That’s a love we can trust.

O Love that wilt not let me go I rest my weary soul in Thee; I give Thee back the life I owe, That in Thine ocean depths its flow May richer, fuller be. —Matheson

God’s love never fails.

http://odb.org/2012/10/23/love-we-can-trust/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+odb%2Ffeed+%28Our+Daily+Bread%29

I am sent to thee with heavy tidings. 1 Kings 14:5

HOW foolish! Jeroboam thought that the old prophet could penetrate the vail that hid the future, but not the disguise in which his wife wished to conceal herself. As we might have expected, the aged prophet’s inner sight read her heart. From God no secrets are hid. Immediately on his accosting her by her name there came the dread announcement of inevitable disaster.

We must not hesitate to unfold all the consequences of sin. As watchmen on the walls, we are bound to tell men of the certain fearful looking for of fiery indignation which shall devour the transgressors. None of us should flinch from declaring the whole counsel of God. We should specially insist on the guilt side of sin. Not only that it is a misfortune, a mistake, an error, a disease, a tyranny; but a crime. The sinner is a criminal, who has incurred the just wrath and anger of a holy God: for which he must suffer a due recompense.

Oh for more tenderness that we may with tears warn men of their doom! We are so self possessed, so stolid ; we need to ask that our eyes, like Jeremiah‘s, should be fountains of tears, that we might weep day and night. If the tidings are heavy, let us first feel their pressure on our own hearts; let us bend over the regions of despair and darkness, and hear the bitter weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, and come back to warn our brethren, lest they also come to that place of torment. Though it was with fear and much trembling that Paul preached the Gospel, yet he did not shun to declare the whole counsel of God. And while we go to men with the good tidings of salvation, we must not withhold the heavy tidings from those who persist in unbelief.

http://devotionals.ochristian.com/f-b-meyer-devotional.shtml

 

Giving God the Glory

“Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”              1 Corinthians 10:31

The news from our mechanic threatened to scuttle our plans. A suspicious rattling noise prompted me to take our clunker of a car to the shop a day before we were scheduled to drive through the night to Florida for our family vacation. The mechanic informed me that the rattling noise was our transmission’s farewell song, and that we were going to have to replace it—a time-consuming and expensive repair.

Seriously discouraged, I made my way back to the church office. I was considering how I would break the news to my family, when the phone rang. On the other end of the line, one of our church members said, “Hey, Pastor, I hear that you’re going to Florida on vacation. You know, my wife and I are worried about you taking your family to Florida in that little car. Our cars belong to God, and we would like you to take one of them on your vacation. Your choice!”

Wow! I knew that his cars were beauties—so either one would have been incredible.

With vacation plans intact and with a heart of gratitude for God’s provision, my family made our way to Florida in our friend’s beautiful car. I’ve got to be honest: I loved driving that car. I loved the stares we got at stoplights; and I felt pretty proud as I pulled up to a gas station. As I was pumping gas into the car (it had a huge appetite for fuel!), a guy walked out of the gas station and said, “Hey, that’s a beautiful car. How do you like your car?”

This was a big moment for me. Do you think I wanted to tell him it wasn’t my car? No way! A spiritual battle raged in my heart for what seemed like an hour (but was probably only 10 seconds). Truth finally won out, and I said, “Well, it’s not my car, but I like it a lot!”

Through the course of life, we all have opportunities to take the credit for ourselves when we shouldn’t. In the spotlight of some success, it’s tempting to keep the applause focused on “me.” But when you think about it, we would have no success in our lives at all if God did not see fit to give us the opportunities to succeed, the brainpower, the education, the temperament and gifts to accomplish praiseworthy things. Even so, when people notice that we have something good going, an internal spiritual battle occurs: Do we keep the glory for ourselves, or do we turn the spotlight back to God where it belongs?

Paul had it right in Philippians 3:1-11 when he encouraged us to stop bragging about ourselves and to start rejoicing in the Lord. He put together an impressive list of his own accomplishments and then said they were like “dung” compared to the glorious reality of Christ in His life. Jeremiah said, “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight” (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

It’s not that we can’t enjoy our moment in the sun. Pleasure in good things is a gift that God has given us. It’s just that it’s important to give the credit for all we have and are to the appropriate person: God, the giver of all good things (1 Timothy 6:17).

YOUR JOURNEY…

• Think back on some areas of accomplishment in your life. How were those moments (or how could they have been) used to bring God glory? What can you do in the future to tactfully give God the credit?
• Think about some of the activities, hobbies, or pursuits that bring you genuine joy in life. Thank God for the opportunity to use the body and talents that He has given you to enjoy these things! Read Acts 12:20-23, a sobering thought about stealing the glory from God.
• Corollary verses: 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Philippians 3:1-11

http://getmorestrength.org/daily/giving-god-the-glory/

Inside and Out

“On the day of the LORD’s sacrifice I will punish the officials and the king’s sons and all those clad in foreign clothes” — Zephaniah 1:8

The prophet Zephaniah was a contemporary of Jeremiah and shared the vision of pending doom. The kingdom of Israel was corrupt, and the people would eventually be exiled from the land of Israel. Zephaniah’s job was to warn them and to encourage them to repent. We do find a wave of reform during Zephaniah’s time – King Josiah makes many changes for the good – but the people eventually return to their evil ways and Zephaniah’s prophecies, unfortunately, come true.

Among the terrible events that Zephaniah describes is the punishment that will come to those “clad in foreign clothes.” Who are these people, and since when does God care where our clothing is made?

The Sages explain that the term “foreign clothes” means that their clothing was foreign to their souls. In other words, their clothing did not match who they were. These were people who dressed a certain way that made them appear pious, but on the inside, they were evil. God doesn’t stand for hypocrisy, and while these people may have been able to fool their fellow men, there is no fooling God. As we learn in the book of Samuel, “People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

When God instructs the children of Israel to construct the holy ark, He commands them to cover it with gold: “Overlay it with pure gold, both inside and out” (Exodus 25:11). We can understand why the outside should be covered in gold. It is only appropriate that such a holy vessel look majestic and regal. But why cover the inside too? No one would ever see it!

The Talmud explains that the purpose of the gold was to teach us a lesson. We, God’s holy creations, are to mirror the holy ark. Our insides should be exactly the same as our outside. Our character off stage should be exactly the same as when everyone is looking. Our outer actions should match our inner souls.

Everyone wants to look good. But there is no substitute for being good. When we look good, others think highly of us. When we do good, then our actions reflect our inner character. In the end, that is what matters most to God.

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/inside-and-out

The Price of Liberty, Part 4: That We May Return by Michael Youssef

This is the fourth post in my blog series, titled: The Price of Liberty. If you’re just now starting the series, you can begin with the first post here.

The Old Testament prophets dealt with corruption and godlessness in Israel and Judah. And God had to punish the people for their sins and for breaking the covenant that had been established between themselves and Yahweh.

The book of Jeremiah, in particular, showed the people of Judah suffering because they had been disobedient and had broken their covenant with God. In Jeremiah 2:8, the prophet notes where the sin began: “The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those who deal with the law did not know me; the leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols.”

The spiritual breakdown of Judah had begun with the religious leaders and lawmakers. Jeremiah clarified the spiritual condition of Judah in Jeremiah 2:3: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

1. They have forsaken Me.

2. They have dug cisterns that do not hold water.

Once a national decline has set in, it is not easy to check the momentum. The wrong indulged in by those in authority soon becomes the fashion among the people at large.

Today some bishops and church leaders tell us that the Bible is no longer relevant. They also say that biblical morality should not be the norm. Deplorably, their message has traveled from the pulpits to the pews. We see the same downward progression as occurred in Jeremiah 2:8-13, where the priests rebelled against God, and ultimately the Lord brought charges against the nation of Israel.

Jeremiah’s message is as relevant for us in America today as it was in his time. His observation that corrupt leadership infects the entire nation with moral poison is certainly borne out in American culture. Further, inward moral failure results in outward national ruin. This downward spiral inevitably brings God’s judgment on a nation, and God’s judgment may be close at hand.

However, in Lamentations 5:21, Jeremiah cries out to God for help and restoration, “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old.” Included in this verse is the suggestion of repentance, and, in fact, repentance for the sin that has been committed provides the key to coming back to God.

As we look at America today, we cannot help but see a comparison with ancient Judah. Surely every spiritually sensitive Christian in our country would conclude that we are losing our Christian heritage. Jeremiah, too, observed that the deterioration of the nation of Judah was because of its sin and disobedience. Like Judah, America has enjoyed its covenant relationship with almighty God. He has protected this great nation through the years—as long as we looked to Him and sought to walk with Him.

Judah was protected by divine might and heavenly love from its early days as a nation in the Promised Land. And it was to both Israel and Judah that God sent His prophets, His Word, and the promise of the coming Messiah. Moreover, before the kingdom was divided—in the golden age of David’s reign and later, under his son Solomon’s reign—Israel had prospered. In those days, psalms were sung as people made their way to the temple of the Lord. Scripture was held in high esteem.

However, in the days when Jeremiah took his prophetic office, he remembered the good days of the past when the priests—and the people following them—walked in the ways of the Lord. The prophet urged God to “renew our days as of old.” He desired a return to those glorious days when Israel gladly served God.

Like Jeremiah, our cry should be for America to return to God. We, too, should pray, “O God, renew our days as of old.”

In the book of Judges, we learn of a new generation springing up that neither knew the Lord, nor the works that He had done for Israel. Similarly, a new generation has arisen that does not know that it is God who made America great. Today our school children are not being taught the truth about America’s Christian heritage. In fact, people in other countries often know more about Christian America than Americans. In spite of what the humanists and liberals say, the men and women who settled this land came to worship God freely and to spread the Gospel.

Those settlers had their faults—they were not perfect! Yet, for the most part, the people who founded America were outstanding in their devotion to Christ. In fact, some of the colonies indicated their intent in their charters:

1. The First Charter of Virginia instructs the colonists to help “in propagating … [the] Christian religion to suche people as yet live in … ignorance of the true knowledge and worshippe of God.”

2. The Mayflower Compact specifies that the colony was established “for ye glorie of God, and advancement of ye Christian faith.”

3. The Delaware charter defines the one purpose of that settlement as “the further propagation of the Holy Gospel.”

4. The Charter of Maryland explains that its first settlers were moved by “pious Zeal for extending the Christian Religion.”

5. The Massachusetts Bay Charter emphasizes that Boston was founded by men who wanted to bring the New World “to the Knowledge and Obedience of the only true God and Savior of Mankind.”

6. The early settlers of Pennsylvania came to America, according to their own declaration, for the spread of “the Christian religion.”

7. The Charter of Rhode Island “commits its people to the true Christian faith and worship of God.”

8. The Connecticut constitution instructs its settlers to “help preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

9. The New Hampshire charter begins: “We … in the name of Christ and the sight of God.”

10. And the closing of the Declaration of Independence confesses that we are under the protection of the divine Providence.

The first national Thanksgiving Day was ordered by Congress in 1777. On that day, Congress asked for the people’s prayers that God would grant His solemn blessing and hear “the penitent confession of their manifold sins … and their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot [our sins] out of remembrance.”

Our founding fathers were not atheists or unbelievers. They were not free thinkers. They were not Muslims or Buddhists. Despite our founders’ denominations differences, these men and women built their hope upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

But the American Civil Liberties Union tells us another story.

I’m not talking about church-state relations or intolerance and religious discrimination. These are incompatible with the Christian gospel.

Early on, America welcomed everyone who was seeking freedom. Now, the very people to whom freedom has been given are attempting to rewrite America’s history. We must not let them!

Let’s quickly review where our nation stands today:

• God is being left out of school textbooks.
• Prayer has been banished from the school.
• Jesus Christ is not found in federal or state educational systems.
• More information can be found in textbooks about Allah and Mohammad than about the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We also have new names for old evils.

• Murder is now called abortion.
• Drunkenness is now called alcoholism—a social disease.
• Sodomy is referred to as gay rights—an alternative lifestyle.
• Perversion is now called pornography and adult entertainment.
• Immorality is now considered the new morality.
• Cheating is referred to as abnormal social development.

America’s God and the Bible have been obscured. With this dismissal of absolutes, the rapid decline of our nation is easy to see:

• Our crime rate is out of control. A serious crime is committed every 3 seconds. One robbery occurs every 86 seconds and a murder every 36 minutes.
• Drug addiction and alcoholism are at epidemic proportions. More than 800,000 people in the US have sought treatment for cocaine addiction. Forty-two percent of Americans have smoked marijuana. More than 17 million adults in the US are alcoholics or have alcohol problems.
• Suicide is the third-leading killer of people aged 15 to 24.
• An estimated 65 million Americans are living with a sexually-transmitted disease, and 13 percent of all Internet searches are for erotic content.
• Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, while 12 percent of couples living together are unmarried and 22 percent of first births are to women in a cohabitating couple.
• Islam is the fastest growing religion in the US, and the Mormonism is the second. At the same time, the number of people with no religious affiliation has grown rapidly to 15 percent as other people turn to atheism and humanism.

No matter how terrible all of these statistics sound, we need to remember Jeremiah’s words, “Restore us to yourself, O Lord” (Lamentations 5:21). These words should become our words and our prayer for this nation. Let us not lose sight of the tremendous price our forefathers paid so that we might enjoy the wonderful freedoms we have.

http://www.michaelyoussef.com/michaels-blogs/the-price-of-liberty-part-4-that-we-may-return.html

The Price of Liberty, Part 3: Breaking the Covenant by Michael Youssef

This is the third post in my blog series, titled: The Price of Liberty. You can read the first two posts here and here.

No country is perfect, but I choose to live in this country because there is no nation I love or respect more than these United States. And there is no other place where people have more freedom.

A fact to consider about the United States: There is no other place more hospitable or more caring.

People can point out the problems we have in this country such as homelessness and corruption in government. However, if we compare this country to the rest of the world, it would be hard to top this nation. Why is this so? The so-called goodness of this mighty nation is because it was founded and built for the honor and glory of God, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence.

For more than 100 years following the Declaration of Independence, this nation continued on its godly path. In 1892, the Supreme Court’s decision in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States said:

Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise, and in this sense and to this extent, our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian … This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation.

The Court ruling continued:

We find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth . . . These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that is a Christian nation.

After reviewing the Court’s ruling in 1892 and considering some of the Supreme Court’s rulings in the last 40 to 50 years, we need to ask: Why has the great dream of our Founding Fathers turned into a nightmare?

• Why has Christianity in America become the object of ridicule?
• Why do our governments take on such enormous levels of debt?
• Why is sexual immorality rampant in the entertainment industry, while out-of-wedlock births soar and traditional families decline?
• Why do our young people turn to drugs at such alarming rates?
• Why is the rise of Islamic extremism treated with such complacency and ignorance?

To answer these questions and others about our current problems in America, we need to turn to the Bible. Some 4,000 years ago, God called the nation of Israel to be His chosen people and made the same promises to them that He made to our founding fathers. These praises are set forth in Deuteronomy 28:1-6:

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

Deuteronomy 28 also contains the curses that follow if the people refuse to follow God and walk in obedience. Verse 15 makes clear: “If you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.”

The curses are spelled out in the remaining verses of 28.

In the Old Testament, the people understood that to keep the covenant meant life. To break or disobey the covenant meant abandoning it and facing certain death. America’s Founding Fathers, by signing the Declaration of Independence, were actually covenanting with God.

Throughout the 200 years that ensued, the nation went through good times and bad, and made its share of mistakes. However, in recent times, our nation has deliberately and systematically chosen to drift away from God in the following ways:

• We willfully broke the covenant of the Founding Fathers
• We tampered with God’s absolute standards – the Ten Commandments
• We ridiculed Christian believers while acquiescing to Islamic demands and ignoring Islamic misdeeds and oppression
• We began to tolerate the same sin that brought destruction to Sodom and Gomorrah – calling it an alternative lifestyle
• Our courts that once legislated against immorality began to grant freedom to everyone. And “everyone did as he saw fit” (Judges 17:6)
• Our courts have allowed murder on demand—what can we expect?
• Our courts have expelled prayer from schools, so we should not be surprised at the problems that replaced it: drugs, teen alcoholism, teen pregnancy, promiscuity, and children killing children at school

Sadly, these problems no longer shock many in our nation. Jeremiah’s words ring true: “Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush” (Jeremiah 6:15)?

America has forgotten what it is to blush, and our eyes have grown accustomed to the darkness. Yet the most distressing situation is that whenever someone tries to point out the root of these problems—

• He is labeled old-fashioned
• He is labeled a bigot
• He is labeled intolerant

We should be intolerant to the ills of our society, and we should be especially intolerant of godlessness and wickedness.

The reason that this great nation is beset with problems and corruption is because our lawmakers and courts have deliberately and systematically distanced themselves from the covenant that the founding fathers made with God. We must recognize that this is the disease that ails us before we can hope to turn things around.

In my next post, we will consider Jeremiah’s message to the people of Judah after they had succumbed to a spiritual breakdown, and how his message is relevant to us today.

http://www.michaelyoussef.com/michaels-blogs/the-price-of-liberty-part-3-breaking-the-covenant.html

Make the Most of It

“When it prospers, you will…prosper.”                             Jer 29:7 GWT

Are you at a place in your life and you’d rather not be there? Well, God has a word for you, but it may not be one you want to hear. It’s the same word Jeremiah brought to his people when they were slaves in Babylon, far from everything near and dear: “You’re not going home anytime soon, so change your attitude, dig in and make the best of it. Buy homes, plant gardens, let your children get married…and in addition, pray for the peace and prosperity of the city where you’re living because when it prospers, you will prosper” (See Jer 29: 5-7). The Israelites were in exile because God had allowed them to be taken captive. So, could it be that you are where you are today because God placed you there to bless those around you? Instead of putting your life on hold waiting for circumstances to change, start sowing into other people’s lives what you want to come back as a harvest in your own. Why? Because when they are blessed, you’ll be blessed too! How do we know? Because Jesus said, “Give, and it will be given to you…the measure you use…will be measured to you” (Lk 6:38 NIV). Martha Washington said, “I’m determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be. I’ve learned that the greater part of happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.” That sounds just like Paul: “I have learned [to be] content in…every situation” (Php 4:12 NIV). If you want to go from surviving to thriving, make the most of where God has placed you.

http://theencouragingword.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/make-the-most-of-it/