New Location!

My blog is now at this address www.melodynicole.wordpress.com
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Ready for His Coming

Because, my dear friends, you have a hope like this before you, I urge you to make certain that such a day will find you at peace with God and man, clean and blameless in his sight.

2 Peter 3:14

Surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ must not be partial - but total. Only when we repent and turn away from our sins (using His power, of course) does He fill us with His Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Holy Spirit makes us right with God and God's love in us makes us right with men. Through that we can forgive - even love - our enemies.
Jesus Himself makes us ready for His coming.
-from Tramp for the Lord by Corrie Ten Boom

When God Runs

While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

Luke 15:20

In one of the most moving moments in all of Scripture, Luke 15:20 records that the father "'ran to his son.'" Scripture often employs anthropomorphisms--descriptions of God as if He had a human body. We sometimes read that God walked (in the midst of His people) or that He rode (on the clouds like chariots), but this is the only time in the entire Word of God when He is described as running.
What makes God run? A prodigal child turning his face toward home!
How can we resist Him? How can we not reciprocate such lavish love?
When was the last time you saw an older man, the father of adult children, run? Would you picture it now? Can you hear his heart pounding in his chest? Can you hear him catching his breath? Nothing could keep him from his son.

-from Jesus the One and Only by Beth Moore

New Year Prayer

O Lord,
Length of days does not profit me except the days are passed in thy presence, in thy serice, to thy glory.
Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides, sustains, sanctifies, aids every hour,
that I may not be one moment apart from thee,
but may rely on thy Spirit to supply every thought, speak every word, direct every step, prosper every work, build up every mote of faith, and give me a desire to show forth thy praise, testify they love, advance thy kingdom.
I launch my bark on the unkown waters of this year,
with thee, O Father, as my harbour,
thee, O Son, at my helm,
thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.
Guide me to heaven with my loins girt, my lamp burning, my ear open to thy calls, my heart full of love, my soul free.
Give me the grace to sanctify me, thy comforts to cheer, thy wisdom to teach, thy right hand to guide, thy counsel to instruct, thy law to judge, thy presence to stabilize.
May thy fear be my awe,
thy triumphs my joy.
-from The Valley of Vision, A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
Colossians 2:6-7

That Your Joy May Be Full

I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
John 15:11

We are talking about the joy that comes from union with God, from living in His presence, because living in His presence fills us with joy. When I speak of joy, I do not identify it with loud laughter of with noise. This is not true happiness. Sometimes it hides other things.
When I speak of happiness, I refer to an inner and deep peace, which shows itself in our eyes, on our faces, in our attitudes, in our gestures, in our promptness...

When suffering comes into our lives, we should accept it with a smile. This is the greatest gift from God: to have the courage to accept everything He gives us and asks of us with a smile.
Mother Teresa

An Instrument of Peace

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
Lord, may I not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
Because it is in giving that we receive, in pardoning that we are pardoned.
-Saint Francis of Assisi

The Power to Descend

We have all had times on the mount when we have seen things from God's standpoint and have wanted to stay there; but God will never allow us to stay there. The test of our spiritual life is the power to descend; if we have power to rise only, something is wrong.
---
We are not built for the mountains and the dawns and eastheitic affinities, those are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valleym for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle...
The mount is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something.
---
If we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes.

-Oswald Chambers

The Great Exchange

What happens when you and I do slip away to be with God in study and prayer? We receive. We take in. We are nutured and fed. We insure our spiritual health and growth. When we spend time with Christ, He supplies us with strength and encourages us in the pursuit of His ways.
I call this time with God "the great exchange." Away from the world and hidden from public view, I exchange my weariness for His strength, my weakness for His power, my darkness for His light, my problems for His solutions, my burdens for His freedom, my frustrations for His peace, my turmoil for His calm, my hopes for His promises, my afflictions for His balm of comfort, my questions for His answers, my confusion for His knowledge, my doubt for His assurance, my nothingness for His awesomeness, the temporal for the eternal, and the impossible for the possible!

-Elizabeth George in A Woman After God's Own Heart

On Character

I found these quotes on the subject of character... enjoy!

Character is what you look like in the dark.
D. L. Moody

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
Lord Macauby

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strenthened, vision cleared; ambrition inspired, and success achieved.
Helen Keller

Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and reap a destiny.
Charles Reade

I want to want Thee

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O god, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
-A.W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God

"Lift up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love; and mean Himself, and none of His goods. And thereto, look thee loath to think on aught but God Himself. So that nought work in thy wit, nor in thy will, but only God Himself. This is the work of the soul that most pleaseth God."
-from The Cloud of Unknowing