His Sovereign Control

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And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen (Romans 16:20).

What infinite victory is revealed! The Lord said that the Seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. That Promise was given in part of the earliest Scriptures given to mankind (Genesis 3:15).

Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world (Acts 15:18).

God is never caught surprised. The Lamb was “slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).

The Lord knows exactly what He is doing. We should have complete confidence in Him, because nothing is outside of His sovereign control.

Dr. John McKay
Amazing Grace
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Being Consciously Weak

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And He said unto me, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong (II Corinthians 12:9-10).

Only when we are consciously weak, as Paul said, then is His strength perfectly manifested. When we are fearing, He is courage. When we dislike, He is the love. And Paul goes as far as to say that he personally takes pleasure in negative situations of weakness, hurts, needs, problems – for when he is weak, then he is strong.

Norman P. Grubb (1895-1993)
Who Am I?
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Truthing in Love

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But speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, Who is the Head, even Christ (Ephesians 4:15).

There is actually no [Greek] word here for “speaking.” If the English language would permit the use of “truth” as a verb we should express the original best by saying “truthing in love.” The word [ἀληθεύω (alētheuō)], translated “speaking the truth” implies more than verbally stating the truth. The force of the expression indicates that the believer speak, live and act according to “the Truth” … and all of this is to be done so “in love.”

Charles H. Welch (1880-1967)
An Alphabetical Analysis, Volume 5, page 85
Things to Come, Volume 16, page 93 (August, 1910)
(edited excerpts)
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Dry Times

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A part of our spiritual education at the hands of God has necessarily to be dry times, times when He appears to have withdrawn His presence, times when the Bible ceases to speak to us, prayer is dull, our heart seems cold, fruit seems to be nil; and such times are most healthy for us, as we thoroughly learn one lesson – to relax in the fact that He is believing in Himself for us. Once this lesson is learned, to a large extent, the variations disappear between dry and fresh, dull or bright, hot or cold, fruitful and fruitless, showing that they are largely illusory to a faith that is fixed.

Norman P. Grubb (1895-1993)
God Unlimited
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Containers … and More

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There is really only One Person in the Universe – God Himself. The creation is the means of manifesting Him. We humans are basically containers, created as persons in His image, to contain and manifest Him as The Person. God is the “All,” and we are merely the means of His Self-manifestation.

We are vessels, and activity is not the function of a vessel. Do we see what this means? Not that we have a life to live with God as our helper. Not that we must pray more, give more, love more, witness more. Not basically that we are God’s partners, or fellows, or co-workers, but that God Himself is the “All” in us. He is the One Who prays, gives, loves, witnesses. He lives our life, our common everyday life.

But, having absorbed and accepted that we are containers, we are more. We are united to Him Whom we contain in a way a vessel can never be united to what it contains. We are also Christ’s Body. A body is solely the agent of its head. In head and body, activity of the members comes to the forefront. A body is made for action. A head is useless without a body, so the Body in Ephesians is specifically spoken of as the fullness [plērōma] of the Head – “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all” (1:23). Head and Body are necessary to each other.

Norman P. Grubb (1895-1993)
God Unlimited
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Prayer Replaced by Assurance

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Prayer in my life has been replaced by assurance! I’m now in a place of relaxation as my ability to see His sovereignty in all things is coupled with His love and mercy for all.

Mike Owens
Author of The Fallacy of Post-Mortem Punishment in Light of a Successful Savior
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Prayer: An Awareness of God’s Sovereignty

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I see prayer not as asking God to provide things or change circumstances, but as a constant state of awareness of His sovereignty in ALL THINGS, which then results in an attitude of gratefulness and thanksgiving, which then leads to peace – i.e., gratefulness leads to great fullness.

André Sneidar
Executive Editor, Bible Student’s Notebook
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No One Has All the Answers

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I’ve met thousands of people in my life who have almost zero intellectual curiosity, people who get their information from the equivalent of tabloids. And when it comes time to share conversations with them, I’m always stunned by how dug-in they are on their beliefs and opinions. The one thing I’ve learned from thousands of books I’ve read is to keep an open mind. These books have contributed to two very important aspects of my personality: be humble and flexible because no one has all the answers.

Nicholas “Nick” Jacobs
(Past president of Windber Medical Center & Windber Research Institute)
“Discovering Knowledge on Bookcases”
Daily American; Somerset, PA, March 3, 2021
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Spiritual Position

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Our position is said to be in the heavenlies in Christ, and that is not just a mental spiritual realm in which we live, but we see that it represents our being utterly separated from, in spirit, the whole of this world system.

In work of the Lord, for instance, there must be no desire for some earthly thing as such, to see established on this Earth some great movement, institution or organization, something which man can take account of and recognize and call a success, something that we would like to see here on the Earth, prospering according to natural standards of prosperity, and feeling that the thing was really a success. And we must remember that a thing is effective today, from God’s standpoint, only in the measure in which it is spiritual.

T. Austin-Sparks (1888-1971)
In the Heavenlies
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The Conflicts of Worldly Systems

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When believers let themselves become affected by worldly systems, then they subject themselves to the influence of those spirits who operate them. All of these systems are currently under the headship of Satan.

It’s one thing to have an opinion about something, but when it affects our relationships, we need to take a step back and re-evaluate our own behavior and consider if we are allowing ourselves to be influenced by those spirits instead of God’s.

A lot of the problem is that believers falsely put their hope of security in the worldly systems, whether politics, or finances, or whatever else, and then when things take a turn for the worse (according to their thinking) their world seems to fall apart, or at least stands on “less secure” ground. We must remember that God is writing the script. This is all His show.

André Sneidar
Executive Editor, Bible Student’s Notebook
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