The Hem of His Garment

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…and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole. Mark 6:56

Hi Brothers and Sisters,

Have you ever longed for the Lord Jesus to be so near you could fall on your face and touch His robe and have your world be ‘made whole’? Oh how I long for this again and again.

It happens when reading His word and He gives you something. You know it has occurred but you would not be able to explain how it happened. All we know is something has passed from Him to you!

It may be the courage you need for something yet unknown or patience  to bear with a certain difficult person or inner strength to go on when we are sure we cannot. It may be the sweet inner freshness in our spirit as a precious, renewing gift!

God’s way of passing by, of letting His ‘hem’ come near us, is to take some single word in His Book and make it breathe spirit and life into us. Then, relying upon His word- meditating, feeding our soul on it- we find it is suddenly possible to go from strength to strength.” ac

And so whether the struggle that engages us has to do with our inner life, or our outward circumstances there is nothing to fear, “For your Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom.” ac

I received an email from my mentor and feel led to share it with you.
Arlene, these are quotes from David Roper’s book 
 “The God who walks beside us.”

God’s call to serve is a call to suffer. Deep wounds seem the norm for those whom God is determined to use. Pain is needful, not for our sake alone, but also for those we are destined to serve.

As Paul put it, “We who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you” (II Corinthians 4:11-12,)

“These are the channels by which our souls are enlarged and our sympathies deepened.”

“Death” (to our old sin nature) is the inevitable, earthly lot of those whom God has called, the lonely, invisible burden of those whom God is using. Sickness, loneliness, clamor, unrequited love, incessant demands, and mundane duties---all conditions that seem to epitomize the frustrations of life---become the means by which the spirit of sacrifice and service begins to emerge in us.

Arlene, is God using His plan to bring salvation to the earth through your ministry and life?  I believe so.

“God uses everything---suffering, sorrow, even sin---to draw us to Him and remake us in His image.”

Dear Father in heaven, You who give Yourself to us, I long for you. I come to You most often with requests to do something ‘for’ me… yet You  want to do something ‘in’ me! I yield myself to You today, to work Your will in me by the power of Your Spirit, work the likeness of Your Son, the Lord Jesus in me. I believe You have me in the place You want me right now… even if I got here by because of other people’s sin and wrong choices or rebellion or indifference You are incorporating them into Your plan to draw me near and mold me in Your image. Thank You for Your Sovereign will and wisdom and power and goodness that can take all of my past mistakes and failures and work Truth and Hope and love in and through me for Your glory. I rest in the truth that You have me here in this place right now for Your perfect purposes. I praise Your holy name, now and forever.

Love in Christ,

az

When God wants to drill a man

And thrill a man and skill a man,

When God wants to mold a man

To play the noblest part;

When He yearns with all his heart

To create so bold a man

That all the world will be amazed,

Watch his methods, watch his ways;

How God relentlessly perfects

Whom he royally elects;

How he hammers us and hurts us

And with mighty blows converts us

Into trial shapes of clay

Which only God can understand,

While our tortured heart is crying

And we lift beseeching hands.

How God bends, but never breaks

When his good he undertakes;

How he uses whom he chooses

And with every purpose fuses us;

By every act induces us

To try his splendor out---

God knows what he’s about!

---Dale Martin Stone

http://www.gramzkidz.com

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