Sayings Of Samuel Godfrey George - April 2014

To Him who answered a child's prayer for a unique voice and the skill to speak an alien language, Who walked invisibly beside a young man and watched him enjoy his rebellious life, Who made Himself known to the adult man and reminded him of a child's promise screamed out at a fiery presence in a dream that refused to die, Who broke the uncompromising shell and drew out the work that defied discovery, Who whispered the inspiration and waited for the madness to drive the fledgling voice, Who stayed silent and exuded unworldly strength in times of dreadful distress, Who kept wayward feet homeward bound and a kingless heart yearning to be ruled, I say, "Be My God." 

Does it matter how many times I say thank you to God, or with what intensity and integrity I express my thanks? God is good and He blesses me regardless of my spiritual state. He blesses me because I am His child. He blesses me because He is good. And God loves to bless and blesses to love. Neither His blessings nor His goodness is dependent on me.

The object is not to be perfect. The object is to do something as well as possible.

Today God's gift to me is a grateful heart. It's good to be able to say thank you to God. Nothing in my life would have been possible without him. I would not have known what life is and how unfathomably great God's creativity is, if not for the gift of life. Life is difficult, yet in living it we experience a priceless gift.

Pray for someone. Let someone pray for you. We may not go on today without someone's prayers.

Will God only listen to declarations of faith spoken loudly and confidently preferably by bible thumpers? Will he not listen to the diffident, ill-formed prayers of biblically ignorant children who scream out desperate pleas? If God really does that he has indeed limited himself lamentably.

Give not to receive. Give because you have received.

Give till you are not noticed and then give some more.

Learn to be thankful for the paltry gift.

It's not in my prayer that I place my confidence. It's in God's response to any prayer that I place my confidence.

It seems that God is the reason for all the troubles of humankind. If only he had created the human perfectly or if only he had come up with rules that human beings could obey! It seems that guilt and suffering issue from Man's pathetic inability to live according to God's rules. But can Man get off so easily? Is the human not to blame at all? Are we not beings always capable of choosing good over evil but rarely doing so? If we choose evil many times is it not because we prefer it to the good? Yes, we often prefer evil to good. So are we not to blame for doing so? Is our Creator the one to take the rap for what we deliberately choose to do?

A miracle is only a miracle if you didn't expect it.

Though you may be in a dry place your God will provide. Just believe and live accordingly.

To believe in God is to believe in what seems unreal and to disbelieve in what seems real.

Why should we celebrate Easter? We celebrate Easter because it represents our ultimate hope. Our hope is not for this life alone. It is especially for the next life. And the next life is life indeed. The next life is a life without end. The next life is a life with God, without trouble and suffering. The next life is truly life. We celebrate Easter because it gives us the promise of the next life. It makes the promise of the next life available to us. Let us cling to this promise. Let us believe that as Christ rose from the dead, we too will rise from the dead. Let us simply believe that. Let us celebrate Easter. 

The first Easter was the moment when Jesus Christ triumphed over death and secured a triumph of a similar nature for all of us who believe in him. All of us who believe in Christ have this hope – that we too will triumph along with Jesus. Why? Why do we have this hope? We die with Jesus, for that is the nature of the Christian life on earth. Life on earth is a gradual death. Every day we die to our selves. Every day we die gradually. We deny ourselves gradually. If we die with Jesus, if we bear our crosses along with him, we will also rise with him. This is the simple hope. This is the promise. This is what Easter means.

Because Jesus Christ paid for our sins through his death, we should not worry about our sins any more. We should acknowledge the goodness of God and rejoice in his love for us.

Be as willing to wait as you are eager to get.

A parent's love for his child is great indeed. God's love for us must be even greater than that, for God is always greater than Man. Whatever goodness we show is a poor reflection of His limitless goodness. Let every parent know and reflect the love of God.

Teach me to enjoy the heat.

Anyone can speak words of faith. But only a few can believe these words in a hopeless situation.

Do not ignore the little joy.

Don't just tell about Jesus. Show Jesus to others by the way you behave.

To tell someone about Jesus is not as effective as to show someone Jesus. And the only way one shows Jesus to someone is by showing unconditional love to that person and by accepting that person without reservation.

When a man trusts in God and feels let down, he will be embarrassed by his faith. But that does not mean that God has failed him. It could mean that the human is so self-centred that his assessment of God is based only on his circumstances. The immutable truth is that God never fails the one who trusts in Him. So it is best to say "thank you" to God even when one feels embarrassed by one's trust in God, Who despite appearances to the contrary is never lacking in faithfulness.

People are different. This is a fact that we must face. Those who refuse to face this fact refuse to be enlightened and refuse to pave the way for peace and harmony. People who insist on a certain way of life or force others to follow a way of life are not working toward unity. They are not doing something that will bring the world together. We should accept the world as we find it, just as God accepts us as we are without stipulating our eligibility and without insisting on our being something for him to accept us. He accepts us just as we are. We should do the same. We should accept people just as they are. And we should tolerate difference if we cannot appreciate it.

I said to God, "I have been with you for more than three days. Have compassion on me, and don't send me away hungry. Or I'll faint on the way." And God responded by sending me help.

You can't force yourself to love God. But you can feel happy for your life, especially for all that is good in it. This is how you thank God without even thinking about him.

To receive a gift from God make sure that you don't deserve it.

Respect people, even the least of them. Respect the greatest and the least in the same way.

To discover the ordinariness of what one finds fascinating one must know it intimately.

Should prayer be formulaic or natural? Though the Lord's Prayer serves as a template for many who pray, I have found a more spontaneous, impulsive prayer more sincere in its expression.

We give because we have been given. We give because we need to give to show gratitude for what we have received. We give because we have received. Such giving will always please us and God.

Always want to give. Let that be your main desire.

It is not in our achievements or in our ability to persuade God that we must place our hope today. It is in God's unchanging nature, his great faithfulness and compassion that we must place our hope today.