Sayings of Samuel Godfrey George - November 2015, Part 2

Jesus said before he went to the cross, "Love one another as I have loved you." Our question as Jesus followers should be this. "How did Jesus love us? Did he love us even when we didn't love him? Did he love us even when we were sinners totally removed from his light? Or did he love only those who responded to him and sought his light? Did he love us by coming to us and spending time with the most despised among us, or did he love us by distancing himself from us? How did he respond to those who felt lost? Did he let them go, or did he go after them, determined to find them at any cost?" Once we arrive at the answers, we must ask a further question. "If Jesus loved like this, should we also not love like this, as he commanded?" And we must ask God to give us the grace to love like this.

Love the people you have in your life today. And love them well. This is the one task that you must not fail to do. For if you love them you will also love God.

Let us not blame God for what we are and what we do. We are what we are by our own choice. We do what we do by our own choice. We can never blame God for what we do, for we do it knowing well that what we do is wrong.

If you wouldn't accept me in my rags, does it matter if you would accept me in my riches?

Don't have a good opinion of yourself. Know your weaknesses, and be mindful of your helplessness without God. And you will be well.

Every day as I work for God I am more aware of myself and what I am expected to do. And increasingly I am at peace with who I am emerging to be, though what I seek for myself and what God has made me to be are not the one and the same thing.

When you help others genuinely without being overly concerned about yourself, you are fasting in the eyes of God.

Fasting is not merely a matter of abstaining from food and water and spending time in devotion and prayer. It is actually a matter of leaving one’s comfort zone and helping others in distress and saving them from their difficult situations. It is not turning away from one’s own flesh and blood. This is the kind of fasting that God has ordained.

Seek God before you seek anyone else today. Look to God and receive from him the grace to live this day. You do this by faith. You receive this invisible blessing from your invisible God. Believe this and live accordingly.

Don't work to go to heaven. Just believe that you'll get there. You are with Jesus, and where he is, it is heaven.

What I am is a child of God. There is nothing you need to know about me beyond that.

If you believe in the power of God, then believe also this. God lives within you. And you have his power living within you. And you can use that power and live the life that God wants you to live.

If you think you cannot, you probably will not. Believe that you can, and maybe you will.

One should be careful when entering this institution called marriage. One should ask oneself these questions, “Am I ready for this? Will I be ready to sacrifice for another person? Will I be able to deny myself if I have to? Am I a slave to a certain impulse? Am I addicted to something? Do I find it difficult to control myself? Will I be there for my spouse and my children? Will I destroy them by my behaviour? If the answers to these questions are not yes, then it is best not to get married.

Once you marry you have responsibilities. And these are serious responsibilities. The one who is not ready to take on these responsibilities should not marry. Unfortunately, in this world people do get married without considering the cost of marriage, and without being ready or even willing to take on the responsibilities of marriage.

People who are very weak and not able to control themselves and who are addicted to certain things should not get married. Such people are not ready to take on the responsibilities of marriage. If they get into a marriage without considering the cost of marriage, they will make mistakes that are far too great to be repaired.

We humans cannot produce this love for God. Without this love we won’t go very far. We will always have challenges in life. And it is only those who love God who will find a way of rising above these challenges. Those who love God will stay faithful to him. Those who love God will be willing to wait for him, no matter how long it takes. To do this let us show love for God. Let us experience this love. And if we don’t have it, let us say to God, “Please place that love in our hearts. Please let our hearts seek you. Let our hearts yearn for you. Let us love you above everything, O Lord.”

All the advice that I give is for myself. If it is useful to someone else, it is only incidental.

Don't be lost in yourself. There's plenty to appreciate elsewhere.

Thanking God is a reality of the heart. It is not words uttered meaningfully or meaninglessly. It is a matter of feeling an overwhelming gratitude. It is a matter of letting that gratitude suffuse every bit of one's existence. It is a matter of letting that gratitude transform us into people who are aching to give. We thank God not with words, but with the very way we live.

Faith is not to be taken lightly. People who believe in God should be ready for the challenges in faith. And these are very difficult challenges. But God is with us. He will give us the strength to face them. All that we need to do is to believe that he is with us. And we should remind ourselves, “Look, God promised never to leave you, never to forsake you. Why are you worried? Why do you allow your heart to be troubled? Jesus said, ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ We will not allow our hearts to be troubled.” And this is how we overcome the difficulties in faith.

Faith in God is not easy. But God is always with us. He promised us, “I will never leave you. I will never forsake you.” And if we truly believe in this, we will not be dismantled no matter how difficult the situation is. We will not let our position of faith be destroyed, no matter what the trial is. But if we allow ourselves to be assailed by doubts to the degree that we lose faith in God, then it only shows that we are not ready for this great undertaking called faith.

God is faithful and he will not fail us. But we must wait for him patiently. There are moments in life when we need to wait for God’s help. We must wait in an attitude to faith. We must wait trusting in God to answer our prayer. Sometimes we need to say a prayer many times. Sometimes we need to not only ask, but also seek and knock. Sometimes we need to knock defiantly. Sometimes we need to knock unceasingly. Sometimes we need to even wrestle with God. Sometimes we may even have to suffer physical injury, as Jacob the patriarch had to. But Jacob was not willing to let God go. He said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” This is the defiance we need to show in our lives of faith. There is a fight to faith. And we must be willing to fight. Those who are not ready to fight should not be in this thing called faith. I agree with James, the brother of Jesus. There is no place for wavering in faith. We must stick to our position. And this is our position. God will not fail us. God will never leave us. He will never forsake us. He will save us. Many may indeed be our afflictions, but God will not forsake us. This is how we live our lives for God.

I think it is possible to show an uncompromising faith in God. There are moments when all of us have doubts. There are moments of testing when we wonder whether God is really there. But we cannot allow these moments to rule over us. We cannot allow them to change our essential attitude to God. And our essential attitude to God is one of faith. We believe in God and in his goodness. And anyone who shows belief in God must also know that there will come moments in life when he or she will be tempted to doubt God’s goodness and faithfulness. We get into this thing called faith knowing well that there will be stiff challenges and great difficulties that we should be ready to take on. If we are not ready to take them on, then we are not ready for this thing called faith.

James, the brother of Jesus said, “Let the man who wavers in his faith not think that he can get anything from God.” That may sound a bit harsh. Is it possible to be always faithful to God? Do doubts not occur from time to time? Do people of faith not find themselves doubting their faith, even doubting God and his goodness and his faithfulness? Is it always possible to show an uncompromising faith in God?

God's faithfulness far exceeds our faithlessness. And He is perfectly able to be faithful and good even while we are faithless and lost.

Faith comes first. Declaration comes later. Faith comes from God. And declaration must come from faith.

 

You are a work of God. So don't even try to meddle with God's work.

 

Sometimes when you talk you discover what was deeply within you, yet you never knew it was there.

 

The price of wisdom is not affordable to all. Not every man is ready to fall repeatedly to learn about falling. We all would like to rise and walk steadily for many days before we ever fall again. We would even prefer to be champion walkers who seldom fall. But how many of us would prefer to fall repeatedly to learn why we fall? Perhaps there is no one like that. Yet there are some of us that God has chosen to experience the act of falling so many times that we have become unwittingly exponents of falling and students of failure. There is much that repeated failure can point out to a man studying his own depraved heart. The heart is an inexhaustible source of vice, and there is apparently no end to understanding it or very little or no possibility of overcoming its unending stirrings. Repeated failure to overcome the heart can only lead to a deep distrust of everything that proceeds from it, and this should turn a man outward to the only one who can master it. And he is the one who made it. He alone can conquer its raging rebellion. A man of this kind will greatly appreciate the need to submit his heart to God. This alone will ensure the submission of every other part of his body. Students of failure will gladly run to the only one who can stop the rot and do even more. He is God, and he alone can break the depraved heart and remake it to mirror his own. That is the hope, which only the hopeless can entertain best.

 

God is not responsible for the way things are. We are. We humans are given the freedom to live our lives our way. And when we exercise this freedom, unfortunate events occur sometimes. Human beings clash. Human wills clash. Human paths collide. And accidents happen. When accidents happen we should accept them as a natural outcome of the way human beings are constituted. Human knowledge is imperfect. Human actions are imperfect. When such is the case accidents will certainly take place.

 

What if I fall into temptation? What if I fall again and again into the same temptation? Am I not rebelling against God when I fall into a temptation? Should I not fight against it and resist it with all the strength that I have? Do I not have the strength of God within me? Can I not do all things through Christ who strengthens me? This is my response to these questions. If you are a child of God, you will ultimately be able to behave like God. When you ultimately behave like God, you will avoid evil and do good always. But this is not immediately achievable. No child can do immediately what an adult can potentially do. A child should grow up for his ability to increase. A human child cannot experience the entire potential of the human being immediately. He reaches various levels of ability as he gradually develops into an adult. And even when he is fully grown up, he may not display all the skills and abilities that human beings can evince. When such is the case with human performance, godly performance may be even more difficult to achieve. But with God this is possible. Still there is a process of growth that a spiritually reborn person must undergo. One cannot specify the years or place a time-limit on a work that God performs inwardly in a person. And God may not work identically in all people. But he always achieves the same result. He completes this work of inner transformation in his time. And until this time is reached, human beings born of God will falter and fail. They will struggle with sin and may even repeatedly fall into temptation. But let them not interpret this as a failure on their part to be what God wants them to be. Let them not consider themselves rebels for their behaviour is not aimed at displeasing and dishonouring God. Their behaviour is only a consequence of an inner weakness that God is remedying in them gradually. Let them see themselves as works in progress. And let them trust in God to complete his work in them.

 

It is good for a man to be constantly aware of his own weakness. It may feel like a curse, but it is a blessing. It is the thing that keeps him in order. It is the thing that keeps him seeking God. God did command the weak person to declare his strength. But this is not a strength that is humanly achieved. It is a strength that is derived from a supernatural source. It is in weakness that a human discovers the strength of another in him. It is in total weakness that this strength is fully seen. It is the strength of God who reveals it most when a man is in a state of weakness. Unless a man is weak he may never find this strength within him.

 

How do you know that God approves of you and your work? Look deeply into your heart. See if there is something beautiful glowing inside of you. Look outside of you and see if you feel a desire to give to someone without any ulterior motive. And then consider your life. Have you received gifts that came from nowhere? Have you been helped by God especially in times of crises? Are you going on doing something out of love for God though there is no possible way you can sustain yourself? If these are true in your life, you can conclude that God approves of you and what you are doing.

 

Everyone's disapproval means nothing if you have God's approval.

 

You only need God's approval. Every other approval is ultimately useless.

 

I suppose all of us feel grateful at some point in our lives. What do we do when we are grateful? How do express our gratitude? To whom do we express our gratitude? This is the question today. I’d like to express my gratitude to God because I believe he is the reason why everything is. He is the reason why all things exist. God is the reason for me. God is the reason for you. God is the reason why this communication is taking place right now. When he is all our reasons, shouldn’t we give thanks to him and express our gratitude to him? Let’s be grateful to God for understanding this: he is the reason for everything. My grateful heart will not stop giving thanks to God for life.

 

There is a way out of darkness. But the light must come from God and He alone can guide a man through this perilous path. It is not easy for anyone, but with God this journey is possible.

 

Sleep well friend. There is a God who is watching over you.

 

Where sin abounded grace abounded even more. Happy is the one who knows her darkness.

 

Many men tried to understand God's heart and they failed. Only one could reveal it to us. And he died the worst kind of death to save us while we were still unaware of his heart. And his heart and God's heart are not dissimilar.

 

It is the one who is most lost who is most sought in heaven. He is the one God seeks and will respond to first.

 

We all are ill-behaved. We all have unconfessed sins. We all have fallen short of the glory of God. And it doesn't matter whether it is by an inch or a mile. A sinner is a sinner, no matter how little he has sinned. And God loves all sinners, and takes the time to go after the ones that get lost. Let us not forget that fact in our holy zeal to declaim those who seem so far away from God.

 

God always answers the sincere cry of his most ill-behaved child. For he is a father who is above every human father and he loves and pities his children in a way that no human father can ever do.

 

Believe that you can. And you will. A man is what his thoughts lead him to be. If you believe you can do anything well, you will do it well. We are the products of our thoughts. Whatever it is that you want to do, observe well and imitate bravely. You won't get it right immediately. But you eventually will, as long as you believe in yourself. But if you won't believe in yourself, nobody can do that for you.

 

When people reject you, they reveal more about themselves than they do about you. Accept their rejection, and learn from it not to repeat that in your own life. Be willing to accept others even when some of them reject you without even considering you.

 

When people reject you for no good reason you can think of, be glad that God accepts you while knowing everything about you.

 

God will always give you what is best for you. When you meet with disappointments in life remember this.

 

Not all my instincts are God-given. But some of them are. I need to find out what these are and hold on to them.

 

This is the ninth year of my speaking for God. I have used this voice for him. This voice, which was once not speaking for him, spoke for him eight years. My voice speaks out my thoughts concerning God. And these are my thoughts right now. No matter how much I think I am doing something, the truth is this: God is doing something in me. God is the one who keeps me going. And it is absolutely true that apart from him I can do nothing. My voice is God’s gift to me. My thoughts have been shaped by him in me. This desire to speak comes from him. So this is his work. In the ninth year I will convey the recognition of this spiritual truth: God is the reason why we his people do anything. And if we ever do anything profitable in this life, if we achieve anything substantial, if we do anything worthy in God’s eyes, the only reason for that is God himself.

 

Change is inevitable in life. One changes either for the better or for the worse. As we grow in years we change. Our patterns of thought change. Our approaches to life change. Has my approach to God changed over the years? I don’t think there has been a change in my approach to God. What has happened is that I have gradually realized that I am a work of God, that I am very much in his hands, that I am being shaped as the years go by. The passage of time is steadily moulding me into who I need to be. And this is what I need to be. I need to be a work of God. I need to believe that I am a work being done by God, being shaped in his hands.

 

God always answers prayers. But his answers are not always what we want them to be. When he grants our requests we have absolutely no problem with that. But when he denies our requests we should graciously accept his will and know that he does so because he has our best interests at heart. Sometimes God makes us wait for the thing we want. At these times we should be willing to wait patiently as long as it takes. For God knows best. And we should know that.