Devotions for my life....

HIS VICTORIOUS INDWELLING.......DEC. 18/06 "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will go in and eat with him, and he with me." Revelation 3:20 There is no part of my being that is not laid open to the Divine Guest. There are no rooms of the house of my spirit, into which He may not go. Let Him come with the master key in His hand into all the dim chambers of your feeble nature; and as the one life is light in the eye, and color in the cheek, and deftness in the fingers, and strength in the arm, and pulsation in the heart, so He will come with the manifold results of the one gift to you. He will be like some subtle elixir which, taken into the lips, steals through a pallid and wasted frame, and brings back a glow to the cheek and a luster to the eye, and swiftness to the brain, and power to the whole nature. Or as some plant, drooping and flagging beneath the hot rays of the sun, when it has the scent of water given to it, will, in all its parts, stiffen and erect itself, so when the Spirit is poured out on men, their whole nature is invigorated and helped. Alexander MacLaren REFLECTIONS FOR RAGAMUFFINS Hope in my Savior The Christmas contemplative knows that hope is a gift, an undeserved gift of peace, but that it is also a call to decision - the decision to trust..... Hope thrives on the difficult and challenges the conclusion that our only contribution to the world will be, in the words of T.S. Eliot, "an asphalt driveway in front of our home and a thousand lost golf balls." Hope convinces us that in clinging to a miserable sense of security and status quo, the possibility of growth and greatness is utterly defeated. Hope says that I no longer need to be dismayed over my personal dishonesty and self-centeredness and feeble life of faith. That I no longer need to feel defeated, insensitive, and superficial. Because the question no longer is: Can I do it? Am I able? Can I overcome my moodiness, my laziness, my sensuality, my grudges, and resentments? The only question is: Is Jesus Christ able? Can my Savior, the Lord of my life, revive any drooping spirit and transform me at Christmas as he transformed the world through his birth in Bethlehem? "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33