Sunday, May 04, 2008

Looks like a great place to .......

(catchy name eh?)

Excerpts from Encourage Me by Charles R. Swindoll

"You have become acquainted with disappointments, broken dreams, and disillusionment. Crisis seems to be your closest companion. Like a ten-pound sledge, your heartache has been pounding you dangerously near desperation. Unless I miss my guess, negativism and cynicism have crept in. You see little hope around the corner. As one wag put it, "The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of an oncoming train."

"Tired, stumbling, beaten, discouraged friend, take heart! The Lord God can and will lift you up."

On encouragement

"The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give His church. It's an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality, but it is a permissive, accepting and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable. It is democratic. You can tell people secrets and they usually don't tell others or even want to. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers."

"....Christ wants His church to be....a fellowship where people can come in and say, "I'm sunk!" "I'm beat!" "I've had it!"

"What do you need when circumstances puncture your fragile dikes and threaten to engulf your life with pain and confusion?"

You need a shelter....Where do you find encouragement?"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

To quote an elder statesman in the fellowship of A.A. (name withheld for anonymity): " Bars are velvet sewers, Fur lined dressed up places of despair and destruction." End quote.

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