Anthony Crumley

"What does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways..."

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:34:04 -0500

“What does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to server the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD and His statutes.”

- Deuteronomy 10:12, 13

"You will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with..."

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 07:58:00 -0500

“You will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

- Deuteronomy 4:29 (NKJV)

The fact that our churches are full of affluent members means little but the absence of the poor and...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 15:12:38 -0500

The fact that our churches are full of affluent members means little but the absence of the poor and outcast reveals much.

"Fact is God’s work; faith is our trust in what God has worked; and experience is having..."

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 09:18:46 -0500

“Fact is God’s work; faith is our trust in what God has worked; and experience is having God’s work lived out through our lives in a practical way.”

- Watchman Nee

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left..."

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:36:04 -0500

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

- G. K. Chesterton

I spend too much time obsessing over the there and then with far too little focused on the here and...

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 08:30:33 -0500

I spend too much time obsessing over the there and then with far too little focused on the here and now.

We can’t live in His presence without living in the present.

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 13:36:46 -0500

We can’t live in His presence without living in the present.

We look back and remember the cross, look forward to the return of our Lord and in all other things...

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 08:37:31 -0500

We look back and remember the cross, look forward to the return of our Lord and in all other things look up, taking no thought for tomorrow.

Lord lead us into your way and protect us from our way.

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 06:15:12 -0500

Lord lead us into your way and protect us from our way.

Life

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 09:01:00 -0500

Life is not at all what I thought it would be in my youth. It is surely not what I think it is in my middle age. I suspect it will not actually be what I think in my old age either. The reality that I know little and understand less is looming larger and larger.

Yet, there is still a question we must grapple with while there is time and life left to be lived. What is our life supposed to be? The simple answer is that our life is supposed to be what God created it to be. Of course, this only begs another question. How do we experience the life we were created for?

The path to this life is not what the world teaches, of that we can be sure. The worldly path is to listen to and follow our own heart. Unfortunately, our hearts are exceedingly corrupt and cannot be trusted.

On the other hand, the spiritual path is to listen to and obey our God. Amazingly, it is just that simple. In fact, there are just two things that can hinder us as we pursue the life we were created to live. They are deaf ears that cannot hear His voice and a hard heart that will not obey His words.

Mostly, we don’t realize our own deafness. This is not really as strange as it may seem since so few actually have spiritual ears to hear. If a deaf person had never met someone who could hear, but had contact only with other deaf people, they would think themselves normal and whole. It is when they come into contact with someone who can hear that they realize their own deafness.

Do we unknowingly suffer from spiritual deafness? Have we been so surrounded by it that we think it normal? If so, there is no need to dispair. We begin to hear when we begin to listen. We are all capable of hearing and God is faithful to give us ears to hear when we are willing to use them.

Besides our deafness, we also may not realize we have a hard and unrepentant heart. We think our ways are the right ways but we are only doing what is right in our own eyes. We are unaware of the rock that is our heart.

Have we ever truly experienced anyone with a soft heart, someone who wholeheartedly obeys the words of our God? Would we recognize them if we saw them? Surely, they would stand out as an oddity. Living wholly by faith and obedience, they would seem unstable and foolish to those who operate from mere intellect and worldly wisdom.

If our heart was soft and completely under God’s sway, what would we be like? Are we like that now? Do we even want to be like that or are we satisfied with our hard heart? Is it possible that we are afraid of a soft heart? Could that even be our greatest fear?

Horrifically, our hard hearted state seems to be what we are naturally most comfortable and satisfied with. We are scared to death of becoming all that God would have us to be. Would to God, that our normal state, with which we are most comfortable, would become the very state He desires us to be in and that our greatest fear would become returning to the state we find ourselves in at this very moment.

In order to live the life God desires for us, caution must be laid aside as a hinderance rather than a virtue. We must hear God’s voice and obey.

Lord give us ears to hear and a heart of flesh with which to obey. Replace our hard heart and deaf ears with an obedient heart and ears attuned to your voice.

Submit not to the will of men but to the will of the Father, not to the authority of men but to the...

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 16:18:14 -0600

Submit not to the will of men but to the will of the Father, not to the authority of men but to the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, not to the leadership of men but to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Then, having done so, we will humbly submit ourselves one to another in the fear of God, serving one another in love.

"Above all, keep much in the presence of God. Never see the face of man till you have seen his face..."

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 06:57:08 -0600

“Above all, keep much in the presence of God. Never see the face of man till you have seen his face who is our life, our all.”

- Robert Murray McCheyne

"No doubt [his success] was that his whole ministry was little else than a giving out of his own..."

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:50:00 -0600

“No doubt [his success] was that his whole ministry was little else than a giving out of his own inward life.”

- Andrew A. Bonar in reference to Robert Murray McCheyne

"How can a man be dull when he is handling such themes? I would say that a ‘dull..."

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:18:32 -0600

“How can a man be dull when he is handling such themes? I would say that a ‘dull preacher’ is a contradiction in terms; if he is dull he is not a preacher. He may stand in a pulpit and talk but he is certainly not a preacher. With the grand theme and message of the Bible, dullness is impossible.”

- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Everything in our lives should be creator focused yet we tend to be creation focused.

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 19:13:19 -0600

Everything in our lives should be creator focused yet we tend to be creation focused.

"Tozer argued that the preacher’s first aim should be to turn a convert into a worshipper..."

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 22:01:23 -0600

“Tozer argued that the preacher’s first aim should be to turn a convert into a worshipper before a worker.”

- Tony Sargent

"When the day of recompense comes, the regret will only be that we have done so little for him, not..."

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:30:24 -0600

“When the day of recompense comes, the regret will only be that we have done so little for him, not that we have done too much.”

- George Muller

God is the creator of all things. The best life imaginable in a creation is one that glorifies and...

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:28:49 -0600

God is the creator of all things. The best life imaginable in a creation is one that glorifies and enjoys the creator, one where the creature lives the life they were created to live.

"The man who preaches what he does not constantly experience is, at best, an actor and, at worst, a..."

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 09:21:31 -0600

“The man who preaches what he does not constantly experience is, at best, an actor and, at worst, a charlatan.”

- Tony Sargent

"My dear friend, the only way to live life, the only way to die, is to know Jesus Christ, to believe..."

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 14:29:48 -0600

“My dear friend, the only way to live life, the only way to die, is to know Jesus Christ, to believe in him. I know him in whom I have believed.”

- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones