Abraham Lincoln's Speech

In a speech made in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said,

 

 

 

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.

 

But we have forgotten God.

 

We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

 

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."

 

 

Have We Forgotten Him too?

Let's Check our hearts with integrity

 

www.SermonCentral.Com

 

Why Did God Create Us?

 

 

 

The short answer to the question "why did God create us?" is "for His pleasure."

 

Revelation 4:11 says,

"You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."

 

Colossians 1:16 reiterates the point:

"All things were created by him and for him."

 

Being created for God's pleasure does not mean humanity was made to entertain God or provide Him with amusement.

God is a creative Being, and it gives Him pleasure to create.

 

God is a personal Being, and it gives Him pleasure to have other beings He can have a genuine relationship with.

 

Being made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27), human beings have the ability to know God and therefore love Him, worship Him, serve Him, and fellowship with Him. God did not create human beings because He needed them.

 

 

As God, He needs nothing. In all eternity past, He felt no loneliness, so He was not looking for a "friend."

He loves us, but this is not the same as needing us. If we had never existed, God would still be God-the unchanging One (Malachi 3:6).

 

The I AM (Exodus 3:14) was never dissatisfied with His own eternal existence.

When He made the universe, He did what pleased Himself, and since God is perfect, His action was perfect.

 

"It was very good" (Genesis 1:31).

 

Also, God did not create "peers" or beings equal to Himself.

Logically, He could not do so. If God were to create another being of equal power, intelligence, and perfection, then He would cease to be the one true God for the simple reason that there would be two gods-and that would be an impossibility.

 

"The LORD is God; besides him there is no other" (Deuteronomy 4:35).

Anything that God creates must of necessity be lesser than He. The thing made can never be greater than, or as great as, the One who made it.

 

Recognizing the complete sovereignty and holiness of God, we are amazed that He would take man and crown him "with glory and honor" (Psalm 8:5) and that He would condescend to call us "friends" (John 15:14-15).

 

Why did God create us?

God created us for His pleasure and so that we, as His creation, would have the pleasure of knowing Him.

 

Www.Gotquestions.Org

 

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Beyond Human Reasoning - True Story

The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to their first ministry, to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn , arrived in early October excited about their opportunities. When they saw  their church, it was very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve. They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, etc, and on December 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished. On December 19 a terrible tempest - a driving rainstorm hit the area and lasted for two days. On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high. The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home.  On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea market type sale for charity, so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth  with exquisite work, fine colors and a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to the church. By this time it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor  invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry.The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area. Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle. Her face was like a sheet. "Pastor," she asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?"   The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there.

 

They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria. The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how he had just gotten "The Tablecloth". The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week.  He was captured, sent to prison and never saw her husband or her home again. 

The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she made the pastor keep it for the church. The pastor insisted on driving her home. That was the least he could do. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job. What a wonderful service they had on Christmas  Eve. The Church was almost full.

 

 

 The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door   
and many said that they would return. One older man, whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood continued to sit in one of the pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn't leaving.The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike?  

He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her safety and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35 years between.....   

The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the pastor  had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on the door and he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.

True Story - submitted by Pastor Rob Reid  who says God does work in mysterious ways.

I ask the Lord to bless you as I pray for you today, to guide you and protect you as you go along your way. His love is always with you. His promises are true, and when we give Him all our cares we know He will see us through. 

Understand that things happen for a reason.....

 

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