A lady worked at a meat distribution factory. One day, when she finished with her work schedule, she went into the meat cold room (Freezer) to inspect something, but in a moment of misfortune, the door closed and she was locked inside with no help in sight. Although she screamed and knocked with all her might, her cries went unheard as no one could hear her. Most of the workers had already gone, and outside the cold room it's impossible to hear what was going on inside. Five hours later, whilst she was at the verge of death, the security guard of the factory eventually opened the door. She was miraculously saved from dying that day. When she later asked the security guard how he had come to open the door, which wasn't his usual work routine, this was his explanation:
"I've been working in this factory for 35 years. Hundreds of workers come in and out every day, but you're one of the few who greet me in the morning and say goodbye to me every evening when leaving after work. Many treat me as if I'm invisible. Today, as you reported for work, like all other days, you greeted me in your simple manner 'Hello'. But this evening after working hours, I curiously observed that I had not heard your "Bye, see you tomorrow". Hence, I decided to check around the factory. I look forward to your 'hi' and 'bye' every day because they remind me that I am someone. By not hearing your farewell today, I knew something had happened. That's why I was searching every where for you."
Moral Lesson to reflect upon: Be humble, love and respect those around you. Try to have an impact on people who cross your path every day, you never know what tomorrow will bring. Let this story be an inspiration.  Let's share to inspire others; someone shared this to inspire me  and I've been greatly inspired by this story.
        
Author: Unknown

I have said that in the spring of the year the older members of the church began manifestly to decline in their engagedness and zeal for God. This greatly oppressed me, as it did also the young converts generally. About this time I read in a newspaper an article under the head of, "A revival revived." The substance of it was, that in a certain place there had been a revival during the winter; that in the spring it declined; and that upon earnest prayer being offered for the continued out-pouring of the Spirit, the revival was powerfully revived. This article set me into a flood of weeping.

At the next meeting of the young people, I proposed that we should observe a closet concert of prayer for the revival of God's work; that we should pray at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset, in our closets, and continue this for one week, when we should come together again and see what farther was to be done. No other means were used for the revival of God's work. But the spirit of prayer was immediately poured out wonderfully upon the young converts.

(Memoirs of Rev. Charles G. Finney. 1876, p44)

Revival In 1741, William Cooper wrote the preface to Jonathan Edwards work entitled The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God. In his preface, Cooper wrote:

Now for a great while, it has been a dead and barren time without fruit in all the churches of the Reformation. The showers of blessing have been restrained. The influence of the Spirit stopped. The Gospel has not had any famous success. Conversions have been rare and dubious. Few sons and daughters have been born to God.

The hearts of Christians are not as lively, warm, and refreshed under the ordinances of the Word and sacraments as they have been. The Christian faith has been in this sad state in this land for many years. There are one or two well-known exceptions. This sad state is acknowledged by all who have any spiritual awareness. Faithful ministers and serious Christians lament this fact. This sad state of the church is a constant petition in our public prayers. From Sabbath to Sabbath we pray, "God, pour out Your Spirit upon us, and revive Your work in the midst of the years." 

He did! The answer to this prayer was the Great Awakening!

Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ – 2 Cor 2:14

God gets His greatest victories out of apparent defeats. Very often the enemy seems to triumph for a little, and God lets it be so; but then He comes in and upsets all the work of the enemy, overthrows the apparent victory, and as the Bible says, “turns the way of the wicked upside down.” Thus He gives a great deal larger victory than we would have known if He had not allowed the enemy, seemingly, to triumph in the first place.

The story of the three Hebrew children being cast into the fiery furnace is a familiar one. Here was an apparent victory for the enemy. It looked as if the servants of the living God were going to have a terrible defeat. We have all been in places where it seemed as though we were defeated, and the enemy rejoiced. We can imagine what a complete defeat this looked to be. They fell down into the flames, and their enemies watched them to see them burn up in that awful fire, but were greatly astonished to see them walking around in the fire enjoying themselves. Nebuchadnezzar told them to “come forth out of the midst of the fire.” Not even a hair was singed, nor was the smell of fire on their garments, “because there is no other god that can deliver after this sort.”

This apparent defeat resulted in a marvelous victory.

Suppose that these three men had lost their faith and courage, and had complained, saying, “Why did not God keep us out of the furnace!” They would have been burned, and God would not have been glorified. If there is a great trial in your life today, do not own it as a defeat, but continue, by faith, to claim the victory through Him who is able to make you more than conqueror, and a glorious victory will soon be apparent. Let us learn that in all the hard places God brings us into, He is making opportunities for us to exercise such faith in Him as will bring about blessed results and greatly glorify His name. —Life of Praise

“Defeat may serve as well as victory
To shake the soul and let the glory out.
When the great oak is straining in the wind,
The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk
Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.
Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
Can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come
To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.”

Streams in the Desert

None of these things move me – Acts 20:24

We read in the book of Samuel that the moment that David was crowned at Hebron, “All the Philistines came up to seek David.” And the moment we get anything from the Lord worth contending for, then the devil comes to seek us.

When the enemy meets us at the threshold of any great work for God, let us accept it as “a token of salvation,” and claim double blessing, victory, and power. Power is developed by resistance. The cannon carries twice as far because the exploding power has to find its way through resistance. The way electricity is produced in the powerhouse yonder is by the sharp friction of the revolving wheels. And so we shall find some day that even Satan has been one of God’s agencies of blessing. —Days of Heaven upon Earth

A hero is not fed on sweets,
Daily his own heart he eats;
Chambers of the great are jails,
And head winds right for royal sails.
—Emerson

Tribulation is the way to triumph. The valley-way opens into the highway. Tribulation’s imprint is on all great things. Crowns are cast in crucibles. Chains of character that wind about the feet of God are forged in earthly flames. No man is greatest victor till he has trodden the winepress of woe. With seams of anguish deep in His brow, the “Man of Sorrows” said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation”—but after this sob comes the psalm of promise, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” The footprints are traceable everywhere. Bloodmarks stain the steps that lead to thrones. Sears are the price of scepters. Our crowns will be wrested from the giants we conquer. Grief has always been the lot of greatness. It is an open secret.

“The mark of rank in nature.
Is capacity for pain;
And the anguish of the singer
Makes the sweetest of the strain.”

Tribulation has always marked the trail of the true reformer. It is the story of Paul, Luther, Savonarola, Knox, Wesley, and all the rest of the mighty army. They came through great tribulation to their place of power.

Every great book has been written with the author’s blood. “These are they that have come out of great tribulation.” Who was the peerless poet of the Greeks? Homer. But that illustrious singer was blind. Who wrote the fadeless dream of “Pilgrim’s Progress”? A prince in royal purple upon a couch of ease? Nay! The trailing splendor of that vision gilded the dingy walls of old Bedford jail while John Bunyan, a princely prisoner, a glorious genius, made a faithful transcript of the scene.

Great is the facile conqueror; 
Yet haply, he, who, wounded sore,
Breathless, all covered o’er with blood and sweat, 
Sinks fainting, but fighting
Is greater yet.
—Selected
http://www.youdevotion.com/streams/january/21

What possibility is there of revival in such an age of decadence as our own? We must not forget the situation that preceded the eighteenth-century awakening. We have liberalism; they had deism. We have the drug menace; they had rum. We have contempt for the gospel, especially in places of influence; so did they. We have bishops who tolerate practising homosexuals in the ministry and the blatant public denial of the deity of Christ by one of their number; eighteenth-century Britain also suffered a supine clergy.

Yet in spite of all the obstacles the Holy Spirit intervened in a marvelous way, using humble prayers and a handful of godly leaders.

(Hulse, Erroll. 1991. Give him no rest: a call to prayer for revival, p89)

Give us a greater hunger, Lord, than we have ever known. 
Help us wait in one accord until Your pow'r is shown.
Keep us Your children on our knees, beseeching You with mighty pleas
Till floods of blessing like the seas sweep over all Your own.

Give us a sense of urgency that will not be denied.
Give such desire Your work to see, till ease we cast aside.
Give us soul-hunger and soul-thirst, till hearts with longing almost burst,
Till we could wish ourselves accursed if souls but reach Your side.

Lord, now begin Your mighty work; make bare Your holy arm.
O God, forbid that we should shirk, or to this age conform!
Reveal Your Spirit's mighty pow'r; oh, come upon Your church this hour!
By Your own working, Lord, empow'r, till Satan's forts we storm.

Help each of us to do our part; O Lord, may we not fail. 
Give clearest guidance to each heart, till highest mounts we scale.
Use us however You may choose; we would no burden, Lord, refuse;
But get us, Lord, where You can use and mightily prevail.

Oh, send the promised Holy Ghost upon us as we kneel.
We need His holy working most, till men conviction feel.
Lord, this is still the day of grace; have mercy on our dying race.
Revival send to every place; Your miracle reveal. 

(Duewel, Wesley. 1995. Revival Fire, p360)

🍃🌹🍃🌹🍃🌹🍃🌹🍃🌹

*_THIS IS A SAD STORY_*

_A sick person in a hospital bed was visited by relatives._

_The patient was on an oxygen MACHINE and therefore couldn't speak._

_As they stood beside the bed, the patient took a pen and a piece of paper and wrote a note which he gave to one of the relatives who put it in his shirt pocket without reading and they continued with their conversation._

_After a few minutes, the patient died._

_The relative later picked the note from his pocket to know what the dead man had written._

_And guess what❗_

_Sadly the note read...._

_*"Please move away from there, you have stepped on the oxygen pipe. I can't breathe again , you are killing me".*_

🌹 *LESSON:*🌹

_Do you postpone reading posts❓_

_Or do you ignore picking calls because you are already close to the caller❓_

_They might be helpful to you or to somebody particularly at a most critical time._

_Please pick your calls, read that note._

⚠ *NEVER POSTPONE ANYTHING.*❗

_*Don't just read this message alone, kindly share with your friends*_

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Author Unknown

Persistent Prayer

Men ought always to pray and not to faint – Luke 18:1

“Go to the ant.” Tammerlane used to relate to his friends an anecdote of his early life. “I once” he said, “was forced to take shelter from my enemies in a ruined building, where I sat alone many hours. Desiring to divert my mind from my hopeless condition, I fixed my eyes on an ant that was carrying a grain of corn larger than itself up a high wall. I numbered the efforts it made to accomplish this object. The grain fell sixty-nine times to the ground; but the insect persevered, and the seventieth time it reached the top. This sight gave me courage at the moment, and I never forgot the lesson.” —The King’s Business

Prayer which takes the fact that past prayers have not been answered as a reason for languor, has already ceased to be the prayer of faith. To the prayer of faith the fact that prayers remain unanswered is only evidence that the moment of the answer is so much nearer. From first to last, the lessons and examples of our Lord all tell us that prayer which cannot persevere and urge its plea importunately, and renew, and renew itself again, and gather strength from every past petition, is not the prayer that will prevail. —William Arthur

Rubenstein, the great musician, once said, “If I omit practice one day, I notice it; if two days, my friends notice it; if three days, the public notice it.” It is the old doctrine, “Practice makes perfect.” We must continue believing, continue praying, continue doing His will. Suppose along any line of art, one should cease practicing, we know what the result would be. If we would only use the same quality of common sense in our religion that we use in our everyday life, we should go on to perfection.

The motto of David Livingstone was in these words, “I determined never to stop until I had come to the end and achieved my purpose.” By unfaltering persistence and faith in God he conquered.

Coined from: Streams in the Desert

*COULD THIS BE YOU?*

He called his friend;
And told him: "I'm in need of money, my mom is sick and I have no money for her treatment."

His friend said: " Alright my dear friend, just call me later after Devotion."

He called him but his phone was switched off.

He kept calling over and over again, until he got tired.

And went to search for another friend who can help him with the treatment fee.

But he couldn't find anyone who can help.

He returned back to home and found a bag of medications near his mother's pillow and she was sleeping.

He asked his brother, the brother told him: "your friend came and collected the prescriptions and brought these medicines, he just went out not long ago".

He smiled and with tears in his eyes he went out to look for his friend, and when he found him; he asked him : "where have u been, I have been calling you since but your phone was switched off..?"

The friend replied: "I sold my phone and bought the medications for your mom"

A FRIEND IN NEED IS A FRIEND INDEED.

Again l ask.....

*COULD THIS BE YOU?*

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Author: Unknow

Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ – 2 Cor 2:14

God gets His greatest victories out of apparent defeats. Very often the enemy seems to triumph for a little, and God lets it be so; but then He comes in and upsets all the work of the enemy, overthrows the apparent victory, and as the Bible says, “turns the way of the wicked upside down.” Thus He gives a great deal larger victory than we would have known if He had not allowed the enemy, seemingly, to triumph in the first place.

The story of the three Hebrew children being cast into the fiery furnace is a familiar one. Here was an apparent victory for the enemy. It looked as if the servants of the living God were going to have a terrible defeat. We have all been in places where it seemed as though we were defeated, and the enemy rejoiced. We can imagine what a complete defeat this looked to be. They fell down into the flames, and their enemies watched them to see them burn up in that awful fire, but were greatly astonished to see them walking around in the fire enjoying themselves. Nebuchadnezzar told them to “come forth out of the midst of the fire.” Not even a hair was singed, nor was the smell of fire on their garments, “because there is no other god that can deliver after this sort.”

This apparent defeat resulted in a marvelous victory.

Suppose that these three men had lost their faith and courage, and had complained, saying, “Why did not God keep us out of the furnace!” They would have been burned, and God would not have been glorified. If there is a great trial in your life today, do not own it as a defeat, but continue, by faith, to claim the victory through Him who is able to make you more than conqueror, and a glorious victory will soon be apparent. Let us learn that in all the hard places God brings us into, He is making opportunities for us to exercise such faith in Him as will bring about blessed results and greatly glorify His name. —Life of Praise

“Defeat may serve as well as victory
To shake the soul and let the glory out.
When the great oak is straining in the wind,
The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk
Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.
Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
Can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come
To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

From Streams in the Desert

They did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year”
Joshua 5:12

Israel’s weary wanderings were all over, and the promised rest was attained. No more moving tents, fiery serpents, fierce Amalekites, and howling wildernesses: they came to the land which flowed with milk and honey, and they ate the old corn of the land. Perhaps this year, beloved Christian reader, this may be thy case or mine. Joyful is the prospect, and if faith be in active exercise, it will yield unalloyed delight. To be with Jesus in the rest which remaineth for the people of God, is a cheering hope indeed, and to expect this glory so soon is a double bliss. Unbelief shudders at the Jordan which still rolls between us and the goodly land, but let us rest assured that we have already experienced more ills than death at its worst can cause us. Let us banish every fearful thought, and rejoice with exceeding great joy, in the prospect that this year we shall begin to be “forever with the Lord” A part of the host will this year tarry on earth, to do service for their Lord. If this should fall to our lot, there is no reason why the New Year’s text should not still be true “We who have believed do enter into rest” The Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance; he gives us “glory begun below” In heaven they are secure, and so are we preserved in Christ Jesus; there they triumph over their enemies, and we have victories too. Celestial spirits enjoy communion with their Lord, and this is not denied to us; they rest in his love, and we have perfect peace in him: they hymn his praise, and it is our privilege to bless him too. We will this year gather celestial fruits on earthly ground, where faith and hope have made the desert like the garden of the Lord. Man did eat angels’ food of old, and why not now? O for grace to feed on Jesus, and so to eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan this year

C H Spurgeon

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.
I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.
I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.
Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.
by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

by Langston Hughes