Health...Harmony...Happiness...No...Holiness. Holiness of Heart.

"We are to live in holiness, a strict inward conformity to the mind of Christ -- and righteousness, a full outward conformity to the precepts of the Gospel.
This is to be done before God, under the continual influence and support of His grace, and with a constant evidence of His presence and approbation."

"True happiness is found in hearing the glad tidings of salvation by Christ Jesus, and keeping them in a holy heart, and practicing them in an unblameable life."

--Adam Clarke

"A Christian is one who continually obeys the commandments of Christ. Wholehearted obedience is to be regarded as the proper sign of genuine, personal faith: 'Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.' [Matt. 7:19-21]. The Christian comes out and separates himself from whatever is impure and unholy in the conduct and habits of the world. The Christian brings forth the fruit of righteousness to the praise and the glory of Christ -- virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity. All these are to be in him and abound. He sets his affections of things above, not on things on the earth. He makes public confession of his love and attachment to Christ, and dedicates his all -- spirit, soul, body, talents, and opportunity -- to the diffusion of the cause and glory of the Redeemer in the world."

--R. W. Wooten
________________________

These are just some thoughts that continue to help me keep my focus on Jesus Christ, my Lord, my Saviour, and my only Hope and Rock of salvation.

Faith...

"Socially irrelevant, even if privately engaging."

God, no! If my faith can be described this way, what is it worth? If this is true, faith is nothing more than a personal thing, with as much real importance as my collection of Hot Wheels. If Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, and He has commanded us to go into ALL THE WORLD and tell everyone so, I have absolutely NO business whatsoever living by a faith that is merely privately engaging.


"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

"What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works?"