Exploring thoughts with purpose ℠
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
– Matthew 22:36-40
And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”
When He entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to Him as He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?”
– Matthew 21:23-27
Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you a question; and if you tell Me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it? From heaven or from men?”
And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ we are afraid of the multitude; for all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.”
And He said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
When love is tried as loved ones change,
– Brian Wren, When Love is Found
Hold still to hope though all seems strange,
Till ease returns and love grows wise
Through list’ning ears and opened eyes.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
– “Hope” is the Thing with Feathers, poem by Emily Dickinson
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all
Sometimes on this journey
– The Father’s House by Cory Asbury
I get lost in my mistakes
What looks to me like weakness
Is a canvas for Your strength
And my story isn’t over
My story’s just begun
And failure won’t define me
‘Cause that’s what my Father does
“Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” So the last will be first, and the first last.
– Jesus in Matthew 20:13-16
Children were brought to Him that He might lay His hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people; but Jesus said, “Let the children come to Me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And He laid His hands on them and went away.
– Matthew 19:13-15
Spring drew on… and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.
– Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre