MORNING MANNA          1-31-22

PEACE IN PRISON

For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. – 2 Timothy 4:6-8

Near the end of his life, Paul wrote to his young protégée Timothy one final letter to encourage him to continue in the ministry and in service to God. The aged missionary knew that his life would soon end. He was being held in the Mamertine Prison in Rome, an underground dungeon where prisoners who had been condemned were held before they were executed.

Yet despite his circumstances, Paul did not complain. He was focused on what was to come—the crown that he would receive from the hand of the Lord for his love of Christ’s appearing. Most of us have never enduring anything like the physical suffering and abuse that Paul experienced for preaching. He was beaten and stoned and persecuted. But the love in his heart kept him going. “The love of Christ constraineth us” he wrote to the church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 5:14).

I am sure that Paul did not enjoy being chained in a damp, dark underground cell. Yet he regarded his surroundings as an opportunity to witness. Every six hours a new shift of soldiers would arrive to guard him. Clearly that witness bore fruit, because Paul told the church at Philippi about the saints, “that are of Caesar’s household” (Philippians 4:22). Rather than focusing on your struggles, focus on your love for the Lord. One day we will see His face, and if we have been faithful to love and serve Him, we will hear Him say, “Well done.” When we love God as we should, nothing in our circumstances will keep us from continuing to serve Him.- Paul Chappell

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346

MORNING MANNA          1-29-22IF
If to be a Christian is worthwhile, then the most ordinary interest in those with whom we come in contact would prompt us to speak to them of Christ. If the New Testament be true,and we know that it is,who has given us the right to place the responsibility for soul-winning on other shoulders than our own? If they who reject Christ are in danger, is it not strange that we, who are so sympathetic when the difficulties are physical or temporal, should apparently be so devoid of interest as to allow our friends and neighbors and kindred to come into our lives and pass out again without a word of invitation to accept Christ, to say nothing of sounding a note of warning because of their peril? If today is the day of salvation, if tomorrow may never come, and if life is equally uncertain, how can we eat, drink and be merry when those who live with us, work with us, walk with us and love us are unprepared for eternity because they are unprepared for time? If Jesus called his disciples to be fishers of men, who gave us the right to be satisfied with making fishing tackle or pointing the way to the fishing banks instead of going ourselves to cast out the net until it be filled? If Jesus himself went seeking the lost, if Paul the Apostle was in agony because his kinsmen, according to the flesh, knew not Christ, why should we not consider it worthwhile to go out after the lost until they are found? If I am to stand at the judgment seat of Christ to render an account for the deeds done in the body, what shall I say to him if my children are missing, if my friends are not saved, or if my employer or employee should miss the way because I have been faithless? If I wish to be approved at the last, then let me remember that no intellectual superiority, no eloquence in preaching, no absorption in business, no shrinking temperament or no spirit of timidity can take the place of or be an excuse for my not making an honest, sincere, prayerful effort to win others to Christ.- J. Wilbur Chapman

David Stone

Lakeway Baptist Church

Humble, Tx. 

MORNING MANNA             1-29-22

LOSING SIGHT OF YOUR PURPOSE

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” – Matt. 5:13

MORNING MANNA           1-27-22

ACCEPTING WHAT GOD ALLOWS

“In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.”– Luke 10:21

William MacDonald wrote: In almost everyone’s life there are things which he never would have chosen, which he would like to be rid of, but which can never be changed. There is the matter of physical impairments or abnormalities. Or it may be a chronic, low-grade illness that will not leave us alone. Again it may be a nervous or emotional disorder that lingers as a most unwelcome guest.

So many live defeated lives, dreaming of what might have been if only. If only they were taller. If only they were better looking. If only they had been born in a different family, race or even sex. If only they were built to excel in athletics. If only they could know perfect health.

The lesson that these people should learn is that there is peace in accepting what cannot be changed. What we are, we are by the grace of God. He has planned our lives with infinite love and infinite wisdom. If we could see as well as He, we would have arranged things exactly as He has done. Therefore we should be able to say, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.”

But there is a step further. We don’t have to accept these things in a spirit of meek resignation. Knowing that they were permitted by a God of love, we can make them the cause of praise and rejoice. Paul prayed three times that his thorn in the flesh might be removed. When the Lord promised grace to bear the thorn, the Apostle exclaimed, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me”.

It is one of the signs of spiritual maturity when we can rejoice in the seemingly adverse circumstances in life and use them as means of glorifying God. Fanny Crosby learned the lesson early in life. When she was only eight, the blind poetess wrote:

Oh, what a happy child I am

Although I cannot see!

I am resolved that in this world

Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy

That other people don’t!

So weep or sigh because I’m blind

I cannot, nor I won’t!

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346

MORNING MANNA         1–26-22

PRAISE THE LORD

“From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the Lord’s name is to be praised”– Psalm 113:3

No matter where you come from, where you live, or where your life may take you, your purpose is the same — to praise the Lord in all you do, say, and think. From the place of the sunrise, to the horizon where it sets, God is worthy of adoration.

And he deserves our honor no matter the time of day or night. When we are commuting to work in the morning, changing diapers during the day, or doing homework at night we are to do all to the glory of our Savior. May never a day pass that we have not done something to consciously advance the fame of Jesus Christ.

But his name is also to be praised at every stage of life. If you are young and energetic, in the “morning” of your life, God is due your obedience and worship. If you are nearing the sunset of your life, then you have an increasingly powerful witness, as God more and more shows his strength in your weakness.

There is no place, no time, no stage in life in which our great concern should not be to bring glory to our Maker and Savior. Will you praise him right now, right here, in this time of your life and in the place that God has uniquely positioned you for his glory? – Baptist Bible Hour

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346