Safely Home

by Randy Alcorn

“‘Let not your heart be troubled: have faith in God and have faith in me. In my Father’s house are rooms enough;

You’re the King, not me. I’m tired of trying to run my life. I’m not qualified. I’ve messed up everything. I do believe now that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. I ask for the life you promised.

I ask for your Holy Spirit inside me. Please wash me from my sins. Please fill the hole in my heart, Jesus. Please be to me what I have always longed for. I can’t make it on my own. I need you.”

“Zhen jin bu ba huo lian.” The young man nodded. “Real gold fears no fire.”

Let not those gloat over me who are my enemies without cause; let not those who hate me without reason maliciously wink the eye. They devise false accusations against those who live quietly in the land. O Lord, you have seen this; be not silent. Do not be far from me, O Lord. Awake, and rise to my defense! Contend for me, my God and Lord.”

the day of eternal comfort will surely come, enfolding them like a warm blanket.”

“Too quickly do they summon providence to the court of reason. The night will last only so long before it is swallowed whole by the morning. The longer their night lasts, the more they dream of the dawn.” He looked at Michael. “This I whisper to my servants in their sleep.”

“They don’t understand that I am not only at work here, preparing a place for them, but I am at work there, preparing them for that place.”

God works beneath the surface and around the corner and above the roof. We have a saying: ‘No man should judge a painting when he can only see the back of the canvas.’”

When he assumed power, China was divided by three hundred languages and a thousand dialects. But Mao signed a decree making Mandarin the official language. He required all business and education and public conversation to be in Mandarin. He ordered that the forty-seven thousand pictorial characters be simplified so his red book could be small and easy to carry. They were reduced to fifteen hundred. Suddenly God’s Word could be translated much more easily, and the whole nation could be reached with one translation.

Only 6 percent of the nation could read, so he ordered literacy training and now nearly 90 percent can read—nearly all who live in the cities. And are they reading his red book? No—they are reading the words of Yesu! That is, whenever we can get it into their hands.”

Mogui. The dragon is but a dog on the Lion’s leash.”

They did not curse him. They did not relive his great campaigns against him. No. They simply did not think of him at all. He was unimportant. Insignificant. In the eternal scheme of things, he did not matter.

Old saying: You must cross the river before you tell the crocodile he has bad breath. ”

Don’t worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes. Stop your anger! Turn from your rage! Do not envy others—it only leads to harm.

“Your attitude should be the same that Yesu had. Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form. And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal’s death on a cross.

every tongue will confess that Yesu Jidu is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

but he will rejoice even in his imprisonment, and he will seek to bring joy to others.

The King searched the silent planet, eyes burning for his needy children. “He awaits the last martyr,” Li Manchu said. “Perhaps he’s looking at him now,” Li Wen said. “It might be Li Quan,” Li Tong said. “Or perhaps Li Shen.” “Maybe even Ben Fielding.”

“Only One knows the answer,” Li Tong said. “He whose eyes are a consuming fire.”

This is an internal affair. Theirs, not ours. Let them handle it!” “Like the concentration camps were Germany’s internal affair? Like the gulags were Moscow’s internal affair?”

from 1 Peter

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you.’”

“How are you?” Ben asked. “I have been serving much fish,” Quan said.

“Last night when I prayed, I was on my knees with my head resting on the empty chair. I hope that was alright.” “He whose chair it is was pleased, I am sure. When you placed your head upon that chair, you put it on the lap of Yesu.”

“My father used to tell me that a good follower of Yesu is like the ox—ready either for the plow or the altar, for service or for sacrifice.

That you will know you are in a war,

In America, you have much to hope in besides God. None but he can bear the weight of your hope. But that is often forgotten. The test of prosperity is not easily passed.”

“She holds up more than her half of our little sky.”

Had I known, I would have prayed for them.”

“Wang Mingdao was once asked if he had a message for Western Christians. He said, ‘Remember the most common cause of stumbling is the fear of man.’ It is God we must fear, not men. You must learn to stand boldly for your Lord, regardless of what men may think of you.”

Hudson Taylor

Did you know that in 1262 Kublai Khan asked for one hundred Christian scholars to be sent to China? His request was never fulfilled.

And that the enemy will not overcome us and our families with despair and discouragement.

You will think you can do things on your own. You will be tempted to pray less, to ask less, and to trust less.

“Afraid? Of what? To feel the spirit’s glad release? To pass from pain to perfect peace, The strife and strain of life to cease? Afraid—of that? Afraid? Of what?”

“Afraid? Of what? Afraid to see the Savior’s face To hear his welcome, and to trace The glory gleam from wounds of grace? Afraid—of that? Afraid? Of what? A flash, a crash, a pierced heart; Darkness, light, O Heaven’s art! A wound of his a counterpart! Afraid—of that? Afraid? Of what? To do by death what life could not— Baptize with blood a stony plot, Till souls shall blossom from the spot? Afraid—of that?”

“I made these children. I took them into my arms, put my hands on them, and blessed them. And yet you scorn them, use them for your gain, treat them as disposable. It would be better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck and be thrown into the sea than to face what I will surely do to you.”

They did little or nothing to help the children, and he regarded their failure to help as the inflicting of harm.

“To you who look the other way, saying my children are not your concern: Repent! For it is I you have turned away from. I will not forget.”

Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

Quan realized the men thought no one could hear them. Yet all the while an unseen universe eavesdropped. There was no such thing as a private moment.

“You will never hurt again,”

He believes that the King’s hand reaches into every corner of that world. No worry can stand in the face of that belief.”

the rest of Elyon’s cosmos. Those confined there cannot sense what lies beyond. Yet what lies beyond is nearly everything.”

“I am sorry I cannot walk better,” Quan said. “Do not apologize,” Jadorel replied. “This is the first time you have ever died.”

They kept walking right through the transparent film as if breaking through an amniotic sac, falling out into another world. Li Quan felt as if all his life he had been in the pains of labor and now at last he was being born.

AS HE WAS ONCE born from a secret intimate warmth into a world of cold confusion and blaring noise and painful artificial lights,

more like his mother’s, and his teeth white and straight.

The moment the King’s scars touched his, he felt his disappear. Somehow his scars seemed to be drawn in, absorbed into the King’s. As a result, Quan thought, the King’s scars seemed a little bigger.