#39/ 01 Oct 2001

          P O S I T I V E     W O R D S
               Editor: Peter Wade

       ----- http://www.peterwade.com/ -----
 ... the realities of Christ in you and you in Christ!
      ----- http://www.inChristRadio.net/ -----

Welcome to another issue of Positive Words. The world has changed
significantly since our last issue. Now, more than ever, we need
positive insights from God's Word to face everyday life. Visit our
web site for this month's selection of positive teaching from
God's Word.

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INSIGHTS ON OUR WEB SITE
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SUFFERING: ITS SECRET by Norman Grubb.
[ http://www.peterwade.com/articles/other/suffer01.shtml ]

SPONTANEOUS GIVING by Richard Plache
[ http://www.peterwade.com/articles/other/spontgiv.shtml ]

SPIRITUAL UNION WITH CHRIST by A.T. Pierson.   
[ http://www.peterwade.com/articles/pierson/union06.shtml ]

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INSIGHTS FROM MY READING
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                COMPLETE IS NOT COMPLETED
       "And you are complete in Him" (Colossians 2:10)

It is hard for us to think of something as complete unless it is
fixed. And there is something in us that needs to see things
complete.
   But there are different kinds of completeness. Perfect is not
the same as perfected. Complete is not the same as completed.
   A seed, for instance, is complete.
   If you are a gardener, you know there is nothing that seems
more complete than a seed. It is inert, fixed, perfect in every
detail. It is tightly sealed in its rigid case. You can pick it
up, examine, dissect it.
   The seed, of course is not complete, if by complete you mean
completed. The seed has scarcely begun. Its end is to begin.
   A seed is a microscopic grain of dust, sealed and perfect,
complete. But this self-enclosed, walled-around globule has the
power of expanding and growing into -- a blade of grass, a rose, a
redwood tree, a toad, an elephant, a human being.
   And infinitely more than that -- it may expand into generations
of roses, redwood trees, or human beings. 
   We dare not predict for a single seed and we would set limits
for the universe!
   We would fix its edges and measure its height and breadth. We
have hardly learned the alphabet, and we would construct the
infinite out of our wooden building blocks...
   Living things, without exception, begin as a single cell.
   In the living world of which we are part, we see nothing that
began in any other way except as a seed, a cell, an egg, art
embryo. Then, cell by cell, it grew.
   This is a universal rule of the living world. Nothing starts
out full-grown. Everything has to grow.
   Life did not make us all we may become. It did not make us with
our powers developed, our faculties matured. It made us with the
power to develop and mature.
   It did not make us with our growth achieved. It made us with
the power to grow. It made us to be.
   Life made us the human seed of life, and it said to us, "Grow
to be what you are!"
   We have to grow to be what we become. Life never does the
growing.
   Not for anything. Life forms a seed. It says to the seed, "Be!"
   The seed grows to be what it is.
(From: The Case for Believing by James Dillet Freeman.)

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INSIGHTS FROM MY WRITING
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                    MIRACLES OF HEALING

"By whose stripes you were healed" (I Peter 2:24)

God's plan for His children is divine health--perfect, continuous
health. When a believer sees evidence of sickness or disease, it
is a signal from the body that somehow that believer has
frustrated the flow of health and is at dis-ease. 
   An endogenous (from within) miracle is required to replace the 
dis-ease with the perfect flow of health. The Bible teaches that
healing for the whole man was provided for us on the cross of
Calvary, and in a very real sense we look back on it now as a
past-tense action, "By whose stripes you were healed" (I Peter
2:24).
   The records of healings of the physical body are spread
throughout both Old and New Testaments. When God brought three
million people out of the land of Egypt, it is recorded that "He
also brought them out with silver and gold, and there was none
feeble among His tribes" (Psalm 105:37). Even with the advances in
medical science, no nation on earth today can match that record.
The ministry of Jesus is summarized in Acts 10:38 in these words,
"God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with
power, who went around doing good and healing all who were
oppressed by the devil, for God was with him." Since that same
power is resident within, we can have the same results. (From "You
Are A New Creation", Chapter 5, by Peter Wade, adapted by Hildy
Matthews.)
   AFFIRMATION: I see my life as a string of miracles as I change
my emphasis from expecting a miracle from "out there somewhere"
and expect a perfect flow of health from the power of God within
me.

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INSIGHTS FROM EVERY BOOK OF THE BIBLE
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G. Campbell Morgan was a well-known preacher and writer of over
60 books from the first half of the 20th century. In this spot
each issue we reproduce a comment from one verse in every chapter
of the Bible. We continue with Paul's second letter to Timothy.

"The unfeigned faith that is in thee; which dwelt first in thy
grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice" (II Timothy 1:5)

Two matters arrest our attention in these words: first, the
description of faith, and second, the transmission of faith. The
description of the faith of Timothy as "unfeigned" is very
striking. Unfeigned faith is faith that is not pretended; that is,
it is true, it is real, and therefore it is trustworthy. So long
as there lurks a suspicion of doubt in faith; or so long as a
man's faith is for outward confession, and does not carry the man
with it, it is faulty and weak, and not to be depended on. A man
can live a better life, and do a better work, on a genuine faith
in a small thing, than a pretended faith in a big thing. In Paul's
first letter to Timothy, he had placed "unfeigned faith" in
company with "a pure conscience", and said that out of these love
proceeds (I Timothy 1:5). It is good to seek after such a faith. 
   Then we notice that Paul said that this quality of faith was
found in Timothy's mother Eunice, and in his grandmother Lois.
There is a sense in which faith cannot be transmitted by parents
to their children. Every individual must exercise faith for
himself or herself. But it is also true that it is very difficult
for some children not to believe, because of what they have seen
of the power of faith in their parents. We cannot bequeath faith
to our children, but we can make it much easier for them to
believe by our own faith. And that is specially true of "unfeigned
faith."

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(c) 2001 Peter Wade
http://www.peterwade.com/
http://www.inChristRadio.net/