In today's electronic age, patients are becoming more informed and often walk into their doctor's offices armed with various medical papers and blogs. However, even the most educated patient needs to submit to their physician's prescribed treatment plan in order to see a positive outcome. Medical professionals themselves are not exempt to the sad fact that they cannot always heal themselves. A wise patient eventually swallows their pride as they submit to their doctor's orders. Most times, doctor's orders are not easy to swallow. At times, they require minor temporary inconveniences, such as a course of antibiotics, ointments or a daily pill to be swallowed. At other times, a radical change in lifestyle is required and perhaps surgery or drugs that carry with them harsh, debilitating side effects. It would be tempting for a patient to shake their doctor's hand, thank them for the diagnosis and walk out the door to find a second opinion. In the natural, this is not necessarily a bad idea. However, in the spiritual realm, as we approach the great physician, seeking a second opinion is a fruitless exercise. Oh how we try to find the loopholes as God's patients! Even though our lives are in dreadful shambles and we live in pain everyday, we balk at the prescription God lays before us, especially when that prescription involves dying to self. What conditions do you put on your personal visits when you are in the Great Physician's office? When you ask Him to move in your life and the lives of others around you, do you try to slip in a few little 'buts' into the equation? I know I do. Lord, heal my marriage but I really don't have the energy to do much more. Lord, I want to draw closer to you in intimacy but don't make me give up my favourite TV show in order to spend more time in the Word. Lord, I want to see people come in to the kingdom, but can't I just send in a check and let someone else do it? Lord, help me lose weight, take away my desire for food, let the pounds drop off but don't make me have to exercise self control! I just can't. Lord, bring my son back to you. But get him all cleaned up before he returns home so I don't have to go through the heartache of the earthly consequences k of his sinful actions in my own life. Lord, take away my anger; I don't want to have to deal with it anymore. Lord, if you take away my craving for cigarettes, I'll never smoke again. Lord, change my life, my boss, my wife, my child, my car, my dog because I just can't live with them anymore. Perhaps you've never actually spoken those prayers but you have thought them. I know I certainly have. God asks us to work along with him. There are no conditions for his overwhelming love for us. Within that love, God sees that there is opportunity for personal growth and freedom. A freedom that can only come as we completely place our trust in him. We must give him permission to search our hearts, our lives and our relationships and we must accept his diagnosis, prognosis and treatment plan in order to see lasting change. A wise patient is the one who follows through on the physical therapy and after-care the doctor prescribes after surgery. If you ask the Lord to do surgery in your life, home or family are you willing to do the rehab that will follow? Until Next Week © 2010 Katherine Walden A reminder: I Lift My Eyes has partnered with "Christianbook.com" to provide you with deep discounts of books, gifts, church supplies, music DVDs, pastoral helps, Sunday School programs and a whole lot more. http://psalm121.ca/books/books.html Your purchases help offset some of the online costs of this ministry. You may also make a donation through paypal by sending funds to our paypal account ps121ilme@... ------------- If you would prefer to receive the quotes below (without the newsletter portion above) on a daily basis rather than in a weekly summary, please go to http://dailychristianquote.com/subscribe.html and join the daily quote mailing list. ------------- DCQ Archive August 11 - 17, 2010 August 11, 2010 Those who come near Christ will become like Christ.... If we draw near to Jesus Christ, life from Him will pass into our hearts and minds, which life will show itself in kindred fashion to what it wore in Jesus Christ, and will shape us into the likeness of Him from whom we draw our life, because to Him we have come.... You draw life from Jesus Christ if you keep close to Him, and that life makes you...in very real and profound sense, what Jesus Christ was in the world. Alexander MacLaren http://www.puritansermons.com/bio/biomacla.htm Biography And Online Library August 12, 2010 It is grace at the beginning, and grace at the end. So that when you and I come to lie upon our death beds, the one thing that should comfort and help and strengthen us there is the thing that helped us in the beginning. Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the Grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with grace, it must continue with grace, it ends with grace. Grace wondrous grace. By the grace of God I am what I am. Yet not I, but the Grace of God which was with me. Martyn Lloyd-Jones http://www.mlj.org.uk/ Martyn Lloyd-Jones Website August 13, 2010 Jesus came for the least, the lost, and the last. Marilyn Hickey http://www.mhmin.org/ Website August 14, 2010 When you slight this or that person, though gracious; that is, look over them, and shun them for their poverty in this world, and choose rather to have converse with others, that possibly are less gracious, because of their greatness in this world, you deal with the sin of pride. John Bunyan http://acacia.pair.com/Acacia.John.Bunyan/index.html Online Library August 15, 2010 The prayer life does not consist of perpetual repetition of petitions. The prayer life consists of life that is always upward and onward and Godward. G. Campbell Morgan http://www.churchinwestland.org/id288.htm Biography August 16, 2010 He has right to interrupt your life. He is Lord. When you accepted Him as Lord, you gave Him, the right to help Himself to your life anytime He wants. Henry Blackaby http://www.henryblackaby.com/ Website August 17, 2010 Christ's call is to save the lost, not the stiff-necked; He came not to call scoffers but sinners to repentance; not to build and furnish comfortable chapels, churches, and cathedrals at home in which to rock Christian professors to sleep by means of clever essays, stereotyped prayers, and artistic musical performances, but to capture men from the devil's clutches and the very jaws of Hell. This can be accomplished only by a red-hot, unconventional, unfettered devotion, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to the Lord Jesus Christ. Charles Thomas (C. T. ) Studd http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/biorpstudd.html Biography Important addresses: http://psalm121.ca/home.html I Lift My Eyes Web Ministries Site Index - please take note of this address To change your address for receiving this list, please unsubcribe from your old address and subscribe with your new address © 2010 All articles written by Katherine Walden are copyrighted and as such, please do not send them on to others without including all the contact information that is included in every newsletter you receive from this ministry. Feel free to pass on the "Daily Christian Quotes" themselves, no permission is needed to do so.