Once there was this very wealthy young man. He lived in a great, elaborate house with dozens of rooms. Each room was more comfortable and more beautiful than the one before it. There were paintings and sculptures. Crystal chandeliers, golden, ornate railings on the stairs. More beauty that most have ever seen.

One day he decided to invite the Lord to home and stay with him. When the Lord arrived, this young man offered him the very best room in the house. The room was upstairs and at the end of the hall.

“This room is yours, Jesus! Stay as long as you like and you can do whatever you want to in this room, remember Jesus, its all yours.”

“Thank you” the Lord replied, and with that the man shut the door and went about his daily business. That evening after he had retired for the night there came a loud knocking at the front door. The young man pulled on his robe and made his way downstairs.

When he opened the door he found that the devil had sent three of his demons to attack the man. He quickly tried to close the door but none of the demons kept sticking his foot in the door.

Sometime later, after a great struggle, he managed to slam the door shut and returned to his room totally exhausted.

Can you believe that! The man thought. Jesus is upstairs in my very best room sleeping while I am down here battling demons.

Oh, well, maybe he just didn’t hear. He slept fitfully that night.

The next day things went along as normal and, being tired as he was, the young man retired early that evening.

Along about midnight, there came such a terrible ruckus at the front door that the young man was sure that whatever it was would tear the door down. He stumbled down the stairs once again and opened the door to find that there were dozens of demons now trying to get into his beautiful home.

For more than three hours he fought and struggled against the demons from hell and finally overtook them enough to shut the door against their attack. All energy seemed to fail him.

I really don’t understand this at all. Why won’t the Lord come to my rescue? Why does he allow me to fight all by myself? I feel so alone. Troubled he found his way to the sofa and fell into a restless sleep.

The next morning he decided to inquire of the Lord about the happenings of the last two evenings. Quietly he made his way to the elegant bedroom where he had left Jesus. “Jesus,” he called as he tapped at the door. “Lord, I don’t understand what is happening. For the last two nights I have had to fight the demons away from my door while you laid up here sleeping. Don’t you care about me?

Did I not give you the very best room in house? He could see the tears building in Jesus’ eyes but continued on, “I just don’t understand. I really thought that once I invited you in to live with me that you would take care of me and I gave you the best room in my house and everything.

What more can I do?” “My precious child,” Jesus spoke so softly. ” I do love and care for you. I protect all that you have released into my care. But when you invited me to come here and stay, you brought me to this lovely room and you shut the door to the rest of your house.

I am Lord of this room but I am not Master of this house I have protected this room and no demon may enter here.”

“Oh, Lord, please forgive me. Take all of my house – it is yours I am so sorry that I never offered you all to begin with. I want you to have control of everything.”

With this he flung open the bedroom door and knelt at Jesus’ feet. “Please forgive me Lord for being so selfish.” Jesus smiled and told him that He had already forgiven him and that He would take care of things from now on.

That night the young man prepared for bed he thought to himself, ” I wonder if those demons will return. I am so tired of fighting them each and every night.” But he knew that Jesus said that he would take care of things from now on..

Along about midnight the banging on the door was frightening. The young man slipped out of his room in time to see Jesus going down the stairs. He watched in awe as Jesus swung open the door, no need to be afraid.

Satan stood at the door this time demanding to be let in. “What do you want, satan?” the Lord asked. The devil bowed low in the presence of the Lord, “So sorry, I seem to have gotten the wrong address.” And with that, he and the demons all ran away.

There is a moral to this tale. Jesus wants all of you, not just a part. He will take all that you give Him but nothing more. How much of your heart have you given to the Lord? Are you keeping a portion of it away from Him? Perhaps the attacks are coming more and more each day. Why not let the Lord fight the battles for you. He is always victorious.

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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J. Arthur Rank, an English executive, decided to do all his worrying on one day each week. He chose Wednesdays. When anything happened that gave him anxiety and annoyed his ulcer, he would write it down and put it in his worry box and forget about it until next Wednesday. The interesting thing was that on the following Wednesday when he opened his worry box, he found that most of the things that had disturbed him the past six days were already settled. It would have been useless to have worried about them.

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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“The strength of those who wait with hope in the Lord will be renewed. They will soar on wings like eagles.” — Isaiah 40:31a

“Our souls were made to ‘mount up with wings’ and can never be satisfied with anything short of flying. Like the captive-born eagle that feels the instinct of flight, and chafes and frets at its imprisonment, hardly knowing what it longs for, so do our souls cry out for freedom. We can never rest on earth, and long to ‘fly away’ from all that so holds and hampers and imprisons us here.

We might name our wings Surrender and Trust. By these, we are carried into a spiritual plane of the ‘life hid with Christ in God,’ a life utterly independent of circumstances, that no cage can imprison and no shackles bind…

Why do not all Christians always triumph? They do not ‘mount up with wings,’ but live on the same low level with their circumstances, powerless against trials and sorrows, overcome by and crushed under them…

The largest wings cannot lift a bird one inch upward unless they are used. We must use the wings we already have: Surrender and Trust, or they will avail us nothing. From high places we shall see things through the eye of Christ that change our lives! Instead of stirring up strife and bitterness, we will escape by simply spreading our wings and mounting up to where our eyes see all things covered with a mantle of Christian love and pity.

The mother eagle teaches her little ones to fly by making their nest so uncomfortable they are forced to leave and commit themselves to the unknown world of air outside. God stirs up our comfortable nests and pushes us over the edge, forcing us to use our wings to save ourselves from fatal falling…

The promise is sure: ‘They that wait upon the Lord SHALL mount up with wings as eagles.’ Not ‘may perhaps mount up’ but ‘SHALL’…

Author: Hannah Whitall Smith
Source: The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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