Ambato convention - Dec. 2-3, 2017

• Sometimes we are inclined to respond to God's pruning as if it were an enemy attack.  All that God is doing is so that we would bear more fruit.

• God continues to work with us because He has hope!

• We want to see beyond our own thinking.

• Humility is our friend.

• Habakkuk had a tower in his life.  From the tower, he could see much further.  How far ahead are we looking?  God can help us see right to the end - not every experience between now and the end but how things will come out if we keep walking in the direction we're going now.  Prayer is like a tower.  An old brother worker once said, "I can see better with my eyes closed, and I can think better on my knees."

• We live in a world that will not encourage us to watch.

• God's project, from the beginning of time, is to have a people for Himself.  

• God has often been disappointed, but He has never been discouraged.

• In Noah's day, men were so hard that God couldn't speak to them.  They were so dead, all He could do was bury them with the flood.

• Faith is the invisible link between man and God.

• God doesn't want His people to be held in by a fence (the law). He wants them to have a relationship with the Shepherd.  Then there's no need for a fence.

• We were created to be a dwelling place for God.  When we fill our lives with other things, we cannot have peace.

• A lady told her elderly mother for whom she was caring, "If your clothes are stained, people will think I'm not taking care of you."  In some work settings, everyone is dirty by the end of the day.  We could feel just comfortable in our dirty clothes because everyone around us has dirty clothes as well.  Many people are comfortable just living close to this earth.  When we come into the presence of Jesus, we recognize our need to be clean.  We have found a "stain remover" that can take away every stain of sin - the blood of Jesus.

• What if all our thoughts and actions over the course of a week were written down and hung on the wall for everyone to see?  We'd want some things to be erased!  God, in His mercy, allows us to repent so that our sins can be blotted out.

• No matter from what angle we look at the life of Christ, we can find no spot.  That gives us confidence in His life and sacrifice.

• All the lambs that gave their life in sacrifice in the Old Testament didn't choose to die.  Jesus, the Lamb of God, did.

• What we think about and what we have in our heart will bring forth a fruit.  We want to think about things that would produce in us the virtues of Jesus.

•   God's dealings with us cause us to want to serve Him.

• All that the world lifts up is vain and temporary.

• What we look at is an important part of keeping/guarding our heart.

• We can choose to feed on things that will increase our anxieties and sorrows or on things that will increase our joy.