| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: Train your conscience to believe that God approves of you. Fight it out with
doubt. Gain assurance through the Word of God. Say: "I am all right with God. I
have the Holy Ghost. Christ, in whom I do believe, makes me worthy. I gladly
hear, read, sing, and write of Him. I would like nothing better than that
Christ's Gospel be known throughout the world and that many, many be
brought to faith in Him."
VERSE 6. Crying, Abba, Father.
Paul might have written, "God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your
hearts, calling Abba, Father." Instead, he wrote, "Crying, Abba, Father." In
the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans the Apostle describes this
crying of the Spirit as "groanings which cannot be uttered." He writes in the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: them crossways, I found I could walk upon it very well, but that it
was not able to bear any great weight, the pieces being too light.
So I went to work, and with a carpenter's saw I cut a spare topmast
into three lengths, and added them to my raft, with a great deal of
labour and pains. But the hope of furnishing myself with
necessaries encouraged me to go beyond what I should have been able
to have done upon another occasion.
My raft was now strong enough to bear any reasonable weight. My
next care was what to load it with, and how to preserve what I laid
upon it from the surf of the sea; but I was not long considering
this. I first laid all the planks or boards upon it that I could
 Robinson Crusoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: benefit of which, he said, together with the title of king, the
boy Alexander reaped and enjoyed by their means. She could not
hold, but discovered what he had said to one of her acquaintance,
and he, as is usual in such cases, to another, till at last the
story came to the ears of Craterus, who brought the woman secretly
to the king. When Alexander had heard what she had to say, he
commanded her to continue her intrigue with Philotas, and give him
an account from time to time of all that should fall from him to
this purpose. He thus unwittingly caught in a snare, to gratify
some times a fit of anger, sometimes a mere love of vainglory, let
himself utter numerous foolish, indiscreet speeches against the
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