love thee through all (a commemoration)

“He will love you through all, and be to you what you most need in every trying hour.

“He and you have had dealings in secret, and therefore He can use you in His service and make you a blessing in various ways.

(i took this with my phone and thought it would be worth changing from the last picture)

“Ah, beloved, we say little to you, but much do we ponder and pray over your accumulation  of sorrows. You are living, dying for Him Who lived and died for you. I look forward to the day when my eyes will see the smile of love He will give you. Even now you have the consciousness of His approval, and is this not enough?”

–from a letter by Mrs. Howard Berger to Mrs. Hudson Taylor.

This is for the work that being done in Ethiopia; that which I miss.

But more so, it’s for all the people, particularly  young and old females, and young men, who have been pouring their time into helping with Personhood. How anything we do ends matters little, for we cannot control that. But let all things be done for Christ. Love looks to act by obedience, not permission. God bless.

” I look forward to the day when my eyes will see the smile of love that He gives you.”

last, but not least…

This is one in the long string of “things we take for granted.” But it may be the gravest.

“David Brainerd once compared a man without the power of the Holy Spirit trying to do spiritual work to a workman without fingers attempting manual labour. The figure is striking but does not overstate the facts. The Holy Spirit is not a luxury meant to make deluxe Christians, as an illuminated frontispiece and leather binding make a deluxe book. The Spirit is an imperative necessity. Only the Eternal Spirit can do eternal deeds.

“Without exhausting the list of things wrongly taken for granted I would mention one more: Millions take for granted that it is possible to live for Christ without first having died with Christ. This is a serious error and we dare not leave it unchallenged.

“The victorious Christian has known two lives. The first was his life in Adam which was motivated by the carnal mind and can never please God in any way. It can never be converted; it can only die (Romans 8:5-8). The second life of the Christian is His new life in Christ (6:1-14). To live a Christian life with the life of Adam is wholly impossible. Yet multitudes take for that it can be done and go on year after year in defeat. And worst of all the accept this half-dead condition as normal.

“For our own soul’s sake, let’s not take to much for granted.”

~A.W. Tozer

Young friends who read this site -dear, dear friends- I have in company failed you in every way. But take seriously what this man says, for the good of your souls. Christ has spilled His blood not for our leisure,  but He’s means to show us the urgency of our position. Do not take anything for granted.

things we take for granted…

A modern catchphrase is, “Look to yourself for inspiration.” It’s pretty stupid, but it fits into the hierarchy of inspiration, being:

Look to yourself, (lowest)

Look to others

Look to the person of God. (highest)

Now what I’m about to write is inspired by reading something another person wrote about all the blessings we have that we do not even realize. I used to talk about this a lot (these three times, to be exact: one, two, three). It is still true: if we counted what we had with its true value, we might give God  a little more of that “momentary praise” that He deserves.

What do I mean by that? I mean that if all the praise of all men and Angels from eternity were compressed into one moment of time, and  that praise were given by me, that would still be not a fraction of the homage He deserved from that moment alone, from me alone. He has design to gain the utmost praise from His creation to all eternity, but that doesn’t mean the Infinite One is not still infinitely more worthy than anything that can ever be given. This is comforting, since we know that we can never praise Him too much. Now He does give us those moments of divine ecstasy in which we seem to overflow with praises, but even in these we still know nothing as we ought to know; indeed, He seems to train us to praise Him, for if He was to give any more “above what we could ask or think” than He does already, it seems we would be killed by the overwhelmingness of it. But, but, what of those times when our thoughts depart from His praises? not in the necessary offerings of work and such, but in the times when we are “free” to think? What of those lost moments? That we take for granted.

Obviously, we cannot while our time away lamenting what is lost; for one of the best ways to redeem moments is to remember what we’ve been given: this requires we remember what we truly deserve. Not “nothing.” But all the supreme negatives are what ought fall to our lot, if you consider just how worthy God is of everything we fail to give Him. Just think: Church, friends: blessed brothers and sisters in Christ;  families, art, education, breath.

Think of the greatness of breath! Every time you take a breath, the foreknowledge and power of God is working. All the events in history, everything that has kept this world spinning, has been leading up towards that one breath. That breath was not the purpose of it all, but it was thought of before the world began. Every time you go out into the woods to get alone with God, He knew that when He created the first pine tree, its descendants would be sheltering you at that very time! Once begin contemplating everything that gets by us in day to day living, and it becomes vibrantly alive all our busyness.

And all these things I’ve listed are not necessary to our happiness: a shame when we think it so. Only Christ is: but God has given all these things to teach us more about Himself. Let’s not take them for granted.

How appropriate that verse which the aforementioned writer used: “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love…He does not treat us as our sins deserve…” Psalm 103:8, 10

a birthday tribute

Though buried in a poor man’s grave, we will always remember him.

He believed in beginning his life’s work from a young age.

He believed in marrying young, though that particular case never came to fruition.

He kept company with royalty, none of whom were as creative as this young man was.

He has given each of us a treasure.

He was an artist in the truest sense of the word.

He makes you smart.

He makes you happy.

He makes you sad.

For him the Turks are still marching.

And if he ever fell into the well, his brother would have a hard time telling his mom about it.

Happy 254th birthday,  Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Teophilus Mozart.

Though his Spiritual life is an interesting study, for any art form he brings to mind the first phrase in 1 Timothy 4:12

9.[some long number] out of 10

In how many places have you heard the phrase “Ten out of ten people die”? I’m not sure what the point of saying is, except to make people feel good about their lack of accomplishments (“In the end, Bill Gates won’t be any better off than I. We will both be dead”). I hope that isn’t the reason, because I’d feel like I needed to put that on little slips of paper everywhere I go.

But, under a careful analysis (if you even notice, which you really oughtn’t) you will find that such a saying is far from true: at least 2 people in history didn’t die; I won’t say no more than two, because I don’t know. But Elijah and Enoch at least didn’t die. They were “taken.” We know that in Elijah’s case that was a very dramatic process, but I’m not as sure about Enoch:  probably it was just as wonderful from his point of view.

But there remains a third category: there was one Man, of all the untold billions that have lived and died, Who both died and went directly into heaven; Ascended, not was taken, was the distinction between Him and those other two.  Yes, the one, Jesus Christ.

But you don’t need to hear me tell you what you have been hearing since your ear developed; after all, there is a good chance that all of us will die the natural way, so why bother?

Just this: those two aspects of Christ life, that He died and He rose and ascended, represent the two aspects of our hope. When Christ died, the guilt, and the power, of all the sin that His people have committed, was seal in the grave. He died so that we might die, in and to everything that keeps us from “walking with God,” as Enoch did. Christ didn’t come to bear the guilt of our sin, and then to bring us to heaven and break its power once and for all. He died, that we my die to the reign of sin; its guilt,  gone. Its power, gone. Our sins are us acting like slaves who have forgotten their freedom, or being afraid of  the Devil when He’s got a fence as big as Eternity holding us away from Him. Our conversion goes on, but I firmly believe I was saved once for eternity.

But we not left with Christ just dying; with our just dying. He also ascended, after He had burst from the grave, showing death and sin as helpless as the hole in the ground that tried to keep in the Son of the living God. Christ broke death and brought life; Christ didn’t just bear the wrath of God by submitting to death. On the Cross, sin died, but death was beaten. Christ wasn’t beat by our enemies for us; He went and beat the enemies we couldn’t even face. And He went into Heaven to intercede for His saints. We died to sin, and now we can have life, because Christ burst forth, and stands before the Father, in the united love of the Godhead inter-working, on behalf of His own purchase.

Well like I said, I can sit tapping these keys for so long and not tell you something you haven’t heard before. Oh! how many times you’ve heard it! but I there are more people that don’t believe these things reading this site than people that do. They live in the shadow of death –believe me, I know more about that now than other times– and they belong there. They don’t have that life that Christ gives to those for whom He died. There is, my very well-loved one, but one meeting place a living God and a dead man: the Cross of Christ. Not our own crosses, those come later, though they contain no merit save through the original Cross. If you talk to me, and I’m not talking to you about this, which I probably will not be, than it is to my shame. Because whenever I think about you (I have not any one specific person in mind) it’s what’s upon my mind.

Charles Wesley was a hymn-writer like no other. In two of his hymns he says what I want to say:

Arise, My Soul arise,

Shake off your guilty fears,

The bleeding sacrifice,

On your behalf appears

Before the throne my Surety stands,

My name is written on His hands.

And this,

Lives again our Glorious King, Hallelujah

Where oh death is now thy sting?

Dying ones He all doth save,

Where there victory oh Grave?

Love’s redeeming work is done, Hallelujah,

Fought the fight, the battle won,

Death in vain forbids Him rise,

Christ hath opened paradise.

well, the weather outside is frightful…

But the Fire inside’s so delightful,

As Long as we’ve nowhere to go, (or however it goes)

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…

i want to be more like Jesus

As each day passes by,

I feel my love run dry.

I get so weary, worn,

And tossed around in the storm.

Well I`m blind to all his needs,

And I`m tired of planting seeds.

I seem to have a wealth,

Of so many thoughts about myself.

I want to, I need to, be more like Jesus.

I want to, I need to, be more like Him.

Our Father`s will was done,

By giving us His Son,

Who paid the highest cost,

To point us to the cross.

And when I think of Him,

Taking on the whole world`s sin,

I take one look at me,

Compared to what I`m called to be.

I want to, I need to, be more like Jesus.

I want to, I need to, be more like Him.

Remember, there`s no greater love,

Then to lay down your life for a friend.

The end of all my prayers,

Is to care like my Lord cares.

My one and only goal,

His image in my soul.

Yes my weakness is revealed,

When by His stripes I`m healed.

He`s faithful and He`s true,

To complete the work he begins in you.

–Keith Green

I’ve been doing this for two years….

And if you knew everything I’ve wanted to say and didn’t, you would give me credit.

“Hello, everybody! This is the first of what I hope to be many posts. I will attempted to post once a week, so be sure to check me out often. I plan to write about a lot of fun, uplifting, interesting, and boring stuff. Have fun, and remember to leave comments.”

Wow. I was really insecure back then. And my sentence structure was bad. What else is news?

Merry Christmas to everysingleoneofyou. I love all of you, andireallylovealotofthepeopleiknowwilllreadthis. So to my family and friends, manyhappyreturnsofanotheryear.

what does it all mean?

For me, when I attempt leave the real worlds (Spiritual and physical) and enter the less real one (virtual), it’s easy to become caught up in the “Christmas spirit.” I visit all the blogs, and they all say our religious seasonal cliches, even though they truly mean it, and then I rush over to WordPress to put in my two cents worth (again cliche), and we feel our hearts elevated for a time, and then things go back to normal.  But are we content to keep these truths bottled up for the year? or is the year like our days: we keep these spiritual “bookends” in the morning and evening, and fight to get by the rest of the time. Truth is, we have enough in the Christmas season alone, corrupt as it may be, to keep us going. That’s to say nothing of the morning and evening quiet times, the books, the sermons twice a week, and every such influence that surrounds us.  We’ve got treasures of truth: God, how are we to make much of this?

~~~

What messages does Christ’s incarnation leave us with that should stay with us? Jamie reminded us of them last evening from Isaiah 9; where else can we look?

All scripture is from God, so we shouldn’t over reverence one part over another, but what message did God especially send to the lowly that would listen when He sent His Son (Luke 2)? (btw isn’t it amazing, that when the Son of God Almighty was born, His Father sent shepherds to be His worshipers?)

Well, the first message, in order, was this: “Fear not.” Why? “For unto  you is born this day in the city of Bethlehem, a Savior.” There are so many cliches about not fearing. But, really, can you imagine the seriousness of this message? For the Christian, Christ’s coming meant that perfect love would cast out fear. By His merits, we need no longer fear to come before God Almighty; His coming, and living, and dying, is what gives weight to every command against inordinate guilt in the New Testament. He allows Christians who talk about their sin, which grieves them, to say “but..Christ.” Saints and Sinners, surely this day it is brought home to you how we are to plead the merits of Christ without fear if you will not come to God, you are not just rejecting an invitation; you disobey a command.

The Holy God became man, and He tells us “Fear not.”

But what about this: Christ came, Why? The angels used their thousand voices to shout out the reason: the reason why He came, and lived a life of love among enemies (aka us); patience among apostates (aka us); a life of stretching out His hand towards those He knew would betray Him and run, and saying of them, us, “Behold, my mother and my brethren.” His family. The reason why He became the personification of everything His Father hated in His church, and was willingly crushed, at the Father’s pleasure.  The reason was this: “Glory to God in the Highest.” The  great reason the God-Man exists is that. God’s glory.

For that Christ came. And it’s what I want too. I wish this “Christmas  Spirit” would permeate all. God help us.

Gory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace and good will towards men. For some reason, God has linked His greatest glory with our greatest good. His being glorified brought us peace. His glorifying Himself brought the unveiling of His love. That’s what the incarnation, the great, profound, mystical joining together of God and Man, that display of Deity veiled and yet unveiled, should mean.

All Glory to God, our Father. And the peace which passeth understanding in the hearts of His own.

Sinner, run to Him, and you will find peace.

God bless you.

a happy old year….

A year of hope.

With New Faces

New Friends, and older ones…

Lots of these…

New Family….

And a Growing “old” one…

But one thing hasn’t changed. We still have the same Father, whose “loving-kindness is better than life.”