Monday, January 28, 2008

Sermons are Up!

“Whoso then can rightly judge between the law and the Gospel, let him thank God, and know he is a right divine…This place, touching the difference between the law and the Gospel, is very necessary to be known, for it containeth the sum of all Christian doctrine. Wherefore let all who love and fear God, diligently learn to discern the one from the other, not only in words, but in deed and in practice; that is to say, in heart and conscience.” --Martin Luther

Saturday, January 26, 2008

He's the defender of the weak

Saturday afternoon, listening to the musicians in the other room prepare a new song that has tremendous potential... Everlasting God.

It has these lines which fit amazingly with what we see of our Jesus in Mark 5 as He heals a little girl and a struggling woman...

You’re the defender of the weak
You comfort those in need

Here are the rest of the lyrics:

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord,
We will wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord (repeat)
Our God You reign forever
Our hope our strong deliv’rer

You are the everlasting God
The everlasting God
You do not faint ..You won’t grow weary
You’re the defender of the weak
You comfort those in need
You lift us up on wings like eagles
Copyright 2005 Thankyou Music (Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing)

The lyrics are taken from Isaiah 40:28-31

.

The melody is singable but creative. It has a wide range and some syncopation, but most congregations should be able to pick it up fairly quickly.

Jesus and the little girl in Mark 5

Notice what Jesus did in that little room. He took the little girl's hand. By doing so--by touching a dead body--Jesus Himself became ritually unclean (just as He had done when the women with the hemorrhage had touched His garment [see Leviticus 15]). He shared in her death in order to deliver her from it.

Later, on Calvary, Jesus would again share in death. This time it would be our death. He would become 'unclean' for our sake, and bear God's judgment against our sin. In a sense what he was doing here was but a preview of what he would do then. It was also a preview of what He will do at the end of time, when He will take us by the hand and say, "Arise! That will not be in secret, but in public: 'every eye will see Him.' Even those who mocked him that day will see Him--and will mourn, this time for themselves (cf. Revelation 1:7) Sinclair Ferguson

Friday, January 25, 2008

Marriage Conference Feb 15-16

insert pithy & persuasive comments here

You can sign up sunday during the worship services

Thursday, January 24, 2008

THE sign of humility

“Remember this—all the sighing, mourning, sobbing, and complaining in the world, does not so undeniably evidence a man to be humble, as his overlooking his own righteousness, and living really and purely upon the righteousness of Christ.”

- Thomas Brooks, The Unsearchable Riches of Christ

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Look simply and directly and instantly . . .

“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Look away from yourself. Cease to probe that rankling, ulcerous, incorrigible heart. Look simply and directly and instantly at one object - at Christ bearing your sin in his own body.” - J.W. Alexander

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Like an infant in a cradle

"See to it that you fasten your attention on God's Word and stay in it, like an infant in a cradle. If you let go for one moment, you have fallen away from the truth. The one intention of the devil is to get people away from the Word and to induce them to measure God's will and works with their reason." ~ Martin Luther

Your hope is evidence that He is for you

Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. Psalm 119:49

“The argument is that God, having given grace to hope in the promise, would surely never disappoint that hope. He cannot have caused us to hope without cause. If we hope upon his word we have a sure basis: our gracious Lord would never mock us by exciting false hopes. Our great Master will not forget his own servants, nor disappoint the expectation which he himself has raised: because we are the Lord’s, and endeavour to remember his own word by obeying it, we may be sure that he will think upon his own servants, and remember his own promise by making it good.”

- Charles Spurgeon

Monday, January 21, 2008

Grace is the grand and only resource for us all

“It is well to be poor, when the knowledge of our poverty serves but to unfold to us the exhaustless riches of divine grace. That grace can never suffer any one to go away empty. It can never tell anyone that he is too poor. It can meet the very deepest human need; and not only so, but it is glorified in meeting it. This holds good in every case. It is true of every individual sinner…Grace is the grand and only resource for us all. It is the basis of our salvation; the basis of a life of practical godliness; and the basis of those imperishable hopes which animate us amid the trials and conflicts of this sin-stricken world. May we cherish a deeper sense of grace, and more ardent desire for glory! ---C H MacIntosh, 1860, Notes on Leviticus

Martin Luther King

John Piper sets up a reading of MLK like this: All you have to do to find some good word from MLK is Google his name. His "I have a dream" speech has some powerful lines. He dreams that some day his children "will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character." That cry is as important today globally and locally as it was in 1963.

In my judgment the "I have a dream" speech was not the apex of King's eloquence. That is reserved for certain passages in "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" (April 16, 1963). Here is the most powerful word from King I have ever read:

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dart of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six- year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Christians who are sensitive to the depth of their sin are a lot easier to be with, because they are not as inclined to be judgmental. --Richard Lovelace

Take not the devil's perspective

If our sins weigh heavier in our mind than our potential for grace and effective service to God and others, we must be taking the devil's perspective. God wants us to be realistic about ourselves. But genuine realism does not lead to caving in under a sense of worthlessness. That is not realism; it is believing the devil's lie. Yes, realism leads us to a sense of weak­ness. But it leads also to Paul's assertion: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Phil 4:13). Paul says elsewhere, "He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses ... for when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor 12:9‑10). --Richard Lovelace

Dwelling on that which enslaves... and He who frees

This fella Legion has captured the attention of many of us as we looked at Mark 5 last week and tomorrow. And it has me thinking and praying about our addictive behaviors... and the love & power of Christ.

I . . . was bound not by an iron imposed by anyone else but by the iron of my own choice. The enemy had a grip on my will and so made a chain for me to hold me a prisoner. The consequence of a distorted will is passion. By servitude to passion*, habit is formed, and habit to which there is no resistance becomes necessity. By these links . . . connected one to another . . . a harsh bondage held me under restraint. --Augustine

*(passion for anything--- diamonds or drugs, position or power, grades or times, relationships, etc)


Batter my heart... John Donne
Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearley'I love you,'and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie:
Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe,
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.





























Friday, January 18, 2008

Thursdays with John Owen

On Thursdays I meet for an hour for prayer, accountability, laughter, etc with 3 other men. We are reading together through a book by John Owen called, Of The Mortification of Sin in Believers... this book was written about 300 years ago and speaks of things we all wrestled with this morning. It is basically one long meditation on Romans 8:13:

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Owen has thrown cold water on us... reminding of us that we have an enemy and the sooner we realize it the better. He asks, "Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work to fight sin? Are you seeking to be always at it while you live? To cease not a day from this work? Be killing sin or it will be killing you." (You can get the book, under cover with 2 others for a cheap rate here: )

Thursday, January 17, 2008

links on demons

what are demons?--Demons, very good& brief article by J.I. Packer here

I'll try to point you to resources in case there is something you want/need to pursue more info on....
--Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices by Thomas Brooks.... you can probalby get a paperback for $5 or read it online here


i haven't gone thru these... but both men I trust and respect... so this would be a good start

"Go and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." Jesus in Mark 5

"Hear my voice when I call, O Lord; be merciful to me and answer me." (Psalm 27:7)

I stand before you with shoulders bent and hands that are empty... I am quite aware of the
duplicity of my heart,
the evil of my choices,
and the failure of my behavior,
but I am not afraid
because I stand before you
with one argument,
with one plea.
This argument is enough.
This plea is sufficient.
This argument is the only thing
that could ever give me
courage,
rest,
and sturdy hope.
So I come before you
with this plea;

your mercy.

Your mercy is my rest.
Your mercy is my hope.
Your mercy makes me bold.
Your mercy is all I need.
Your mercy
tells me you will hear.
Your mercy
tells me you will act.
Your mercy
tells me you will forgive.
Your mercy
tells me you will restore.
Your mercy
tells me you will strengthen.
Your mercy is my
welcome,
plea,
and my rescue.
I rest in this one thing,
You are mercy
and
You will answer. ---Paul Tripp (entire post/prayer here)

The Health & Wealth of the Community

Sarah Hamersma is leading a reading group that looks intriguing.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

When the Adulteress Went Home

After Jesus rescued the adulteress from stoning in John 8, have you ever wondered what it was like for her to go home?
this brief article is mainly about freedom from guilt and confidence in Christ... a quote
When I… feel guilty… and hopeless because of yesterday's failure… I need the grace of forgiveness based on a great past substitutionary sacrifice on the cross, that covers all my sins… and I need the grace of promised help from Jesus today and tomorrow.
--John Piper ... (whole article go home)

Labor of Love Live

Perhaps a new favorite Christmas song of mine...


great lyric...
It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David’s town

And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother’s hand to hold

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

Noble Joseph at her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
In the streets of David’s town
In the middle of the night

So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move

U2 and Francis Schaeffer

random collection here..but Both of these are important... you might can live without the U2 but not the schaeffer...

U2 movie in 3D
Schaeffer quote:
“If we have sinned, it is wonderful consciously to say, ‘Thank you for a completed work,’ after we have brought that specific sin under the finished work of Christ. The conscious giving of thanks brings assurance and peace. We say, ‘Thank you’ for work completed upon the cross, which is sufficient for a completely restored relationship.

This isn’t on the basis of my emotions, any more than in my justification. The basis is the finished work of Christ in history and the objective promises of God in the written Word. If I believe Him, and if I believe what He has taught me about the sufficiency of the work of Christ for restoration, I can have assurance, no matter how black the blot has been. This is the Christian reality of salvation from one’s conscience.

For myself, through the thirty years or so since I began to struggle with this in my own life, I picture my conscience as a big black dog with enormous paws which leaps upon me, threatening to cover me with mud and devour me. But as this conscience of mine jumps upon me, after a specific sin has been dealt with on basis of Christ’s finished work, then I should turn to my conscience and say, in effect, ‘Down! Be still!’ I am to believe God and be quiet.”
- Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Lewis quote about 200 years from now

“The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other destinations." lewis (full quote)

Women's Morning Bible Study STARTING NOW

Lost Women of The Bible... I know what you are thinking... "At least they'd ask for directions!"
Starts today... Tuesday Jan 15
  • January 15-March25
    Tuesday Mornings @ 9:30-11:00am
    @ The home of Tara Gallagher (Map)
    "Lost Women of The Bible" by Carolyn James
    Led by: Rebecca Schackow & Lizette Crosson
  • All women are invited to come and join us as we study the women of the Bible,
    and how they relate to us today.
    Childcare is provided, but please call Leslie Marshall to let her know you will be using the childcare so that we may have a better count for supervision (332.8336).

Calvin quote on Mark 5

In the person of one man Christ has exhibited to us a proof of his grace, which is extended to all mankind. Though we are not tortured by the devil, yet he holds us as his slaves, till the Son of God delivers us from his tyranny. Naked, torn, and disfigured, we wander about, till he restores us to soundness of mind. It remains that, in magnifying his grace, we testify our gratitude. --John Calvin on Mark 5

How Demons Work

C.S. Lewis, in his book "Screwtape Letters" pictures an experienced demon (Screwtape) mentoring his nephew, Wormwood, in how to be an effective demon... He does this through writing letters... this one on how to keep a new Christian from following “The Enemy” (who for demons is the living God).


“My dear Wormwood, I wonder you should ask me whether it is essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question, at least for the present phase of the struggle, has been answered for us the High Command. Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves…. I do not think you will have much difficulty in keeping the patient in the dark. The fact that ‘devils’ are comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that (it is an old textbook method of confusing them) he therefore cannot believe in you.” --CS Lewis


In The Problem with Pain, C.S. Lewis states that people will “enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved.”

Monday, January 14, 2008

C.S. Lewis fans

This is a cool website where you can read articles about C.S. Lewis...

Charitable Giving Statements

FYI, the financial powers-at-be tell me that they are sending out the documents of 2007 giving this week... which will smoke the January 31 deadline the gov't requires.

Reformed University Ministry--RUF

RUF launches Tuesday and Steve is teaching through the I Am's of John's gospel.

Any students who are not already connected with a campus ministry should check this out.

George Washington

Last week i was reading a book with my 6yr old, i think it was called, THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF VIRTUES... and it had a nice little thing about how George Washington was fighting a losing cause early in the war. GW goes out to pray and some fellow overheard his prayers and returned home to his wife and said:

The colonists will win the war. I have just heard George Washington praying and God will answer his prayers because he is so brave. Now, I love George Washington... and i'm glad (and proud) to be an American... but i couldn't let that go. I asked: Do you think God answers his prayers because he was brave? Why would God listen to anyone? I recommended Jesus to my son as his (and his dad's!) only hope, but not very eloquently. Well, here is what I should have told my son:


“It is the gospel that makes prayer possible. Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant, by whom justification and sanctification are promised, is also the Mediator who makes your prayers accepted by the Father (Hebrews 4:15-16). The Holy Spirit, who gives you the new birth, who unites you to Christ, who sanctifies you, and who shows you the things of Christ, is a Spirit of prayer (Zechariah 12:10, Galatians 4:6). He is like a fire inflaming your soul, and He makes you mount upward in prayer to God. Prayerless people are dead to God('s goodness and power).”

--Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification

I believe the gospel... for you, not myself

“I don’t have a hard time believing the Gospel is true…for you. God loves you and accepts you and wants to do good to you. The problem is, I have such a hard time believing it’s true for me. Luther nailed it when he said that we are born with an inborn suspicion that God is not for us. Like a bass note in a terrific song, I battle almost daily the constant thumping that because of my failures, sins, and selfishness, I do not have God’s favor. He seems to be never satisfied. So what is the answer? How do I keep on keeping on? The life and death of Jesus tells me that the lie is just that, a lie. God is satisfied because He was satisfied with Jesus; and I am in Him and He is in me. That’s the antidote to the inborn suspicion—the Father is for me, because of the cross of Jesus. So daily, it’s a fight of faith; to believe the Gospel is true for me.” -Tom Wood

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Demons & Pigs & Jesus

asking about the relationship between the demons and the pigs: Once Jesus has forced the demons to name themselves, they know defeat is immanent and they grovel. Apparently the most
the demons can hope for is to be left in their home territory rather than being
banished to the wilderness or to ruins. (These places were considered dangerous
to human beings because demons wandering and lurking in such places were
desperate for human hosts.) While demons would not normally want animal
hosts, Jesus was now master of their fate, so they bargained. It seems likely that
Jesus was able to accomplish a dual purpose. Banishing the demons permanently
and ridding the territory of an animal that since Moses was unclean to Jews.
When the demons enter the pigs, they immediately rush down a steep slope into
the lake. Animals have no resistance to the demons’ great urge to destroy life.
Mark writes nothing about the spirits leaving the pigs and therefore, we are to think that they remain in the water. Other ancient literature leads us to believe that demons considered this fate worse than having no host at all. --from the Mark Study Guide of Redeemer PCA in Manhattan

No matter how scared you are... DO NOT ask Jesus to leave you

Mark 5 they ask Jesus to leave and He does. The idea that Jesus might go away if you ask him to has terrifying implications. --Jeff White

Evil, Suffering, and Our Joy

If heaven is a compensation for all the stuff you have always wanted but never going to have, that is one thing, but if the new heavens and new earth is our hope, and it is - and therefore we have a restoration of everything you ever wanted - the new heavens and new earth will make every horrible thing you every experienced nothing but a nightmare… and as a nightmare will do nothing but infinitely, correspondingly, increase your future joy in glory, in a way that it wouldn’t have been increased if you had never suffered it. And that is the ultimate defeat of evil. To say evil is an illusion or that you are going to be compensated for it is one thing, but to say that evil will be in the end the servant of your joy - that’s astounding. The Christian hope does not just compensate you for your suffering, it undoes it - it absolutely undoes it. Our momentary affliction achieves an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. --Tim Keller
It is in seeing what it cost Jesus Christ to defeat evil that evil is defeated in your life. --Tim Keller

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Evil

Looking at Jesus and the demoniac in Mark 5 (there is so much there) and realizing we can't deal with it all i want to post various "extra material"...

Why such darkness among us?
Andrew Delbanco begins his book The Death of Satan:
“A gulf has opened up in our culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources available for coping with it….The repertoire of evil has never been richer. Yet never have our resources been so weak. We have no language for connecting our inner lives with the horrors that pass before our eyes in the outer world….We no longer have a conception of evil as a distributed entity with an ontological essence of its own….Yet something that feels like this force still invades our experience, and we still discover in ourselves the capacity to inflict it on others.”

Your Personal Evangelism

"Evangelism is best done out of the context of a gospel community whose corporate life demonstrates the reality of the word that gave her life."

"People need to encounter the church as a network of relationships rather than a meeting you attend or a place you enter. Mission must involve not only contact between unbelievers and individual Christians, but between unbelievers and the Christian community."

"Most gospel ministry involves ordinary people doing ordinary things with gospel intentionality."


--quotes by Tim Chester

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Mark 5... our text for Sunday... Jesus & A Wild Man

This account is as weird as it is familiar... for me at least. Richard Phillips gives this insight:

"What we are seeing is a vivid portrayal of what Satan's rule means for humankind, a foretaste of hell itself."

Sunday Schedule

9:00
Worship Service in the theater
Children's Sunday School Classes for all ages
Youth Class
Adult Class: "Covenants in the Bible" taught by Tom Miller in the Media Center

10:15-10:44 Coffee, Muffin Hanging Out (Live Together)

10:45
Worship Service in the theater
Childcare for ages 4 and below
Children's Church (dismissed prior to the sermon)
Adult Class: "Covenants in the Bible" taught by Charlie Staples in Room 6

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Church website & email

We are working on it but right now the website is down down down and we are not receiving all incoming email... sorry

Measuring Growth

“If I have observed anything by experience, it is this: a man may take the measure of his growth and decay in grace according to his thoughts and meditations upon the person of Christ, and the glory of Christ’s kingdom, and of His love.” - John Owen

Monday, January 07, 2008

One of the reasons I love Christ Community

This is how my conversation with my two youngest children went last night...

Rob: What did you guys talk about today at church?
Daughter: We talked about Joseph and the coat of many colors.
Rob: Where is that in the Bible?
Daughter: Ummm.... Genesis thirtysomething
Rob: Bingo. (Flipping through bible...) Genesis 35 I think. Now, how about you, son. What did you learn today?
Son: I'm desperate.
Rob: Tell me more. Desperate for what?
Son: Desperate for Jesus.

And that is what I love about our children's ministry.... teaching children the Scriptures AND the point of the Scriptures... to desperately depend on the Christ whom the Scriptures reveal!

Evening Group for Ladies

Tomorrow evening begins a weekly women's meeting... (the morning meeting kicks off next week)
contacts for more information:
Becky Gilbertson 502-545-3582 OR Mo Omli 352-316-1828

The meetings will be at 7pm at the Omli home:
10404 NW 13th Lane
Gainesville, FL 32606
Map to Omli home
“Guilty people make others feel guilty; free people make others free. And you can always tell how guilty a person feels by noticing how guilty you feel around him or her. Can I repeat that? You can always tell how guilty a person feels by noticing how guilty you feel are him or her. Jesus has made you free. It is important that you bring others to Him for the same surgery that He has performed on you.” --Steve Brown, Born Free

I am Safe

Several of you have asked for this meditation... I've put in parenthesis the minor changes I made to suit our setting yesterday. At the bottom is the link to the author's personal blog which is a rich rich source of encouragement in Christ.

I am safe,
not because I have no
trouble,
or because I never experience
danger.
I am safe,
not because people affirm
me,
or my plans always
work out.
I am safe,
not because I am immune from
disease,
or free of the potential for
poverty.
I am safe
not because I am protected from
disappointment,
or separated from this
fallen world.
I am safe,
not because I am
wise
or strong.
I am safe,
not because I deserve
comfort or have earned my
ease.
I am safe,
not because of
money
or power,
or position,
or intellect,
or who I know,
or where I live.
I am safe because of the glorious mystery of
grace.
I am safe because of the presence of
boundless love.
I am safe because of
divine mercy,
divine wisdom,
divine power,
divine grace.
I am safe,
not because I never face
danger,
but because you are
with me in it.
You have not given me
a ticket out of danger.
You have not promised me
a life of ease.
You have chosen to place me in
a fallen world.
I am safe
because you have given me
the one thing
that is the
only thing
that will ever keep me safe.
You have given me
You.
I am safe
from my evil heart
and this shattered world,
not because I can escape
them both,
but because in the middle of
temptation and trial,
danger and disappointment
sickness and want,
You give me everything
I need to
fight temptation
and avoid defeat
and to point others
to the safety
that can only be found
in You.
So, I will wake up tomorrow
and face the anxiety
of not knowing,
the fear of my own weakness,
and the reality of the fall.
I will live with
faith,
courage,
perseverance,
and hope.
And when (storms) comes,
and they will,
I will whisper to
my weakening heart,
(repeating the words You spoke to the storm... Peace, be still.)
--by Paul Tripp

The Gospel is Your Ammunition

“A saint without a good knowledge of the gospel is as vulnerable as an army without ammunition.”

- William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour

Thursday, January 03, 2008

When you cannot see your way...

When you cannot see your way, be satisfied that He is your leader. When your spirit is overwhelmed within you, He knows your path; He will not leave you to sink. He has appointed seasons of refreshment, and you shall find He does not forget you. Above all, keep close to the throne of grace. If we seem to get no good by attempting to draw near Him we may be sure we shall get none by keeping away from Him. ---John Newton, 1775.... more

Trials

"All Christians will pass through sudden and fierce storms, not in spite of our fellowship with Jesus but because of it. We enter tribulations because it is the nature of our hostile environment (this fallen world) and because our Lord wants to test and strengthen our faith in Him." --Richard Phillips

Storms of Your Life

This Sunday we will look together at Mark 4:35-41... which includes the account of the storm at sea. One thing that has gripped me is this: Why were the disciples of Jesus caught in the middle of a storm? Why was their life being turned upside down? Why was it difficult to get oriented? Why did they wonder if Jesus cared about them at all? Well... an important reason is because Jesus said, "Let's go." (see 4:35)

So Jesus sets them out on a voyage that is rocky! There is something about who Jesus is and the kind of power He has that the disciples need to go through a storm to "get". So, could it be that you are experiencing temptations and trials that are God-designed to reveal to you His glory and grace? It certainly reads that way to me.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Growing Pains

Young converts are prone to depend too much on joyful frames, and love high excitement in their devotional exercises; but their heavenly Father cures them of this folly, by leaving them for a season to walk in darkness and struggle with their own corruptions. When most sorely pressed and discouraged, however, He strengthens them with might in the inner man. He enables them to stand firmly against temptation; or, if they slide, he quickly restores them, and by such exercises they become much more sensible of their entire dependence than they were at first. They learn to be in the fear of the Lord all the day long, and to distrust entirely their own wisdom and strength, and to rely for all needed aid on the grace of Jesus Christ. Such a soul will not readily believe that it is growing in grace. But to be emptied of self-dependence, and to know that we need aid for every duty, and even for every good thought, is an important step in our progress in piety. The flowers may have disappeared from the plant of grace, and even the leaves may have fallen off, and wintry blasts may have shaken it, but now it is striking its roots deeper, and becoming every day stronger to endure the rugged storm. --Archibald Alexander

Growth is imperceptible... pursue it daily

As growth in grace is gradual, and the progress from day to day imperceptible, we should aim to do something in this work every day. We should die daily unto sin and live unto righteousness. Sometimes the children of God grow faster when in the fiery furnace than elsewhere. -- Archibald Alexander (1772-1851) in an article entitled Practical Directions How to Grow in Grace and Make Progress in Piety

What do you do when your concience condemns you?

"There is simply no other way to compete with the forebodings of my conscience, the condemnings of my heart, and the lies of the world and the Devil than to overwhelm such things with daily rehearsings of the gospel.”

- Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer

The Relationship between Abiding in Christ & your Bible

“In a nutshell, abiding in Christ means allowing His Word to fill our minds, direct our wills, and transform our affections. In other words, our relationship to Christ is intimately connected to what we do with our Bibles!” - Sinclair Ferguson, In Christ Alone (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2007), 114.

Your Goodness Will be With Me

O Love Beyond Compare,
You are good when you give,
when you take away,
when the sun shines upon me,
when night gathers over me.
You have loved me before the foundation of the world,
and in love redeemed my soul;
You love me still,
in spite of my hard heart, ingratitude, distrust.
Your goodness has been with me during another year,
leading me through a twisting wilderness,
in retreat helping me to advance,
when beaten back making sure headway.
Your goodness will be with me in the year ahead;
I hoist sail and draw up anchor,
With you as the blessed Pilot of my future as of my past.
I bless you that you have veiled my eyes to the waters ahead.
If you have appointed storms of tribulation,
you will be with me in them;
If I have to pass through storms of persecution and temptation,
I shall not drown;
If I am to die,
I shall see your face the sooner;
If a painful end is to be my lot,
grant me grace that my faith will not fail;
If I am to be cast aside from the service I love,
I can make no stipulation;
Only glorify yourself in me whether in comfort or trial,
as a chosen vessel suitable always
for your use.

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