God Provides

CCC entered Decenber needing 60k in offering. A normal month for us is 30k. We prayed and clearly put this need before the congregation in two simple ways:
1.) A written announcement
2.) An announcement during the December 6th worship service.

We didn't bring it up repeatedly or harangue--we informed and asked. And our people responded!

Our December offering is $74,000

This will serve CCC as yet another Ebenezer in the future. A reminder that our God faithfully provides for His Church.

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Hymn of Praise, based on John 1

Thou art the everlasting Word,
The Father's only Son;
God manifestly seen and heard,
And Heaven's beloved One.
Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

In Thee most perfectly expressed
The Father's glories shine;
Of the full Deity possessed,
Eternally divine:
Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

True Image of the Infinite,
Whose essence is concealed;
Brightness of uncreated light;
The heart of God revealed:
Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

But the high mysteries of Thy name
And angel's grasp transcend;
The Father only- glorious claim!-
The Son can comprehend:
Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

Throughout the universe of bliss,
The center Thou, and sun;
The eternal theme of praise is this,
To Heaven's beloved One:
Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

--Josiah Condor (1789-1855)

Tomorrow, only the worship service

Hey peeps,
enjoy hanging out at home and we'll see you for 10:30 service at Oak Hall

Why is X Used when it Replaces Christ in Christmas?

from R.C. Sproul

The simple answer to your question is that the X in Christmas is used like the R in R.C. My given name at birth was Robert Charles, although before I was even taken home from the hospital my parents called me by my initials, R.C., and nobody seems to be too scandalized by that.

X can mean so many things. For example, when we want to denote an unknown quantity, we use the symbol X. It can refer to an obscene level of films, something that is X-rated. People seem to express chagrin about seeing Christ's name dropped and replaced by this symbol for an unknown quantity X. Every year you see the signs and the bumper stickers saying, "Put Christ back into Christmas" as a response to this substitution of the letter X for the name of Christ.

First of all, you have to understand that it is not the letter X that is put into Christmas. We see the English letter X there, but actually what it involves is the first letter of the Greek name for Christ. Christos is the New Testament Greek for Christ. The first letter of the Greek word Christos is transliterated into our alphabet as an X. That X has come through church history to be a shorthand symbol for the name of Christ.

We don't see people protesting the use of the Greek letter theta, which is an O with a line across the middle. We use that as a shorthand abbreviation for God because it is the first letter of the word Theos, the Greek word for God.

The idea of X as an abbreviation for the name of Christ came into use in our culture with no intent to show any disrespect for Jesus. The church has used the symbol of the fish historically because it is an acronym. Fish in Greek (ichthus) involved the use of the first letters for the Greek phrase "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior." So the early Christians would take the first letter of those words and put those letters together to spell the Greek word for fish. That's how the symbol of the fish became the universal symbol of Christendom. There's a long and sacred history of the use of X to symbolize the name of Christ, and from its origin, it has meant no disrespect.

Taken from Now, That's a Good Question!
©1996 by R.C. Sproul. Used by permission of Tyndale.

5:30 Christmas Eve Service

30 minute carol-sing and Candle-Lighting for all ages

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Great Day Together Tomorrow

9:30 Christmas Breakfast, come on!

10:30 Lessons & Carols Service

Surveying the sweeping story of Redemption through Scripture and music

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Women's Bible Studies

Start Tuesday January 5

See website for details

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"I'm a Christian whenever I listen to them."

That is what an atheist said about U2.

At first it made me bow down--again--to U2 and then i thought for a second and came to this question:

What if my normal out of the church friends and family said this about me?

Seriously, is there any better compliment than to hear that being with you makes someone WANT to believe. Is there?

Jesus, make it so!

(i think i've been following shaq on twitter too long-- instead of "out of the church", i wrote "outta da church")

http://thesecularparent.com/2009/05/26/u2-im-a-christian-whenever-i-listen-to-them/

--Mary's Song: for him to see me mended, i must see him torn

http://michaeldebusk.com/2009/12/01/for-him-to-see-me-mended-i-must-see-him-torn/

He came down, for us, and for our slvtn

"God looked on Christ as if Christ had been sin; not as if He had taken up the sins of His people, or as if they were laid on Him, though that were true, but as if He Himself had positively been that noxious—that God-hating—that soul-damning thing, called sin. When the Judge of all the earth said, 'Where is Sin?' Christ presented himself…what a grim picture that is, to conceive of sin gathered up into one mass—murder, lust and stealing, and adultery…and the Father looked on Christ as if He were that mass of sin. He was not sin, but the Father looked on upon Him as made sin for us. Christ stands in our place, assumes our guilt, takes on our iniquity and God treats Him as if He had been sin…How can any punishment fall on that man who ceases to possess sin, because his sin was cast upon Christ and Christ has suffered in his place? Oh, glorious triumph of faith to be able to say, whenever I feel the guilt of sin, whenever conscience pricks me, 'Yes, it is true but my Lord is answerable for it all, for He has taken it all upon Himself and suffered in my place."

Charles Spurgeon, The King's Highway

Bldg

Bldg

A Poem on the Incarnation, by Don Carson

The Prologue

Before there was a universe,

Before a star or planet,

When time had still not yet begun –

I scarcely understand it –

Th’ eternal Word was with his God,

God’s very Self-Expression;

Th’ eternal Word was God himself –

And God had planned redemption.

The Word became our flesh and blood –

The stuff of his creation –

The Word was God, the Word was flesh,

Astounding incarnation!

But when he came to visit us,

We did not recognize him.

Although we owed him everything

We haughtily despised him.

In days gone by God showed himself

In grace and truth to Moses;

But in the Word of God made flesh

Their climax he discloses.

For grace and truth in fullness came

And showed the Father’s glory

When Jesus donned our flesh and died:

This is the gospel story.

All who delighted in his name,

All those who did receive him,

All who by grace were born of God,

All who in truth believed him –

To them he gave a stunning right:

Becoming God’s dear children!

Here will I stay in grateful trust;

Here will I fix my vision.

Before there was a universe,

Before a star or planet,

When time had still not yet begun –

I scarcely understand it –

Th’ eternal Word was with his God,

God’s very Self-Expression;

Th’ eternal Word was God himself –

And God had planned redemption.

J.I. Packer on Aseity

http://www.mercydrops.com/Attributes/aseity.htm>
 john 1 speaks of the needLESSness of The Word

Our Triune God is self-existent and self-sufficient! And THAT is who came down--for us and our salvation

INCARNATION: God sent His Son, To Save Us

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. JOHN 1:14
Trinity and Incarnation belong together. The doctrine of the Trinity declares that the man Jesus is truly divine; that of the Incarnation declares that the divine Jesus is truly human. Together they proclaim the full reality of the Savior whom the New Testament sets forth, the Son who came from the Father’s side at the Father’s will to become the sinner’s substitute on the cross (Matt. 20:28; 26:36-46; John 1:29; 3:13-17; Rom. 5:8; 8:32; 2 Cor. 5:19-21; 8:9; Phil. 2:5-8).
The moment of truth regarding the doctrine of the Trinity came at the Council of Nicaea (A.D.325), when the church countered the Arian idea that Jesus was God’s first and noblest creature by affirming that he was of the same “substance” or “essence” (i.e., the same existing entity) as the Father. Thus there is one God, not two; the distinction between Father and Son is within the divine unity, and the Son is God in the same sense as the Father is. In saying that Son and Father are “of one substance,” and that the Son is “begotten” (echoing “only-begotten,” John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18, and NIV text notes) but “not made,” the Nicene Creed unequivocally recognized the deity of the man from Galilee.
A crucial event for the church’s confession of the doctrine of the Incarnation came at the Council of Chalcedon (A.D.451), when the church countered both the Nestorian idea that Jesus was two personalities—the Son of God and a man—under one skin, and the Eutychian idea that Jesus’ divinity had swallowed up his humanity. Rejecting both, the council affirmed that Jesus is one divine-human person in two natures (i.e., with two sets of capacities for experience, expression, reaction, and action); and that the two natures are united in his personal being without mixture, confusion, separation, or division; and that each nature retained its own attributes. In other words, all the qualities and powers that are in us, as well as all the qualities and powers that are in God, were, are, and ever will be really and distinguishably present in the one person of the man from Galilee. Thus the Chalcedonian formula affirms the full humanity of the Lord from heaven in categorical terms.
The Incarnation, this mysterious miracle at the heart of historic Christianity, is central in the New Testament witness. That Jews should ever have come to such a belief is amazing. Eight of the nine New Testament writers, like Jesus’ original disciples, were Jews, drilled in the Jewish axiom that there is only one God and that no human is divine. They all teach, however, that Jesus is God’s Messiah, the Spirit-anointed son of David promised in the Old Testament (e.g., Isa. 11:1-5; Christos, “Christ,” is Greek for Messiah). They all present him in a threefold role as teacher, sin-bearer, and ruler—prophet, priest, and king. And in other words, they all insist that Jesus the Messiah should be personally worshiped and trusted—which is to say that he is God no less than he is man. Observe how the four most masterful New Testament theologians (John, Paul, the writer of Hebrews, and Peter) speak to this.
John’s Gospel frames its eyewitness narratives (John 1:14; 19:35; 21:24) with the declarations of its prologue (1:1-18): that Jesus is the eternal divine Logos (Word), agent of Creation and source of all life and light (vv. 1-5, 9), who through becoming “flesh” was revealed as Son of God and source of grace and truth, indeed as “God the only begotten” (vv. 14, 18; NIV text notes). The Gospel is punctuated with “I am” statements that have special significance because I am (Greek: ego eimi) was used to render God’s name in the Greek translation of Exodus 3:14; whenever John reports Jesus as saying ego eimi, a claim to deity is implicit. Examples of this are John 8:28, 58, and the seven declarations of his grace as (a) the Bread of Life, giving spiritual food (6:35, 48, 51); (b) the Light of the World, banishing darkness (8:12; 9:5); (c) the gate for the sheep, giving access to God (10:7, 9); (d) the Good Shepherd, protecting from peril (10:11, 14); (e) the Resurrection and Life, overcoming our death (11:25); (f) the Way, Truth, and Life, guiding to fellowship with the Father (14:6); (g) the true Vine, nurturing for fruitfulness (15:1, 5). Climactically, Thomas worships Jesus as “my Lord and my God” (20:28). Jesus then pronounces a blessing on all who share Thomas’s faith and John urges his readers to join their number (20:29-31).
Paul quotes from what seems to be a hymn that declares Jesus’ personal deity (Phil. 2:6); states that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col. 2:9; cf. 1:19); hails Jesus the Son as the Father’s image and as his agent in creating and upholding everything (Col. 1:15-17); declares him to be “Lord” (a title of kingship, with divine overtones), to whom one must pray for salvation according to the injunction to call on Yahweh in Joel 2:32 (Rom. 10:9-13); calls him “God over all” (Rom. 9:5) and “God and Savior” (Titus 2:13); and prays to him personally (2 Cor. 12:8-9), looking to him as a source of divine grace (2 Cor. 13:14). The testimony is explicit: faith in Jesus’ deity is basic to Paul’s theology and religion.
The writer to the Hebrews, purporting to expound the perfection of Christ’s high priesthood, starts by declaring the full deity and consequent unique dignity of the Son of God (Heb. 1:3, 6, 8-12), whose full humanity he then celebrates in chapter 2. The perfection, and indeed the very possibility, of the high priesthood that he describes Christ as fulfilling depends on the conjunction of an endless, unfailing divine life with a full human experience of temptation, pressure, and pain (Heb. 2:14-17; 4:14-5:2; 7:13-28; 12:2-3).
Not less significant is Peter’s use of Isaiah 8:12-13 (1 Pet. 3:14). He cites the Greek (Septuagint) version, urging the churches not to fear what others fear but to set apart the Lord as holy. But where the Septuagint text of Isaiah says, “Set apart the Lord himself,” Peter writes, “Set apart Christ as Lord” (1 Pet. 3:15). Peter would give the adoring fear due to the Almighty to Jesus of Nazareth, his Master and Lord.
The New Testament forbids worship of angels (Col. 2:18; Rev. 22:8-9) but commands worship of Jesus and focuses consistently on the divine-human Savior and Lord as the proper object of faith, hope, and love here and now. Religion that lacks these emphases is not Christianity. Let there be no mistake about that! --J. I. Packer

The WORD

In short, God's "Word" in the Old Testament is His powerful self-expression in creation, revelation and salvation, and the personification of that "Word" makes it suitable for John to apply it as a title to God's ultimate self-disclosure, the person of His own Son.

--don carson

John 1 summarizes how the "Word" which was with God in the very beginning came into the sphere of time, history, tangibility--in other words,
How the Son of God was sent into the world to become the Jesus of history
so that
The glory & grace of God might be uniquely and perfectly disclosed.

---don carson

Sunday we jump in the deep end!

John 1 summarizes how the "Word" which was with God in the very beginning came into the sphere of time, history, tangibility--in other words,
How the Son of God was sent into the world to become the Jesus of history
so that
The glory & grace of God might be uniquely and perfectly disclosed.

---don carson

Today's advent scripture

Isaiah 7:14
And
Isaiah 9:1-7

Jesus comes as the long-awaited
Immanuel,
Prince of Peace,
Mighty God!

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Shingles on roof

Amen! God help us keep this festival for Your Glory

Let us celebrate and keep this festival of our church, with joy in our hearts: let the birth of a Redeemer, which redeemed us from sin, from wrath, from death, from hell, be always remembered; may this Savior's love never be forgotten!

But may we sing forth all his love and glory as long as life shall last here, and through an endless eternity in the world above! May we chant forth the wonders of redeeming love, and the riches of free grace, amidst angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, without intermission, for ever and ever!

And as, my brethren, the time for keeping this festival is approaching, let us consider our duty in the true observation thereof, of the right way for the glory of God, and the good of immortal souls, to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ; an event which ought to be had in eternal remembrance.

--George Whitefield, in a sermon entitled The Observation of the Birth of Christ, the Duty of all Christians; or the True Way of Keeping Christmas

From 400 years ago

"Ecstasy and delight are essential to the believer's soul and they promote sanctification. We were not meant to live without spiritual exhilaration, and the Christian who goes for a long time without the experience of heart-warming will soon find himself tempted to have his emotions satisfied from earthly things and not, as he ought, from the Spirit of God. The soul is so constituted that it craves fulfillment from things outside itself and will embrace earthly joys for satisfaction when it cannot reach spiritual ones… The believer is in spiritual danger if he allows himself to go for any length of time without tasting the love of Christ and savoring the felt comforts of a Savior's presence. When Christ ceases to fill the heart with satisfaction, our souls will go in silent search of other lovers… By the enjoyment of the love of Christ in the heart of a believer, we mean an experience of the "love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us" (Rom. 5:5)… because the Lord has made himself accessible to us in the means of grace, it is our duty and privilege to seek this experience from Him in these means till we are made the joyful partakers of it." John Flavel (1630-1691)

Women's Christmas event

Tonite!
See website for details

Today

Communion

Lunch Together

Good stuff

an advent poem

The shepherds had an angel,
The wise men had a star,
But what have I, a little child,
To guide me home from far,
Where glad stars sing together,
And singing angels are?—

Those Shepherds through the lonely night
Sat watching by their sheep,
Until they saw the heavenly host
Who neither tire nor sleep,
All singing ‘Glory, glory’
In festival they keep.

Christ watches me, His little lamb,
Cares for me day and night,
That I may be His own in heaven:
So angels clad in white
Shall sing their ‘Glory, glory,’
For my sake in the height.


— Christina Rosetti

I wonder how He'll provide

letter to congregation is here









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Sufficient to each day

Sufficient to each day are the duties
to be done--and the trials to be endured.

God never built a Christian strong enough to
carry today's duties and tomorrow's anxieties
piled on the top of them.

"So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow
will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is
enough for today." Matthew 6:34

Men's Event December 12

Sunday Lunch

This Sunday we stay and eat. Almost 200 rsvp's so far. Questions? www.christcommunitychurch.com

advent scripture readings 2009

Sunday Genesis 3:1-20 – Seed of Eve
Monday Genesis 22:1-18 – Only Beloved Son and Sacrifice
Tuesday Genesis 48:15-16; 49:8-10 – Lion of Judah
Wednesday Numbers 23:18-24; 24:3-9, 15-19 – Star of Jacob
Thursday Deuteronomy 18:14-22 – A Prophet Like Moses
Friday 2 Samuel 7:1-17 – Son of David
Saturday Psalm 2 – Messiah: Son of God and King
Sunday Psalm 16 and Job 19:23-27 – Holy One and Resurrected Redeemer

Here is Tuesday's reading, for those who are lazy like me

-- Israel blessed Joseph and said,

“The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,
the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day,
the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys;
and in them let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac;
and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”

8 “Judah, your brothers shall praise you;
your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
your father's sons shall bow down before you.
9 Judah is a lion's cub;
from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He stooped down; he crouched as a lion
and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?
10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler's staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

Advent Choir Rehearsal Tonight

At the church office!

Use the new entrance by new bldg

Men's event dec 12

EVENT SCHEDULE:  
11-11:30 arrival, gun check-in
11:30-12:15 Lunch
12:15 - 3 pm  safety rules review, then shooting.

What the incarnation says about God

“For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is — limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death — He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with His creation, He has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile”

--Dorothy Sayers

burdened with blessing

Earth was waiting spent and restless,
With a mingled hope and fear;
And the faithful few were sighing,
Surely Lord the day is near;
The Desire of all the nations,
It is time He should appear.

In the sacred courts of Zion
Where the Lord had His abode
Where the money changers trafficked
And the sheep and oxen trod
And the world by earthly wisdom
Knew not either Lord or God.

Then the Spirit of the Highest
On a virgin meek came down
And He burdened her with blessing
And He pained her with renown
For she bare the Lord's Anointed
For His cross and for His crown.


Earth for Him had groaned and travailed
Since the ages first began
For in Him was hid the secret
That through all the ages ran
Son of Promise, Son of David
Son of God and Son of Man.

--by William Smith, author of Immortal, Invisible

"Come, ye thankful people, come"

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto his praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take his harvest home;
From his field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in his garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring thy final harvest home;
Gather thou thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.

—Henry Alford, 1844"

"The General Thanksgiving "

Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we thine unworthy servants
do give thee most humble and hearty thanks
for all thy goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all men.

We bless thee for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for thine inestimable love
in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ,
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies,
that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful;
and that we show forth thy praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to thy service,
and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost,
be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.


—Book of Common Prayer"

Thankful People

Thankful People:
"Gratefulnesse
Thou that hast giv’n so much to me,
Give one thing more, a gratefull heart.
See how thy beggar works on thee
By art.
He makes thy gifts occasion more,
And sayes, If he in this be crost,
All thou hast giv’n him heretofore
Is lost.
But thou didst reckon, when at first
Thy word our hearts and hands did crave,
What it would come to at the worst
To save.
Perpetuall knockings at thy doore,
Tears sullying thy transparent rooms,
Gift upon gift, much would have more,
And comes.
This notwithstanding, thou wentst on,
And didst allow us all our noise:
Nay, thou hast made a sigh and grone
Thy joyes.
Not that thou hast not still above
Much better tunes, then grones can make;
But that these countrey-aires thy love
Did take.
Wherefore I crie, and crie again;
And in no quiet canst thou be,
Till I a thankfull heart obtain
Of thee:
Not thankfull, when it pleaseth me;
As if thy blessings had spare dayes:
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.
—George Herbert, The Temple (1633)"

Jerusalem Above, by D.A. Carson

 
THE EFFORTS OF THE AUTHOR of the epistle to the Hebrews to help his readers grasp the transcendent importance of Jesus and the new covenant, over against the old covenant given by God at Sinai, precipitate a new and interesting contrast in Hebrews 12:18-24.
     On the one hand, Christians "have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire" (12:18) — the reference is clearly to Mount Sinai when God came down upon it and met with Moses.  The terror of that theophany is spelled out in graphic terms.  God himself declared, "If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned" (12:20).  Even Moses experienced deep fear (Deut. 9:19; Heb. 12:21).  Christians have not drawn near to that particular mountain.
     On the other hand, Christians have come to another mountain.  But here the author throws us a curve.  At first it sounds as if he is saying that the mountain we approach is not Sinai, connected with the desert and the giving of the law, but Mount Zion, the place where the temple was built in Jerusalem, the seat of the Davidic dynasty.  And then suddenly it becomes clear that the text is not focusing on the geographical and historical Zion, but on its antitype:  "the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God" (12:22).
     There is a great deal that could be said about this typology, but I shall restrict myself to two observations.
     First, it extends to other biblical books.  The typology itself is grounded in the return from exile.  The hope of the exiles was that they return to Jerusalem.  Jerusalem became the symbol of all that was restorative.  Already in the literature of second-temple Judaism, Jews sometimes speak of "the new Jerusalem" or the like, which is heavenly, perfect.  Similarly in the New Testament.  Paul can speak of "the Jerusalem that is above" (Gal. 4:26).  The last book of the Bible envisages the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven (Rev. 21).
     Second, if Christians have "come" to this "heavenly Jerusalem," what does this in fact mean?  It means that by becoming Christians we have joined the assembly of those "gathered" before the presence of the living God.  Our citizenship is in heaven; our names are inscribed in heaven.  We join the joyful assembly of countless thousands of angels around the throne.  In short, we have "come to God, the judge of all men"; we have joined "the spirits of righteous men made perfect" (Heb. 12:23).  Above all, we have come "to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant" (12:24).  Here is the ultimate vision of what it means to be the gathered "church of the firstborn" (Heb. 12:23).

WorkDay

Workday Saturday; TurkeyBowl Sunday

Saturday come out to church property to help do some simple landscaping

Sunday after church fellas will play a pickup flag football game

Praise God! We got our guy

God is good. All the time.

All the time, God is good.

And just in time He has given us Justin Piazza to lead our worship.

See this week's reminder and reflection for a little more.

Thankful for a Mother's Devotion | CCEF

Thankful for a Mother's Devotion | CCEF

Posted using ShareThis

Men's Retreat

Men's Retreat
April 16-17

I love that 81 year old Bob is in this pic

IMG00887.jpg

IMG00884.jpg

Sweet sweet trees

marshall tree farm is ON IT

Sweet sweet trees

marshall tree farm is ON IT

Where ccc met year one

Shrine Club on Archer

Come work Saturday!

Book it! Give us what you can!

CCC Peeps

This is offered in my ongoing attempt to help you know each other. It is as random as I am.

Who is being baptized?
Caleb Henkel & Everett Davis

Henkels: Nate, Melissa and Caleb
Nate teaches @ Chiles and Melissa @ Fla virtual, live in Williston.

Carter, Stacey, Connor and Everett
Editor with Naylor and she Children's Director CCC and private practice LMHC. Connor is an awesome 5 (or so) year old.

The Henkels are Gators. The Davises are graduates of U. of Alabama @ Tuscaloosa.
Now that I think about it, this could get ugly.

I was glad when they said..

Ground Control to Major Tom

With all serious props to David Bowie and a nod to a little start-up band named U2 (who is using the song as a recorded prelude to their 360 concerts)

The feel the song gives in the 1st 90 seconds that you are about to "take-off" and leave Earth is truly tasty. And it is truly fitting as we think @ corporate worship (because tomorrow is Ps 122, which concerns worship AND because we are coming near the Lord's Day).

Psalm 122 talks with great affection @ Jerusalem, which Rev 21 says is our future home--and Hebrews 12 says is where we worship!

So, as we gather @ 10:30am I'll be hearing Bowie whispering in my mind:
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Liftoff!

Sunday we state creed and experience baptism

--Creed

"It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism. And it is fatal to imagine that everybody knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it. The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ."

--Dorothy Sayers, "Creed or Chaos?" The Whimsical Christian (New York: Macmillan, 1978) 34-35.

--Baptism

I’m always in danger of losing my grip on reality. The reality, of course, is that God is sovereign and Christ is savior. The reality is that prayer is my mother tongue and the Eucharist my basic food. The reality is that baptism, not Myers-Briggs, defines who I am.

Very often when I leave a place of worship, the first impression I have of the so-called “outside world” is how small it is—how puny its politics, paltry its appetites, squint-eyed its interests. I have just spent an hour or so with friends reorienting myself in the realities of the world—the huge sweep of salvation and the minute particularities of holiness—and I blink my eyes in disbelief that so many are willing to live in such reduced and cramped conditions. But after a few hours or days, I find myself getting used to it and going along with its assumptions, since most of the politicians and journalists, artists and entertainers, stockbrokers and shoppers seem to assume that it’s the real world.

And then

some pastor or priest

calls me back to reality with “Let us worship God,”

and I get it straight again,

see it whole.

—Eugene H. Peterson, Take & Read

(tomorrow gonna be great day)

"These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own." --GK Chesterton

The Gospel and Miserable Sinners

One of the really surprising things about the present bewilderment of humanity is that the Christian Church now finds herself called upon to proclaim the old and hated doctrine of sin as a gospel of cheer and encouragement. The final tendency of the modern philosophies, hailed in their day as a release from the burden of sinfulness, has been to bind man hard and fast in the chains of an iron determinism. The influence of heredity and environment, of glandular makeup and the control exercised by the unconscious, of economic necessity and the mechanics of biological development, have all been invoked to assure man that he is not responsible for his misfortune and therefore not to be held guilty. Evil has been represented as something imposed on us from without, not made by us from within. The dreadful conclusion follows inevitably that as he is not responsible for evil; he cannot alter it. Even though evolution and progress may offer some alleviation in the future there is no hope for you and me now. I well remember how an aunt of mine, brought up in an old-fashioned liberalism, protested angrily against having continuously to call herself a miserable sinner when reciting the Litany. Today, if we could really be persuaded that we are miserable sinners, that the trouble is not outside us but inside us, and that therefore, by the grace of God, we can do something to put it right, we should receive that message as the most helpful and heartening thing that can be imagined. (Dorothy Sayers)

The Mississippi Delta - Mark Twain

"In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the old Oolitic Silurian period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their sidewalks and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. ---Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi.

creed or chaos

If doctrine is rightly understood, however, not as dry and dusty speculations, but as the biblical indicatives of God's work in creation, providence, redemption, and consummation of all things in Christ, then the doctrine is the gospel. In her book, Creed or Chaos, mystery novelist and playwright Dorothy Sayers wrote,

Official Christianity, of late years, has been having what is known as 'a bad press.' We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine-'dull dogma,' as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man-and the dogma is the drama....Now we may call that doctrine exhilarating or we may call it devastating; we may call it revelation or we may call it rubbish; but if we call it dull, then words have no meaning at all. That God should play the tyrant over man is a dismal story of unrelieved oppression; that man should play the tyrant over man is the usual dreary record of human futility; but that man should play the tyrant over God and find Him a better man than himself is an astonishing drama indeed.

Help make it welcoming

Hey, we've had some larger numbers at our Sunday gatherings in the last several weeks (the Sundays I haven't preached---hmmm) and it really helps

More than you know

If a big chunk of y'all could sit towards front and center of the theater.

Consider it.

Make it a community group team-bldg event.

Thanks

Betwixt & Between

Psalm 122 is both yes and no. Our pilgrim is, like us, betwixt & between, with so much to enjoy, so much that could be threatened & lost, and so much yet to come.

--Alec Motyer

Turkey Bowl

Day after working together @ church property (and skipping F.I.yawn game together)----

After service all interested fellas (no Title 9 here) will divide up and play some friendley flag football.

What we sing matters

In his book, Christian Leaders of the 18th Century <http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Leaders-18th-Century-Ryle/dp/0851512682/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1256217708&amp;sr=8-1> , J.C. Ryle (1816-1900) spends a chapter on August Toplady, the gifted but often contentious hymn-writer/pastor who penned "Rock of Ages."
I appreciated Ryle's comments on the effect of writing good songs for the church to sing. It makes me more aware of the importance of leading and writing songs for congregational worship.
Good hymns are an immense blessing to the Church of Christ. I believe the last day alone will show the world the real amount of good they have done. They suit all, both rich and poor. There is an elevating, stirring, soothing, spiritualizing, effect about a thoroughly good hymn, which nothing else can produce. It sticks in men's memories when texts are forgotten. It trains men for heaven, where praise is one of the principal occupations. Preaching and praying shall one day cease for ever; but praise shall never die. The makers of good ballads are said to sway national opinion. The writers of good hymns, in like manner, are those who leave the deepest marks on the face of the Church. (382)
What a difference a worship song writer can make! But in the next paragraph, Ryle criticizes many of the hymns that were being sung in his time. His comments are just as relevant today.
But really good hymns are exceedingly rare. There are only a few men in any age who can write them. You may name hundreds of first-rate preachers for one first-rate writer of hymns. Hundreds of so-called hymns fill up our collections of congregational psalmody, which are really not hymns at all. They are very sound, very scriptural, very proper, very correct, very tolerably rhymed; but they are not real, live, genuine hymns. There is no life about them. At best they are tame, pointless, weak, and milk-and-watery. (382)
If you're a songwriter, don't settle for a "milk-and-watery" product. Strive to write the best songs you can. Edit, edit, and re-edit. And if you're a worship leader, don't feed your people songs that "have no life" in them and will only have a temporary effect. Choose the greatest songs - lyrically, melodically, and musically - for your church to sing.
"The last day alone will show the world the real amount of good they have done."
  --from Bob Kauflin @ worshipmatters.com

muffin help

most of you know that Joseph and Lauren Relyea have been rockin' the muffin/coffee patrol for our 10am worship time

and man that coffee gets more tasty as the temperature drops, don't it?

they need help

especially THIS sunday

you know you want to help-- call Emily at the office for details 379-4949

Psalm 122

--is the song of a person who decides to go to church and worship God. It is a sample of the complex, diverse and worldwide phenomenon of worship that is common to all Christians. It is an excellent instance of what happens when a person worships.

--Eugene Peterson

Uh huh

Great Day Sunday

AM
-Children's Classes
-3 adult classes
-10 in Next Step class
-received 2 new members (Suzanne Parrish & Amber Priest)
-

PM
-Congregational Mtg
-reminder of how far God has brought us leads to expectant faith He'll help us take our next hill
-
-Youth group

Pray! Listen!

It is by preaching that God makes past history a present
reality. The cross was, and will always remain, a unique
historical event of the past. And there it will remain, in
the past, in the books, unless God himself makes it real
and relevant to men today. It is by preaching, in which he
makes his appeal to men through men, that God accomplishes
this miracle. He opens their eyes to see its true meaning,
its eternal value, and its abiding merit.

--John Stott

Bldg

Miss a Game, Make a Memory

November 21 Work Day

Please make plans to join us for this full work day from 8:30AM to 4:30PM. There is plenty of work, so bring a small army with you and we should be good to go! RSVP to Frank Matthews <mailto:fmatthews AT christcommunitychurchDOT com> .
----------------
Can't make it all day? Give what you can.
We are landscaping the property and need 50+ peeps. We have 15 so far. Need you, dude.

Congregational Meeting Sunday at 4:30pm

Corporate Officers
One brief order of business before the congregation on Sunday November 8th (at the 4:30pm congregational meeting) is the election of corporate officers. Let me say a brief word about this.

Christ Community Church of Gainesville, is a 503c non profit corporation registered with the state of Florida. One of the state requirements for all 503c corporations is the election of officers. Besides satisfying the requirement of the state, the only other duty officers have is the carrying out of the actions of the congregation in business matters.

So, for example, when Christ Community Church voted to enter into a loan agreement with a lending institution, the officers of the corporation signed on behalf of the corporation. This does NOT mean that they are personally liable for anything. The corporation has entered the agreement, not the officers.

On Sunday you will receive a ballot asking for a yes or no vote on the following:

Do you elect the following regarding corporate officers of Christ Community Church:

Larry Eubanks, President
Mike Marshall, Treasurer
Charlie Staples, Secretary

Original Post from April 2008

Words Matter

We must not acquiesce in the contemporary disenchantment
with words. Words matter. They are the building blocks of
sentences by which we communicate with one another. And
the gospel has a specific content. That is why it must be
articulated, verbalized. Of course it can and must be
dramatized too. For images are sometimes more powerful
than words. Yet images also have to be interpreted by
words. So in all our evangelism, whether in public
preaching or in private witnessing, we need to take trouble
with our choice of words.

--From John Stott, "The Message of Thessalonians"

Prepare to enjoy

I just secured bob ausband, the baddest old dude in GNV, to read scripture to us during communion to use on sunday

Miss a game, make a memory

I'm talking @ FIU game on Nov 21

Update

http://documents.christcommunitychurch.com/October%202009%20Newsletter.pdf

A.W. Tozer

The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts @ God that are unworthy of Him.

New to Christ Community?

Come 9am Sunday to our Next Step Class

More info at www.christcommunitychurch.com

.

Background music for Fall Festival

Fall Festival Scene

Thanks Perrys!

IMG00724.jpg

Fall Festival

Come out Sunday 4pm! Share the love and bring friends.

new switchfoot song

hear it

MESS OF ME
I am my own affliction
I am my own disease
There ain't no drug that they could sell
Ah, there ain't no drugs to make me well

There ain't no drugs
It's not enough
There ain't no drugs
The sickness is myself

- Chorus -
I made a mess of me, I wanna get back the rest of me
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I've made a mess of me, I wanna reverse this tragedy
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!

We lock our souls in cages
We hide inside our shells
It's hard to feed to the ones you love
Oh when you can't forgive yourself
Yeah forgive yourself!

There ain't no drugs
There ain't no drugs
There ain't no drugs
The sickness is myself

- Chorus -
I made a mess of me, I wanna get back the rest of me
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I've made a mess of me, I wanna reverse this tragedy
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!

AHHHHHHOOOOO!

There ain't no drug
There ain't no drug
There ain't no drug
No drugs to make me well
There ain't no drug
It's not enough
We're breaking up
The sickness is myself
The sickness is myself

- Chorus -
I made a mess of me, I wanna get back the rest of me
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I've made a mess of me, I wanna reverse this tragedy
I've made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!

the path from big building to office building

 

windows in classrooms; stucco

 

Receive from God, Give to Others

God intends every church to be like a sounding board,
bouncing off the vibrations of the gospel, or like a
telecommunications satellite which first receives and then
transmits messages. In fact, this is God's simplest plan
for world evangelization.

John Stott --From "The Message of Thessalonians" (The Bible Speaks
Today series: Leicester: IVP, 1991), p. 43.

Some of you asked for this--

When Jill was pregnant with Kim, she thought of the Old Testament psalm that says, "The Lord will keep you from all harm" (121:7). But then God gave us a "harmed" daughter. We didn't understand why. Thinking about that promise made Jill feel even worse. It hurt to hope.
When God gave us Kim, he gave us something we loved very much but couldn't control. She constantly drained our reserves. Jill and I are naturally quick, confident - and judgmental. Once, before Kim was born, Jill was washing the car in our driveway and our neighbor passed on the sidewalk. A young mother herself, she said to Jill, "I don't know how you have the strength to do everything that you do." Jill replied, "If you're organized, you can get a lot done. You should try it." Years ago, I was in downtown Philadelphia with a friend, and a street person passed us. He slurred out something incomprehensible to me, and I dismissed him. As we were walking away my friend asked me, "Why did you talk to him like that? He just wanted to know where the soup kitchen was."
I smile at the work of God displayed in our lives, at God's sense of humor. Jill and I have spent countless hours with Kim doing speech therapy, helping her articulate her slurred words. I've spent hundreds of hours programming Kim's speech computer, which she is very proficient at. Jill no longer has time to be organized. When I ask her where some money has gone, she smiles at me and tells me that she doesn't know. She has sworn off being organized. She just can't do it anymore.
God gave us Kim to keep us from all harm - to keep us from being so self-righteous and "together." God used Kim to bring us to the end of ourselves, to teach us about love, and to teach us about himself. Our lives no longer worked - we had to learn how to live from the bottom up. Like the blind man, we found glory in a most unexpected place.


Excerpt from "Love Walked Among Us"
Author, Paul Miller

Goin' to Starkville

1985 Gators beat Miss State in Starkville, 36-22. I was there. 18 years old, dead as a doornail spiritually. Not loving or really caring about Jesus.

the gators haven't won there since then.

This saturday i plan to be in the stadium and I will take a moment and bump my chest twice and point to heaven to say, "Jesus, I'm glad you reached me."

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us: we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

Sunday i referenced that quote from CS Lewis.

did some research on it y'day:
the quote is from one of his letters, written to the Reverend Peter Bide on April 29th, 1959. Bide was the Anglican priest who did a 'laying on of hands' healing for Joy Lewis in 1957, and he was also the one who performed the religious wedding of Jack and Joy Lewis (they had earlier had a civil wedding). In 1959 Bide's wife was diagnosed with cancer, and he wrote Jack Lewis to ask him to pray for her. The quote comes from Lewis' response. Oddly, the letter is not in the new three volume C. S. Lewis Collected Letters edited by Walter Hooper, but is in the old (1966) one volume Letters of C. S. Lewis, edited by Warnie Lewis.

C. S. Lewis wrote:

Indeed, indeed we both will. I don't see how any degree of faith can exclude the dismay, since Christ's faith did not save Him from dismay in Gethsemane. We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us: we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

Letters of C. S. Lewis

Moonstruck?

verse 6

The sun shall not strike you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The 2 lines of v.6 are not only poetic parallels but use a favorite Hebrew way of expressing totality:

naming a pair of opposites to include everything between (cf. verse 8).

The Lord's protection avails against the known and the unknown; perils of day and night; the most overpowering forces and the most insidious.

Kidner on 121:3-4

in verse 3 the NOT is the one used normally for requests and commands

so this verse should be taken, not as a statement which verse 4 will virtually repeat, but as a wish or prayer, to be answered with the ringing confidence of verse 4 and all that follows.

I.e., "May He not let your foot be moved, may He . . . not slumber!"--followed by the answer,

"LOOK, He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps."

little YOU is a part of God's BIG PEOPLE

ps121 verse 4 Behold! he who keepeth Israel will not slumber nor sleep. To recall each individual to the consideration of the common covenant, he represents the Divine providence as extending to the whole body of the Church. In order that each of us for himself may be assured that God will be gracious to him, it behoves us always to begin with the general promise made to all God’s people.

--John Calvin

God is affectioned towards His people

psalm 121 not only attributes power to God, but also teaches that He is so affectioned towards us, that he will preserve us in all respects in perfect safety.

--John Calvin

Constant & Countless Ways of Caring

Christians believe that life is created and shaped by God and that the life of faith is a daily exploration of the constant and countless ways in which God's grace and love are experienced.

--Eugene Peterson

Our Help Comes From God

The almighty and ever-present power of God by which He upholds, as with His hand
Heaven
and
Earth
and
All Creatures
and so rules them that
leaf and blade,
rain and drought,
fruitful and lean years,
food and drink,
health and sickness,
prosperity and poverty
ALL THINGS,
in fact come to us not by chance but from His fatherly hand.

--Heidelberg Catechism #27

Psalm 121

Psalm 121, learned early & sung repeatedly in the walk with Christ, clearly defines the conditions under which we live out our discipleship--which, in a word, is God. Once we get this psalm in our hearts it will be impossible for us to gloomily suppose that being a Christian is an unending battle against ominous forces that at any moment may break through and overpower us.

Faith is NOT a precarious affair of chance escape from satanic assaults. It is the
Solid,
Massive,
Secure
Experience
of God, who keeps all evil from getting inside us, who guards our life, who guards us when we leave and when we return, who guards us now, who guards us always.

--Eugene Peterson

a little help for our friends

Announcement:

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 6:00 pm, University Auditorium:

“THE BIBLE AND AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE.”

This lecture will be given by Mark Noll, Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame and leading scholar of American religious history. Noll is the author of numerous books including America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln; The Civil War as a Theological Crisis; The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind; and most recently, God and Race in American Politics. In his lecture at the University of Florida Noll will address the “problem” of the political use of Scripture in American life. He will discuss the centrality of Scripture in America’s past and will attempt to show how the Bible has been used both against and in support of public power.

The lecture is free and open to the public, and all are warmly encouraged to attend! The president of the university is scheduled to give some words of welcome. The lecture is part of the ongoing lecture series at the University of Florida: “Faithful Narratives: The Challenge of Religion in History.” [http://web.history.ufl.edu/faithful.html] For more information on this or other lectures, please contact Andrea Sterk, sterk at ufl DOT edu or Nina Caputo, ncaputo AT ufl DOT edu

The following evening, Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 7:30 pm, Noll will be speaking at the Christian Study Center of Gainesville on the topic: “The American Role in the New Shape of World Christianity: Imperialists? Partners? Bystanders?” He will also hold an informal discussion at the Study Center on Wednesday, October 21, at 4:00 pm. “Coffee and Conversation with Mark Noll: Is the Evangelical Mind Still a Scandal?”

Psalm 121 A Pilgrim Song

^1-2 I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains?
No, my strength comes from God,
who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.

^3-4 He won't let you stumble,
your Guardian God won't fall asleep.
Not on your life! Israel's
Guardian will never doze or sleep.

^5-6 God's your Guardian,
right at your side to protect you—
Shielding you from sunstroke,
sheltering you from moonstroke.

^7-8 God guards you from every evil,
he guards your very life.
He guards you when you leave and when you return,
he guards you now, he guards you always.

--from THE MESSAGE

Take a look through our windows

Safe in the Shadow of the Lord, Beneath His hand and pow’r, I trust in Him, I trust in Him, My fortress and my tow’r.

part of a hymn by Timothy Dudley-Smith

thinking about Psalm 121 this week

this great old hymn--and eternal TRUTH--gets airtime Sunday

I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

CCC peeps

Just bumped into Karen Griffin @ Shands. She does Occ Therapy on the 5th Floor!

Which means she works in same bldg with her sis-in-law, Elizabeth.

They are married to John and Ben, respectively.

Motyer intro

Psalms for pilgrim people

So often, the simplest way to understand something is the best.

What is possibly the loveliest single group of psalms in the whole collection, Psalms 120 – 134 describe themselves as ‘Songs of Ascents’. Like all the titles of individual psalms, this is to be taken seriously as a pointer to how the psalm in question is to be understood and used. The plural word ‘ascents’ could be what in Hebrew is called a ‘plural of magnitude’ – ‘the Great Ascent’, or it can be left as a simple plural, an ‘ascent’ that happened over and over again. Either way, it readily points to the journeys of pilgrims from all over the land ‘up’ to Jerusalem to keep the Feasts of the Lord.

This is the most direct interpretation of the title, and far less fanciful than some other suggestions that have been made. It also happens to be one that suits the psalms themselves very well, and, as we shall see, also suits the way in which they have been carefully edited into this small collection. In order to keep this in mind we will generally use the translation ‘Songs of the Ascent’ or ‘of the Great Ascent’.

Walking, running and arriving

But we must not get ahead of ourselves! Surprisingly, neither the verbs ‘to go on a pilgrimage’ and ‘to be a pilgrim’ nor the nouns ‘pilgrim’ and ‘pilgrimage’ appear in the Bible! There are five places where some translations introduce the thought, but, as far as the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New are concerned, they do so without justification. In Genesis 47:9, Exodus 6:4 and Psalm 119:54 the word means ‘sojourning’, being a temporary resident or even an overnight guest, and in Hebrews 11:13 and 1 Peter 2:11 we need a translation like ‘resident alien’ or, perhaps, ‘expatriate’.

The words of pilgrimage, then, are not used, but the pilgrim idea is deeply ingrained right through the Bible, and not only in the official sense in which what we would call pilgrimages to Jerusalem were commanded once our ancestors were settled in the Promised Land, but on the level of individual devotion. Can we avoid saying that the Lord called Abram ‘to be a pilgrim’? Hebrews 11:8 could not be clearer: Abraham was called to leave Ur of the Chaldees and he obeyed even though ‘he did not know where he was going’ – a pilgrim indeed! Reaching Canaan and learning that this was the land of promise (Genesis 17:7) did not change anything, but simply redefined Abraham’s role, for his calling was still to ‘walk before me’ (Genesis 17:1).

Presently, in connection with the psalms of the Great Ascent, we will call this ‘the pilgrimage of the heart’, our daily ‘walking with God’. It is in this way, indeed, that ‘pilgrimage’ becomes a central Bible truth. Think, for example, of the fact that, early on, Christianity was called ‘the way’; that is to say, not only a set of beliefs, nor only an unforgettable experience of accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as our own personal Saviour, but a pathway for life, a distinctive lifestyle, truth to be lived out, ideals to be pursued, goals to be set and striven for. Above all, a perfect Jesus to be imitated, for all these references find their root in his claim that ‘I am the way’ (John 14:6).

It is more than a bit sad that the NIV has chosen to obscure the matching metaphor of ‘walking’. After all, we say to new parents, ‘Is the baby walking yet?’ ‘Walking’ is one of the earliest and most prized signs of a properly developing life and it is no wonder that the New Testament makes full use of it in relation to Christian living. Ephesians almost hammers us with our vocation to ‘walk worthily of our calling’ (Ephesians 4:1), to ‘walk no longer as the Gentiles also walk’ (4:17), to ‘walk in love’ (5:1), to ‘walk as children of light’ (5:8), and to ‘look carefully how we walk, not as unwise but as wise’ (5:15); walking is, you see, a pretty comprehensive description of the Christian’s progress as a growing entity from infancy to adulthood, with proper, balanced development, inwardly and outwardly: a pilgrimage of conduct, character, mind and heart. We will find that the psalms of the Great Ascent speak to us of all this, in their own distinctive and uniformly lovely way.

Have you noticed the ‘golden cord’ that binds Hebrews 10, 11 and 12? Hebrews 10:39 says that ‘we are those who believe and are saved’. More literally, we are ‘of faith’. That is our hallmark – faith. Hebrews 11:1 starts, ‘now faith is . . . ’, because if faith is our central characteristic, we need to know what we are talking about. This is the point of the marvellous picture gallery of Hebrews 11: faith as seen in the lives of such a varied and instructive band. And so into Hebrews 12 where the initial ‘therefore’ alerts us to what is about to happen. The people of faith surround us like a cloud, and their testimony to what faith is, how it works, and so on, summons us to ‘run with perseverance the race marked out for us’ with our eyes fixed on Jesus. The life of faith is on the run! Pilgrims on the run! I hope I am right in seeing this, not as a picture of speed – for many of us, days of speed are long gone – but of urgency, of the need to be up and doing, so that even when the feet are unfit for the sandals of the pilgrim walk, never mind the running shoes of the athletic track, the pilgrimage of the heart is our daily preoccupation, and to fix our eyes on Jesus our moment-by-moment preoccupation.

But, before we return to the psalms, we must take a brief moment to look forward to the pilgrims’ goal. Some glad day, for us, as for the pilgrims on the great ascent, travelling days will be over and our mobile home will be exchanged for a house, but one not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1), and, in the dramatic words of Revelation 22:14 (NKJV), we will ‘enter through the gates into the city’. An elderly couple, treasured friends of mine, once qualified for tickets to one of the Queen’s garden parties. As they parked their car, a well-meaning policeman came up and, pointing to a small door, said, ‘If you like to go through there you will find yourselves in the garden and save yourselves a long walk.’ They drew themselves up to their full height, and replied: ‘We have been invited by Her Majesty. Do you really think we are going in through a back gate?’

What a day it will be when the gates swing wide, the trumpets sound, and all the bells of the heavenly city ring out in delirious celebration!

"From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s furthest coast,
Through gates of pearl stream in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
Hallelujah"

That’s what walking the pilgrim way is ‘all about’. But we must get back to the psalms. …