"Give me the love that leads the way, The faith that nothing can dismay, The hope no disappointments tire, The passion that will burn like fire, Let me not sink to be a clod: Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God."
Amy Carmichael
"Many are willing that Christ should be something, but few will consent that Christ should be everything."
Alexander Stuart
Friday, June 27, 2008
Something no one can take
Stirring within....from today's devotional based on Ray Stedman's teaching.
The letters of Samuel Rutherford are a wonderful treasury of the devotional
life of the heart that is enthralled and captured by Christ. He was a great,
sturdy man. I remember reading about how when he lay dying in prison in St.
Andrews, Scotland, the king sent a messenger to summon him to appear in court in
London to answer to the charges of high heresy. When the messenger came in
before the old man and announced that the king had ordered him to appear in
court, he said to him in his Scottish fashion, "Gane and tell yere master, I
have a summons from a higher court, and ere this message reaches him, I'll be
where few kings or great folk ever come." It was a stirring rebuke to a man of
earth who thought he could summon a man of faith.
Abraham owned a burial cave in the end. That was all. It is a reminder to
us, and to all men and women of faith in all times, that all we can ever really
own down here is a burial ground in which we may lay to rest all the hopes and
expectations of this life. All we hope for and all the fine things we hope to
have someday, all the experiences we would like to live over again, all these
expectations are buried in the grave.
We are made to be creatures of eternity. The book of Ecclesiastes says that
God "also set eternity in the hearts of men" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We are not
made to be creatures of time. We are not made to be satisfied with this brief
period of life and then to pass into the endless, silent realms of death. God
has set eternity in our hearts. But the great tragedy is that we can so easily
lose sight of the goal. We begin to be wrapped up in the problems of time, and
we lose the broad view of eternity.
Lord, teach me to live with the same kind of independence as Abraham, who
fixed his eyes on those things that no person could take from him.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Prayer
From This Day's Thought.
Learning to pray is learning to trust the wisdom, the power, and the love of our Heavenly Father, always so far beyond our dreams. He knows our need and knows ways to meet it that have never entered our heads. Things we feel sure we need for happiness may often lead to our ruin. Things we think will ruin us- if we believe what the Father tells us and surrender ourselves into His strong arms, bring us deliverance and joy.
Elisabeth Elliot
Learning to pray is learning to trust the wisdom, the power, and the love of our Heavenly Father, always so far beyond our dreams. He knows our need and knows ways to meet it that have never entered our heads. Things we feel sure we need for happiness may often lead to our ruin. Things we think will ruin us- if we believe what the Father tells us and surrender ourselves into His strong arms, bring us deliverance and joy.
Elisabeth Elliot
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Stuff happening around the area!
Two Events.....Check them out!
A gathering in Him {text directly taken from the meeting of one blog - it is ok, we are all One in Unity :) }.
Who: Children of the most High and those 'Wanna Be's'
What: A gathering of One in Him
Where: Basement of the Belmont Library (Belmont ON)
When: SATURDAY NIGHT June 21st 7 pm - 'til the Spirit sends us home.
Why: To celebrate His Life in Us; encourage, spur one another in His Community and add others to it
Norm and Amy are led to a gathering in Him here in Belmont. All are invited. No cost. Come to be a part of the priesthood of believers and bring someone who Jesus has put on your heart to do so.
Change your world:
Next week in West Lorne. I will be manning a book table on Wednesday night and am looking forward to a new experience of spiritual proportions. The jury is out.....my heart is open.
A gathering in Him {text directly taken from the meeting of one blog - it is ok, we are all One in Unity :) }.
Who: Children of the most High and those 'Wanna Be's'
What: A gathering of One in Him
Where: Basement of the Belmont Library (Belmont ON)
When: SATURDAY NIGHT June 21st 7 pm - 'til the Spirit sends us home.
Why: To celebrate His Life in Us; encourage, spur one another in His Community and add others to it
Norm and Amy are led to a gathering in Him here in Belmont. All are invited. No cost. Come to be a part of the priesthood of believers and bring someone who Jesus has put on your heart to do so.
Change your world:
Next week in West Lorne. I will be manning a book table on Wednesday night and am looking forward to a new experience of spiritual proportions. The jury is out.....my heart is open.
My Ishmael
Again from the devotional based on the teachings of Ray Stedman.
But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned" (Genesis 21:12).
If Isaac represents the gladsome fullness of the fruit of the Spirit, then Ishmael represents some pet manifestation of our self-life in which we find comfort and delight and that we do not want to surrender. Some place value on what they have long suspected is not what God would have but that they were reluctant to give up. Perhaps it is some long-standing habit that we have been defending. There can be habits or values in our lives that are really some form of self-indulgence. God may allow them for a while, but the time comes when He says, "Now, these have to go." .....
Dr. Barnhouse once wrote, "Early in my ministry, I had the idea that I must strike out against all error wherever I saw it... if error was in some fundamental leader with whom I was in 95% agreement, I swung hard at the 5%." This made Dr. Barnhouse a highly controversial figure, often unmercifully sharp and dogmatic. This zeal for truth became an Ishmael in his life. Then he tells how there came a time when the Spirit of God taught him to love, and he faced the choice—Ishmael had to go. He had to learn to be more understanding and more tolerant of some of the variant views of others.
He wrote, "Some time ago, I published a New Year's resolution expressing regret that I had had differences with men who are truly born again. The results of that resolution were astounding. In the years that followed its publication, my ministry has been transformed." The closing years of his life show much of his mellowing and of the sweetness of the fruit of the Spirit in one who before had been so harsh, critical, and demanding.
I don't know what form Ishmael may be taking in your life, but I know there are times when God says to us, simply, this must go. There can be no manifestation of the life of the Spirit any longer until this is dealt with. Abraham obeyed. Early in the morning, he got up and took bread and a skin of water and, though it cost him heartbreak to do it, sent Hagar and Ishmael out, so that he might have the fullness of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Lord, I ask that I would sincerely long to be a completely yielded vessel of Your joy and strength and peace. May I have the grace to cast out Ishmael and find the fullness and joy of Isaac.
But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned" (Genesis 21:12).
If Isaac represents the gladsome fullness of the fruit of the Spirit, then Ishmael represents some pet manifestation of our self-life in which we find comfort and delight and that we do not want to surrender. Some place value on what they have long suspected is not what God would have but that they were reluctant to give up. Perhaps it is some long-standing habit that we have been defending. There can be habits or values in our lives that are really some form of self-indulgence. God may allow them for a while, but the time comes when He says, "Now, these have to go." .....
Dr. Barnhouse once wrote, "Early in my ministry, I had the idea that I must strike out against all error wherever I saw it... if error was in some fundamental leader with whom I was in 95% agreement, I swung hard at the 5%." This made Dr. Barnhouse a highly controversial figure, often unmercifully sharp and dogmatic. This zeal for truth became an Ishmael in his life. Then he tells how there came a time when the Spirit of God taught him to love, and he faced the choice—Ishmael had to go. He had to learn to be more understanding and more tolerant of some of the variant views of others.
He wrote, "Some time ago, I published a New Year's resolution expressing regret that I had had differences with men who are truly born again. The results of that resolution were astounding. In the years that followed its publication, my ministry has been transformed." The closing years of his life show much of his mellowing and of the sweetness of the fruit of the Spirit in one who before had been so harsh, critical, and demanding.
I don't know what form Ishmael may be taking in your life, but I know there are times when God says to us, simply, this must go. There can be no manifestation of the life of the Spirit any longer until this is dealt with. Abraham obeyed. Early in the morning, he got up and took bread and a skin of water and, though it cost him heartbreak to do it, sent Hagar and Ishmael out, so that he might have the fullness of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Lord, I ask that I would sincerely long to be a completely yielded vessel of Your joy and strength and peace. May I have the grace to cast out Ishmael and find the fullness and joy of Isaac.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Want of the One Thing -
Again from a devotional based on Ray C. Stedman (1917-1992) teaching.
So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father (Genesis 19:36).
Before this incident, these two girls were physically virgins, but they were already debauched in their minds. They had long since grown accustomed to obscenity and unrestrained luridness, so, up in the cave on the mountainside, they seized the thinnest tissue of excuses, and the story ends in a foul orgy of drunkenness and incest. Lot had nothing but heartbreak and grief to show for his years in Sodom. The Lord said, "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it" (Matthew 16:25a). So Lot, trying to get the best out of both worlds, lost all and has become for all time the picture of the Christian who is saved, "but only as one escaping through the flames" (1 Corinthians 3:15b). He has nothing but wasted years to look back on and eternity ahead. When you attempt to gain the best of both worlds, you destroy others beside yourself. What was the greatest pang in Lot's heart when he awoke there in the cave in the mountains and learned all that had happened? Do you think it was grief over his lost wealth, his vanished honor, his troubled mind? Don't you think that the greatest, deepest wound of all in that man's heart was the recognition of what he had done to his loved ones in Sodom his little girls, his wife?
Your children are watching you who are parents, and they see your outward respectability, your desire to be right and to do good. But in some of you, they also see that the deepest thing in your life is to get gain or to enjoy pleasure. They see that you will quickly sacrifice a prayer meeting for a night out, that you are always willing to take a bigger salary, regardless of what it may do to the family in terms of new conditions or new circles of friends. They see that the things for which you sacrifice and are willing to skimp and save are not missions or the church or the work of God, but a new car, a new television set, nicer furniture, a longer vacation, or a pretentious home. They are watching, and they see all this.
Bit by bit these children lose interest in the Bible and church. They resolve to get ahead in the world and win the respect of Sodom no matter what moral restraint they have to throw overboard to do it. This is why we see the tragedy of Christian homes where children are turning from God. And the deep sorrow these parents will carry to their grave, the deepest sorrow of their heart, will be that, though they still have their own faith, because of their compromise, they have lost their children. This tragic story of Lot is taking place here and now, in the modern Sodom and Gomorrah in which we live.
Father, thank You for this stern but loving warning from the life of Lot. Help me to make those choices that will result in those I love seeing and wanting all that You are and all that You provide for those who follow You.
So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father (Genesis 19:36).
Before this incident, these two girls were physically virgins, but they were already debauched in their minds. They had long since grown accustomed to obscenity and unrestrained luridness, so, up in the cave on the mountainside, they seized the thinnest tissue of excuses, and the story ends in a foul orgy of drunkenness and incest. Lot had nothing but heartbreak and grief to show for his years in Sodom. The Lord said, "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it" (Matthew 16:25a). So Lot, trying to get the best out of both worlds, lost all and has become for all time the picture of the Christian who is saved, "but only as one escaping through the flames" (1 Corinthians 3:15b). He has nothing but wasted years to look back on and eternity ahead. When you attempt to gain the best of both worlds, you destroy others beside yourself. What was the greatest pang in Lot's heart when he awoke there in the cave in the mountains and learned all that had happened? Do you think it was grief over his lost wealth, his vanished honor, his troubled mind? Don't you think that the greatest, deepest wound of all in that man's heart was the recognition of what he had done to his loved ones in Sodom his little girls, his wife?
Your children are watching you who are parents, and they see your outward respectability, your desire to be right and to do good. But in some of you, they also see that the deepest thing in your life is to get gain or to enjoy pleasure. They see that you will quickly sacrifice a prayer meeting for a night out, that you are always willing to take a bigger salary, regardless of what it may do to the family in terms of new conditions or new circles of friends. They see that the things for which you sacrifice and are willing to skimp and save are not missions or the church or the work of God, but a new car, a new television set, nicer furniture, a longer vacation, or a pretentious home. They are watching, and they see all this.
Bit by bit these children lose interest in the Bible and church. They resolve to get ahead in the world and win the respect of Sodom no matter what moral restraint they have to throw overboard to do it. This is why we see the tragedy of Christian homes where children are turning from God. And the deep sorrow these parents will carry to their grave, the deepest sorrow of their heart, will be that, though they still have their own faith, because of their compromise, they have lost their children. This tragic story of Lot is taking place here and now, in the modern Sodom and Gomorrah in which we live.
Father, thank You for this stern but loving warning from the life of Lot. Help me to make those choices that will result in those I love seeing and wanting all that You are and all that You provide for those who follow You.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
The Arrogance Arises....
I again have seen a division in a man-made church body. Christian behavior wrapped up in self. Preserving long past rivalries and unrighteousness...... Let me hear some more self-serving stories of how wonderful lives they have had living for God......I choose to live from Him.
What a bunch of hypocrites.
How dare they profess their christianity and then be so hurtful towards others, believers and unbelievers alike. "What a wonderful testimony!"
There is an arrogance in the first families of the "Organized Religious Entertainment Centres", and they need to get real....they need to reach deep inside and find the real Christ within....putting on love, mercy, kindness and all those things that He has brought into our Life because it is Him in our life and nothing else, it is not them in all their years of service, and all their tithing and involvement, that makes them people "of God".
I am kinda p.o.'d if you haven't noticed. It doesn't happen a lot. My saving grace in all of this is that I know that I have a flesh part within me as well that does all kinds of things that are not of Him. BUT, when people live out of the soul - and they are leaders of our young people and they are passing on the junk and the prejudices of themselves to the next generation....it just makes me physically ill.....I cry for these people and the innocents that they are influencing.
God, please..... close the ears of those who hear the inconsistencies of these pharisees....I forgive immediately....but God knows how the wounding of the actions of people who have such a strong claim that they are of Him, because they do, do, do, do all of this ...... it is as straw....burned up as Nothing.....Nothing..... because I cannot see Christ.....and I desire, I long to see Christ in His people.
We have the mind of Christ.......why are there so many mindless people in the church?
I thought I was able to put this in its place and not let it send me reeling. I guess not. The enemy would have me seethe......I surrender this to Jesus. He knows....He knows. May my arrogance for thinking that this could not be me.......be erased....may He show me we all fall short.....we all fall short, indeed.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
The Circumcised Life
From a devotional based on the teaching of Ray Stedman.
Genesis 17:10
Genesis 17:10
"Now let us remember that what was physical and literal to Abraham is intended to have spiritual significance to us. In the New Testament, we no longer read of circumcision of the flesh but of the heart. The heart is the symbol of the soul—the mind, emotions, and will, the whole personality. All believers in Christ are to bear on their hearts the sign of Christ's lordship. The total personality is to be at their disposal.
This is the meaning of heart circumcision: Believers' hearts are totally Christ's to use as He wills—all their emotions, mind, intellect, and will are dedicated and available, ready at the command of Jesus Christ to be used for His purposes. Paul says to the Philippians, "We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Philippians 3:3 KJV). We are to have no reliance upon ourselves but rely totally upon Him. Every thought, every imagination, is brought into captivity to Christ. That is the circumcised life. "Walk therefore before me, and be wholehearted, blameless." That will be a life of fruitfulness and blessing, a life that is well pleasing to God, for it all springs from the realization that the God who lives within is El Shaddai, the God who is sufficient.
Father, it is quite possible for me to give the impression that I am totally Yours, yet to be quite false to that ideal. Help me to discover the glory of the circumcised life."
Friday, June 13, 2008
Wonders in the Body
Thanks to Guy Muse at the M Blog for leading me to the Real Nutz for Brazil blog which led me to this video. Amazing!
These are both very informative and thought provoking blogs on the lives and thoughts of missionary families in South America. I am always enthralled to read of the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ around the globe. Tastes of different lives and situations and yet lives that are so completely connected and identified with because of Him and His heart's cry within each of us that know Him (really know Him). It does my heart good to see Him work in so many amazing ways around this world. Not that that is what it is about but I am so appreciative of the blessing that these glimpses provide.
These are both very informative and thought provoking blogs on the lives and thoughts of missionary families in South America. I am always enthralled to read of the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ around the globe. Tastes of different lives and situations and yet lives that are so completely connected and identified with because of Him and His heart's cry within each of us that know Him (really know Him). It does my heart good to see Him work in so many amazing ways around this world. Not that that is what it is about but I am so appreciative of the blessing that these glimpses provide.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
All For Jesus - Robin Mark
I have a little issue with the title of this beautiful piece of music. My issue - my problem. I would really like to hear a song called "All From Jesus". He will help me work out this theological wording - one day. :)
Pray without ceasing
Quote provided by This Day's Thought.
"We should begin to pray before we kneel down and we should not cease when we rise up."
C. H. Spurgeon
"We should begin to pray before we kneel down and we should not cease when we rise up."
C. H. Spurgeon
Only in Him
From the devotional based on the teachings of Ray Stedman
From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier... (Genesis 13:3).
"As soon as Abram is back in the land, there is the tent and the altar again. There is no tent or altar in Egypt. That is, there is no pilgrim character, no place of worship or cleansing, and no fellowship in Egypt. But even back in the land, Abram must return to the place where he made an altar at the first, and there Abram calls upon the name of the Lord. In other words, time spent in Egypt is wasted time! There was no growth in grace in that land. He had to come right back to where he was when he went down to Egypt. He had material gain to show for the time in Egypt, but nothing but barrenness and weakness spiritually.
Have you discovered how true this is? When you forsake the pathway of faith, when you refuse to walk in fellowship with God, when you depend upon the resources of the world to satisfy the empty hunger of the heart, these are wasted years! They may literally be years. I know of those who have lived almost all their Christian lives in Egypt, and all they have to show for it is a barren, wasted, empty, boring existence.
When Abram at last returned, what did he find? There is no mention of famine when he returns, but I think the famine is still going on. Remember, Abram was driven out of Egypt. He was not yet ready to leave it of his own choice, and this would indicate the famine was still raging in Canaan. Also, the quarrel that soon developed with Lot's herdsmen over the pastureland suggests there was still a severe shortage of feed. But though the famine still continues, Abram is no longer troubled about it. Why not? Because, when he reached the land, the first thing he did was to call on the name of the Lord! This is what he should and could have done when the famine first struck.
The name of the Lord stands for all the resources of God. When we cash a check, we are calling on the name of the person who signed the check. When Abram calls on the name of the Lord, he is discovering the resources of God. He discovers that God is able to meet his needs despite the famine, the trial, or the circumstances. Just as Paul proclaims, "My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).
May I, like Abram, learn that in Egypt there is nothing but heartache and sorrow and danger for me and my loved ones, but in You is all I need to meet my deepest cry."
From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier... (Genesis 13:3).
"As soon as Abram is back in the land, there is the tent and the altar again. There is no tent or altar in Egypt. That is, there is no pilgrim character, no place of worship or cleansing, and no fellowship in Egypt. But even back in the land, Abram must return to the place where he made an altar at the first, and there Abram calls upon the name of the Lord. In other words, time spent in Egypt is wasted time! There was no growth in grace in that land. He had to come right back to where he was when he went down to Egypt. He had material gain to show for the time in Egypt, but nothing but barrenness and weakness spiritually.
Have you discovered how true this is? When you forsake the pathway of faith, when you refuse to walk in fellowship with God, when you depend upon the resources of the world to satisfy the empty hunger of the heart, these are wasted years! They may literally be years. I know of those who have lived almost all their Christian lives in Egypt, and all they have to show for it is a barren, wasted, empty, boring existence.
When Abram at last returned, what did he find? There is no mention of famine when he returns, but I think the famine is still going on. Remember, Abram was driven out of Egypt. He was not yet ready to leave it of his own choice, and this would indicate the famine was still raging in Canaan. Also, the quarrel that soon developed with Lot's herdsmen over the pastureland suggests there was still a severe shortage of feed. But though the famine still continues, Abram is no longer troubled about it. Why not? Because, when he reached the land, the first thing he did was to call on the name of the Lord! This is what he should and could have done when the famine first struck.
The name of the Lord stands for all the resources of God. When we cash a check, we are calling on the name of the person who signed the check. When Abram calls on the name of the Lord, he is discovering the resources of God. He discovers that God is able to meet his needs despite the famine, the trial, or the circumstances. Just as Paul proclaims, "My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).
May I, like Abram, learn that in Egypt there is nothing but heartache and sorrow and danger for me and my loved ones, but in You is all I need to meet my deepest cry."
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