The troub'ling rain comes
In the rainbow of God's love
It searches for me.
The warmth of your smile
Tells me I can share my heart
It's your gift to me.
His showers of grace
On the wasteland of my heart
Unspeakable joy
You feel that way, too?
So I'm not the only one?
A friendship begins.
No Expiration Date, from
Charles H. Spurgeon
Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
John 6:37
There is no expiration date on this promise. It does not merely say, "I will not cast out a sinner at his first coming," but "I will never cast him out."
The original reads, "I will not, not cast out," or "I will never, never cast out." The text means that Christ will not at first reject a believer, and that as He will not do it at first, so He will not to the last.
But suppose the believer sins after coming? "If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." (I John 2:1).
But suppose that believers backslide? "I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them." (Hosea 14:4).
But believers may fall under temptation! "God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13).
But a believer may fall into sin as David did! Yes, but He will "purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." (Psalm 51:7).
Jesus said, "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand" (John 10:28).
What do you say to this, O trembling feeble mind? This is a precious mercy. Coming to Christ, you do not come to One who will treat you well for a little while and then send you about your business, but He will receive you and make you His bride, and you shall be His forever!
Live no longer in the spirit of bondage to fear, but in the spirit of adoption, which cries, "Abba, Father!" Oh, the grace of these words, "I will never cast you out."
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
More Haiku from Rex Moore.
High King of Heaven
Keep them both in Your watchcare
Your grace free-flowing
--Rex Moore
What He Intends,
from Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis
The question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us. He is the inventor, we are only the machine. He is the painter, we are only the picture....We may be content to remain what we call "ordinary people," but He is determined to carry out a quite different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility; it is laziness and cowardice. To submit to it is not conceit or megalomania; it is obedience.
Small Prayers, from Letters to Malcolm,
by C. S. Lewis
And perhaps, as those who do not turn to God in petty trials will have no habit or such resort to help them when the great trials comes, so those who have not learned to ask Him for childish things will have less readiness to ask Him for great ones. We must not be too high-minded. I fancy we may sometimes be deterred from small prayers by a sense of our own dignity rather than of God's.
Keep them both in Your watchcare
Your grace free-flowing
--Rex Moore
What He Intends,
from Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis
The question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us. He is the inventor, we are only the machine. He is the painter, we are only the picture....We may be content to remain what we call "ordinary people," but He is determined to carry out a quite different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility; it is laziness and cowardice. To submit to it is not conceit or megalomania; it is obedience.
Small Prayers, from Letters to Malcolm,
by C. S. Lewis
And perhaps, as those who do not turn to God in petty trials will have no habit or such resort to help them when the great trials comes, so those who have not learned to ask Him for childish things will have less readiness to ask Him for great ones. We must not be too high-minded. I fancy we may sometimes be deterred from small prayers by a sense of our own dignity rather than of God's.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Haiku from Rex Moore
High King of Heaven
Keep them both in Your watchcare
Your grace free-flowing
The troub'ling rain comes
In the rainbow of God's love
It searches for me
Keep them both in Your watchcare
Your grace free-flowing
The troub'ling rain comes
In the rainbow of God's love
It searches for me
Haiku from Molly (Tony Wells' aunt)
Wonderful full moon
Will be shining bright tonight
What a gift from God.
-- Molly Pirtle
Too Proud to Know God
-- by C. S. Lewis
The Christians are right: it is Pride that has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.
Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people.
But pride always means enmity--it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.
In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that--and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison--you do not know God at all.
As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
from Mere Christianity
Note: So pride is a lonely, alienating sin. It separates people from each other and from God -- other sins at least bring people together!
Will be shining bright tonight
What a gift from God.
-- Molly Pirtle
Too Proud to Know God
-- by C. S. Lewis
The Christians are right: it is Pride that has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.
Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people.
But pride always means enmity--it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.
In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that--and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison--you do not know God at all.
As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
from Mere Christianity
Note: So pride is a lonely, alienating sin. It separates people from each other and from God -- other sins at least bring people together!
Haiku from Linda Krix
God's love evermore
Blesses His flock day and night
Thankfulness to Him.
-- Linda Krix
Is It Wrong to Want Heaven? By C. S. Lewis
We are very shy nowadays of even mentioning heaven. We are afraid of the jeer about 'pie in the sky,' and of being told that we are trying to 'escape' from the duty of making a happy world here and now into dreams of a happy world elsewhere. But either there is 'pie in the sky' or there is not.
If there is not, then Christianity is false, for this doctrine is woven into its whole fabric. If there is, then this truth, like any other, must be faced, whether it is useful at political meetings or not.
Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man's love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it....Love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object.
Blesses His flock day and night
Thankfulness to Him.
-- Linda Krix
Is It Wrong to Want Heaven? By C. S. Lewis
We are very shy nowadays of even mentioning heaven. We are afraid of the jeer about 'pie in the sky,' and of being told that we are trying to 'escape' from the duty of making a happy world here and now into dreams of a happy world elsewhere. But either there is 'pie in the sky' or there is not.
If there is not, then Christianity is false, for this doctrine is woven into its whole fabric. If there is, then this truth, like any other, must be faced, whether it is useful at political meetings or not.
Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man's love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it....Love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
How to Fix it....Continued from I Love How This is Worded....
Larry McCall offers some counsel about keeping our hearts from freezing over, based on Hebrews 3:12-14:
See to it, brothers; that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.
First, we need to wake up to the reality that unbelief can overtake the heart of any professing Christian--including our own. We must not be lulled to sleep by false assurance in some "decision" made or prayer prayed in times past. As we see in Hebrews 3, two key marks of a Christian are faith and faithfulness.
We must "take care" that both faith and faithfulness are being cultivated and evidenced in our own lives and in the lives of our fellow church members. The sin of unbelief can overtake a heart so gradually that we don't notice it until a professing Christian is living a life of blatant unfaithfulness to Christ. In love we must resist spiritual naivete. We must "take care."
Second, we must realize that the fight against apostasy is every Christian's concern, not just that of the church's pastors. The author of Hebrews says, "Take care, brothers." The battle against apostasy and the quest for ongoing faith in Christ and faithfulness to Christ is a "community project." Every Christian should be mustered and trained for this battle for souls.
Third, our churches must develop a "culture" that values the daily care of one another's souls and provides practical ways for that to happen. Hebrews 3:13 instructs us to "exhort one another every day." While we continue to hold out the primacy of preaching in the life of the church, the battle against apostasy must be fought beyond our Sunday morning events.
The members of our churches must be given opportunity to move away from isolation and toward loving, deep involvement in one another's lives. Church leaders must teach church members the crucial importance of faith-building relationships. No one can intimately know everyone in their church. But we must be involved very personally with some of the church body.
And these interpersonal relationships in small groups must move beyond trivial, superficial conversations if we are going to carry out the directive to "exhort one another every day."
Church leaders need to model and teach a mutual "soul care" that, over time, begins to get traction in the normal life of the church. Church members can fight against the cold winds of unbelief that threaten to ice up the souls of their friends by reminding themtof the dangers of sin and the joy, hope, and satisfaction we have in Christ alone.
Overtime the conversations should become gospel-saturated, Christ-exalting, Spirit-empowered, and faith-building.
The battle against apostasy in our churches is fought as one Christian exhorts another Christian to treasure Christ above all that Satan, sin and the world have to offer.
Last, Hebrews 3:12-14 teaches us that this ministry is urgent: "as long as it is called 'today'". 'The day of Christ's return and subsequent judgment is coming. We must not carelessly assume that "someday" our church will take up battle against apostasy. While we say "someday," God says "today." For the glory of Christ and the care of souls, let us all take up the battle against apostasy.
This article taken from Tabletalk, Logonier Ministries and R. C. Sproul, October, 2010.
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