A New Year's Message-Psalter Hymn (Psalm 148)

Hallelujah, praise Jehovah,
From the heavens praise His Name;
Praise Jehovah in the highest,
All His angels, praise proclaim.
All His hosts, together praise Him,
Sun and moon and stars on high;
Praise Him, O ye heavens,
And ye floods above the sky.

Let them praises give Jehovah,
They were made at His command;
Them forever He established,
His decree shall ever stand.
From the earth, O praise Jehovah,
All ye seas, ye monsters all,
Fire and hail and snow and vapors,
Stormy winds that hear His call.

Let them praises give Jehovah
For His Name alone is high,
And His glory is exalted,
From the earth and sky.

For a dear friend -

For a moment or perhaps a long while,
we are dropped into the depths of despair,
a tragedy of intense proportions. In the darkness we struggle with difficult and often confusing feelings.

As Christians we often feel guilty about these feelings. All are true human emotions, and necessary in enabling us to cope.

God understands our pain and our suffering.
He will wrap his loving arms around us,
He will be there when no one else can.

After a time we begin to feel his presence.
You can see a faint light in the distance.

This is the light of HOPE.

Moving toward the light -The Holy Spirit takes us by the hand and helps us to move even closer to the light. The light of the Lord that shines into each of our lives.

Here in The Lords loving presence our souls and our wounds begin to heal.

God has a plan for us and we can rest assured that we have been called here for a purpose. Our job is not yet finished.

We must continue to move forward.

We might not understand the sequence of events in our lives. We might not understand the meaning of our suffering. But we have not lost everything , we are not alone.

We will always have HOPE.


As we celebrate the Holiday season, let us remember that Hope was born at Christmas,
His name is Jesus.

And Hope does live on.

John Milton's sonnet "On His Blindness"

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Spititual Life at SCS

Our school hosted a spiritual life conference the past two days. It contained some of the usual activities, praise and worship music, break out sessions after the lectures and the inevitable weird youth activities like who can eat Limburger cheese and sardines together while running the length of the gym...I'm not kidding.
The talks were given by a brother and sister team, both single in their early 20's and both committed to God and the work He has for them. They spoke the Word boldly without any "youthy gimmicks". I saw God working in several students lives as they shared their experiences during the last session. Several were broken over their sin and openly asked God for forgiveness. I saw teachers on their knees and faces praying with the students. It was encouraging.

THY MERCY, MY GOD

Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song,
the joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue.
Thy free grace alone from the first to the last
hath won my affection and bound my soul fast.

Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here–
my sin would reduce me to utter despair;
but through Thy free goodness, my spirit’s revived,
and He that first made me still keeps me alive.

Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,
which wonders to feel its own hardness depart.
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground,
and weep for the praise of the mercy I’ve found.

Hallelujah…
Hallelujah…

Great Father of mercies, Thy goodness I own,
and the covenant love of Thy crucified Son.
All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine
seals mercy and pardon and righteousness mine!

~ written by John Stocker in 1776

No fence-riders please

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.
C. S. Lewis

Truth in a nutshell

The study of Truth ultimately leads to knowledge of the God of Truth, not just facts about Him that are true, but an encounter with Him who is true. To know Truth is to know God.

Some favorite quotes to ponder

"Genuine New Testament Christianity doesn't hang out at headquarters; it gets into the trenches with the wounded and weary" Charles Swindol

"Every word should be allowed to stand in its natural meaning and should not be abandoned unless faith forces us to it. The literal sense of Scripture alone is the whole essence of faith and of Christian theology." Luther

"Naturalism by its purpose engineers the displacement of the miracle and puts in its place explanations that defy reason." Ravi Zacharias

"Let us know that the true meaning of Scripture is the natural and obvious meaning. Let us embrace and abide it resolutely. It is the first business of an interpreter to let the author say what he does say instead of attribution to him what we think he ought to say." Calvin

"It is not common sense that the words of Jesus give us, but uncommon sense. Jesus turned the world's standards upside down, because into a mad world He brings the supreme sanity of God." William Barclay

"The skeptic, of course, will challenge such credulity that accepts wholesale such stories, not realizing that what they swallow in a glass of water is a miracle in and of itself" Ravi Zacharias

How long....

This has been a tough year-emotionally, spiritually, financially, physically. At times I have felt beset from all sides. I long for a period without trials, yet God in His goodness sustains me, and reminds me through His word that He is able., and it is through fire that gold emerges. God's sovereign love affirms me through my troubles so that even in the midst of chaos I can be at peace. I share this from John Pipers website.

1912 Psalter reflection on Psalm 42 ( DesiringGod.org)

How long wilt Thou forget me,
O Lord, Thou God of grace?
How long shall fears beset me
While darkness hides Thy face?
How long shall griefs distress me
And turn my day to night?
How long shall foes oppress me
And triumph in their might?

O Lord my God, behold me
And hear mine earnest cries;
Lest sleep of death enfold me,
Enlighten Thou mine eyes;
Lest now my foe insulting
Should boast of his success,
And enemies exulting
Rejoice in my distress.

When waiting for answers

I know now, God, why you utter no answer. You Yourself are the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?

(from Till We Have Faces) CS Lewis

The blessings of hymns

I came across this old hymn while boxing old books and hymnals last year as I was packing my up my classroom from Siloam. It is indeed a beautiful hymn of comfort and praise.


Immortal Honours
by William Gadsby

Immortal honours rest on Jesus’ head,My God, my Portion, and my Living Bread.In Him I live, upon Him cast my care.He saves from death, destruction, and despair.
He is my Refuge in each deep distress,The Lord my Strength and glorious Righteousness.Through floods and flames He leads me safely on,And daily makes His sovereign goodness known.
My every need He richly will supply,Nor will His mercy ever let me die.In Him there dwells a treasure all divine,And matchless grace has made that treasure mine.
O that my soul could love and praise Him more,His beauties trace, His majesty adore,Live near His heart, upon His bosom lean,Obey His voice, and all His will esteem!

Shadowlands

CS Lewis believed that in this world we are in “shadowlands” real substance is only found in heaven.

That is what the New Testament also teaches. As Paul writes in his letter to the Colossians (2:17)
"These things are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ".

"We do not lose heart-even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. This slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory…"
II Corinthians 4:16-18


We are waiting for the morning.

The Greening of Passover

I just finished reading an article from the Augusta Chronicle called the Greening of Passover April 19, 2008. The by-line stated: Preparing the Seder meal combines tradition, sustainability. Staff writer Kelly Jasper, starts the article by saying that life began in a garden, Moses was found in the river's reeds and when he led the Jews out of Egypt, the environment was involved once again. (The environment was involved?!?)And that this year's passover 'holiday' includes Earth Day-a perfect time to teach sustainable habits. There is even a blog dedicated to all this-it's called The Jew and Carrot! The article said that this year is the year of the Green Haggadah. The reat of the article gives tips for a more sustainable seder meal. But I think my favorite line from the article was the suggestion that folks buy free-range eggs, "They taste better," said Mrs. Koenig of Jew and Carrot, and "didn't cause suffering to the animals who laid them." Or better yet,"The oceans are where all life was nourished-We celebrate the Source of Life that is now endangered, and to pledge our help to heal the green and the blue that enrich our planet, lest the salt water becomes tears as the green plants wither"......o..k.....next!

A little advice to my students in anticipation of exams

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Earth Day Ignored By Millions

(Powdersville, SC) - The annual celebration of earth day is today we are informed. Earth Day, started in 1969 as an environmental celebration, and a day off of school, has lingered on as a day for aging hipppies to note on their certain decline, hastening their eventual merging with, well, the earth. "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust- unless you're metal then its rust to rust!", was seen on one 1970 VW bumper sticker at a 9:30 observance event at city hall.
I remember planting a tree at my school to celebrate the first earth day. It was later replaced by a retaining wall for the new gymnasium.

A few college kids and a hippie, some cable TV producers and a story editor for Go Green magazine noticed the day this year. "Gore sort of preempted all the energy from it with his Nobel prize" said one savvy observer referring to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth,which garnered him the coveted award."O hizzah!" offered Brandon Oberle` of Greenville, SC. " I'm pro earth day every day" I don't get the celebration on one day only. It's trendy to make a day of it- go to a coffee house and debate the benefits of going green" Gore only did this because he seeks attention-again I say HIZZAH!"
Kelly Gwinn,another observer said she had no comment. Randee Knight of Easley, thought that hippies huddled under the guise of existential angst. "It pretty clear to me", she proclaimed. Brandon Sims, a piano student who is planning his recital in May stated that his depth of knowledge on the subject was immaterial to the discussion.

Meanwhile, there is more green than St. Patricks Day on TV today.
"With Earth Day,the Pennsylvania primary and a barrel of oil reaching $118- this is a momentous day", exclaimed news reporter, Maisy LeLuke of CENV.

Wow!

Happy Earth day guys.......yeah.

When you ponder the"chicken before the egg "or visa versa debate

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

C. S. Lewis

Thoughtful video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqeyisb688

We disappoint, we struggle, we abuse ourselves and others with thoughts, words and deeds-
We fail.
We are not able to do any other, because we are fallen man.

Man will never be the answer.

Our hope is in Christ alone.

Into His wonderous light...

If the mercy of God is so great that He can instruct us, to our salvation,
even when He hides Himself, what a brilliance of light we must expect when He reveals Himself!

---Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensees

Here is the great truth that, only when we see things in the light of God, do we see things as they are. It is only when we see things in the light of God that we see what things are really important, and what things are not. These things seem vastly important, things like ambition, and prestige, and money and gain, lose all their value and importance when they are seen in the light of God. Pleasures and habits and social customs which seem permissible enough, are seen for the dangerous things they are when they are seen in the light of God. Things which seem evils, hardship, toil, discipline, unpopularity, even persecution, are seen in their glory when they are seen in the light of God.

... William Barclay (1907-1978), The Revelation of John (Vol.II)

Political Ponderings...

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
John Quincy Adams

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
John Quincy Adams

In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times 7. Well, I want you all to know that I'm keeping a chart.
Hillary Clinton

I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president.
Hillary Clinton

Let's not leave an educational vacuum to be filled by religious extremists who go to families who have no other option and offer meals, housing and some form of education. If we are going to combat extremism then we must educate those very same children.
Hillary Clinton

Soulful tune by Frederick Maker:

Dear Lord and Father of Mankind,

Forgive our foolish ways!

Reclothe us in our rightful mind;

In purer lives Thy service find,

In deeper re’rence, praise.


In simple trust like theirs who heard,

Beside the Syrian Sea,

The gracious calling of the Lord,

Let us, like them, without a word,

Rise up and follow Thee.


Drop Thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.


Breathe through the heats of our desire

Thy coolness and Thy balm;

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,

O still small voice of calm!

Amen.

Some sound advice...

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Just so you know....

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
C. S. Lewis

Redeeming Creation

As many of the scriptures below will demonstrate, the Bible teaches that both "the environment" and humanity are part of creation. Both are inextricably linked to one
another, have been ever since God formed us from the earth (Gen. 2:7; 3:19; Ps. 104:27-30), and will continue to be in God's future when we will exist as resurrected bodies on a new earth (I Cor. 15:35-44; Rom. 8:19-23; Isa. 65:17; Rev. 21:1). In other words, humanity and the rest of creation are part of all of creation. Therefore, creation-care does not just mean caring for "nature," nor does it just mean caring for humanity; it means caring for both. A Biblical creation-care ethic is a holistic ethic. Therefore humanity's relationship to creation needs to be based on a Biblical understanding of God's relationship to creation. http://www.creationcare.org

Our relationship with all of creation must be in keeping with Christ's relationship with all of creation.

How do we make an impact on caring for creation without being sucked into secular mainstream viewpoints? How do we maintain a Biblical worldview of Grace over nature instead of nature: nature.
GRACE/ nature
nature/ nature

For too long many people in the church has acknowledged God as Creator but failed to care for the creation He made. Others have made the mistake of worshiping the creation instead of the Creator, replacing God with something less. [Van Dyke]

You have studied many aspects of Creation and man’s use of and misuse of it. What role does the Christian play in this? Have we been faithful stewards of God’s creation; or have we been neglectful in that duty, waiting for someone else to do something about it? It’s much like the Christian who wants to see people come to the Lord, but is willing to wait for someone else to go and preach the Good News to the lost and dying while we sit back and do nothing.
How much longer are we willing to wait-do nothing in hopes that someone else will come along and see the task through?

The recognition of our role as stewards is the role back to the obedience of God’s command to care for His creation. We do leave a footprint, as Al Gore and his friends like to say, not necessarily the carbon footprint he speaks of, but a footprint none the less, that tells a story of our obedience to God’s command.

Creation's final redemption awaits the return of the Creator. But our actions can reveal our obedience to God who will accomplish that redemption and upholds creation by the word of His power.[Redeeming Creation/ Van Dyke]

When my prayers begin "Dear Lord, I want..."

"There is…only one way to stop covetousness….
That is to want God so much that we cannot be bothered with inordinate wants for anything else."
~ Joy Davidman Lewis

Reflection of Grace

When I consider the heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which You have set in place,
what is man that You are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
Psalm 8:3-4

That God is mindful of me? What a thought! Almost hard to grasp.
When I consider myself, wretched thing that I am, I am only mindful of my faults, my many mistakes-all the disappointments...

Yet God, the Creator of all things, even knowing me intimately, considers me.
Could it be that in His eyes we can find a reflection of ourselves that we have not known before? A reflection that we could never imagine for ourselves?
He loves me. HE LOVES ME! I see this now, and see a new reflection of me in His eyes.

I am not worthy on my own. I could not do anything to bring this about. I am but human, was dead in my sin-- until He considered me. Called me by name, raised me from death-and made me His.
The Maker of heaven and earth made me His.

"Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found-was blind, but now I see"

A Christian Scientist Worldview

Empowered by God's grace and guided by the Holy Spirit, the Christian life is about fulfilling the Great Commandments (Mk. 12: 28-31). Colossians proclaims that Christ died to reconcile all of Creation to God, showing how much God loves all of Creation: "God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (Col. 1: 19-20, NIV). Indeed, Christ is not only the Reconciler of all things, He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things as well (Col. 1: 15-18; John 1: 1-3; Heb. 1:1-4).
http://www.creationcare.org/resources/sunday/facts.php

As Bible-believing teachers, researchers, practitioners, we should be reminded why we believe what we believe. For the Christian scientist, our worldview encompasses two presuppositions:
God is and God has revealed Himself (through His word and His creation).
How many of us have divided our profession from our confession? If we claim the Truth of Scripture and embrace our Biblical worldview, then there should be no division of work and faith.
Therefor, a non-Biblical approach to science (or any other subject) is irrelevant.

Lyrics and Thoughts

From Jill Phillips’ album Writing on the Wall:

Just when my tears were falling deep enough to drown,
Down in the valley of the shadow of a doubt,
When I gave up–that’s when He came to lift me out
And set me high.

When I saw it as a gift of matchless worth,
I started thinking it was something I deserved.
He pulled the rug from underneath without a word
And left me dry.

Chorus
Piece together these little mysteries:
It isn’t hard to see
The writing on the wall.
Triumph and tragedy–
Only God can be
Both the builder and the wrecking ball.

He gave them freedom and a fertile promise land.
They took for granted their deliverance at hand.
Thirty-nine years later, they’re still walking through that sand,
Wondering why.

And He builds it up,
And He knocks it down,
Just to build it up even stronger…

Chorus
Piece together these little mysteries:
It isn’t hard to see
The writing on the wall.
Triumph and tragedy–
Only God can be
Both the builder and the wrecking ball.

We all have times when we feel that the rug has been pulled out from underneath us-but our sovereign God is always in control...we just need to embrace that.