Shining is always costly. Light comes only at the cost of that which
produces it. An unlit candle does no shining. Burning must come before
shining. We cannot be of great use to others without cost to ourselves.
Burning suggests suffering. -LB Cowman
Sunday, April 30, 2023
The cost of service, that servitude has a personal cost.
Cowman on faith.
True faith drops its letter in the post office box, and lets it go. Distrust holds on to a corner of it, and wonders that the answer never comes. -LB Cowman.
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Thought and Christ; all the best thoughts might be the seed of Christ.
In Matthew ch11 Christ tells us that he offers rest for the believer. What we might glance over is a small statement in the middle of that, that upon taking up his yoke, we learn him.
This was fuel for the Gnostic heresy, that Christ is knowledge. However, we might discover shades of Christ in our thoughts, and that even if we aren't already "born again" or "baptized".
Christ as a word, and knowledge of that word, salvation. Others paint Christ as the ever-present creative brush or pen of God by which He created all.
By faith, we know that all the very best of thoughts in our minds might be seeds of Christ that can be later harvested.
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
brother john
On today Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast(www.kcm.org), Copeland shares some grest testimony. He mentions a believer named John, called John, but thats not his real name. John was imprisoned in his hkme country for the crime of spreading the Gospel. To the chagrin of the authorities, before John was released following a successful appeal to the court, he had converted dozens of fellow prisoners to faith in the Lord.
Monday, April 24, 2023
Wednesday, April 19, 2023
some notes on the internal and external in regards to mysticism, and E.L.Doctorow.
a golden crucifix set on the top of building, in secret, in good old NYC. What could it mean to a resigned priest?
Marcus Aurelius saw all of the universe, the body natural, as the City of God, but yet others subdivide, seeing the mind as sometimes either self-contained, or part in parcel of the body natural.
Doctorow the novelist worked, like peeling layers of an onion, on the inner world, the obscurities: probing, stoking the pangs of the mysterious until once we confronted with something either repugnant or unsatisfying. We could be in such circumstance, perpetually unhappy, or we could realize we enjoyed the unfurling of the thing.
One orientation of mysticism is man approaching God from within, as of acknowledging or communing with the creator from his own little City of God within himself, and yet another lensing might be man's position towards nature, elapsation, resumption.
spurgeon on the spiritual walk.
It is by no means enough to set out cheerfully with your God on any
venture of faith. Tear into smallest pieces any itinerary for the
journey which your imagination may have drawn up.
Nothing will fall out as you expect.
Your guide will keep to no beaten path. He will lead you by a way such
as you never dreamed your eyes would look upon. He knows no fear, and He
expects you to fear nothing while He is with you.
-Charles Spurgeon
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
Monday, April 17, 2023
the graces shine all the better....
Afflictions are often the black folds in which God doth set the jewels of His children's graces, to make them shine the better.
-LB Cowman
Sunday, April 16, 2023
God hears the cries of the imperfect: Cloud of Unknowing.
We are told some of approaching God, or unity, or "being like unto Him", or something. But unity with God is almost heresy, if we were to think we'd be co-equal; in death, however, we can assume no-God like traits for ourselves, but a perfect union between us and the Father.
For now we are imperfect copies, just as we say our fellow men "through a mirror glass darkly", so too does perhaps God see us, ourselves, in a broken physical nature, but knowing more of the future of man, the spirit to rise and go into perfect communion with God and the Son.
I watched a huge cloud bank come over this morning, a dark huge patch of sky moving across over an otherwise picturesque morning. I thought this was the cloud of unknowing, which is our own minds, physically, a barrier, but also a vessel for communicating with God, knowing or feeling, in faith, this writer, that God's hears the cries of the imperfect.
Saturday, April 15, 2023
an old draft.
This is from an old draft I found on another web page. Its quite mystic, screaming Christogenesis, as if I could at that time see Christ and manifestations of my God everywhere.
Thank Christ and thank the world. They told us He'd come back, and the manifestation is ongoing; we're making it happen, looking for the joy of the world to return.
"Not as I would, but as thou would."
The clouds this morning parted like a curtain as the sun neared breaching the horizon; it was cosmic, almost miraculous, almost too perfect, and left in the sky after were joyous downy wisps.
Friday, April 14, 2023
God-sufficiency.
Here is the secret of Divine all-sufficiency, to come to the end of
everything in ourselves and in our circumstances. When we reach this
place, we will stop asking for sympathy because of our hard situation or
bad treatment, for we will recognize these things as the very
conditions of our blessing, and we will turn from them to God and find
in them a claim upon Him. -AB Simpson
Thursday, April 13, 2023
Wednesday, April 12, 2023
Christogenesis!
In the quantum view a person is a constellation of relationships, inner and outer: the degree of one’s relationships extends throughout space-time and endures in those who live on. Belief in the resurrection of Jesus undergirds the fact that life creates the universe, not the other way around.
-Illia Delio
Spurgeon on the Garden
Sin has utterly ruined that fair abode of all delights, and driven forth the children of men to till the ground, which yields thorns and briers unto them. My soul, remember the fall, for it was thy fall. Weep much because the Lord of love was so shamefully ill-treated by the head of the human race, of which thou art a member, as undeserving as any. Behold how dragons and demons dwell on this fair earth, which once was a garden of delights.See yonder another King's garden, which the King waters with his bloody sweat--Gethsemane, whose bitter herbs are sweeter far to renewed souls than even Eden's luscious fruits. There the mischief of the serpent in the first garden was undone: there the curse was lifted from earth, and borne by the woman's promised seed. My soul, bethink thee much of the agony and the passion; resort to the garden of the olive-press, and view thy great Redeemer rescuing thee from thy lost estate.
-Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Spurgeon on cause for hope.
Let us not give way to despair, since through this dark room the Master has passed before us. Our souls may sometimes long and faint, and thirst even to anguish, to behold the light of the Lord's countenance: at such times let us stay ourselves with the sweet fact of the sympathy of our great High Priest. Our drops of sorrow may well be forgotten in the ocean of his griefs; but how high ought our love to rise!
-Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Psalm 34
My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. -Psalm 34:2
It was all process, the process of David, being who he was, and the one's around him being who they were. He had turned in an enemy into a friend, and he blessed the Lord for this change in fortune.
In it, he saw the hand of the Lord, but he saw also his own fruits of his labor, living good, manifesting itself, as Paul and the others say, "you will know the tree by the fruit", that good men leave a trail of righteousness, and bad men leave behind a trail of desolation.
Truly, David felt he had cause to celebrate, and there came the call to teach, too, to show them what he had seen of the Lord's hand in his own life.
Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?
Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.
Sunday, April 9, 2023
Happy Easter.
The power of the Gospel in the drive-thru line. I asked her, the lady at the window, "what if we were punished for all our sins?"
Smiling, she said, "we'd be pitiful."
That's the smile of someone who fully appreciates the message; the Legalist doesn't have that smile, and the Pharisee was apt to kill anyone who spoke the message. But in the drive-thru line, talking to Mike? A purely safe and secure, joyous space for the Gospel to blossom and grow.
He is come.
He came as man and experienced pain and imputing of sin, but come as Spirit, he joy and love and peace to all those who call out to Him.
----
It was in that morning, early, when the two went to see their deceased friend.
A miracle waited.
And soon, the apostles realized that Jesus's words were coming true, and his sacrifice to our sin debt was fulfilled.
Tuesday, April 4, 2023
Spurgeon on the stars working for us on God's behalf.
The stars in their courses fight against the enemies of our souls.
-Charles H Spurgeon
Hope that dispels darkness.
The Aquila Report has an article about Hope That Dispels Darkness, which is a rumination in the aftermath of the most recent school shooting. here
Monday, April 3, 2023
Tozer on keeping energized spiritually
...the way to escape religion as a front is to make it a fount. See to it that we pray more than we preach and we will never preach ourselves out. Stay with God in the secret place longer than we are with men in the public place and the fountain of our wisdom will never dry up.
-AW Tozer
verse of the day: the author and finisher of our faith.
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
-Hebrews 12
Sunday, April 2, 2023
Saturday, April 1, 2023
spurgeon on prayer
No care but all prayer. No anxiety but much joyful communion with God. Carry your desires to the LORD of your life, the guardian of your soul. Go to Him with two portions of prayer and one of fragrant praise. Do not pray doubtfully but thankfully. Consider that you have your petitions, and therefore thank God for His grace. He is giving you grace; give Him thanks, Hide nothing. Allow no want to lie rankling in your bosom; "make known your requests." Run not to man. Go only to your God, the Father of Jesus, who loves you in Him.
-Charles H Spurgeon
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