new meme: Psalm 69:5

 

The merry heart and the broken spirit.

A merry heart does good like a medicine: but a broken spirit dries the bones.

A wicked man takes a gift out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment.

-Proverbs 17:22-23

We have the power to choose, for one thing.  But for another, joy tends to manifest more joy in the people it encounters.

Think of the smiles produced by a kind word at random.  We don't expect it: that is part of what makes it so special.

Spurgeon on the rigors of the walk of faith.

Ah, LORD, Thou wast in Thy lowest state when before Thy persecutors Thou wast made to stand like a criminal! Yet the eyes of Thy faith could see beyond Thy present humiliation into Thy future glory. What words are these, "Nevertheless - hereafter!" I would imitate Thy holy foresight, and in the midst of poverty, or sickness, or slander, I also would say, "Nevertheless - hereafter." Instead of weakness, Thou hast all power; instead of shame, all glory; instead of derision, all worship, Thy cross has not dimmed the splendor of Thy crown, neither has the spittle marred the beauty of Thy face. Say, rather, Thou are the more exalted and honored because of Thy sufferings.

verse for May 29, 2023. "from everlasting to everlasting"

But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.  -Psalm 103

God and storm; storm and God.

A clear manifestation of God's glory, or just a nuisance?

Lord forbid I was ever so disconnected from nature!  I was on the porch before daylight listening to the light mist of rainfall.  It was pleasant, and soft wind, in my area, at the halfway point between Myrtle Beach SC and Charlotte NC, and also equally so between Columbia, SC and Fayetteville NC.

Such clear manifestations seem, at once, neither good nor evil, seeming to stymie mankind's notions of good and evil, and here, the corn just coming up around the 12 inch mark: in some respects, the storm did our area a world of good.  I've also got potted Marigolds that needed some of that natural moisture.

In the War of 1812, as British troops assaulted the capitol and set fire to some of the most important buildings in the land, including the White House, they were met with overnight hurricane force winds, and then they just left, missing so much of their invasion force thanks to the storm.

Its almost God whispering, and at His own ends, which transcends good and evil as we know it, and in terms of theology, the believer assumes that God is purely good, such as purely light, or purely truth, with the theologists linking all three things together in orientation towards the Godhead.  Or at least, those latter two things, light and truth, are how the humans manifest, how the humans put the Creator into perspective, and then further, live the message.

in Him is no darkness...

if we live the word, we are the light...

There is a silence before the storms: something of atmospheric pressure, cloud cover, and the birds having fled.  In that silence, that's our prayer time, come what may Oh Lord, come what may.

 

Spurgeon on the assurance of salvation.

The everlasting song is almost on thy lip. The portals of heaven stand open for thee. Think not that thou canst fail of entering into rest. If he hath called thee, nothing can divide thee from his love. Distress cannot sever the bond; the fire of persecution cannot burn the link; the hammer of hell cannot break the chain. Thou art secure; that voice which called thee at first, shall call thee yet again from earth to heaven, from death's dark gloom to immortality's unuttered splendours.  

-Charles H Spurgeon

verse for May 28, 2023

Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.  -Romans 12

Paul said he would be all things to all people, in love, and to the furtherance of the Gospel.  For the sake of the Gospel, an ounce of understanding in hard quarters could yield a hundredfold return for the sake of the Lord Jesus.

But the compassion of the man!

 

verse of the day, May 27, 2023

But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.  

-Acts 20

two proverbs. Learnings, corrections and other such plans of man.

He who loves to learn loves knowledge,

but he who will not be corrected is a fool.

-Proverbs 12:1(paraphrase)

The plans of the mind belong to man,

but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

-Proverbs 16:1(paraphrase)

old meme: Psalm 90

 

verse of the day, May 22, 2023

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.  -Galatians chapter 5

faith proved in troubled times.

Indeed it is extremely doubtful if a soul can really know the love of God in its richness and in its comforting, satisfying completeness until the skies are black and lowering. Light comes out of darkness, morning out of the womb of the night.

-Malcolm McLeod

God and the future.

 "....and you will be my witnesses..."

Isn't it a wonder, our Lord and His creation.

I was thinking earlier and writing about a blank future.  God happened to obscure that future from me.  This is our "free choice" writ large, a blank future, in which we do not know what will come.  In the natural world, men and women shape their future, don't you know?  You don't just sit letting it happen all the time, but there are times for an active hand in the coming of the future.

And we are tasked to be Godly in the building of a future.

Psalm 90. A meme I made 7 years back......

 

A crux on Good and Evil, traced to First Causes.

"...thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation, in all the wealth which God shall give..."  -1 Samuel 2:32

So the pastor was speaking about God chastening us, and I was thinking of all the promises that would seem broken, if he provided our wrongs, along with our items of providence.

Would it seem that God has a mean streak, that he tests and tempers us with troubles?  Its like the saying "he who made kittens, put snakes in the grass".

But the truth of this statement is that God does have a good plan for each of us, because He loves us.

The crux of Him providing both evil and good to the believer is in the fact that God created it all: he created the evil that forsook Him to establish his own kingdom opposite God.

He created the challenger, and had that challenger Faith, Hope and Love, would not the world be so much the better these days?  If, and only if, that prince of the power of the air not turned against God, this would be heaven on Earth.

So ultimately, if we trace reasons and causes all the way back to creation, we find the God is the author of all, as some say that everything is merely the thoughts of God: all of us, the world, the sun and stars, but the thoughts of God.

Spurgeon and the Verse of the Day, May 20, 2023

 Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.(From Romans chapter 15, Bible Gateway and Thomas Nelson Verse of the Day)

When we give our hearts with our alms, we give well, but we must often plead to a failure in this respect. Not so our Master and our Lord. His favours are always performed with the love of his heart. He does not send to us the cold meat and the broken pieces from the table of his luxury, but he dips our morsel in his own dish, and seasons our provisions with the spices of his fragrant affections. When he puts the golden tokens of his grace into our palms, he accompanies the gift with such a warm pressure of our hand, that the manner of his giving is as precious as the boon itself. He will come into our houses upon his errands of kindness, and he will not act as some austere visitors do in the poor man's cottage, but he sits by our side, not despising our poverty, nor blaming our weakness.

-Charles Spurgeon

Spurgeon on Prayer and Intercession.

No temptation in the life of intercession is more common than this of failure to persevere. We begin to pray for a certain thing; we put up our petitions for a day, a week, a month; and then, receiving as yet no definite answer, straightway we faint, and cease altogether from prayer concerning it.

This is a deadly fault. It is simply the snare of many beginnings with no completions. It is ruinous in all spheres of life. The man who forms the habit of beginning without finishing has simply formed the habit of failure. The man who begins to pray about a thing and does not pray it through to a successful issue of answer has formed the same habit in prayer. To faint is to fail; then defeat begets disheartenment, and unfaith in the reality of prayer, which is fatal to all success.

-Charles Spurgeon

 

Jeremiah 15:19.

"Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before Me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth"   (Jeremiah 15:19).

Faith: everything hinging on belief.

"...faith means that we give up control, we let go and we allow His Holy Spirit to lead us. Everything from that point on becomes about our belief in Him, not about our works for Him."

Faith make rightful hope and love, and without faith, there are only shadows of either hope or love.

verse of the day, Wednesday May 17, 2023

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!  -Romans 11

The vine and the branches.

He is the vine; we are the branches.

When one vine is unproductive, the good husbandman lifts it up and makes sure its getting water and sunlight.

Let them know the body of believers by the fruits of peace, love and justice.  Let patience have its perfect work; let hope continue.

I was reading in Timothy about gain not necessarily being Godly, how so many see earthly increase as blessings, but it isn't so, per se.  One never knows, and this is the world of man, and there is the prince of the power of the air to contend with.  All we are to do is trust God's providence.

 

spurgeon on the need for prayer.

Do not despair, dear heart, but come to the LORD with all thy jagged wounds, black bruises, and running sores. He alone can heal, and He delights to do it. It is our LORD's office to bind up the brokenhearted, and He is gloriously at home at it. Let us not linger but at once return unto the LORD from whom we have gone astray. Let us show Him our gaping wounds and beseech him to know His own work and complete it. Will a surgeon make an incision and then leave his patient to bleed to death? Will the LORD pull down our old house and then refuse to build us a better one? Dost Thou ever wantonly increase the misery of poor anxious souls? That be far from Thee, O LORD.

-Charles Spurgeon 

verse of the day, Sunday May 14, 2023

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:13-14

The wonder of creation, and even the wonder of self: it even perplexes the sciences.  How much of a wonder we are, however much, we are only a shading of our magnificent God.

"all flesh is as grass".

"All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:

 
the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. 

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of the Lord shall stand forever."

-the prophet Isaiah.

Cutting grass, mowing, is just like a kind of maintenance, necessary maintenance, like vigilance in the natural against the devouring beast.  We have to keep one open sometimes because "the days are evil"; we are submerged into a world of contrasting wants, desires and needs, and not all of them need to be necessarily evil that does us harm, but things that would be necessary and providential to others, might sometimes cause us harm--such is life, with all the contrasting, wants, desires and needs.

Just like we might mow often, we keep an eye out for the devil, and when the plant goes astray, we cut 1/3 from the plant, just like the grass, we should so too treat the planting of the soul, keeping vigilance, doing maintenance, being mindful of evils that might creep-up into our perview from time to time.  Just as the husbandman works the field, so to do we tend to our own garden, that internal bit of old Eden in the soul.

Thorny Troubles and the Starry Crown, from Spurgeon.

Thy head may be crowned with thorny troubles now, but it shall wear a starry crown ere long; thy hand may be filled with cares--it shall sweep the strings of the harp of heaven soon. Thy garments may be soiled with dust now; they shall be white by-and-by. Wait a little longer. Ah! how despicable our troubles and trials will seem when we look back upon them! Looking at them here in the prospect, they seem immense; but when we get to heaven we shall then.

-Charles Spurgeon

as Paul also says, "I reckon the [troubles of today], do not compare to the glory to come..."

He "reckons": its a thought process, a reflection or contemplation of how the evils of today are compared to our future in Christ and the Father.

Spend some time, brother and sister, put aside a moment for the one that loves beyond all understanding.

from psalm 16

A Prayer of David.

Psalm 16(selections from..)

"Oh my soul, thou hast said to the Lord, 'Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee: but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.'"

"Thou wilt show my the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures evermore."

(contentment, the "peace that surpasses understanding" is the joy of the Lord)

 

"How are you?" and the response that followed. On good, "doing well" and all that. Aquinas, Paul, some basic theology and philosophy.

Usually in polite conversation comes the Como Esta, or whatever, a platitude, a way of saying hello to the congenial, but perhaps not altogether familiar in our daily lives.

And I answered.  

"They don't let me do too good."

"When I do too good, it hurts others."

I speak of a kind of balance and equilibrium in the society of man, but in God's terms?

I'm doing great and looking forward to forever.

As is said in the Bible, "if God be with us, who could be against us?"  Sure, there are some very real and pressing rebuttals to that sentiment, but truly, God is the source of an almost supernatural contentment, witnessed even in the natural world now and then.

Remember that when God made His creation, he said it was "good".

God is entirely good.  The lack of God is evil.  The lack of good is evil.  

This realization of goodness, is the bridge between the natural and the supernatural, continual improvement toward the truly good, like sanctification, and finally, sitting in the hereafter in the perfection of spirit.

 

verse of the day, May 11, 2023, and the forbearance of the Lord.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.  -Ephesians 4:32(KJV)

"...I have come to realize that God uses the boundaries in our lives to teach us victories in entirely new ways..."

Lord help our lack of patience and forbearance.  

The Lord is our shield and help in times of trouble; he brings us contentment and peace that passes understanding. 

On Being Tested, and being Strong, but untested.

Paradoxical though it be, only that man is at rest who attains it through conflict. This peace, born of conflict, is not like the deadly hush preceding the tempest, but the serene and pure-aired quiet that follows it.

It is not generally the prosperous one, who has never sorrowed, who is strong and at rest. His quality has never been tried, and he knows not how he can stand even a gentle shock. He is not the safest sailor who never saw a tempest; he will do for fair-weather service, but when the storm is rising, place at the important post the man who has fought out a gale, who has tested the ship, who knows her hulk sound, her rigging strong, and her anchor-flukes able to grasp and hold by the ribs of the world.

 

Spurgeon on God's Love.

Our God's tender love for his servants makes him concerned for the state of their inward feelings. He desires them to be of good courage. Some esteem it a small thing for a believer to be vexed with doubts and fears, but God thinks not so.

-Charles Spurgeon

verses for May 10, 2023

 

verses for May 9, 2023

 

Matthew 6:14 Christ on Forgiveness.

I take this from this RSV, Matthew ch6 v14.

"..if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you..."

Point 1) Some of the prosperity denominations go after Mark ch 11, with the "faith to move a mountain..."

Point 2) Some soft pastors like Joyce Meyer know enough of human beings that they know we have a lot of trouble sometimes forgiving others.

WHAT IF:

what if we used our faith, applied it to forgiveness.....  "Lord help my unforgiveness....."

 

verses, May 8 2023.

 

Spurgoen on the Lord's work through him.

He never leaves a work unfinished; this would not be for His glory, nor would it be like Him. He knows how to accomplish His gracious design, and though my own evil nature and the world and the devil all conspire to hinder Him, I do not doubt His promise. He will perfect that which concerneth me, and I will praise Him forever. LORD, let Thy gracious work make some advance this day!

-Charles Spurgeon

Rejoice always, pray continually.... Thessalonians and James 5

"Rejoice always, pray continually..."

There's a kind of joy or peace, even in the middle of war and famine--this shields a part of the believer's spirit, if not the body outright.

"The prayers of [the righteous] availeth much."

Keep joy, nurture it, and it will grow like the ten bags of money that the master of the parable gave to the workmen.  Bury it, and it does you know good; an active, lively faith grows like the hardiest of plants.

verses from 5/6 and 5/7/2023

 

The mantra of the core of the Gospel. Love, hope and peace, to those added mercy and knowledge.

I had a mantra.  "God is love, hope and peace."

Christ tells the young man that the chief commandment is to love God.

Paul tells us Christ is literally our hope in glory.

Paul later says Christ is peace that surpass understanding.

We can add to the secret sauce of the Gospel: knowledge and mercy.

Paul also says the knowledge of God surpasses understanding, and in the book of Romans, he more than makes the case that we have received grace in the form of very undeserved mercy, indeed, "the bowels of mercy".

God is so good.

That knowledge, and particularly knowledge of God's mercy, is part of that "mystery of the Gospel".  

Imagine it, Christ as the Divine word, and belief part of "knowledge".  Part of the active faith then, is not just living a life of outward love, as in works, but in the meditative, contemplative reverie of receiving that love, hope, peace and mercy, translating that into a head knowledge, from just a heart feeling.  In the sense of bringing it into our minds, into the natural world, God's supernatural spirit, we open the opportunity for Satan to corrupt, but we also have it translate like a TV dinner of spirituality for others, a newspaper of Christ, we are but transmitters of the Gospel, and the Gospel is love, hope, peace, mercy and knowledge.

Parable of the great pearl.

Christ's Parables can be tough.  Even the Apostle's asked Jesus to try another way of teaching them, than the parables, but Jesus happened to also explain his parables to them, after.

He speaks of one, when a person finds a huge pearl, that is so wonderful--that pearl, that person forsakes everything else in his life.

That pearl is the Gospel, and service to the Gospel, and doing the Christian walk, both together, is what means to forsake all else.  To make the Gospel a priority in one's life.

verses of the day, May 4 and May 5, 2023

 

verses from May 2, 2023

 

verses of the day, May 3, 2023

 

Spurgeon on casting cares to the Lord.

My case is urgent, and I do not see how I am to be delivered; but this is no business of mine. He who makes the promise will find ways and means of keeping it. It is mine to obey His commands; it is not mine to direct His counsels. I am His servant, not His solicitor. I call upon Him, and He will deliver.

-Charles Spurgeon

pass it on: selfcare

 

some verse memes from last week.