Music-The Quickening Art

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music

Ps 98:4

The Sabbath Rest

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work  Gen 2:2

He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man.  Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul.  The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone else.


-A Heschel "The Sabbath"

The meaning of the Sabbath

And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. Gen 2:3

The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space.  Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.  It is a day on which we are called upon to share  in what is eternal in time, to turn from results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

-A. Heschel, "The Sabbath"

When God is in it, Little is Big...

We can do no great thing

only small things with great love.

-Mother Teresa

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Phil 4:13

To Believe

A Chat With God

Christ's Hand and Feet

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.   I Cor 12:27






"Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours; yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion looks out on the world, yours are the feet which He is to go about doing good and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now."

-St. Teresa of Avila

Pray for the Spirit

As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in him. I Jn 2:27

Does anyone of us desire to help the Church of Christ? Then let him pray for a great outpouring of the Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can give edge to sermons, and point to advice, and power to rebukes, and can cast down the high walls of sinful hearts. It is not better preaching, and finer writing that is needed in this day—but more of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

~ J.C. Ryle

http://jcrylequotes.com

Start Your Week With A Smile :-)

Best Reunions With Man's Best Friend

Shall I Pray On?

Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. Rom 4:20-21

For years I've prayed, and yet I see no change.

The mountain stands exactly where it stood;

The shadows that it casts are just as deep;

The pathway to its summit ever more steep.

Shall I pray on?

Shall I pray on with never a hopeful sign?

Not only does the mountain still remain

But, while I watch to see it disappear, 

Becomes the more appalling year by year.

Shall I pray on?

I will pray on.  Though distant it may seem,

The answer maybe almost at my door,

Or just around the corner on its way.

But whether near or far, yes, i shall pray--

I will pray on.

-Unknown

Why Don't You Hurry

"Why don't you hurry?" to rescue the lost 

Whom Jesus has purchased at infinite cost. 

Their pitiful pleading is wafted to me, 

As sinking in sin many millions I see.

Why stand we here idle all through the long day, 

When Jesus has bidden us hasten away? 

The seasons will come and the seasons will go, 

While the heathen are dying in sickness and woe.

Why sit here in comfort enjoying our ease, 

When thousands are groping in gloom and disease?
Rise up in our strength and our God-giv'n might, 

And trim our dim lamps as we take them the light.

"O, why don't you hurry?" they're pleading again, 

They beg for relief from their suffering and pain. 

They're calling for me and they're calling for you 

To tell them of Jesus and what they should do.

O then let us hasten the message to bear, 

There liveth a God who will answer their prayer; 

He sends us to them, as they groan in their woe. 

Rise up in His power and hasten to go.

-Unknown

For Today

Lord, let me live today

From start to close,

In just the kindly way

Which friendship knows.

Let me be thoughtful, too,

And generous here,

Keeping in all I do

My Record clear.

Lord, let me live today

Full to my best,

No hurtful thing I'd say,

Even in jest,

Keep me from scorn and hate,

And petty spite,

Lord, let my soul be great

From dawn to night.

-Unknown

Sold Out!

Dear friends, be God's entirely, absolutely!

Leave not one cent, one talent, lying dormant.

Souls suffer here; despairingly and mutely,

No hope, no comfort, perishing in torment.

Give all you have and all you are to Jesus,

Forget not that on you He is depending;

He who alone can heal these soul's diseases

Will work through you in praying, going, sending.

Your children—let them be for Jesus only!

To prayer and to the Word of God devoted!

Peculiarly His own, apart and lonely

As those must who for nought else are noted.

The masterpiece of art that is divinest—

A human soul in which the Christ expresses

Himself most freely—truly is the finest

Of all created beings whom God blesses.

This is the goal toward which ourselves aspiring

We long unspeakably to reach: and never

Was soul yet born too eagerly inquiring

And giving all for Truth and God, forever!

-Unknown

Never Give Up!

I spoke a word,
And no one heard;
I wrote a word,
And no one cared
Or seemed to heed;
But after half a score of years
It blossomed into a fragrant deed.
Preachers and teachers all are we—
Sowers of seeds unconsciously.
Our hearers are beyond our ken,
Yet all we give may come again
With usury of joy or pain.
We never know
To what one little word may grow. 

See to it then that all your seeds 

Be sure to bring forth noble deeds.

—John Oxenham.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect... I Pet 3:15

Uttermost Salvation

Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.  Heb. 7:25

Salvation implies deliverance, a deliverance from sin unto righteousness.  The full meaning of it can be found in Paul's word that "if any many be in Christ he is a new creature," consequently, "old things are passed away" and "all things are become new."  A converted person, in Bible language, is one who lives a converted life.  The life lived proved the reality or otherwise of the profession voiced.

Christ can save the penitent sinner from the depths of sin, for where sin abounds, just there grace super-abounds.  No matter how fare one has wondered from the beaten track of God, His grace can go further.  However deep into the pit of iniquity your feet may have gone, his grace can go deeper and lift you out.  However high into supposed self-righteousness you may have advanced, his grace can go one higher and bring you down to earth and show you the real cancerous condition of your inner heart.

God's grace can bring you face to face with reality, reveal your need, then assure you of an all sufficient remedy in the atonement of Christ on Calvary.

-E. W. Lawrence

Identified with Calvary

Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ." (Gal. 2:10)

This must be an experience in the life of every Christian.  There must be identification with Christ in His death on Calvary.  There must be a realization that what He did on that cross was for me and is meaningful for me now.

"I" must be crucified. It is past and yet present.  It was done for me and yet now must be done in me.  Self must go on that cross of Calvary.

I must reckon myself to be "dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God."  There will be no living, real witness to the living Christ without some sense of that death. "I am crucified with Christ."

Can you say that, for yourself?

-Martin Cox

He Became Poor

My old college president, Dr. H. C. Morrison, once said, “God created men but He had never had been a man. God saw men toil, but He never blistered his hands with carpenter’s tools. He had seen millions struggling on the crumbling verge of the grave and finally sink into its hopeless depths, be he had never felt the cold grip of death or spread his omnipotent shoulders on the bottom of a sepulcher.” But He did become all these when Grace became incarnate. “Through he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (I Cor. 8:9)

He through whom the worlds were created and upheld, through whom man was created, the very Lord of glory, became poor. Insulted and railed upon by foe and betrayed by friends, He became poor. But the depth of the poverty of the Son of Man is not to be seen in any of these. It is not to be seen I His lowly birth, in His lonely walk, not even in His trying hour in Gethsemane.

The depth of the poverty of the Lord Jesus is alone to be seen in that time when the sun for three hours clothed itself in darkness, when the terrific impact of God’s wrath against all the sin of all men was focused upon Him, when as the scapegoat be carried the sins of the whole world in all its awful mass and blackness, when His Father’s face was turned away from Him, leaving Him in the grossest of darkness, and out of that unspeakable anguish of separation, He cried, “My God my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Here is seen the depth of the poverty of the Son of man!

The most real thing in the life of Jesus as the Son of Man was His perfect realization of the presence of God in His life. Surely for Jesus “nearer was God than breathing, closer than hands or feet." Now that Presence which was His very life was abruptly cut off leaving Him in deepest darkness. The question, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" involves a terrible suffering, an agony, an acute sense of loss. Physical suffering is nothing compared to this spiritual suffering, this unfathomable agony of separation, separation from the presence of God.

There on the cross the Lord Jesus was carrying the sin of the world in all its awful mass and blackness. Taking our sins He must take its inevitable consequence which is separation from God, for sin ever separates from God.

G. Campbell Morgan well wrote, "The logical, never-to-be-recalled issue of sin is to be God-forsaken. Sin in its harvest is to be God-abandoned. Sin is alienation from God by choice. Hell is the utter realization of that chosen alienation."

Forsaken, forsaken, will be man's most bitter wail in hell, inexpressible anguish of soul, forsaken of God, for-ever forsaken of a righteous, loving, and just God! Yes, epitomized in this the saddest wail of Jesus on Calvary is the hopeless cry of every lost man and woman at the Judgment Bar of God. Elizabeth Browning caught the meaning of it when she penned these words:

Yea, once, Immanuel’s orphaned cry His universe hath shaken.
It went up single, echoless, "My God, I am forsaken!"
It went up from the Holy's lips amid His lost creation,
That, of the lost, no son should use those words of desolation.

Dr. Henry C. Mabie spent many years visiting various mission fields. He tells his experience in preaching to a South African tribe. The chief of the tribe listened with intense interest as Dr. Mabie told the story of Calvary. The chief called for a repetition of the story. While the story was being repeated, the chief rushed forward Giving, "Hold on! Hold on! Take Him down, I say. Jesus Christ doesn't belong on that cross: I belong on that cross."

And how true of every son and daughter of Adam's race! He took your place! He took my place!

Why did He do it? Because He loved me, He gave Himself for me.

Not the nails, but His wondrous love for me,
Kept my Lord on the cross of Calvary,
Oh, what power could hold Him there
All my sin and shame to bear?
Not the nails, but His wondrous love for me.

Why did He become poor? That you and I might become rich, possessors of real riches. "He emptied himself," that we might be filled unto all the fullness of God. He cried on Calvary, "I thirst," that we might have the Living Water springing up as an artesian well within, satiating every longing of the human soul.

A little girl in rags came to a flower garden where a young woman was in charge.
"I would like some flowers," said the little ragged girl, and I have a penny to buy some."
The lady picked the finest. Then the child gave her the penny.
"Oh no," said the lady, "these flowers belong to the Father and it rejoices him greatly to give them away."

I read of One who gave the finest flower that heaven possessed, "that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life." He so loved that He gave. Jesus so loved that He became poor!

Today millions of dollars are spent on paint to keep wood from perishing. Millions of dollars are spent on life preservers to keep passengers from perishing. Millions of dollars are spent on life insurance to keep families from perishing. But God spent infinitely more, He spent His own son to keep you and me from perishing eternally! And all because of Calvary!

The cross revealed to man the depth of the poverty of the Son of man. The Christ of the cross opened up for bankrupt man the eternal riches of God."



-Claude A Ries

The Shout of Triumph

Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.  John 19:30

The forces of evil had their day at Calvary.  The Son of God, spiked to a cross, was dying.  The last ounce of hope in the breast of the disciples had fled.  “We had hoped” was their sad lament.

Hypocrisy and hatred, injustice and cruelty, ruled the day.  But sin and wrong never have the last word.  Out of the welter and host confusion of sin’s frustration is to come a new hope—a new day.

The resurrection message is a guarantee of victory in a world of defeatism.  Sorrow, servitude, a curse, death, all came as the effects of sin.  In Christ every enslaving shackle will be broken.  Yes, is broken!

Listen to the shout of victory that characterizes His final revelation to us:  "Fear not; I am the first and the last:  I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and death" (Rev. 1:17, 18)

What a complete victory!  What a glorious message for us as we travel the dusty road of duty.  What a stimulus to our faith as we see arrogant wickedness on every hand.  Jesus the Victor is working out His purpose , and soon we shall see the completed pattern.

“And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worth to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for thou was slain, and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nations’ and hast made us unto our God kings and priests:  and we shall reign on the earth” (Rev. 5:9, 10).

“Cease, cease ye vain, desponding fears”

Where Christ, our Lord from darkness sprang,

Death, the last foe, was captive led,

And heaven with praise and wonder rang.”

We shall be like Him in the glory world, but His all-inclusive victory makes us like Him here.  “As he is, so are we in this world.”  We are to share in His holiness here, we are to be triumphant now.  We are to live victorious over Satan’s accusations and temptations in this present evil world.  “With great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace was upon them all” (Acts 4:33).

Christ is victor.  He has made every provision for his followers to live victoriously, to die triumphantly.  He came to destroy the works of the devil.  Sin shall not have dominion over you, death need hold no terror, eternity is the home of the soul.  All this and more is our triumph in the triumph of Christ’s resurrection.

-O. G. Wilson

First Day of The Week

The First Day of the Week

From the formless void of night,

God's first gift to us was light.

On the first day, brightness came-

Lightening dark with living flame.

From the ruin of sin's dark blight,

Jesus came to give us light.

And again the brightness came

Resurrection-like a flame

On the first day, banned the night,

Filled the heart with pulsing light.

-Maggie Culver Fry