"It's not how much you give but what you keep for yourself."
Posted November 8, 2006
What changed these very ordinary men (who were such cowards that they did not dare stand too near the cross in case they got involved) into heroes who would stop at nothing? A swindle? Hallucination? Spooky nonsense in a darkened room? Or Somebody quietly doing what He said He'd do--walk right through death? What do YOU think? -- J. B. Phillips (1906-1982)
Heaven is not here, it's There. If we were given all we wanted here, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next. God is forever luring us up and away from this one, wooing us to Himself and His still invisible Kingdom, where we will certainly find what we so keenly long for. -- Elisabeth Elliot
Let every man recognize what he is, and be certain that we are all equally priests, that is, we have the same power in the word and in any sacrament whatever. -- Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Do you think the work God gives us to do is never easy? Jesus says His yoke is easy, His burden is light. People sometimes refuse to do Gods work just because it is easy. This is sometimes because they cannot believe that easy work is His work; but there may be a very bad pride in it... Some, again, accept it with half a heart and do it with half a hand. But however easy any work may be, it can not be well done without taking thought about it. And such people, instead of taking thought about their work, generally take thought about the morrow, in which no work can be done any more than in yesterday. -- George MacDonald (1824-1905)
What you do every day should contribute to giving your life meaning. If it doesn't, why are you doing it? -- Don Hutcheson
We come to Jesus Christ: and He does for us what He promised; and the thing works out. To our amazement, it works out. And then we settle down. We have had our own first-hand and irrefutable experience. But, instead of opening the windows to the glory of the sunshine so evidently there, instead of being incited to a hugeness of faith by what Christ has already done for us, we can't believe that there can be anything more, or that even He can work, for us, anything better. That first foretaste satisfies us. And so we camp for life out on the confines of the Kingdom, and never press on to inherit what is there and meant for us. -- A. J. Gossip (1873-1954)
If you do not specify and confront real issues, what you will do will surely obscure them. If you do not alarm anyone morally, you will yourself remain morally asleep. If you do not embody controversy, what you say will be an acceptance of the drift to the coming human hell. -- C. Wright Mills
Our life is full of brokenness - broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God's faithful presence in our lives. -- Henri Nouwen
Many promising reconciliations have broken down because, while both parties came prepared to forgive, neither party came prepared to be forgiven. -- Charles Williams
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save what Thou art:
Thou my best thought, by day or by night;
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Be Thou my Wisdom and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son,
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
Riches I need not, nor mans empty praise;
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven's joys, O bright Heaven's Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all!
-- Anonymous medieval Irish hymn
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Greetings.
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
I was listening to a radio ministry yesterday. It was Thru the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee, I don't listen to him very often. He was talking about Mark 12. And when he reached these following verses...
Mark 12:41-44
Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."
He said something that really struck me. It's something I have been saying (I think) for awhile now, I just had never articulated it like this. "It's not how much you give but what you keep for yourself."
In my last post, I talked about "living dead". Or a better way to say it is taken directly from scripture, to be a living sacrifice...
Romans 12:1
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
The most noticeable thing about those verses in Mark 12 is that the widow gave EVERYTHING she had, she left nothing for herself... nothing.
I'm not often that way myself. I need a "cushion" to rest myself in. A comfort zone, one that does not push outside of the boundaries that I have perimetered myself into.
It basically stems from a lack of trust in the One who holds my eternal salvation, the same One who holds all the universe in His holy hands. The Lord of Hosts whom nothing escapes His sovereignty and purpose.
And I don't trust Him with my day to day resources... (?)
The minuscule things in my life that are the mundane and common things that are necessary for my daily living. Things like paying bills, putting food on the table, getting through my work day without killing myself or others around me (I drive a truck.)
I have often looked at this verse in the 20th Psalm...
Psalm 20:7
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses;
But we will remember the name of the LORD our God.
I find myself over and over again trusting in my horses and chariots, the verses play out as such...
Psalm 20:8-9
They have bowed down and fallen;
But we have risen and stand upright.
Save, LORD!
May the King answer us when we call.
The writer of this psalm knew all to well of the results of trusting in horses and chariots and the difference it makes in trusting the Lord.
I would like to be that living sacrifice mentioned in Romans 12... I find myself at a loss cause I keep crawling off the alter and back onto the throne of my life. I forget far to quickly and far to often who it is that I belong to.
Romans 6:4-11
Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
My old, dead man was crucified with Him. It all returns to Him. My trust fails me sometimes, thanks be unto Him that He never fails me. Never. I am no longer a slave to sin, I walk into it sometimes willingly, but it has no longer a dominion over me. I just need to trust Him more and more and lean into His grace and trust not in my own understanding. He gave me His everything... why shouldn't He have mine?
Grace and peace to you dearest brothers and sisters.
~ eric
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Currently Listening
Stay of Execution
By Deliverance
Entombed
The fleeting hours of mourning come
But soon pass away
The thought of laying 'neath a slab
Seems an unenticing gray
Life as it is, life as it was
The difference in dark and light
The only way to truly live is to
Let my flesh die
Romans 6 tells me I'm a slave
A slave of righteousness
My carnal mind tells me
From sin there will be no rest
Because of sacrificial rights
I now stand not condemned
Once a slave to mortality
I now reckon myself dead
I've reckoned myself dead
I've been entombed
Knowing this, that our old man
Was crucified with Him
That the body of sin might be done away with
We should no longer be enslaved to sin
We are not to live as the damned
