What shall you say to your wife on your death bed
Over 300 years ago, Obadiah Holmes must have grappled with questions like those. Evidently, Obadiah Holmes built his house upon the rock of Jesus Christ. And in a love letter he wrote to his wife before he died, it was only natural to gently remind her to trust Him:
When I am removed, consider the Lord as your husband, as your father, as your Lord and Savior, who has said that whom He loves, He loves to the end. And He will not leave you nor forsake you, but will carry you through all until He brings you to glory. Therefore, lift up your head and be not discouraged. Say to your soul, “Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God and trust in His name,” and you shall not be disappointed.
And now, my dear wife, whom I love as my own soul, I commit you to the Lord, who has been a gracious, merciful God to us all our days, not once doubting that He will be gracious to you in life–or death. He will carry you through the valley of tears with His own supporting hand. To Him I commit you for counsel, wisdom, and strength, and to keep you blameless till the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be all glory, honor, and praise.
What’s an idol?
We tend to think of idols as objects that superstitious people believe have magical powers. But in reality anything that constantly grips our attention, that obsesses us, and so excludes God from our lives, is an idol. The greatest hindrance to a life which is Christlike and which radiates God’s love is to allow something, or someone, to become central – to occupy the place that is rightly God’s.
Taken from Every day with Jesus.
Trust in God
These lines are from “The Gate of the Year,” a poem written in 1908 by Minnie Louise Haskins:
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied, “Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!”
Quotation
F.B Meyer ”I believe that if there is one thing which pierces the Master’s heart with unutterable grief, it is not the world’s iniquity, but it is the church’s indifference.”
Godly Wisdom and Worldliness (James 3:13-4:17) – Ivin Chan
[podcast]http://sermon.blueideas.net/audio/Ivin30NOV09.mp3[/podcast]
Reader’s take on marriage – Family Life
Marriage is work! Marriage is compromise and sacrifice. It can end in happily ever after, but not without a lot of heartache and tears in between.
Here are some other highlights from the advice readers sent me:* “Always put your relationship with the Lord first and foremost!”
* “You can’t change your spouse, only God can.”
* “Sometimes you will have a tough time with in-laws and understanding them, but forgiveness and understanding is key.”
* “Because it’s not always so obvious, it might bear mentioning: even in the most loving marriage–and obviously in trying marriages–marriage is hard. It takes work. It takes effort on the part of each individual involved. Especially when kids and life come along and get in the way–it’s very easy to slip into ‘partners in the business of life’ mode.”
* “Your spouse has secrets that you don’t know about. My hard reality was that I didn’t get to start knowing my husband until after we were married.”
* “Marriage is more about our one-on-one relationship with Christ than our one-on-one relationship with our spouse.”
* “Marriage is not about being ‘in love.’ It is about working together with a partner for the rest of your lives, in good times and in bad, regardless of how you feel.”
* “Always remember that your spouse is human, too, and prone to the same faults and failures you are. We all make mistakes and we can all learn to forgive.”
* “Bless each other daily. It may be as simple as pouring a cup of coffee for him/her, making a breakfast when they don’t have time, or giving him/her a big hug/kiss when they come home from a hard day, but bless each other in both big and small ways every day.”
* “Marriage is a full time job … it must be always tended like a fire in the fireplace so that it will keep burning well.”
* “It is very important to always lift up your spouse in every way. To know that a true relationship means that you will always support your spouse and be there for them when tough times roll around. Because they do.”
* “I wish I had known how to resolve conflict without saying the wrong things or hitting below the belt.”
* “I wish I had known how to forgive generously and quickly.”
* “Keep priorities in this order: God first, my spouse second, and then the kids.”
* “Forget perfect.”
* “Say I love you to each other every day.”
* “Time together needs to be treated as sacred time. It should come second to only God and that all others (including family) take third place. When we look back at the past five years of our marriage, what comes to mind are the happy times we have spent just the two of us, focused on each other.”
* “There will be times during your marriage that you can and will be so discouraged, or so angry, or so heartbroken that all you want to do is give up. Don’t. Surrender yourself and your marriage completely to Jesus.”And finally …
Stick with your mate even when you don’t want to, and even when your ‘friends’ tell you that you should leave or you ‘have a right to leave.’ … If you’re courageous enough to stick it out–and I promise you that you will be in Christ, who will strengthen your every thought and step–you will find your reward on the other side of the discouragement and pain. What waits for you is a bond made stronger through adversity, a love made sweeter by your unwavering commitment and your sincerest efforts to make your marriage work, and an added bonus of a completely different perspective about yourself. You’ll find that it really isn’t about you at all. Instead of praying, ‘Lord, please change my spouse,’ you’ll find yourself praying, ‘Lord, please change me.’
Sin Addiction and Its Cure
Sin Addiction and Its CureThursday, November 12, 2009
We must be careful, however, that we do not . . . Create the impression that sin is an accident, a disease, a poison unintentionally imbibed. If sin is a disease it is like alcoholism, one that is chosen, bought and voluntarily swallowed. A steer is not responsible for poisoning himself on locoweed, but men are endowed with intelligence and ability to distinguish good from evil; they are therefore not to be excused either for their sin or for the terrible results of it.
Men are indeed accountable for their sins, and their responsibility is twofold. First they are morally obligated to choose the good and reject the evil, and they will be brought to severe and certain judgment for their failure to do it.
Second, because God has in Christ provided a cure, they are responsible to humble themselves and seek forgiveness and cleansing at the fountain opened for all men by the hard dying of Jesus Christ on the Roman cross.
“If any man will,” said Jesus, and in so saying swept away all excuses and made every man accountable for his future as well as for his past. For in spite of what sin has done to us, we are yet able to exercise a choice unto eternal life; and we are responsible for our choice, whether it be right or wrong.
This Kingdom
Jesus, God’s righteousness revealed,
The Son of Man, the Son of God,
His Kingdom come.
Jesus, redemption’s sacrifice,
Now glorified, now testified
His Kingdom come.
And this Kingdom will know no end,
And it’s glory shall know no bounds.
For the majesty and power
Of this Kingdom’s King has come.
And this Kingdom’s reign,
And this Kingdom’s rule,
And this Kingdom’s power and authority
Jesus, God’s righteousness revealed.
Jesus, the expression of God’s love,
The Grace of God, the Word of God, revealed to us.
Jesus, God’s holiness displayed,
Now glorified, now justified, His Kingdom come.
And this Kingdom will know no end,
And it’s glory shall know no bounds.
For the majesty and power
Of this Kingdom’s King has come.
And this Kingdom’s reign,
And this Kingdom’s rule,
And this Kingdom’s power and authority
Jesus, God’s righteousness revealed.
( Repeat Chorus)
Jesus, God’s righteousness revealed.
Jesus, God’s righteousness revealed.
The great Shema
Deut 6:4-10
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
To love the LORD your God with all your HEART and with all your SOUL and with all your STRENGTH.
Such a tall order but it’s what we strive to do.
thought after reading Edmund Chan’s book – “Growing Deep In God—Integrating Theology and Prayer”.
having God’s vision and power
Being human means to be self-centred and as Christian, though we “think” we are God centred as we read the bible and pray every day about ourselves. We forget that God calls for 2 kinds of relationships to be develop. The relationship with God and with men. We have to understand God’s mission and purpose and to help and pray for our fellow brothers and sisters that they may grow and attain maturity in Christ Jesus, not focusing on just ourselves.
being balanced in word and works
walking with Jesus – Perfect Balance
Become Christ-centred, not self-centred, even in the balancing of your virtues.
We can only find perfection in Christ. Therefore allow Christ to change us, as we cannot depend on our own strength and effort. He is already perfect in every way and all he is asking is that you allow Him into your heart, to work from within.
thinking correctly
from devotion – walking with jesus
I can tell you this: the people who experience extreme stress and anxiety are those whose thoughts are not under control. They don’t think. Well, strictly they do think, but not in the way the Bible instructs and invites us to. They fail to think about what God says and think instead about what the devil is telling them. Their thinking is not according to Scripture and, therefore, they feel overwhelmed. There are many remedies on offer for worry, but really there is only one successful way. It is to think – to think with God.
Ecclesiastes 8:4—”For the word of the king is supreme.”God alone is rightfully sovereign without limit. He is King in the most absolute sense; and so it should be; for he is supremely good, wise, just, holy, etc.
As he is Maker of all, dominion over his creatures is a matter of natural right.
He has infinite power by which to carry out his royal will.
Even in his least word there is omnipotence.
HIS WORD PROVOKES AWE
Let us carefully think of:
1. His creating word, by which all things arose out of nothing.
2. His preserving word, by which all things abide.
3. His destroying word, by which he will shake earth and heaven.
4. His word of prerogative by which he kills and makes alive.
5. His word of everlasting promise, which is our comfort.
6. His word of terrible threatening, which is our warning.
7. His word of prophecy and foreordination, which is a great deep, full of solemn teaching to the lowly in heart.Who can stand before any of these without trembling adoration? Power attends them to the fullest degree, for each one is the word of a King.
Adapted from Charles Spurgeon’s sermon notes, which are in the public domain.
keeping the balance
John Stott says: ‘It seems there is no pastime the devil enjoys more than tipping Christians off balance.’ Martin Luther put it even more graphically when he said: ‘Some Christians are like a drunk man getting on a horse; he pulls himself up on one side and falls off the other.
The Righteousness of God
What is righteousness? what does it mean to be right with God?
Taken from the weblink above
Ps. 119:172 the Psalmist thus addresses the Lord, “My tongue shall speak of Thy word, for all Thy commandments are righteousness.”
In 1 Cor. 1:30 we are told that Christ is made unto us righteousness as well as wisdom, and since Christ is the wisdom of God and in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, it is evident that the righteousness which He is made to us is the righteousness of God.
“All unrighteousness is sin.” 1 John 5:17
“Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4
When we think of the laws, we think of the 10 commandment. Indeed, God has called man to obedience to the law. The laws are God given and are spiritual. It’s covers not only acts but also the spiritual soul, mind and thought domain.
Hence the law is not for man to attain righteousness but to reveal man’s folly and sinful nature.
The case, then, stands thus: 1) The law of God is perfect righteousness, and perfect conformity to it is demanded of everyone who shall enter the kingdom of heaven. 2) But the law has not a particle of righteousness to bestow upon any man, for all are sinners and are unable to comply with its requirements. No matter how diligently nor how zealously a man works, nothing that he can do will meet the full measure of the law’s demands. It is too high for him to attain to; he cannot obtain righteousness by the law. “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified [made righteous] in His sight.” What a deplorable condition! We must have the righteousness of the law or we cannot enter heaven, and yet the law has no righteousness for one of us. It will not yield to our most persistent and energetic efforts the smallest portion of that holiness without which no man can see the Lord.
Who, then, can be saved? Can there, then, be such a thing as a righteous person? Yes, for the Bible often speaks of them. It speaks of Lot as “that righteous man.” It says, “Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings” (Isa. 3:10), thus indicating that there will be righteous persons to receive the reward, and it plainly declares that there will be a righteous nation at the last, saying, “In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.” Isa. 26:1,2. David says, “Thy law is the truth.” Ps. 119:142. It is not only truth, but it is the sum of all truth; consequently, the nation that keeps the truth will be a nation that keeps the law of God. Such will be doers of His will, and they shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 7:21.
This is not the end… read on in the weblink to find out more about
“Jesus, our righteousness!”
