The Church Without The Spirit Is Dead

"Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible. There can be no life without the life-giver, no understanding without the Spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the Spirit, no Christ-likeness of character apart from his fruit, and no effective witness without his power. As a body without breath is a corpse, so the Church without the Spirit is dead."

John Stott in The Spirit, The Church & The World, pg.60

EPA Scientist Told to Shut Up About Global Warming

And what was the EPA afraid would get out?

After reviewing the scientific literature that the EPA is relying on, Carlin said, he concluded that it was at least three years out of date and did not reflect the latest research. “My personal view is that there is not currently any reason to regulate (carbon dioxide),” he said. “There may be in the future. But global temperatures are roughly where they were in the mid-20th century. They’re not going up, and if anything they’re going down.”

Carlin’s report listed a number of recent developments he said the EPA did not consider, including that global temperatures have declined for 11 years; that new research predicts Atlantic hurricanes will be unaffected; that there’s “little evidence” that Greenland is shedding ice at expected levels; and that solar radiation has the largest single effect on the earth’s temperature.

Yeah, I guess that would have been inconvenient, especially as the President was pushing through his Cap-and-Trade energy fiasco to reduce greenhouse gas emmissions this week.

Read the whole article here

Eric Clapton - Badge [Live in Hyde Park 1996]

Emergent Flow Chart - Click To Enlarge

Luther and Packer on Repentance

"When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said "Repent", He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance" (Martin Luther, thesis #1 of 95)

"Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged" (Keep in Step with the Spirit [Revell: 1984], 104)

Inconceivable!

To make their worship services more interesting, Hilldale Presbyterian Church added a big screen to display hymn lyrics, Powerpoint presentations, and the occasional showing of The Princess Bride when the sermon is too boring.

Blowing Smoke

Eric Clapton Plays - Love In Vain by Robert Johnson

Caught In The Same Swamp

"Who then can pride himself over against someone else and claim to be better than he? Especially in view of the fact that he is always capable of doing exactly the same as the other does and, indeed, that he does secretly in his heart before God what the other does openly before men. And so we must never despise anyone who sins but must generously bear with him as a companion in a common misery. We must help one another just as two people caught in the same swamp assist each other. Thus we must 'bear one another's burdens and fulfill the law of Christ' (Galatians 6:2). But if we despise the other, we shall both perish in the same swamp."

Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans, page 115.

Church Membership

"We have in our day started by getting the whole picture upside down. Starting with the doctrine that every individual is 'of infinite value,' we then picture God as a kind of employment committee whose business it is to find suitable careers for souls, square holes for square pegs. In fact, however, the value of the individual does not lie in him. He is capable of receiving value. He receives it by union with Christ. There is no question of finding for the individual a place in the living temple which will do justice to his inherent value and give scope to his natural idiosyncrasy. The place was there first. The individual was created for it. He will not be himself until he is there."

C. S. Lewis, "Membership," in The Weight of Glory, page 174.

How To Sink Health Care

It Is Of Grace

It is of grace that any are saved, and in the distribution of that grace, He does what He will with His own: a right which most are ready enough to claim in their own concerns, though they are so unwilling to allow it to the Lord of all. Many perplexing and acrimonious disputes have been started upon this subject; but the redeemed of the Lord are called, not to dispute, but to admire and rejoice; to love, adore, and obey. To know that He loved us, and gave Himself for us, is the constraining argument and motive to love Him, and surrender ourselves to Him; to consider ourselves as no longer our own, but to devote ourselves with every faculty, power, and talent to His service and glory. He deserves our all, for He parted with all for us. He made Himself poor, He endured shame, torture, death, and the curse for us, that we through Him might inherit everlasting life. Ah ! the hardness of my heart, that I am no more affected, astonished, overpowered with this thought.

John Newton

'I Shall Not Be Moved' CHARLEY PATTON, 1929 Delta Blues Guitar Legend

C.S. Lewis's Willingness to Be Enchanted and Openness to Delight

Alan Jacobs, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, 2005), xxi:

. . . Lewis's mind was above all characterized by a willingness to be enchanted and . . . it was this openness to enchantment that held together the various strands of his life--his delight in laughter, his willingness to accept a world made by a good and loving God, and (in some ways above all) his willingness to submit to the charms of a wonderful story. . . . What is "secretly present in what he said about anything" is an openness to delight, to the sense that there's more to the world than meets the jaundiced eye, to the possibility that anything could happen to someone who is ready to meet that anything. For someone with eyes to see and the courage to explore, even an old wardrobe full of musty coats could be the doorway into another world.

HT:Justin Taylor

Are You Full Of Patonizing Nonsense When It Comes To Jesus

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing people often say about Him (Jesus) : 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity pg. 52

'You're Gonna Need Somebody When You Die' CHARLEY PATTON, 1929 Delta Blues Guitar Legend

You're gonna need somebody when its time to die. The question is do you have somebody?

Is Government The Soultion To All Problems? Some People Think So

The Eyes Of The Reborn

"Suddenly to be caught up in the wonder of God's love flooding the universe, made aware of the stupendous creativity which animates all life, of our participation in it, every color brighter, every meaning clearer, every shape more shapely, every note more musical, every word written and spoken more explicit. . . . The animals too, flying, prowling, burrowing, all their diverse cries and grunts and bellowings, and the majestic hilltops, the gaunt rocks giving their blessed shade, the rivers faithfully making their way to the sea, all irradiated with this same glory for the eyes of the reborn."

Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, pages 54-55.

* - 1 Green Menu Taco Bell's New Green Menu Takes No Ingredients From Nature

Taco Bell's New Green Menu Takes No Ingredients From Nature

Tony Bennett: "The Way You Look Tonight"

This song was written by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields. i just purchased the CD "Oscar Peterson plays the Jerome Kern Song Book" Oscar does his version of this song but I couldn't find it so here's the song sung by Tony Bennett. I have always loved this song.

How Cable News Covered This Past Week

"But That's Just Your Interpretation"

Anybody ever raise that objection when you're explaining the gospel? "But what you're getting from the Bible -- it's just your interpretation. Why should I or anyone else believe that?"

This objection aims to dismiss your truth-claims as overrated. It's a strategy for leveling out all assertions as no more than mere personal opinions: "You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to."

Here are some things to keep in mind.

One, stay focused on what C. S. Lewis called "mere Christianity" -- the core truths of the gospel that are super-clear in the Bible. Avoid pet doctrines and denominational nuances. Your unbelieving friend might be throwing this objection out there because you really are advocating just a personal hunch.

Two, validate the objection, then neutralize it. "Sure, there's interpretation in what I'm saying. But no one can know anything without interpreting it, without running it through the sieve of personal understanding. It's like the sunlight shining through a stained-glass window. The colors show up, but the light is still real and the sun is really out there. So okay, you're getting the gospel through me, and I'm not very good at this. Big deal. The point is, it isn't JUST my interpretation. There is truth in what I'm saying."

Three, make the truth personal, and offer it personally to your friend. "I always have to watch myself, to minimize the distortion-factor in my thinking about Christ. So, thank you for reminding me of that. But here's what I can't get away from. As I read the Bible, the reality of Christ comes storming through to me so clearly I just can't dismiss that power as an 'interpretation.' I have to deal with him, because he's dealing with me. If you'd rather keep it safe, at the level of 'interpretation,' I don't blame you. He is totally rocking my world. But here's where I come down. I'd rather have him messing with me than lose him by treating him as an abstraction. His love is the only good thing in my life I'll keep forever. Want to talk about that? Want to talk about what he can mean to you too?"

Fractured Fairy Tales Staring S.C. Governor Mark Sanford

Bob Dylan - Tangled Up In Blue - Bootleg Series Vol. 2 - 18

How The Press Covers Obama

Simul justus et peccator

[sim’-uhl yoos’-tuhs et peck’-aw-tore]

(Latin simul, “simultaneous” + Latin justus, “righteous” + Latin et, “and” + Latin peccator, “sinner”)

At the same time righteous and a sinner. The phrase was coined by 16th century German Reformer, Martin Luther. In his Lectures on Romans, Luther put it this way, “The saints in being righteous are at the same time sinners; they are righteous because they believe in Christ whose righteousness covers them and is imputed to them, but they are sinners because they do not fulfill the Law and are not without sinful desires. They are like sick people in the care of a physician: they are really sick, but healthy only in hope and in so far as they begin to get better, or, rather: are being healed.”

God Wants to Work Through You

A.W. Tozer:

Unbelief says:

Some other time, but not now;
some other place, but not here;
some other people, but not us.

Faith says:

Anything He did anywhere else He will do here;
anything He did any other time He is willing to do now;
anything He ever did for other people He is willing to do for us!

With our

feet on the ground,
and our head cool,
but with our heart ablaze with the love of God,

we walk out in this fullness of the Spirit, if we will yield and obey.
God wants to work through you!
The Counselor has come, and He doesn't care about the limits of

locality,
geography,
time
or nationality.

The Body of Christ is bigger than all of these.
The question is:
Will you open your heart?

Eric Clapton - Everyday I Have the Blues

Have you seen Jesus lately? - - by Charles Spurgeon

"But they did not know who He was." Luke 24:16

The disciples ought to have recognized Jesus, they had heard His voice so often, and gazed upon that marred face so frequently, that it is amazing that they did not know Him. Yet is it not so with you also? Have you seen Jesus lately? You have been to His table--and you have not met Him there. You are in a dark trouble, and though He plainly says, "It is I--do not be afraid," yet you do not recognize Him. Alas! our eyes are blinded! We know His voice; we have looked into His face; we have leaned our head upon His bosom--and yet, though Christ is very near us, we are saying, "O that I knew where I might find Him!"

We should know Jesus, for we have the Scriptures to reflect His image. Yet how frequently we open that precious book--and have no glimpse of our Well-beloved! Dear child of God, are you in that state? Jesus walks through the glades of Scripture, and desires to commune with His people. Yet you are in the garden of Scripture--but cannot see Him, though He is always there!

Make it your prayer, "Lord, open my eyes--that I may see my Savior present with me!" It is a blessed thing to desire to see Him. But oh! it is better far to gaze upon Him! To those who seek Him--He is kind; but to those who find Him--He is precious beyond expression!

Is This Not A Happy Business

"Faith does not merely mean that the soul realizes that the divine word is full of all grace, free and holy; it also unites the soul with Christ, as a bride is united with her bridegroom. From such a marriage, as St. Paul says, it follows that Christ and the soul become one body, so that they hold all things in common, whether for better or worse. This means that what Christ possesses belongs to the believing soul, and what the soul possesses belongs to Christ. Thus Christ possesses all good things and holiness; these now belong to the soul. The soul possesses lots of vices and sin; these now belong to Christ. . . . Now is not this a happy business? Christ, the rich, noble and holy bridegroom, takes in marriage this poor, contemptible and sinful little prostitute, takes away all her evil and bestows all his goodness upon her! It is no longer possible for sin to overwhelm her, for she is now found in Christ and is swallowed up in him, so that she possesses a rich righteousness in her bridegroom."

Martin Luther, quoted in Alister E. McGrath, Christian Spirituality: An Introduction, pages 158-159.

Arminianism

(ahr-mih‘-nee-uhn-iz’-um)

A summary of teachings that are attributed to 17th century Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius. Arminian theology took issue with the teachings of John Calvin on 5 points, articulated in the Five articles of Remonstrance of 1610. The doctrines can be summarized as universal (prevenient) grace, conditional election, unlimited atonement, resistible grace, and uncertainty of perseverance. This eventually led to the Synod of Dort of 1618-1619, which resulted in the State church upholding what later became the 5 Points of Calvinism, while condemning Arminianism. Arminian theology later received official toleration by the State and has since continued in various forms within Protestantism.

Doyle Bramhall ll - Oh Death - Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007

ShamNow - Goverment Health Care

Hope In A Decadent Age

"All that is meant by Decadence is 'falling off.' It implies in those who live in such a time no loss of energy or talent or moral sense. On the contrary, it is a very active time, full of deep concerns, but peculiarly restless, for it sees no clear lines of advance. The loss it faces is that of Possibility. The forms of art as of life seem exhausted, the stages of development have been run through. Institutions function painfully. Repetition and frustration are the intolerable result. Boredom and fatigue are great historical forces."

"Behold, I am making all things new." Revelation 21:5

See Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present, page xvi.

A Tortured Existence - Thoughts About Michael Jackson

So the king is dead. What a sad end to a sad life; a pathetic end to a pathetic life (by which I mean to use pathetic in its true sense as “arousing pity and sympathy). I don’t know that I have ever seen, in one man, such a combination of self-love and self-loathing, shocking narcissism combined with equally shocking self-hatred. Truly Michael Jackson was unparalleled.

Andrew Sullivan offered a few interesting thoughts.

There are two things to say about him. He was a musical genius; and he was an abused child. By abuse, I do not mean sexual abuse; I mean he was used brutally and callously for money, and clearly imprisoned by a tyrannical father. He had no real childhood and spent much of his later life struggling to get one. He was spiritually and psychologically raped at a very early age - and never recovered. Watching him change his race, his age, and almost his gender, you saw a tortured soul seeking what the rest of us take for granted: a normal life.

But he had no compass to find one; no real friends to support and advise him; and money and fame imprisoned him in the delusions of narcissism and self-indulgence. Of course, he bears responsibility for his bizarre life. But the damage done to him by his own family and then by all those motivated more by money and power than by faith and love was irreparable in the end. He died a while ago. He remained for so long a walking human shell.

I loved his music. His young voice was almost a miracle, his poise in retrospect eery, his joy, tempered by pain, often unbearably uplifting. He made the greatest music video of all time; and he made some of the greatest records of all time. He was everything our culture worships; and yet he was obviously desperately unhappy, tortured, afraid and alone.

I grieve for him; but I also grieve for the culture that created and destroyed him. That culture is ours’ and it is a lethal and brutal one: with fame and celebrity as its core values, with money as its sole motive, it chewed this child up and spat him out.

I hope he has the peace now he never had in his life. And I pray that such genius will not be so abused again.

From beginning to end, Jackson led a tortured life and he led much of it in full view of the public. As much as he was secretive, being whisked about behind masks and tinted windows, the sheer volume of cameras and the unending interest in his life meant that his every step was recorded. We saw him change his skin color, change his face, and almost change his gender. Through it all, we gasped at his obvious self-loathing, expressed in his desire to change everything he is and was and manifested in his increasingly bizarre behavior. He was a tortured soul and I doubt we can even imagine what was going on inside that increasingly twisted heart, that increasingly conflicted mind.

Michael Jackson was in so many ways a product of this sick celebrity culture (that he helped create) that will never rest satisfied until it has both created and then destroyed the newest celebrity. We want our celebrities to start strong and finish weak, to begin with a bang and then fizzle, pop and sputter, all for our enjoyment and entertainment (Susan Boyle stands as the most recent example of this). Jackson gave us so much to talk about, so much to enjoy. More than any other celebrity he embodied the “vanities” of Ecclesiastes. He was at one time known for what he did so well and then was known for being a freak; he was at one time fantastically wealthy and then utterly broke; he was once loved and then despised. He had it all and yet, it seemed, he had nothing. All of it was meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Andrew Sullivan ended his reflection on Jackson by saying, “I hope he has the peace now he never had in his life.” I hope the same. Truly, I do. I never cared much for Michael Jackson. I listened to his music occasionally in life but, after losing my childhood collection of 45’s, I didn’t ever buy one of his songs or albums. But it was impossible to miss him completely as even decades after the peak of his fame, his face was often in the news and even a simple skim of the headlines would show that his strangeness was increasing year-by-year. Through all of this I haven’t ever hoped for much on his behalf. But I hope now that he has finally found peace. Sadly, though, his life showed no evidence that he had found the One who is peace, the one who offers true peace. And if that is the case, the true horror of it all is that Jackson will spend all of eternity in the same twisted mind that tortured him for most of the fifty years he was given here. Those fifty years seemed to drive him to the brink of utter insanity; the thought of an eternity in that state is too horrific to imagine. We may like to think that death inevitably brings peace to a tortured existence. But Scripture gives us no reason to find hope except in the One who offers hope by saying “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” May you find that rest today so you can enjoy that rest eternally.

By Tim Challies

Why Changing The Outside Is Not Enough - Some Thoughts About Michael Jackson

What Jackson did to himself is what we all do to ourselves outside of Christ. The difference is that Jackson's failed attempts were all worn obviously, in public view, on the changing tapestry of his face, while we may mask ours better.

As you shrink from the Frankenstein shock of Jackson's visage, reflect: mankind was created in God's image (Genesis 1:26-28), and still bears that image (Genesis 9:6). But in seeking to take God's place and make themselves gods (Genesis 3), our foreparents did to their whole beings what Michael Jackson did to his face: they horridly disfigured themselves and all of us, leaving a repulsive mockery of what we were meant to be.

The only solution for us is not a succession of endeavors to remake ourselves. Each attempt leaves a worse spectacle than the previous, and moves us further from what we truly need.

The only solution for us is the solution to which Michael Jackson never submitted himself, as far as is known: to be born anew, under the good hand of our Creator. We do not need new faces. We need new natures. We need the miracle of regeneration, not the tragedy of manmade makeovers.

And this can only come through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Anonymous people from at least six continents pass through these pages every day. My prayer for you, whoever you are, is that you will take your hurts and brokenness and crimes against God to the only place when you can find forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation: to the Lord Jesus Christ.
By Dan Phillips, ToRead The Rest

' I'm So Glad ' SKIP JAMES (1931) Delta Blues Guitar

Repel Fleas And Hereticks - Frontline Plus

How To Avoid Being Shallow

"Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, chapter 8.

I believe the Lord takes every one of his children to this place of bare trust in his Word. Without it, we would remain shallow. Through it, we emerge more deeply surrendered to God as God, more deeply settled and quietly certain and surprisingly satisfied.
I also believe that many of us are in that place of intense pressure right now.

God will keep us.

Thanksgiving

“He who loves not wine, woman and song is a fool his whole life long." Martin Luther

"Everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving." 1 Timothy 4:4

No Country for Burly Men

How feminist groups skewed the Obama stimulus plan towards women's jobs.
by Christina Hoff Sommers
A "man-cession." That's what some economists are starting to call it. Of the 5.7 million jobs Americans lost between December 2007 and May 2009, nearly 80 percent had been held by men. Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan, characterizes the recession as a "downturn" for women but a "catastrophe" for men.

Men are bearing the brunt of the current economic crisis because they predominate in manufacturing and construction, the hardest-hit sectors, which have lost more than 3 million jobs since December 2007. Women, by contrast, are a majority in recession-resistant fields such as education and health care, which gained 588,000 jobs during the same period. Rescuing hundreds of thousands of unemployed crane operators, welders, production line managers, and machine setters was never going to be easy. But the concerted opposition of several powerful women's groups has made it all but impossible. Consider what just happened with the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Last November, President-elect Obama addressed the devastation in the construction and manufacturing industries by proposing an ambitious New Deal-like program to rebuild the nation's infrastructure. He called for a two-year "shovel ready" stimulus program to modernize roads, bridges, schools, electrical grids, public transportation, and dams and made reinvigorating the hardest-hit sectors of the economy the goal of the legislation that would become the recovery act.

Women's groups were appalled. Grids? Dams? Opinion pieces immediately appeared in major newspapers with titles like "Where are the New Jobs for Women?" and "The Macho Stimulus Plan."
Read The Rest

Tombstone - Doc Holliday "I'm your Huckleberry"

Bob Dylan - Ring Them Bells

Does Your Church Still Exist?

"Jesus Christ warns them that if they disobey his commands, and do not repent, their church's existence will be ignominiously terminated. 'I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent' (Revelation 2:5). No church has a secure and permanent place in the world. It is continuously on trial. . . . Many churches all over the world today have ceased truly to exist. Their buildings remain intact, their ministers minister and their congregations congregate, but their lampstand has been removed."

John R. W. Stott, What Christ Thinks of the Church, page 33.

American shoppers misled by greenwash, Congress told

98% of supposedly environmentally friendly products in US supermarkets make false or confusing claims, campaigners say:

More than 98% of supposedly natural and environmentally friendly products on US supermarket shelves are making potentially false or misleading claims, Congress has been told. And 22% of products making green claims bear an environmental badge that has no inherent meaning, said Scot Case, of the environmental consulting firm TerraChoice.

The study of nearly 4,000 consumer products found "greenwashing" in nearly every product category – from a lack of verifiable information to outright lies.

Even the experts are confused. Case, whose firm runs its own Ecologo certification programme, admitted he had bought a refrigerator only to find it failed to meet its claims of energy efficiency.

Read the rest

I believe that we have another case of "A sucker is born every minute"

C.S. Lewis on Seeing Everything Your Enemies Do As Bad

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 118:

"Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out.

Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible?

If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred."

This certainly applies in politics, doesn't it? When George W. Bush was President, he was demonized daily by those who thought virtually everything he did was utterly scandalous and terrible. And now many conservatives--including, ahem, many Christians--are returning the favor with President Obama.

Kurt Warner On The Best Part Of Being A Proffessional Football Player

"Kurt, as a professional football player, what aspect of your vocational calling gives you the most joy in life? What is it about the 'job of football' that you love the most?"

His answer came instantly and unequivocally:

"Without question, the greatest joy about my calling as a professional football player is seeing the barriers it breaks-down in giving me the opportunity to talk about Jesus."

He elaborated on this by noting how all the privilege and all the status and all the fame simply serves to give him access to people and places to talk about the Lord that he otherwise would not have had. In essence he made it clear that, to him, the job is an amazing platform from which he gets to steward his main joy in life--telling people about the Jesus.

A Life Well Lived - Bob Bosworth

In memoriam...

Around 4 pm Friday, 05 June, Bob Bosworth left this earth to meet his heavenly Father. Linda and her sister, Debbie, arrived in South Africa the following day. The funeral, conducted on Thursday, 11 June, was marked by joy and music for Bob's homecoming. Please pray for Stella, Linda and Debbie during this time of loss.

---

A life well lived...

All For God's Glory. Together with Stella, his South African-born wife, Bob served the Lord for 55 years in Africa and internationally, reaching thousands upon thousands for Christ. While Bob was an accomplished missionary, his greatest legacy was as a Christian, a husband and a father.

Bob and Stella began pioneer work in remote areas of Africa in 1952. His large evangelistic efforts in urban areas resulted in many churches being planted, most notably in Zimbabwe. Those churches are still thriving today. Bob also planted Bible schools, trained evangelistic teams, began the MorningWatch ministry for early morning prayer, and carried the message of prayer to over 60 countries at a time of great renewal and worldwide missions activity. Recently, Bob and Stella became burdened for financially helping destitute pastors in Third-World countries. Bob is survived by his wife, Stella, and his two daughters, Linda and Debbie

I was blessed to have known Bob, and while he was not in the States very much his life had quite an impact on me. In your lifetime you can count on one hand the number of great men that have crossed your path, Bob was one of those men.

Eric clapton - layla (live)

You Do Matter

"His view of death and his own death was having confidence that life matters and that the world matters. . . . Because of that you fight to live, and because of that you need to go out and carry on the good fight. You do matter, and God does exist. So you put your hand to the plow, you work and you struggle -- you do what you can in all different areas, with passion. You don't sit in a corner somewhere and wait to die. . . . What you look forward to is not death but the Second Coming. You are longing and working for that. Contrary to what people say -- that you can't take anything with you -- yes, you do take your work with you. It's a biblical teaching, that what you do matters and will continue on into eternity."

Deborah Schaeffer Middelmann, regarding her father Francis Schaeffer, quoted in Colin Duriez, Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life, page 203.

Kenosis

[kuh-noe’-sis]

(Greek, “emptying”)

Describes the “emptying” of Christ at the incarnation. The Greek word kenoo (”to empty”) is found in Phil 2:6-11 where Christ humility is described through the incarnation. Debate exists concerning the meaning of the Kenosis. Did Christ lose divine attributes and thus “empty” himself, or did he give up rights for the independent use of his divine attributes, without actually giving them up? Most theologians would opt for the latter, believing that if Christ “lost” divine attributes he would no longer be divine; indeed, he would never have been divine in the first place considering the essential divine attribute of immutability (the inability to change in essence).

Truth

Motivational Posters for the post-evangelical chaos

Disease of Conceit - Bob Dylan

Atheist Bus Campaign

This couldn't be more wrong. The only way to stop worrying and enjoy life is by knowing and believing there is a God and that in his great mercy he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross and take your sin and give you the gift of eternal life.

The Most Oppressive Tyranny

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be 'cured' against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. But to be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we 'ought to have known better,' is to be treated as a human person made in God's image." (C.S. Lewis in "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment")

U2 - Get On Your Boots Live at Fordham University

Jim Gaffigan - Bacon - KING BABY

This Infinite Fountain Of Love

"There, in heaven, this infinite fountain of love -- this eternal Three in One -- is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it, as it flows forever. There this glorious God is manifested and shines forth in full glory, in beams of love. And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love!"

Jonathan Edwards, "Heaven is a world of love," Charity and its Fruits, pages 327-328.

Open House

Saturday was a busy day, we had my daughter Jessica's Graduation open house at my sister Sally's house, in South Lyon. After a night of monster rain we had a beautiful muggy day with plenty of sunshine and a nice breeze.That's my mom who just turned 85, then Jessica and on the right is my sister Sally.

No Degrees of Deadness

The company is not doing well this quarter. Sales are down. Potential customers are not buying. The sales team manager needs to get things moving. Someone has to make a sale and quickly. What is the sales team leader to do? Well one thing he could do is to send his team down to the morgue and have his sales team get some sales amongst the dead, selling their nasal sprays, their foot massager machines and their electronic toothbrushes. But sadly, things don't go too well. The dead seem to have no interest in anything the sales team has to say, in spite of the positive smiles and highly developed and well rehearsed sales pitch.. Even at the morgue, no sales are made; for one simple reason, the dead are, how shall we say it? ... errr.. dead!

A silly scenario? Yes, of course! But lets think about this as it relates to man's condition outside of Christ. He is not vibrant and healthy; nor merely under the weather a little, and not just extremely sick about to breathe his last breath. God says that man is actually dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). The Greek word for dead here is necros, meaning dead like a corpse. There are no signs of spiritual life. It is a hopeless case.
Continue reading "No Degrees of Deadness" »

Miracle Hair Tonic

Glad - Steve Winwood & Eric Clapton

Filling Voids

"All sins are attempts to fill voids." Simone Weil

We might try to fill the voids we so deeply feel by doing bad things or by doing good things. When we salve the ache in our hearts, which only God himself can satisfy, by doing good things, we then feel proud and think God owes us and we get angry when he doesn't fork over. When we salve the ache within by doing bad things, we feel shamed and think God despises us and slink away from him in bitterness and cynicism. But we are the ones complicating our souls.

Filling the void with anything but God is a sin. Sin can involve doing a good thing, or sin can involve doing a bad thing. But only God can comfort us. Only God can fill our souls with the magnitude of the One we long for. And he does, freely, on terms of grace. "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God." 1 Peter 3:18

To be empty and disappointed and brokenhearted does not disqualify you from God. It means God is near, if you'll have him.
Ray Ortlund

Eric Burdon - Forty Days and Forty Nights

The Best Fears of Our Lives

Russell D. Moore on the Good Father’s Quiet Desperation

Somebody please help me. I’m really, really depressed, and I don’t know what to do. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know I was depressed until a new study came out, and I’m at high, high risk. An article by Vanderbilt and Florida State sociology professors, based on data from the National Survey of Families and Households, has concluded that parents are more susceptible to depression than non-parents.

According to the Sacramento Bee’s report, “Parents experience significantly higher levels of depression than grown-ups who don’t have children.”

I still thought I was okay, since I’m a reasonably happy man. That is, until I saw the definition of the problem. According to the Bee: “The researchers suggest that worry is a lifelong cost of having children.” And don’t think it gets better when they leave the house: “Parents of grown children (whether they live at home or have moved out) and parents without custody of minor children exhibit more signs of depression than other parents.”

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Atheism

The Almost Impossible Thing

"The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self—all your wishes and precautions—to Christ."

"[The natural life] knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all its self-centredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that."

C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

Milt Jackson - People Make The world Go around

One of my favorite songs, Milt Jackson on Vibes, Herbie Hancock on Piano, Ron Carter on Bass, Billy Cobham on Drums, and Freddie Hubbard on Trumpet.

P.J. O’Rourke on the New “Obamamobile”

P.J. O’Rourke talks about classic cars, government regulation, the takeover of GM and the forthcoming “Obamamobile.” Be ready to laugh out loud. Classic O’Rourke.

Is This Your Driving Experience?

Living in a Society of Possible gods and goddesses

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare."

C. S. Lewis in Weight Of Glory

Lost Money

Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues THP 1959

I watched a little of Walk The Line, the recent movie about Johnny Cash, the part where he did the concert at Folsom Prison. That promoted me to get the double CD and DVD containing both concerts Cash did at Folsom Prison and read through the booklet that came with it. That's why this song was on my mind today.

Little Moments Of Decision

"Your danger and mine is not that we become criminals, but rather that we become respectable, decent, commonplace, mediocre Christians. The twentieth-century temptations that really sap our spiritual power are the television, banana cream pie, the easy chair and the credit card. The Christian wins or loses in those seemingly innocent little moments of decision.

Lord, make my life a miracle!"

Raymond C. Ortlund, Lord, Make My Life A Miracle, page 151.

A Long Terrible Story

"All that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."

C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

Motorcycle Crash In Church - Youth Pastor gone wild

Wow heres how we can disciple kids lets hold stupid youth leader stunts!