Monthly Archives: July 2009

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Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. -Deut 7:9

...continue reading →

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I was going over my day...as tired as I am, I have been tempted to be a little impatient.  Maybe that "natural", but I don't want it to be me.

I snapped at my dad.  We had mom halfway out of the car on her transfer board.  his cell phone rang and I said, "ignore it".  He answered it, dropped the board, my mom was slipping and he said, "we're having a hard time getting your mom out of the car.

I said, "that's because you're talking on the phone!"

Just now...a man named Joseph came to mind.

When pharoh's wife was tempting him to sin in a sexual way, he fled.

(Joseph has left the building)

Ran away.  Flee temptation.

So fast, when she grabbed his cloak he didn't stop to get it.

I need to keep a handle on my thoughts when slips happen.  Flee that temptation.

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"True contemplation (of the cross) is that in which the heart is crushed and the conscience smitten.  You must be overwhelmed by the frightful wrath of God who so hated sin that he spared not his only begotten Son.  What can the siner expect if the beloved Son was so afflicted?  It must be an inexpressible and unendurable yearning that causes God's Son himself so to suffer.  Ponder this and you will tremble, and the more you ponder, the deeper you will tremble.

"Take this to heart and doubt not that you are the one who killed Christ.  Your sins certainly did, and when you see the nanils driven through his hands, be sure that you are pounding, and when the thorns pierce his brow, know that they are your evil thoughts.  Consider that if one thorn pierced Christ you deserve on hundred thousand." (Martin Luther's Easter Book)

...looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? (Hebrews 12:2-3)

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Listening to Driscoll

Reading Riddlebarger

Reading Hebrews 4

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Please, Lord, let this be the day. Let this be the day that time ends.

My Bible fell open to Isaiah 40

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

that her warfare is ended,

that her iniquity is pardoned,

that she has received from the LORD's hand

double for all her sins.

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I'm reading in Hebrews 4...

God's Sabbath rest.

1Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

some manuscripts say because it did not meet with faith in the hearers.

It is not that we lose our salvation, it's that the promise of rest did not join with our faith in the first place.  We are united by faith with those who listened to the gospel and believe.

This is also cross referenced to Romans 3:3

Even though there are those who do not listen and there are those who do not believe, that does not mean that the promises of God are not true.  God is faithful to His promises, even when we are not faithful to Him.

3For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

"As I swore in my wrath,'They shall not enter my rest,'"

That's a direct quote from Psa. 95.  Matthew Henry says, "Let us be aware of the evils of our hearts, which lead us to wander from the Lord. There is a rest ordained for believers, the rest of everlasting refreshment, begun in this life, and perfected in the life to come. This is the rest which God calls his rest."

although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all his works."

Exodus31:17, "It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.'"

We long for that rest.

I long for that rest.

Humans are designed for a Sabbath and I feel as though I have not had one for a long time.

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I found a piece of napkin in my Bible.  I must have been at a luncheon or something in order to have a napkin.

God works by contraries so that a man feels himself los tin the very moment when he is on the verge of being saved.  When God is almost ready to justify a man, He damns him.  Whom he would make alive, He must first kill...Man must first cry out that there is no health in him...when a man believes himself to be utterly lost, light breaks.  Peace comes in the Word of God through faith.

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In the past I've had "brushes with the prophetic".  I believe that I had another.

Since I've been fasting, my mom has made some pretty important improvements

  • she stood without support for a minute and a half
  • this includes standing up straight, without her knees against the cupboard in front of the sink
  • she is doing short arc quad extensions without assistance. (not very high, but she's getting her heel off the bed
  • for the first time, she's expressing an interest in knitting
  • for the first time since her surgery, she's reading.
  • she's listening to music every time she lays down.  My brother in law (Jim) put hymns on an mp3 player and she listens a lot.