[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.
“
| — | C. S. Lewis |
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
All That You Have Is Your Soul / Emmylou Harris / All I Intended To Be
This song reminds me of the scriptures we will be going over this Sunday at C:A
“But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” -Matthew 6:20,21
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
There once was a shepherd boy who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep. To amuse himself he took a great breath and sang out, “Wolf! Wolf! The Wolf is chasing the sheep!”
The villagers came running up the hill to help the boy drive the wolf away. But when they arrived at the top of the hill, they found no wolf. The boy laughed at the sight of their angry faces.
“Don’t cry ‘wolf’, shepherd boy,” said the villagers, “when there’s no wolf!” They went grumbling back down the hill.
Later, the boy sang out again, “Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is chasing the sheep!” To his naughty delight, he watched the villagers run up the hill to help him drive the wolf away.
When the villagers saw no wolf they sternly said, “Save your frightened song for when there is really something wrong! Don’t cry ‘wolf’ when there is NO wolf!”
But the boy just grinned and watched them go grumbling down the hill once more.
Later, he saw a REAL wolf prowling about his flock. Alarmed, he leaped to his feet and sang out as loudly as he could, “Wolf! Wolf!”
But the villagers thought he was trying to fool them again, and so they didn’t come.
At sunset, everyone wondered why the shepherd boy hadn’t returned to the village with their sheep. They went up the hill to find the boy. They found him weeping.
“There really was a wolf here! The flock has scattered! I cried out, “Wolf!” Why didn’t you come?”
An old man tried to comfort the boy as they walked back to the village.
“We’ll help you look for the lost sheep in the morning,” he said, putting his arm around the youth, “Nobody believes a liar…even when he is telling the truth!”
“
| — |
From Aesops Fables Jesus said: “But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.” -Matt 5:37 (NASB) |
He who lives without prayer - he who lives with little prayer - he who seldom reads the Word - he who seldom looks up to heaven for a fresh influence from on high - he will be the man whose heart will become dry and barren; but he who calls in secret on his God - who spends much time in holy retirement - who delights to meditate on the words of the Most High - whose soul is given up to Christ - such a man must have an overflowing heart; and as his heart is, such will his life be.
“
| — | Charles Spurgeon |
Remember He is the artist and you are only the picture. You can’t see it. So quietly submit to be painted—-i.e., keep fulfilling all the obvious duties of your station (you really know quite well enough what they are!), asking forgiveness for each failure and then leaving it alone. You are in the right way. Walk—-don’t keep on looking at it.
“
| — | C. S. Lewis |
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?
“
| — | C. S. Lewis |
In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that-and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison-you do not know God at all.
“
| — | C. S. Lewis |
It was when I was happiest that I longed most…The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing…to find the place where all the beauty came from.
“
| — | C.S.Lewis |
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
To Rescue Me / O How The Mighty Have Fallen / The Choir
When I can’t hold on much longer
To a rope weathered and frayed
When I can’t find hope and I’m losing faith
The Savior reaches in
To still the howling wind
To calm the storm within
To rescue me
To rescue me
When I think I might surrender
To the vengeance of the tide
When I’m lost in sin and I don’t see light
The Savior reaches low
Under the torrid flow
To save my sinking soul
And rescue me
The Savior calls my name
When I feel most ashamed
He comes to take the blame
And rescue me
To rescue me
To rescue me
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
You need some new Christmas music. Check out my friend Kim Hill’s new Christmas Disc!
Give me all of you!!! I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want YOU!!! ALL OF YOU!! I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to KILL IT! No half measures will do. I don’t want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them ALL over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self—-in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your heart.
“
| — | C. S. Lewis |
[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.
“
| — | C. S. Lewis |
It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
“
| — | C.S. Lewis |
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 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 was 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 the 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 |
