But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ. For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.
-Ephesians 2:13-14 NLT
Picture Credit: Ian Cameron
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, nature, photography, salvation
Satan has an ace up his sleeve—even if his captives want out of the POW camp, he has a legal claim to them. A claim that can be broken only by blood. These prisoners can be ransomed, but only at a terrible price. It appears the evil one doesn’t understand Jesus’ next move. He sees an opportunity to finish what he started back in the massacre of the innocents. The authorities grab Jesus at night, bring him in under false charges, bribe witnesses, then get a weary, cynical Roman puppet to execute him because the mob is about to riot. Jesus seems to have run out of options, lost his ability to maneuver. Yet this plays right into his plan—his secret plot to overthrow the rule of the evil one on earth. Apparently, Satan did not know that by sacrificing Jesus he would pull the one pin that would crumble his entire kingdom, fall into the very scheme God the Father had carefully, ever so carefully arranged for the undoing of evil: “We speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:7–8).
-John Eldredge, Beautiful Outlaw, 121-122
Picture Credit: Ian Cameron
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: books, faith, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, local, love, nature, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation, Satan, spirituality
But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You grumbled in your tents and said, “The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. Where can we go? Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.'” Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you [Not “comfort you.” Not “be with you in your distress, defeated by your enemies.” Fight for you], as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God . . . Then you replied, “We have sinned against the LORD. We will go up and fight, as the LORD our God commanded us.” (Deut. 1:26-41 NIV)
But it was too late. Their decision not to fight is what led to their wandering in the wilderness for forty years. We often cite that part of the story, talking about our own wilderness experiences, embracing the wilderness saga as if it were inevitable. No, that is not the lesson at all. We have forgotten it was avoidable. The reason they took the lamentable detour into the wilderness was because they would not fight. To be more precise, the wilderness was a punishment, the consequence of refusing to trust God, and fight.
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: Arizona, beauty, books, earth, enviroment, faith, God, hiking, John Eldredge, life, local, love, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, travel
“When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.”
-John Lennon
Picture Credit: John Lennon
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, local, mountains, nature, personal, photography, spirituality, travel, wyoming, Yellowstone
God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
-Ephesians 2: 8-10 NLT
Picture Credit: Frank Ludtke
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, nature, photography, Switzerland, travel
Whatever the details might be, when a man speaks of the greatest gift his father gave him-if his father gave him anything at all worth remembering-it is always the passing on of masculinity.
This is essential, for life will test you. Like a ship at sea, you will be tested, and the storms will reveal the weak places in you as a man. They already have. How else do you account for the anger you feel, the fear, the vulnerability to certain temptations? You know what I speak of. And so our basic approach to life comes down to this: we stay in what we can handle, and steer clear of everything else. We engage where we feel we can or we must-as at work-and we hold back where we feel sure to fail, as in the deep waters of relating to our wife or our children, and in our spirituality.
Masculine initiation is a journey, a process, a quest really, a story that unfolds over time. It can be a very beautiful and powerful event to experience a blessing or a ritual, to hear words spoken to us in a ceremony of some sort. Those moments can be turning points in our lives. But they are only moments, and moments, as you well know, pass quickly and are swallowed in the river of time. We need more than a moment, an event. We need a process, a journey, an epic story of many experiences woven together, building upon one another in a progression. We need initiation. And, we need a Guide.
-John Eldredge, Fathered by God, 6-8
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: books, California, God, health, hiking, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, love, mountains, nature, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation, travel, Yosemite
“There are some delightful places in this world which have a sensual charm for the eyes. One loves them with a physical love. We people who are attracted by the countryside cherish fond memories of certain springs, certain woods, certain ponds, certain hills, which have become familiar sights and can touch our hearts like happy events. Sometimes indeed the memory goes back towards a forest glade, or a spot on a river bank or an orchard in blossom, glimpsed only once on a happy day, but preserved in our heart.”
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, local, mountains, nature, personal, photography, spirituality, travel
“There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’
-John 16:12-15 NLT
Picture Credit: Hollis Bennett
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, life, love, mountains, nature, photography
I don’t recall a worship song with the word cunning in it. “Thou Art Cunning,” or “Cunning, Cunning, Cunning.” Do we interpret his actions in our lives as perhaps part of some cunning plan? That delayed answer to prayer—is there something brilliant about the timing? Would it help us to rest if we thought so? When he answers our prayers with “No,” do we see him sparing us some unseen danger? And when it comes to our own “imitation of Christ,” do we approach our days wondering, How would Jesus have me be snakelike today? Doesn’t it sound a little unchristian? We don’t appreciate Jesus’ cunning because we insist on clinging to our naive view of the world. We just want life to be easy; we just want life to be good. We don’t want to deal with evil, so we pretend we don’t have to. We don’t want to navigate sin either. We prefer our coffeehouse chitchat, our Twitter-level engagement. We play at church. It’s as though we think our mission and our context is something other than what it was for Jesus. Even though he said, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).
– John Eldredge, (Beautiful Outlaw, 122-123)
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: beauty, Canada, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, photos, Ransomed Heart, salvation, travel
“Flat outstretched upon a mound
Of earth I lie; I press my ear
Against its surface and I hear
Far off and deep, the measured sound
Of heart that beats within the ground.
And with it pounds in harmony
The swift, familiar heart in me.
They pulse as one, together swell,
Together fall; I cannot tell
My sound from earth’s, for I am part
Of rhythmic, universal heart.”
― Elizabeth Odell
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, local, nature, personal, photography, poetry, spirituality, travel, Wales
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