Preserve the teaching of God;
entrust his instructions to those who follow me.
I will wait for the Lord,
who has turned away from the descendants of Jacob.
I will put my hope in him.
-Isaiah 8:16-17 NLT
Posted by: jakinnan | August 19, 2014
08/19/2014 Scripture
Posted by: jakinnan | August 19, 2014
08/18/2014 Scripture
The people who walk in darkness
will see a great light.
For those who live in a land of deep darkness,
a light will shine.
For a child is born to us,
a son is given to us.
The government will rest on his shoulders.
And he will be called:
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His government and its peace
will never end.
He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David
for all eternity.
The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies
will make this happen!
-Isaiah 9:2&6-7 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, Christ, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, nature, ocean, personal, photography, salvation, Sunset
Posted by: jakinnan | August 17, 2014
Do You Not Know That Your Body Is a Temple of the Holy Spirit?
![IMG_3485[1]](https://hiking2christ.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/img_34851.jpg)
Each person knows that now his body is the temple of God: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (1 Cor. 6:19). Indeed it is. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). Okay—each of us is now the temple of God. So where, then, is the Holy of Holies? Your heart.
That’s right—your heart. Paul teaches us in Ephesians that “Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith” (3:17). God comes down to dwell in us, in our hearts. Now, we know this: God cannot dwell where there is evil. “You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell” (Ps. 5:4). Something pretty dramatic must have happened in our hearts, then, to make them fit to be the dwelling place of a holy God.
Of course, none of this can happen for us until we give our lives back to God. We cannot know the joy or the life or the freedom of heart I’ve described here until we surrender our lives to Jesus and surrender them totally. Renouncing all the ways we have turned from God in our hearts, we forsake the idols we have worshiped and given our hearts over to. We turn, and give ourselves body, soul, and spirit back to God, asking him to cleanse our hearts and make them new.
– John Eldredge, Waking the Dead
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: Christ, faith, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation, utah
Posted by: jakinnan | August 17, 2014
08/17/2014 Scripture
![IMG_3511[1]](https://hiking2christ.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/img_35111.jpg)
In that day the heir to David’s throne
will be a banner of salvation to all the world.
The nations will rally to him,
and the land where he lives will be a glorious place.
-Isaiah 11:10 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, Christ, earth, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, nature, personal, photography, salvation, utah
Posted by: jakinnan | August 16, 2014
08/16/2014 Scripture
Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot—
yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.
And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
He will delight in obeying the Lord.
He will not judge by appearance
nor make a decision based on hearsay.
He will give justice to the poor
and make fair decisions for the exploited.
The earth will shake at the force of his word,
and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked.
He will wear righteousness like a belt
and truth like an undergarment.
-Isaiah 11:1-5 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, Christ, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, nature, personal, photography, salvation
Posted by: jakinnan | August 15, 2014
08/15/2014 Scripture
In that day you will sing:
“I will praise you, O Lord!
You were angry with me, but not any more.
Now you comfort me.
See, God has come to save me.
I will trust in him and not be afraid.
The Lord God is my strength and my song;
he has given me victory.”
With joy you will drink deeply
from the fountain of salvation!
n that wonderful day you will sing:
“Thank the Lord! Praise his name!
Tell the nations what he has done.
Let them know how mighty he is!
Sing to the Lord, for he has done wonderful things.
Make known his praise around the world.
Let all the people of Jerusalem shout his praise with joy!
For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you.”
-Isaiah 12:1-6 NLT
Posted by: jakinnan | August 14, 2014
The Assault on Our Desire
The battle of desire is not something that just takes place within us or even between us. It is also taking place against us, all the time. Our desire is under nearly constant attack. “We come into the world longing,” says Gil Bailie, “for we know not what. We are desire. And desire is good, for it’s what takes us to God. But our desire is not hard-wired to God.” So we look to others to teach us what to desire. We are intensely imitative creatures, as Aristotle pointed out. It is how we learn language; it is how we master just about anything in life. It is also how we come to seize upon the objects of our desire. We all know this, though we don’t like to admit it.
One example should suffice. I was at a garage sale, looking for some tools. There was a table saw at a wonderful price. Another fellow was sort of browsing around, standing in front of the saw but not seeming particularly interested. I opened my mouth and made the fatal error: “Wow, that’s a great price on that saw.” You know what happened next. Immediately, his nonchalance became intense interest, and since he was there before me, he drove off with a table saw that five minutes earlier he couldn’t have given two hoots about.
The constant effort to arouse our desire and capture it can be described only as an assault. From the time we get up to the time we go to bed, we are inundated with one underlying message: it can be done. The life you are longing for can be achieved. Only buy this product, see this movie, drive this car, take this vacation, join this gym, what have you. The only disagreement is over the means, but everyone agrees on the end: we can find life now.
– John Eldredge, Desire
Photo: Kevin Mcneal
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: California, Christ, desire, faith, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, love, mountains, nature, ocean, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation, survival
Posted by: jakinnan | August 14, 2014
08/14/2014 Scripture
But finally the earth is at rest and quiet.
Now it can sing again!
Even the trees of the forest—
the cypress trees and the cedars of Lebanon—
sing out this joyous song:
‘Since you have been cut down,
no one will come now to cut us down!’
-Isaiah 14:7-8 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, California, earth, enviroment, faith, God, life, mountains, nature, peace, personal, photography, salvation
Posted by: jakinnan | August 13, 2014
Until We Are Broken, Our Lives Will Be Self-Centered
True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant; our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really something in and of yourself, what will you need God for? I don’t trust a man who hasn’t suffered; I don’t let a man get close to me who hasn’t faced his wound. Think of the posers you know—are they the kind of man you would call at 2:00 A.M., when life is collapsing around you? Not me. I don’t want clichés; I want deep, soulful truth, and that only comes when a man has walked the road I’ve been talking about. As Frederick Buechner says,
To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do—to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst—is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed. (The Sacred Journey)
Only when we enter our wound will we discover our true glory. As Robert Bly says, “Where a man’s wound is, that is where his genius will be.” There are two reasons for this. First, the wound was given in the place of your true strength, as an effort to take you out. Until you go there you are still posing, offering something more shallow and insubstantial. And therefore, second, it is out of your brokenness that you discover what you have to offer the community. The false self is never wholly false. Those gifts we’ve been using are often quite true about us, but we’ve used them to hide behind. We thought that the power of our life was in the golden bat, but the power is in us. When we begin to offer not merely our gifts but our true selves, that is when we become powerful.
– John Eldredge, Wild at Heart
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: Christ, faith, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation, survival
Posted by: jakinnan | August 13, 2014
08/13/2014 Scripture
When oppression and destruction have ended
and enemy raiders have disappeared,
then God will establish one of David’s descendants as king.
He will rule with mercy and truth.
He will always do what is just
and be eager to do what is right.
-Isaiah 16:4-5 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, Christ, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, mountains, nature, personal, photography, salvation, survival
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