Posted by: jakinnan | May 13, 2014

You Are Rich Indeed

GSDNP

Look at your possessions, believer, and compare your portion with the circumstances of your friends. Some of them have their portion in the field; they are rich, and their harvests yield them a golden increase; but what are harvests compared with your God, who is the God of harvests? What are bursting granaries compared with Him who feeds you with the bread of heaven? Some have their portion in the city; their wealth is abundant and flows to them in constant streams until they become a very reservoir of gold; but what is gold compared with your God? You could not live on it; your spiritual life could not be sustained by it. Could it grant peace to a troubled conscience? Apply it to a sad heart, and see if it could prevent a single groan or minimize one grief.

But you have God, and in Him you have more than gold or riches could ever buy. Some have their portion in something most men love—applause and fame; but ask yourself, is not your God more to you than that? Do you think that human accolades or thunderous applause could prepare you to face death or encourage you in the prospect of judgment? No! There are sorrows in life that wealth cannot alleviate; and there is the deep need of a dying hour, for which no riches can provide.

But when you have God for your portion, you have more than everything else put together. In Him every need is met, whether in life or in death. With God for your portion you are rich indeed, for He will supply your need, comfort your heart, relieve your grief, guide your steps, walk with you in the dark valley, and then take you home to enjoy Him as your portion forever.

“I have enough,” said Esau; this is the best thing a worldly man can say, but Jacob replied in essence, “I have everything,” which is a note too high for carnal minds.

– C.H. Spurgeon revised & updated by Alistair Begg

Photo: Eric Magayne

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Posted by: jakinnan | May 13, 2014

A Fear of Passion

Sunrise Teton

Dare we forget King David? Yes, his passions got him in a heap of trouble—and gave us our book of worship, the Psalms. Sure, Peter was a hotheaded disciple always quick with a reply. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane—he’s the one who lopped off the ear of the high priest’s servant. But he was also the first to acknowledge that Jesus was the Messiah, and despite his Good Fridaybetrayals he became a key apostle, contributed important pieces to the Scripture, and followed Jesus all the way to his own crucifixion, asking to be nailed to the cross upside down because he was not worthy to die in the manner of his Lord. Surely we remember that Paul was once Saul, the fiery young Pharisee “advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and . . . extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers” (Gal. 1:14). His zeal made him the foremost persecutor of the church. When Christ knocked him off his donkey on the Damascus road, Paul was hunting down the church, “uttering threats with every breath” (Acts 9:1 NLT). Christ captured his zeal, and after Damascus it led him to “work harder than all the other apostles” (1 Cor. 15:10 NLT).

Augustine was also a passionate young man, sexually licentious, enamored with the pleasures of Rome, “scratching the sore of lust,” as he would call it after Christ got hold of him. He went on to become one of the great pillars of the church, laying the foundation for the rise of Christendom after the fall of Rome. Desire, a burning passion for more, is at the heart of both saints and sinners. Those who would kill the passion altogether would murder the very essence that makes heroes of the faith.

– John Eldredge, Desire

Photo: Robert McKinney

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Posted by: jakinnan | May 13, 2014

05/13/2014 Scripture

beautiful-mountain

You were the model of perfection,
    full of wisdom and exquisite in beauty.
You were in Eden,
    the garden of God.
Your clothing was adorned with every precious stone—
    red carnelian, pale-green peridot, white moonstone,
    blue-green beryl, onyx, green jasper,
    blue lapis lazuli, turquoise, and emerald—
all beautifully crafted for you
    and set in the finest gold.
They were given to you
    on the day you were created.
I ordained and anointed you
    as the mighty angelic guardian.
You had access to the holy mountain of God
    and walked among the stones of fire.

-Ezekiel 28:12-14 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | May 12, 2014

05/12/2014 Scripture

 

Glacier Falls

“And the day will come when I will cause the ancient glory of Israel to revive, and then, Ezekiel, your words will be respected. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

-Ezekiel 29:21 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | May 11, 2014

05/11/2014 Scripture

Acadia fall

“To whom would you compare your greatness?
You are like mighty Assyria,
    which was once like a cedar of Lebanon,
with beautiful branches that cast deep forest shade
    and with its top high among the clouds.
Deep springs watered it
    and helped it to grow tall and luxuriant.
The water flowed around it like a river,
    streaming to all the trees nearby.
This great tree towered high,
    higher than all the other trees around it.
It prospered and grew long thick branches
    because of all the water at its roots.
The birds nested in its branches,
    and in its shade all the wild animals gave birth.
All the great nations of the world
    lived in its shadow.
It was strong and beautiful,
    with wide-spreading branches,
for its roots went deep
    into abundant water.
No other cedar in the garden of God
    could rival it.
No cypress had branches to equal it;
    no plane tree had boughs to compare.
No tree in the garden of God
    came close to it in beauty.
Because I made this tree so beautiful,
    and gave it such magnificent foliage,
it was the envy of all the other trees of Eden,
    the garden of God.

-Ezekiel 31:2-9 NLT

Photo: Tom Bricker

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Posted by: jakinnan | May 11, 2014

05/10/2014 Scripture

acadia

“Your people are saying, ‘The Lord isn’t doing what’s right,’ but it is they who are not doing what’s right. For again I say, when righteous people turn away from their righteous behavior and turn to evil, they will die. But if wicked people turn from their wickedness and do what is just and right, they will live. O people of Israel, you are saying, ‘The Lord isn’t doing what’s right.’ But I judge each of you according to your deeds.”

-Ezekiel 33:17-20 NLT

Photo: Tom Bricker

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Posted by: jakinnan | May 9, 2014

05/09/2014 Scripture

Meadow Stream

“For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search and find my sheep. I will be like a shepherd looking for his scattered flock. I will find my sheep and rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on that dark and cloudy day. I will bring them back home to their own land of Israel from among the peoples and nations. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel and by the rivers and in all the places where people live. Yes, I will give them good pastureland on the high hills of Israel. There they will lie down in pleasant places and feed in the lush pastures of the hills. I myself will tend my sheep and give them a place to lie down in peace, says the Sovereign Lord. I will search for my lost ones who strayed away, and I will bring them safely home again. I will bandage the injured and strengthen the weak.

-Ezekiel 34:11-16 NLT

Photo: Talo66

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Posted by: jakinnan | May 8, 2014

The Gesturing Ghost

Bombay Hook

Last May I had the opportunity, while in London, to visit the National Gallery. Loving art, and being with two of my sons—one of whom is an art major—I was excited to spend hours there. I loved the Van Gogh, the Monet, the Rembrandt paintings and more. But there was one massive disappointment. No, it was more than disappointment. Massive frustration. I did not see one portrait of Christ, in all the famous works of him, that came anywhere close to depicting Jesus as he really is. Not one. They are all of a wispy, pale Jesus, looking haunted, a ghostlike figure floating along through life making strange gestures and undecipherable statements.

 The Nativity scenes were particularly ridiculous.The classic art depicting the infant—themes now repeated on Christmas cards and in the crèche scenes displayed in churches and on suburban coffee tables—portrays a rather mature baby, very white, radiantly clean as no baby is ever clean, arms outstretched to reassure the nervous adults around him, intelligent, without need, halo glowing, conscious with an adult consciousness. Superbaby. This infant clearly never pooped his diapers. He looks ready to take up the prime ministership.

 Why did it make me angry?

 Because when we lose his personality, we lose Jesus.

– John Eldredge, Beautiful Outlaw

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Posted by: jakinnan | May 8, 2014

05/08/2014 Scripture

GalileeMountains-NoamChen

“But the mountains of Israel will produce heavy crops of fruit for my people—for they will be coming home again soon! See, I care about you, and I will pay attention to you. Your ground will be plowed and your crops planted. I will greatly increase the population of Israel, and the ruined cities will be rebuilt and filled with people. I will increase not only the people, but also your animals. O mountains of Israel, I will bring people to live on you once again. I will make you even more prosperous than you were before. Then you will know that I am the Lord. I will cause my people to walk on you once again, and you will be their territory. You will never again rob them of their children.

-Ezekiel 36:8-12 NLT

Photo: Noam Chen

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Posted by: jakinnan | May 7, 2014

Can Our Lives Be Green Again?

Joshua Tree

Can it really happen? Can things in our lives be green again? No matter what our creeds may tell us, our hearts have settled into another belief. We have accepted the winter of this world as the final word and tried to get on without the hope of spring. It will never come, we have assumed, and so I must find whatever life here I can. We have been so committed to arranging for our happiness that we have missed the signs of spring. We haven’t given any serious thought to what might be around the corner. Were eternity to appear tomorrow, we would be as shocked as I have been with the return of spring this week, only more so. Our practical agnosticism would be revealed. Pascal declared,

Our imagination so powerfully magnifies time, by continual reflections upon it, and so diminishes eternity . . . for want of reflection, that we make a nothing of eternity and an eternity of nothing.

But of course we aspire to happiness we can enjoy now. Our hearts have no place else to go. We have made a nothing of eternity. If I told you that your income would triple next year, and that European vacation you’ve wanted is just around the corner, you’d be excited, hopeful. The future would look promising. It seems possible, desirable. But our ideas of heaven, while possible, aren’t all that desirable. Whatever it is we think is coming in the next season of our existence, we don’t think it is worth getting all that excited about. We make a nothing of eternity by enlarging the significance of this life and by diminishing the reality of what the next life is all about.

 – John Eldredge, Desire

Photo: Manish Mamtani

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