I watched this happy video of a puppy waiting for his boy to return home from school. I’d planned to put it on my other blog as a happy little pick-me-up. But it’s almost impossible for me to see anything and not make a spiritual application, lol. So here it is. First, the happy puppy:
Awww!! So cute! Here is the question I ask us all, myself included. Are we a puppy? Do we show obvious and generous and committed love to people? Do we rush to pick up their burdens? Are we excited to see them? To the point of eagerly waiting?
Do we patiently wait for the Lord’s Day then joyfully bound into church with expectation of ‘seeing’ the Master? Are we excited for hymn singing and fellowship among the brethren?
Just sayin’
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)
“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42).
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)
“For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;” (Romans 1:11)
I am a literacy educator in a lower elementary school. I am also a writer. I am an editor. And I have been a voracious reader since I read “Dick and Jane“.
I love words, everything about words. Words have great impact. Nothing will convince me otherwise.
I read an interesting list of points an author made about John Bunyan’s conversion. John Bunyan was the writer of Pilgrim’s Progress, a book many say is the most important book in English ever written, apart from the Bible. It is without doubt a literary masterpiece. It has stood the test of time since its publication in 1678. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature in history. And the man who wrote it was raised as an atheist.
“John Bunyan had no family influences encouraging him to become a Christian. … In June 1644 when he was 16 his mother passed away and four weeks later his sister died. Eight weeks after his mother’s death his father remarried and in 8 months his wife gave birth to a boy whom his Royalist father named ‘Charles’. Four months earlier John had left home and had joined the Parliamentary Army fighting against King Charles. There was little affection between son and father. How then did John Bunyan become a Christian? There were ten factors which all played their part, great and small:”
One of these factors caught my attention-
Bunyan was stirred by the godly conversation of Christians. He would work in Bedford and eat his bread with some Christian women who tailored their conversation for his ears. They talked of their own sin, the new birth, and the love of Christ. Bunyan listened intently and later wrote, ‘They spoke as if joy was making them speak. They were to me as if they had found a new world,’ and he often sought them out and sat with them.
‘they tailored their conversation for his ears.’ How important it is, to speak of Jesus in truth for known hearers and unknown hearers! The women must have seen the Spirit working in Bunyan, and they made a choice to and selflessly not speak of the carnal or mundane or the personal, but of the joy of His grace!
They were living this:
Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:6)
Gill’s Exposition says of the Colossians verse,
“let grace be the subject matter of your speech and conversation. When saints meet together they should converse with each other about the work of grace upon their souls, how it was begun, and how it has been carried on, and in what case it now is; they should talk of the great things and wonders of grace, which God has done for them, which would be both comfortable and edifying to them, and make for the glory of the grace of God”
Parents carry a pulpit with them. And from it, thousands of times a day, we preach a sermon to our kids. Whether the sermon is a good one or a bad one, we can be sure of this one thing.
Whether we are preachers exhorting in church, parents teaching our children, or two simple Puritan Christian ladies serving lunch to an obviously tortured soul in John Bunyan, we have the privilege and the responsibility to speak ‘as if joy was making us speak.’
What glory it brings the Lord when we intentionally speak of the riches of His grace. Hearers known and unknown to us, Christian and perishing, listen to us and our Spirit-carried words,
For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. (2 Corinthians 2:16)
For John Bunyan, the ladies’ words were the aroma of life to life (‘he often sought them out and sat with them‘). Therefore season your conversation with love, joy, and salt, and watch with admiration and joy where He carries your words. For we all have a pulpit.
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:36)
Isn’t it comforting to know that God ordains every single thing that happens, even every droplet in the fog bank rolling over the beach roses at the easternmost point of a nation.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1
In the late 1980s I was inspired by the movie Shirley Valentine, a film that depicted a middle-aged London wife unhappy with her boring husband and her dreary life. “I want to sip wine in the place where the grape is grown” Shirley had said. So she chucked her husband and her life and jetted off to sunny Greece, swam topless, had an affair, and decided to stay. I guess she liked the wine better than her husband.
Vineyard, Chiusi, Tuscany. EPrata photo
I was very much taken with the notion of changing one’s life. I was entranced by Shirley’s life mantra, of ‘sipping wine in the place where the grape is grown’. I had tried a conventional life, but my husband had chucked me, I was saddled with a house in a dreary climate and three jobs to pay for it. I wanted more. Sipping wine in places where it’s grown was certainly not the dying mill city of snowy Maine. It bespoke of gentle Tuscan hillsides, green California dreams, or Greek whitewashed stucco. What a goal, Shirley, what a goal.
I went to wine places. California, Tuscany, South of France, rolling hills and grape vines abounding. But wine was just wine and the problem was the same. I met my goal. It was empty.
I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. … Ecclesiastes 2:3
What was the meaning of life? Where was permanence, solidity, something that would not disappear in a breath? Something that would give lasting joy, meaning, and purpose? What is man’s chief end??
Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:2-4, 11).
Question. 1. What is the chief end of man? Answer. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever. Westminster Shorter Catechism
Here are two ends of life specified. 1. The glorifying of God. 2. The enjoying of God.
First. The glorifying of God, 1 Pet. 4:11. “That God in all things may be glorified.” The glory of God is a silver thread which must run through all our actions. l Cor. 10:31. “Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
Everything works to some end in things natural and artificial; now, man being a rational creature, must propose some end to himself, and that should be, that he may lift up God in the world. He had better lose his life than the end of his living.
The great truth asserted is that the end of every man’s living should be to glorify God. Glorifying God has respect to all the persons in the Trinity; it respects God the Father who gave us life; God the Son, who lost his life for us; and God the Holy Ghost, who produces a new life in us; we must bring glory to the whole Trinity.
Q. What is it to glorify God? A. Glorifying God consists in four things: 1. Appreciation, 2. Adoration, 3. Affection, 4. Subjection. This is the yearly rent we pay to the crown of heaven.
Watson continued in his sermon to explain what and how to appreciate, adore, love, and submit to God.
King Solomon, who wrote Ecclesiastes concludes with the eternal wisdom:
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of every human being. (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
Wine is vanity, travel is vanity. All we do when we relocate is bring our depravity with us. We are the problem. Godless, we are adrift in a sea of evil, wafting from one vain flurry to another. Drifting as dust motes upon an acid air, we leave evil, bring evil, and expire as evil. We believe ourselves to be maidens of rosy blush and coy innocence, when we are simply mud mounds cast upon miry shores. Godless, we are drenched with corruption.
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. (Genesis 6:5,12).
When we are saved by His grace through faith, we are cleansed, our sin nature is given a Helper. We are dressed in white robes and stood on our feet, no longer to crawl in the dust like the serpent. We are given a will and testament that promises eternal peace, treasures, crowns, and dwellings in glory with the Savior. Our goal shifts to one of giving Him glory and enjoying Him forever.
I was listening to a Grace Community Church Question and Answer session. I always appreciate how John MacArthur can sum up complex theological thoughts and issues so succinctly. I also enjoy the variety of questions. There came a question from what sounded like a very young boy.
Q. [W]why didn’t Jesus stop Eve at the garden of Eden when she ate the fruit? Like, I mean, pow, He can just stop it like that. Why didn’t He?
The audience laughed in delight at the boy’s voice, obviously filled with pique and awe, and the profundity of his query. The answer was equally profound. Follow the link above to listen or read.
I got to thinking more about that moment. We often field a question such as that one. We also tend to ask why didn’t God erase Adam and Eve and start humankind over again? But it occurred to me that this next question isn’t always asked, ‘After the Fall, why did God continue to reveal Himself?’
After the Fall He could have turned His back on humans, and returned to His perfect communion within the Trinity. He could have shrugged, left us to our own devices on earth all our lives and then pow, when we die we wake up in hell, not knowing it even existed.
God didn’t do that.
We often field the question, ‘If God is so loving why does he send people to hell?’ He does that so that His power and holiness and justice and righteousness can be magnified. But He doesn’t do so as a bait and switch or a trick. He has revealed Himself to us in His word, in His creation, in His Son, and in His elect through the Spirit. They know hell exists. They know they deserve to go there. (Romans 1:21-23).
Our God, your God whether you believe He exists or not, loves His world and continues to work His sovereign plan of salvation in it upon those whom He has foreknown. He will be glorified. (Isaiah 49:3, Ezekiel 28:22, Haggai 1:8, John 12:28).
He will be glorified. And He chose to do it starting with a snake, a piece of fruit, and a woman.
Therefore glorify the LORD in the east. Extol the name of the LORD, the God of Israel in the islands of the sea. (Isaiah 24:15).
Growing up in Rhode Island in the 1960s was a fun experience. The nation’s smallest state is beautiful and the ocean and Narragansett Bay is never far from anyone who lives there. We happened to live just a few miles from the ocean and most Sundays we took a drive south to Saunderstown, crossed the Jamestown bridge, and then took the ferry to Newport. The ferry was a blast.
Newport is home to all those Jacob Astor mansions from The Gilded Age. Dad would drive the kids and mom around the island on Ocean Drive past all the mansions, past the smaller mansions on the water’s edge with their lovely lawns and rocky outcrops reaching for the sea, and then we’d have a picnic by the park and watch the boats
There was no Newport Bridge at that time. You had to take the ferry. On the ferry, we passed boats, the islands with lighthouses, and other sights. One sight always captured my attention.
Clingstone is a house built in 1905, perched atop a small, rocky island in an island group called “The Dumplings” in Narragansett Bay, near Jamestown, Rhode Island. It withstood the devastating 1938 Hurricane, (though was damaged) faced other hurricanes, storms, decay, renovation, and more. The house is known by locals as “The House on a Rock”.
Even to my young eyes the house looked strong. I mean, it’s built on a rock! I often wondered what it was like to live there.
I don’t have to wonder any more what it is like to build my house on the rock. In His grace, He saved me and taught me to cling to the rock. I have my own Clingstone now. Isn’t it funny how life goes. Jesus, who was so far from my mind for over 40 years, is my All in All now. The little girl with big eyes looking at the House on a Rock, the Rock all for her own now and a house that will never fall.
The verses below are familiar but please slow yourself and read them carefully. Then really think about it for a minute, before you go on to other things. The verses are soul-soothing. Be encouraged.
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. (Matthew 7:24-25).
My favorite doctrines are Grace, followed by Providence.
Grace that is extended by our loving God is shocking and amazing and wonderful. I was saved later in life and I remember what it felt like to live a sinful life in rebellion against God. It was confusing and upsetting, most of the time.
I read a lot, and enjoyed historical books and the world’s myths. As I read books, all the world’s made-up gods were capricious or unloving or dismissive of humans. That seemed weird to me. Even when I read of the Founding Fathers and learned about their deism, that god also seemed weird to me. The deist god created everything – including humans – but then retreated from humankind’s affairs and let us wind down of our own accord. I could not reconcile that. No one creates something only to walk away from it. Weird.
But I was pretty OK with a god who created me but left me alone to do what I wanted. As long as ‘he’ didn’t interfere with my life.
Grace given by a loving God was foreign to me and unthinkable. Because that would mean He was involved with humans, lovingly.
But that and only that God is the one true God.
He pre-existed since forever, but at the appointed time set by the Father, He came in the form of a baby who grew to be a man-God, teaching and loving and performing miracles. He died for our sins and absorbed the wrath of God on our behalf.
Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound It was not a sweet sound to me then, but it is now.
That saved a wretch like me I used to close my mouth if I happened to be at a Church service, like at Christmas, and this hymn came on. I wasn’t a wretch!, I’d mumble. And close my mouth, refusing to say the lyrics.
I once was lost, but now am found I didn’t know I was lost and I didn’t know I needed to be found.
Was blind but now I see I didn’t know I was blind. Revelation 3:17 may apply here: For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
That the Lord of All would stoop to save a wretch like me, covered in mud and dwelling with the pigs, like the Prodigal, is amazing. That He would walk into Jerusalem, knowing the cries of Hosannah! would turn bloody and hateful a week later. That He went toward his kangaroo trials, his scourging, and his death, even death upon a cross, to save filthy sinners, is amazing. What grace!
Thank you Lord, for your grace!! How wonderful that even when we’ve been there 10,000 years, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun. An eternity praising You is not enough, but what grace that I am able to do so in the first place.
Was blind but now I see…
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:5-7)
I’ve written about the brilliance of the sparkling jewel that is Jesus. That brought to mind other jewels. I am a girl, after all, lol.
The Parable of the Pearl of Great Value Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:45-46).
In the time when this text was written, pearls were the most valuable item of all. The most precious wasn’t gold, though gold was precious. Not diamonds, or other gems which are mentioned, (e.g. rubies, Prov 3:15) or silver, pearls where the most sought-after item. This makes sense, being a desert region.
The pearl oyster is found in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.
Pearls are mentioned often in the New Testament. Jesus said for believers not to throw their pearls before swine. This is a contrast of the hightest vs. lowest. Pearls, being the most expensive, are representative of God’s truth, His word. Pearls are not to be thrown before swine, the lowest of all animals to the Jews. Swine in the metaphor is representative of the worst pagans who reject, mock, and dismiss Jesus and His word.
Temple prostitutes often braided pearls into their hair as a show and display. Paul was saying in both 1 Peter 3:3-4 and 1 Timothy 2:9-10 not to dress the same as the pagan women and especially not even close to looking like the temple prostitutes. Here in 1 Timothy 2:9-10 we read,
likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. That’s why Paul connected respectability and modesty in the verse with pearls and costly attire. Culturally, it was pagans and loose women who made a show of their wealth through the way they dressed, especially with the pearls, if they had them.
Pearls are also mentioned in Revelation 21:21. It is where we get the colloquial reference to “pearly gates”.
And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
Since the walls are 1500 miles high and the gates in the walls would also have to be 1500 miles high, these pearls might be symbolic and not actual. Or they are real and made by Jesus and not by an oyster. Either way…Read this quote John MacArthur offers from his sermon on the verse, “The Capital City of Heaven“.
And then, we’ll close with this tonight, John describes the gates. And this is mind boggling. Now remember, these gates could well run the full height of the city. Verse 21, “And the twelve gates were twelve pearls.” That is some oyster. No, these have to be pearls of God’s own making. These pearls are like nothing ever produced by an oyster. Each one of the gates was a single pearl, a 15-mile-high pearl…1500-mile-high pearl. Why? Well maybe there’s some marvelous spiritual symbolism there.
John Phillips writes this, “How appropriate. All other precious gems are metals or stones, but a pearl is a gem formed within the oyster. It is the only one formed by living flesh. The humble oyster receives an irritation or a wound and around the offending article that has penetrated and hurt it, the oyster builds a pearl. The pearl, we might say, is the answer of the oyster to that which injured it. And the glory land is God’s answer in Christ to the wicked men who crucified heaven’s beloved and put Him to open shame. How like God it is to make the gates of the new Jerusalem pearls. The saints as they come and go will be forever reminded as they pass the gates of glory that access to God’s home is only because of Calvary.
“Think of the size of those gates. Think of the supernatural pearls from which they are made. What gigantic suffering is symbolized by those gates of pearl? Throughout the endless ages we shall be reminded by those pearly gates of the immensity of the sufferings of Christ. Those pearls hung eternally, as it were, at the access routes to glory will remind us forever of One who hung upon a tree and whose answer to those who injured Him was to invite them to forever share His home,” end quote.
Beautifully said, isn’t it? Heaven is entered through suffering by a wounded Redeemer. And we’ll always be reminded of it as we pass the pearls.
Pearls are beautiful, but Jesus is the most beautiful of all. That was a little information on pearls in biblical times. The luster and polish of a gorgeous pearl will be nothing compared to the glory of Jesus we will see when we get there.
I’m so glad I have a Savior who is eternal. Because He is eternal, He is independent, self-sustaining, and forever self-sufficient. He is outside of time and matter, therefore He is the I AM, as seen in these statements-
I AM the Bread of Life (John 6:35, 41, 48, 51); I AM the Light of the World (John 8:12); I AM the Door of the Sheep (John 10:7, 9); I AM the Good Shepherd (John 10:11,14); I AM the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25); I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6); I AM the True Vine (John 15:1, 5).
And these absolute statements:
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58)
God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” (Exodus 3:14).
Praise Him today for one of His attributes. Or all of them!
the-end-time.org 