Lay up for yourselves treasures... IN Heaven?

Truly, as Gary Chapman penned, there is a treasure at the end of this road we are traveling... But there is a treasure now. The treasure of walking with Christ in this world. The treasure of making a real attempt to please the Lord, in our lives and dispositions of situations. We can only attempt to please Him. He is pleased at the attempt. He considers our frame that we are dust. All of those awful missteps and horrible thoughts that we have harbored and that grieve our hearts, who want to live for Him, won't torture us throughout eternity, in our glorified states. But what of those who have no care for pleasing Him on this earth. "We are not under the law?" Who is the fruition of the law? Jesus. He is the full embodiment of the law enfleshed and our breaking of that law is a grief to the Spirit and the Father for it displeases Him and tore the body of Our only Holy Savior. We added to His grief in our sin. This should dissuade us from our sinful passions. This should comfort us in our confession of sin that their price is paid in Christ and we have no part in that payment. He paid for "such a worm as I". I who only half-heartedly flee my sins, in this estate of life, can look forward to a time when my whole soul will live pleasing to my dear God! Help us Lord to live in the light of that day. I don't believe in purgatory, but I do believe that we do or don't lay up treasures here on earth or in heaven. The grief of knowing that I didn't have communion with the accessible Spirit of God because of my sins, is a sad one to regret.

"Lord, Give us grace, that we, like them the meek and lowly, on High may dwell with Thee!"

Jesus paid it all!

Pages 62 and 63 of the Christian's Daily Walk... When I come to these pages where my experience has been whipped by my conscience more times than I can remember and nearly swept myself out completely, applying them to myself, in deepest of griefs, I am comforted to know that this is not the reason that Christ came. He came that we might have life, not continued whelps on our souls. Jesus came into the world not to "condemn the world" but that the world through Him might be saved. We cannot save ourselves by reading or by penance or by self flagellation. Halleluia, He has taken the whip out of my hands and replaced it with His own real comforts. He bought our great salvation! The new word for me is the nurture of the soul.

mourning over sin, Us 4, No More!

Pages 82 and 83 of Christian's Daily Walk, really blessed my heart, this morning, in a wondrous way.

I had seen the benefits of corporate fasting, in our fledgling Church and I certainly couldn't have put it better than the writer of the Christian's Daily Walk, in this morning's "crack"{as I call it}. I read consecutively through the Bible, but I never crack it. I do, however Crack the "Daily Walk" and often to the eternal profit of my soul. This time the 4 that he refered to was my own mourning over the sins of my soul, my family, people of high stature and those whose decisions are governing our lives, etc. What an all-inclusive, us 4, he referred to. I will upload the page asap.

The joy of having one Great Shepherd! The Lord Jesus

"All are ours and we are Christ's and Christ is God's"

There are so many shepherds who are preaching God's Word in truth. This cyber-season of mediation has distanced us from so much exclusivity in our relationship with our "Under-Shepherds", I fear.

Are we in danger of despising the Word, as well as the delivery?

I really fear that may be the case in my own heart. I pray for my brethren, whose task it is to "Break the Bread of Life" to God's sheep in our consumer driven society in cyber-space. Do I really listen for my own edification? Am I committed to pray for my Pastor's soul? Am I committed to act on the Word that He preaches? Sometimes, I find that the devil uses the deluge of ability to hear any and all preachers to deceive me from acting on any one problem that God is dealing with in my soul.

My other brethren who are preachers and who have endeared themselves to me, in one way or another have their own sheep to tend to and their own souls to answer for. My pastor is my pastor and I am grateful for his labors on my behalf. He sees and knows me and deals with our congregation in the light of eternity.

THusly, I take a break for a while from other sermons to tend to my own soul in reality and apply one sermon to my soul, at a time. Multitasking is misused in my spiritual life, I must nip it in the bud.

Break Thou the Bread of Life, Dear Lord, to me, As Thou didst break the bread Beside the sea. Beyond the sacred page I seek Thee, Lord; My spirit pants for Thee, O living Word. Thou art the Bread of Life, O Lord, to me; Thy holy Word the truth That saveth me. Give me to eat and live With Thee above, Teach me to love Thy truth, For Thou art love. O send Thy Spirit, Lord, Now unto me, That He may touch my eyes, And make me see. Show me the truth concealed Within Thy Word, That in Thy Book revealed I see Thee, Lord. Bless Thou the Bread of Life To me, to me, As Thou didst bless the loaves By Galilee; Then shall all bondage cease, All fetters fall; And I shall find my peace, My All in all.

Save Our Souls and Spare Our Time!

SOS and SOT God, You were entreated by Abraham to spare His Time and to save His soul and those who were dear to Him. We don't deserve the least of Your mercies. None are righteous, except Your Son, Jesus! None inherit righteousness, only by accepting the righteousness of Christ are we accepted into the "Beloved". Jesus paid it all and intercedes for us everyday. We are intercessors for our culture and our day. Like Abraham, for the sake of Your dear Son, God of All Creation. Not even the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is able to pay for the sins of the world. Only the perfect sacrifice of Christ is able to pay for our sins. See of His Travail, dear God. Make us into the Christians that You would have us be to win our world and grow us up into the Church light for the time that we are living in. Make us woo our world to the love of Christ that has already been revealed to us. Help us live up to the unmerited privileges of having Your Word and Your heart revealed in such lavishness upon us. Not for the glory of any pagan culture, as is our wicked habit{to desire and build remembrances to our own selves}. Only for the glory of the one true and living God and our Saviour Jesus Christ! We love You Lord and we are grateful to be accepted for the sake of Christ. Help us and SOS and SOT! in Jesus' Name, Amen. Not just us and our children, but our fathers and mothers and those that are afar off! Take captivity captive, Lord! Use Your Church.

He Promised never to leave me...Halleluia!

What an Interesting Providence to have heard Pastor Ryken, this morning.

Here I raise my Ebenezer

Here I Raise My Ebenezer? Hither by Thy help I come, and I hope, by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home!

__________________________________________________________________________________ Ebenezer Balfour vs. godly Alexander who reared David, who went to his uncle in Kidnapped Ebenezer Scrooge Ebenezer Boston 2 Boston sons died in infancy---

Zechariah 12:7 The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah. Zechariah 12:12 And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; Zechariah 12:13 The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; Zechariah 12:14 All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.

In my observation of Zechariah in my devotions; The scripture here makes a real distinction between the mourning of family for the bereaving and the grief of the mother apart. The family of the LORD Jesus they were all. There is a grief of family loss and there is a grief of the mother apart. God boils us together in our griefs. Family grief and mother grief{apart}. This passage is ultimately fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of His people and we enter into it when we come to Him and embrace His sacrifice as efficatious on our behalf.

In a very distant sense, there is an exaltation of those who have become one in Christ, as Gentiles, to exalt our pagan cultures above the Jewish Christians. That is abhorred. We are to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and not expect our redemption to overshadow, in any way the drawing that God intends, in His providence, whenever in history that drawing may occur. We must be always willing to set our "pagan"perspectives aside for the truth of Christ. This is why we must submit ourselves to a joint effort of the Church Universal in its dominion on the earth. Christ's reign on earth is in and through His Church. We become one in Christ. No longer Jew or Gentile, but "ONE NEW MAN". The only head of the church is Christ and not our individual perspectives. Paul was saying this in so many ways in the New Testament, that if it was wrong for the Jews to exalt circumcision as another level of sanctification; it is certain that those pagan gnostic separations are abhorrent to God. The question in the New Covenant is how much of your cultural mores and systems will you bequeath, as it were, to God's Rule.

I can really imagine Thomas Boston almost losing faith altogether. Lord, I have come to YOU with intention to rear this one in the fear of God and You have given me the darkest providence. In my prayerlife, I have really struggled deeply with first questioning my ability to want to please God and then God's hearing of me in my devoted aspiration, perhaps. God is not culpable, ever! But can I believe in a God who would not hear me in this deepest prayer? Grief against God and grief against self and grief against those whose providences haven't been so very invasive.

Today, I pray for Pastor Ryken and others whose providences have endured the loss of only sons. God grant peace and hope in the rubble of the hearts. In Jesus' Name, Amen.