The past is the present is the future

The past is the now – the future is the now. Is there an end to the cycle?

This CS Lewis audio is rich in thought, prophetic in application and that’s actually one of the zinger points of it. Truth is self fulfilling. It is the thing it is. It cannot not fulfil.

Change the words atomic bomb to weather, cancer, global warming, terrorism, over population, asteroids, solar storms – it’s still the same story.

Atheist, agnostic, scientist, believer (these categories are not all mutually excluding, though some obviously are) – there is something here for us all to chew on. Doodler guy – very nice skills.

She always comes back

Things I’ve lost my wife to …..

• E.R.
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Macbook Air
• The Bridge
• Salamander

Image source – click image

but she always comes back. x

Up to the Future – Hymns that transport

I haven’t yet spent near enough time blogging about my love of singing – both individual and corporate worship. I like the old stuff (if it’s good) and the new stuff (if it’s good). Something I began to notice recently is a very special feature of many old hymns. The closing verse goes up in pitch and forward in time. By that I mean it raises in fulness and height of notes (or something – I have no musical knowledge or gifts) and it also transports us to a wonderful place in the future.

Boy, I get such a blessing when we get to those verses. I love the crescendo thing that happens but I love the stirring and beautiful imagery that captures a future reality – seen and sung today with eyes of faith. The beautiful, true, full future life in and with God – will be experienced in ways not yet realised. That will be a day, an eternity of days when all will be clear, when Jesus will wipe away every tear.We will know all things we wish to know and all that cannot be known will no longer be yearned for.

Revelation 21:3-7 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death^‘ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

I do want to encourage you to buy some old hymns. Very very cheap on t’internet. Buy a 4 CD set for under £10 delivered. Copy onto your mp3 player and listen to great and beautiful hymns while journeying to work or school or play. And every now and then you will encounter one with that finale drive upwards and futurewards. As you journey by car, bus, train, bike (careful) a secondary transportation will occur – above and beyond self, beyond time, trouble and tribulations. Upon landing you will feel empowered to face the day. For in these sung truths you will encounter God, his promises and you will be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. Now imagine what that might be like if you experienced this with dozens or hundreds of other worshiping christians. Glorious.

Here are 3 beautiful examples

Amazing Grace

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun.

And can it be that I should gain

1. And can it be that I should gain
   An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?
   Died He for me, who caused His pain?
   For me, who Him to death pursued?
   Amazing love! how can it be
   That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
   Amazing love! how can it be
   That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
2. ’Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies!
   Who can explore His strange design?
   In vain the firstborn seraph tries
   To sound the depths of love Divine!
   ’Tis mercy all! let earth adore,
   Let angel minds inquire no more.
   ’Tis mercy all! let earth adore,
   Let angel minds inquire no more.
3. He left His Father’s throne above,
   So free, so infinite His grace;
   Emptied Himself of all but love,
   And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
   ’Tis mercy all, immense and free;
   For, O my God, it found out me.
   ’Tis mercy all, immense and free;
   For, O my God, it found out me.
4. Long my imprisoned spirit lay
   Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
   Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
   I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
   My chains fell off, my heart was free,
   I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
   My chains fell off, my heart was free,
   I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

5. No condemnation now I dread;
   Jesus, and all in Him, is mine!
   Alive in Him, my living Head,
   And clothed in righteousness Divine,
   Bold I approach the eternal throne,
   And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
   Bold I approach the eternal throne,
   And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

How great thou art

VERSE #1
O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Chorus:
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

VERSE #2
When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Chorus:
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

VERSE #3
And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Chorus:
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

VERSE #4
When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: “My God, how great Thou art!”  & chorus

Cost – a reflection (episode 2)

Episode one here

Costs are rising

or is it just our awareness of what the cost is – becoming?

knowing what is at stake

makes the cost seem trivial –

knowing who is at stake

makes me seem trivial –

the costs are rising

awareness is rising

others are at stake

how long will I continue to be trivial?

Music Mondays – Classic. Who do you say I am?

Who do you say I am?

This is the question the messiah Jesus asked Peter (Simon Peter).

Here is a song from a brother – gone to be with Christ – which addresses that question and explores what may people say and have said over the years about Jesus. Larry Norman died this day in 2008.

Larry was a man of great gifting (talent), complexity and depth (a blessing and reportedly a nightmare). Larry was not a prophet – for Jesus is that last Prophet (being the one whom all previous prophets spoke of and pointed to). Yet his songs are often prophetic in content.

Not all his songs were great – but he wrote and crafted at least a dozen masterpieces. Here’s one from 1972.

Matthew 16:13-20

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

¹⁴ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷ Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter,^[a] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades^[b] will not overcome it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be^[c] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be^[d] loosed in heaven.” ²⁰ Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Scripture section elecronically sourced from http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16:13-20

Pet peaves of the ‘acting’ kind

Actors who so often just seem to play themselves and therefore can’t be taken too seriously – no offense!

Whoopi Goldberg – cannot watch for longer than 10 seconds – I’m exaggerating by 8 seconds (does that mean I can watch her for 2 or 18 ? – you decide).

Michael Caine – but getting better as he gets older

Harrison Ford – definitely getting worse as he gets older

Jack Nicholson – possibly the worst culprit – hope I don’t get into trouble with the cool kids for saying this

Steven Seaga …. oh I can’t be bothered

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoopi_Goldberg

Don’t be weird!

Ouch! but thanks Adam. We have the same popular version of this scripture in Britain. Go figure.

What is truth?

I previously mentioned (here) this valuable book Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith by Douglas Groothuis, Professor of Philosopy at Denver Seminary, USA. Here’s a piece from the introduction (p16)

We are all citizens of the universe – anxious travelers, much of the time, passing through our days and nights in uncertainty and confusion concerning what matters most. In one sense, we are alone. No one else will live our life or die our death. Each self is unique, responsible and indissoluble. Yet our fate is bound up with our world and our fellow travelers, each of whom has a particular way of coping with – or avoiding – these insistent immensities. We are alone – together.

What if the millenia of human cries echo only into the empty sky and no further? That possibility must be faced if the quest itself is to have any meaning. In the end, hope without truth is pointless. Illusions and delusions, no matter how comforting or grandiose, are the enemies of those who strive for integrity in their knowing and being. Statements such as “I’d like to think of the universe as having a purpose” or “The thought of an afterlife gives me peace” reflect mere wishes. These notions do not address the truth or falsity of there being purpose in the world or of our postmortem survival, because there is no genuine claim to knowledge; a warranted awareness of reality as it really is. A hearty, sturdy and insatiable appetite for reality – whatever it might be – is the only engine for testing and discerning truth. Truth is what matters most, particularly truth concerning our human condition in the world – its origin, its nature, its purpose (if any) and its destiny. Knowing the truth and living according to its requirements should be the hope and aspiration of the reflective person. Only our knowledge of truth – our awareness of reality, no matter how sketchy or partial – can help resolve the inner bickering between the claims of hope and the fears of despair.

In many ways, my own journey to faith in Jesus, has been through the question ‘What is truth?’. What is the truely true and the really real? The Father in drawing me into the truth of the Son by the Spirit practically destroyed me – literally. But on the battlefield between life and death I arrived at a precipice thought – If God is really there, I do want to know him. This was beyond wishful thinking, comforting ideas, childhood reminiscences. I had already visited those shrines and found them desolate. Life and the prospect of death had stripped me bare to my most real and now I was asking a question not solely as an intellectual exercise but I had positioned myself or been positioned to surrender to the answer. If God was not there – then futility would be explored to the maximum. If God was there – then I would live in the reality, beauty, suffering and life of that reality. Again to the maximum. For the first time ever I was falling without a parachute. When you are at your most real, your most true, when everything is stripped away – then the one who lives in unapproachable light just may approach you.

1 Timothy 6:11-16 *

¹¹ But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. ¹² Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. ¹³ In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you ¹⁴ to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵ which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, ¹⁶ who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

So my prayer to the triune God (Father, Son & Holy Spirit) for you is:

• That you will strive for integrity in your knowing and your being
• That you will pursue the meaning of life beyond your mere wishes
• That you will have a hearty, sturdy and insatiable appetite for the really real
• That this insatiable engine will test and discern the truely true
• That through reflection and aspiration you then live according to the truth
• That hope grounded on the reality of truth will aid you to live in a despairing world
• and I ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord. Amen (so let it be).

All this puts me in the mood for the serious and beautiful song Skin by Vigilantes of Love from their album Blister Soul (1995). Let the reflective beware this song rewards the repeat button.

* Scripture sourced electronically from http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%206&version=NIV

Picture of Grace – One

What does grace look like lived out. Firstly, lets do the basic housekeeping and define grace. Grace is unmerited favour. It is the provision of goodness and blessing that you did not earn or deserve in any way at all – big or small. Grace points to the extraordinary kindness of the giver of grace. It does not obscure the undeservedness of the one to whom grace is extended. The absence of grace (if the giver did not extend it to you) would leave you without a case for complaint to anyone. If it did, the grounds of your complaint would be the very ground on which you could actually say I do deserve some of this kindness even if only in a tiny tiny measure. Grace is the filling of empty hands with gifts abundant.

Tullian Tchividjian is my go-to guy for thinking through what Grace is and is not, how it works or how it deals with works. For clarity, works are your best bits in action – your kindness and all round greatness and stuff like that – the things you do that make you think “you know what? I am an alright person, I’m going to be ok. I know it and I think God probably knows it too.”

Tullian writes extensively about grace and has provided may wonderful pictures of grace at work extraordinarily in real life that I want to share with you. For now here’s one of them.

Punk’d by Grace

During a radio interview last week, the interviewer told me a story that gets to the heart of how grace transforms.

He was a camp counselor one summer and one of his responsibilities was to go around with another counselor and check the cabins every morning while the students were at breakfast. In order to motivate them to keep their cabins clean, awards were given at the morning assembly to the students who had the cleanest cabin. One morning the counselors walked into one of the cabins only to discover that it had been intentionally trashed. The students thought it would be funny to “break the law” and do the exact opposite of what they had been asked to do. Clothes everywhere. Food all over the floor. Words written on the bathroom mirrors with soap. Wet towels balled up in every corner. The place was a complete disaster.

The two counselors were speechless. The one looked at the other and asked, “What should we do?” After pausing for a moment, the guy who was interviewing me finally answered, “Let’s clean it up.” His buddy looked at him like he was crazy: “Clean it up? Are you kidding? These punks need to be punished! I’m not cleaning up their mess.” The other one said, “Well, I’m going to clean it up. And by the time I’m done with it, these kids will win the award today for the cleanest cabin.” After some moaning and groaning, his buddy decided to help him. They cleaned the whole cabin while the students were at breakfast. Picked up and folded all the clothes, scrubbed all the soap off the bathroom mirrors, vacuumed up all the food, made all the beds, and hung all the wet towels up to dry on the clothes line right outside the cabin. Then they left without saying a word to anyone.

When the students came back from breakfast, thinking they had pulled off a great prank, they couldn’t believe their eyes. They were the ones who were now speechless. They initially thought they were now going to be in double trouble. They sheepishly made their way to the morning assembly. When the award for the cleanest cabin was announced and they won, they couldn’t believe it. Instead of being punished, they were rewarded. They all found the two counselors who had cleaned up their wrecked room and begged for forgiveness. And, according to the guy who was interviewing me, those boys kept the cleanest cabin for the rest of the week.

What those boys experienced was what theologians call “double-imputation.” Not only did someone else bear their punishment (having to clean up the miserable mess they made) but they were rewarded for someone else’s “righteousness.” As my friend Scotty Smith recently said, “The gospel isn’t merely the absence of all condemnation; it’s also the fullness of God’s delight lavished on us in Christ.”

And notice…the result of this irrational act of grace toward these boys was NOT worse behavior. It was sorrow and transformation. These punks were punk’d by grace…and they would never forget it.

Music Mondays – Classic

Good enough for dozens of movie soundtracks and good enough for Humble Donkey – try to play this through your some decent headphones or speakers (not laptop speakers) and enjoy.

The story of this great song leaves the Sinnerman without hope. I would point the Sinnerman in question and any sinner man you know to Jesus the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. By repenting of sin and believing on the Lamb who takes it away you will find him to be a Perfect Saviour.

John 1:29 The next day he (John the Baptist) saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

The Gospel – a six minute overiew

Must see – must hear – must ingest – must meditate – must believe

This could save your life

Piper gets proclaiming and personal

The Gospel – Trip Lee raps it up

Must see – must hear – must ingest – must meditate – must believe

This could save your life

Oh dear

 

Oh Thank you – O My Father for giving us your Son

The Gospel – what is the gospel?

Must see – must hear – must ingest – must meditate – must believe

This could save your life

also

I [Jonathan Parnell at desiring God] might say something like this:

The gospel is that Jesus Christ came to the earth to die for our sins, that he was raised from the dead, and is enthroned as Lord of all, and that when we repent and believe in him he brings us into fellowship with God by his Spirit and makes us new creatures fit for a new world.

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/tell-your-co-worker-the-gospel

Oh wow – such love

Oh yes

Interrupting this Gospel series

to tell my wife

The Gospel – gritty glory

Must see – must hear – must ingest – must meditate – must believe

This could save your life

The Gospel – good news about that Christmas!

Must see – must hear – must ingest – must meditate – must believe

This could save your life