Thank You

Being a carpenter, He understood it well beyond others.
Each time he hammered a nail through a piece of wood.

He knew since the beginning that He was going to die.
He knew since the beginning How He was going to die.

Yet he lived his whole life as a sacrifice for us.
He ate with us, taught us, served us, all the while
knowing that we would crucify Him.

He didn't have to say a word
yet He did to show us how

we should live, overcome, fight

if anyone is worthy to be praised
anyone worthy to be glorified, elevated

it's Him.

why do we not understand?
Why do I forget?

Thank you for your life, death, and resurrection.
Invisible, you are still there, always.
BECAUSE you live, I can face tomorrow.
Because you LIVE, All Fear is Gone.
Because I know YOU hold the future
and life is worth the living
JUST because you live.

Word

"An Urgent Message, (March 7)"

http://davidwilkersontoday.blogspot.com/

Prophet?

Proximity

Michel-Ange : La Création d'Adam, fresque de la Chapelle Sixtine.


In this painting, we have Man represented by Adam on the left, and God on the right.

Let's analyze. Who is making the effort in this scene?


Clearly, God is doing all He can: Going against the wind, beard blowing around, turned towards Adam, Fully outstretched arms and hand and finger.


Adam: By the way his arm's leaning casually, we can say that he'd been gazing in the other direction, just chilling nonchalantly, barely exerting any force or effort to make the connection.






Closer Look: There is no connection. No physical touch.
HOWEVER!!!!!!! Look how close the fingers are! Not a long way off at all. God has already extended as much as He can. All MAN needs to do, is flick his finger up 1 cm! The ball is in his court to act (or not).








Does this put things into perspective?


(image from https://qyzs9q.blu.livefilestore.com/y1m0vkdXTby-r8_27rAsHCA2-SX0hueBb0lKYA0-SMWGTexFdX_5HOQLAAu_AOxlKp07KPVPqvw7Ada7JOoZ5zvgdc5VkUREFr3QbA-YLnnW2cqqlqGZimCZBTiLQ5UtenyYxvWyaLW43k/mains_michel_ange.jpg)

Cheeel

Concerning My friend:

One day, I shared with him the gospel.
The next day, I handed him a verse-a-day calendar.
Today, he was offered an opportunity.
This weekend, he might come to a retreat.
Next week, we're going to a Christian event.
One day, he might meet Christ.


WHAT JOY it is!
To know that we are not alone.
To know that we are not without help.
To know that we are surrounded by brothers and sisters.
To know One God, one vision, one goal, it's one der ful!

I thought, "this is it.. Now or never!" Blood on my hands! So I desperately blurt out all I could.
I don't know another way to put it but "unsuccessful, unwise in all aspects." That day left me very discouraged.
I thought it was over.

It's never over.


Some say people need to hear the gospel 7 times before they consider it.
Who knows if it's the first, the 3rd, or the 7th? They all play their crucial role.

I was the 6th.

I found out later that my other friend started talking to her. (She was the "7th")

What relief! That my 'failure' wasn't the end of the story! It was a stepping stone that fueled her curiosity to accept another invitation.. that leads her ultimately to the crossss! WHAT JOY!!!

Again, after having invited a friend to a soirée d'évangelisation, I was sad that she didn't reply to my text if she was coming or not. Later she showed up with my other friends; they had met on the way there (she was lost) and they came all together! What JOY!!!

Why worry?? The pieces come together in the end. Trust God.

It's so relieving, so calming and peace-inducing. To Let go and Let God. Stress or not, it'll be okay. Doubt does not change truth.

Story: A guy from Brasil, who never seen snow in his life went to Northern Canada, where there's TONS of it! To get to where he wanted, he had to cross a lake that was frozen over, iced. He was scared to cross it, how was he supposed to know if it would be stable?? He got on all fours and started slowly creeping his way across. Just then, another guy, a Canadian who's seen snow and frozen lakes before, went zooooming by on his bicycle over the lake confidently. It's kind of like that with faith. We all have it, some just different levels. Whether we cross cautiously on all fours or we speed across without a doubt, we in the end cross that lake.

Many times I feel like the guy on all fours. Hehe.
God give me strength to rise up and speed with all I have towards you!!

Why worry when we can trust?
God makes me so happy. He cares.

All-out War

Yet another passage from Piper's book:

"...there is a mean streak to authentic self-control.... Self-control is not for the timid. When we want to grow in it, not only do we nurture an exuberance for Jesus Christ, we also demand of ourselves a hatred for sin... The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desire is a declaration of all-out war.... There is something about war that sharpens the senses... You hear a twig snap or the rustling of leaves and you are in attack mode. Someone coughs and you are ready to pull the trigger. Even after days of little or no sleep, war keeps us vigilant." (Ed Welch)

"It's a violence against all the impulses in our own selves that would make peace with our own sin and settle in with a peacetime mentality. Against all lust in ourselves and all enslaving desires for food or caffeine or sugar or chocolate or alcohol or pornography or money or the praise of men and the approval of others or power or fame.

When Jesus said, "the truth will set you free" (John 8:32), he didn't mean without a battle. He meant that truth would win the war of liberation in the soul. Christianity is war. It is a declaration of all-out combat against our own sinful impulses. "Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the fles, which wage war against your soul" (1 Pet. 2:11). To become a Christian is to wake up to the reality that our soul is at stake. Therefore, Christianity is mortal combat for true and lasting joy." (Piper)

Gird up them loins souljahs! >=)

REpent

"A day without repentance does not mean a day without sin."

pREACH it

I've been reading Piper's book When I Don't Desire GOD
and this passage spoke right to my heart:

"We should not only be preached to; we should become preachers and preach the word of the cross to ourselves every day. We must not rely only on being preached to, but must become good preachers to our own soul. The gospel is the power of God to lead us joyfully to final salvation, if we preach it to ourselves. The following is from Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) a minister who greatly emphasized this truth:

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man's treatment [in Psalms 42] was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says, "Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you."

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourslef. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself.... You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself; "Hope thou in God" --instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way, and then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and ...what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: "I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God."

(Piper) Of course, the "self" is not the only one who talks to us in our head. So does the devil, and so do other people as we replay their coments in our memories. Therefore, when Lloyd-Jones tells us to preach to ourselves, he knows we must be addressing all these joy-killing messages. That's why he talks about defying self, Satan, and other people. When we preach the gospel to ourselves, we are addressing every word of every enemy of every kind."


(me) That makes me think of the song "Voice of Truth" by Casting Crowns. Check out their lyrics sometime, it relates. C'est vrai que dans la vie, il y a toujours beaucoup de voix qui parlent et disent des choses different.. mais, laquelle on va écouter? In TheTwo Towers a character speaks words of poison, deceiving the king, mentally enslaving him by lies. In Revolutionary Roads, the last scene was my favorite. The old man turns down the volume of his hearing aids, muting the old woman blabbering on. That's what we must do to false voices-Tune them out! We don't want that! If there's "cold-shoulder", why can't we do "deaf-ear"? Our ears have holes, so they gotta be filled with SOMething. Do we want gunk or truth?
So when we wake up in the morning and look at ourselves in the mirror, we gotta Preach it Preacher!

STRIKE

"Pourquoi vous etes-là?"

Why are you guys here?

"Allez à l'Assemblée Générale"

Go to the strike meetings!

Then the prof talked about her fears for the future and the government, for about 30 min. Then she let us go.

Empty classrooms, no-show professors, tagged-walls, . . .
Already 3 weeks into the semester, we've hardly had classes because the students AND professors are on strike. Certain days the trams don't run its normal course, or they're blocked off. It's like that all over the country.. Vive la France!

. . . chaos? NopE!
there is always HoPe!

Please pray for change, reconciliation, peace. Merci~

Inbox

GOD, NOT GOLD, IS THEIR FOCUS
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 by Christina Johnson

Missionary Gary Smith praised God when he overheard a group of Dinangat men discussing their perspective on a mining business coming among them in Papua New Guinea. "Before we worshiped all kinds of things. We worshiped our dead ancestors. We worshiped things of the ground and we asked those things to help us and to bless us," some of the Dinangat men said. "But now we have heard the true talk from God Himself and we want to leave all those wrong things behind and only worship the one true God."
The men see the mining company as a blessing from God, but they say they will look to Him to meet their needs and not what the company provides for them. Gary was moved to tears.
"Is this not why God sent us here? For Him to be glorified and honored?" Gary wrote. "The beautiful part about this is that it was not missionary induced. The Holy Spirit was moving these men to praise and worship only the one true God. What an encouragement that was to us."

Gary is learning that it is God's job to create a perfect church, not his. Even though he feels frustrated at times when he cannot solve a problem the Dinangats have or cannot understand some of their issues or ways of dealing with things, he remembers that God is the one who will guide and direct them."Jesus made it pretty clear who would build the church," Gary wrote. "So I let it go and left it in His hands. Is there anyone more capable?"
Please pray that Gary, along with the Dinangat believers, will continue to lean on God for growth and understanding of His ways.

I feel you Gary. Amen.

http://www.ntm.org/pray

Get to it!

If we're not fishing, we're not following.
"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Matt 4:19

If we're not sowing, we're not reaping.
"whatever one sows, that will he also reap." Gal 6:7

If we're not asking, we're not receiving.
"Ask, and it will be given to you; Matt 7:7a

If we're not seeking, we're not finding.
"seek, and you will find" Matthew 7:7b

Farmers

For some reason, I believed I had class at 10h30 this morning.
When I was already on the tram, I realized I didn't. Reading, I looked up, and saw a friend from last semester standing across from me! I knew there was a reason! Divine appointment! We chatted a bit, (it was he who had a class at 10h30). Before we parted ways, I asked him what he thinks will happen after this life. Naturally, he was shocked. He told me what the Japanese culture believed, but as for himself, "je vais réfléchir". That really got him thinking.

Shortly after, I was hanging around the offices (no one was there because there is a grève, strike today) when M. Guichard, my old prof stopped by his office! (He was supposed to be teaching the class that my friend had at 10h30). We greeted each other and chatted a bit in his office. To my own shock I asked him the same question, what he thinks happens after life. Naturally, encore, he was caught off guard, taken aback. Turns out however, this man is Christian! Praise GOD! It was a delightful surprise for both of us and positively a divine meeting. What an encouraging morning.

This is only the beginning.

GOMORRA

(sound like a city in the OT?)

Roberto Saviano, 29, has successfully infiltrated the Mafia in Naples.

Wanting to be a writer of truth, real life instead of fiction, he plunged himself into the investigating the world of camorristi, or Camorra. aka, the mafia.

He, in his book, not only reveals "le système" of all the economic dealings and what he's seen and been through, but also exposes many Perrin, or "Godfather" along with many other thugs of the criminal world. And they're pretty pissed off for being thus openly exposed.

Now, life is lonely and dangerous. Many people are after him, but thanks to supporters, he is under protection of the State (a bullet-proof car and 5 bodyguards). He calls them his "anges gardiens" Guardian angels. *wink*

Yet, he continues to write.

"Je n'ai rien écrit de nouveau, tout était déjà connu, affirme aujourd'hui cet admirateur de Camus et de Pasolini. J'ai seulement assemblé des données et des histoires, dans un cadre où les épisodes criminels acquièrent une tout autre dimension. Il ne faut jamais avoir peur de dire la vérité. Même si j'en paie les conséquences, je sais qu'il fallait le faire."

I haven't written anything new, everything was already known. I only gathered the given stories in a frame where criminal episodes acquired another dimension. One should never have fear to speak the truth. Even if I pay the consequences, I know it's necessary.

Now... does this ring a bell

Walk daily

with God.

Life is long, but eternity's a looot longer.
Do my friends know where they're going to spend it?

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.
(Paul's 1st letter to Timothy)

...because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation, in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might. (Paul's prayer for Ephesians)

Hmm...

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

1 John 5:21

Après beaucoup de chapitres sur les sujets profonds,

pourquoi fini-t-il par cette phrase?

Why does he finish with this?

Chapter 1

Blessed is the man who walks
not in the counsel of the wicked;
nor stands in the way of sinners;
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the LORD;
and on his law he meditates day and night.

Psalms 1:1,2

There are at least 7 Hebrew and 2 Greek words for the word MEDITATION.

I. Hebrew 1897. hagah, haw-Gaw'; to murmur (in pleasure or anger);

to ponder:-imagine, meditate, mourn, mutter, roar, X sore, speak, study, talk, utter.

II. Hebrew 1901. hagiyg, haw-gheeg'; akin to Hebrew 1897; murmur, complaint:-meditation, musing.

III. Hebrew 7878. siyach, see'-akh; to ponder, converse (with oneself, and hence aloud),

utter, commune, complain, declare, meditate, muse, pray, speak, talk (with).

IV. Hebrew 7879. siyach, see'-akh; from Hebrew 7878; a contemplation, an utterance,

babbling, communication, complaint, meditation, prayer, talk.

V. Hebrew 7881. siychah, see-khaw'; form of Hebrew 7879; reflection, devotion,

meditation, prayer.

So what?? I must literally Speak the word of God day and night!
Not JUST think about it! Praise God! Thank You for your word and Law! =)