9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession(a peculiar people-KJV), that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Mutemath Peculiar People
A challenging quote from Ray Ortlund’s blog- http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/rayortlund/
“Where are the young men and women of this generation who will hold their lives cheap and be faithful even unto death? Where are those who will lose their lives for Christ’s sake — flinging them away for love of him? Where are those who will live dangerously and be reckless in his service? Where are his lovers — those who love him and the souls of men more than their own reputations or comfort or very life?
Where are the men who say ‘no’ to self, who take up Christ’s cross to bear it after him, who are willing to be nailed to it in college or office, home or mission field, who are willing, if need be, to bleed, to suffer and to die on it?
Where are the adventurers, the explorers, the buccaneers for God, who count one human soul of far greater value than the rise or fall of an empire? Where are the men who are willing to pay the price of vision?
Where are the men of prayer?
Where are God’s men in this day of God’s power?”
Howard Guinness, Sacrifice (Chicago, 1947), pages 59-60.
A Peculiar People,A People For God’s Own Possession
To the Moon:But Not in Our Own Strength
Depression,trying too hard,thinking about that gun- life can be frustrating in any number of ways. A lot of us have been there,and the drugs and booze didn’t help long term. We want to fly to the moon,but we can’t do it. We want peace,love,fulfillment-where is it ?We get lies from this world – But I know One who can help,and he will never leave us nor forsake us.
5 Keep your life free from love of money,and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6 So we can confidently say,“The Lord is my helper;I will not fear;what can man do to me?”(Hebrews 13:5-6)
Jn.16: 33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
There’s Hope For Those Dealing With Abortion Grief
Abortion wreaks havoc on human beings (especially women) on a number of different levels.Guilt,depression,a hardened conscience are a few ways that it can impact a person. But there is hope,as the following article points out.
A Buried Grief
Finally, There Is More Help for Women Hurt by Abortion
by Marcia Segelstein
In 1971, two years before Roe v. Wade, Dr. Julius Fogel, a psychiatrist and obstetrician, wrote in theWashington Post that every woman who has an abortion experiences a trauma of some sort, to one degree or another (see sidebar). He wrote this in spite of the fact that he was in favor of legal abortion and an abortion practitioner himself. Of course, there is no way to prove whether or not Dr. Fogel was correct in asserting that all post-abortive women experience trauma. But it can fairly be said that he was ahead of his time in acknowledging the psychological impact of abortion on many women.
His assessment fell on deaf ears in any case. It would be many years before post-abortion ministries and outreach programs sprang up to meet the needs of women who had long suffered in silence.
Support Group Revelation
While Theresa Burke was a graduate student in the field of psychotherapy, she led a weekly support group for women with eating disorders. During one session, a patient named Debbie confided that she was having flashbacks to an abortion she’d had several years before. The distress they caused was compounded by phone messages she was getting from her ex-husband, in which he called her a “murderer” and rehashed gruesome details of the abortion. After these phone calls, Debbie would often become suicidal and end up in the hospital emergency room. She was severely anorexic.
The revelation of Debbie’s abortion led others to speak up. Another patient, Beth Ann, explained that she could understand how Debbie felt because she’d also had an abortion. Burke quotes her as saying, “It would kill me if someone kept reminding me about it. It’s something I try to forget about.”
Next was Diane, who, in the midst of a curse-laden rant against men, alluded to having had an abortion. Another patient, Judith, became so upset that she got up and left.
After the session, Burke phoned Judith to be sure she was all right. “I hate the subject of abortion and wish that we could focus on eating disorders instead,” Judith explained. When Burke asked her if she’d experienced an abortion herself, Judith said that she had, but that she didn’t want to discuss it.
It turned out that six of the eight women in the eating disorders group had undergone abortions. “In subsequent discussions, all six women indicated that their abortions were perhaps the most difficult decisions they had ever made,” Burke later wrote. “At the same time, however, they denied that their abortions had any significant effect on their lives.”
Burke sensed that, as she put it, “a lot of unexplored and unresolved feelings were being denied, repressed, or suppressed.” And because unexpressed emotions are often the key to treating eating disorders, Burke broached the subject of how to proceed with her supervising psychiatrist. She was instructed in no uncertain terms to drop it. Period.
Rest of the story - http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo14/14segelstein.php
| Eph 1:18 | 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, |
Pain and Sorrow:Indications of Something More
10:37Pain And Sorrow – Joe Bonamassa
Signs of a Promise http://www.rzim.org/resources/read/asliceofinfinity/todaysslice.aspx?aid=8537 (Check out Ravi Zacharias Ministries)
Jill Carattini
Who am I?
This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me,
these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine.
“Who am I” is the question we often ask in the midst of the struggle. In moments where our conscience is tormented, in places where life’s walls seem to crumble, it is in the tear-stained places of life where we wrestle most intensely with who we are.
English writer F.W. Boreham tells a story about an old gravedigger whose terrible cough educed the sympathy of a cemetery visitor. Yet the coughing man gestured to the graves around them and said, “There’s plenty here who’d be glad of my cough!” His point is clear. Even a cough is a sign of life. All the same, it is also a sign that a cure is needed lest the old man be dragged into a grave of his own. Carrying this thought to a higher place, Boreham remarks wisely, “The torments of an aroused conscience are symptoms of spiritual vitality for which a wise man will give thanks on bended knees; but they are useless and worse than useless unless they drive him, in his desperation, to the fountain open for all sin and for all uncleanness.” (1)
You see, pain and sorrow, unrest and struggle are actually signs of life, signs that we were created with emotions and consciences. But they are also signs that lead us to a cure for the sin-stained conscience, to life in knowing the one who created you, and to an identity found ultimately in Christ. Will you let them lead you there? The signs of life point to the promises of heaven. It is this sacred truth that inspired the hymn writer William Cowper to proclaim in verse: “The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the place where sorrow is unknown.”
When your identity is rooted in Christ, sorrow and struggle can be met with the same confidence that kept William Cowper singing and Dietrich Bonhoeffer hopeful. For in Christ we know that though weeping may linger for the night, joy comes in the morning.
(1) F.W. Boreham, The Last Milestone (London: Epworth Press, 1961) 63-64.
© 2008 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. All Rights Reserved.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so thatwe may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (II Corinthians 1:3-4)
Into This Grace
A beautiful song – which reminds me of a beautiful verse in the Bible – Romans 5:1-5
5 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
“As mercy is God’s goodness confronting human misery and guilt, so grace is his goodness directed toward human debt and demerit.” -A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
Jaws of Life – And Life Everlasting
Probably just me,but when I listen to music,I am reminded of different Scriptures,events in history,poems,etc. John Petrucci tears it up on Jaws of Life – a great song.
If you will notice from the following Scriptures,Jesus is under intense criticism and attack for healing on the Sabbath and breaking men’s traditions. But not only that,His unique relationship with the Father is emphasized – thus arousing the charge of blasphemy. But here is the claim that is astounding,and if true,will result in the greatest miracle in a person’s life-
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Snatched from the jaws of death and given life everlasting !
Now that day was the Sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who hadbeen healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me,‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healeddid not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in theplace. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now,and I am working.”
Jesus Is Equal with God
18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father,making himself equal with God.
The Authority of the Son
19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. 21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. 22 The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son,just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
John Petrucci – Jaws of Life
If we all were judged according to the consequences Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention And beyond our limited understanding Of ourselves and others, we should all be condemned.(T.S.Eliot)