Tried With Fire

I'm thankful for sisters in Christ and kindred spirits near and far. I'm thrilled beyond words for the opportunity to fellowship face to face with Becky , Jessica , Kim , Melissa , Norma , and Stephanie . God willing, we're heading off to the Outer Banks this week-end. I promise to take lots of pictures.

Christina Langella is guest blogging at Out of the Ordinary today with a review of Renee of France , a new biography by Simonetta Carr. Read the review and enter the giveaway for a copy of the book.

Science and God by Scott Petty, Matthias Media, 2011, 108 pages. Science and God is one of six books written by Scott Petty for Matthias Media. Each book in this series addresses typical questions asked by the 14-20 age group. The author begins by addressing the false dichotomy between science and Christianity. He advocates a multiple-layered approach where science answers questions from observing the physical universe and Christianity answers metaphysical questions such as the existence of God and the purpose and meaning of life.  Petty cites examples of well-known modern scientists who profess Christ as well as ones throughout history to illustrate that science and Christianity are friends. He then goes on to cover the Big Bang theory with its evidence that points to a beginning of the universe, not unlike the creation account in Genesis 1. The book then  looks at the universe's fine tuning which also seems to indicate a Designer rather ...

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. Psalm 32:3 As we walk with our God we desire his strength, comfort, power and peace. The realization of these, and thus the joy of our spiritual life, depends greatly upon the mortification of sin. The immediate cause of these privileges is our adoption at the hand of the Spirit. However, in our ordinary walking with God, the vigour and comfort of our spiritual lives depend much on our mortification. Mortification bears a cause and effect relationship to our joy. The vigour of our spiritual lives is not possible apart from mortification. Mortification keeps sin from depriving us of our healthy spiritual life. Every unmortified sin will certainly do two things: (1.) It will weaken the soul, and deprive it of its vigour. When David had for a while harboured lust in his heart, it broke all his bones, and left him no spiritual strength  An unmortiified lust will drin...

The kindness of God should allure us to ponder and love his goodness; but since such is our malignity, that we are invariably corrupted by his indulgence, it is more than necessary for us to be restrained by discipline from breaking forth into such petulance. Thus, lest we become emboldened by an over-abundance of wealth; lest elated with honour, we grow proud; lest inflated with other advantages of body, or mind, or fortune, we grow insolent, the Lord himself interferes as he sees to be expedient by means of the cross, subduing and curbing the arrogance of our flesh, and that in various ways, as the advantage of each requires. For as we do not all equally labour under the same disease, so we do not all need the same difficult cure. Hence we see that all are not exercised with the same kind of cross. While the heavenly Physician treats some more gently, in the case of others he employs harsher remedies, his purpose being to provide a cure for all. Still none is left free and untouche...

More flowering quince I'm finally able to stop and catch my breath. The day has been busier than usual, but I'm thankful for physical and mental strength. I'm thankful for daily work and answered prayer. In these uncertain times, a job is nothing to take for granted however ordinary it may be. I'm thankful for my parents. I'm grateful God has kept their health and mental faculties. I'm thankful for their love for Him and their love for me. I'm thankful God doesn't take His eye off His children but is actively working in every circumstance to make us more like Christ. If I am unsure of His favor towards me, I only have to look at the cross.

This is one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes comics.  I never thought my mom or dad (my dad did most of the cooking) would feed me paint or weed killer, but I did turn up my nose at some of the things on the dinner table including squid. Too chewy, like fishy rubber bands. But even though I never suspected my parents, how often have I  treated God like Calvin treated his mother, doubting His character and goodness? I'd rather not give an answer because I'd be ashamed of the number. All the more reason to side with the Word over feelings, circumstances, and whatever would tell me otherwise even if it's myself. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Matt 7:9-11

Oh how I love your law! Psalm 119:97 Faith can do so much for you. It is not enough to be healed of your disease, unless you also take up your bed and walk. O the life of grace which I have seen in some! Their meat and drink is to do the will of God. One might say, 'Though I am not pestered and mastered by any reigning corruption, yet I find myself dull and take no great pleasure in spiritual things. Prayer, meditation, and enjoyment of the Lord's day is as easy as iron swimming.' But nothing is impossible to faith. Faith can transform these things to be natural to you. David came to delight in God's service. He loved the commandments of God more than gold, and they were sweeter to him than the honeycomb. He rose at midnight to meditate in the things of his God. The natural man may carry out many of these duties, but not from a heart of faith. Faith makes them go smoothly and makes our yoke light and easy (Is. 40:31). Faith draws nourishment from the root of C...

This Paul teaches when he says that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience. God having promised that he will be with believers in tribulation, they feel the truth of the promise; while supported by his hand, they endure patiently. This they could never do by their own strength. Patience, therefore, gives the saints an experimental proof that God in reality furnishes the aid which he has promised whenever there is need. Hence also their faith is confirmed, for it were very ungrateful not to expect that in future the truth of God will be, as they have already found it, firm and constant. We now see how many advantages are at once produced by the cross. Overturning the overweening opinion we form of our own virtue, and detecting the hypocrisy in which we delight, it removes our pernicious carnal confidence, teaching us, when thus humbled, to recline on God alone, so that we neither are oppressed nor despond. Then victory is followed by hope, inasmuch as the Lord, by perfo...

Last week's Follies and Nonsense was "How to Write a Worship Song in 5 minutes." This week, here's the song that was written in 5 minutes. Make sure you pay attention to the PowerPoint.

Source I'm thankful for: God's provision for some car work. It's no fun when the mechanic says he needs to talk to you about something he's found, but better to find out than be stranded on the side of the road. I'm also thankful the shop manager was willing to reduce the price a bit. The women's study in Philippians. We are using Joy! by Keri Folmar, which has been a good springboard for some great discussions about the gospel. These words by Samuel Ward from today's entry in Voice From the Past : Would you believe, but you realize you have been a sinner? Christ came to save sinners. O you say, but my sins are scandalous! Did not Christ say 'All things are possible for one who believes?' (Mark 9:23). Are not all your faults easily pardonable by infinite mercy? Did not his blood wash David's bloody sin as snow? Did Christ come from heaven to cure only small scars and cuts? Are not the deep, long-standing, and serious wounds included?...

It's my turn to post at Out of the Ordinary. I'm posting on - wait for it - the gospel. You may be getting tired of the repetition, but I need it every day and multiple times a day. This week's post was inspired by Sunday's sermon by Pastor Ryan. Listen to it here . Read my post here .

If you wandered around the blogsphere recently, you've seen the critical posts and counterposts about the purity movement. To be clear, I believe the Bible commands believers to flee sexual immorality. At the same time, I believe that the sin of sexual immorality is not beyond the reach of gospel. However, as I pull out my worm-can opener, I think many of the criticisms are valid. Granted the purity movement is varied, but from what I have seen and read, there's too much emphasis on "doing it right" and very little gospel grace. Shame as a tactic to promote desired behavior is nothing short of legalism. I've seen people crushed under self-condemnation because they failed to live up to every jot and tittle and perceived themselves as "damaged" good. I've known others who have followed the prescription and expected heaven-on-earth only to be shocked when picture perfect courtship does not guarantee happily-ever-after. As my daughter and I were dis...

The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer... the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Psalm 18:2 The Lord is my present help and salvation. Though we are troubled with poverty, shame, or any other affliction, God is our salvation and help. If you are in trouble, God is deliverance; if you are persecuted by malicious enemies, God is your castle. Who is a rock, except our God? I call upon the Lord and am saved from my enemies. David after all his victories described God to be his God, and his salvation - both for body and soul, for the present and time to come, with means, without means, and against all means. What a comfort is this! He can command his creation to save and the devil himself to be a means to save us; and if there is no means for you to see, he can create means to do it in an instant. Thus God is our help, and what a ground of comfort is this! Therefore, I beseech you do not be discouraged. Mourn we may like doves,...

Feeble as we are by nature, and prone to ascribe all perfection to our flesh, unless we receive as it were ocular demonstration of our weakness, we readily estimate our virtue above its proper worth, and doubt not that, whatever happens, it will stand unimpaired and invincible against all difficulties. Hence we indulge a stupid and empty confidence in the flesh, and then trusting to it wax proud against the Lord himself; as if our own faculties were sufficient without his grace. This arrogance cannot be better repressed than when He proves to us by experience, not only how great our weakness, but also our frailty is. Therefore, he visits us with disgrace, or poverty, or bereavement, or disease, or other afflictions. Feeling altogether unable to support them, we forthwith, in so far as regards ourselves, give way, and thus humbled learn to invoke his strength, which alone can enable us to bear up under a weight of affliction. Nay, even the holiest of men, however well aware that they ...

ht: Biblical Christianity

I normally post this earlier in the day but the day got away from me. But since it is still Thursday.... I'm thankful for public libraries, community colleges, and warehouse clubs. I''m thankful for my job. It allows me to work from home and provides a little flexibility with my schedule. This truly fell into my lap, and I'm grateful for God's provision. I'm thankful for the current sermon series on Job. Still more things to ponder. I'm thankful for the sweetness of God's promises. The promises are also wonderful for snapping one's self out of a funk. I'm thankful for sisters in Christ and the anticipation of meeting some of them face to face.

There's a lot to ponder from the current sermon series on Job. I've read the book several times but this time around, his friends' heartless counsel stands out like a sore thumb. Their advice seems to go from bad to worse. By the end of the second cycle of advice, they are absolutely sure Job has done a whole list of terrible things since there could be no other explanation for his suffering. In our small group, a brother commented that Job's friends could not fathom a righteous man suffering. It didn't compute. Their only category for suffering was "You live right; you'll be blessed. You do evil; you will be afflicted." Consequently, they force fit his situation into their nice and tidy rigid box, hurting him in the process with their accusations. They couldn't conceive that there was any other explanation for his situation. This makes we wonder about the categories that we have constructed for the Christian life. The prosperity gospel teaches...

Praying the promises is the most important element in the right use of the promises. This is because, despite all our striving to believe and apply the promises of God, we sometimes still find ourselves "Troubled on every side; without [are] fightings, within [are] fears" (2 Cor. 7:5) and "pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we [despair] even of life," feeling that "we [have] the sentence of death in ourselves" (2 Cor. 1:8-9). Are we without hope? When we find ourselves in such straits, are we destined to be tossed on the waves of life's storms without the anchor of divine promises? Not at all. As distant and out of reach as the promises of God may seem to us in such straits, a mighty means of comfort is still available to us. That means is prayer. Even when everything seems to have failed and the very bottom of life seems to have fallen out, if we but cry out to God in prayer, even if we merely utter groans before the throne of G...

The way of the LORD is a stronghold to the blameless, but destruction to evildoers. Proverbs 10:29 The ways of God are righteous ways, blessed ways, and they bring in temporal, spiritual, and eternal blessings upon all who walk in them. His ways lead to righteousness, to the love and delight of righteousness, and to the practice of righteousness. As for the ways of profaneness, pride, hypocrisy, formality  and apostasy, these are not the ways of God. They are unrighteous ways, cursed ways, and they bring nothing but curses and crosses upon all who walk in them. Those that walk in these ways are in no way secure, but always liable to the thunderbolt of diving displeasure. But the ways of God are soul-refreshing ways. O they yield the soul an abundance of refreshment and sweetness! If a man's soul is tired and weary, the ways of the Lord will refresh it; if it is dead and dull, the ways of the Lord will quicken it; if it is fainting, the ways of the Lord will be co...

He alone, therefore, has properly denied himself, who has resigned himself entirely to the Lord, placing all the course of his life entirely at his disposal. Happen what may, he whose mind is thus composed will neither deem himself wretched nor murmur against God because of his lot. How necessary this disposition is will appear, if you consider the many accidents to which we are liable. Various diseases ever and anon attack us: at one time pestilence rages; at another we are involved in all the calamities of war. Frost and hail, destroying the promise of the year, cause sterility, which reduces us to penury; wife, parents, children, relatives, are carried off by death; our house is destroyed by fire. These are the events which make men curse their life, detest the day of their birth, execrate the light of heaven, even censure God, and (as they are eloquent in blasphemy) charge him with cruelty and injustice. The believer must in these things also contemplate the mercy and truly pater...

Suffering Well: The Predictable Surprise of Christian Suffering by Paul Grimmond, Matthias Media, 2011, 166 pages. Suffering is a difficult topic. In a world geared toward self-fulfillment, suffering doesn't seem to fit the agenda. Some would even argue that God only has "our best life now" in mind, but the Bible says otherwise. This is why it is so important to take our cue from God's Word rather than popular and even so-called "Christian" culture. Suffering Well seeks to arm us "with the truth so that we're equipped to suffer well when the time comes." Author, Paul Grimmond, does an excellent job of this by laying out the truth of God's character and sovereignty through several biblical examples. He also examines secular ideas about suffering which is critical because we are influenced by popular thought more than we realize. This book also looks at suffering in three ways - general suffering because we live in a fallen world, pers...