Category Archives: Borrowed_Words

Quiet Times in the Morning

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Still Life with Bible, Van Gogh

Reading books, listening to sermons, and having conversations that encourage us to grow in godliness is essential, and it is essential because sometimes the easiest thing is not getting up early to pray and read the Word of God. Many times our bodies win the battle, we stay in bed and then the rest of the day we feel like we are dragging our soul through the various circumstances and duties ahead of us.

I am now reading True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia by Jerry Bridges and in it I found great encouragement to keep on waking up early to have quiet times (praying and reading the Scriptures) with God.

Let me share a few quotes with you so that you may also be encouraged:

“Our communion should be more than just having a quiet time in the morning; it should be an all-day affair. In fact, Isaiah and David take us one step further. They talk about having communion with the Lord even in the night. Isaiah said, “My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you” (Isaiah 26:9). David said, “On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night” (Psalm 63:6).”

 

“The morning quiet time lays the foundation for our all-day communion with God because it tunes our hearts to commune with Him for the rest of the day. It is a time when we can concentrate all our faculties on worshiping Him in reverent adoration. It is a time when we can give undivided attention to His Word and talk to Him in prayer.”

“We may have communion with God throughout the entire day, but seeking His face connotes an intensity of mind and heart that is usually possible only during our time alone with God.”

 

“Intense, organized prayer alone with God in the morning prepares us to breathe those quick, silent prayers that are needed so often throughout the day.”

 

“Matthew Henry says that to walk with God is “to set God always before us, and to act as those that are always under his eye. It is to live a life of communion with God both in ordinances and providences. It is to make God’s word our rule and his glory our end in all our actions.”

  

“How do we, then, practice communion with God throughout the day? If the morning quiet time is the foundation of that communion, Scripture meditation and prayer are the framework of it.”

 

“We can meditate on Scripture — think about it and reflect on it — throughout the day only if we have it in our minds. And we have Scripture in our minds only if we have made the effort to just plain memorize it. There is no shortcut to meditation that bypasses Scripture memorization.”

 

“Our emphasis today is on doing things for God, or on believing the right doctrines about Him. But few believers take time to commune with God simply for the sake of enjoying Him and adoring Him. In the church today, there seems to be very little of that thirst for God described in Psalm 42:1: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.”

Under His sun and by His grace,
 

Becky

J.R. Miller on Godly Character

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Photo by Annie Pliego

 

We ought to seek to gather in this world — treasure that we can carry with us through death’s gates, and into the eternal world.

We should strive to build into our lives — qualities that shall endure… Yet there are things — virtues, fruits of character, graces — which men do carry with them out of this world. What a man IS — he carries with him into the eternal world. Money and rank and pleasures and earthly gains — he leaves behind him; but his character, he takes with him into eternity!

This suggests at once, the importance of character and character-building. Character is not what a man professes to be — but what he really IS, as God sees him.

A man may not be as good as his reputation. A good reputation may hide an evil heart and life. Reputation is not character. Reputation is what a man’s neighbors and friends think of him; character is what the man IS.

Christ’s character is the model, the ideal, for every Christian life.

We are to be altogether like Him; therefore all of life’s aiming and striving should be towards Christ’s blessed beauty. His image we find in the Gospels. We can look at it every day. We can study it in its details, as we follow our Lord in His life among men, in all the variations of experience through which He passed.

We cannot merely dream ourselves into godly manhood or womanhood; we must forge for ourselves, with sweat and anguish, the beautiful visions of Christ-likeness which we find on the Gospel pages! It will cost us self-discipline, oftentimes anguish, as we must deny ourselves, and cut off the things we love.

SELF must be crucified.

It is not easy to become a godly man, a Christlike man.

 

Character is a process of growth. It is like fruit—it requires time to ripen. Different kinds of fruits come to ripeness at different seasons; some in the early summer, some later, and some only in the autumn. It is so with Christian lives—they ripen at different seasons. There are those who seem to grow into sweetness in early years, then those who reach their best in the mid years, and many who only in the autumn of old age come into mellow ripeness.

All of life is a season of character-growing! We are left in this world, not so much for what we may do here, for the things we may make—as that we ourselves may grow into the beauty of mature Christian character. In the midst of all our occupations and struggles, all our doing of tasks, all our longings and desires, all our experiences of every kind—there is a work going on in us—which is quite as important as anything we are doing with our mind or with our hands.

 

The object of life—is to learn to live. We are at school here, and shall always be at school, until we are dismissed from earth’s classes to be promoted into heaven! It is a pity if we do not learn our lessons. It is a pity if we grow no gentler, no kindlier, no more thoughtful, no more unselfish, no sweeter in spirit, no less worldly, if the peace of our heart is not deepened—as the years pass over us.

 

Old age should be the true harvest time of the years. Life should grow more and more beautiful, unto the end. It should increase in knowledge, in wisdom, in all the graces of the Spirit, in all the sweetness of love, in all that is Christlike. Aged Christian people, should be like trees in the autumn, their branches full of ripe fruit to feed the hunger of those who live about them.

 

We have but one life to live; we pass through this world but once. We should so live—that every step shall be a step onward and upward. We should strive to be victorious over every evil influence. We should seek to gather good and enrichment of character, from every experience, making our progress ever from more to more. Wherever we go—we should try to leave a blessing, something which will sweeten another life or start a new song or an impulse of cheer or helpfulness in another heart. Then our very memory, when we are gone—will be an abiding blessing in the world.

 Soli Deo Gloria

Becky


*These quotes were taken from J.R. Miller’s articles: The Ripening of Character and What is it for You to Be a Christian?

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Come Ye Children, a Book by C.H. Spurgeon (Mandatory Reading for Parents and Teachers)

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37/100 Days of Books
There are some books that I love to revisit once in a while. It is great to read my notes, and the parts I highlighted. Yesterday I pulled out from the shelves a little book that to my surprise I read in 2009 (I couldn’t believe it had been such a long time since then!), the book was written by C.H. Spurgeon and is entitled, Come Ye Children: Practical Help for Telling Children About Jesus. This is a book full of practical help based on biblical principles to encourage us (parents, teachers, and pastors)  to do well and with passion, the task we have before us of training our children in the Truth.

Here are some quotes that I am sure you will appreciate:

 

“As we sow we reap. Let us expect our children to know the Lord. Let us from the beginning mingle the name of Jesus with their ABC. Let them read their first lessons from the Bible. It is a remarkable thing that there is no book from which children learn to read so quickly as from the New Testament: there is a charm about that book which draws forth the infant mind. But let us never be guilty, as parents, of forgetting the religious training of our children; for if we do we may be guilty of the blood of their souls.”

 

“Believe me, your children need the Spirit of God to give them new hearts and right spirits, or else they will go astray as other children do. Remember that however young they are, there is a stone within the youngest breast; and that stone must be taken away, or be the ruin of the child. There is a tendency to evil even where as yet is not developed into act, and that tendency needs to be overcome by the divine power of the Holy Spirit causing the child to be born again.”

 

“Teaching is poor work when love is gone, it is like a smith working without fire, or a builder without mortar. A shepherd who does not love his sheep is a hireling and not a shepherd; he will flee in the time of danger, and leave his flock to the wolf. Where there is no love there will be no life; living lambs are not fed by dead men. We preach and teach love: our subject is the love of God in Christ Jesus. How can we teach this if we have no love ourselves?”

 

“There must be doctrine, solid, sound, gospel doctrine to constitute real feeding.”

 

“Lay much stress upon this; tell your children that the Word of the Lord is a pure Word, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Let their esteem for the Book of God be carried to the highest point.”

 

“This book is the Word of God, and if we teach it, we teach that which the Lord will accept and bless. O dear teachers -and I speak here to myself also- let our teaching be more and more Scriptural!” Fret not if our classes forget what we say, but pray them to remember what the Lord says. May Divine truths about sin, and righteousness, and judgement to come, be written on their hearts! May revealed truths concerning the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the work of the Holy Ghost, never be forgotten by them!  May they know the virtue and necessity of the atoning blood of our Lord, the power of His resurrection, and the glory of His second coming! May the doctrines of grace be graven as with pen of iron upon their minds, and written as with the point of a diamond upon their hearts, never to be erased! If we can secure this we have not lived in vain. The generation now ruling seems bent on departing from the eternal truth of God: but we shall not despair if the gospel be impressed upon the memory of the rising race.”

 

“God blessing your efforts, dear friends, your children may know all of Scripture that is necessary to their salvation.”

 

“We cannot advance a step by doubt; our only progress is by faith… Believe God and and thou hast made progress. So let us pray for our children, that constantly they may know and believe more and more; for the Scripture is able to make them wise unto salvation, but only through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Faith is the result to aim at; faith in the appointed, anointed and exalted Saviour. This is the anchorage to which we would bring these little ships, for here they will abide in perfect safety.”

 

“Sound Instruction in Holy Scripture, when quickened by a living faith, creates a solid character.”

 

“Children need the gospel, the whole gospel, the unadulterated gospel; they ought to have it, and if they are taught of the Spirit of God they are capable of receiving it as persons of ripe years… Be encouraged; the God who has saved so many of your children is going to save many more of them, and we shall have a great joy as we see hundreds brought to Christ.”

 

“It is not your instruction that can save the souls of your children; it is the blessing of God the Holy Spirit accompanying your labors. May God bless and crown your efforts with abundant success! He will surely do so if you are instant in prayer, constant in supplication.”

“I beseech you, never treat child-piety with suspicion. It is a tender plant; do not brush it to hard.”

 

“Mothers, the godly training of your offspring is your first and most pressing duty. Christian women, by teaching children the Holy Scriptures, are as much fulfilling their part for the Lord, as Moses in judging Israel, or Solomon in building the temple.”

 

“Your business is not merely to teach children to read the Bible, not barely to inculcate the duties of morality, nor even to instruct them in the mere letter of the gospel, but your high calling is to be the means, in the hand of God, of bringing life from heaven to dead souls.”

Let us not grow weary, friends, let us preach the Word of God to our children from the moment they open their eyes to the moment we kiss them good-night.

In God we hope.

Becky

The Love Story of a Passionate God and His Bride -Part 2-

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©Katie Lloyd Photography

 

You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been, nor ever shall be. You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore. And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them. Also my bread that I gave you—I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey—you set before them for a pleasing aroma; and so it was, declares the Lord God. And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood.

“And after all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! declares the Lord God), you built yourself a vaulted chamber and made yourself a lofty place in every square. At the head of every street you built your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, offering yourself to any passerby and multiplying your whoring. You also played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger. Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you and diminished your allotted portion and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior. You played the whore also with the Assyrians, because you were not satisfied; yes, you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied. You multiplied your whoring also with the trading land of Chaldea, and even with this you were not satisfied.

“How sick is your heart, declares the Lord God, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute, building your vaulted chamber at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a prostitute, because you scorned payment. Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. So you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; therefore you were different.

“Therefore, O prostitute, hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whorings with your lovers, and with all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.

Ezekiel 16: 13-37

John Piper says,

“There’s the picture of the faithless Israel. Her idolatry -her turning from the Lord God to foreign gods- is pictured as the work of a whore. And I say again...God created us with sexual passion so that there would be a language to describe what it means to cleave to him in love and what it means to turn away from him to others.”

God’s judgement is then pronounced (v35-37) and Piper makes us consider this,

“It may look as though God has finally finished with Israel. Judgement had fallen. The wife was put away. But that is not the last word. God hates divorce. Therefore, though he judge and separate, he will not finally forsake his covenant people -his wife. He will make with her a new covenant and bring her back to himself at the cost of his Son and by the power of his Spirit:”

 

“For thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you. I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.” Ezekiel 16: 59-63

 

“The end of the story is that God, after giving up his faithless wife into the hands of brutal lovers, will not only take her back, and not only make with her a new and everlasting covenant, but will himself pay for all her sins. Are there debts this prostitute owes? This husband will pay them. “When I atone for… all that you have done, declares the Lord.” Indeed he will pay with the life of his own Son.” J.Piper

Praise God for His Passionate love for his Bride , for His irresistible Grace, for His coming to us!

Alleluia!

Becky

Note: This excerpt has been taken from the book Sex and the Supremacy of Christ (p.29-30).

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The Love Story of A Passionate God and His Bride -Part 1-

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@Katie Lloyd Photography

“Again the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.

“And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.

“When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine. Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God.”

Ezekiel 16: 4-14

John Pipers says,

“That’s a picture of God’s utterly free and undeserved mercy. That is how Israel was chosen. That’s how you were brought from death to life and from darkness to light and from unbelief to faith, if you are a believer. “I said to you,’Live!’ and made you flourish. I married you. You are mine.” That’s how Israel began. That’s how the Christian life begins. The mighty mercy of God.” (Sex and the Supremacy of Christ)

May we never, not for a second, forget where we were when He found us.

Becky

Do You Love Jesus or Your Robust Theology?

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 To think about:

“A disciple is a student of Christ -someone who spends time with the Savior in order to come to know him better and resemble him more closely. As a pastor, I have found that many Christians simply assume that learning more and more about Bible and theology -Reformed theology in particular- is the same thing as growing as a disciple. It isn’t. Robust theology can be a powerful catalyst in this process, but like anything else, we can turn it into an idol. The danger is that, while we may begin with Reformed theology as the framework by which we more coherently understand  and appreciate our faith, over time it can become the substance of our faith. At that point, daily living is more about mastering Reformed doctrine than being mastered by Jesus and his total claim over every area of life.

When does one’s attention to theology become too much? It’s not always easy to say…

But we cross the line when we are more focused on mastering theology than on being mastered by Christ.”

Greg Dutcher, Killing Calvinism: How to Destroy a Perfectly Good Theology From the Inside