New Life'n

Crammed with heaven

"Earth's crammed with heaven; 
    And every common bush afire with God; 
        But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
            The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries." 
                                   - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The most important thing

If you knew that there was one thing that was more important than anything else, you might pay close attention to that one thing, eh? THIS says the most important thing is that Jesus died, was buried and came back to life...

How could that be so important?  How is that relevant to today and living?  Well, if...

• you're going down the dark lonely road, a blind prisoner of sin, or
• you're living in malice and envy, being hated and hating others, or
• you need a cure to the habit of gratifying the cravings of your sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts, or
• you need a remedy to sexual immorality, lust and greed, or
• you need to be rescued from being an object of God's wrath

...then a cure might be really relevant. 

"Calvary is the secret of it all. It is what the Lord Jesus did there that counts, and what He did becomes a growing force in the life of the believer when it is seen, and rested in by faith. This is the starting point from which all godly living must take rise. We shall never know the fact of the Lord Jesus' victory in our lives until we are prepared to count upon His work on the Cross as the source of our personal freedom from the dominion of sin and the old man within. There is no liberty for us that was not first His. The beginning of spiritual growth is faith in that fact." -- Hungry Heart #9 - 11

More HERE

Write for your life

Downstairs on a table in the living room is a small wooden box with a glass top; inside are a bunch of letters Brenda and I wrote to each other before we were married.  I also have a card of appreciation from someone that I keep as a big encouragement.  And I'm glad the Bible writers -- wrote.  Write For Your Life says this is good --

Think of all those people inside the World Trade Center saying goodbye by phone. If only, in the blizzard of paper that followed the collapse of the buildings, a letter had fallen from the sky for every family member and friend, something to hold on to, something to read and reread. Something real. Words on paper confer a kind of immortality. Wouldn't all of us love to have a journal, a memoir, a letter, from those we have loved and lost? Shouldn't all of us leave a bit of that behind?

A review of the Freedom Writers movie she mentions is HERE.

How does God guide us?

Pastor Mark D. Roberts is answering that question HERE.  He'll add more every day for awhile.

The view from above

You're going along, doing what you're supposed to do, and then -- wham.  How did this happen?  Where did you turn wrong?  Isn't life tough enough without this?  It's not fair.  (video is :47)

But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead...On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us                 -- 2 Corinthians 1:8-10

Never leave it on the counter again

This seems so useful.  For the little stuff you have to remember to take with you.  Hang it on the door and drop in keys, phone, lists, cd's, envelopes, sunglasses...  The Doorganizer.  (via Lifehacker)

Gross!

 

That's what our grown daughter said about the analogy comparing Bible reading and meditation with a dog gnawing on a bone.  You've probably heard the same thing -- or sometimes it's described as a cow chewing its cud.  She thinks that's gross, too.  Everybody laughed when she said, why can't there be a home decorating analogy?  So here it is:

Reading the Bible for a few minutes and then moving on with your day is like putting a coat of paint on a wall -- it's wet, and can be easily wiped off, although some will stay on the wall. 

Reading the Bible and giving yourself a few minutes to think about what it says and what it means -- that's like the paint drying to the touch. 

Praying about what you read, and sitting still and having a hunger in your heart for it to be real in your life -- that's the paint ready for a second coat. 

And when you find yourself sitting and staring, and being reminded of something and turning the pages and reading that, and then staring and praying and hungering some more, and turning more pages, and this goes on until at some point you seem to wake up and go, what time IS it? -- that's when the paint has become so bonded to the wall you can't get it off.  It's digested -- oops, I mean scrubable.

This guy kept his resolutions for 30 years!

Wrote 'em when he was 20.  Seventy of them.  HERE.

He has a t-shirt, too -- HERE.

When?

Are you looking at the coming year and making some plans?  I am.  Ever feel like you've got a million little things you mean to get around to doing?  Maybe that's the problem -- too many, too small...

You've been in a pattern of fleshly indulgence in your marriage. You know what God calls you to, but you just won't do it. When were you going to start? Do you imagine that this is some sort of dress rehearsal, and real life, life that counts, will start... when? When were you going to start putting on the Lord Jesus, and making no provision for the flesh? When were you going to start putting to death the practices of the body? When?

You're a young adult about to leave home, but you've never learned to honor — honor! — your father and mother. Were you going to be born into some other household, and practice your Christian faith there? When?

You're in a church where you're hearing the Word, but you're doing nothing with it. You're not involved, not serving, not growing, not giving; indulging in self-absorbed fascinations. When were you going to start doing all those "one anothers"? In the Millennium? After?

more at ...and you were going to do this, when?

This man eats with sinners

No one serious about God would do that, right?  Answering, he says it's normal for someone to search for something they've lost; the lost thing is valuable and important to him, and he goes all-out to get it back.  When he "eats with sinners," he's looking for something that's lost.  He's talking about you and me and our friends & family and the whole world. 

Maybe the search for the lost, valuable thing looks and feels a little like this,,, 

"In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God's angels when even one sinner repents" (Luke 15:10)

(video by 36 parables)