Thursday, September 22, 2011

The Problem with Self.

I am suffering from self disease. 

There is only one cure.


"Some are in self-they are determined by self-interest primarily-it is the driving force of their lives. To get and to get on for self is the compelling motive. 

Some are in the herd. Before they act, they look around-they don't act: they only react to what the herd does. The roots of their motives are in, "What will people think?" Making self, or the herd, our god, is sin, the chief sin.

To be 'in Christ' means to pull up the roots of one's very life from the soil of sin and self and the herd and plant them in Christ. he becomes the source of our life, the source of our thinking, our feeling, our acting, our being.

This obviously involves self surrender. Not merely the surrender of our sins, our bad habits, our wrong thinking and our wrong motives, but the very self behind all of these. All of these are symptoms: the unsurrendered self is the DISEASE.

So the phrase, in Christ, is not only the ultimate concept, but it demands the ultimate act,
SELF SURRENDER.

We don't own our money, our property, not even the house we live in, for we will leave it all behind. The only thing we will take with us is just
OURSELVES.

It is the only thing we own-
the self-
is deliberately handed back to the Giver in an act of supreme self surrender with words something like these:
"I can't handle this self of mine. Take me as I am, and make me as I ought to be. I give myself and my sins and my problems to Thee: but myself first and foremost."

We lose ourselves, and to our astonishment, find ourselves.

We live when we live
IN HIM."
 
 
E. Stanley Jones
Missionary to India in the first half of the century

We have been educating,

celebrating
 
(Sophie turned 4!!)

and

rejoicing

this week.

Have a great Thursday.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

FAITH

Hebrews 11:8

 (NIV)
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance,
obeyed and went, 
even though 
he did not know where he was going. 

"Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One,who is leading. it is a life of faith, not of intellect and reason, but a life of knowing Who makes us "go." The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success.
The final stage in the life of faith is the attainment of character: when we pray we feel the blessing of God enwrapping us and for the time being we are changed, then we go back to the ordinary days and ways and the glory vanishes. The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting. It is not a question of sanctification but of something infinitely further on than sanctification, of faith that has been tried and proved and has stood the test. Abraham is not a type of sanctification, but a type of the life of faith, a tried faith built on a real God.
"Abraham believed God."
Oswald Chambers

Living by faith today.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

What We've Been Up To Lately

Life around here has been a little complicated.

Transitioning from the lazy fun days of summer to the scheduled days of school has been a little hard for everyone.

But we're slowly accepting the fact that it's not too bad to broaden your horizons and fill your mind with interesting historical facts.
Our bodies that God has given us are pretty amazing too as we are discovering.

Our friends who lost their son tragically laid him to rest in 
Arlington Cemetery.
A huge honor for such a fine young man!!
They now are left the difficult task of emptying his home and learning how to live the new normal.

Today there is a hint of fall in the air and leaves are beginning to cover the grass.
Reminding us that autumn is near.

Drawing near to God today.

New Living Translation (NLT)

Psalm 125

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.
 1 Those who trust in the Lord are as secure as Mount Zion;
      they will not be defeated but will endure forever.
 2 Just as the mountains surround Jerusalem,
      so the Lord surrounds his people, both now and forever.