God Be Praised

“Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.  Let your garments always be white.  Let no oil be lacking on your head.  Enjoy life with the wife whom you love.”  Ecclesiastes 9:7-9a

I refuse to be completely serious.  I refuse to be so rigorous that I become a pain to the people closest to me.  That cannot be the will of God.  If I am not under law but under grace, as the Bible says, then I can relax and enjoy life without a single thought that somehow that will jeopardize my standing with God.  It is God himself who gave me this life and who explicitly authorizes me to receive it from his hand as a good gift — not an ultimate gift but a good gift — and who settles the question of my acceptability to himself through Christ my Substitute who was perfect for me.  Especially with Jani, God’s greatest earthly gift to me, I want so to trust God that I set a tone of enjoyment in our life together.  Like today.  Like right now.  I think I’ll call her and just tell her I love her.  I think God would smile on that.  So would she.  So would I.

God be praised.

HT: Ray Ortlund Jr.

Let Not That Be Said of Me

"Most men die at 27...we just bury them at 72." -Mark Twain

JUST ORDINARY

Just ordinary…

 

She was just a rural teenager.

He was just a young carpenter.

Just people.

Just in love.

Their situation was just like millions before it.

But an angelic announcement made it more than just a betrothal.

More than just a conception.

 

It was just a census.

And they would arrive to the City of David just a little late.

The crowd in this small town, just outside of Jerusalem, was overflowing.

There just wasn’t any room.

It was just a stable, but it would do.

It was just big enough, and it was out of the cold.

 

It was just about time, but where would he lay?

This feeding trough was just about right. Fill it with hay.

We’ll just lay him there.

Crying, just like any baby, he was now in the world he had made.

Just two people, alone with God.

 

It was just a star. But it marked where He lay.

They were just shepherds, but they were his first guests.

The gifts brought from afar, an expression of just how precious this Child is.

Just a silent night…but a night that would divide kingdoms, and families, and history.

 

They were just 12 ordinary men.

She was just a Samaritan woman.

It was just five barley loaves and two fish.

 

It was just a tree.

They were just nails.

 

It is just bread and wine.

Just the ordinary made extraordinary.

-Jay Risner (12.09)

FRIDAYS ARE FOR FACIAL HAIR

Sexual assault is not funny...it's deplorable and disgusting. But this pic is outrageously funny.

From Ray Ortlund (Christ is Deeper Still Blog at TGC)

George Marsden, in his Jonathan Edwards: A Life, refers to Edwards’ belief in “the great end of creation, God’s redemptive love” (page 479).  He sums up Edwards’ thought this way:

“God’s trinitarian essence is love.  God’s purpose in creating a universe in which sin is permitted must be to communicate that love to creatures.  The highest or most beautiful love is sacrificial love for the undeserving” (page 505).

If Edwards is right, and he is, then sacrificial love for undeserving people is not a problem for pastoral ministry; it is even more than an opportunity for pastoral ministry.  Sacrificial love for undeserving people is the reason why the universe exists.

“To the praise of the glory of his grace.”

Weekend Update

This guy should win the Heisman Trophy. No question:

I Will Go Here Someday

On my top five places to visit:

100 days in Glacier National Park - The Big Picture - Boston.com

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