CSL : "give this delight perfect expression"

"If it were possible for a created soul fully (I mean, up to the full measure conceivable in a finite being) to "appreciate", that is to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beautitude."

C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

DOUBTING THOMAS

I just read a great post by John Piper, I Will Never Believe. It's a retelling of Thomas, and how he doubted that Christ had risen; basically he had to see it to believe it. It's such a great reminder of God's Sovereignty in context of the unbelief of family and friends.

Quote: "Be patient and gracious with the skeptics in your life. We shouldn’t assume their outward confidence accurately reflects their inward condition. Keep praying for them and share what seems helpful. Keep confidently and humbly following Jesus. And trust his timing. He knows best how and when to reveal himself to them."

Praise God for the work He is doing in the hearts of those He loves! This was a great reminder for me that - all of the sometimes gut-wrenching, yet exhilarating heartwork - He has and is doing in me... of course He is doing for others! And the best thing I can do (besides share the Gospel) is to pray that He does that for those that I love.

Daily Dose of Spurgeon

October 14, Morning

Philippians 3:8
I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.

Spiritual knowledge of Christ will be a personal knowledge. I cannot know Jesus through another person's acquaintance with Him. No, I must know Him myself; I must know Him on my own account. It will be an intelligent knowledge-I must know Him, not as the visionary dreams of Him, but as the Word reveals Him. I must know His natures, divine and human. I must know His offices-His attributes-His works-His shame-His glory. I must meditate upon Him until I "comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." It will be an affectionate knowledge of Him; indeed, if I know Him at all, I must love Him. An ounce of heart knowledge is worth a ton of head learning. Our knowledge of Him will be a satisfying knowledge. When I know my Saviour, my mind will be full to the brim-I shall feel that I have that which my spirit panted after. "This is that bread whereof if a man eat he shall never hunger." At the same time it will be an exciting knowledge; the more I know of my Beloved, the more I shall want to know. The higher I climb the loftier will be the summits which invite my eager footsteps. I shall want the more as I get the more. Like the miser's treasure, my gold will make me covet more. To conclude; this knowledge of Christ Jesus will be a most happy one; in fact, so elevating, that sometimes it will completely bear me up above all trials, and doubts, and sorrows; and it will, while I enjoy it, make me something more than "Man that is born of woman, who is of few days, and full of trouble"; for it will fling about me the immortality of the everliving Saviour, and gird me with the golden girdle of His eternal joy. Come, my soul, sit at Jesus's feet and learn of Him all this day.

C.H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Hendrickson Publishers, 1997.

my heart as of late

God is quick to comfort; sometimes we just need a little patience. ;)

I received this from 'Of First Importance' today:

He loves you as you are

“There never was one who came to him with a broken heart, but he healed him. He never said to one, “You are too bad for me to heal;” but he did say, “Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.” My dear hearer, he will not cast you out. You say, “You do not know me, Mr. Spurgeon.” No, I do not; and you have come here to-night, and you hardly know why you are here; only you are very low and very sad.

The Lord Jesus Christ loves such as you are, you poor, desponding, doubting, desolate, disconsolate one. Daughters of sorrow, sons of grief, look ye here! Jesus Christ has gone on healing broken hearts for thousands of years, and he is well up in the business. He understands it by experience, as well as by education. He is “mighty to save.” Consider him; consider him; and the Lord grant you grace to come and trust him even now!”

- Charles Spurgeon, Christ’s Hospital

This led to a link to the full sermon, click here to read it in full. Below is an excerpt:

The church of God is never so well built up as when it is built up with men of broken hearts. I have prayed to God in secret many a time, of late, that he would be pleased to gather out from among us a people who have a deep experience, who should know the guilt of sin, who should be broken and ground to powder under a sense of their own inability and unworthiness; for I am persuaded that, without a deep experience of sin, there is seldom much belief in the doctrine of grace, and not much enthusiasm in praising the Saviour's name. The church needs to be built up with men who have been pulled down. Unless we know in our hearts our need of a Saviour, we shall never be worth much in preaching him. That preacher who has never been converted, what can he say about it? And he who has never been in the dungeon, who has never been in the abyss, who has never felt as if he were cast out from the sight of God, how can he comfort many who are outcasts, and who are bound with the fetters of despair? May the Lord break many hearts, and then bind them up, that with them he may build up the church, and inhabit it!

ALSO

I found commentary by Matthew Henry on the verses from my quiet time a few days ago. Click here to read.

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I have rejoiced in my 'brokeness' for a long time. However, God keeps revealing to me just what that means - and in doing so, continually shows me His character, how MORE and MORE I can trust Him, that His patience is never-ending.

God is so faithful when we read His Word - I am amazed every day! :)

Daily Dose of Spurgeon

September 3 - Evening

Psalm 11:5 - The Lord trieth the righteous.

All events are under the control of Providence; consequently all the trials of our outward life are traceable at once to the great First Cause. Out of the golden gate of God's ordinance the armies of trial march forth in array, clad in their iron armour, and armed with weapons of war. All providences are doors to trial. Even our mercies, like roses, have their thorns. Men may be drowned in seas of prosperity as well as in rivers of affliction. Our mountains are not too high, and our valleys are not too low for temptations: trials lurk on all roads. Everywhere, above and beneath, we are beset and surrounded with dangers. Yet no shower falls unpermitted from the threatening cloud; every drop has its order ere it hastens to the earth. The trials which come from God are sent to prove and strengthen our graces, and so at once to illustrate the power of divine grace, to test the genuineness of our virtues, and to add to their energy.

Our Lord in His infinite wisdom and superabundant love, sets so high a value upon His people's faith that He will not screen them from those trials by which faith is strengthened. You would never have possessed the precious faith which now supports you if the trial of your faith had not been like unto fire. You are a tree that never would have rooted so well if the wind had not rocked you to and fro, and made you take firm hold upon the precious truths of the covenant grace. Worldly ease is a great foe to faith; it loosens the joints of holy valour, and snaps the sinews of sacred courage. The balloon never rises until the cords are cut; affliction doth this sharp service for believing souls. While the wheat sleeps comfortably in the husk it is useless to man, it must be threshed out of its resting place before its value can be known. Thus it is well that Jehovah trieth the righteous, for it causeth them to grow rich towards God.

Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Hendrickson Publishing, 1997.

Daily Dose of Spurgeon

August 17, Evening

John 11:4
This sickness is not unto death.

From our Lord's words we learn that there is a limit to sickness. Here is an "unto" within which its ultimate end is restrained, and beyond which it cannot go. Lazarus might pass through death, but death was not to be the ultimatum of his sickness. In all sickness, the Lord saith to the waves of pain, "Hitherto shall ye go, but no further." His fixed purpose is not the destruction, but the instruction of His people. Wisdom hangs up the thermometer at the furnace mouth, and regulates the heat.

1. The limit is encouragingly comprehensive. The God of providence has limited the time, manner, intensity, repetition, and effects of all our sicknesses; each throb is decreed, each sleepless hour predestinated, each relapse ordained, each depression of spirit foreknown, and each sanctifying result eternally purposed. Nothing great or small escapes the ordaining hand of Him who numbers the hairs of our head.

2. This limit is wisely adjusted to our strength, to the end designed, and to the grace apportioned. Affliction comes not at haphazard-the weight of every stroke of the rod is accurately measured. He who made no mistakes in balancing the clouds and meting out the heavens, commits no errors in measuring out the ingredients which compose the medicine of souls. We cannot suffer too much nor be relieved too late.

3. The limit is tenderly appointed. The knife of the heavenly Surgeon never cuts deeper than is absolutely necessary. "He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." A mother's heart cries, "Spare my child"; but no mother is more compassionate than our gracious God. When we consider how hard-mouthed we are, it is a wonder that we are not driven with a sharper bit. The thought is full of consolation, that He who has fixed the bounds of our habitation, has also fixed the bounds of our tribulation.

Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Hendrickson Publishers, 1997

"I wish to begin again on a daily basis"

I don't want to ever consider myself a 'mature' Christian.

I don't ever want to think that I've learned all there is to know.

I want be continually challenged by You.

Please help me to remain child-like in my faith; in my belief.

I want to be a sponge that is never fully saturated.

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I once found the transcript to Bono's speech given at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2006. I found it quite by accident; but it intrigued me.

Anyway, I saw something I never would have expected out of such a hugely talented and famous rock star - yeah, and I already knew how much he's done for HIV/AIDS in Africa - and about the religious themes in his music (we even deconstructed the lyrics to 'With or Without You' in 8th grade English) - I saw a desire to know God.

So I've spent some time looking up quotes (yes, one of my favorite hobbies, so what?), and felt like pasting them below. I don't know, just a different perspective on Christianity than I am used to; I like to see other people's p.o.v.'s:

................................................................

"If I could put it simply, I would say that I believe there's a force of love and logic in the world, a force of love and logic behind the universe. And I believe in the poetic genius of a creator who would choose to express such unfathomable power as a child born in "straw poverty"; i.e., the story of Christ makes sense to me. ... As an artist, I see the poetry of it. It's so brilliant. That this scale of creation, and the unfathomable universe, should describe itself in such vulnerability, as a child. That is mind-blowing to me. I guess that would make me a Christian. Although I don't use the label, because it is so very hard to live up to. I feel like I'm the worst example of it, so I just kinda keep my mouth shut."

"...this of course is at the heart of the idea of redemption: to begin again. This is at the heart of religious fundamentalism too: to be born again. I wish to begin again on a daily basis. To be born again every day is something that I try to do. And I'm deadly serious about that."

"But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross."

"It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma. You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics - in physical laws - every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that 'As you reap, so will you sow' stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff"

"I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep _____. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity."

I love the bit when Christ's asked for his greatest hits and he says, "OK, love God, and love your neighbours as yourself." Christianity is not complicated, that's what it is.

So now — cut to 1980. Irish rock group, who've been through the fire of a certain kind of revival, a Christian-type revival, go to America. Turn on the TV the night you arrive, and there's all these people talking from the Scriptures. But they're quite obviously raving lunatics. Suddenly you go, what's this? And you change the channel. There's another one. You change the channel, and there's another secondhand-car salesman. You think, oh, my God. But their words sound so similar . . . to the words out of our mouths. So what happens? You learn to shut up. You say, whoa, what's this going on? You go oddly still and quiet. If you talk like this around here, people will think you're one of those. And you realize that these are the traders — as in t-r-a-d-e-r-s — in the temple.

One SOURCE - the other was Wikiquote.

Daily Dose of Spurgeon

Morning and Evening: July 30 PM

John 6:37 - Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.


No limit is set to the duration of this promise. It does not merely say, "I will not cast out a sinner at his first coming," but, "I will in no wise cast out." The original reads, "I will not, not cast out," or "I will never, never cast out." The text means, that Christ will not at first reject a believer; and that as He will not do it at first, so He will not to the last. But suppose the believer sins after coming? "If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." But suppose that believers backslide? "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for Mine anger is turned away from him." But believers may fall under temptation! "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." But the believer may fall into sin as David did! Yes, but He will "Purge them with hyssop, and they shall be clean; He will wash them and they shall be whiter than snow"; "From all their iniquities will I cleanse them."

"Once in Christ, in Christ for ever, Nothing from His love can sever."

"I give unto My sheep," saith He, "eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." What sayest thou to this, O trembling feeble mind? Is not this a precious mercy, that coming to Christ, thou dost not come to One who will treat thee well for a little while, and then send thee about thy business, but He will receive thee and make thee His bride, and thou shalt be His for ever? Receive no longer the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption whereby thou shalt cry, Abba, Father! Oh! the grace of these words: "I will in no wise cast out."

C.H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Hendrickson Publishers, 1997

my life feels like one continual line of neutrality

(almost midnight last night; yes, after I wrote the previous post on Trust)

I'm sorry to doubt. I'm sorry to worry. I'm sorry to expect. I'm sorry.

It just gets so old; feeling invisible like this. Just for once I would like to be proven wrong.

I'm tired of being taken for granted. I'm tired of not feeling good enough. I'm tired of being forgettable. I'm tired.

I hate that I get down like this, but I can't see living life - every-single-second - like nothing is ever wrong. That I don't hope. That I don't have any unfulfilled desires. Because I do.

And I feel as though nothing will ever change. My life feels like one continual line of neutrality.

Although I do have something new coming up. I'm moving. In with Christians who are following Jesus, who are walking in the Light, who are living for the Lord. God has blessed me with this opportunity - and really opened my eyes to my need for this.

Baby steps, baby steps, I need to learn more about patience.

*Yep, that lasted about two hours...*

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So, this morning, I read Spurgeon, and it kinda addressed why I was so down last night, Numbers 2:31 - "They shall go hindmost with their standards. But I know the real problem with my "Debbie Downer" moment; I was frustrated with my circumstances. I felt as though there was no way I could get out of them; that I was stuck. And of course, God quickly and gently reminded me that He has provided the way, but I will have to be patient for just a little while longer.

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Also, I just read a devotional, Ephesians 6:18 - I Hate to Burden You, which brought to mind something I wanted to write about a few months ago, but never really went anywhere with. This simple fact: if you are friends with a Christian - even just a co-worker - they more than likely pray for you. Pretty powerful, don't you think? The author has another great post about this, The Power of a Praying Friend.

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Finally, I want to throw a quote in here. It's by Tony Snow, Cancer's Unexpected Blessings:

"God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise."

Daily Dose of Spurgeon

Morning and Evening, July 9 PM

Genesis 1:4

And God divided the light from the darkness.

A believer has two principles at work within him. In his natural estate he was subject to one principle only, which was darkness; now light has entered, and the two principles disagree. Mark the apostle Paul's words in the seventh chapter of Romans: "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members." How is this state of things occasioned? "The Lord divided the light from the darkness." Darkness, by itself, is quiet and undisturbed, but when the Lord sends in light, there is a conflict, for the one is in opposition to the other: a conflict which will never cease till the believer is altogether light in the Lord. If there be a division within the individual Christian, there is certain to be a division without. So soon as the Lord gives to any man light, he proceeds to separate himself from the darkness around; he secedes from a merely worldly religion of outward ceremonial, for nothing short of the gospel of Christ will now satisfy him, and he withdraws himself from worldly society and frivolous amusements, and seeks the company of the saints, for "We know we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." The light gathers to itself, and the darkness to itself. What God has divided, let us never try to unite, but as Christ went without the camp, bearing His reproach, so let us come out from the ungodly, and be a peculiar people. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; and, as He was, so we are to be nonconformists to the world, dissenting from all sin, and distinguished from the rest of mankind by our likeness to our Master.

C.H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Hendrickson Publishers, 1997.

Daily Dose of Spurgeon

June 7, Evening Devotional

Be zealous. Revelation 3:19


If you would see souls converted, if you would hear the cry that "the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord"; if you would place crowns upon the head of the Saviour, and His throne lifted high, then be filled with zeal. For, under God, the way of the world's conversion must be by the zeal of the church. Every grace shall do exploits, but this shall be first; prudence, knowledge, patience, and courage will follow in their places, but zeal must lead the van. It is not the extent of your knowledge, though that is useful; it is not the extent of your talent, though that is not to be despised; it is your zeal that shall do great exploits. This zeal is the fruit of the Holy Spirit: it draws its vital force from the continued operations of the Holy Ghost in the soul. If our inner life dwindles, if our heart beats slowly before God, we shall not know zeal; but if all be strong and vigorous within, then we cannot but feel a loving anxiety to see the kingdom of Christ come, and His will done on earth, even as it is in heaven. A deep sense of gratitude will nourish Christian zeal. Looking to the hole of the pit whence we were digged, we find abundant reason why we should spend and be spent for God. And zeal is also stimulated by the thought of the eternal future. It looks with tearful eyes down to the flames of hell, and it cannot slumber: it looks up with anxious gaze to the glories of heaven, and it cannot but bestir itself. It feels that time is short compared with the work to be done, and therefore it devotes all that it has to the cause of its Lord. And it is ever strengthened by the remembrance of Christ's example. He was clothed with zeal as with a cloak. How swift the chariot-wheels of duty went with Him! He knew no loitering by the way. Let us prove that we are His disciples by manifesting the same spirit of zeal.

C.H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Hendrickson Publishers, 1995.

"With this all things are possible."

So I finished reading 'The Four Loves,' by C.S. Lewis. As usual, I loved it! And he always seems to leave the best for last... Here are some quotes from the last chapter, 'Charity.'

"In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation into which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him in (Confessions IV, 10). Then he draws a moral. This is what comes, he says, of giving one's heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away."

"The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

"God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say 'seeing"? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing clouds of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a "host" who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and "take advantage" of Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves."

"For all the time this illusion to which nature clings as her last treasure, this pretence that we have anything of our own or could for one hour retain by our own strength any goodness that God may pour into us, has kept us from being happy. We have been like bathers who want to keep their feet - or one foot - or one toe - on the bottom, when to lose that foothold would be to surrender themselves to a glorious tumble in the surf. The consequences of parting with our last claim to intrinsic freedom, power, or worth, are real freedom, power and worth, really ours just because God gives them and because we know them to be (in another sense) not 'ours.'"

"We are all receiving Charity. There is something in each of us that cannot be naturally loved. Only the lovable can be naturally loved. You might as well ask people to like the taste of rotten bread or the sound of a mechanical drill. We can be forgiven, and pitied, and loved in spite of it, with Charity; no other way. All who have good parents, wives, husbands, or children, may be sure that at some times - and perhaps at all times in respect of some one particular trait or habit - they are receiving Charity, are loved not because they are lovable but because Love Himself is in those who love them."

"All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His. In Heaven there will be no anguish and no duty of turning away from our earthly Beloveds. First, because we shall have turned already; from the portraits to the Original, from the rivulets to the Fountain, from the creatures He made lovable to Love Himself. But secondly, because we shall find them all in Him. By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do."

""Is it easy to love God?" asks an old author. "It is easy," he replies, "to those who do it." I have included two Graces under the word Charity. But God can give a third. He can awake in a man, towards Himself, a supernatural Appreciative love. This is of all gifts the most to be desired. Here, not in our natural loves, nor even in ethics, lies the true centre of all human and angelic life. With this all things are possible."

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Harvest Books, 1988.

Daily Dose of C.H. Spurgeon

This is an April 3 Evening Devotional of C.H. Spurgeon:

"We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53:6

Here is a confession of sin common to all the elect people of God. They have all fallen, and therefore, in common chorus, they all say, from the first who entered heaven to the last who shall enter there, "We all, like sheep, have gone astray." The confession, while thus unanimous, is also special and particular: "Each of us has turned to his own way." There is a peculiar sinfulness about each of us; all of us are sinful, but each of us has some special annoyance not found in the others. It is the mark of genuine repentance that while it naturally associates itself with other penitents, it also takes up a position of loneliness. "Each of us has turned to his own way" is a confession that each person had sinned against light peculiar to himself, or sinned with a vexation which he could not perceive in others. This confession is a giving up of all pleas of self-righteousness. It is the declaration of all human beings who are consciously guilty - guilty with vexations, guilty without excuse: they stand with their weapons of rebellion broken in pieces, and cry, "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way." Yet we hear no sorrowful wailings attending this confession of sin being that the next sentence makes it almost a song. "The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." It is the most grievous sentence of the three, but it overflows with comfort. It is strange that, where misery was concentrated, mercy reigned; where sorrow reached her climax, weary souls find rest. The Savior bruised is the healing of bruised hearts. See how the lowliest penitence gives place to assured confidence through simply gazing at Christ on the cross!

C.H. Spurgeon’s, Morning and Evening, Henridckson Publishers, Copyright 1995.

Are you a backslider?

I was a backslider. Definitely. I wouldn't say it was one big event, but it was a gradual slope, turned into a roller coaster ride (and I don't like roller coasters, so I can't say it was that much fun). Below is from a daily devotional that I read... well, daily. Written by C.H. Spurgeon.



"Renew a steadfast spirit within me." - Psalm 51:10


"A backslider, if there is a spark of life left in him, will groan after restoration. In this renewal the same exercise of grace is required as at our conversion. We needed repentance then; we certainly need it now. We wanted faith that we might come to Christ at first; only the same grace can bring us to Jesus now. We wanted a word from the Most High, a word from the lip of the loving One, to end our fears then; we shall soon discover, when under a sense of present sin, that we need it now. No one can be renewed without a manifestation of the Holy Spirit's energy that is as real and true as at the first renewal because the work is as great, and flesh and blood are just as present now as they ever were. Let your personal weakness, O Christian, be an argument to make you pray earnestly to your God for help. Remember, David didn't fold his arms or close his lips when he felt himself to be powerless; instead, he hastened to the mercy seat with "renew a steadfast spirit within me." Don't let the doctrine that you can do nothing unaided make you sleep; but let it be a goad in your side to drive you with great earnestness to Israel's strong Helper. O that you may have grace to plead with God, as though you pleaded for your very life - "Lord, renew a steadfast spirit within me." Those who sincerely pray to God to do this, will prove their honesty by using the means through which God works. Pray often; live upon the Word of God often; kill lusts which have driven your Lord from you; be careful to watch over future uprisings of sin. The Lord has His own appointed ways; sit by the wayside and you will be ready when He passes by. Continue in all those blessed ordinances which will foster and nourish your dying graces; and, knowing that all the power must proceed from Him, never stop saying, "Renew a steadfast spirit within me."



Morning and Evening, Charles H. Spurgeon, Hendrickson Publishers.



I will say that I read this AFTER I had decided to 'renew my spirit.' I did a lot of what Spurgeon listed towards the end of the devotional. Most importantly I prayed. I prayed, for change in myself. I prayed to God that I could finally see where I had gone wrong. Things that were both in and out of my control definitely took my focus away. I prayed to God to help me with this. To be close to Him again. To go back to how I used to be. I prayed for help to give everything up to Him. I prayed for Christian friends. I prayed for a place to fellowship.

And you know what? It's all coming true. It's unfolding slowly. Except this time it's hasn't been a roller coaster ride (although you never know...).

It has been beautiful.


Psalm 51 (King James Version)

1Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
2Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
3For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
4Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
5Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
7Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
9Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
10Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
11Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
12Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
13Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
14Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.
15O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.
16For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
18Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.
19Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

Miracles~CSL

I have picked up Miracles again (by C.S. Lewis). Love it love it love it. Just wanted to type in an excerpt from Chapter 12, The Propriety of Miracles:

"For those who can suppose that God's external act, seen from within, would be that same complexity of mathematical relations which Nature, scientifically studied, reveals? It is like thinking that a poet builds up his line out of those metrical feet into which we can analyse it, or that living speech takes grammar as its starting point. But the best illustration of all is Bergson's. Let us suppose a race of people whose peculiar mental limitation compels them to regard a painting as something made up of little coloured dots which have been put together like a mosaic. Studying the brushwork of a great painting, through their magnifying glasses, they discovery more and more complicated relations between the dots, and sort these relations out, with great toil into certain regularities. Their labour will not be in vain. These regularities will in fact 'work'; they will cover most of the facts. But if they go on to conclude that any departure from them would be unworthy of the painter, and an arbitrary breaking of his own rules, they will be far astray. For the regularities they have observed never were the rule the painter was following. What they painfully reconstruct from a million dots, arranged in an agonising complexity, he really produced with a single lightning-quick turn of the wrist, his eye meanwhile taking in the canvas as a whole and his mind obeying laws of composition which the observers, counting their dots, have not yet come within sight of, and perhaps never will. I do not say that the normalities of Nature are unreal. The living foundation of divine energy, solidified for purposes of this spatio-temporal Nature into bodies moving in space and time, and thence, by our abstract thought, turned into mathematical formulae, does in fact for us, commonly fall into such and such patterns. In finding out these patterns we are therefore gaining real, and often useful, knowledge. But to think that a disturbance* of them would constitute a breach of the living rule and organic unity whereby God, from His own point of view, works, is a mistake. If miracles do occur then we may be sure that not to have wrought them would be the real inconsistency."

If you can't tell already, Lewis is thinking out the process of miracles. Before this chapter, he goes through different arguments, natural vs. supernatural... something to really read on your own... something I will probably have to read again to get more of a grasp. Whew. I'm now on page 173, have 121 pages to go!

*by disturbance, he means an intrusion into nature, a 'breaking' of natural law as we know it.

"While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all."

"While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all."


So, I finally finished reading "The Problem of Pain," by C.S. Lewis. Whew, it took me awhile. For those of you who haven't read him before, his writing can be pretty dense (this is excluding his children's series, "The Chronicles of Narnia," which I read when I was about 8 ), I had to read many sentences a few times before moving on. I took a few months break after reading it halfway through, and as stated above, finished it... last night.


Anyway, thought I would retype three small excerpts from the last chapter, entitled 'Heaven.' I don't know, I just really enjoyed it, and wanted to share.


"Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all."


"This signature on each soul may be a product of heredity and environment, but that only means that heredity and environment are among the instruments whereby God creates a soul. I am considering not how, but why, He makes each soul unique. If He had no use for all these differences, I do not see why He should have created more souls than one. Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you. The mould in which a key is made would be strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you- you, the individual reader, John Stubbs or Janet Smith...... Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it- made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand."


"From the highest to the lowest, self exists to be abdicated and, by that abdication, becomes the more truly self, to be thereupon yet the more abdicated, and so forever. This is not a heavenly law which we can escape by remaining earthly, nor an earthly law which we can escape by being saved. What is outside the system of self-giving is not earth, nor nature, nor 'ordinary life,' but simply and solely hell. Yet even hell derives from this law such reality as it is. That fierce imprisonment in the self is but the obverse of the self-giving which is absolute reality; the negative shape which the outer darkness takes by surrounding and defining the shape of the real, or which the real imposes on the darkness by having a shape and positive nature of its own."


Okay, so those turned out longer than I expected. If you made it down to this side of the page, then you read the excerpts, and I hope you enjoyed them. If they made you want to read this or any of his other books, even better. And be assured, that even though these quotes are in the last chapter of the book, they in no way ruin the whole book for you! It's not like in 'When Harry Met Sally,' where Harry reads the last page of every book before he starts it.

This Moment Contains All Moments

I am a REALLY big C.S. Lewis fan. So I thought I would share some of his quotes with everyone.


Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.


To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.


This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.


This moment contains all moments.


God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.


What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what kind of a person you are.


Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.


We are all fallen creatures and all very hard to live with.


Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.


The very man who has argued you down, will sometimes be found, years later, to have been influenced by what you said.


Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.


Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.


If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.


No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.


I think we all sin by needlessly disobeying the apostolic injunction to "rejoice" as much as by anything else.


He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart.


Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.


There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan.


I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.


Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.


You play the hand you're dealt. I think the game's worthwhile.