Texas Memories - Eclipse Shadows

 
Psalm 19:1-6 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. 

I believe this was in August 2017. I love how the sun shining through the trees makes these shadows that show the eclipse of the sun. 

Hard Questions - What About Vaccines?

 

Romans 14:19 Let us therefore follow

after the things which make for peace,

and things wherewith one may edify another.

 

A tremendous amount of tension and drama has surrounded the subject of vaccinations for years now, but recently it has reached a fever pitch. It is a very polarizing subject, causing splits in friendships, family relationships, Christian fellowship, and the public arena of life. It is hard to overstate the situation.

Making decisions about this issue is very complicated and not a matter to be taken lightly for many people. I’ve read, heard, and seen enough to know that there are points of legitimate contention on both sides. Yes, I did just take a moderate position. Sadly, there are people who won’t have the mental fortitude to continue reading because they are so polarized on this issue that they can’t even tolerate hearing a slightly different point of view than their own. Yes, I did just call you a wimp if you get all mad and leave without finishing reading this, but I mean it in the nicest possible sense. <smile>

Frankly, I’m more than a little tired and put out with the controversy that some Christians feel is appropriate on this issue - controversy and sinful anger in defiance of God’s word and Christian charity. And, I’m saying that to both sides, so please don’t assume I mean one or the other. I’ve seen the people who support informed choice on this issue get mostly ignored because they were moderate instead of supporting one extreme position or the other. I've also seen people who believed in informed choice take extreme positions on the "right" to choose, to the point of ignoring what the Bible actually teaches. I know that there are people on all sides of this issue who will automatically be disgusted with me before they even hear me out just because I am not “smart enough” to take their own position. This doesn’t remind me much of 1 Corinthians 13.

1 Corinthians 13:1-4 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind...

As Christians, what should our position be? This is a tough question and one to which many people think they have an absolute answer. Most of them, however, are basing that answer on what they believe are “the facts” surrounding the issue of vaccinations rather than Biblical principles. Some also believe they are following biblical principles but they are only taking into account what supports their own presuppositions. Worst of all, some people actually base their position on nothing more than a political ideology or the say-so of their favorite "big cheese" (president, politician, doctor, pastor, movie star, sports hero, you name it.)

Let’s consider a couple questions relating to the issue, questions that might not be exactly the ones generally asked.

Continue Reading.

Evening Song - So Send I You

John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

1 Peter 2:21-24 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. 

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A little history on this song:

“Margaret Clarkson, who was born in 1915, was a teacher in a gold-mining camp in northern Ontario, Canada. It was a lonely life for this woman, but she also knew that this is where God wanted her to serve Him. She had a great desire to be a missionary on a foreign field but because of her health was unable to go. One day she was reading again the verse John 20:21, “Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” While meditating on this verse she wrote the words to a hymn that has become a favorite during missionary conferences, “So Send I You.”

“In 1935 teaching jobs were so scarce that I had to take my first job as a teacher in a lumber camp some 1400 miles from home, out in the Rainy River District of northwestern Ontario. From there I moved to the gold mining camp of Kirkland Lake, 450 miles north of Toronto. In all, I spent seven years in the north. I experienced loneliness of every kind; mental, cultural, but particularly spiritual, for in all of those seven years I never found real Christian fellowship – churches were modern and born-again Christians almost non-existent.

“I was studying the Word one night and meditating on the loneliness of my situation and came in my reading to John 20, and the words ‘So send I you’. Because of a physical disability I knew that I could never go to the mission field, but God seemed to tell me that night that this was my mission field, and this was where He had sent me. I was then twenty-three, in my third year of teaching. I had written and published verse all of my life, so it was natural to put my thoughts into verse.”

[Source] Usual disclaimers apply.

Texas Memories and A Poem - One Day at A Time

 

One Day at A Time

One day at a time, with its failures and fears,

With its hurts and mistakes, with its weakness and tears,

With its portion of pain and its burden of care;

One day at a time we must meet and must bear.

One day at a time to be patient and strong,

To be calm under trial and sweet under wrong;

Then its toiling shall pass and its sorrow shall cease;

It shall darken and die, and the night shall bring peace.

One day at a time - but the day is so long,

And the heart is not brave, and the soul is not strong,

O Thou pitiful Christ, be Thou near all the way;

Give courage and patience and strength for the day.

Swift cometh His answer, so clear and so sweet;

"Yea, I will be with thee, thy troubles to meet;

I will not forget thee, nor fail thee, nor grieve;

I will not forsake thee; I never will leave."

Not yesterday's load we are called on to bear,

Nor the morrow's uncertain and shadowy care;

Why should we look forward or back with dismay?

Our needs, as our mercies, are but for the day.

One day at a time, and the day is His day;

He hath numbered its hours, though they haste or delay.

His grace is sufficient; we walk not alone;

As the day, so the strength that He giveth His own.

Annie Johnson Flint

Your Father Knoweth - A Poem by Annie Johnson Flint

 

Your Father Knoweth

...for your Father knoweth what
things ye have need of...
Matthew 6:8

God knoweth the need of my life
For shelter and raiment and food;
In each trifling care of the day
The word of His promise is good;
He knoweth my thought from afar,
The wish that I never have told,
And every unspoken desire
His wisdom doth grant or withhold.

He knoweth the way that I take;
Each step of that way He hath planned;
And, walking through sunshine or storm,
I walk in the shade of His hand.
In deserts untrodden and drear,
Where foes in the darkness may hide,
He leaveth me never alone;
He sendeth me light and a guide.

God knoweth the need of my soul --
The trial that calls for His grace,
The weakness that leans on His strength,
The fear that looks up to His face.
He knoweth what sifting is best
To scatter the chaff from the wheat
And lay all my self-righteous pride
Low down in the dust at His feet.

He knoweth me -- yet He can love,
Can wait with love's patience divine,
My stubborn and arrogant heart
Its will to His own to resign;
He knoweth my frame is but dust;
He knoweth how much it can bear;
I rest in that knowledge supreme;
I trust in His power and care.

- Annie Johnson Flint -
[altered]

Psalm 139:1-6 O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

Evening Song - You're Always Home

Psalm 90:1-2 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. 

Psalm 91:1-3 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. 

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The Thousand Word Project - Summer Brights

Zinnias

Worth Reading - Some other People's Thoughts On Shiny Happy People

 

Acts 20:28-30 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 

In case you were not aware, Prime Video released a docuseries on the Duggar family in June. Shiny Happy People (Duggar Family Secrets) is a four part documentary on the beliefs of the Duggar family and the IBLP at large with an emphasis on people who were abused by the system and have escaped. 

There has been a fair amount of controversy around it, partly due to the fact that many of the former IBLP members who were interviewed are no longer professing Christians, or they have embraced a much more progressive version of Christianity. I watched the docuseries starting the day it was released, but I want to watch it a second time to write down my observations and thoughts without the first impressions dominating. 

In the mean time, I thought I'd share this post from Lighthouse Trails Research Project for your consideration. The editors made a few clear observations and then linked to an article by Don Veinot at the Midwest Christian Outreach. Mr. Veinot has quite a considerable knowledge of Gothardism and its errors as he has been exposing it for years and made the effort and point of confronting Bill Gothard in person with his false teachings. Mr. Veinot and another man wrote a book on the subject, in fact, as you will see in the linked articles.

As always, I encourage you to look up the scriptures used in the KJV where other translations are used. I observed that, as usual, the KJV translation was much more useful and powerful in its language.

1 Peter 3:14-17 But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.

Sadly, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and Bill Gothard  and many others have given the adversary a weapon to use against the true faith, once delivered to the saints. They are suffering for their evil deeds, but as they have put themselves themselves forward to the world as representatives of Christianity at its alleged finest (especially the Duggars on their reality show), they have given the unsaved and unbelieving space to blaspheme the name of God as David did when he committed adultery. (2 Samuel 12:13-14. Romans 2:24 For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.) It is little wonder that the world misinterprets Christianity because of their behavior. But, it is tragic that the Bible teaching churches have allowed the errors of Gothard to pollute their beliefs so widely - a subject for another day.

Here is the post from Lighthouse Trails:

A Look At Shiny Happy People and What the Church Can Learn

Another item at their page that is of interest:

Letter to the Editor: The Teachings of Bill Gothard – A Misinterpretation of the Bible That Leads to Abuse

Disclaimer on other versions than the KJV and possibly some content.

Evening Song - Only Believe

Luke 8:50 But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.

Luke 12:32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

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The Thousand Word Project - Dark and Stormy Sunset

Beyond the sunset’s radiant glow

There is a brighter world, I know,

Where golden glories ever shine,

Beyond the thought of day’s decline.

Josephine Pollard

Romans 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 

Worth Repeating - The Lights of Home

 

In loving memory of my uncle, Don Hoover, who went Home to Jesus Saturday, August 5.

The Lights of Home

O the friends that now are waiting,

In the cloudless realms of day,

Who are calling me to follow

Where their steps have led the way;

They have laid aside their armor,

And their earthly course is run;

They have kept the faith with patience

And their crown of life is won.

Refrain:

They are calling, gently calling,

Sweetly calling me to come,

And I’m looking through the shadows

For the blessed lights of Home.

They have laid aside their armor

For the robe of spotless white;

And with Jesus they are walking

Where the river sparkles bright.

We have labored here together,

We have labored side by side,

Just a little while before me

They have crossed the rolling tide.

On those dear familiar faces

There will be no trace of care;

Every sigh was hushed forever

At the palace gate so fair.

I shall see them, I shall know them,

I shall hear their song of love,

And we’ll all sing hallelujah

In our Father’s house above.

Fanny J. Crosby

2 Timothy 4:7-8 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. 

John 14:1-3 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Evening Song - I'll Live In Glory

John 14:1-3 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. 

John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. 

Romans 6:22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. 

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The Thousand Word Project - Oranges and Greens?