Trailing heaven behind Him

The following quote is from B.B. Warfield and is related to the healing ministry that Jesus began in Matthew 4

"When our Lord came down to earth, He drew heaven with Him. THe signs which accompanied His ministry were but the trailing clouds of glory which He brought from heaven, which is His home. The number of the miracles which He wrought may easily be underrated. It has been said that in effect He banished disease and death from Palestine for the three years of His ministry. One touch of the hem of His garment that He wore could heal whole countries of their pain. One touch of His Hand could restore life."

The Sea of Galilee

While reading in Matthew 4, I came across this poem about the Sea of Galilee.

How pleasant to me, thy deep blue wave,
O Sea of Galilee
For the Glorious One who came to save
Hath often stood by thee

Graceful around thee the mountains meet,
Thou calm reposing sea
But ah! Far more, the beautiful feet
Of Jesus walked o'er thee

Tell me, ye mouldering fragments, tell,
Was the Saviour's city here?
Lifted to heaven, has it sunk to hell,
With none to shed a tear?

ANd was it beside this very sea
The new-risen Savious said
Three times to Simon, "Lovest thou me?
My lambs and sheep then feed."

O Savious, gone to God's right hand,
But the same Saviour still,
Graved on thy heart is this lovely strand
ANd every fragrant hill.

Oh! Give me, Lord, by this sacred wave,
Threefold thy love divine,
That I may feed, till I find my grave,
Thy flock-both thine and mine

What does this make me?

Christa is very close to having a baby. I mean, really close. Like in the next couple of days close.

She's at her baby shower today, with a lot of friends from the church. Beth Goff was nice enough to put this together for her, and I know she's very happy to have one. I hope Christa dosn't read this blog soon, because my office is throwing us a shower this next Friday. We very well might have a baby then.

Since she is having her shower today, I am , of course, watching Caleb. His best friend Joe CLiatt is here also (his mother Melissa is at the shower). Joe and Caleb are upstairs watching "The Land Before Time" (cute dinosaur movie). I am downstairs having a martini and reading "Much Ado About Nothing". They're watching dinosaurs and I'm reading Shakespeare.

So does this make me a 'Renaissance Man'? Or something else? Just a sensitive, well-educated daddy?

Scary times at Mervyn's

Last week i was at Mervyn's buying some clothes. Pants and a shirt and the total came to 57.09. I'm at the register and I hand the girl 3 $20 bills. SHe looks at them, holds them up and says, "That's 60, right?"


How did this person get through any type of training? Why is she working a register?

Tuscan Chicken

With some of the money/gift cards that we got for Christmas, Christa and I bought an indoor grill, sort of like the famous George Foreman grill. This one we gotfrom Crate and Barrel and it's by Cuisinart and called The Griddler (sounds suspiciously like a Batman villian)

Tonight I made one of Christa's favorites, grilled Tuscan chicken. The marinade is really, really simple. Olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, rosemary, parsley, salt/pepper. That's it. marinate the chicken overnight and grill. Voila!!!

Caleb is getting wise

Yesterday, we were talking with Caleb bout the impending arrival of Regan in the next few weeks. We told him that she was in mommy's tummy and would be coming out in about 3 weeks.

Caleb looked at us and said, "Daddy, how did the baby get in mommy's tummy?"

Uh..................................................................................................................we'll get back to you on that one.

Identifying with sinners

I've just finishing studying Matthew 3, the story of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus. Why did Jesus choose to be baptized? One writer says that there's a difference between the purpose of the baptism and the result. The purpose was "to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15) But it is the result that I want to focus on.

The result of Jesus' baptism is so that He could indentify Himself with sinners, those whom He came to save. At the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus would make the ultimate sacrifice, dying on the cross for the sins of all, past, present and future. But way back at the beginning of His earthly ministry, three years earlier, He began the process which would end with His death.

John's baptism was a purification rite, which symbolized that people needed to repent and be cleansed. Obviously Jesus did not need to do this. But everyone one else in history would need to. This was Jesus' humility at work, acting AS IF He were in need of such a cleansing.

I take comfort from this. Jesus has chosen to identify with me in my sin. Th sin is that which we most often like to keep hidden. That is the part Jesus came to identify with. GOd knows my sin is heinous in His Eyes. But I have a Savior and a Lord who came to save me from such as this

Funny things that Caleb says

Caleb was in his bath tonight when I told him it was time to get out. Let's just say we had a dispute about whether it was time to be out of the bath or not. He said it was not time. So I looked him square in the face and said, "Caleb, do you have a watch? Do you know what time it is?" No answer.

About 20 minutes later, after he had been dried and had his pajamas on, he came runnng downstairs to me with Christa's watch on his wrist. He said, "Daddy, it's not time to get out of the bath. I've got a watch."

Why I dislike Home Depot

Christa and I went to Home Depot tongiht to get new closet doors for Caleb's room. I'd forgotten that I don't like Home Depot and I'll always go to OSH when I have the choice. Granted, Home Depot did have the closet doors we wanted and they were on sale.

Here's what we dealt with:

1. No one to help for the longest time. We had to get the doors down from a height. The first guy we found to help tried to palm us off on someone else.

2. I went to get a cart to put the doors in. There were a bunch by the front door. When I made a move to get one, the girl behind the counter said I couldn't touch them and had to go elsewhere. 20 empty carts sitting there! I asked her why and she said, "That's what I put my go-backs on". I'm assuming she meant returns.

3. One checkstand open. ONE!!!!! There were 6 people in line. Other employees were in the area also. ONE!!!!!!!

Brother Lawrence

One book that my men's group is reading is "The Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence. He was a cook in a 17th-century monastary. The subject of his book is exactly what the title describes. How does one learn to ber in God's Presence? We know that we are theoloigcally, but how do we learn it practically?

Most of what he wrote can be boiled down into one succinct idea. Doing what we do in life not for our pleasure, but for God's Glory. He writes, "That the most excellent method he had found of going to God was of doing our common business without any view of pleasing men and purely for the love of God" He also says, "That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed."

Pivot #2

The second major pivot in my life occured during a 4-day period in the sumer of 1996. Just in time for me to turn and go through an early mid-life crisis.

Here is what happened...

On Day 1, I found out that the girl that I was dating and was probably a month away from proposing to, was having an affair with a married man.

On Day 2, I got fired from my job. I found out later that she wanted to hire a friend of hers. Not much comfort for me there.

On Day 3, I got in a bad car accident.

On Day 4, one of my best friends came out of the closet to me and told me she was a lesbian. We've had very little contact since then.

Up to that point in my life, my Christian faith had been perhaps a bit shaky. One foot in the Kingdon of God, and the other in the world. Sometimes I think that God throws monkey wrenches into peoples lives in order to get them to focus on what is truly important. It was going through an experience like this which got me to sit up straight and pay more attention to God than I had in the past. It was time to get serious.

Even 11 years later, this memory still burns into my mind. I did not enjoy the pain and agony at the time, but today I am thankful that God chose to put me through so that He could shape me more into the man He wanted me to be.

Puritan quotes on repentence.

John MacArthur's commentary on Matthew1-7 is the source for these quotes from Puritan writers on the idea of repentence. Oh, and one from a rabbi.

William Perkins: "Godly sorrow causeth grief for sin, because it is sin. It makes any man in whom it is to be of this disposition and mind, that if there were no conscience to accuse, no devil to terrify, no Judge to arraign and condemn, no hell to torment, yet he would be humbled and brought on his knees for his sins, because he hath offended a loving, merciful and long-suffering God."

Thomas Goodwin: "Fall down upon thy knees afore Him, and with a heart broken to water, acknowledge, as Shimei, thy treason and rebellions against Him who never did thee hurt; and acknowledge, with a rope ready fitted to thy neck by thy own hands...Tell Him that He may shew justice on thee, if He will; and present thy naked breast, thy hateful soul, as a butt and mark for Him, if he please, to shoot His arrows into and sheathe His sword in. Only desire Him to remember that He sheathed His sword first in the bowels of His Sopn, when He made His soul and offering for sin."

Rabbi Eleazar: "It is the way of the world, when a man has insulted his fellow in public, and after a time seeks to be reconciled to him, that the other says, "You insult me publicly and now you would be reconciled to me between us two alone! Go bring the men in whose presence you insulted me, and I will be reconciled to you." But God is not so. A man may stand and rail and blaspheme in the marketplace, and the Holy One says, "Repent between us two alone and I will receive you."

Thoughts on repentence

I've begun studying the gospel of Matthew, a study which should take me through the entire year. Just today I was reading and studying the idea of repentence as contained in the preaching and ministry of John the Baptist. Very briefly, his teaching was that repentence as 2 sides. There is the negative side of repenting of sin. But there is also the positive side of bringing "forth fruit in keeping with repentence" (Matthew 3:8) The phrase 'in keeping with' means having equal weight or worth. This means that John says that your positive fruits after repentence should have an equal weight to your repentence.

How to put this another way? When one turns FROM sin, one must naturally turn TOWARDS something else. That is positive fruit. Paul defines fruit like this as "deeds appropriate to repentence" (Acts 26:20)

It is not enough merely to have repented from sin. True repentence shows itself through action. When one has truly repented, the actions in ones life, by necessity, change from sin to acts of righteousness, or 'fruit'

10 ways you can tell you're in a bad church

Thanks you Steve Camp for this...


Top Ten Ways That You Can Tell You're In A Bad Church.

10. The usher asks if you prefer the smoking or non-smoking section

9. Your Christmas Eve service is broadcast live on FOXNEWS

8. Regular attendees earn frequent flyer miles

7. 8:30 am service replaced by an extreme image makeover class with Dr. Phil

6. Baptismal tank has a wave-maker machine

5. Bibles in pews replaced by Reader's Digest

4. Sign out front has latest pastor's name written with dry erase markers.

3. Offering plates mounted with credit card swipers

2. Worship team performs their favorite Led Zepplin medley, with the altar call being "Stairway to Heaven."

1. BAnner across the sanctuary reads"This morning's worhsip service is brought to you by Chevrolet."