Resurrection effects

John Botkin notes that the first missionaries to the New Hebrides were murdered by the islanders;  later John G Paton decided to go, and this caused fear for many of the same fate.  Warned by an older man of their cannibalism, he replied:

“Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect
is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to
you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus,
it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by
worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as
yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.”

So he went, and on this occasion things worked differently (this scenario sounds a bit like the Ecuadorian missionaries doesn't it?):

“Recall . . . what the Gospel has done for the near kindred of these
same Aborigines. On our own Aneityum, 3,500 Cannibals have
been lead to renounce their heathenism . . . In Fiji, 79,000
Cannibals have been brought under the influence of the Gospel;
and 13,000 members of the Churches are professing to live and
work for Jesus. In Samoa, 34,000 Cannibals have professed
Christianity; and in nineteen years, its College has sent forth 206
Native teachers and evangelists. On our New Hebrides, more than
12,000 Cannibals have been brought to sit at the feet of Christ,
through I mean not to say that they are all model Christians; and
133 of the Natives have been trained and sent forth as teachers
and preachers of the Gospel.”

John concludes:

This is what a realized belief in the resurrection can lead to: men and
women who are completely unafraid of what this world con do,
because they were saved into a hope of the future—an eternal future
with the risen Christ in a risen body.

John Botkin, Spirit Powered Living, p68

Chambers: Look and think

LOOK AGAIN AND THINK
"Take no thought for your life." Matthew 6:25 A warning which needs to be reiterated is that the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in, will choke all that God puts in. We are never free from the recurring tides of this encroachment. If it does not come on the line of clothes and food, it will come on the line of money or lack of money; of friends or lack of friends; or on the line of difficult circumstances. It is one steady encroachment all the time, and unless we allow the Spirit of God to raise up the standard against it, these things will come in like a flood. "Take no thought for your life." "Be careful about one thing only," says our Lord - "your relationship to Me." Common sense shouts loud and says - "That is absurd, I must consider how I am going to live, I must consider what I am going to eat and drink." Jesus says you must not. Beware of allowing the thought that this statement is made by One Who does not understand our particular circumstances. Jesus Christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and He says we must not think about these things so as to make them the one concern of our life. Whenever there is competition, be sure that you put your relationship to God first. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." How much evil has begun to threaten you to-day? What kind of mean little imps have been looking in and saying - Now what are you going to do next month - this summer? "Be anxious for nothing," Jesus says. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the "much more" of your heavenly Father.

DeGroat: addicted to security

Throughout my life, I’ve noticed that the times when I feel most drained and lifeless are the times when I’m expending a lot of energy on managing my life impeccably.  In these times, I find myself addicted to security, to people’s approval, to extreme control of my schedule so that unpredictable things cannot happen...

http://drchuckdegroat.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/the-recovery-of-desire/

Suffering and perseverance

We live in a sinful world, and as a result we will suffer under the effects of that sinfulness.
As we consider this, surely we then ask, why we must suffer with Christ in order that we might be glorified with him? The answer is simply this—suffering works the perseverance of faith. Earlier in Romans 5:3, Paul says, “we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance.” But how does this work? How does suffering or tribulation bring about perseverance? Suffering forces us to trust in God rather than ourselves. It forces us to depend
on him and his strength, not on what we can muster.

Spirit Powered Living, John Botkin, p51-52

Mid life continues

Well, me and Minty have been having a nice time reliving our mispent youth and latter years in our blogs - and we see no reason to stop yet, especially as for me, I am (or will be in the next 20 hours) unequivocally off the waiting list.

So we thought we would do LP/Albums next!   Oh yes.  But we have encountered a problem:  we wanted to make sure anything we choose is on Spotify or the like, so we can inflict our key musical moments on each other and the rest of the world.  But, although Spotify does seem to be almost limitless, suddenly we find when pegging our turning-points, things are missing!   It does have limits! 

In order to do justice to the past, we felt we should do some posts on what isn't there but should be as well as the list that will include available online material.   So...well, indulge me - I'm on the turn this weekend...

Given that my musical interests were limited to a tape of Russian classical music, bits taped off the radio and a couple of (gulp) Shakin Stevens albums, in 1984 a bit of a revolution took place...

(more to follow once festivities ease...)

psalms

One thing evangelicals are good at is gaining information for the Bible:  for doctrine, for building up, for guarding the heart and the flock.   And all this is essential.

But there have been many times when the head feels stuffed with data (somehow we have made life giving words into intellectual filing) and, certainly within reformed evangelicalism, one can cry out "But were is the life, the feeling, the experience - what does it look like?"

Slow on the uptake, one significant, probably the most significant, help falls into place:  Psalms.   Regarding it simply as the songbook of Israel can make it sound like an ancient hymnal, which needs reworking for a contemporary audience.  Whereas, I think, it is the place to see how the God-ward life is worked out in the human heart:   here we see what happens when life in a fallen world pours in, and when the truths of God's word pour in.  

Good but not easy

[we are truly human when ] "...when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live."

GK Chesterton