I was just listening to that Christmas song on the radio and one line struck me as never before:

“Haste! Haste! to bring Him Laud!”

If you never have, let me plead with you! “Haste! Haste! to bring Him Laud!” Praise Him right now! Fall on your face before Jesus Christ and worship Him! Oh that all mankind would stop their foolish pursuits, drop everything, and rush to the ground in humble praise of King Jesus!

Posted: December 17th, 2009 under Devotions, Potpourri, Quotations.
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Thanks to Pastor Kevin over at Puritan Fellowship, I’m reading the autobiography of 20th century Chinese pastor Wong Ming-Dao entitled A Stone Made Smooth. It is an out-of-print book, but you can still find it on Amazon used. If so, I highly recommended adding it to your library.

Wong’s sound doctrine is clearly laid out in his work. Although this is translated into English, it still conveys Wong’s intelligence and his culturally influenced soft-spoken demeanor. It is a powerful book but surprisingly easy and enjoyable to read. Here are two brief quotes that I wrote in my own notebook:

“If you would be a faithful servant you must entirely disregard reputation, and in the last analysis you must entirely disregard life.” (p133)

“Inevitably one who serves God faithfully will face hardships and suffering. But the joy God gives and the reward He promises will recompense him for all.” (p139)

Posted: December 17th, 2009 under Potpourri, Quotations.
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Obviously lately the news (in America anyway) has been filled with an unusual number of celebrity deaths. Strip away all of the idol worship or even pop culture each one was a part of and who died?

A television sidekick who, for thirty years, was famous for how he said just two words. Both men are now gone from this world, relegated to memories and dust.

A beauty pin-up who symbolized for her generation the same things others had already symbolized for theirs. A different face, a different body, but nothing new. However long she is remembered in this world, it will always descend to the lowest common denominator that she was famous for the fact that millions of men burned with lust at her image, heaping on themselves the due wrath of God in the process. Legally and frankly, her fame and legacy are of “aiding and abetting” in the breaking of God’s laws.

An entertainer for this generation around the world who heaped up all this world’s treasures, reveled Herrod-like, in the praise of his followers, who, at last, died frail, broken and broke.

A man people loved for the way he induced them to buy ’stuff’, hawking wares as wonders, detergents as desirous, and putty as promises. A man who, perhaps more than all his products, sold himself.

My point is not in castigating these people. My point is only to hold them up for recent examples, to suggest a thumbnail sketch of four human beings’ paths in how they chose to spend their lives, so that I can ask you the question I started off with:

WHAT ARE YOU LIVING FOR?

If we are not living for the Lord Jesus Christ, if we are not living to get others to run and fall prostrate at His Omnipotent and pierced feet, we are wasting our lives. Wasting them. All our plans, all our portfolios, all of it will come to be like sand in our mouths and dust in our eyes apart from doing it for His Kingdom.

DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE!!!!

Posted: June 30th, 2009 under Challenge, Potpourri, Testimony.
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Well, as I write this it is 3:07am (ET) and everything is quiet.  Often I don’t sleep through the night.  It’s not that I’m troubled (thankfully) I just tend to think even when I sleep.  So I’ll wake up thinking about something(s) and then I’ll go read, research, write or just spend time with the Lord while all is still and there are no demands on my time.  Now is one of those times.

I don’t reflect on every day or week or month as it ends.  Before the Lord saved me I was very “Type-A” and had a checklist to grade myself on my productivity.  It was rooted in a lot of self-help fodder and an intense desire to take control of my life, to swear off any notion of God.  After the Lord saved me all that stopped; albeit not without turning into some sort of self-imposed legalism first.

Occasionally it is good to pause to reflect.  Often in the United States we are too bombarded with commitments and media to be able to quietly do so, but it is a godly endeavor to make time for it.  In a way, God calls us to reflect every day, in prayer, as we think over our day and ask forgiveness for sins committed.

Without belaboring the point or placing around your neck a legalistic list for perpetual use, let me give just a few questions to help you enter in to a time of reflection, if even for a few moments.  To think much on Him is life, to think much on ourselves–failiings or successes–is death.  Hopefully these will have you think more on God and less on yourself.

• Can you say you walked with Jesus this week?
• What did He show you of Himself?  of you?  of things and people around you?
• When did you tell others about a blessing from Him?  When did you tell others how great He is?
• What did you learn about God, or re-learn about Him, this week?
• Have you loved others as He has loved you?

Keep throwing away everything…for His glory!

Posted: June 27th, 2009 under Challenge, Devotions, Learning & Growing, Potpourri.
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I’m enjoying a perfect cup of coffee right now (actually, it looks almost identical to the cup in the picture!)  I love the taste and aroma of coffee.  I love the rich color, and I love that just enough half-and-half takes the acidity away and gives it a nice weighted body.  As I sip it, I’m reminded that the Lord gave it to us to enjoy, as yet another example of His good pleasure.

Earlier tonight my wife and I used a restaurant gift certificate a brother and sister at church gave me for my recent college graduation.  I”m thankful for them, and thankful for the delicious salad, breadsticks, bruschetta, and chicken parmesan I had too.

Tonight I will, by God’s grace, sleep under peaceful skies, in a quiet, air-conditioned and modern home with clean water, indoor plumbing and comfortable bed (of course, all of these are hardly “little things”, I realize.)

As I often say, I am simply over-blessed.

Posted: May 29th, 2009 under Learning & Growing, Potpourri.
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