Month: December 2005

a.m.: 2 Corinthians 8 p.m.: Nehemiah 13

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. 2 Cor 8:9

Sometimes we can look at Christmas without fully comprehending what Jesus Christ did.

For he is God, the almighty, the creator and sustainer of the universe. He is worthy of all praise and glory.

Yet, for us, he became a man. The whole idea of the creator becoming one of the created is amazing – it is incomprehensible for him to even become an angel, let alone a man. Yet the immortal becoming mortal, he took on our frailty. He didn’t even become a high ranking man, like an emperor or a king, but the son of a carpenter.

He not only become a man, but lived a perfect life, setting us an example and telling us what God expects of us. That was not his only mission though, for he went to the cross. He who was without sin, become sin – for us. Not that we deserved anything, for if anything we owe everything to God, but by the amazing grace of God, he loved us and gave us what we did not deserve. For through the sacrifice of his Son, he freed us from the punishment and power of sin. Through his Son, we are given peace with God.

None of this can be achieved through our own works. If we try to gain peace with God through our own merits, we will fail and our sin will be dealt with.

Only by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ can we be justified before God and so be at peace with him. For God did everything necessary, for there was nothing else which could save us. Indeed, there is nothing else which is greater than what Jesus Christ did.


Linda Smith

One of those relaxing Saturdays, playing chess and minesweeper online, with a smattering of violin and piano playing. Spent the evening round Sarah’s for food and more games, with the usual suspects and then some. It’s been a while since we last all just spent the evening at someone’s house relaxing, playing games and enjoying each others’ company. The hostess even put on a good spread of food, with a wide variety ranging from samosas and spring rolls to pizza and garlic bread. Makes a nice change from going out for a meal. 🙂


Names names names

How cool is this?!

http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html

😀


Joy of life

Went to the annual charity dinner for LIFE this evening. As always, it was good to be able to support this charity through attending a very palatable meal. The work carried out by LIFE and other pro-life charities was made even more poignant after reading an article on the BBC which tells of Gianna Jessen’s survival of an abortion. Considering what she went through, the only way to describe the event was that she had survived an attempted murder! The pro-choice camp say such a thing cannot happen in this country

Pro-choice groups say that while hers is a distressing story it is unusual and that guidelines are in place in the UK to stop live births after abortions.

How is this distressing? This is an amazing story! This girl escaped being murdered! Maybe I’m cynical, but the pro-choice camp even appear to be saying that babies in this country cannot escape being murdered. Whilst I understand a pregnancy will affect a woman’s life enormously, I cannot believe that murdering another human being in order to avoid this momentous event, is justified. (Unless the pregnancy is actually likely to kill the mother).


Pearls before Swine

For a while, David Ould has been putting links to Pearls Before Swine in his blog. For a while I resisted adding it to my blogroll as I wasn’t entirely sure it was that funny. (Almost said worthy, but there some really curious entries in my blogroll, not to mention the value of this blog itself!) However, today’s comic is priceless! Resistance is futile. 🙂


a.m.: Psalm 90 p.m.: Nehemiah 12

Eternity. Do we ever consider it? The Psalmist considers the one who is eternal, the God who has no beginning and no end. The one who has been in eternal Trinity, in eternal love. The one who is not constrained in any way by time. With our finite minds we find it hard to grasp the whole concept of eternity.

God is not constrained by time, because he created it. He is able to see time throughout its entirety, from beginning to end.

Yet he does not leave the universe and time to roll along like a clockwork toy. He intervenes in time and space, the “Word became flesh and made his dweeling amongst us”.

Whilst we may not be able to fully grasp eternity, nor even consider it much, we still have an inkling of eternity. For we are created in the image of God, with souls which will never die, and so we are aware that there is more to this life than our finite time on earth.

We have two possible eventualities in eternity. If we have our sins dealt with by faith in the only one who can deal with them – Jesus Christ, we can have peace with God and spend eternity under his grace. If our sins are not dealt with, eternity will be spent under the wrath of a holy God who cannot allow sin in his presence to go unpunished.


Happy Birthday Abi!

Another Saturday – another birthday! Slightly different though, as it involved travelling down to Salisbury. Despite my unfamiliarity with the area, we arrived at our intended destination with a little help from the birthday girl’s brother. After a meal of chilli and cheesecake – although not at the same time, we then played party games for the rest of the evening. I sometimes forget what it was like to be young! I think I’m showing my age when I can’t remember the last time I played pass the parcel and musical statues. Despite my growing decrecipitude, the younger partygoers appeared to have a good time, with the birthday girl seeming enjoying the organising as well as the taking part.


Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean
in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me,
is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward
to Thy glorious rest above!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth,
changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o’er His loved ones,
died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth,
watcheth o’er them from the throne!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
love of every love the best!
‘Tis an ocean full of blessing,
’tis a haven giving rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
’tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory,
for it lifts me up to Thee!

Samuel T. Francis