I did pretty darn well with most of my resolutions for 2012...and then I did terrible on some of them. But 2012 was a great year! I'm glad the world didn't end, and am looking forward to 2013.
I have five primary resolutions that I'll be focusing on in 2013. They come from a sermon my dad preached yesterday called "New Year's 2013: 5 Resolutions Sure to Spark a Revival in 2013". I thought it was fantastic; if you'd like to listen to it yourself, you can go here to download it.
Primary Resolutions
1. Revel and rest in the sovereignty of God (Psalm 46).
2. Study the Word--read and meditate on it. Don't be so concerned about reading the Bible through in a year, but rather on learning.
3. Pray (Matthew 6:9-13).
4. Fellowship with other believers (Acts 2:46-47).
5. Take a risk.
Secondary Resolutions
1. Treat my body and mind in a way that honors the Lord. 2. Memorize 1 Corinthians 1-4, as well as Psalms 46 and 51. Also, review 1 Timothy fairly often so I don't lose it. 3. Read one good, edifying book every month. Last year, I read 11 books in this category, but for the entire year I only read 31 books, while in 2011 I read 70. So I want to try and read a lot more this year, specifically focusing on edifying books but also on classics, biographies, and things of that sort. 4. Give liberally, even if it seems like too much sometimes.
As for His failing you, never dream of it--hate the thought. The God who has been sufficient until now should be trusted to the end.
-- Charles Spurgeon
5. Get my computer fixed. I think it has a virus or something, and I am just sick and tired of it. So I'd like to figure out what's wrong with it sometime over the course of the year and fix it.
6.
Complete a 365 photography project. Some projects like this focus on a
specific aspect of photography, such as self portraits, but since it's
my first time doing something like this I'm just going to focus on
taking at least one picture every single day, now that I have a camera!
I'll be posting on it about once a week, especially since it's on my
bucket list. Yesterday I finished reading "Tramp for the Lord" by Corrie ten Boom. She ended her book with a poem that I thought was fitting to end a year on.
God is working His purpose out, As year succeeds to year: God is working His purpose out And the time is drawing near-- Nearer and nearer draws the time The time that shall surely be, When the earth shall be filled with the glory of God, As the waters cover the sea. -- A. C. Ainger
For today I wanted to include some excerpts from books, and some Scripture, that tells of the beauty that love is. Happy Valentine's Day!
This first excerpt is taken from "Passion and Purity" by Elisabeth Elliot, and speaks of what she was learning as she learned to trust God in her relationship with the man who would become her husband, Jim.
*Love interprets things in favor of the one loved. I had a long way to go to learn that, but the principle is clear enough in Paul's description: "Love is patient...never selfish, not quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs... There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance."
The trouble, of course, is that we must learn to love people. People are sinners. Love must be patient when it is tempted (by the delays of other people) to be impatient. Love must not be selfish, even if other people are. Love does not take offence, though people are offensive sometimes. There are wrongs, but love won't keep score. there are things to be faced, but nothing love can't face, things to try love's faith, discourage its hope, and call for its endurance; but it keeps right on trusting, hoping, and enduring. Love never ends.
Then a drop of heavenly love
Fell upon me from above,
And by secret mystic art
Reached the center of my heart.
-- Charles Spurgeon
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although its height be taken.
Love's not times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with brief hours and weeks,
But it bears out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-- William Shakespeare
I just like this song by Frank Sinatra. I think it's sweet.
When Jonathan Edwards was twenty years old, he wrote a love letter to the woman who would later become his wife, 13-year-old Sarah Pierpont. I think it's really beautiful to see what qualities he valued in her most.
They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she hardly cares for any thing, except to meditate on Him—that she expects after a while to be received up where He is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that He loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from Him always. There she is to dwell with Him, and to be ravished with His love and delight for ever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do any thing wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this Great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind; especially after this Great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her.
This song is sweet too.
Finally, here is a reminder of the best love there is: the love of God.
**When God Weeps
“The face that Moses had begged to see—was forbidden to see—was slapped bloody (Ex. 33:19-20). The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth’s rebellion now twisted around his own brow…
“On your back with you!” One raises a mallet to sink in the spike. But the soldier’s heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner’s wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier’s life minute by minute, for no man had this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do “all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on—He grants the warriors continued existence. The man swings.
As the man swings, the Son recalls how He and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm—the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless—the nerves perform exquisitely. “Up you go!” They lift the cross. God is on display in His underwear and can scarcely breathe.
But these pains are a mere warm-up to His other and growing dread. He begins to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around His nose, but His heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon His spotless being—the living excrement from our souls. The apple of His Father’s eye turns brown with rot.
His Father! He must face His Father like this!
From heaven the Father now rouses Himself like a lion disturbed, shakes his man, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a Man hanging on a cross. Never has the Son seen the Father look at Him so, never felt even the least of His hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes.
“Son of Man! Why have You behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped—murdered, envied, hated, lied. You have cursed, robbed, overspent, overeaten—fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed. Oh, the duties You have shirked, the children You have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled My name? have You ever held Your razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk—You, who molest young boys, peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents. Who gave You the boldness to rig elections, foment revolutions, torture animals, and worship demons? Does the list never end! Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp—buying politicians, practicing exhortation, filming pornography, accepting bribes. You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves—relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in You! Disgust for everything about You consumes Me! Can You not feel My wrath?”
Of course the Son is innocent. He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed.
The Father watches as His heart’s treasure, the mirror-image of Himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah’s stored rage against humankind from every century exploded in a single direction.
“Father! Father! Why have You forsaken Me?!”
But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not, reach down or reply.
The Trinity had planned it. The Son endured it. The Spirit enabled Him. The Father rejected the Son whom He loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted His sacrifice for sin and was satisfied. The Rescue was accomplished.”
-- Steven Estes and Joni Eareckson Tada
We love because He first loved us.
1 John 4:19
* excerpt taken from "Passion and Purity" by Elisabeth Elliot, page 169
** excerpt taken from "Boy Meets Girl" by Joshua Harris
So, back in January I wrote this post, fully intending to post things like it regularly. Ha! I'll try to be more consistent this time around. Here's some quotes, poems, etc., that I hope will bless you today.
Positive Character Traits (1 Cor. 13:4-5)
• I am patient with you because I love you and want to forgive you. • I am kind to you because I love you and want to help you. • I do not envy your possessions or your gifts because I love you and want you to have the best. • I do not boast about my attainments because I love you and want to hear about yours. • I am not proud because I love you and want to esteem you before myself. • I am not rude because I love you and care about your feelings. • I am not self-seeking because I love you and want to meet your needs. • I am not easily angered by you because I love you and want to overlook your offenses. • I do not keep a record of your wrongs because I love you, and “love covers a multitude of sins.”
-- Jerry Bridges
Make your complaint, tell Him how obscure everything still looks to you, and beg Him to complete your cure. He may see fit to try your faith and patience by delaying this completion; but meanwhile you are safe in His presence, and while led by His hand, He will excuse the mistakes you make and pity your falls. But you will imagine that it is best that He should at once enable you to see clearly. If it is, you may be sure He will do it. He never makes mistakes. But He often deals far differently with His disciples. He lets them grope their way in the dark until they fully learn how blind they are, how helpless, how absolutely in need of Him.
What His methods will be with you I cannot foretell. But you may be sure that He never works in an arbitrary way. He has a reason for everything He does. You may not understand why He leads you now in this way and now in that, but you may, nay, you must believe that perfection is stamped on His every act. -- Elizabeth Prentiss
To always be intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it—this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another till he be starved and destroyed. -- Sir Walter Scott
The Lord be praised for all His tender mercies and loving-kindnesses—unceasing and unwearying as His love. My continual shortcomings, and oftcoming for forgiveness again and again, does not exhaust Him. I should have wearied out the whole host of heaven before this; but Jesus is never wearied with hearing the cries of His poor tried and tempted saints. Always are they welcome, and I think the oftener I go the more welcome I am. Not a frown upon that countenance towards one who really feels his need of Him. A smiling welcome, fraught with mighty blessings, which, while it gladdens the heart, fills the soul with a humbling sense of its own vileness, humbled in self, exalted in Christ. -- Mary Winslow
Light Shining Out of Darkness
God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines Of never-failing skill, He treasures up His bright designs, And works His sovereign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.
Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.
-- William Cowper
O Lord, if it is not springtime in my chilly heart, I pray You make it so, for I am tired of living at a distance from You. When will You bring this long and dreary winter to an end? Come, Holy Spirit, and renew my soul! Quicken me, restore me, and have mercy on me! This very night I earnestly implore you, Lord, to take pity upon Your servant and send me a happy revival of spiritual life! -- Charles Spurgeon
Friendship is one of the sweetest joys of life. Many might have failed beneath the bitterness of their trial had they not found a friend. -- Charles Spurgeon
O gift of gifts! O grace of faith! My God! how can it be That Thou, who has discerning love, Shouldst give that gift to me?
How many hearts Thou mightest have had More innocent than mine! How many souls more worthy far Of that sweet touch of Thine?
Oh, grace! Into unlikeliest hearts It is thy boast to come, The glory of Thy light to find In darkness spots a home.
Oh, happy, happy that I am! If thou canst be, O faith The treasure that thou art in life What wilt thou be in death?
-- Elizabeth Prentiss
In this, the hour of our calamity and peril, to whom shall we resort . . . but to the God of our fathers? -- Abraham Lincoln
Always add, always walk, always proceed; neither stand still, nor go back, nor deviate; he that standeth still proceedeth not; he goeth back that continueth no; he deviateth that revolteth; he goeth better that creepeth in his way than he that moveth out of his way. -- Augustine
Lord, evermore Thy face we seek: Tempted we are, and poor, and weak; Keep us with lowly hearts, and meek. Let us not fall. Let us not fall.
-- Charles Spurgeon
For helping and hiding the Jews, my father, my brother’s son, and my sister all died in prison. My brother survived his imprisonment, but died soon afterward. Only Nollie, my older sister, and I came out alive.
So many times we wonder why God has certain things happen to us. We try to understand the circumstances of our lives, and we are left wondering. But God’s foolishness is so much wiser than our wisdom.
From generation to generation, from small beginnings and little lessons, He has a purpose for those who know and trust Him.
