Clothed With Scarlet

I will follow Thee...

"...Christianity is fundamentally an experience in losing the lives of our dreams in order to receive the lives Jesus died to give us.  Those who would bear the name Christian credibly experience a tremendous amount of abandonment in life." **

56For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.  57And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.  58And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.  59And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.  60Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.  61And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house.  62And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.  ~~Luke 9:56-62

"Jesus is our only hope.  If Christians are truly willing to leave everything to follow Him, then they will, in fact, eventually leave everything." **

"The question is, 'Can we lean into the abandomnment?  Can we accept it as the Savior's invitation to find our lives at long last?'"  **

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"We cannot change ourselves, and we cannot help but be changed when He reveals more of Himself to us.  To follow Jesus is to enter the lifelong process of discovering more about God than we know, discovering that "my ways are not your ways," discovering that we have been worshipping not God but an expectation of God.  Nothing makes it harder to see God than our own expectations of Him.  They blind us to the new ways He is at work saving our lives.  Conversion pulls us away from being religious, away from having all the answers.  It turns us into pilgrims who journey though life..." **

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"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind and with all thy soul.  This is the first and great commandment."  ~~Matthew 22:37-38

About two years ago I asked the Lord to teach me how to love Him with all my heart, all my mind and all my soul.  I told the Lord that I didn't know how.  I told the Lord that I loved my husband and my children more than I loved Him.  And...truthfully, and sadly, there were probably many other things that I loved more than my Savior.  I told the Lord that I wanted to obey this first and great commandment.

~~~

"Christianity isn't something we get good at.  Jesus' teachings are not hard; they are impossible.  Those who first heard Jesus' statement that the rich man is like a camel trying to pass through the eye of aneedle were shocked.  They asked, "They who can be saved?"  The Savior's response was that while it is impossible to be a Christian, all things are possible with God.  It always, always gets back to receiving grace.  But if we are used to earning our own way, nothing could be harder." **

"Faith means betting our lives on the grace of God."  **

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We must learn how to follow which means that we must give up the expectation of knowing where we are going.

One single day at a time...

It is the only way...

Going to receive our daily manna...His perfect word, just for this day...

~~~

** Quotes from M. Craig Barnes

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posted by Mrs. Klause

September 7, 2009

...only a fragment of a home...

 “A home without children is only a fragment of a home. Its life, however happy, is a song with the sweetest part left out. Where no children come the husband and wife miss much that is deepest and richest in life. Their wedded joy never realizes its fullest measure of tenderness. There are chords in their hearts that are never waked. There are whole fields in the natures that are never brought under culture. There are powers and capacities in their souls that are never developed. They lose many a deep lesson that can be read from no book save from the pages of unfolding child-life. They miss many an inspiration of purity, of gentleness, of unselfishness, of beauty, for God has no constituted us that only in loving and caring for children are the richest and best things in us drawn out.” ~~ J. R. Miller

~~~

posted by Mrs. Klause

September 3, 2009

Proverbs 1

Proverbs 1

 ¹The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

 ²To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;

 ³To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;

 ⁴To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

 ⁵A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

 ⁶To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

 ⁷The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

 ⁸My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

 ⁹For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

 ¹⁰My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

 ¹¹If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

 ¹²Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

 ¹³We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:

 ¹⁴Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:

 ¹⁵My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:

 ¹⁶For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

 ¹⁷Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

 ¹⁸And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.

 ¹⁹So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.

 ²⁰Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:

 ²¹She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying,

 ²²How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?

 ²³Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

 ²⁴Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

 ²⁵But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:

 ²⁶I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

 ²⁷When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

 ²⁸Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

 ²⁹For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:

 ³⁰They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

 ³¹Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

 ³²For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

 ³³But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

~~~

posted by Mrs. Klause

September 1, 2009