Thursday, August 28, 2014

Oh Saints...Let us Remember Lot's Wife. Just Give me Jesus...

Below are the words of saints shared in love and humility. I share them with you now not in legalism, but in the Spirit of Christ as food for thought in a time when the deception of the enemy of our souls grows daily more subtle and powerful leading up to the great deception that precedes the return of our Lord. I pray these various thoughts from other brothers and sisters will be a blessing.
-sermondindex.net

"As you sit down to watch TV, count the minutes. How long until you hear the first swear word, how long before the first sexual joke, how long until a violent act takes place, or how long until a child shows clear disrespect to a parent? Probably not too long! Start watching for these things, and you will be amazed. Analyze the humor in a show. Often it centers on foul language, sexuality, or disrespect or rebellion, and the limit is always being pushed."

- Karl Graustein


"As we think about consistency, let me just emphasize the whole area of entertainment, and the kind of entertainment that you approve for yourself and for your children.

You as a mom (and dads as well) are responsible to make sure that your children are being protected. Particularly as younger children; before they know how to discern right from wrong, you’re responsible to help them make those choices.

Entertainment is an area today where we are so influenced in subtle ways by a culture that is contrary to God’s ways. It’s more subtle because we laugh at entertainment; we’re amused by entertainment. It’s fun, so we don’t think of how dangerous some of what we’re being exposed to might be in its philosophy, in its behavior, in what it’s promoting as a worldview."

- Nancy Leigh DeMoss



"Statistics show that the average child living at home in America watches at least twenty-eight hours of television each week. (For some kids, the total is much higher.) Programming that targets young people is often the very worst at deliberately glamorizing sin. By the time most young people graduate from high school, they have been overexposed to the grossest kinds of evil through 'entertainment' media in mind-numbing ways—so that nothing seems particularly appalling anymore. After all, drug use, immorality, violence, and profanity are standard fare on television. When a whole generation has been raised on a steady diet of that stuff, it's no wonder that sin no longer seems exceedingly sinful to them."

- John MacArthur


"When we sit in front of sights, images and messages that are the opposite of God’s Kingdom, we allow our minds to be subtly manipulated by the voices of darkness, whether we realize it or not....

But it’s not just movies and T.V. that has us in its controlling vice. It’s an overall pre-occupation with pop-culture. Music artists, professional athletes, and movie stars claim far more of our applause and attention than Jesus Christ does...

Idols are not just golden statues that people bow down to in ornate temples. An idol is anything that claims our attention and affection above Christ. Most of us verbally declare that Jesus Christ is more important to us than our fetish for music or movies. But what does our life say? Where do we spend the best hours of our day? What do we turn to for enjoyment and comfort?

Tauler wrote,
A pure heart is one to which all that is not of God is strange and jarring.

Pop-culture floods our minds and senses with things that are not of God. But for most of us, the glamorized sin that surrounds us is not strange and jarring. It’s normal and accepted. In fact, we go out of our way to enjoy and participate in it. We even spend a huge amount of our time and money on it. And we allow it to capture our mind, emotion, and attention. Christ makes it clear that we cannot love both Him and the things that charm and ravish this world. We cannot be dazzled by the images of pop-culture and captivated by the King of all kings:

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world." (I John 2:15-16 NKJV)

"Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." (James 4:4)

...Does God stand up and cheer over American Idol? Does He smile with delight over the new Twilight movie? Does He get excited about the latest Cold Play album? Or does He grieve over our distracted, wandering, divided hearts?"

- Leslie Ludy


"Today, there is a whole generation... laughing at things that ought to make them weep, and not a few of them will suffer shipwreck, and some—the loss of their souls. Let the indiscriminate viewer beware."

- R. Kent Hughes


"Do nothing unworthy of Him who represents you in heaven, and whom you represent on earth. He is faithful to you; be you so to Him. Let men know what a Lord and Master you serve. Be His witnesses; be His mirrors; be His living epistles. Let Him speak through you to the world. Let your life tell your fellow-men what He is, and what He is to you. Speak well of Him to men, as He speaks well of you to God. He has honoured you by giving you His name; He has blessed you by conferring on you sonship, and royalty, and an eternal heritage: see that you do justice to His love, and magnify His greatness. . .Be true to Him who loved you, and washed you from your sins in His own blood."

- Horatius Bonar


For the complete thread see:   HERE , SermonIndex.net  ..a most valuable resource in our time!   

I hope all are doing well.  I've been under the weather and that's okay.  God is here, He speaks to our hearts in these times, He loves us so!  

Let us not be deceived, we are seeing more and more blogs that are totally omitting the Father. I'm wondering if they are worried about offending, or about numbers on their blogs?   Oh dear me!  In this time of troubles let's be that Blessed Hope for others.  Let us not forget our precious Jesus.

 Remember Lot's wife...The love of the world...and all that goes with that. ...Nothingness.
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(photo by Robert Stock)

Let's remember Lot's Wife and not ever forget about our precious Jesus.  You can have all this world...just give me Jesus.  This song sure puts things in perspective...Please be blessed!

Monday, August 11, 2014

So Great. WWII Hero at our Grocery, They are the Greatest. Ever.




Recently our daughter, Joycie and I were at the grocery in smalltown.  Who does Joycie spy but a WWII vet!  We spot these heroes by their hats many times...  I see her over there listening to this precious man and his sweet wife...I scoot on over...This man was sooooo precious.  This gracious man tells of the battles he fought and how the people back home are heroes to him for their sacrifices.

This is the kind of thing that makes me proud.  It makes me proud for what our country was and what I hope for it to be again.  This country had a healthy fear of God during those WWII years from what I see and study.  God bless our present vets as well, how they must feel at times.

It makes me proud that our daughters caught the most important lessons in homeschooling; to respect and honor those who fought for us; it goes along with loving others as ourselves, being kind, being grateful and thankful.  Christ-like. 

These are our heroes.  These are the ones my girls would get autographs from when they were little in their little handmade booklets made by sweet little hands of red construction paper with artfully placed patriotic stickers on the covers, titles carefully printed in crayon and marker by those wee hands on those covers.  So many times the look on these elderly gentleman's faces when approached by our little girls were that of quiet surprise for they have felt forgotten.


This precious man wept openly, tears streaming down his face as he tells us he saw a battleship blown up with fellow soldiers in it...He tells us how he'll never forget.  He looks at our faces with stoic blue eyes and tells us many American bones are on foreign soil.

This precious man is 91 years old and doing wonderfully as well as his lovely wife.  They raised nine children together without hand-out and his wife tells me that now-a-days people can't even raise one.  Yes ma'am.
 

Joycie tells me just now as I show her these photos taken:

"They are all leaving us now...We have to be them now..."   

We have to be them now....    Yes ma'am.

Closing now from the Forest Cathedral this most poignant August afternoon...

Thinking of my dad who this gentleman at the store so reminded me of...  This is my mom and dad circa...around 1954.   Yes ma'am.   My dad is now 84 years young along with my mom.


My mom and dad 1954.

P.S. A taped segment of the late  Louis Zamperini was on Haven of Rest radio broadcast today, part II will be tomorrow. Check him out, another one of our great heroes.  Books have been written on him, he is a follower of Christ and has an amazing testimony at every angle.  Mr. Zamperini just went to be with the Lord July 2, at the age of 97.  Our family started listening to the best selling book about him, "Unbroken" on tape, truly amazing.  EDIT: Do be aware that there are several places in the book that may not be appropriate for young children or youth.