Mob Rob's birthday

 We don't forget the little Mob Rob.

 He was a precious, sweet baby & good buddy to Ivy.

 Even now as I post these pictures I can't believe she is saying, "Mobwee, Mobwee.."

& continuing a conversation with his picture I suppose they would 'talk' about in the nursery. :)

  

Selah...

Preferring anything to God is whoredom. "They whored after other gods." (Judges 2:17)

He who does not live as a saint here will never live as a saint hereafter - Spurgeon

"It matters not how many 'decisions' a man has taken, if there is no change in his life he is just not a Christian."

Following Jesus to earn your righteousness = an impossibility.
Claiming Jesus' righteousness w/out following him = a myth

“If your heart takes more pleasure in reading novels, or watching TV, or going to the movies, or talking to friends, rather than just sitting alone with God and embracing Him, sharing His cares and His burdens, weeping and rejoicing with Him, then how are you going to handle forever and ever in His presence?You'd be bored to tears in heaven,if you're not ecstatic about God now!”K.Green

“The nature of Christ's salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day evangelist.He announces a Savior from Hell rather than a Savior from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness.”AWPink

The heart that has really tasted the Grace of Christ will instinctively hate sin. -JC Ryle

"Mediocrity is always invisible until passion shows up and exposes it."

Any good-hearted goal,
without the desire to give people eternal joy in God,
is condemnation with a kind face."

Panting deer don't just decide 2 b thirsty:
their life depends on obtaining water.
Are we starved of the world, so we're desperate 4 Christ?


Anxiety is the result of the perspective that something is happening that God did not design for His glory & your good.



Are we prepared to pay the cost of sanctification?
The cost will be a deep restriction of all our earthly concerns,
and an extensive cultivation of all our godly concerns.
Oswald Chambers

C. S. Lewis: "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you."

Francis Chan: "The world needs Christians who don't tolerate the complacency of their own lives.

The house of the formalist is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savor - John Bunyan

When we deal seriously with our sins, God will deal gently with us. - Spurgeon

Knowledge is proud that He has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. - William Cowper

Lord, do Thou turn me into all ♥,& all my ♥ into obedience, & let my obedience be w/out interruption. Jeremy Taylor

The mercies of God make a sinner proud, but a saint humble. - Thomas Watson

Worry is momentary atheism crying out for correction by trust in a good, sovereign God. Suffering breaks self-reliance.

Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that. - Spurgeon

We fear men so much, because we fear God so little - William Gurnal

No one is so miserable as the poor person who maintains the appearance of wealth - Spurgeon


Revival is when God gets so sick and tired of being misrepresented that He shows Himself." - Leonard Ravenhill

"Do not have your concert first and then tune your instrument afterward. Begin the day with the Word of God &prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him." - Hudson Taylor

Resolved: never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life--Jonathan Edwards


Be dogmatically true, obstinately holy, immovably honest, desperately kind, fixed upright. - Spurgeon

How do non American Christians feel when they come to American church?

This is how one felt. This is how the founder of Gospel for Asia felt when he came to America from India.
"As I changed planes for Dallas at JFK International in New York, I was overcome at he sights & sounds around me. Those who grew up in Europe and Asia hear stories about the affluence and prosperity of America, but until you see it with your own eyes, the stories seem like fairy tales.
Americans are more than just unaware of their affluence-they almost seem to despise it at times. Finding a lounge chair, I stared in amazement at how they treated their beautiful clothes and shoes. The richness of the fabrics and colors was beyond anything I'd ever seen. As I would discover again & again, this nation routinely takes it's astonishing wealth for granted.
As I would do many times-almost daily-in the weeks ahead, I compared their clothing to that of the native missionary evangelists whom I had left only a few weeks before. Many of them walk barefoot between villages or work in flimsy sandals. Their threadbare cotton garments would not be acceptable as cleaning rags in the United States. Then I discovered most Americans have closets full of clothing they wear only occasionally-and I remembered the years I traveled and worked with only the clothes on my back. And I had lived the normal lifestyle of most village evangelists.....
From the moment I touched foot on American soil, I walked in an unbelieving daze. How can two so different economies co-exist simultaneously on earth? Everything was so overpowering & so confusing to me at first. Not only did I have to learn the simplest procedures-like using the pay telephones and making change-but as a sensitive Christian, I found myself constantly making spiritual evaluations of everything I saw.
As the days passed into weeks, I began with alarm to understand how misplaced are the spiritual values of most Western believers. Sad to say, it appeared to me that for the most part they had absorbed the same humanist and material values that dominated the secular culture. Almost immediately I sensed an awesome judgement was hanging over the United States-and that I had to warn God's people that He was not going to lavish this abundance on them forever. But the message was still not formed in my heart, and it would be many years before I would feel the anointing & courage to speak out against such sin.
Meanwhile in Texas, a land that in many ways epitomizes America, I reeled with shock at the most common things. My hosts eagerly pointed out what they considered their greatest achievements. I nodded with politeness as they showed me their huge churches, high-rise building, and universities. But these didn't impress me very much. After all I had seen the Golden Temple in Amritsar, The Taj Mahal, the Palaces of Jhans, and the University of Baroda in Gujarat.
What impresses visitors the most from the Third World are the simple things Americans take for granted: fresh water available 24 hours a day, unlimited electrical power, telephones that work, and a most remarkable network of paved roads. In India, the water, electricity, telephones, and transportation operate erratically-if at all. Communication is a nightmare. We must wait days for long-distance calls to go through. At the time, we still had no television in India, but my American hosts seemed to have TV sets in every room-and operating day and night. This ever present blast of media disturbed me. For some reason, Americans seem to have a need to surround themselves with noise all the time. Even in their cars, I noticed the radios ran when no one was listening.
Why do they always have to be either entertained or entertaining? I wondered. It was as if they were trying to escape from a guilt they had not yet defined or even identified.
I was constantly aware of how large-and overweight-most Americans seemed to be. Americans need big cars, big homes, and large furniture, because they are big people.
I was amazed at how important eating, drinking, smoking, and even drug use were in the Western lifestyle. Even among Christians, food was a major part of fellowship events.
This, of course, is not bad in itself. "Love feasts" were an important part of the New Testament church life. But eating can be taken to extremes. One of the ironies of this is the relatively small price North Americans pay for food. One study showed that in the United States only 17% of disposable income is spent on food. In India, it is 67%. When you have $10,000 to spend, that 17% works out to be a comfortable $1700. For the Indian family earning $200, 67% is $134. I had lived with this reality every day, but Americans have real trouble thinking in these terms.
Often when I spoke at a church, the people would appear moved as I told of the suffering and needs of the native evangelists. They usually took up an offering and presented me with a check for what seemed like a great amount of money. Then with their usual hospitality, they invited me to eat with the leaders following the meeting. To my horror the food and "fellowship" frequently cost more than the money they had just given to missions! And I was amazed to find that American families routinely eat enough meat at one meal to feed an Asian family for a week. No one ever seemed to notice this but me, and slowly I realized they just had not heard the meaning of my message. The were simply incapable of understanding the enormous needs overseas.
part 1 to be cont.

A picture is worth a thousand words

In last week's Bible study on Romans 3 by Martin Lloyd Jones we learned the world doesn't like to deal with the blood of our Christ. What better way to keep the attention off of His bloody sacrifice to us than to keep before our eyes the sweet, little Lamb of God. All good Christians keep a nativity scene in their yard this time of year. I really believe the church does more harm than good because the only Jesus we're pushing isn't who He is now, but who He was & I don't know how He feels about that.
There is this thing called the Regulatory Principle of the Puritans that talk about worshiping Him in spirit & in TRUTH.....


He is " in the middle of the lamp stands I saw one like ^[j]a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. ¹⁴ His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. ¹⁵ His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. ¹⁶ In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun ^[k]shining in its strength.

Revelation 5:⁶ And I saw ^[g]between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain"

This is who we give the world....

Isn't this so cute & sweet?
They go together like white on rice.
'Thanks' to the Catholics for bringing the Christ's Mass holiday to the world.


I wonder if it is idolatrous to think of Him the way we Christians present Him this time of year?
Certainly the world isn't thinking of Him as He will be coming next,

"The Coming of Christ

Rev 19:¹¹ And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. ¹² His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. ¹³ He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. ¹⁴ And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. ¹⁵ From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will ^[d]rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the ^[e]wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. ¹⁶ And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” ¹⁷ Then I saw ^[f]an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in mid-heaven, “Come, assemble for the great supper of God.."

That is the way I like to think of My Beloved, the one my soul loves & longs to see come. I've said a lot in times past about this holiday, so I'll just be brief this year.

Oh, & happy b-day to me. I'm 23 in the *new birth* this Dec. 25th. Not celebrating, just remembering His kindness to adopt a lost sinner & give her a new heart that cried, "Abba!"

Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfall

Re-arranging is very fun to me, and I like to do it. My husband however, hates re-arranging, so our furniture stays the same year after year. I have to get out those urges in different outlets. I have a few favored knick knacks around the house & I can swap them out, move them around & that gets me by.

I have a new favored knick-knack I really like I was going to sell on ebay, but I decided I liked it too much, so I decided to kept it. (I still have a pile of other stuff to sell) It is a bundle of aged, yellowed, vintage letters wrapped in red raffia like the bundle of letters that were Lady Deadlock's in Charles Dicken's Bleakhouse. When my grandmother died my sister & I made a mad dash to FL to r escue my Grandma's stuff from my step-mother who said she would just throw everything of Grandma's out. One of the deepest regrets I have is not going through her old letters. We went through the pictures & Dad let us have a few of those, but why, oh, why did I not think of her letters?! We did get our letters we'd sent to her, as they were on the bar, so I am thankful for that. My sister even found letters my mom wrote Grandma when my sister was a baby; what a find! But all those correspondences from my religious aunt in Pennsylvania escaped my notice. My favorites would have been the vintage cards, especially Valentines & Thanksgiving. Grandma would have saved all that & my step-mom who stayed much longer than we did, just threw it all out. Oh anyway, getting off that rabbit trail.

That is a one cent stamp! Dated 1948.

I realized this morning one of my favorite things to do is a 'key word search' on the Bible on line site. If you live in the word, & the Word lives in you, some verses are very special, like favored knick knacks that can be taken out & admired individually, moved around, put together here with this or that because it matches. Or it could just be moved to a different spot, say a window sill.

I think that is why I so love this site. It is the little devotional book (now turned website) Amy Carmichael read morning & evenings as a missionary who rescued little girls in India from being 'married to the gods.' It takes Bible verses from the 'house' of scripture & sets out a few 'pieces' that look good together & can be admired when coupled with other similar themed verses.

I went redecorating in my heart this morning because I couldn't sleep & my soul was brightened & refreshed at the re-arranging & re-decorating of these favored key-word-search verses. Maybe you won't enjoy them as much as I because the Bible is the Living Word & it meets you right where you're at. You're probably in a different place, but these verses can still be admired for their beauty.


Psalm 102:17 He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; he will not despise their plea.
Psalm 51:17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
Job 42:6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
Psalm 51:17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
Psalm 102:17 He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; he will not despise their plea.
Psalm 119:141 Though I am lowly and despised, I do not forget your precepts.
Jeremiah 14:21 For the sake of your name do not despise us; do not dishonor your glorious throne. Remember your covenant with us and do not break it.
Jeremiah 23:17 They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The LORD says: You will have peace.’ And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, ‘No harm will come to you.’
Lamentations 1:11 All her people groan as they search for bread; they barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. “Look, LORD, and consider, for I am despised.”
Matthew 18:10 See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.
Luke 16:13 No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
1 Corinthians 1:28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,
1 Samuel 2:8 He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
Isaiah 25:4 You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat.
Matthew 6:19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
James 2:5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

Just think of a word, any word on your mind, or in your troubles & do a key word search. I'll bet you'll find solace & re-freshment in your soul as you find little treasures in His word.

What can we give Him?

Excerpt from
A REQUIEM FOR LOVE an extended poetic depiction of the Creation narrative.
In this excerpt we have a "worship dialogue" between Regis (Adam) and
Earthmaker (God).

REGIS:
"Father, I receive Your gift of being, but
You have made me TOO rich
To name my wealth
And yet too poor
To give you anything of meaning.
I love you with only giftless love."

EARTHMAKER:
"Regis, there is no such thing as 'giftless' love.
The very words accuse each other.
My gift to you is love, but
Worship is your gift to Me.
And Oh, most glorious it is!
Worship always calls me 'Father' and
Makes us both rich with a common joy.
Worship Me, for only this great gift
Can set you free from the killing love of self,
And prick your fear with valliant courage
To fly in hope through moments of despair.
Worship will remind you
That no man knows completeness in himself.
Worship will teach you to speak your name,
When you've forgotten who you are.
Worship is duty and privilege,
Debt and grand inheritance at once.
Worship, therefore, at those midnights
When the stars hide.
Worship in the storms till love
Makes thunder whimper and grow quiet
And listen to your whispered hymns.
Worship and be free."

-Calvin Miller in A REQUIEM FOR LOVE, one of my all time favorites. I read it to my husband before we married.

Walking on Cloud 9

Knowing the way I truly enjoy farm stuff (blessings that sometimes happen in the midst of the chaotic head aches) one might think it is one of the awesome things that have happened around here on the farm lately that makes me walk on cloud 9. There would be plenty of reason. First of all a couple weeks ago, the first night of Mr. Roberts coming, Neo informed me we had a feral bee colony in my bedroom eaves! Wild bees! We find them three weeks before our package bees come in. If we fail with the domestic ones, we have the real McCoy's in my bedroom eaves. I feel so blessed! :-D :-D :-D

Another small blessing I'm excited about is that same week on Thurs., our cows decided that grass was greener on the other side of the channel. On another man's land. Ron decides he'll deal with it later & goes on to kick boxing. We get an out of the blue email from the man who owns the land (whom we don't know & I guess he found us on the net) that our cows are laying in his farmer's wheat that is ready for harvest. The next day it rains. Just about all the mommas have calves on their sides, so they're not coming back across that full rushing channel. It all becomes a big head ache as Ron has to disassemble the corral & move it to the other man's land, re-assemble, & try to coax them into it. Of course only a few fall for it. So Sunday morning he & Cory are up at 5am before church trying to load them up to bring them home, but they can't be found anywhere. They search for 2 hours. Finally after walking all over the back 40, they give up & come home to be greeted by our dear cows who are lazily enjoying their neglected pastures. On the trip to gather the corrals, Ron discovers a semi-rare herb we had in abundance in our pastures a couple years ago, but it all died. When Macrae was a baby he had croup that Hannah cured in 3 days with an herb poultice mainly made of this herb. It was sorely missed this past winter. So we were able to dig up a few plants to transplant over here. Oh, I do love seeing these. It's called mullein and it is tall & fuzzy. Yeah, that was a real blessing. I have a new appreciation for botany because of Hannah's herbal interests. Road side 'weeds' are not the same anymore & I might look like a drunk driver scanning the sides for some rare treasure of a find.
So here is my, to borrow an expression from another culture of people, 'shot in the arm.' (In my case I guess it would be a B12 shot.)

After the Friday night young people's meeting with Mr. Roberts,
I am greeted by Ruth loudly singing this song Saturday morning.

Yeah, that was a real cloud 9 experience for a mom. Hope.
Maybe God will save the seeds of His servant's womb.
At our church we don't believe in what I call the 'magic formula prayer.' You know, say these 4 lines & you got your 'fire insurance' from hell, no matter how you live.


My eldest Hannah, in a ripe wheat field.

(Is she 'ripe?')

Dear Ruth & Neo

Macrae has a new haircut!!

My 'little me', Hallel

That 'tweet baby!! Ivy Colleen

That is Ruth's hand on the side of her head, not her ear ;)
Oh, PRECIOUS gummy grins!!

TOO TWEET

Some more of my favorite tweets, mostly from Spurgeon. I wonder is my pastor one who will be as great as Spurgeon if most his sayings are original. He gleans for us from the barley fields..

Submission to Christ without submission to the Scriptures is submission to a self-made Christ, not submission to Christ.

As soon as a man has found Christ, he begins to find others. -

Satan can make men dance upon the brink of hell as though they were on the verge of heaven. -

There is no alternative. If you do not die to sin, you shall die for sin. If you do not slay sin, sin will slay you

You and your sins must separate or you and your God will never come together.

If I had a brother who had been murdered, what would you think of me if I...daily consorted with the assassin -

"Sin is so much more than a slip-up. It is a clear statement that we value the satisfaction of our desires more than God."

Sanctification is the great open separator of Christians from the world!

If grace does not make you to differ from your own surroundings, is it really grace at all?


Sin is the pleasure of the false Christian; it is the grief of the real lover of Christ.

If your life is unholy, then your heart is unchanged, and you are an unsaved person.

Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that. -

In seasons of severe trial, the hypocrite flies to the world and finds a sort of comfort there. -

In seasons of severe trial, the child of God runs to his Father and expects consolation only from the Lord's hand -


"Temptations and occasions put nothing into a man, but only draw out what was in him before. " John Owen


A wise man does at first what a fool does at last

"If you're not a member of a local church, you're like a brick being kicked down the street screaming 'I'm a house!"


Pride is a thing which should be unnatural to us, for we have nothing to be proud of

Tweet, Tweet!

These are some of my favorite twitter tweets I have been chewing on at lunch for encouragement.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones: “When the church is absolutely different from the world she invariably attracts it.”

"Submit yourselves to the circumstances of God's choosing, for he purposes a crop of beauty." Samuel Rutherford

The real moral person denies himself things; the real Christian denies himself.

"Jesus + Nothing = Everything"

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

IT IS A BENEFIT that the wicked are God's fan to purge you; I hope they shall blow away no corn or spiritual grace but only your chaff. - SR

Some Christians try to go to heaven alone,in solitude.But believers are not compared to bears or lions or other animals that wander alone.
Those who belong to Christ are sheep in this respect, that they love to get together.
Sheep go in flocks, and so do God's people.CH Spurgeon

The Lord sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves. -Dwight L. Moody

Believe the Gospel? Then you believe it changes the environment into which it comes, and you don't adjust the message to the setting.

The nature of Christ's salvation is woefully misrepresented by thepresent-day evangelist.He announces a Savior from Hell rather than a Savior from sin.
And that is why so many are fatally deceived,for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness.”AWPink

A sign you're growing in grace: You think about fixing people less and loving them more

We should concentrate inward & deepen...our own spiritual life, until men...get to the place where God can use them...MLJ

One thief was saved that no sinner might despair, but only one, that no sinner might presume. — Ryle

The more we grow, the more we see our need of Him. The righteousness of God makes demands that only Christ can meet.

"Revival is when God gets so sick and tired of being misrepresented that He shows Himself." - Leonard Ravenhill

"Do not have your concert first andthen tune your instrument afterward.Begin the day with the Wordof God &prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him." - Hudson Taylor

"A sinning man stops praying, a praying man stops sinning...If weak in prayer, we are weak everywhere." - Leonard Ravenhill

“If your heart takes more pleasure in reading novels, or watching TV, or going to the movies, or talking to friends,
rather than just sitting alone with God and embracing Him, sharing His cares and His burdens, weeping and rejoicing with Him,
then how are you going to handle forever and ever in His presence?You'd be bored to tears in heaven,if you're not ecstatic about God now!”K.Green

It is the greatest praise of God's wisdom that He can turn the sins of man to His own glory. - Bishop Hall quoted by JC Ryle

Be ware of no one more than yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us - Spurgeon

The only way to avoid cannon-shot is to fall down. No such way to be freed from temptation as to keep low - Thomas Brooks

Anxiety is the result of the perspective that something is happening that God did not design for His glory & your good.

Are we prepared to pay the cost of sanctification? The cost will be a deep restriction of all our earthly concerns,
and an extensive cultivation of all our godly concerns.Oswald Chambers

Our lives will have a sense of the supernatural only to the degree that we tarry before the Word of God and live a life of prayer.

An unforgiving and quarrelsome spirit is the surest mark of an unregenerate heart. - J C Ryle

"It matters not how many 'decisions' a man has taken, if there is no change in his life he is just not a Christian."

Resolved: never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life--Jonathan Edwards

If you want to look impressive in this world's eyes, then you stand in severe danger of being unimpressive in God's eyes.

There are preachers, teachers, and bloggers beyond number,
but the great need of the church is men and women who spend time alone with God.

paulwasher Paul Washer
I am greatly burdened for the young who claim to be radical for Christ, but are conformed to their godless culture - especially in clothing.

When you say,“I don’t think I could ever doubt God’s goodness again!” Is it after He has just
given you something you thought you could never have, or after He has just taken away something you thought you could never lose?

To cease to do evil is a small matter if we do not learn to do well.

Never be satisfied with religious reformation without heart conversion

~Sweet~

What God does

I love this picture. I empathize.
I've been here. In a dry gutter, He can bring beauty, my Dearest Daddy.

The Brandon happenings

The youngest with the eldest. You can't tell she is adored, can you?

Oh.... I wonder if she'll be spoiled? ;-)

She's growing & very adorable

So fun to dress a *girl* !

Historic winter weather here, we've NEVER had over 6 inches of snow here
& it stayed on the ground a WEEK!We've stayed cozy with our wood stash. Ron likes to keep it at 80 in the living room & it has awakened the children when it got up to around 95 a couple nights!

The ducks had perfect shoes shoes, but the chickens were immobilized in the deep snow.
They hung around non-snow areas & walked in tracks whenever possible.Our ram is very paternal, not leaving his little flock of lambs. They had difficulty walking (or hoping rather) through the deep snow.

Neo & Ruth with our Great Pyrenees. He is now the proud
pappa of 8 boys & one girl.No matter the weather, the laundry goes on.
Here is a few of Ivy's diapers drying.This is the backyard & pasture. What a view!!
Hannah, my monkey, took it from the roof eave.Ahhh, my playful, silly pastor.
Maybe he wishes he were taller. ;-)
(The Sermonator!)
He insight-fully slices mid-south religion off Christianity with the precision & skill of a brain surgeon. He takes the dentist drill to our moral, hard- hearted decay & separates wheat from chaff. He is very challenging, but The Great Shepherd uses him to lead us beside still waters & lie down in green pastures. My soul was restored under this blessed ministry & I do not take it for granted. The Lord is very kind.
I really can't wait for the yard to look like this again.
Spring will come again one day!

Christ is no longer a baby

This time of year can be a very hard time of year for some people. Our culture says the way to emotional fulfillment is to walk around in a “Christmas haze” & become absorbed in the mystical “spirit of the season.” The 'magic of Christmas' should overtake your life with wonder & joy. It often tends toward unrealistic expectations, depression, and frustration for those who are not in Christ, and sometimes even for those that are. It can breed dissatisfaction with normal life.
Like I said in the previous post, I was born again in this frame of mind 20 years ago this Christmas morning. It wasn't in a Christmas morning service either, I didn't go to church. My deficiencies of the wondrous joys of the season started plaguing me after Thanksgiving. My sister & her husband had just married, so they were giddy newlyweds. I was recently singled and very depressed about it. Their home wasn't the ideal place for me to live at that time, but it was where I wound up. I had a deep hole in my heart that I began to try to fill with a lot of things. I'll skip glorifying sin, & sum it up with the fact that my conscience was defiled, I was empty, and the world & it's delights were being realized for the fool's gold they were. I surprised myself at the level of depravity I'd 'attained' as of late. I ran into an old friend of my brother's who was a rough drug addict, but now was very different, gleaming with the joy of the Lord. There had been an obvious change in him. I tried to tell him my woes, he told me of the wonders of Jesus. I was happy for him and we parted ways. A couple weeks later on Christmas morning, about 4 am, I thought of him. God was 'irresistibly drawing' me. I was restless, 'no sleep for the wicked' for 2 days straight. I went to talk to him about God & he showed me the way. That morning my sins were washed away, a 1,000 lbs lifted off my back, and I had a peace I'd never had before. "Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.."
"The things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His Glory.."
That night I went to church for the first time in years, only to fall asleep. It was alright though, just a rough start to a new beginning. Christmas was now my new birthday, mine & Jesus's. Right?
Weeeelllll, maybe not....
A careful analysis of Scripture clearly indicates that December 25 is an unlikely date for Christ's birth. Here are two primary reasons: First, shepherds were in the fields watching their flocks at the time of Jesus' birth (Luke 2:7-8). Shepherds do not stay in the fields at night during December. Since December is cold and rainy in Judea, it is likely the shepherds would have sought shelter for their flocks at night. Second, Jesus' parents came to Bethlehem to register in a Roman census (Luke 2:1-4). Such censuses were not taken in winter, when temperatures often dropped below freezing and roads were in poor condition. Taking a census under such conditions would have been self-defeating.
So how did we arrive at celebrating Christ's birthday on this date? Christmas (Christ-Mass) as we know it today, most historians agree, began in Germany, though Catholics and Lutherans still disagree about which church celebrated it first. In 350, Pope Julius I declared that Christ’s birth would be celebrated on December 25. There is little doubt that he was trying to make it as painless as possible for pagan Romans (who remained a majority at that time) to convert to Christianity. In Rome, the Winter Solstice was celebrated many years before the birth of Christ. The Romans called their winter holiday Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the God of Agriculture. In January, they observed the Kalends of January, which represented the triumph of life over death. This whole season was called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The festival season was marked by much merrymaking. In northern Europe, many other traditions that we now consider part of Christian worship were begun long before the participants had ever heard of Christ. The pagans of northern Europe celebrated the their own winter solstice, known as Yule. Yule was symbolic of the pagan Sun God, Mithras, being born, and was observed on the shortest day of the year. As the Sun God grew and matured, the days became longer and warmer. It was customary to light a candle to encourage Mithras, and the sun, to reappear next year. In ancient Babylon, the feast of the Son of Isis Goddess of Nature) was celebrated on December 25. Raucous partying, gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift-giving were traditions of this feast.
It is popularized on the Christian radio the story that pagans have paganized a Christian holiday, even though the reality is the reverse.
The tree is the one symbol that unites almost all the northern European winter solstices. Live evergreen trees were often brought into homes during the harsh winters as a reminder to inhabitants that soon their crops would grow again. Evergreen boughs were sometimes carried as totems of good luck and were often present at weddings, representing fertility. The Druids used the tree as a religious symbol, holding their sacred ceremonies while surrounding and worshiping huge trees. The earliest record of an evergreen being decorated in a Christian celebration was in 1521 in the Alsace region of Germany. The Romans decked their halls with garlands of laurel and placed candles in live trees to decorate for the celebration of Saturnalia. In Scandinavia, they hung apples from evergreen trees at the winder solstice to remind themselves that spring and summer will come again. The evergreen tree was the special plant of their sun god, Baldor.
Jeremiah 10:1-4 "Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O House of Israel: Thus saith the LORD, learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain; for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold.
This verse is speaking of making idols.
One common reservation expressed about family Christmas observance is its tendency to promote worldliness or materialism in adults and children alike. This is certainly a legitimate concern. The manner in which a large percentage in our culture spend beyond their means and lavish their family members with frivolous gifts or unnecessary luxuries will certainly promote a selfishness, materialism, and greed that are contrary to the explicit teachings of Scripture. "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want," contradicts teaching our children to make a list of things they want for Christmas. 1 Timothy 6:8 "But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." For a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions (Luke 12:15), and because riches make themselves wings and fly away (Prov. 23:5), we should not set our affections upon them (Matt. 6:19). Scripture, moreover, regularly forbids a covetous, greedy, and discontented spirit (Prov. 1:19; Jer. 6:13; 1 Cor. 5:10,11; 6:10; Eph. 5:5). Is the gift giving & receiving the way to show our love for Chirst? Surely, it has nothing to do with personal gratification. How does it keep the children's hearts & minds on Jesus's birthday, as if that makes any sense? Seems more like they are trained to use 'holy' things as a means to selfish ends. In view of criticism of the commercialization of Christmas, it is interesting to note that the holiday's secular, not its religious, aspect, has been most responsible for its popularity. Many Christians are uneasy about the crass commercialism and greed associated with with the day which they hold as 'holy'. The lure of profit has proven so strong that, since the 1870s, merchants have vigorously promoted Christmas. In the United States "retailers have come to count on yuletide sales for up to 50 percent of their annual profits. The shopping season now pumps an estimated $37 billion into the nation's economy. Without Christ's birthday, how will this holiday stand? Should it stand? Can we evangelize the heathen without this holiday? Did Christ himself ask us to celebrate His birth?
He left explicit instructions regarding how His followers are to commemorate His death (1 Corinthians 11:23-26), but nothing about His birth. Man himself sanctioned this 'holy day' and the keeping of it is a 'tradition of man,' one that seems to be to me,'conforming to the pattern of this world' & not beneficial, but 'legal' nonetheless.
When the Puritans came to power in England, Parliament, in June,1647, they passed legislation abolishing Christmas and other holidays. In this legislation, they wrote the following: “For as much as the feast of the nativity of Christ, Easter, and other festivals, commonly called holy days, have been here-to-fore superstitiously used and observed; be it ordained that the said feasts, and all other festivals, commonly called holy days, be no longer observed as festivals.”
Christmas was not a holiday in early America for the Pilgrims. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston...
Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America's new constitution. Christmas wasn't declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870.
Samuel Miller, a Puritan and professor of history and church government at Princeton Seminary, stated in 1896 in his book why Presbyterians reject the holy days of Christmas and Easter. He stated that “the Scriptures were the only infallible rule of faith and practice, and that no rite or ceremony ought to have a place in the public worship of Yahweh, which is not warranted in Scripture. Not only does the celebration of non-biblical holidays lack a scriptural foundation, but the scriptures positively discount it.”
Opposition to these church holidays remained in American Presbyterianism through the latter half of the 19th century. Historian Ernest Trice Thompson wrote the following:"There was no recognition of either Christmas or Easter in any of the Protestant churches, except the Episcopal and Lutheran. For a full generation after the Civil War, the religious journals of the South mentioned Christmas only to observe that there was no reason to believe that Jesus was actually born on December 25th; it was not recognized as a day of any religious significance in the Presbyterian Church.
Charles Spurgeon, stated in a sermon given on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1871, the following:
“We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas: first, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be said or sung in Latin or English; and secondly, because we find no scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior; and, consequently, it’s observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority.” [C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 1971, pg. 697
The holidays of Christmas and Easter were banned from the Church of Scotland.
David Calderwood [1511-1651], representing the Scottish ministries, asserted in reference to Christmas and Easter: “The Judaical days had once that honor, as to be appointed by Yahweh Himself; but the anniversary days appointed by men have not like honor. This opinion of Christ’s nativity on the 25th day of December was bred at Rome.”

I am afraid that very often the Church gives a very unbalanced view of the Christ-child during the Christmas season. We must not let the world forget that Jesus grew up. When he did, he drove the moneychangers from the temple, ridiculed the Pharisees for their wicked perversions of God’s law, and spoke of the need for faith and repentance. Can the world see past the baby to the reality behind the Christ child — that God had become incarnate through the Virgin in order to save his people from their sins and judge all enemies of his kingdom or is His Name & Image in this season used in vain, violating commandment #3?
John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Note: These are just my personal views, I know of no one else who believes this strongly on this subject. So take it or leave it, just my ramblings.

Does God like chocolate or vanilla?

I guess the best way to know what someone likes is to ask.. or maybe they've said what they liked at one time or another.

Thus begins the Christmas shopping season every year. Trying to find the perfect gift for everyone on your list. And does not the list get bigger every year or do you feel guilty because you have to trim it because of your budget? If someone new gives you something, do you feel bad you didn't give them anything back? Some people can get really stressed over these issues, I know I have. I am not a mind reader, so unless someone spells out what they want, I'm not going to know. Don't we encourage our children to make their list of whatever it is they want, whether it be one thing, three, or however many things we, the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, or friends will get them? (Not adhering to "Be content if you have food, water, & shelter," much, is it?)
I was in my Salvation Army today when my friend who works there was bemoaning the angel tree woes. It seems some well meaning people, who maybe wanted to take the edge off the worldliness of Christmas by thinking of poor children whose parents may not have enough money to buy their children presents, took the names of poor children off their Angel Tree, only to not bring it or the gifts back. A lot of folks will return with the child's tag from the tree with the gifts that were on the list in the proper amount of time, but this year there were a disproportionate amount of names taken off that were not returned with the gifts. She was saying they had a lot of gifts to come up with because of some would-be giver's backing out. Now what good Christian has not picked a name off an Angel Tree? If you're like me, you skip the expensive ones that have listed the electronic gadgets such as Ipods, video games, or laptops simply because you can't even afford them for your own child, much less someone else's. I personally don't see these things as a necessity, so I wouldn't buy them that if I had the money. Some of the tags are real conversation pieces to those of us around the tree of just what all these poor kids want & about what tags probably won't get picked. The coveting/want meter can get shamelessly full tilt. The ones that get picked probably the mom, not the kid, filled out with a what was a legitimate need. Things such as a coat, shoes, socks, pants & a modest toy or two were always popular ones to be picked. So what happened to the people who reneged on their commitment to these underprivileged children? We should be gracious I suppose & say maybe they lost or forgot about their tag or tragically ran out of money trying to make sure they had 'enough'gifts to lace around under their Christmas tree for their own children, family, & friends. You have to admit, it can be hard on the budget these days, especially if you have a teen-ager or two. I take that back, they don't even have to be a teen anymore to want those big ticket technological gadgets. What happened to baby dolls for the 7 year old girls & a nerf gun for your 10 year old boy? Christmas can get darn right expensive a lot earlier with kids these days, & I don't know how grandparents do it. It can make a believer out of you that liberal lie that says it cost that shockingly exuberant amount of money ($$$$$$$$, I can't remember) to raise one child from birth to eighteen that is supposed to deter young couples from starting their family. And God said, "Be fruitful & multiply!"

You haven't even started buying for mom, dad, siblings, cousins, friends, & co-workers! Is it really giving to Jesus on His birthday when we are really just exchanging gifts with one another? Some folks just bite the bullet & whip out the credit card or take up that friendly timely bill board's ad from the loan sharks for extra 'dough' that has the cute Christmas gingerbread cookies on it. I'm sure those places are real busy this time of year, but I'll bet it isn't half as stressful as the folks who work in retail. Ron has a old friend from a past life on facebook who is in the middle of this headache. He has A LOT of unwinding to do after work, just another reason to drink away his stress. He caught four shop lifters in one day! (when normally it is just one a day in any give week this time of year. Jesus's birthday time of year is not fa la la for him (or the shoplifters who feel forced to steal, I suppose), sad to say or many others in these types of jobs. My niece has the 'awesome' job of helping kids get on Santa's lap at the mall. Yikes!

Is jail time & a criminal record really worth stealing for (so & so) to have some earrings or your child that (latest hip toy) for CHRISTmas? The DJ on the radio the other day was talking about getting caught in the holiday traffic around the mall & there wasn't a lot of the fruit of God's Spirit that day in celebration of His Son, I'll tell you. What a witness to the world this holiday creates.

That is what this season is all about, isn't it? For some folks, undoubtedly yes, but not Christian families, right? Just show up Sunday morning at church & ask the children in Sunday school what their Christmas was like. Is it, "we had breakfast, prayers, & advent stories, then we opened presents!" Not in the real world. It starts with, "I got....!!!!!, what did you get???" to boil it down to the bottom line. How can we win against materialism that the children so easily pick up on?

A new friend at church was talking the other day about how he wanted a catchy Christmas quote from a dear respected saint from the past to put on his facebook status, so he googled, Charles Spurgeon, Christmas." Whoa! What a shock he received! What was his problem? What was the Covenanter's problem with this sacred *Christian* holiday? The Puritans were throwing people in jail in early America for celebrating this holiday they outlawed? Why even Andrew Bonar was a 'Grench that stole Christmas'!!

Ok, I'm going to come out of the closet now & from what I've researched
I think the 'emperor's New Clothes' need to be called what they are. This holiday is a fiction made up by Pope Julius I to Christianize the pagans in his kingdom who celebrated the re-birth of the sun on this winter solstice day. Next year Christ mass (the Catholics invented this day) falls on the Lord's Sabbath Day. How many churches all across our nation & maybe even the world will negate God's fourth commandment to observe this 'tradition of man? Does God like that? Does He want us to do that? I think He has specifically stated against that.
As stated in my research on the matter.
Look at what we so ardently fight against this holiday being... what it is... a crass commercialism holiday we try to Christianize that is man invented & is pagan at it's bare root. It is like a growing Goliath to stand against in our society if you don't celebrate it & I wish someone would chop off it's head.
Let the Christian church arise & do it's duty to call out the emporer's nakedness & stop saying what beautiful clothes 'He' has on. Aren't we supposed to worship Him in spirit & in TRUTH?
What will His bride do next Christ mass on the God ordained & sanctioned Sabbath Day? Take His name in vain for the sake of a fallacy?

The weather in Bethlehem the other day was six degrees Celsius as it has always been around this time of year. The Caesar would be crazy if he wanted an accurate counting in his census in this cold & rainy season & heartless if he sent families to travel for days or even weeks back to their hometowns in this terrible weather. I'm a farmer, modern yes, but I know a few things about agriculture. The forecasters are calling for snow on Christ's mass Day in Bethlehem. No shepherds are out in their fields watching their flocks by night, grazing on what grass(?)that would be growing in this weather with what kind of shelter from the rainy season they're having right now in this cold.

They were in their homes & the animals in the barn eating hay they'd stored up during the summer. (remember the animals were in the barn in the nativity scene ;-)
IMHO, truthfully, I think he was born during the Feast of Tabernacles, when God came to dwell among men, under the sign of the stars in heaven of the Virgin in Sept. Some others think it was spring according to Zachariah's time in the temple & when Elizabeth got pregnant & Mary came to visit. I don't know.

So what about the children who didn't get their angel tree gifts when they awaken on Saturday looking for the spread of presents Santa was supposed to bring (or Jesus give if they are a religious home)? What about the children in Africa who got the shoe boxes from Franklin Graham years ago, are they still getting a shoebox full of gifts from Jesus for His birthday this year? Most rich American children, Christian & non alike have a bunch of gifts under their Christ mass tree. So are they still worshiping Him for what they did not get?
I just know this tradition of man is one that I have a hard time in my conscience honoring. So does God like chocolate or vanilla



...or strawberry hhhmmmm

Brandon Thanksgiving

This is how our Thanksgivings start, on Tuesdays, with the yummy centerpiece for other's tables. A few of you may have recently met the fellow who is 'processing' our birds. He is a dear old friend who has recently, miraculously, confessed Christ. Corey McClellan has been a delightful change at Zion Farms as our house guest.

Going in to gather another turkey.
Hannah is happy & grateful to have her dear cousin Jeremiah over to help us process. ;-)
Watch out, Mom, she has a knife!

Three down, one to go in this set.
May the Lord bless him & his wife with 10 more years of marriage, only now serving our wonderful Redeemer. I suppose we could have called him in the past, Slick the Slayer, but now hopefully, it is Corey the Christian.
On Thursday we go to the Rileys for a day of fun & fellowship

TV Is My Shepherd

This is a take off of Psalm 23. It can also apply to net surfing.


The TV set is my shepherd.
My spiritual growth shall want.
It maketh me to sit down and do nothing for his name’s sake.
Because it requireth all of my spare time.
It keepeth me from doing my duty as a Christian,
because it presenteth so many good shows that I must see.

It restoreth my knowledge of the things
of the world and keepeth me from the study of God’s Word.
It leadeth me in the paths of failing to attend the evening worship services
and doing nothing in the kingdom of God.
It anoints my head With materialism. My coveting runneth over.

Yea, though I live to be 100
I shall keep on viewing television as long as it will work,
for it is my closest companion.
Its sound and its picture,
they comfort me.

It presenteth entertainment before me
and keepeth me from doing important things with my family.
It fills my head with ideas which differ from those set forth in the word of God.

Surely, no good thing will come of my life,
because my television offereth me no good time to do the will of God;
thus I will dwell crownless in the house of the Lord forever.

I had an abortion....

in my dream this morning. The father did not want the baby, so I went in for the procedure. When it was all over & I was walking out, they handed me a warm white bag with the contents of my 'product of conception.' It felt like they handed me a ton of bricks. The scales were taken off my eyes & I was like Eve who could now see I was standing in the raw nakedness of my grave sin...I had murdered my child. Grief & shame began to overwhelm me & I wanted to crawl into darkness & hide from the world. For some reason, my other older children knew I was pregnant & they were excited about the baby. How was I going to explain to them I had killed their sibling? All I wanted to do was shut out the world under the covers of my bed & hide there forever in grief, guilt, & shame. I awoke with that heavy, stabbing feeling in your heart of death. I thank God it was just a dream. Before I was converted, an abortion was totally my plan if I ever had an unplanned pregnancy. It was by the mercy of God only He didn't let me go through with this Pandora's box of pain.


Although I've never had an abortion in real life, a couple of dear people I know have. One dealt with her pain through confession & counciling. In the old testament, David, whom the Bible says was a man after God's own heart, hid his grievous sins of adultery & murder for a time. This is what He said about that time of wallowing in His sin.
How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,Whose sin is covered!2How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit! 3>When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long.4For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah. 5 I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"; and You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah. 6Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. 7You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah. 8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go;I will counsel you with My eye upon you.9Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding,Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check,Otherwise they will not come near to you.10Many are the sorrows of the wicked,But he who trusts in the LORD, lovingkindness shall surround him. 11Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous ones; And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart. Psalm 32
Such a recognition of the the innocence of a clean conscience in the first two verses. One can only feel this when one has known the dirtiness of sin in contrast to the clean slate. Then he goes into what it feels like to have a heavy conscience, what we all feel like before coming to the Lord or being chastised for wrong-doing as His child. His words to us are such a guide book for avoiding things that will hurt us & they can make us 'wise unto salvation.' He is a loving Father are what verses 6-8 are about. He watches over His own & saves them from trouble. If you are stubborn to go your own way then verse 10 is what you will reap. Verse 11 is the awesomeness His children have.
Sadly, the other person I know who had an abortion just swept it under the rug & pretended for decades it never happened. Oh, how it festers & grows in the dark of unconfession, like a spreading mildew or fungus. In Leviticus, houses were burned to the ground that had persistent mildew. It damages your health. Sin damages your soul. Prov.3:7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. 8 This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. I believe a lot of sickness today is due to just plain sin weighing heavy upon a person. To know the blessed forgiveness & cleaness of spirit & conscience. David talked about in this Psalm, as well as His most famous one for his sin, Psalm 51, is known only by those who are His.

In light of my dream as a warning , I do feel it necessary for pro-lifers to go to the slaughter houses/abortion clinics to warn women. One day this past summer, a group of us went to one. It was like the gates of hell, they had razor wire at the top of them! Looked more like a concentration camp!

People who are in a crisis life or death situation might be open for you to point them to Christ, only you have about 30 seconds to a minute to talk to girls & their moms or boyfriends as they walk from the parking lot into one of the biggest mistakes of their life. What horrific negative reverberations! What is the most effective is this minuscule amount of time to say? Tell them to seek God when they realize what a grievous sin they've done when all their bodily hormones react the next day in screaming at them for the horrendous sin they've committed against God, which didn't get them to stop, or talk about the health hazards, the wicked plot Margaret Sanger had to wipe out the black race by strategically placing the clinics in black neighborhoods, which some paused at?
It can seem overwhelming when the girls & women have their faces set like a flint to get rid of their 'problem.' It is so vivid a picture of the parable of the sower & the seeds. A handful of girls that day walked back out choosing not to kill, but that alone doesn't solve their heart problem that got them there. What kind of life would the baby have without Christ in her mother's life? Will she turn to Christ? Life IS hopeless without Him and very intimidating to handle on your own & on the behalf of a new soul you'd be bringing in. If she chooses not to have an abortion, does that make her pat herself on the back for being so 'good' she doesn't see a need for Christ?
I asked one of the butcher's helpers if she thought she was helping women. How can you justify working at a place like that? This one dear lady who was with us outside, Donna, had told it was their rationale to think they helped these poor girls fix their 'problem.' All she would answer, over & over, was "I feel sorry for you." I just couldn't grasp where in the world she was coming from & I truly wanted to understand. Did she feel sorry for me because I was obviously 8 months pregnant, that she didn't get to help me kill my problem of being 'oppressed' by a child? (Obama's mindset)
God says, "women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety."1 Timothy 2:15 If women are saved in childbearing, they are surely destroyed by this child killing. Physically, as well as emotionally.

Life journey with THE Word

Have you ever read the classic, Pilgrim's Progress? It is a MUST for any Christian. It is even on audio for children. We've read through it a few times as a family, & really need to read through it again. There are so many characters & places portrayed in the book parallel to who we meet & situations we find ourselves in as a Christian in real life. Christian is the main guy & it starts with him in the City of Destruction. He knows he is there when he starts reading this book that tells him what 'side of the fence' all men are born on. We are children of wrath, sons of perdition, daughters of disobedience & all of us are born into sin. "There is no one righteous, no not ONE." We must be reconciled to God through a new birth, or being born again, to make ALL things NEW. We are either a part of the kingdom of God that we have been born again into by the Spirit of God or a part of the kingdom of Satan which we were born into at birth. When we are born again, we have a whole new life, all together centered around the Christ who has now become "altogether precious."
" The Word became flesh & dwelt among us." He, the Word, has walked with me for a little over 20 years now.When you are walking with the Lord, you are walking with the Word Incarnate. His words have been "a lamp unto my feet & a light unto my path." As a "newborn babe in Christ, I desired the pure milk of the word of God" for the first time in my life in 1989."

Colossians 3:16 says "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, " & Jesus Himself said, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine." Jn 8:31 In America, we have His precious word available to us like water & He tells us "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation." 1 Peter 2:2

I often can't remember where I put the hairbrush three minutes ago, but I do remember the 1st verse I ever memorized & it is still VERY special to me. I was a young, 18 year old factory worker with practically zero Christian friends, but had a new heavenly bridegroom I desperately wanted to please because I love Him so much & He is so precious to me.
Psalms 27:14
"Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart:
wait, I say, on the LORD."
He did, He does, He will)

Do you remember the first verse you ever memorized?

This was my second verse:
1 john 3: 20For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
I had no hope in my efforts, but had to look to Him.

Proverbs 4:16 For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall. This was my third verse because I was wising up to the fact that....

1 Corinthians 15:33 "Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character."
Some old friends had to go.

Proverbs 11:22 Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion.
I began to notice the ladies at my church were more modest in their dress than I was used to being. My pants got baggier.

Proverbs 3: 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

He was turning my world upside-down. Taking things away I didn't want to let go of, but He knew better. I cried, but trusted.

Ps. 4: 4 In your anger do not sin;
when you are on your beds,
search your (own) hearts and be silent.
Selah

I got married & had to learn how to forgive. I would repeat this over & over many nights.

I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me.Phil4:6

My first birth. Was the hardest thing I'd ever done, but this verse helped me know I could press on without the choice of pain killing drugs.

John 1427 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

I don't know if this has ever actually happened to you, but the Lord SPOKE this verse to my spirit one afternoon when I was in my prayer closet agonizing about a certain stressful situation. That verse He spoke to me turned out to be the verse for that day on my little daily calendar & I found out a day or two later. The date was July 1, 1997, a special someone's birthday. I saved that page in Ruth's baby book.

Ephesians 522"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord." I meditated on this very often
1 Peter 3 5For in this way in former times the holy women also,who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands;6just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.
We women can fear a lot, can't we?
Went off the straight & narrow path once to Doubting Castle (Pilgrim's Progress plug for those of you who haven't read the book..) & there was beaten up by Giant Dispair.
2 Timothy 2: 13if we are faithless,
he will remain faithful,
for he cannot disown himself.
Oh, how I was comforted He cannot disown Himself. I was His bride surely(?!)
He held me in His grip of grace during this time when I "fainted in a day of adversity."
I hoped He would be true to His word, " no one will snatch them out of My hand," as I despaired that I was even His. I wondered during this time was I a "seed sown among the thorns of this life that the worries & cares of this life choked out," that I was "salt made unsaltly, good for nothing but the manure pile." He was faithful, He held me tightly.
Then we started a new church & "He will not harbor his anger forever;" & He "restored unto me the joy of my salvation" and "led me beside still waters to lie down in green pastures."
That is my life in a nutshell. There are many other verses that I walked with, but those are some highlights.

In light of that, do you have a journey with Christ, your Savior, the Living Word, if in fact He is yours?
I hope you will meditate on those special words He has given you in His word while you're walking with The Living Word.