He will feed His flock like a shepherd;
He will gather the lambs with His arm,
And carry them in His bosom,
And gently lead those who are with young. --Isaiah 40: 11
"According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, but to die is gain." Phillippians 1:20-21
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Happy Valentine's Day!
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Lord's Day help
The book I was reading this morning by Jeremiah Burroughs is very helpful (and convicting!) on preparing for worship:
"Christians, I beseech you to account highly your time of worship. You have been so long at prayer, yes, but how much of it has been lost because you have not prepared beforehand for it? Perhaps you kneeled upon you knees, but you were a long time before you could get your hearts warm at your work. Why, you should have been warm before you came!
It is so, oftentimes, with many men when they meet together and there is no preparation for their business. They come together and are a long time before they can buckle to the business for which they came because there was no preparation. But if preparation is made, then every man knows beforehand what his work is. They can fall to it, and then dispatch as much in one hour as others do in two or three....
...There must be preparation because our hearts are naturally and exceedingly unprepared for every good work. We are all naturally reprobate to every good work. The duties of God's worship are high and spiritual and holy things, but by nature our hearts grovel in the dirt, and we are carnal, sensual, drossy, dead, slight, sottish, and vain, altogether unfit to come into the presence of God. Oh, that we were apprehensive and sensible of the unfitness of our hearts to come into God's presence! Perhaps because you do not know God, you can rush into His presence without any more ado; but if you knew yourself and God, you could not but see yourself altogether unfit for His presence, so as to wonder that the Lord should not spurn you out of His presence every time you come unto Him. There needs to be, then, preparation because we are so unfit to come into His presence."
WOW! I wish I could think and write like that all the time!
"Christians, I beseech you to account highly your time of worship. You have been so long at prayer, yes, but how much of it has been lost because you have not prepared beforehand for it? Perhaps you kneeled upon you knees, but you were a long time before you could get your hearts warm at your work. Why, you should have been warm before you came!
It is so, oftentimes, with many men when they meet together and there is no preparation for their business. They come together and are a long time before they can buckle to the business for which they came because there was no preparation. But if preparation is made, then every man knows beforehand what his work is. They can fall to it, and then dispatch as much in one hour as others do in two or three....
...There must be preparation because our hearts are naturally and exceedingly unprepared for every good work. We are all naturally reprobate to every good work. The duties of God's worship are high and spiritual and holy things, but by nature our hearts grovel in the dirt, and we are carnal, sensual, drossy, dead, slight, sottish, and vain, altogether unfit to come into the presence of God. Oh, that we were apprehensive and sensible of the unfitness of our hearts to come into God's presence! Perhaps because you do not know God, you can rush into His presence without any more ado; but if you knew yourself and God, you could not but see yourself altogether unfit for His presence, so as to wonder that the Lord should not spurn you out of His presence every time you come unto Him. There needs to be, then, preparation because we are so unfit to come into His presence."
WOW! I wish I could think and write like that all the time!
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