Dear netizens,
Here's a helpful tool to get you through your busy, chaotic day: the PocketMod
Friday, December 29, 2006
Monday, December 25, 2006
Christmas Dance
When my camera gave out after this short take, Abby and I joined Suzanne and Ben in a couple of dances to Suzanne's new Barry Manilow CD. Man, what a Christmas! It was one of those beautiful, surprising moments in life.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Modern 'monastery': The Washington Times
Shane Claiborne, 31, the author of the new book "The Irresistible Revolution" (sample - Ch.5) is a symbol of a movement toward living out one's faith radically. He lives in the Simple Way -- two households in downtown Philadelphia that are part of a larger circle of Christian communities that pool their funds, give to the poor and are environmentally aware.
Christianity Today magazine termed this lifestyle a "new monasticism" because...(read the rest here).
Take away: "The church is like Noah's ark: It stinks sometimes, but if you get out you'll drown."
UPDATE: I just read chapter 5 of "Irrisistible Revolution". It is powerful. It is a long chapter, but worth sitting down to soak it in.
Christianity Today magazine termed this lifestyle a "new monasticism" because...(read the rest here).
Take away: "The church is like Noah's ark: It stinks sometimes, but if you get out you'll drown."
UPDATE: I just read chapter 5 of "Irrisistible Revolution". It is powerful. It is a long chapter, but worth sitting down to soak it in.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
O Holy Night
This song has been making the rounds for years now, but someone has finally done a home video if it...I still laugh out loud every time I hear it.
Friday, December 15, 2006
J C Ryle - A Call to Prayer
With the birth of my son, Benjamin Corley Breedlove, I must confess I have fallen into almost gross prayerlessness. My life is inexcusably un-devotional, in that I have barely cracked the Holy Scriptures in weeks. Looking at some books on Amazon on the topic of worship, I ran across a J C Ryle tract on prayer. I Googled the title, and found this.
Perhaps it will help you too.
Here are some excerpts:
To be prayerless is to be without God, without Christ, without grace, without hope, and without heaven. It is to be on the road to hell. Now can you wonder that I ask the question, Do you pray?
I ask again whether you pray, because a habit of prayer is one of the surest marks of a true Christian.
...not praying is a clear proof that a man is not yet a true Christian. He cannot really feel his sins. He cannot love God. He cannot feel himself a debtor to Christ. He cannot long after holiness. He cannot desire heaven. He has yet to be born again. He has yet to be made a new creature. He may boast confidently of election, grace, faith, hope, and knowledge, and deceive ignorant people. But you may rest assured it is all vain talk if he does not pray.
Your views of doctrine may be correct. Your love of Protestantism may be warm and unmistakable. But still this may be nothing more than head knowledge and party spirit. We want to know whether you are actually acquainted with the throne of grace, and whether you can speak to God as well as speak about God.
Many, even of those who use good forms, mutter their prayers after they have gotten into bed, or while they wash or dress in the morning. Men may think what they please, but they may depend upon it that in the sight of God this is not praying. Words said without heart are as utterly useless to our souls as the drum beating of the poor heathen before their idols. Where there is no heart, there may be lip work and tongue work, but there is nothing that God listens to; there is no prayer. Saul, I have no doubt, said many a long prayer before the Lord met him on the way to Damascus. But it was not till his heart was broken that the Lord said, "He prayeth."
Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer. I cannot forget this.
...diligence in prayer is the secret of eminent holiness.
I do not say we have a right to expect a miraculous grant of intellectual gifts; but this I do say, that when a man is once converted to God, his progress in holiness will be much in accordance with his own diligence in the use of God's appointed means. And I assert confidently that the principal means by which most believers have become great in the church of Christ is the habit of diligent private prayer.
Bibles read without prayer; sermons heard without prayer; marriages contracted without prayer; journeys undertaken without prayer; residences chosen without prayer; friendships formed without prayer; the daily act of private prayer itself hurried over, or gone through without heart: these are the kind of downward steps by which many a Christian descends to a condition of spiritual palsy, or reaches the point where God allows him to have a tremendous fall.
You may be very sure men fall in private long before they fall in public. They are backsliders on their knees long before they backslide openly in the eyes of the world. Like Peter, they first disregard the Lord's warning to watch and pray, and then like Peter, their strength is gone, and in the hour of temptation they deny their Lord.
It is useless to say you know not how to pray. Prayer is the simplest act in all religion. It is simply speaking to God. It needs neither learning nor wisdom nor book knowledge to begin it. It needs nothing but heart and will. The weakest infant can cry when he is hungry. The poorest beggar can hold out his hand for alms, and does not wait to find fine words. The most ignorant man will find something to say to God, if he has only a mind.
Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble, and your language poor. Jesus can understand you. Just as a mother understands the first lispings of her infant, so does the blessed Saviour understand sinners. He can read a sigh, and see a meaning in a groan.
The devil has special wrath against us when he sees us on our knees.
I believe we are very poor judges of the goodness of our prayers, and that the prayer which pleases us least, often pleases God most.
If the skeleton and outline of our prayers be by habit almost a form, let us strive that the clothing and filling up of our prayers be as far as possible of the Spirit.
...it is essential to your soul's health to make praying a part of the business of every twenty four hours in your life. just as you allot time to eating, sleeping, and business, so also allot time to prayer. Choose your own hours and seasons. At the very least, speak with God in the morning, before you speak with the world: and speak with God at night, after you have done with the world. But settle it in your minds, that prayer is one of the great things of every day. Do not drive it into a corner. Do not give it the scraps and parings of your duty. Whatever else you make a business of, make a business of prayer.
Let us knock loudly at the door of grace, like Mercy in Pilgrim's Progress, as if we must perish unless heard. Let us settle it in our minds, that cold prayers are a sacrifice without fire.
The cause of [some Christian's] weakness is to be found in their own stunted, dwarfish, clipped, contracted, hurried, narrow, diminutive prayers. They have not, because they ask not.
In his encouragement to Christians to interceed for others, Ryle says, "He loves me best who loves me in his prayers."
Tell me what a man's prayers are, and I will soon tell you the state of his soul. Prayer is the spiritual pulse. By this the spiritual health may be tested.
(Picture, HT: http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/ryle/index.htm)
Friday, December 08, 2006
Homeless not Helpless in Knoxville
Abby's favs
Abby jammin' with the iPod. Her new favorite is actually Marty Robbins, especially his song "El Paso". She almost cries at the end every time. Her other favorite (I hesitate to say!) is Maroon 5's "This Love". Of course, for the chorus, instead of singing:
This love has taken its toll on me
She said Goodbye too many times before
And her heart is breaking in front of me
I have no choice cause I won't say goodbye anymore
Abby says:
Iz O is crankin' my hone
(the rest is the same)
Of course, she always wants to hear Brandon's CD ("Arise" in particular). Write Brandon to get a copy.
"Savior" Downloadable LEAD SHEETS
Click here to find and freely download the new Christmas music from Sovereign Grace's new album, SAVIOR: Savior: Celebrating the Mystery of God Become Man
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
