"Now Is The Day Of Salvation."
In our thinking about the Lord’s Return, it is very important that we do not forget that the decision between salvation and judgment is one which must be made here and now. The Bible speaks of the Day of the Lord’s Return as a Day of salvation for the Lord’s believing people. The Lord’s Return will also bring a Day of judgment for all who turn their backs on the Saviour. The Bible also speaks of another day of salvation, another day of judgment. That day is today. This is precisely what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6:2 - “Now is the day of salvation.” Now is the time for making your decision for Christ. Now is the time for faith in the Saviour. Jesus underlines the importance of our present response to Him. He does this, in John 3:18, when He speaks of those who are already under judgment because of their unbelief: “he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Name of the only Son of God.” The Lord awaits for our response now. May God help us to put our trust in His Son, Jesus Christ. May God help us to await Christ’s Return with joyful expectation.
Elijah Rain Productions & Publishing
Here's a recent publication and cover design by Elijah Rain Publishing created for a local author.In Search Of Deeper Waters, Charting A New Course.
Elijah Rain Productions & Publishing
"Does Your Life Feel Like ... "
Does your life feel like a prison sentence? Remember this - God is fulfilling His purpose of love!
A New Journey Through The Scriptures
At my Let's Share the Good News and The Theology of G. C. Berkouwer blogs, you can still find the Reading for each day (in its own box at the top of the page). The "New Journey Through The Scriptures", beginning with Genesis 1, starts tomorrow (22nd January 2009). If you follow these readings each day, they will take you through the whole Bible in three years.
I hope you will visit the "Daily Devotional Readings" and receive a blessing from the Lord.
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"When you read God's Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, 'It is talking to me, and about me.'" (Soren Kierkegaard).
Let's commit ourselves afresh to reading the Word of God day-by-day.
Here are some links which you may find helpful.
I hope you will visit the "Daily Devotional Readings" and receive a blessing from the Lord.
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"When you read God's Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, 'It is talking to me, and about me.'" (Soren Kierkegaard).
Let's commit ourselves afresh to reading the Word of God day-by-day.
Here are some links which you may find helpful.
Read a specific comment online
"We Are Not To Live ... "
We are not to live for this world only. We have a higher calling - "the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
"What Will You Do ... "
What will you do with God's great invitation, His invitation of love? He is waiting for your answer.
"Jesus Is The King ... "
Jesus is the King of love. Let us give heart and soul and mind and strength to serve the King of kings.
"Christ Is Our Wisdom ... "
Christ is our Wisdom: the Way to wisdom, the Truth on which wisdom builds and the Life built on wisdom.
--------------------
This thought is taken from
Isaiah 28:23-29:16
'The wisdom of the wise will perish' (29:14). There is another 'wisdom', a 'wisdom' which shall not perish, a 'wisdom' which is 'wiser than man's wisdom'. Christ is 'the Wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:24-25). With Christ as our Saviour, we 'shall not perish'. Through faith in Him, we receive the 'wisdom' which brings 'salvation' (John 3:16; 2 Timothy 3:15). Jesus Christ is 'the Way, the Truth and the Life' (John14:6). He is the Way to true wisdom. He is the Truth upon which true wisdom is based. He is the Life which is based on true wisdom. He is true Wisdom. We must not seek wisdom apart from faith in Jesus Christ - 'the world did not know God through wisdom'. There is one true wisdom which does 'not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God' - faith in 'Christ crucified' (1 Corinthians 1:21-23; 2:1-5).
The Discipline Of Discipleship (2)
When Paul spoke of the discipline of discipleship, he compared it to the discipline of the athlete: "Do you not know that, in a race, all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable" (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). For the athlete and the disciple, the prize is different. Both require the same commitment - "self-control in all things." Paul committed himself to the discipline of discipleship - " I pummel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified (laid aside as of no further use)" (1 Corinthians 9:27). How much do you and I know about the discipline of discipleship? If we are to be true disciples of Christ, it will only be done through the power of the Holy Spirit: "God did not give us the spirit of fear, but the Spirit of power and love and self-control" (2 Timothy 1:7). When we are controlled by the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, we will be both blessed by God and used by God.
The Discipline of Discipleship (1)
When your pathway is covered with snow, what do you do? Do you clear the path because you feel like doing this? Do you clear away the snow because it has to be done? Discipline - this is what we need if the pathway is to be kept clear. When your living room is in a mess, do you take out the vacuum cleaner because you feel like doing this? The discipline of the 'housewife' has much to teach us if we are to learn the discipline of discipleship, which is called for by Paul's words: "your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit ... So glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). The discipline of discipleship highlights for us the "I have to do this" dimension of the Christian life. Let me tell you a story about a woman in her sixties, a slim woman about five feet tall. One evening, she sat in her living room, waiting for her husband to return from his work in the fields. Suddenly, she noticed, at the window, the face of a burly stranger. She controlled herself, laid aside her needlework, crossed the room and pushed the piano against the door. When her husband returned, he called in a neighbour and, together, they pushed the piano back into its place. To this day, every once in a while, the man will look up from his newspaper and ask, "Who helped you move that piano?" The point is that she had to move the piano. He didn't have to move it back.
Encourage One Another In The Lord
It's great that we are able to encourage one another in the Lord. Hebrews 10:25 speaks about "the assembling of ourselves together" and "exhorting one another." Each of us has a particular ministry of encouragement to those with whom we are gathered together to worship the Lord.
Success In Everyday Life
Just imagine spending 40 days and 40 nights in the Teton Mountains and surrounding areas. The beauty, nature, peace, wonderful moments, beautiful sunsets and endless hours of being far from the hustle bustle of life.Author Eric Zehnder did just that. When Author Eric Zehnder traveled to the Teton Mountains in Wyoming something very profound happened. He started writing quality sayings.
Eric went on to write 4,000 sayings in just 40 days while in the mountains. He then went on to write 8,000 more sayings and has amassed a personal library of over 12,000 sayings.
This book is a collection of wise, fun and humorous sayings. If you read a few, you will be entertained. However, if you apply the sayings in this book to everyday life situations, they will help put you on the path to living a victorious life.
ISBN 9781603831109
Order your copy now.
The Wise Search For Deeper Waters
In the summer of 1905, on the shores of central California, the fishing town of Monterey, suffered a very great economic blow. Monterey is a picturesque community, 100 miles south of San Francisco. It is situated on the great Monterey Bay.
The Monterey Bay, gave to the city of Monterey all the bounty of the ocean. For decades Monterey fishermen brought back the fruit of the sea, the fish, that fed millions of people in America.
The backbone of this great fishery, and therefore of the economy in Monterey, was the annual catch of sardines.
These sardines were captured, brought to port, and then to Cannery Row – a row of fish canning operations lining the Monterey beach. There, of course, the sardines were packed into silver cans, wrapped in a red and black paper seal declaring them to be high-quality sardines from Monterey, California. They were then shipped throughout America and the world.
And the economy was good.
But, in the summer of 1905, something terrible happened. An economic disaster of unprecedented proportions happened to this bustling fishing town.
The disaster was this: the fishermen and their many boats, and many employees, simply over fished the sardine population. They did it to such a degree, that the sardines couldn’t reproduce their stock – and, suddenly, sardines simply disappeared from the fisherman’s nets! They were gone! And with them, were also, apparent to everyone, the good times for people in Monterey.
But – and this is a very important but – this was not the end of the story. A very great and ominous disaster had happened on their watch, but now something wondrous and hopeful, also took place on their watch.
Here is what, actually, happened: first, the people of Monterey and their churches, prayed. Now, whether you believe in prayer or not, that is secondary to the story. My duty is just to give hope and tell you how the story turned out, in actual history.
Most of the ship owners in Monterey doubled as their own ship captains. There were no big corporate fleets. It was mostly private fishermen who had built their fishing business to the level of having a ship or two, and going out daily and bringing the fish back. They worked hard at it, and they became better and better at what they did, and therefore became more and more successful.
But the sea had always helped them. Now that the sardines were gone, what next? What would happen to the economy, to the ship owners and captains, and to all the crews and their families?
The captains of the ships talked among themselves. As they talked, they told tales that they had heard long ago, about schools of great fish, that a Monterey fisherman and his ship and crew had once found.
But, these great fish, which were only known by the thin thread of perhaps a tall tale, were caught as far out as 200 miles from the shore! No Monterey fisherman and his crew, at least for decades, had gone beyond 20 miles!
No one ever dared to go that far! It had not yet entered the imagination of the people.
They had the vessels for it, and the crews. Now what they needed was some bold and intrepid captains, who would dare to go farther into deeper waters, than anyone ever had before.
And, in a true to life story, several believing captains, with their valiant ships and willing crews, set out to find out if the tales of these great fish had any truth to them.
They went fifty miles. Then eighty miles. Then over a hundred miles. But approximately one hundred and fifty miles out, they saw “boiling water” – a strange occurrence on the surface of the water that far out in the middle of the sea.
The captains and their crews, decided to fish these “boiling waters.” For their efforts, they began to pull in yellowfin tuna anywhere from 100 to 300 pounds! And there was no end to them!
Now, dear reader, understand that until this date in history, no one in the entire world had ever eaten tuna. Well, maybe some long ago sea captain and his crew had. But for the most part, tuna had never been known before. It had never been seen or eaten!
So, the intrepid sea captains and their fishermen returned home to Monterey with great good news – and a big load of great fish!
Think about it. Sardines were only 4 to 8 inches long, and now the fishermen replaced them with tuna that were 4-8 feet long! The sardines weighed a half-pound at best, and the tuna weighed up to three hundred pounds. In fact, later, as fishermen found the will to go farther, they caught bluefin tuna, that weighed up to 1500 pounds!
Thus, by being willing to go further than anyone had gone before and by choosing to act in new ways rather than just sit and suffer, although the economy went down with the sardines – now it went up with the tuna! Following what might have been just a tall story by an old salt, turned out to give the people of Monterey a true, and much greater, story. They introduced tuna and tuna fishing to the world. Their ships got bigger. Their crews got paid more. More tourists came to Monterey. The little bustling fishing didn’t go down with the sardines!
Somehow, the town, its people, and its economy all got a new lease on life. They grew. They prospered. And – they fed the whole world to a far greater degree.
In that summer day of 1905, when the sardine stock fell and the bottom dropped out of the sardine business, it shook everybody up. But, they said their prayers, decided to go further than ever before, chose to “seek a greater story” – and, however combined elements made it happen – tuna, much larger than sardines, and a tuna catch, much greater than the total sardine catch had ever achieved, was brought into the history, and to the palates, of the entire world.
The economy recovered and boomed.
My friends, could it be possible that right now, this very day, that even as you experience the loss of something you long felt secure and that you built your hopes on, just a little farther ahead, with a little willingness to keep your chin and morale up, exploring a little further, pursuing a greater, not lesser, story for you and yours, we might ourselves see our “sardines” not just gone, but our own kind of new, far greater, “tuna” right in front of us replacing our loss with something much better?
I believe that people with the American dream, don’t just get better dreams. They get a better story. It comes complete with the faith, the new vision, the will to try, the solid meat of the fish, the adventures, and the tale to tell all our children about.
The measure of something great is that greater things still come out of it.
Say your prayers, stoke the embers of your dreams and visions. Listen to wise stories. Make your minds and ships go further into the ocean of the Spirit – and I believe either you yourself, or some intrepid captains, are going to come back with the equivalent of boatloads of silver tuna in our time – together with directions how you can get a lot more of them.
Copyright 2008
http://theeverlastingkingdom.blogspot.com
The Monterey Bay, gave to the city of Monterey all the bounty of the ocean. For decades Monterey fishermen brought back the fruit of the sea, the fish, that fed millions of people in America.
The backbone of this great fishery, and therefore of the economy in Monterey, was the annual catch of sardines.
These sardines were captured, brought to port, and then to Cannery Row – a row of fish canning operations lining the Monterey beach. There, of course, the sardines were packed into silver cans, wrapped in a red and black paper seal declaring them to be high-quality sardines from Monterey, California. They were then shipped throughout America and the world.
And the economy was good.
But, in the summer of 1905, something terrible happened. An economic disaster of unprecedented proportions happened to this bustling fishing town.
The disaster was this: the fishermen and their many boats, and many employees, simply over fished the sardine population. They did it to such a degree, that the sardines couldn’t reproduce their stock – and, suddenly, sardines simply disappeared from the fisherman’s nets! They were gone! And with them, were also, apparent to everyone, the good times for people in Monterey.
But – and this is a very important but – this was not the end of the story. A very great and ominous disaster had happened on their watch, but now something wondrous and hopeful, also took place on their watch.
Here is what, actually, happened: first, the people of Monterey and their churches, prayed. Now, whether you believe in prayer or not, that is secondary to the story. My duty is just to give hope and tell you how the story turned out, in actual history.
Most of the ship owners in Monterey doubled as their own ship captains. There were no big corporate fleets. It was mostly private fishermen who had built their fishing business to the level of having a ship or two, and going out daily and bringing the fish back. They worked hard at it, and they became better and better at what they did, and therefore became more and more successful.
But the sea had always helped them. Now that the sardines were gone, what next? What would happen to the economy, to the ship owners and captains, and to all the crews and their families?
The captains of the ships talked among themselves. As they talked, they told tales that they had heard long ago, about schools of great fish, that a Monterey fisherman and his ship and crew had once found.
But, these great fish, which were only known by the thin thread of perhaps a tall tale, were caught as far out as 200 miles from the shore! No Monterey fisherman and his crew, at least for decades, had gone beyond 20 miles!
No one ever dared to go that far! It had not yet entered the imagination of the people.
They had the vessels for it, and the crews. Now what they needed was some bold and intrepid captains, who would dare to go farther into deeper waters, than anyone ever had before.
And, in a true to life story, several believing captains, with their valiant ships and willing crews, set out to find out if the tales of these great fish had any truth to them.
They went fifty miles. Then eighty miles. Then over a hundred miles. But approximately one hundred and fifty miles out, they saw “boiling water” – a strange occurrence on the surface of the water that far out in the middle of the sea.
The captains and their crews, decided to fish these “boiling waters.” For their efforts, they began to pull in yellowfin tuna anywhere from 100 to 300 pounds! And there was no end to them!
Now, dear reader, understand that until this date in history, no one in the entire world had ever eaten tuna. Well, maybe some long ago sea captain and his crew had. But for the most part, tuna had never been known before. It had never been seen or eaten!
So, the intrepid sea captains and their fishermen returned home to Monterey with great good news – and a big load of great fish!
Think about it. Sardines were only 4 to 8 inches long, and now the fishermen replaced them with tuna that were 4-8 feet long! The sardines weighed a half-pound at best, and the tuna weighed up to three hundred pounds. In fact, later, as fishermen found the will to go farther, they caught bluefin tuna, that weighed up to 1500 pounds!
Thus, by being willing to go further than anyone had gone before and by choosing to act in new ways rather than just sit and suffer, although the economy went down with the sardines – now it went up with the tuna! Following what might have been just a tall story by an old salt, turned out to give the people of Monterey a true, and much greater, story. They introduced tuna and tuna fishing to the world. Their ships got bigger. Their crews got paid more. More tourists came to Monterey. The little bustling fishing didn’t go down with the sardines!
Somehow, the town, its people, and its economy all got a new lease on life. They grew. They prospered. And – they fed the whole world to a far greater degree.
In that summer day of 1905, when the sardine stock fell and the bottom dropped out of the sardine business, it shook everybody up. But, they said their prayers, decided to go further than ever before, chose to “seek a greater story” – and, however combined elements made it happen – tuna, much larger than sardines, and a tuna catch, much greater than the total sardine catch had ever achieved, was brought into the history, and to the palates, of the entire world.
The economy recovered and boomed.
My friends, could it be possible that right now, this very day, that even as you experience the loss of something you long felt secure and that you built your hopes on, just a little farther ahead, with a little willingness to keep your chin and morale up, exploring a little further, pursuing a greater, not lesser, story for you and yours, we might ourselves see our “sardines” not just gone, but our own kind of new, far greater, “tuna” right in front of us replacing our loss with something much better?
I believe that people with the American dream, don’t just get better dreams. They get a better story. It comes complete with the faith, the new vision, the will to try, the solid meat of the fish, the adventures, and the tale to tell all our children about.
The measure of something great is that greater things still come out of it.
Say your prayers, stoke the embers of your dreams and visions. Listen to wise stories. Make your minds and ships go further into the ocean of the Spirit – and I believe either you yourself, or some intrepid captains, are going to come back with the equivalent of boatloads of silver tuna in our time – together with directions how you can get a lot more of them.
Copyright 2008
http://theeverlastingkingdom.blogspot.com
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