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wolray
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Name: Ray
Country: United States
State: North Carolina
Metro: Raleigh
Gender: Male
Interests: Studying and teaching the most awesome book ever....The Bible; Baseball; cooking with my wife
Expertise: Teaching God's Word (Although I wouldn't say that I am an expert)
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
3/22/2006
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|  You've probably heard the saying; "Take time to smell the roses." Well, I thought I would take the time to take a few pictures of the first roses of the year.
 
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| And He . . . wondered that there was no intercessor. Isaiah 59:16. The reason many of us leave off praying and become hard towards God is because we have only a sentimental interest in prayer. It sounds right to say that we pray; we read books on prayer which tell us that prayer is beneficial, that our minds are quieted and our souls uplifted when we pray; but Isaiah implies that God is amazed at such thoughts of prayer. Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray. Too often instead of worshipping God, we construct statements as to how prayer works. Are we worshipping or are we in dispute with God— ‘I don’t see how You are going to do it.’ This is a sure sign that we are not worshipping. When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at God’s throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do. We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ. If we are hard towards God, we will become hard towards other people. Are we so worshipping God that we rouse ourselves up to lay hold on Him, that we may be brought into contact with His mind about the ones for whom we pray? Are we living in a holy relationship to God, or are we hard and dogmatic? ‘But there is no one interceding properly’—then be that one yourself, be the one who worships God and who lives in holy relationship to him. Get into the real work of intercession, and remember it is a work, a work that taxes every power; but a work which has no snare. Preaching the gospel has a snare; intercessory prayer has none. Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI : Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935, S. March 30 | | |
| Take no thought for your life. Matthew 6:25. A warning which needs to be reiterated is that the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in, will choke all that God puts in. We are never free from the recurring tides of this encroachment. If it does not come on the line of clothes and food, it will come on the line of money or lack of money; of friends or lack of friends; or on the line of difficult circumstances. It is one steady encroachment all the time, and unless we allow the Spirit of God to raise up the standard against it, these things will come in like a flood. “Take no thought for your life.” ‘Be careful about one thing only,’ says our Lord—‘your relationship to Me.’ Common sense shouts loud and says—‘That is absurd, I must consider how I am going to live, I must consider what I am going to eat and drink.’ Jesus says you must not. Beware of allowing the thought that this statement is made by One Who does not understand our particular circumstances. Jesus Christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and He says we must not think about these things so as to make them the one concern of our life. Whenever there is competition, be sure that you put your relationship to God first. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” How much evil has begun to threaten you to-day? What kind of mean little imps have been looking in and saying—‘Now what are you going to do next month—this summer?’ ‘Be anxious for nothing,’ Jesus says. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the ‘much more’ of your Heavenly Father. Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI : Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935, S. January 27 | | |
| I was involved in a discussion recently with some people concerning Calvinism. So, when I found the following quote, I wanted to post it here (although I doubt than many if any read this) because Charles Ryrie is obviously way smarter than I am: Sovereignty/freedom forms an antinomy (“a contradiction between two apparently equally valid principles or between inferences correctly drawn from such principles”). Antinomies in the Bible, however, consist only of apparent contradictions, not ultimate ones. One can accept the truths of an antinomy and live with them, accepting by faith what cannot be reconciled; or one can try to harmonize the apparent contradictions in an antinomy, which inevitably leads to overemphasizing one truth to the neglect or even denial of the other. Sovereignty must not obliterate free will, and free will must never dilute sovereignty. Ryrie, Charles Caldwell: Basic Theology : A Popular Systemic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth. Chicago, Ill. : Moody Press, 1999, S. 49 | | |
| I'm reading a little bit of Ryrie's Basic Theology book everyday and I found the following under "The Value of General Revelation": These lines of evidence do place unregenerate men and women under responsibility to give some response. God intends that people should be able to see that a mechanistic, atheistic, irrationalistic explanation is inadequate to account for the highly integrated world and the various facets of man. Mankind should respond by acknowledging that there has to be behind it all a living, powerful, intelligent, superhuman Being. If men do not make that minimal but crucial acknowledgment, but rather turn away and offer some other explanation, then God is just if He rejects them and does not offer more truth. The rejection of what is revealed in general revelation is sufficient to condemn justly. But this does not imply that the acceptance of general revelation is sufficient to effect eternal salvation. It is not, simply because there is no revelation of the atoning death of God’s Son. If what I have said appears to erect a double standard, so be it. There is nothing inherently wrong with two standards as long as both are just. And in this case both are. It would not be just for general revelation to save if God provided before the foundation of the world a Lamb to be slain for sin. To give salvation apart from the Lamb would be an unjust provision. But not to condemn those who reject revelation at any point of their pilgrimage of rejection would also be unjust for a holy God. Thus the rejection of the truths of general revelation brings just condemnation at any and all times they are rejected. If a concerned student goes to his fellow student who needs one thousand dollars for tuition and offers with genuine loving concern ten dollars (which is all he has), and if his ten dollar bill is thrown scornfully on the floor with a mocking “What good will that pittance do me?” what further obligation does the student have to provide additional help to his fellow student? If he should suddenly be able to give the entire one thousand dollars, would anyone charge him with injustice if he gave it to another needy student? Accepting a ten dollar gift will not “save” the person who needs one thousand dollars; but rejecting it will condemn him. We must not forget that the majority of people who have ever lived have rejected the revelation of God through nature, and that rejection has come with scorn and deliberate substitution of their own gods. They have condemned themselves, and when God rejects them, He does so justly. Ryrie, Charles Caldwell: Basic Theology : A Popular Systemic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth. Chicago, Ill. : Moody Press, 1999, S. 37 | | |
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