Good Calluses Make Good Music

"Or more specifically, He will change you. Real change is at the heart level. We keep forgetting God is a person. We don't learn to love someone without it changing us.....A needy heart is a praying heart. Dependency is the heartbeat of prayer." -Paul Miller in A Praying Life

Help me Lord, develop good calluses from praying and communing with You, so that it gets past the pain of seeing my sin and helps me make beautiful music in dwelling with You continually.

The more I get to know and develop a relationship with You Lord, the more You reveal who I am, and then began to change me. Its uncomfortable. And involves patience and endurance.
Again, my life lessons of humility and diligence follow me.

three truths, two questions - don't get distracted human

Three truths.

God ordained everything, even sin.

God hates sin, and pours out His wrath on it.

God does everything for His glory.

why did God ordain something He loathes?
because it was the only way to best glorify Him?

i'll probably never get it.
but don't miss the point woman - know God.
don't pursue knowledge.
pursue God.

"Approach my soul, the mercy seat"

a prayer that is a song.
music seems to capture all the parts of a person to communicate something.


"Approach my soul, the mercy seat
Where Holy One and helpless meet
There fall before my Judges' feet
Thy promise is my only plea, O God

Send wings to lift the clutch of sin
You who dwell between the cherubim
From war without and fear within
Relieve the grief from the shoulders of crumbling men

O God - Pour out Your mercy to me
My God, oh what striking love to bleed

Fashion my heart in Your alchemy
With the brass to front the devil's perjury
And surefire grace my Jesus speaks
I must. I will. I do believe. O Lord."

Jamie Barnes rendition of a John Newton hymn

Trust Me

Year 1 - Trust Me wherever you are, and know thats where I want you to be.
Year 2 - Trust Me in encouraging others and the power of praying to Me.
Trust Me through emotions.
Year 3 - Don't trust people, trust Me and be satisfied in Me alone.
Year 4 - Trust Me. Fully. You can't depend on anything else and you can't be in control.
Trust Me radically.

I Am Good.
I want good for you.
I define good.
Trust me and commune with Me.

Romans 7:18 life verse

Mark 7:14-22
Jesus said "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immortality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

I am so prideful and foolish and divided. LORD, forgive me.
Help me cling to the cross and purify my heart.

"And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure." 1 John 3:3
1 John 2:28-3:3


1 John 3:19-22
"By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassume our heart before Him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and He knows everything. beloved, if our heart does not dondemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep His commandments and do what please Him."

LORD, the struggle!
James 4:1 "...Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?"

Romans 7:18-25
"For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin!"

my Brother Lawrence

i now have a third book on my list of favorites.
i highly recommend them to any believer.

the third - The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.
its conviction and encouragement is far greater than its length, which is short.


excerpts
"He told me that all consists in one hearty renunciation of everything which we are sensible does not lead to GOD. That we might accustom ourselves to a continual conversation with Him, with freedom and in simplicity. That we need only to recognize GOD intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment, that we may beg His assistance for knowing His will in things doubtful, and for rightly performing those which we plainly see He requires of us, offering them to Him before we do them, and giving Him thanks when we have done."

"That his prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of GOD, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but divine love; and that when the appointed times of prayer were past, he found no difference, because he still continued with GOD, praising and blessing Him with all his might, so that he passed his life in continual joy; yet hoped that GOD would give him somewhat to suffer when he should grow stronger."

"As Brother Lawrence had found such an advantage in walking in the presence of GOD, it was natural for him to recommend it earnestly to others; but his example was a stronger inducement than any arguments he could propose. His very countenance was edifying, such a sweet and calm devotion appearing in it as could not but affect the beholders. And it was observed that in the greatest hurry of business in the kitchen he still preserved his recollection of heavenly-mindedness. He was never hasty nor loitering, but did each thing in its season, with an even, uninterrupted composure and tranquillity of spirit. 'The time of business,' said he, 'does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess GOD in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament."

Glory in Jesus Who Made You See

What Happens When The Light of the World Shines? - sermon notes

either
1)Stubborn blindness hardens
2)Worshipping sight increases

John 9
progression of the blind man [sanctification]
-man called Jesus
-he is a prophet
-he is of God
-He is Lord! [vs. 38 he believes and worships!]

vs. 31 [related to prayer in my mind!]
God listens to who?
the one who worships Him.
God does not listen to who?
the sinner.
God listens to who?
the one that does His will.

9:38 defines a true gospel seeing believer
9:39 Jesus mission on the earth/in the world:
to judge.
who?
those who are given sight and those who are blind

We either go further into darkness or are brought into light when the Light of the World shines!

Eph. 1:16-23
eyes of your hearts enlightened.
glory in Jesus who made you see.

joyful noise

what changed since a year ago?
what changed since two years ago?
what changed since three years ago?

-i don't comprehend the ways of Him who is at work in me.
but i can't deny something other than i has changed the way
i process, think, feel, respond and reflect on everything.

-i don't have an infallible answer to why sanctification is a process and not instant.
but i can't deny that something other than i orchestrates it all.
i just imagined listening to an orchestra practice a symphony over and over.
they are not perfect the first time, but over time they began to make beautiful music.

-i'm just making a joyful noise, knowing full well that God will make it music.

What Conquers You?

Death and life are not that far apart. Life is every breath and death could be your last one. A happy day we want and troubles we do not dwell on. We are "impressed" by deep thoughts and "strive" to be wiser. But what have we really learned when we ignor reality just so we feel better. Reality is death was conqured and honest power is in our grasp. Life is what we were made for. Reality is many have made themselves the conquerer but in the end - only a breath away - it will conquer them and they will have no say. Curses we think put us in charge. Uncontrolled anger we think will solve the problem. True wisdom gives us a glimpse that we are wrong. But pride erases that conscience and arrogance blocks it from returning. Do we really care about the one who will be destroyed in a moment? Our words say yes and some actions point in that direction. But then we block that out just to feel relieved. Does it stunt your rest and haunt your dreams? How will they gain the real power to gain real life if no one takes a risk to tell them. Maybe they've heart it before - but now they think, know that no one cares because no one tries. You, you who claim victory, how dare you hot it like a selfish brat. What really conquered you? Who is really alive in you?

[written May 20, 2008]

Reflections After Scripture

O guilty sin, you will not win.
You warm my heart to hover over me,
But He has put you to death.
O man, no longer do I seek your eyes,
for I wait for Him alone.
My soul mayy sting to guide me,
My feet may tangle in its net,
But fearful eyes lifted through the waterfall - listen.
I wait for Him alone.
My tongue quivers as my mind races,
But He is in heaven and I am on earth.
Therefore, words cease and bowed fact waits.
I wait for Him alone.
For His name's sake He has painted to me another picture maze
of the upward call of the glorious, goal prize.

[written Sept. 25, 2008]

Christ, who IS your life

nauseous, anxious, defeated.
my heart easily hosts such enemies.
but i am part of the beloved.
what a silly thing to walk around hopeless.
i am part of the elect.
i have been tosses around like a wave
and for a moment forgotten who i am.
i am God's daughter, whom He never forsakes.
my life was brought into being by Him, through Him and for Him.
He defines it as successful.
i must preach to myself the position i have been given.
i am redeemed. completely. it is finished.
and i must have a life hidden in Christ, becaus ei have died.
"When Christ, who is my life appears" i will be glorified,
living in the very real hope i look to in the here and now.

[written Dec. 1, 2010 after reading Colossains]

To Boast - 2010

To boast in anything is foolish
For nothing anyone has is earned or deserved.
To boast in anything is foolish
For what is man's wisdom compared to God's folly?
To boast in anything is repulsive
For who is better than his neighbor?
To boast in anything is repulsive
For who does not respond with equal pride?

What is this within me that doubts when it is alone
AS sound as a dead man breathes.
What is this within me that must respond
As boastful as the potent stench of a dead man?

I have been beaten into a new birth;
Like a newborn baby cannot help but cry,
My mouth opens and what lives within me comes out
Is an infanct accused of boasting?
Does an infant's cry repulse his mother's ear?

To boast, to boast
Perhaps there is one honorable cause.
To boast, to boast
In the message, nah in the main character
Perhaps is nothing to be ashamed of.
What else would I do but boast of the One
Who gave me luns to breath, a heart that beats,
a mind that thinks and a soul that lives.

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ
For it is the power of God unto my salvation
And the worlds only hope.

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." Romans 1:16

thoughts on "I am not ashamed of the gospel?"

[after Romans class a friend and I talked about Paul's boasting and how dare he boast.
this was my thoughts that immediately follewed. also during a time of doubting]