A few years ago I had the privilege of briefly getting to know Dr Bill Stockwell. This hymn by E.M. Govan was sung at his funeral (to ‘Londonderry Air’).
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Four Steps to Spiritual Progress
(Something I wrote in the past, so some of you may have seen it, but I thought it worth recycling.)
Plan Purposefully
Determine the specific steps you need to take, and plan a way to help you accomplish spiritual growth.
Prepare Prayerfully
Pray about what you need to do to prepare yourself, to be able to carry through despite your own personal weakness.
Proceed Positively
Carry out your plan to accomplish the goal, with the confidence that God will see you through and give you the strength to succeed.
Pursue Persistently
Don’t give up even if you fail. Keep on even when it is hard. If you have started and failed, you have at least started — so start again. Never give up.
Posted in Daily Christianity
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The Best Critics
Sometimes our enemies are better at seeing our flaws than our friends are, so they may have the most valuable criticisms (even if they express them horribly or grossly overstate them).
Posted in Quick Thoughts
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“Mission Creep”
Mission Creep — “the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals.”
The last week has forever embedded the term “mission creep” in our family lore. 🙂 I’ll skip the details — suffice to say the term will NOT be forgotten.
Just a quick thought from Sunday’s sermon. Luke 23:28-31 gives the last recorded words of Jesus before He was crucified. He said, “Weep not for Me.”
You don’t weep for someone who is carrying out His plan, on His way to His greatest victory. The Cross was not “mission creep,” something that wasn’t planned. It didn’t “happen” to Him — He laid down His life, just as He came to do.
Unlike us, God never suffers “mission creep.”
Posted in Grace and Forgiveness
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Busy Days Right Now
Hoping to start posting again before the end of the week.
Posted in Blog Housekeeping
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Keeping the Water Out
It’s been a very busy week for me, so my usual series of posts are disrupted, and I’ll stick with the nautical theme for one more day. This a few months back from an online (and now telephone) friend Dale McAlpine:
How careful is the mariner to guard against leakage, lest the water entering into the vessel should, by imperceptible degrees, cause the vessel to sink; and ought not the Christian to watch and pray….
Dale gets to the point, makes it clear, and then quits. It’s short, will only take you a minute, and I hope you’ll read it. True Christian Living in the World.
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Where was that Channel Again?
Lake St. Clair
I quoted Jeff Smith (from Sunday’s sermon) in two previous posts, so he sent me this picture.
You can’t see the dangers that are under the water. When the water is smooth, if you get out of the channel, you still go aground.
We aren’t pleasure boats. A pleasure boat can zip all over the lake, but a freighter has to stay in the channel.
In this picture, you can’t tell from looking at the surface whether the channel goes to the right or left of the island. Pleasure boats can go to either side.
Hopefully, someone will let you know long before you get to the island which way to go. Hopefully they know what they are talking about.
Alternatively, you could do what a lot of people do — just ignore spiritual realities, and cruise straight ahead with their life. It’s the same result, though. You run aground if you ignore spiritual navigation entirely. You run aground if you go the wrong way. Either way, it’s a disaster.
John 14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Matthew 16:24
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Mind Renewers 