George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver is one of the men I have come to admire and one whose life about whom I enjoy reading. He was born in Diamond, Missouri, which was called Diamond Grove when he was born. He is considered to be the main person who thought to use crop rotations with cotton, peanuts and soybeans. This helped save the depleted soil of the South when it had become almost useless with only cotton production for years. He also found many uses for peanuts, even though he was not the inventor of peanut butter as some people like to report.
Personal note: I have a link to Diamond since a few miles outside of the town is where my mother, Mary, was born.
He was a Christian and, like Mabel, depended on the Lord for his life and inspiration. Here are a couple of quotes from him as he was sharing on his dependence on the Lord for answers.
From the book by Lawrence Elliott which is a biography, George Washington Carver – The Man Who Overcame

“On getting things done – “Back of my workshop there is a little grove of trees. One has been cut down. It makes a good seat. I have made it a rule to go out and sit on it at 4 o’clock every morning and ask the good Lord what I am to do that day. Then I go ahead and do it.” (Page 200)

Sharing a story with some young people on his questions to God.
“Oh, Mr. Creator, why did you make this universe?”
Softly he went on with the story: “And the Creator answered me. ‘You want to know too much for that little mind of yours,’ He said. ‘Ask me something more your size.’
“So I said, ‘Dear Mr. Creator, tell me what man was made for.’
“Again He spoke to me, and He said, ‘Little man, you are still asking for more than you can handle. Cut down the extent of your request and improve the intent.’”
“And then I asked my last question. ‘Mr. Creator, why did You make the peanut?’
“ ‘That’s better!’ the Lord said, and He gave me a handful of peanuts and went with me back to the laboratory and, together, we got down to work.” (Page 156)

Question: What if we took our ‘walking orders’ every morning from the Lord and fulfilled them as well as Carver did?
Lord, may You be glorified in our lives every moment. Amen.

Morphing of Mabel #6 (Final)

Two final thoughts on Mabel
Here is a woman who was deaf, blind, could not walk, cound not care for herself or even feed herself. From society’s estimates, she was not living a life of value. Society would say she did not have any quality of life. However, I believe from the divine estimate, she was living a life of glory. She brought God’s Glory to the young man who shared the story and the author, John Ortberg. Her story has touched me many times even during this time of sharing with you. You have been impacted by Mabel, if I can be so bold to say, if you have read her story. Mabel has given us all a touch of the glory of Christ. What a legacy she left!
The other thought is how Mabel lived in the presence of her Lord daily, minute by minute. How are we to do this? How about ‘practicing His presence?’ How about living in our spirit? Singing songs of worship, offering prayers of praise, sacrificing in worship by acts of service and meditating on His Word. Mabel practiced these and was able to say, “He's all the world to me. And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, my all.
He is my strength from day to day,
Without him I would fall.
When I am sad to him I go,
No other one can cheer me so,
When I am sad He makes me glad.
He’s my friend.”

Amen and Amen.

Morphing of Mabel #5

My thoughts on the ‘Morphing of Mabel’
John Ortberg spends the rest of the book describing different spiritual disciplines which will bring us to a place to be ‘morphed’ like Mabel.
You will notice the list of activities which the storyteller thought impacted Mabel’s life. They were “suffering, solitude, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, fellow­ship when it was possible, giving when she had a flower or a piece of candy to offer.” This is a solid list of spiritual disciplines and unless I miss something were practiced by our Lord, himself. I believe these were the ‘God things’ given to her to bring her closer to the Lord.
One of the chapters in the book is titled, ‘Training Vs. Trying,’ with a section on Training Vs. Trying To Be Like Jesus. He writes, “Spiritual transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but of training wisely. This is what the apostle Paul means when he encourages his young protégé Timothy to “train yourself in godliness.” This thought also lies behind his advice to the church at Corinth: “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”
If a person wants to dive deeper into the disciplines there is a good (and deep) book by Dallas Willard titled The Spirit of the Disciplines, Understanding How God Changes Lives. One of the quotes I have marked in my copy says, “Full participation in the life of God’s Kingdom and in the vivid companionship of Christ comes to us only through appropriate exercise in the disciplines for life in the spirit.” Italicizes are the author’s, not mine.
My prayer is that each of us pray for a longing of heart to participate with the Spirit in solitude, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, fellowship, giving and (yes, even) suffering to bring us closer and closer to our Lord. May our heart longingly wait each day for this time with Him exercising whatever discipline we choose? If we do this we will be ‘morphed’ daily like Mabel. Amen!!

In the next post I will provide a different idea about the story of Mabel.

Morphing of Mabel #4

The story of Mabel concludes:
"The answer, I think, is that Mabel had something that you and I don't have much of. She had power. Lying there in that bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to hear, unable to talk to anyone, she had incredible power."
Here was an ordinary human being who received supernat­ural power to do extraordinary things. Her entire life consisted of following Jesus as best she could in her situation: patient endurance of suffering, solitude, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, fellow­ship when it was possible, giving when she had a flower or a piece of candy to offer.
Imagine being in her condition and saying, "I think about how good he's been to me. He's been awfully good to me in my life, you know. . . . I'm one of those kind who's mostly satisfied." This is the Twenty-third Psalm come to life: "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want."
For anyone who really saw Mabel-who was willing to "turn aside" - a hospital bed became a burning bush; a place where this ordinary and pain-filled world was visited by the presence of God. When others saw the life in that hospital bed, they wanted to take off their shoes. The lid was off the terrarium. Then the turn came, with a catch of the breath, and a beating of the heart, and tears. They were standing on holy ground.
Do you believe such a life is possible for an ordinary human being? Do you believe it is possible for you? This is promised in the gospel-the good news proclaimed by Jesus: "The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." The good news as Jesus preached it is that now it is possible for ordinary men and women to live in the presence and under the power of God. The good news as Jesus preached it is not about the min­imal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you die. It is about the glorious redemption of human life - your life.
It's morphing time.

Next post will be my thoughts and impressions of the story.

Morphing of Mabel #3

Story of Mabel continues:
It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say. . . .
"During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things that I had to think about. The question occurred to me, 'What does Mabel have to think about-hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it's day or night?' So I went to her and asked, 'Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?'
"And she said, 'I think about my Jesus.'
"I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, 'What do you think about Jesus?' She replied slowly and deliber­ately as I wrote. . .:
I think about how good he's been to me. He's been awfully good to me in my life, you know. . . . I'm one of those kind who's mostly satisfied. . . . Lots of folks wouldn't care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I'm kind of old­fashioned. But I don't care. I'd rather have Jesus. He's all the world to me.
"And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, my all.
He is my strength from day to day,
Without him I would fall.
When I am sad to him I go,
No other one can cheer me so,
When I am sad He makes me glad.
He’s my friend.

“This is not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know. I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it was all happening-and she lay there and sang hymns. How could she do it?

Final post on Mabel's story tomorrow, however stayed tuned for later posts to read what John Ortberg says about how we can have what Mabel has. Amen.

Morphing of Mabel #2

Story of Mabel continues:
"I don't know why I spoke to her - she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, 'Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother's Day.' She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said, 'Thank you. It's lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can't see it, you know, I'm blind.'
"I said, 'Of course; and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, 'Here, this is from Jesus.'
"That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and
sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomach aches, and then the cancer carne too. Her three room­-mates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was often overpowering.
"Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. He first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exer­cises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant­ to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or excepting the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns.
Part #3 tomorrow - I assure you this is worth the time to read.

The Morphing of Mabel

I am back. I have been given the privilege of leading the Men's Ministry at Westlink Christian Church and have been spending my study time working on where the Lord would have His glory in His men at WCC. During my reading and viewing DVDs, I keep running into John Ortberg, who is a very good writer. My favorite story by him will be shared in the next few posts. Sit back and let Mabel give you a new lesson in 'Loving Jesus!'

From the book by John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted
A Case study: The Morphing of Mabel
It can be helpful to see how God brings about transformation in the lives of ordinary people, so I would to introduce you to a friend of a friend of mine. Her name is Mabel. This is what my friend, Tom Schmidt, wrote:
“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and it smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for four years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets used to.
"On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hall­way seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless."As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled con­stantly. I was told later that when new nurses arrived, the supervi­sors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deqf, and alone,for twenty-­five years. This was Mabel.

More tomorrow. Amen.

Winter in our lives - Part 4

How do we as Christians make sure we are “venturing forth into the interior” of our being in the time of winter, in the time of crisis? I believe it is by the ‘heart work’ we do as we love the Lord during the time of blossoming. When we are in a time of rest and non-crisis, as we develop the relationship with the Lord through the Spirit, we are preparing ourselves for a time when we must call on Him. We are preparing for a time when He is all we are going to have.

This may seem a little off subject, but hang with me. I have been bothered lately by songs of the faith which are asking the Lord to do something such as make me a vessel of your love. My problem is that He has already done everything needed to make this happen. All that is necessary for this to happen is for me receive His gift and let Him live in and through me. I was listening to a CD titled Songs by Rich Mullins (one of my favorite artists) the other day. As I listened to the song, Hold Me Jesus, I realized I was not bothered by this type of song anymore. I realized it is a way of calling to God in affirmation of what he has already done. As we as Christians love Him and cry out to Him in Prayer, Song and Worship we are building that relationship, because He is faithful and will hold us as we come to Him. Look at the words below or get a copy of the song, and see what I mean.

Hold Me Jesus by Rich Mullins
Well, sometimes my life just don't make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It's so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

More tomorrow or the next day.
Grace and Peace

Winter in our lives - Part 3

Final Steps in Christian Maturity Madame Jeanne Guyon

Continuing on in the Chapter, “The Blessedness of Winter!”
“Grace operates in your life in exactly the same way. God will take away the leaves. Something will cause them to fall. The outward virtue will collapse. He does this that he may strengthen the principle of the virtue. The source of virtue must be built up. Something deep within the soul is still functioning. Somewhere within the spirit the functions that are the highest (in God’s estimation) have never rested. What is going on is exceedingly hidden. It is humble.
What is happening is pure love.
What is going on in the inmost parts is absolute abandonment and contempt of self. The inward man is making progress. The soul is venturing forth into the interior.
. . . If you dare the spiritual pilgrimage, you need to remember in times of calamity, and in times of what appear to be dry spells, in that time which men will call a spiritual winter: Life is there.”

Amen! Tomorrow I will provide my own thoughts on this writing.
Grace and Peace

Winter in our lives - Part 2

Please review the comments from Part 1 for some refreshing additions to my writing.

We start with the question asked at the end of the last post.

“But has the tree actually changed?
Not at all. Everything is exactly as it was before. Everything is as it has always been! It is just that the leaves are no longer there to hide what is real. The beauty of the outward life of the leaves had only hidden what had always been present.
The same is true of you. The same is true of all believers. We can each look so beautiful . . . until life disappears! Then, no matter who, the Christian is revealed as full of defects. As the Lord works on you to produce purification, you will appear stripped of all your virtues! But, in the tree, there is life inside; and, as the tree, you are not actually becoming worse, you are simply seeing yourself for what you really are! Know that somewhere deep within the tree of winter there is still life that produced last spring’s beautiful leaves.
. . . That tree is actually undergoing and submitting to a process which preserves its life and strengthens the tree! After all, what does winter do to a tree? It contracts the tree’s exterior. The life deep within is no longer uselessly expended! Its life, rather, is concentrated within the deepest part of the trunk and in the hidden portions of the root. The life is forced deeper and deeper into the inmost part of the tree.

Final part tomorrow.

Winter in our lives - Part 1

I was reading a book I picked up titled Final Steps in Christian Maturity by Madame Jeanne Guyon and in Chapter 2, The Blessedness of Winter!, these words seemed to make me think.

“I see the season of winter as an excellent example of the transforming work of the Lord in a Christian’s life. When winter comes, the vegetable world, it seems to me, reflects the image of the purifying which god does in order to remove imperfections from the life of one of his children.
As cold comes on the wings of a winter storm, the trees gradually begin to lose their leaves. The green is soon changed into a funeral brown; soon the leaves fall away and die. Behold the tree’s appearance now! It looks stripped and desolate. Behold the loss of summer’s beautiful garment. What happens as you look upon that poor tree? You see a revelation.
Under the beautiful leaves there had been all sorts of irregularities and defects. The defects had been invisible because of the beautiful leaves. Now those defects are startlingly revealed! The tree is no longer beautiful in its surface appearance. But has the tree actually changed?”

Stayed tuned until tomorrow to read how this illustration becomes a matter of life for the believer.

Our Time In History

I have the wonderful privilege of meeting with a group of men (Men of Risk) every Tuesday morning for coffee, breakfast (sometimes), prayer, fellowship, and Bible study. This morning I was sharing how in the last week or so it seemed the Lord was orchestrating some things in my life. When I got to work later, I looked up and read this little note a friend of mine gave me. He had found it on a box of cards he had bought the night before. It touched me when he first gave it to me and deeply touched me this morning.
"God goes before you today and His presence is with you. He has a lifefor you to live, a plan for you to follow, and a purpose for you tofulfill. He has allowed you to be here, at this time in history, to beHis watchman to this generation."
Roy Lessin, Co-founder Dayspring Cards

It also became very real to me about not only is He going before us and His presence is with us - He is in us. He has given us His life and from this He is orchestrating our lives for His glory. A new prayer I have been praying: Thank you, Lord, for infusing my obedience with your glory. As I respond to His life in me, His glory is fulfilled in my life. Amen.

Gal. 2:20. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (NIV)

What a wonderful paradox. I am dead, but yet I live.

Obedience - Part 4 (Final)

In closing I must reiterate what I have said before, my writing on obedience is personal. Each one of us needs to review our lives and actions during it to see if we are being obedient to Him and His leading.
I was touched by what Jenny commented on for the last post. She wrote: “Also I'm touched that obedience was worked out in the Godhead first. The Son became obedient to the Father. This obedience is therefore divine - eternal, indestructible and incorruptible, yet we can partake of it.” I say, Amen.
As we come to the last post on obedience I would like to close with a quote from Murray which shows the way to obedience and by it we can become partakers of Jesus’ example.
He wrote, “The secret of true obedience, I believe, is a clear and close personal relationship to God. All our attempts to achieve full obedience will fail until we have access to His abiding fellowship. It is God’s holy presence, consciously abiding with us, that keeps us from disobeying Him. Imperfect obedience is the result of a life that is lacking. To defend our life by arguments and faulty motives will only make us feel the need of a more committed life, one that is entirely under the power of God, iin which place obedience becomes natural. A life of broken and spasmodic fellowship with God must be healed to make way for a full and healthy life of obedience. The secret of true obedience, then is the return to close and continual fellowship with God.” Page 34
And finally he writes, “Our Lord, who learned obedience by waiting every moment to see and hear the Father, has a great lesson to teach us: It is only when, like Him, with Him, in and through Him, we continually walk with God and hear His voice that we can possibly attempt to offer God the obedience He asks." Page 37
Andrew Murray – The Life of Obedience - From the chapter titled The Secret of True Obedience
Amen, my prayer from this sharing on obedience is for each of us to become so ‘in love’ with our Lord, that the only thing we want is to show this love by waiting on Him and obeying His leading.

Obedience - Part 3

The idea of obedience to the will of the Lord or leading of the Holy Spirit (which in my estimation is one in the same, but not always received the same) is not one for using to measure other Christians. However, I believe it is a measurement we should each use individually to understand our own love of the Lord. I believe it is an indicator of how much we are maturing in our faith. If we are becoming obedient in aspects of our lives as Jesus was obedient then we are growing.
As Murray points out, in the book we are discussing, in chapter 2, The Obedience of Christ, the scripture Romans 5:19 is one to study and learn about Christ’s obedience. It says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”
He goes on to state in the same chapter, “The object of Christ’s life of obedience was threefold:
- as our example, to show us what true obedience was;
- as our surety, by His obedience to fulfill all righteousness for us;
- as our head, to prepare a new and obedient nature to impart to us.

And so He died to show us that full obedience is a readiness to obey to the uttermost, even to die for God.” Page 25
Later he writes, “To know what obedience is, consider how the obedience of Christ is the secret of our righteousness and our salvation. Obedience is the very essence of that righteousness. Obedience results in our salvation. His obedience, first of all to be accepted, trusted, and rejoiced in, as covering and making an end of my disobedience, is the one unchanging, never-to-be-forsaken ground of my acceptance. . . . Christ’s obedience becomes the life-power of my new nature.” Page 26

Obedience - Part 2

As I go into writing about obedience and what the Lord has shown me in His Word and through the writings of Andrew Murray, I do not want anyone to think I am proclaiming that only through obedience (meaning total obedience) to God the Father and His commandments do we become sons of God. We must come to Him through the Holy Spirit by a loving relationship with Him, His Son and the Holy Spirit, which has been made possible by His Son who has provided us the only way to salvation. It is not of us, but of Him.

So starting my thoughts on obedience: On page 17 of a book (which I quoted in the post of Jan 28th) by Andrew Murray, ‘A Life of Obedience,’ the author shares these words as he is describing John 14:15-16, 21, and 23. He states, “No words could express more simply or more powerfully the inconceivably glorious value Christ puts on obedience, with its twofold possibility: Obedience is only possible to a loving heart, but it also makes possible all that God has to give us through His wonderful Holy Spirit, primarily His indwelling presence. I know of no passage in Scripture (John 14) that gives a higher revelation of the spiritual life or the power of loving obedience as it condition. Let us pray earnestly that the light of God’s Holy Spirit may infuse our daily obedience with His glory.”

John 14:15-16, 21, and 23 – If you love Me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever. . . . He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love hime and manifest Myself to him. If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”

Amen. I will comment on this in my next post.

Obedience - Part 1

As I was sharing the quote seen below, which has already been used in a previous post, when I asked the question at the end, a young man stated he knew what we lacked. Instantly, I was taken back because I truly thought we did not lack anything as Christians. His answer took me by surprise and I have contemplated it over the years. As I have started reading and studying about obedience his answer came back to me.

The Knowledge of the Holy, The Wisdom of God by A.W. Tozer
“With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack?”

His answer - OBEDIENCE
More tomorrow.

IT HAPPENED!

IT HAPPENED! One of my concerns with starting a blog was the thought that due to my personality, type of job and a ‘crazy’ life, there come a time when the blog would take a backseat to other things and my motivation would lower to post. Well, it has been since Jan, 28 since I have posted.
I know I do not have to give reasons why, but would like to if the reader would like to know. If not, then you do not have read this. (A little humor and like my wife says, Mike you are not very funny)

Reason #1 – My personality – I am a go-getter for new things and new ideas. After awhile I am ready to move on to the next thing. The blog was a great new idea and I had fun starting it, but . . . Now I am back to being excited about it since I have had a few people tell me they have been looking to see if I had put anything new on it. This has given me new excitement and motivation to continue.
Thank you to all who have read the blog and to all who have made comments to me.

Reason #2 – My job – I have started a new job and have realized; my time at work is spent ‘pounding’ on the computer. I am working in a system to test it, trouble-shoot problems, and work to improve how the company uses the system. Any more when I get home, the last thing I want to do is get on a computer.

Reason #3 – Crazy life – I have helped my daughter and son update and move into new homes. This has been a great experience and I have learned many things about remodeling houses. I am not afraid to install laminate flooring now.

So I will be following this post up with one on what the Lord is showing me about the importance of ‘obedience’ in our lives as lovers of Jesus.

How much do we Love the Lord? Part 6

Andrew Murray – The Life of Obedience
From the chapter titled The Secret of True Obedience
The secret of true obedience, I believe, is a clear and close personal relationship to God. All our attempts to achieve full obedience will fail until we have access to His abiding fellowship. It is God’s holy presence, consciously abiding with us, that keeps us from disobeying Him. Imperfect obedience is the result of a life that is lacking. To defend our life by arguments and faulty motives will only make us feel the need of a more committed life, one that is entirely under the power of God, in which place obedience becomes natural. A life of broken and spasmodic fellowship with God must be healed to make way for a full and healthy life of obedience. The secret of true obedience, then is the return to close and continual fellowship with God.” (Page 34)
Wow, even our obedience to Him and His leadings is wrapped up in our closeness to the Lord and our love for Him.

The Body Human (Part 2)

More from the book “What Darwin Didn’t Know” by Geoffrey Simmons, M.D.

The Genes
Everything that transpires within the body is controlled by the three billion base pairs that make up the 100,000 genes that form the 23 paired chromosomes within the nucleus of nearly every cell. The amount of information stored within a single nucleus is equal to a library of 1000 encyclopedias, each with 1000 pages. Multiply that by the 35 billion cells in a brain, not to mention the ten or more trillion cells in a single body, and the amount of information moving about the body in each second becomes astronomical. Yet if one could put all of the DNA coordinating the growth, development, and functioning of every human on Earth into a single pile, it would weigh barely 50 grams. How could a particle smaller than dust have enough knowledge to, as it were, multiply into a trillion-room skyscraper - and also know the color, shape, and size of every room, every worker who would ever be employed in it, and every speck of furniture, wiring, and plumbing? (This speck might even know the past, the present, and the future.) (P. 30)

How much do we Love the Lord? Part 5

I have been reading a book by John Piper entitled, A Hunger for God, Desiring God Through Fasting and Praying. In the introduction on page 23, he writes, “The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ . . . the more homesick you get for heaven . . . the more you want “all the fullness of God” . . . the more you want to be done with sin . . . the more you want the Bridegroom to come again . . the more you want the Church revived and purified with the beauty of Jesus . . . the more you want a great awakening to God’s reality in the cities . . . the more you want to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ penetrate the darkness of all the unreached peoples of the world . . . the more you want to see the false worldviews yield to the force of Truth . . . the more you want to see pain relieved and tears wiped away and death destroyed . . . the more you long for every wrong to be made right and the justice and grace of God to fill the earth like the waters cover the sea.”
My prayer is for all of the readers to walk deeply with Christ and have all these wants in our minds and hearts. Amen.

How much do we Love the Lord? Part 4

In my reading lately, it seems I keep coming onto the theme of ‘loving the Lord.’ It is the basis of all things Christian and must be our focus. I have already posted three times on it, but here is another. There will be a least a couple more in the next few days. As you probably can tell if you read the blog very much, I appreciate Charles Spurgeon so here is another devotion from him on loving and enjoying God.
Spurgeon Evening... Jan. 24
Luke 10:40 Martha was cumbered about much serving.
Her fault was not that she served: the condition of a servant well becomes every Christian. "I serve," should be the motto of all the princes of the royal family of heaven. Nor was it her fault that she had "much serving." We cannot do too much. Let us do all that we possibly can; let head, and heart, and hands, be engaged in the Master's service. . . . Her fault was that she grew "cumbered with much serving," so that she forgot Him, and only remembered the service. She allowed service to override communion, and so presented one duty stained with the blood of another. We ought to be Martha and Mary in one: we should do much service, and have much communion at the same time. . . . .
Beloved, while we do not neglect external things, which are good enough in themselves, we ought also to see to it that we enjoy living, personal fellowship with Jesus. See to it that sitting at the Saviour's feet is not neglected, even though it be under the specious pretext of doing Him service. The first thing for our soul's health, the first thing for His glory, and the first thing for our own usefulness, is to keep ourselves in perpetual communion with the Lord Jesus, and to see that the vital spirituality of our religion is maintained over and above everything else in the world. (Bold add by me for emphasis)

What is the Kingdom of God?

I read a blog by Scott McKnight at jesuscreed.org (click on hyperlink and spend time there yourself) almost daily. I find him very thought provoking and a lover of the Lord. On Monday, he is starting a study on the kingdom of God, so my interest has been peaked about the Kingdom.
This morning at the meeting of our Church, Brother Todd Carter was sharing on the importance of the ministry to children. I do not have the quote exactly, but the point he made was that one of the aspects of children’s ministry is that we who serve them will not be given anything immediate in return for our service. He made the comment, the kingdom of God looks like a group of people who serve without expecting/wanting anything in return.
Today as I was doing my workout and listening to Ravi Zacharias speak on the story of Nahum, he provided the following thought. The type of person God is building His Kingdom with is the one who follows a commitment of righteousness, dignity and discipline where there is no glory.
The evening as I was reading the autobiography of Hudson Taylor, the missionary who the Lord used to take the Gospel to China, another quote surfaced on a higher calling each individual has above the work of service. He wrote, “. . . we should never lose sight of the higher aspect of our work – that of obedience to God, of bringing glory to His name, of gladdening the heart of our God and Father by living and serving as His beloved children. Hudson Taylor did not specifically speak to the Kingdom of God, but all of these examples to me show how obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit without any expectation and ‘just plain’ loving our Lord, is building the Kingdom.
I will share more insights as I read and study on the Kingdom of God.