Tag: Lord

Saviour While My Heart Is Tender

As we listen to the tune for this hymn play everso beautifully on the piano let us soak in the words of this wonderful hymn with the emphasis on verse three. ‘Send Me, Lord, Where Thou Wilt Send Me, Only Do Thou Guide My Way; May Thy Grace Through Life Attend Me, Gladly Then Shall I Obey.’

Saviour, While My Heart Is Tender,
I Would Yield That Heart To Thee;
All My Powers To Thee Surrender,
Thine And Only Thine To Be.

Take Me Now, Lord Jesus, Take Me;
Let My Youthful Heart Be Thine;
Thy Devoted Servant Make Me;
Fill My Soul With Love Divine.

Send Me, Lord, Where Thou Wilt Send Me,
Only Do Thou Guide My Way;
May Thy Grace Through Life Attend Me,
Gladly Then Shall I Obey.

Let Me Do Thy Will Or Bear It;
I Would Know No Will But Thine;
Shouldst Thou Take My Life Or Spare It,
I That Life To Thee Resign.

May This Solemn Consecration
Never Once Forgotten Be;
Let It Know No Revocation,
Registered And Confirmed By Thee.

Thine I Am, O Lord, For Ever
To Thy Service Set Apart;
Suffer Me To Leave Thee Never,
Seal Thine Image On My Heart.

God’s Healing Powers

Jeremiah 30 New International Version

Restoration of Israel

30 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ²“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you. ³The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity^[a] and restore them to the land I gave their ancestors to possess,’ says the Lord.”

⁴These are the words the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah:

And moving to verses 12 – 17

¹²“This is what the Lord says:

“‘Your wound is incurable,
    your injury beyond healing.
¹³There is no one to plead your cause,
    no remedy for your sore,
    no healing for you.
¹⁴All your allies have forgotten you;
    they care nothing for you.
I have struck you as an enemy would
    and punished you as would the cruel,
because your guilt is so great
    and your sins so many.
¹⁵Why do you cry out over your wound,
    your pain that has no cure?
Because of your great guilt and many sins
    I have done these things to you.

¹⁶“‘But all who devour you will be devoured;
    all your enemies will go into exile.
Those who plunder you will be plundered;
    all who make spoil of you I will despoil.
¹⁷But I will restore you to health
    and heal your wounds,’
declares the Lord,
‘because you are called an outcast,
    Zion for whom no one cares.’

I actually came across this video whilst looking for another one for today and thought it fits in perfectly with verse 17.

Ask, Seek, Knock

Matthew 7 English Standard Version

Ask, and It Will Be Given

⁷“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ⁹Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? ¹¹If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Ask

I wonder can you remember as a child when you had been naughty were you given what you asked for by your parents? Chances are you wouldn’t have. You like I would probably only get what we asked for by our parents if we were good

As humans we must remember to be Christ like to get what we ask for from our Lord.

Seek

Ever mislaid your car or house keys, mobile phone, TV control etc and can’t find them when you need them? Fortunately I’m not that type of person except for maybe the TV remote.

So that w can “seek, and you will find” We must be Committed to Jesus

Knock

We must let Jesus knock at the door of our hearts to let him in to our lives so that we may be saved

Time, like a firework

Time, like a firework, wraps anticipation,

Exploding in a one-off spectral splash,

It only has one shot at detonation,

One piercing scream, one fleeting flash.

There are no brakes to grip the passing years,

No gears that back away from bitter tears.

No way to pause the happy days or play again,

No way we can delete those times of pain.

The paths we never should have walked.

The lips we never should have kissed,

The words we never should have talked.

The meetings that we should’ve missed,

The things we overdid or underplayed,

The loneliness – and need to be alone,

The broken vows and new ones made,

The souls now missed who used to make us moan.

This is our life that’s burns before our eyes

And as we fly through foggy firework skies

The very least we ought to try and do

Before we fade and fall is catch the view.

There is no time for looking back

Despite our hoard of time-consuming frets,

This is our life whatever it might lack

Don’t spend it all on might-have-been regrets.

Out of the box our fuse is well and truly lit,

The ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ that echo through the night

Remind us as we soar that this is it!

The sparks behind that flicker bright,

Are pushing us toward the distant sun.

So what’s the point sad pessimist?

Death may be near but life is just begun!

So let’s embrace each unexpected twist

And sparkle like a new lit baby star

Enjoying every random turn

Exploding with the joy of who we are

Not worried by the speed with which we burn.

For Christ came not to skulk and frown

He came to heal our hurts and to forgive

He came to give us life not put us down

And every day that we refuse to live

We bang another nail into his hands

And freedom smarts and looks the other way

And all of heaven fails to understand

Our sad unwillingness to seize the day!

(Andrew Bale)

To thy Cross

Looking for Hallowed Ground

Exodus 25 New International Version

The Ark

¹⁰“Have them make an ark^[b] of acacia wood—two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high.^[c] ¹¹Overlay it with pure gold, both inside and out, and make a gold moulding around it. ¹²Cast four gold rings for it and fasten them to its four feet, with two rings on one side and two rings on the other. ¹³Then make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. ¹⁴Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry it. ¹⁵The poles are to remain in the rings of this ark; they are not to be removed. ¹⁶Then put in the ark the tablets of the covenant law, which I will give you.

¹⁷“Make an atonement cover of pure gold—two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. ¹⁸And make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. ¹⁹Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; make the cherubim of one piece with the cover, at the two ends. ²⁰The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover. ²¹Place the cover on top of the ark and put in the ark the tablets of the covenant law that I will give you. ²²There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites.

Rebuilding

Isaiah 49 New International Version

Restoration of Israel

⁸This is what the Lord says:

“In the time of my favour I will answer you,
    and in the day of salvation I will help you;
I will keep you and will make you
    to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land
    and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
⁹to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’
    and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’

“They will feed beside the roads
    and find pasture on every barren hill.
¹⁰They will neither hunger nor thirst,
    nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.
He who has compassion on them will guide them
    and lead them beside springs of water.
¹¹I will turn all my mountains into roads,
    and my highways will be raised up.
¹²See, they will come from afar—
    some from the north, some from the west,
    some from the region of Aswan.^[b]”

¹³Shout for joy, you heavens;
    rejoice, you earth;
    burst into song, you mountains!
For the Lord comforts his people
    and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. Image result for Restoration of Israel

¹⁴But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
the Lord has forgotten me.”

¹⁵“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
    and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
    I will not forget you!
¹⁶See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are ever before me.
¹⁷Your children hasten back,
    and those who laid you waste depart from you.
¹⁸Lift up your eyes and look around;
    all your children gather and come to you.
As surely as I live,” declares the Lord,
    “you will wear them all as ornaments;
    you will put them on, like a bride.

¹⁹“Though you were ruined and made desolate
    and your land laid waste,
now you will be too small for your people,
    and those who devoured you will be far away.
²⁰The children born during your bereavement
    will yet say in your hearing,
‘This place is too small for us;
    give us more space to live in.’
²¹Then you will say in your heart,
    ‘Who bore me these?
I was bereaved and barren;
    I was exiled and rejected.
    Who brought these up?
I was left all alone,
    but these—where have they come from?’”

²²This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“See, I will beckon to the nations,
    I will lift up my banner to the peoples;
they will bring your sons in their arms
    and carry your daughters on their hips.
²³Kings will be your foster fathers,
    and their queens your nursing mothers.
They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground;
    they will lick the dust at your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord;
    those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”

²⁴Can plunder be taken from warriors,
or captives be rescued from the fierce^[c]?

²⁵But this is what the Lord says:

“Yes, captives will be taken from warriors,
    and plunder retrieved from the fierce;
I will contend with those who contend with you,
    and your children I will save.
²⁶I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh;
    they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine.
Then all mankind will know
    that I, the Lord, am your Savior,
    your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Does a mother forget her baby?

Or a woman the child within her womb?

Yet even if these forget,

Yes, even if these forget,

I will never forget my own.

The dreams we share today

oh Lord are only a shadow of your dreams for us

Only a shadow of your dreams for us

if we but follow you.

The joy we feel today oh lord

Is only a shadow of your joys for us.

Only a shadow of your joys for us

when we meet face to face.

Trials and Temptations

James 1 New International Version

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:

Greetings.

Trials and Temptations

²Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,^[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. ⁵If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ⁶But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. ⁸Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

⁹Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. ¹⁰But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. ¹¹For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.

¹²Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

¹³When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; ¹⁴but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. ¹⁵Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

¹⁶Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. ¹⁷Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ¹⁸He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

He Giveth more Grace

Jesus disciplines those he loves

Proverbs 3 New International Version

Wisdom Bestows Well-Being

3 My son, do not forget my teaching,
but keep my commands in your heart,
²for they will prolong your life many years
and bring you peace and prosperity.

³Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
    bind them around your neck,
    write them on the tablet of your heart.
⁴Then you will win favor and a good name
    in the sight of God and man.

⁵Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.^[a]

⁷Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord and shun evil.
⁸This will bring health to your body
and nourishment to your bones.

⁹Honor the Lord with your wealth,
with the firstfruits of all your crops;
¹⁰then your barns will be filled to overflowing,
and your vats will brim over with new wine.

¹¹My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline,
and do not resent his rebuke,
¹²because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
as a father the son he delights in.

This seems to be a week for talking about Temptation & Discipline with a second reading on Temptation yesterday and today a second one on Discipline.