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The challenge for Christians is to live on earth as strangers and aliens. Enjoying our stay here while not being swallowed up by it is the ongoing struggle for the believer. But the fight is worth it, as it readies us for eternity.
Recent Entries
God? Who Needs Him?May 31, 2013
Self-sufficient humanism. Paul saw it coming – “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”
Imago Dei
September 12, 2012
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Why Can't I Pray?
August 18, 2012
The bible gives us several reasons, but according to Jeremy Taylor, a deceitful heart is at the root of prayerlessness.
It's Not Rocket Science
July 23, 2012
To keep in step with the Spirit should be our daily quest. And if we are successful at that, all of life falls into place.
Theological Steak
April 10, 2012
These words by P. T. Forsythe on the magnificence of Christ's work are to theology what Ruth's Chris is to a good steak.
Describing the Indescribable
February 11, 2012
What we have in Christ will take all eternity to describe. But for one segment of one sermon, a great preacher made a mighty attempt.
Making Sense Of It All
January 30, 2012
Where are things headed? Is there rhyme and reason to the endless cycle of summer, fall, winter and spring? Is there a plan in place, or is randomness the explanation?
Underprizing This World
February 10, 2009
Earth has nothing I desire besides you.... Psalm 73:25
O bitter cursed delights of men!
Our soul's diseases first, and then
Our bodies; poisons that entreat
With fatal sweetness, till we eat;
How artfully do you destroy,
That kills with smiles and seeming joy?
HENRY VAUGHN
David Wells defines worldliness:
"Worldliness is that system of values, in any given age, which has at its center our fallen human perspective, which displaces God and his truth from the world, and which makes sin look normal and righteousness seem strange. It thus gives great plausibility to what is morally wrong and, for that reason, makes what is wrong seem normal." LOSING OUR VIRTUE
Given such a toxic and hostile environment, and the difficulty of nurturing the eternal in such a setting, what posture will help the faithful to keep their zeal and spiritual fervor?
Roger Williams (1603 - 1683) in his HELPS TO PRESERVE SPIRITUAL HEALTH AND CHEERFULNESS, gave this advice:
"GOD'S CHILDREN MUST WATCH AGAINST FEEDING TOO MUCH ON WORLDLY COMFORTS. God's children, as travelers on the land, as passengers in a ship - must use this world and all comforts of it with dead and weaned and mortified affections, as if they used them not."
"If riches, if children, if cattle, if friends, if whatsoever increase, let us watch that the heart fly not loose upon them. As we use salt with raw and fresh meats, let us use no worldly comfort without a savory remembrance that these worldly goods and comforts are the common portion of the men of this perishing world, who must perish together with them."
"Let us muse upon their insufficiency to content and fill our hearts; upon their uncertainty and perplexity, full of thorns and vexations; upon their uncertainty of departing, how soon we know not."
"O let us, therefore, beg grace from heaven that we may use earthly comforts, profits, pleasures, which are only true and lasting - even eternal - in God himself when then these heavens and earth are gone!"
Teach me to underprize this life
And I shall find my loss the easier, when I die.
So rave my feeble thoughts and dull desire
That when these vain and weary days expire
I may discard my flesh, with joy, and quit
My better part of this false earth, and it
Of some more sin; and for this transitory
And tedious life, enjoy a life of Glory."
FRANCIS QUARLES
O bitter cursed delights of men!
Our soul's diseases first, and then
Our bodies; poisons that entreat
With fatal sweetness, till we eat;
How artfully do you destroy,
That kills with smiles and seeming joy?
HENRY VAUGHN
David Wells defines worldliness:
"Worldliness is that system of values, in any given age, which has at its center our fallen human perspective, which displaces God and his truth from the world, and which makes sin look normal and righteousness seem strange. It thus gives great plausibility to what is morally wrong and, for that reason, makes what is wrong seem normal." LOSING OUR VIRTUE
Given such a toxic and hostile environment, and the difficulty of nurturing the eternal in such a setting, what posture will help the faithful to keep their zeal and spiritual fervor?
Roger Williams (1603 - 1683) in his HELPS TO PRESERVE SPIRITUAL HEALTH AND CHEERFULNESS, gave this advice:
"GOD'S CHILDREN MUST WATCH AGAINST FEEDING TOO MUCH ON WORLDLY COMFORTS. God's children, as travelers on the land, as passengers in a ship - must use this world and all comforts of it with dead and weaned and mortified affections, as if they used them not."
"If riches, if children, if cattle, if friends, if whatsoever increase, let us watch that the heart fly not loose upon them. As we use salt with raw and fresh meats, let us use no worldly comfort without a savory remembrance that these worldly goods and comforts are the common portion of the men of this perishing world, who must perish together with them."
"Let us muse upon their insufficiency to content and fill our hearts; upon their uncertainty and perplexity, full of thorns and vexations; upon their uncertainty of departing, how soon we know not."
"O let us, therefore, beg grace from heaven that we may use earthly comforts, profits, pleasures, which are only true and lasting - even eternal - in God himself when then these heavens and earth are gone!"
Teach me to underprize this life
And I shall find my loss the easier, when I die.
So rave my feeble thoughts and dull desire
That when these vain and weary days expire
I may discard my flesh, with joy, and quit
My better part of this false earth, and it
Of some more sin; and for this transitory
And tedious life, enjoy a life of Glory."
FRANCIS QUARLES
