I want to drink God,
deep draughts of God.
I’m thirsty for God-alive.
Psalm 42
On your good days – do you think you can get by without thinking about God at all?
On your not-so-good days – do you cling to your pity and failures?
What about drinking down God?
You will always be satisfied and yet thirsty for oh so much more!
One of the best current or ever hymn writers in my opinion is Stuart Townend. Do all good things come from across the pond?
Most of the songs that the Getty’s sing are co-wrote or written completely by Stuart. And this hymn has been one dear to my husband as of late. I hope you enjoy it as well.
The stanza I chose from this hymn speaks of Christ’s work on the cross. And we boast in that. Even if it didn’t do anything for us in this life – Jesus would still be boast-worthy (1 Corinthians 15) but, it does so much for us in this life. We are welcomed into the presence of the Creator of the Universe by His Son and His work on the cross. We no longer have to be enslaved to a habit, a person, or a way of life because our Savior has risen from the grave. Glory! (One of the pastor’s I served with in Raleigh would always says this – I smile when I think of him saying this).
Live free today. Another newer praise hymn is We Speak to Nations by Israel Houghton – I love it.
One of the buzz words for the last decade has been community. And honestly, I still don’t think we get it right half the time- but that’s another story.
Community can be with anything. You can have community in your neighborhood, at your work place, with your facebook friends, over your enjoyment of coffee or wine or handcrafted beer. But true community can only be had by digging deep, suffering with, having one reality and that is in the Gospel.
Don Carson, one of my favorite authors and preachers, is also a hymn writer. My husband fills me in on all these things. I first sung one of his hymns while we were dating. Last night, my husband told me about this hymn, A Shocking Thing.
I hope you love it. And think about it when you next practice the Lord’s Supper – as it is a communion hymn for the church.
The first lines of they hymn remind me of the first verses in Philippians 2. I’m studying this letter of Paul with ladies from my church. Got to this portion this morning. How often we love and be in the church out of rivalry or conceit. Not out of love and unity. May the work of Christ on the cross guard our hearts and minds.
I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might,
I yell at the top of my lungs.
He listens.
Psalm 77:1 – the Message
Do you know and understand and realize and stake claim to the fact that the GOD OF THE UNIVERSE, the One who was before anything else ever came on the scene, the One who just spoke and everything came into existence – that God is the one who hears your prayers?
Shouldn’t that cause us to pray all the time – to seek him when we are troubled and scared and nervous and wondering what to do? He delights in us and desires us – and hears us!
And he would listen to us even if all we could muster up was a quiet whisper in the middle of the night.
Whenever October rolls around – you will always see pumpkins, and ghosts, and fall leaves.
But, you will also see Christmas lights, fake trees, snow globes, and wrapping paper. Even before Halloween and Thanksgiving, the stores are stockpiling for Christmas.
I have made it a habit not to play Christmas music until December first. There are two exceptions: Advent Songs by Sojourn and Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb. My two favorite cds get played often and throughout the year.
The first hymn that makes the list is one of my husband’s favorites – and I think its partly because it was one of his mentor’s favorites. And its a Christmas carol. Go figure. This link takes you to a devotional written by my husband’s mentor, on his last Christmas on earth. He now knows the beauty of the splendor of this King
Talks all about the incarnation. And you might think why is the incarnation so important? Well, Elyse talks about it in her book here and I highly recommend it. And Philippians chapter 2 talks about it – and how it is important for our every day life in the local church and in our homes.
Stanza three is my favorite because it talks of his ever-abiding presence in our lives and how that aids our sanctification. May you know the power of the Incarnation every day – not just during the Christmas season!
Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
Make us what thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship thee.
There are some phrases that stand out to me in the Bible: therefore, but God, since, remember…and this one
HOLD FAST.
What grips your heart? Is it fear? It is loneliness? Is it pride? Is it desire? Why not let it be the things of God and His Word and His promises and His character.
“Let your heart hold fa
st my words; keep my commandments, and live!”
Proverbs 4:4
There is great hope when we cling to God and His Word. A friend, and former pastor, wrote recently on his blog that there is great LIFE in reading your Bible. He didn’t make it up. He got it from an Old Testament book. Read the Bible. Find hope. Find wisdom. Find the God who wrote it. And live. Hold Fast to it!
1 Peter 1:3-5 – The Message
“What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.”
People often say there is no hope. Or they use hope in a way that is not biblical hope. I can hope right now that my boys go take their nap. But, that’s not biblical hope.
The living hope that we are called to because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is JESUS! Everything that is ours through Jesus is because of Jesus so JESUS is our living hope.
Today – when you are weak because its hump day, or your littles won’t nap, or your days are long, or you burn dinner…JESUS is your LIVING HOPE!
I grew up in a small town in between two of the largest cities in Florida. I went to an even smaller town to go to a tiny church until high school. We sang hymns. You know the 4 verses with amen at the end. I could play most of them on the piano by the time I got to high school. And just if you ask…we either sang all four stanzas or 1, 2, and last. That’s just how it went.
Some of those hymns were solid and deeply rooted in Scripture. Others were rooted in feel good theology which is seldom really good theology anyway.
One of the perks of being married to someone who loves music is the depth of knowledge of hymns that he brings to my life. He has made me think more about the music we sing than I might have ever done otherwise.
So, for the month of October, I’m joining with The Nester again and (hopefully) writing on some of my favorite and requested hymns – both old and new – to hopefully deepen our love for God, His Word, His Church, and deep solid rich lyrics of hymns.
What are some of your favorite hymns?
Tomorrow: Thou Who Wast Rich
Family and food. Those two words often go together for most people. Whether you wake up and cook pancakes on Saturday mornings, have a weekly pizza night, or always make certain Christmas cookies around the holidays – there are some things food always brings to the table. Maybe you always go to a certain restaurant for special meals, or maybe you have your grandmother’s recipe for gingerbread and her worn cloth apron that she would wear as she labored hard over her yeast rolls. Smell in the memories.
Growing up, we didn’t have a lot of these. We loved food – don’t get me wrong. There are a few things: smoked mullet, Granny’s chicken and rice, and Dad’s creole black eyed peas every New Years. Those are good traditions and I even introduced my mister to Papa’s smoked mullet a few years back. However, I want more.
As a wife and a mother of two littles, I want to create traditions, with the OK of my mister, that will do two things:
1. Provide a way to create memories for our family.
2. Help us to see the goodness of God to our family.
Here are three that we have started, and I will explain these two above points as we go along.
Weekly Pizza Night : making it, Little Caesars, store bought – just a night for pizza (and leftovers of course). Who doesn’t like cold pizza for breakfast. Hold the olives, please!
Weekly trips to Trader Joe’s and Ray’s Donuts. I am so grateful that my husband makes time to keep the boys while I go grocery shopping. I seldom go with them anymore because even if I’ve just fed them, they will eat the produce in the cart. Not going to happen. But, I like taking them to Trader Joe’s on Monday mornings. We get TJ cinnamon cookies, try new products, and make all the clerks smile. Building relationships. Its important. And happy boys. Also, we’ve started going to Ray’s Donuts in Marietta (amazing donut holes) one day each week. Nothing fancy, but good donuts. We spent 1.80 this morning, hung out with some friends who joined us, and ate donuts. It was so much fun wiping down my boys’ fingers with a wet wipe because they had glaze in between their little fingers and on the corners of the their lips.
Homemade Pad Thai for New Years. I am definitely southern and like greens and black eyed peas – but I wanted to do something different. So, last year the Mister and I said we would do this. I want to teach my boys to love it – and to teach them to love the different cultures of the world.
Our family is just starting out, but so far I’m building relationships that can hopefully spread into opportunities to share the gospel and I can teach our boys to be thankful for pizza, donuts, and pad thai. God is so good to us. Whether its an additional 5$ for pizza on a Sunday night – where we can rest and enjoy one another and not dirty up a kitchen – or 1.80 for a mid-morning, mid-week fun time with mommy with sticky fingers. These boys will have memories.
What food memories are you creating for your family? We will install more just waiting to see what yumminess!
I’m humming an oldie Christian song in my head that is the base of Philippians 1:6. This is one of those verses that are claimed and sometimes used out of context.
Philippians 1:6 NLT
And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Philippians is truly a book about pursuing forward: running hard after Jesus: looking more like Him. This “work” that God the Father began in you (if you are a believer in His Son Jesus Christ as your Savior) – HE, and HE alone will be faithful to bring it to completion. Your life, at the end of it, will look like what God wants it to. He is the author and perfecter of your faith. He will make you to look like his Son.
And I heard a pastor say one time that Jesus was the “most gladder” person in the world. Don’t you want to be glad? Soak in the sanctifying process that God has you on. Its a hard journey, a fun journey, and an ever-changing journey.
So be it.