6 Oct 2014

31 Hymns: Come Thou Fount

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Come Thou Fount

My Mister and I are coming up on three years of marriage on Wednesday.  YAY us!

I loved our wedding ceremony.  From a personally arranged rendition of Fairest Lord Jesus for my bridal march to the songs sung during a special prayer time to the sermon that was preached – it was an amazing one hour of my life.

One of the hymns we sang as a congregation that day was Come Thou Fount.  I love it. I think I fell in love with it when my friends Jill and Bobby added it to the Anastasia cd many years ago.  It was full of Iriah licks.  So good.  But, I move on.

My mister loves pianos.  Has played since high school and now works for Steinway.  He loves everything about it and as a first task to marriage I watched the making of a Steinway.  So much craftsmanship.

Every person who loves pianos knows that pianos need to be regularly tuned to sound their best.  They are made with a quality that has to be adjusted every now and then because of the wear and tear that playing puts on them!

Tuning is stressful and it can be hard.

Same goes for us.  The wear and tear of life (sin) has left us far from the state Adam and Eve were created in.  They were created perfectly.  High precision.  Then sin destroyed that.

The Spirit works as our tuner.  The Word serves as an instrument.  Other believers help tune us.  The longer we go in between tunings the harder it is to tune.  Tune my heart – soul – mind – strength – to sing thy praise.

 

30 Sep 2014

Glory and Grace: Philippians 1:6

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Glory and Grace Philippians 1:6I’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.

5 Oct 2013

31Days (5): Study Christ

by | posted in: 31days, marriage, Uncategorized | 2

 

One of the pieces of advice I give new brides (or brides-to-be) is more than anything in marriage (from a human standpoint) – study your husband.  With all the marriage, sex, and relationship books out there, knowing what pleases your husband (and isn’t a sin) is a great thing that you can bring to the every day life!

Here are some things I know about my husband after 2 years of marriage:

1.  He doesn’t like clutter.

2.  He is a sharp dresser.

3.  He likes good shoes (think Johnston & Murphy).

4.  He is more of an introvert than I am.

5.  He loves Jesus and pursues the Word and the God who wrote it.

6.  He likes his sleep.

7.  He likes it when I put in my contacts instead of wearing my glasses.

Little things – right?  Right!  But, those 7 things may not apply to your husband.  That is why you have to know your husband. I was told so many different things about what men like when I was engaged.  I didn’t care and still don’t care what other men like.  There is only one man on this earth that I regard his opinion to the utmost: my husband.

Gloria Furman writes this in Glimpses of Grace:

“We ought to take pains to study Christ.  We study Christ because we’ve been saved for the purpose of being transformed into his image,

and in our beholding, the work of transformation occurs.”  (pg 68)

How do you study Christ?  The main way is to look at the Word of God – which all of it actually points to Christ.  We are reading The Jesus Storybook Bible to Little Buddy at night.  I love how she makes all the stories point to the Great Hero.  All of them, even OT ones.

How can you know what you are supposed to be looking like if you don’t know Christ?

How can we know Christ if we don’t study Christ?