Happy Birthday Ethan!

 

THe Blessing of Belonging to Christ

 The heat of the furnace is creating the usefulness of your faith.  Do you rust easily?   You are about to become tempered and perfected in the fire of lessons from our Savior.  He who began a good work in you has learned obedience through the things he suffered.  He walks us through the flames of our learning.   He creates a comradery between us and him, as we agonize together.   The Hebrew boys knew and showed us how it is done in the Old Testament.  The things that they suffered made them fit to see the Savior so very many years before his conception.  Our suffering gives us eyes to see the efficacy of the redemption bought for us and what great a price.  We couldn’t see it if we had no suffering.  Our eyes are growing in focus as we learn the value of obedience to his precepts and his providences.  We are always questioning his precepts and providences.

Are we entering into his REST or are we entering into our own Rust?   The stiffness of our joints as we age and the stiffness of our minds as we grow old reminds us that we are waiting for a new body and a new mind in the world to come.  Let us not forget the reality of our sins weighing us down and stiffening us against what God has for us.  Let us continually remember to look to Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith…. We didn’t start this story and without Him we can’t finish it victoriously!

Thoughts about the movie Young Washington. reminiscing:

 I bet I won’t like this movie!

40 years ago, there was a movement of preachers in our sphere who thought it was unto edification to present the forefathers of our country as the spiritual icons that they were.  They took precious preaching time and presented us with their writings and prayers and testimonies about them, etc., etc.

I was livid!  As you could quite imagine, a young black activist, just having been delivered from socialist thinking and with an enormous chip on my shoulder about the slave trade and the degradation of black people, I was not going to have it!  I tell you I wont have it!   I won’t participate in the justification of these people for the sins of their fathers and our fathers.   I am a proud American, but that is where I draw the Line, I tell you!   

God had shortly before arrested my heart that it was my spiritual responsibility to submit to those who rule over you in the Lord and regard them highly for their works sake.  They are the ones who must give an account for your souls!   Needless say it was with a begrudging spirit that I attended the stated meetings of the church in that season.  

This Pastor and that pastor from churches far and wide came with their diggings of prayers and writings of the founding fathers.  Slowly and very begrudgingly, I repeat, I started to grow in my pride of my nation and of my faith as a Christian.   I had learned to apologise because my upbringing had made me believe that Protestantism and my personal protestantism was and afterthought and perhaps, just perhaps, I might still be on a fools errand, regarding “the things most surely believed among us.”  God’s word was my one and only true friend and trust and if it didn’t pass the test of God’s word it was going in the trash.  Even if Pastor Martin himself was the purveyor of it!  He had proven himself a safe and godly guide through the scriptures into biblical thinking and living.   We knew that we didn’t know everything.   We knew we needed direction and instruction and we were coming to the best church we could find to get it.  Many people from many parts of the country believed that Pastor Martin was forging a path in the middle of the many weeds of Christendom that had take authority in those days.  He was preaching God’s word to our nation and we were receiving it and attempting to align our lives as repentance and faith would have us walk.  

Every Sunday we were taken to the woodshed and wallopped for our worldly thinking and deadly attachment to this world and our sins.  The dearness of the sore bottoms we received spiritually brought us back each week looking for more.  Our ambitions were driven by our love for God and His people and of a desire to seek God for His improvement of us in our relationships and life.

Well, if I was going to appreciate the new season of the church that we were in, I would have to see the research about these founding fathers with my own two eyes.   I would have to do my own research, find my own stuff about them and look for myself.  I did the research.   I found the books, in and out of the library.  I took the time and read the prayers and saw their biblical perspectives, some of which were forged, in places we had been to.   I learned to love them, even if I didn’t agree with them.  I learned to love the brethren who traced their lineages proudly to these men, even if I couldn’t relate to their pride of place in that way.

America, the Beautiful! What a Prayer

America the Beautiful 

O beautiful for spacious skies, 

For amber waves of grain, 

For purple mountain majesties 

Above the fruited plain!

 America! America! 

God shed His grace on thee, 

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea! 

O beautiful for pilgrim feet 

Whose stern impassioned stress, 

A thoroughfare for freedom beat 

Across the wilderness!

 America! America! 

God mend thine every flaw,

 Confirm thy soul in self-control, 

Thy liberty in law! 

O beautiful for heroes proved 

In liberating strife, 

Who more than self their country love

 And mercy more than life! 

America! America! 

May God thy gold refine 

Till all success be nobleness,

 And every gain divine! 

O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! Oh beautiful for halcyon skies For amber waves of grain For purple mountain majesties Above the enameled plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, Till souls wax fair as earth and air And music-hearted sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet Whose stern impassioned stress, A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, Till paths be wrought through wilds of thought By pilgrims foot and knee! Oh beautiful for glory-tale Of liberating strife, When once and twice for man’s avail Men lavished precious life! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, Till selfish gain no longer strain The banner of the free! O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, Till nobler men keep once again Thy whiter jubilee! by Katherine Lee Bates; (1859-1929) Inspired by a trip to Pikes Peak in 1893, Katherine Lee Bates wrote the poem America the Beautiful. Her poem first appeared in print on July 4, 1895 in The Congregationalist, a weekly journal. Ms. Bates revised the lyrics in 1904 and again in 1913.

This is my Alabaster Box!  Why aren't we dimmed by the tears?