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Name: Big Steve
Country: Belgium
Metro: Brussels
Interests: Jesus, University Students, Small Groups, F.W. Boreham, Jesus Coffee, Reading Good Books with some Jesus Coffee, Revival & the Jesus Movement, Photography
Expertise: F. W. Boreham, Cold Chill'n, Coffee, Being Tall, Setting my place up for Jesus, eBay
Occupation: Disciple of Jesus Christ
Industry: The Kingdom of God
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
1/16/2006
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| We
have seen the inner account of Jesus' surrender of himself obeying the deepest
law of the Kingdom. We now see the theological account through the devoted eyes
of Paul: "Treat one another with same spirit as you experience in Christ
Jesus. Though he was divine by nature, he did not set store upon equality with
God, but emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant; born in human guise
and appearing in human form, he humbly stooped in his obedience even to die,
and to die upon the cross. Therefore God raised him high and conferred a Name
above all names, so that before the Name of Jesus every knee should bend
in heaven, on earth, and underneath the earth, and every tongue confess
that 'Jesus Christ is Lord' to the glory of God the Father' (Phil. 2:5-10
Moffatt). Never was anything of greater importance than this penned:
Self-surrender was not merely something for the creatures to do-it is something
for the Creator to do, a universal principle and a universal attitude for God
and man. So morality is not based on the will of God. It is based on the
character of God.So morality is not something imposed, but something
exposed, something exposed out of the very character of God. So morality is not
something verbal-it is vital, out of life, God's Life. Everything God asks us to do-he does. He is not a
fingerpost pointing the way. He is the loving Shepherd saying, "Come,
follow me."
If
Jesus is the human life of God, God Available, God Lovable, then this
description of how Jesus surrendered himself, going even to a cross for us, is
a revelation to us that if we want to go upgo down.
There are seven steps down: (1) divine by nature; (2) he did not set store upon
equality with God; (3) emptied himself; (4) taking the nature of a servant; (5)
appearing in human form; (6) he humbly stooped even to die; (7) to die upon a
cross. He hit bottom. Then He went to the heights, and there also are seven
steps: (1) God raised him high; (2) conferred a Name about all names; (3)
before the Name of Jesus every knee should bow; (4) in heaven; (5) on earth;
(6) underneath the earth (7) every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He
went from the highest to the lowest and from the lowest to the highest. This is
not on paper, but in person. we must first
This
is our example that we must follow if we want to become Christ-like and if we
want to Glorify God, and to be in His Will. | | |
| Started reading The Unshakable Kingdom and the The Unchanging Person by E. Stanley Jones for the second time. I am getting my face rocked. I am stuck on the intro and the Lord will not let me go further. Here are some excerpts that make me think and stirred me deeply. I hope that it will be the same for whoever reads these quotes. It makes me ask myself, Why do I do the things I do and Who do I do them for?
"The fire that burns in my bones is like the burning bush of Moses which was afire but not consumed. This DIVINE fire does not Consume, it CONSUMMATES--you walk out of it like the Hebrew captives without the smell of smoke upon you."
"I find myself with an inner compulsion, bolstered with confidence by the fact that the best and most influential man who ever lived, Jesus Christ, made the Kingdom of God his central emphasis. I can't go very wrong if I stick close to him. If I fail I fail in the right direction. I would rather fail with him than succeed with anyone else."
"The god that would put drives within us, drives that have heaven or hell wrapped within them as results or consequences, and then give us no plan and power for the handling of these drives, would not be my god--he would be my devil."
"A professor said to his students: 'Young men, play the game of life.' A student spoke up and said: 'Sir, but there are no goal posts, there is nothing to shoot at.' Are there no goal posts? Nothing fixed in this moral and spiritual universe? It is unthinkable. A meaningless universe would be a mean universe. And the god behind it would be a mean god, which would mean: no god."
"Now life has become so physically dynamic, so mentally and emotionally free, and so morally irresponsible that it is bursting at the seams; it is going to pieces at the very moment of our greatest triumph in so many fields--in every field except the field of living. We know everything about life except how TO LIVE IT. We need nothing so desperately as something to bring life into total unity and coherence and meaning and goal. We have become ripe--dead ripe--for a Rediscovery of the Kingdom of God."
"If the Kingdom of God is missing in the magnificent and in the minute, then the key to meaning, goal, life-redemption, and life-fulfillment is missing. Life turns meaningless and sick, becomes a problem instead of a possibility."
"But if you have the key of the Kingdom, you find it a master-key, the key to life now and hereafter, life individual and collective. And that is important to the modern man: You have the key to relevancy in every situation. If you know the Kingdom by experience then you know what to do in every situation--do the kingdom-thing and you are relevant and you are attached to the relevant and you do the relevant thing. You are the center of relevancy."
"So for the Church to be relevant the answer is simple: Discover the Kingdom, Surrender to the Kingdom, Make the Kingdom your life loyalty and your life program; then in EVERYTHING AND EVERYWHERE YOU WILL BE RELEVANT. For the Kingdom of God is relevancy--ultimate and final relevancy and when you have it, and it has you, then you are relevancy itself. Without the Kingdom the Church is irrelevant, except marginally. With the Kingdom the Church is relevant centrally and marginally--by it very nature it is relevant. It doesn't have to Try to be Relevant by adopting little dabs of relevancy here and there. IT IS RELEVANT WHEN IT IS ITSELF, FOR IT IS ATTACHED IN LOYALTY AND LOVE TO THE RELEVANT--THE KINGDOM."
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| Hello,
I have officially been in the middle east now for 48 hours and its been amazing. I am loving it. I spent a day and half in Bahrain and just entered in Saudi Arabia. We went to the mall today in Saudi and while we were shopping there was a call to prayer and everything shut down for. This was a new experience for me but it was very cool to observe, but I was surprised by how few left to go to prayer. There is even prayer places in the mall and still some didn't go, they just waited until the stores re-opened. This happened more than once while we were at the mall. In Islam there is 5 calls to prayer a day and it is based on the sun when each happens. First at dusk, second at middle of the day, third when your shadow is twice the length of your body, 4th at sunset and the 5th at night. It is not based on time but on astrology. I found that pretty interesting. More to come and pics as well. Signing off. | | |
| The Golden Wall
I
You
never catch an Oriental stating a thing in prose if can possibly be
expressed in poetry. Symbolism and imagery are the light of his eyes
and the breath of his nostrils. Instead of saying that Palestine was a
land of green fields and of fair flowers, he thinks of the cows hidden
in the tall, rich grass, and of the bees busy among the fragrant
blossoms; and he straightway describes it as 'a land flowing with milk and honey.'
And so it pleased the Most high to meet him on his own ground and speak
to him in his own language. He appealed to people through their
language. He appealed to the people through their sense of the
picturesque. He gave them the temple. And the men of Jerusalem looked
up and saw it, all of quarried stone. At least, so it appeared from the
outside. But those who were permitted to stand in its most sacred places saw that, within,
all was finest gold. Which speaks for itself. The world may put its
best goods in the window; but the Church is not built that way. To dim
mortal eyes she appears to be built of common stone digged from rude
earthly quarries; but she gleams in the glory of finest gold in the
sight of Him who dwelleth between the cherubims.
In that gold
interior everything was significant. Even the pattern on the wall was
divinely designed. There must surely be some special and abiding
significance about the record that Solomon 'carved all the wall of the house round about with cherubim and palm trees and opening flowers, within and without.' These grateful emblems on the golden incrustation must mean something. I wonder what!
II
'Carved figures of cherubims!'
Nobody can of those mystic figures in the holiest of holy place without
recognizing that they are the natural emblems of adoration. Their bowed
heads and reverent postures seem designed to teach us that the Church
exists, first of all, for worship.
Perhaps that is why the cherubim is given priority among the three
symbolic figures on the golden wall. It is a wholesome and timely
reminder. In these days we judge of our success, as Churches, by the
crowded condition of the building, the flourishing state of the
exchequer and the multitude of converts and inquirers. All of these are
good, and all of these will be among the signs following a truly
spiritual, evangelistic and virile ministry. But, excellent at it is,
and necessary at it is, to have all these marks of prosperity, it is
not for any of these things, primarily, that the Churches stand.
The tapering spires of our churches and cathedrals point majestically
skywards. It is the architects' way of expressing in modern symbolism
what, in antique imagery, the cherubims denoted. The Churches stand to
lift men's thoughts beyond the stars. They exist to lead men away from
the dusty things of time into the consciousness of eternity--to usher them into such an atmosphere that they shall stand with heads bowed reverentially.
When the Churches are at their best, men become very sure of God.
The seen becomes but the vestment of the invisible. Like William Blake,
men see angels in the trees of Peckham, meet Ezekiel in Hyde Park, and
see the pillars of the Holy City at Marylebone and Islington. Like
Francis Thompson, they hear the song of the seraphim above the roar of
the city's traffic, see Jacob's ladder pitched betwixt heaven and
Charing Cross, and watch Christ walking on the water, not of
Gennesaret, but Thames. They feel that heaven wraps earth round about
like a mantle; that God is nearer than breathing, is closer than hands and feet. Men were not made for the trifles about which they fret. They were made for God. That is the meaning of the cherubim on the golden wall of the temple. The soul needs, for its highest development, the awful quiet of God's holy places. Restless activity--even religious--can never satisfy its hunger.
III
'Carved figures of palm tress!' The palm had both a practical and a poetical significance.
It had a practical significance. It represented the utility
of the Church. The Arabs speak of 360 separate uses to which the
different parts of the palm tree can be put. The wood and the bark, the
leaves and the sap, the root and the fibre, the fruit and the husk,
were all utilized in various ways. No plant in Palestine represented so
many industries as the stately and graceful palm. The meaning is
obvious. The Church exists, as we have seen, first of all worship.
That is why the cherubim assumed priority among the carved figures on
the golden walls. But, second only to that, the Church exists for service.
No institution which wit of man has devised has been so practically
serviceable to mankind as the Church of Jesus Christ. Her creed and
conscience have shaped the laws of every civilized community. Her
emissaries have gone out North, South, East and West, opening the way
for civilization and commerce. A recent traveler among the Alps tells
of a terrible snow-storm. The little village was literally buried.
Every road was blocked and trade was paralyzed. But the villagers said
to each, 'Wait until the people go to church on Sunday!' And Sunday
came. The church bell rang as usual. Little companies of men and women
from mountain and valley emerged from their buried homes and fought
their way bravely along the hidden tracks. And, by Monday morning, the
snow having been trodden down, business was resumed. Which also is an
allegory. The Church is the pathfinder of civilization; commerce,
education, and philanthropy follow where she treads.
But the palm tree in the temple had also a poetical significance. It represented the victory of the Church: Conquest is the keynote of the faith. 'We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.' All glittering rewards held out to the seven Churches in the Apocalypse are offered 'to him that overcometh.' And the innumerable hosts of the redeemed are represented as surrounding the Throne with palms in their hands.
In the mighty grace of his Lord the individual Christian treads the
world, the flesh and the devil under his feet. In his garden, as on
Virgil's tomb, nothing but laurels grow. This, as John says, is the victory that overcometh the world.
The same is true of the Church in her corporate and collective
capacity. She is victoriously winning the whole wide world for her
Redeemer. All its kingdoms must become units of His empire; all its
crowns must meet upon His brow. Whenever, for a moment, it seems that
righteousness has been vanquished and wrong enthroned, I glance at the
symbol on the golden wall. It reminds me that the setback is merely a
passing phrase. The Church rides forth conquering and to conquer. Her
triumph is assured.
IV
'Carved figures of opening flowers!' The flowers on the golden wall speak for themselves. The blossoms about our feet stand for two things--for beauty and for fragrance.
The carved flowers on the incrusted walls tell me that the Church is in
the world to flood it with loveliness, and, like the ointment with
which Mary anointed her Lord, to saturate the place with a sweet and
delicate perfume.
The flower stands for beauty.
There is an old story of a fairy who made beautiful everything she
touched. She leaned against a gnarled stump, and it was instantly
lovely with lichen and moss. She crossed the desert, and the wild
flowers sprang up behind her. A hungry wolf licked her hand, and it
became a gentle fawn. The Church has done in fact what the fairy did in
fancy. It was an unlovely world into which the infant Church was born.
But she beautified it. She found the rich man a tyrant and the poor man
a slave. Teaching the wealthy that there is something nobler than
oppression, she made him a benefactor. Teaching the poor man that there
is something better than slavery, she made him a citizen. She crowed
womanhood with an honour, a dignity and a charm of which, in the old
days, she never dreamed; she imparted a sanctity to childhood; and she
taught men to treat the gray head with affectionate veneration. Alike
in Eastern and Western lands, old age was treated with pitiless contempt
until Jesus cam. But ever since men have saluted the stooping form with
reverence and have regarded gray hairs as a crown of glory. The opening
flower on the golden wall of the temple was to show that the mission of
the Church was to beautify the world, and, beyond the shadow of a
doubt, she has done it.
And what of the fragrance
of which this opening flower so eloquently whispers? Nothing is more
subtle and nothing more bountiful. At Metlakahtla, in Alaska, the
village on which Christ has laid so mighty a hand, the Indians have
built a most exquisite church. And the peculiarity of their charming
sanctuary is the delicate and delightful odor that pervades it. Yet no
censer, with its smoking incense, swings beside its altar. The fact is
that the natives selected for their work the wood of the sweetest
smelling trees of the forest, and the church will consequently remain
fragrant and refreshing as long as it stands. It was lovely thought on
their part. Had they, I wonder, caught the inner significance of the
the opening flower on the golden wall? There are many of us who do not
mean to be hypocrites or shams. Yet we recognize to our sorrow that we
do not exhale a perfume that entices. We do not make religion appear
winsome. We do not impress men with the fair fragrance of the faith.
And, on the other hand, we have met others who say much less about
religion than we do; yet, when we enter their presence, we feel that
the atmosphere is very sweet. We no more need to be told that they are
Christians than we need to e told that there are violets on the table.
And may I not claim a third significance for the opening flower? For, if it is the emblem of Beauty and of Fragrance, it is not less the emblem of Perpetuity.
In the heart of an opening flower there slumber a million gardens.
Everything that is winsome and sweet and noble about the Church will go
on scattering itself and multiplying itself though all the generations
and all the ages yet to be!
V
Indeed, now that I come to look at the figures on the golden wall in
this light, it flashes upon me that the angel, the palm-tree and the
opening flowers are all of them emblems of immortality. I remember very
vividly being present at the funeral of Mr. Spurgeon. Glancing round the
cemetery at Norwood, I caught sight, every here and there, of marbles
figures of angels keeping
sentinel over the tombs. And the oak casket that contained all that was
mortal of the great preacher was almost hidden under fronded palms. And on all the graves around were wreaths and crosses, harps and anchors, woven of fragrant flowers. 'Angels and palm-trees and opening flowers.'
It is very striking. These are the heart's chosen emblems of the
abiding, the deathless, the eternal. And they combine upon the
temple-wall to represent this distinguishing feature of the ministry of
the Church. She works for eternity. Her heart is in the Ever-Ever
country. The minister is like Tennyson's poet:--
The rain had fallen, the poet arose,
He passed by the town and out of the street,
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun,
And waves of shadow went over the wheat,
And he sat him down in a lonely place,
And chanted a melody loud and sweet,
That made the wild swan pause in her cloud,
And the lark drop dawn at his feet.
The swallow stopt as he chased fly,
The snake slipt under the spray,
The wild hawk stood with down on his book,
And stared, with his foot on his prey,
And the nightingale thought: I have sung many songs,
But never a one so gay,
For he sings of what the world will be,
When the years have passed away.
That is the song that a redeemed Church is always singing. It
is a foretaste of the eternal harmonies. And, when she strikes that
note clearly, all sorts and conditions of men pause to listen
spellbound to matchless music. And, having heard it, they press to her alters like doves to their windows. | | |
| Father God,
You are so amazing and incredible. Words cannot fully
describe who you are. My little "pea" brain cannot fully grasp how wonderful
You are. Thinking about Who You Are, is a knowledge that is too
excellent for me. Lord, help me just to seek you, not just when I need
something for You to do for me. Help me to get out of me the "Santa Claus"
idea of Who You Are. Help Father to seek Your Heart, Your Being, just
YOU! What you do is amazing God, but it is only a reflection of Who You
Are. Who You are is even more amazing than what You do. I stand in awe
and time stops when I think and ponder Who You Really Are. I just want
to be Your Child who longs to be with his Father. To be with You
Father, is to Know You. Help me Father to realize this more and more. I
don't recognize it enough. Sometimes I feel like I am using you for
what you can do, instead being with you to truly know You, the God of
All, the Creator, the Lord of the Universe and MY Father! You are truly the Most
Valuable Thing in the Universe and it in Your Un-created Being, that is
where You Glory rests in, which is in your Being. What a marvelous God, a
marvelous God!!!
Amen | | |
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