Give Us Tears to Weep for the Unsaved

"He that saved our souls has taught us to weep over the unsaved.  Lord, let that mind be in us that was in You.  Give us your tears to weep; for, Lord, our hearts are hard toward our fellows.  We can see thousands perish around us, and our sleep never be disturbed; no vision of their awful doom ever scaring us, no cry from their lost souls ever turning our peace into bitterness."

Horatius Bonar - Scottish pastor and hymn writer (Not What My Hands Have Done) 1808-1889, this is an excerpt from his book Words to Winners of Souls

A Cocktail for Calvinists

The Presbyterian

The Presbyterian cocktail can be made in a couple of different ways, both though will undoubtedly cool and refresh any Calvinist throat!

Traditional

1.  Pour 2 ounces of scotch over ice into a Collins glass

2.  Top it off with half ginger ale and half club soda.

If desired, ginger ale alone can be used, or cola can be substituted for the club soda. That seems a bit too sweet, however. Some recipes also use bourbon, and other recipes use rye whiskey. It’s all up to your own taste.

OR

The Terry

Rye Whiskey, Ginger Beer, lemon and ice mixed in whatever proportions you desire. The trick is to use Goya Ginger Beer (in the Latin foods section of your local supermarket). Goya adds capsaicin to its brew, which warms your throat even as the ice is cooling it.

Bookshelf Porn

If you dig the Logos, and too, ink on thin pieces of wood stacked in some way along with each other -- as I do -- then likely you will enjoy Bookshelf Porn.  Here's a little teaser to wet your whistle until the site loads...

(My thanks to my brother-in-law, Jared, for passing this along!)

Ah, yes, beautiful Self-sufficent Island

Arminian grace! How strange the sound,
Salvation hinged on ME.
I once was lost then turned around,
Was blind then chose to see.

What "grace" is it that calls for choice
Out of some good within?
The part that willed to heed God's voice
Proved stronger than my sin.

Through many ardent gospel pleas
I sat with heart of stone,
But then some hidden good in me
Propelled me toward my home.

When we've been there ten thousand years
Because of what we've done,
We've no less days to sing our praise
Than when we first begun.

by Dennis Walter Cochran

RePost: Stellar Picture Books for Young Boys

If you're looking for some new books for your son, here's a list of delightful, imagination inducing, true "boy" books, for ages 4 to 7ish.  Though some are not necessarily "christian" they are -- in my judgment -- biblically sound.
1)  Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges
2)  The King's Stilts by Dr. Seuss
3)  The Oxcart Man by Donald Hall
4)  Cowardly Clyde by Bill Peet
5)  Pierre Bear and Good Night Little Bear by Richard Scarry
6)  The Dragon and the Garden by N.D. Wilson
7)  The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward
8)  Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virgina Burton
9)  Stone Soup by Marcia Brown
10)  The Knight and the Dragon by Tomie DePaola

Meditation: Christ the Living One not Just the Word on a Page

      "For one thing keep before your mind, as a ever-present truth, that the Lord Jesus is an actual living Person, and deal with Him as such.
       I fear the personality of our Lord is sadly lost sight of by many professors in the present day. Their talk is more about salvation, than about the Saviour; more about redemption, than about the Redeemer; more about justification, than about Jesus; more about Christ's work, than about Christ's person. This is a great fault, and one that fully accounts for the dry and sapless character of the religion of many professors.
      As ever you would grow in grace, and have joy and peace in believing, beware of falling into this error. Cease to regard the gospel as a mere collection of dry doctrines. Look at it rather as the revelation of the mighty living Being in whose sight you are daily to live. Cease to regard it as a mere set of abstract propostions and abstruse principles and rules. Look at it as the introduction to a glorious personal Friend."

- J.C. Ryle, 1879. Extract from his book Holiness: it's nature, hindrances, difficulties, and roots

Un Muy Excelente Bumper Sticker

I bought this bumper sticker last year and placed it smack dab in the middle of the rear window of my '91 Volvo station wagon.  

You need one as well.  Find it for a cool $5 at Cafe Press.

The Written Word vs. Face-to-Face

My friend Joel Wilhelm wrote a short post over on his blog A Living Text concerning the differences and dynamics between writing to one another versus face-to-face communications when serious issues and/or disagreements arise.   

       The maxim in the Church is that face-to-face is always best in all circumstances.  Are we certain on this?  Jesus doesn't seem to think so since the primary way He communicates to us now is by His written Word.  And Paul writes to the Corinthian Christians about how he is "bold" in his letters but not as much so when he is with them in person (2 Corinthians 10:1-3).  These two different examples should -- at the very least -- cause us to re-evaluate the conventional "face-to-face is always the way to go" mantra so accepted among God's People.

        For awhile now I've thought that this topic deserved a bit more exposure  than it has received especially in our email/facebook age, so I'm glad Joel took it up.  Check it out here and the comments too.

        Perhaps too read the intro to my post The Enticing Turkish Delight that is Public Ed for some further thoughts concerning writing to one another over serious relational issues.  Ya know, if ya want...

Wealth is Almost Always a Curse

Listen to John Piper bring the thunder on

the spirit numbing effects of mammon. 
I could not agree more.