Saturday, March 25, 2006

The Nicene Creed

Circa 381 A.D.

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spake by the Prophets. And I believe one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

AMEN.

Chicago Photos

The Sears Tower

Do I need to explain this one?

Chicago Stock Exchange

College Photos of Importance

Tribute to the Pretzal and Libral Arts at Austin College

The only thing I enjoyed at Knox College

One of the Several Buildings at Austin College

Wheaton's Mastadon

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Bible Verse du Jour

"And the LORD, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed."(Deuteronomy 31:7-9)

Puritan T-shirts





I am doing a project on several Puritan authors and when I was searching the web I found these two t-shirts. they make me chuckle.

Sands of Time

Okay, I was looking at the date for my last post and I realized that I have been living in warpspeed. I have been incredibly stressed recently. Possibly because I have been struggling with school and I am about to make my very first C in my whole life! Last semester I had an A average in Physics and now I am going to have a C. I am not thinking clearly at all. I just got back from visiting colleges with my Dad. First we visited Austin College in Sherman, Texas. I loved it, despite the lackluster surroundings of Sherman. Rien! The pre-med adviser greeted me wearing blue-jeans and a sweatshirt. He was very laid back and from what I gathered, really cared for his students. The campus has a real strong sense of community and there is a bond between all of the students and faculty. The students are often invited over for dinner and call their professors by their first name. The community service station had coloring book pictures on the windows. (I know that was a random statement but I love coloring books!) The second college I visited was terrible! I visited Knox College. On paper, I thought this college would be my number one pick, but in person, it was cold and the tour guide was a wreck. I felt so sorry for him and I thought to myself if I went here I would be in a living nightmare. The college lets the students vote on rules and policies along with the curriculum and teachers who get fired. His major he had been working on was deleted by the students and now he was reorienting himself in other fields! The whole campus is student-run and the curriculum is based on mini research projects throughout the year.

The last college was Wheaton. I did not really take hold of the three chapel services a week idea and my Dad did not appreciate the attitude experienced after visiting the financial aid office that if you do not have enough money to go there, just forget it. Oh well. It was too formalized if that even makes sense. If I had to make a comparison between the other two and Wheaton, I would say that it was friendlier than Knox and had a sense of mission but lacked coloring pages posted on the wall and a working relationship with the teachers. But, when I interviewed the French prof, he thought that since I spoke clean French that my Dad also spoke French fluently. I shook my head and said no, I just have a really good teacher that loves the language and teaching.

On the last day my dad and I visited Chicago! I love Chicago.

All in all, my Dad and I had a wonderful bonding experience and like my airplane bathroom phobia, I did not have to make extra stops, only the meal stops were made. At least now I no what I want in a college and a rule of thumb for looking at other colleges.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Random Shirts!


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What Role Does Sanctification Play in Salvation?

How do I "Pursue . . . the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord"?

Unlike regeneration, there is much Spirit-filled human effort involved in sanctification. On the one hand, "it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). "On the other hand," we're commanded in 1 Tim. 4:7, "discipline yourself for the purposes of godliness." God uses means of grace to sanctify us, chief of which are the personal and corporate spiritual disciplines. In the personal realm, these include intake of God's Word, prayer, private worship, fasting, silence and solitude, etc. These are balanced by disciplines we practice with the church: public worship, hearing God's Word preached, observance of the ordinances, corporate prayer, fellowship, etc. And all along, our confidence is not in ourselves, but in God. As Paul put it, "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6).

Donald S. Whitney

Christmas in Review

My fear of shots and strange doctors in austere lab coats started at an extremely young age. I believe most people would agree that if somehow they could bypass the squeamish moment experienced at the dreadful office, the life expectancy would dramatically increase. Oh the horrors that are entailed once you are left in the sterile silence for the nurse to arrive, what mysteries lay behind her sly smile. Particularly one experience comes to mind when courage crosses my mind, enduring the ghastly visit and making it out alive and unaltered.

Unfortunately one morning during the Christmas break I woke up in a cold sweat, my eyes were glazed and a moat of drool surrounded my head like a halo. I gasped for air and swallowed my fear as I opened my mouth to see what was lodged in my throat. To my surprise, I had grown the largest bacteria culture known to man in my mouth. It was white and frothy and again I gasped, this time in disgust, my tonsils had been consumed by oozing pustules. It was time to visit the doctor, for one, I could not breathe, and two, the infection was highly painful and unattractive, fearing it would consume my face.

My mother drove me in quiet solitude; I knew what would be in store, definitely a kiss of penicillin. Immediately the doctor knew what was wrong as he plugged his nose and gazed into my mouth. He then shook his head and motioned for the nurse. I was not going to go through with it. Suddenly, my mother grabbed my rear and flashed a little skin and then the torture began. It felt as if syrup was passing through a pinhole. I felt my head become heavy and my arms limp and I thought I was going to lose it, and then it was finished.

It took courage to bear all and let that nurse stick it to me hard, but I thank her.

What do Galatians, Hosea, and Isaiah have in common?

What is the common thread between these three books? Let's look at them individually.

Galatians:
"The secret of the Lord is with those who have been broken by his cross and healed by his Spirit." Galatians exalts these two things: the cross of Christ as the only way a person can get right with God, and the Spirit of Christ as the only way a person can obey God. Anything that diminishes the beauty and all-sufficiency of what happened on the cross of Christ is anathema to Paul. Anything that puts our willing or running where the Holy Spirit belongs is witchery to Paul. And the reason we sense a kind of compassionate rage running beneath this letter is that someone had bewitched the Galatians to put themselves where the Spirit belonged and the works of law where faith in the cross belonged.” - P.T. Forsythe, a Scottish Minister

Galatians is a letter about God’s grace, an undeserved gift received by faith alone. Paul passionately speaks against the intertwining of the Jewish faith and the gospel of Christ. The people of Galatia have fallen from truth.

Hosea:
Hosea’s ministry was at the same time as Isaiah’s. Hosea opens up with an allegory, his wife, Gomer, a prostitute who represents the covenant people or Israel. God made him live the tragedy of Israel's unfaithfulness by marrying a harlot. What follows is shocking because the idolatry of Israel is shocking. Hosea continues to illustrate the adultery Israel has committed ant the covenant that was shattered, but it is not until God pursued her heart and brought her back. "And you shall know the Lord." Know here, is an intimate. Israel had tried to intertwine idolatry and God’s holy covenant. In chapter 7, verse 14 it says “They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me.” God pursue our heart and souls, genuine worship. But he is also a God of wrath and Israel had to understand the supremacy of Christ in all things. “He wants you to come into the wilderness, to listen to him speak tenderly and to respond to him, "My husband." God wants your heart, not just your hands, because if he has your heart he has everything.”

Isaiah:
Isaiah also pointed his ministry with the covenant life, constant reoccurring theme in the Old Testament. God’s people lost their vision of God and his kingdom of righteousness, satisfied with their own special blend on religion. Also like Hosea, curses as promised in the books of law, blessings always follow. They looked to Assyria and Egypt for protection from the almost eminent defeat and downfall an the nation. This was breach in the covenant they had with God. They openly showed their distrust that God would carry them through. They even created and alter modeled after one of Assyria’s idols to please them in hopes of assistance. Finally you read the passage about Hezekiah and how it appeared that God changed his mind about destroying Judah. God never changes his mind. This would allude that he is not all-knowing or in complete control of our daily lives. We know that God is sovereign, he keeps his promises. You know that from David’s line, a redeemer will come to save God’s people, Jesus Christ. Therefore you know that to keep his promise, Judah could not have been wiped out it the prophesies were to stand. God will display his wrath but he also will show his mercy.

So what is the common thread? Have you caught it yet? Each book of the bible mentioned a covenant. Of course the Old Testament mentioned a covenant with God and the Jews, while Paul speaks of a covenant with Christ and his believers because of Christ’ blood. A beautiful Covenant we have as believers in Christ is all sufficient and sustaining. The love that God has for his children and the passion we should have for him if we really “knew” God is compelling, to “know” Christ. Not through traditions or false exhortations, God calls us to know him intimately and delight in him every day.

“Vast starry skies seen from a mountain in Utah, and four layers of moving clouds on a seemingly endless plain in Montana, and standing on the edge of a mile-deep drop in the Grand Canyon can all have a wonderfully supplementary role in enlarging the soul with beauty. But nothing can take the place of the supremacy of Christ." - John Piper

To know him deeply, to have joy and freedom in Christ . . .

Monday, January 02, 2006

Oh NO!!!

I have school tomorrow and that means no more sleeping in! I am going to be busy. Yet, one thing that excites me, I am going on a road trip with my dad this spring break so I will start counting the days. It will all start again when the first bell rings!

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Satisfaction in God

Our continual apprehension of God, may produce our continual satisfaction in God, under all His dispensations. Whatever enjoyments are by God conferred upon us, where lies the relish, where the sweetness of them? Truly, we may come to relish our enjoyments, only so far as we have something of God in them. It was required in Psal. xxxvii. 4, "Delight thyself in the Lord." Yea, and what if we should have no delight but the Lord? Let us ponder with ourselves over our enjoyments: "In these enjoyments I see God, and by these enjoyments, I serve God!"

And now, let all our delight in, and all our value and fondness for our enjoyments, be only, or mainly, upon such a divine score as this. As far as any of our enjoyments lead us unto God, so far let us relish it, affect it, embrace it, and rejoyce in it: "O taste, and feed upon God in all;" and ask for nothing, no, not for life itself, any further than as it may help us, in our seeing and our serving of our God.

And then, whatever afflictions do lay fetters upon us, let us not only remember that we are concerned with God therein, but let our concernment with God procure a very profound submission in our souls. Be able to say with him in Psal. xxxix. 9, "I open not my mouth, because thou didst it." In all our afflictions, let us remark the justice of that God, before whom, "why should a living man complain for the punishment of his sin?" The wisdom of that God, "whose judgments are right:" the goodness of that God, who "punishes us less than our iniquities do deserve." Let us behave ourselves, as having to do with none but God in our afflictions: And let our afflictions make us more conformable unto God: which conformity being effected, let us then say, "'Tis good for me that I have been afflicted."

Sirs, what were this, but a pitch of holiness, almost angelical! Oh! Mount up, as with the wings of eagles, of angels: be not a sorry, puny, mechanick sort of Christians any longer; but reach forth unto these things that are thus before you.

Words from Cotton Mather

The Divine Light

A sense of the beauty of Christ is the beginning of true saving faith in the life of a true convert. This is quite different from any vague feeling that Christ loves him or died for him. These sort of fuzzy feelings can cause a sort of love and joy, because the person feels a gratitude for escaping the punishment of their sin. In actual fact, these feelings are based on self-love, and not on a love for Christ at all. It is a sad thing that so many people are deluded by this false faith. On the other hand, a glimpse of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ causes in the heart a supreme genuine love for God. This is because the divine light shows the excellent loveliness of God's nature. A love based on this is far, far above anything coming from self-love, which demons can have as well as men. The true love of God which comes from this sight of His beauty causes a spiritual and holy joy in the soul; a joy in God, and exulting in Him. There is no rejoicing in ourselves, but rather in God alone.

The sight of the beauty of divine things will cause true desires after the things of God. These desires are different from the longings of demons, which happen because the demons know their doom awaits them, and they wish it could somehow be otherwise. The desires that come from this sight of Christ's beauty are natural free desires, like a baby desiring milk. Because these desires are so different from their counterfeits, they help to distinguish genuine experiences of God's grace from the false.

An extract from a sermon by Jonathan Edwards

Westminster Larger Catechism - (1-5)

Question 1: What is the chief and highest end of man?

Answer: Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

Question 2: How does it appear that there is a God?

Answer: The very light of nature in man, and the works of God, declare plainly that there is a God; but his Word and Spirit only do sufficiently and effectually reveal him unto men for their salvation.

Question 3: What is the Word of God?

Answer: The holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, the only rule of faith and obedience.

Question 4: How does it appear that the Scriptures are the Word of God?

Answer: The Scriptures manifest themselves to be the Word of God, by their majesty and purity; by the consent of all the parts, and the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God; by their light and power to convince and convert sinners, to comfort and build up believers unto salvation: but the Spirit of God bearing witness by and with the Scriptures in the heart of man, is alone able fully to persuade it that they are the very Word of God.

Question 5: What do the Scriptures principally teach?

Answer: The Scriptures principally teach,: What man is to believe concerning God, and: What duty God requires of man.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Mystery Novel

Recently, in school I read a book in my french class. It was lovely. Can you guess what the title of the book is?

«Les enfants seuls savent ce qu'ils cherchent... Ils perdent du temps pour une poupée de chiffons et elle devient très importante, et si on la leur enlève, ils pleurent...»

Favorite Verse?



What is your favorite Bible verse? I have many, too many to really count. What verse do you read or recite in your head day in and day out? What verse do you grab onto when the time is like sand in an hour glass? What verse breathes your passion?

-Galatians 5:1

Waiting

I love waiting for e-mail from friends. It is like waiting for Christmas, which always comes.

Misled in Scotland


Pray for the people who visit St. Mungo's Cathedral and Museum that they would not be fooled by the false message that is preached.

Kathy

Kathy Littlefield by far has made the greatest impact on my life. I strongly believe that you should always be in the process of being discipled and discipling others. I asked her to be my mentor in eighth grade. She was my babysitter long before we became best friends or as close as sisters. She helped to ignite my passion for Christ through missions. She has pushed me to higher mountains with Christ on deeper levels. I should not just read the word of God, but meditate upon it and know it in my heart because it is precious. Kathy taught me not to put a price tag on my priorities. What is important to God should not be compromised at any cost. I should pursue him every minute of my day in prayer. I learned from her that when it says in the Bible pray without ceasing, this simply means that when an interruption from life comes, to have the desire to return to my Lord when it subsides, to never lose touch with the reason I live. It is critical to press on to know the Lord intimately, not with your head but with all that is in you. What was hard for me to see or understand, she pointed to where I needed to look in scripture. Kathy saw the need for me to lay down my prideful self and wrap myself in humility in God’s arms. I cherish all of the lessons she has taught me through the years. We pray for each other every day that we would be open to hear what God has to say and that he would use us in a mighty way for his glory.


If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:9)

Testimonies

It drives me crazy when Christians say the dreadful words "my testimony is boring." That is like telling God he masterpiece he is painting in life is out of date and lackluster. How could you insult God by saying God's perfect plan for your salvation was a second rate plan? Anyway, I used to be one of those people that uttered those terrible ear piercing words and then God grabbed me. I am so thankful when God jumps in with road signs and urgent e-mails. I realized that my salvation was a beautiful gift from God.

I accepted Christ when I was very young. Often I ask myself why my life has unfolded the way it has; and as my faith deepened I came to understand small bits and pieces. Everyday I thank God for outstretching his arm to me when I was young to save from a life that could have been. I see evidence of his presence in my life every day. I can’t even count how many times he has interceded on my behalf.

It was not until later in life that I realized the full extent of God’s saving grace. “Our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt.” (Jeremiah 17:9) The power to cover all of my sin, all sin, is miraculous. He justified my life by acquitting my sin to satisfy his wrath to receive his glory, a new righteousness was given. I am eternally thankful for his sanctifying grace.

Recently, in the last few years God has taught me so much. Of course, sometimes I do not always apply what I have learned and this I account for on the reason that I am in spiritual battle every minute of every day. All my life I have been told about the marvelous attributes of God, he is omnipotent, omniscience, omnipresent, and sovereign over all things, but it was not until lately I flipped the switch in my head for the light to come on. I feel that every breath I take is filled with his presence; I feel that he is so close I can close my eyes and fall at his feet. Two years ago one night when I was praying alone in my room, God spoke to me. I know that it is his will for my life to go into international missions. God’s timing is everything. I know that if he called me tomorrow to go overseas, I would not be ready spiritually. Sometimes I feel as if I am playing a game of tug-of-war. I long to serve Christ overseas, but I know His timing supersedes mine. I believe that every person has been given a mission field, and while I am in Humble, Humble is my mission field. I am only a broken vessel, and I desire that God would use me to do His work for the kingdom. I hope that every day I can passionately pursue Christ. I no longer feel tainted by the desires of man, but long for the “vast, ocean-deep pleasures of God.” (John Piper) I live because of and for Christ.

I meditate on all that thou hast done;
I muse on what thy hands have wrought.
I stretch out my hands to thee;
My soul thirsts for THEE like a parched land.

(Psalm 143:5-6)