review: captured by grace
Encountering God’s grace changes lives forever, and this beautiful three-part volume is truly a keeper as it consistently initiates a fresh experience of God’s grace on almost every page. It tracks the dramatic stories of John Newton, Paul and the author himself in the freeing power of permanent forgiveness and unending mercy. Captured by Grace drives home that none of us, no matter what we have done, are beyond the reach of grace and forgiveness.
Dr. David Jeremiah’s writing challenges the typical human reaction to the trials and hardship in life. He presented the message of God’s grace in such a way that, the reading of it stirred a longing within me to live a life more deeply immersed in grace, mercy and thanksgiving. He presses this potently in translating our oft asked “Why is this happening?” questions into, “What is God teaching me?” Inspirational and insightful. This is a historically and scripturally deep and challenging read. Grace remains impersonal till it happens to you! This book will undoubtedly will speed that journey on….., a truly compelling read!
*This was a Zondervan, Booksneeze gift! This and all other review of mine are posted on Amazon.
truly this…… I want!
“I want to be touched by affectionate eyes
I want to be welcomed when welcome is rare
I want to be held when my confidence sighs
I want to find comfort in genuine care.
I want to be given untakebale things
I want to be trusted with hearts that might break
I want to fly dreaming on effortless wings
I want to be smiled on when I’m awake.
I want to see sunsets with people who know
I want to hear secrets that no-one should hear
I want to be guarded wherever I go
I want to be fought for when dangers appear.
I want to be chained to the lives of my friends
I want to be wanted because and despite
I want to link arms when the foolishness ends
I want to be safe in the raging night.
I want to be sheltered although I am wrong
I want to be laughed at although I am right
I want to be snug in the heavenly song
I want to be loved – I want to be light.”
I want by Adrian Plass
bad harmony
Did you hear that three-piece squawk painfully on weekend TV? Did you see the shame and courage, the attempts and the misery that the early episodes of the X-factor (inevitably) induce? They are incredible (mad-bad-incredible!) examples of what happens when you surround yourself with people who are not wiling to speak truth. Do you reckon each one of these people sat with friends and family and belted out those songs: that someone actually heard them and then said, “That’s so wonderful, you should enter, pay your money, queue for hours and set-yourself up against great talent……. so that you can be shamed!!?” Not likely!! Its painful literally and also the contrast …..the confidence of the deluded, and the humility of the gifted: Go, Gamu go!!
Proverbs 12:26 tells us:- “The godly give good advice to their friends; the wicked lead them astray.”
Most of us have the tendency to sidestep truth-telling in our relationships and so our lives (because they are at best a composite of our relationships) becoming increasing drained of truth. Don’t bemoan life being stale because that’s exactly what it is without truth. Don’t whine about relationships being sterile because that’s what results without truth.
Relationships without truth are bad harmony….. at best! I know for I’ve experienced the emptiness, shallowness and deficit of this. Convenient relationships are never better than costly ones. A beautiful life comes through the richness of costly, vulnerable, truth-telling lives! So how about it for you…!?
essential Piper: 2of6 hedonism
In this little mini-series from one of my helpers in the faith, the inimitable John Piper. This entry looks at Christian Hedonism, which at it’s core, is the truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. An immense and punchy truth!!
” We praise what we enjoy because the delight is incomplete until it is expressed in praise. If we were not allowed to speak of what we value and celebrate what we love and praise what we admire, our joy would not be full.
So if God loves us enough to make our joy full, He must not only give us Himself; He must also win from us the praise of our hearts—not because He needs to shore up some weakness in Himself or compensate for some deficiency, but because He loves us and seeks the fullness of our joy that can be found only in knowing and praising Him, the most magnificent of all Beings.”
Desiring God, p49
Rev. and that….
I’ve really enjoyed Rev right from it’s tv-start… and I’m always prone to comedy but this rarely co-exists with faith!
The Vicar archetype has long been a staple of British Comedy for years, so it’s relativity familiar territory for the viewer. Yet here in Rev Rev Adam Smallbone is a grittier, less pious, more realistic representation of the model, and the show is based deep in urban London, away from the pastoral idyll settings we so often see televisionally-representated! At last we have relief from the stereotypes of Vicar of Dibley!
This smoking, drinking, swearing Reverend may not match everyone’s picture of what a man of the cloth should be, but Adam is profoundly likeable. He cares about people; he’s principled yet full of brokenness & frailty. I know he’s just a character…but he’s wonderfully authentic!
For me, it’s an outstanding show…with a good deal of realism balancing the poignant dark comedy acting. Genuine inner city churches will recognize all kinds of familiar melancholy scenarios threaded through the script. The struggle to be fully alive, surrounded by ambition, envy, loneliness and compassion is painted well.
I particularly enjoy the character development and it’s more poignantly accurate than irreverent!! Here are two great blog-links from Bishop Alan and Steve Tilley about this wonderful little series. The joy of Rev is not just its content, its unsurprising size and breadth of audience appeal (wonderfully eclisping Big Brother!!) Faith-related TV may just have risen!
quoteable quote:- our part….
“All we can do is try to keep our hands cupped and open and ask God to teach us how to keep our hands cupped and open.” Richard Rohr
essential Piper: 1of6 purpose
,….and nothing of the Pied-piper sort!
“Don’t waste your life!” is pure-spiritual-adrenalin and a call-to obedience by one of my favourite authors, John Piper. Definitely a Top-Fifty book of all time for me…. Despite Julie not being a big fan, I’m going to aim for a six-entry-weekly-taster from Piper’s best books and key thinking.
” It is possible to waste your life. Few things make me tremble more than the possibility of taking this onetime gift of life and wasting it. Every morning when I walked into the kitchen as a boy I saw hanging on the wall the plaque that now hangs in my living room: “Only one life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” And now I am almost 58, and the river of life is spilling over the falls of my days with tremendous speed. More and more I smell eternity. And oh, how I want to use my life well. It is so short and so fragile and so final. You get one chance to live your life. And then the judgment. I speak as a father who has children your age, and I am jealous with Jesus that they and you not waste your life”
upward, around… or through!
* Porlock Hill.
Two words that strike fear and trepidation in the heart and mind of this female driver. I was on my way to the south-west last week when I remembered that Porlock Hill stood between me and my destination. This thought occupied at least half the drive and much of my praying!! Imagine my relief when an ‘avoid Porlock Hill’ sign was spotted turning me away from the hill and into the beautiful countryside that is this part of the world!!
I turned left with prayers of gratitude … the sat nav however, did what ‘she’ does best, corrected my wanderings from the path and navigated me back to the main road and that hill. I did make it, slowly and very very carefully annoying the (male) driver in the car behind! Having reached the top of this 1:4 gradient rejoicing in safe passage, I concluded that there are some things in life that cannot be navigated around, avoided, or a detour taken.
Sometimes there are hills that God, with His help, would have us climb and conquer, not avoid and run from.
** GUEST POST from JULIE **
blessed hurricane
I attended “Together on a Mission” conference, a few years ago and have always appreciated some of the podcasts coming out from this New Frontiers conference. Yet this year the most moving and challenging preach of all was brought by someone who wasn’t even there.
PJ Smyth leads GodFirst Church in Johannesburg, South Africa, a 5-year old church plant. He was scheduled to speak this year in Brighton but withdrew hours before travelling, due to a cancer scare. Technically, therefore, PJ didn’t preach at “Together on a Mission”. In truth, however, he preached not just once but twice. He delivered his first preach via a text message which Terry Virgo read out to the conference. He described finding the lump, his painful biopsy and the way he was navigating his way through this crisis with his wife and three young sons. Then he ended his text-message sermon with a simple statement: “We worship while we wait.” It was as powerful a preach as anything he could have delivered in person.
PJ’s second ‘preach’ came at the very end of the conference, again by text message. The results of the biopsy, five thousand people listened and prayed for good news. PJ shared in his text message that the results had been utterly disappointing. The lump was indeed lymphoma. He has cancer and is now undergoing chemotherapy. Then he concluded his second message with a cry of faith: “Blessed hurricane,” he said, “that blows us closer to God.” Even on the morning that he discovered he had cancer, PJ Smyth still exuded faith in his mighty God. It will be forever one of the finest sermons he might ever preached.
I find PJ’s example very challenging, humbling and a lots else, and hopefully you do too. He was echoing the words of Hudson Taylor, who in the midst of great tragedy declared that “It doesn’t matter how great the pressure is. What really matters is whether it comes between you and God or whether it presses you nearer his heart.”
So whatever trials and difficulties may face us today, let’s learn from the example of PJ Smyth, Hudson Taylor and the real-life up-close examples of faith around us. Let’s worship while we wait and somehow find the trust and praise of God for his blessed hurricanes which drive us closer into him. As PJ explained at the end of his text message: “I am secure in the fortress of Romans 8:28 – We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
- Tastey, Authentic & True!