Try it.

Holiness – of – heart

 

                        IS

 

the State – of – the – art   

 

- eab, 9/88

LINCOLN

Two hundred years ago this week, *

God brought forth on this continent,

A Kentucky boy poor but not weak,

This capable but country lad,

Had a loving mom, a working dad.

                – eab, 2/9/09

* Note this was penned a year ago.

John Hooper – Martyred, Feb. 9, 1555

“Imprisonment is painful, but liberty, on ill conditions, is worse. The prison stinks, yet not so much as the sweet houses where the fear of God is wanting. I must be alone and solitary; it is better so to be, and have God with me, than to be in bad company. The loss of goods is great, but the loss of grace and the favor of God is greater. I cannot tell how to answer before great men, and learned men; yet is it better to do that, than to stand naked before God’s tribunal. I shall die by the hands of cruel men; but he is blessed who loseth his life, and findeth life eternal. There is neither felicity nor adversity in the world that is great, if it be weighed with the joys and pains of the world to come.”

                                                – Reported to be from a letter Hooper penned in prison.

John Hooper was martyred this date, 2/9/1555.  Some time after receiving his Bachelor of Arts from Cambridge he was converted to Christ by the writings of the German reformers.  At one point he felt obliged to flee to France and was briefly associate Huguenots. Later he was associated with Bullinger (Zwingli’s successor).  He returned to England and under Edward VI, was made Bishop of Gloucester.

In the providence of God Edward died.  He was followed by Queen Mary and she as a Roman Catholic required Hooper’s death.  Thus the “Father of the Puritans” was burned at the stake in the 60^th year of his life. He was born c. 1495, at Somersetshire, England.

Swallow!

“Humble pie” can be hard to eat,

 

But will surely beat,

 

Eternal defeat.

- 2/8/10

HOLLOW or FILLED

Ever received at Christmas

A box surprisingly light?

It seemed it might be empty;

When you looked inside ─ you were right. 

 

Except for a piece of paper

Its cavernous space was hollow.

Directions or “a promise” the

Giver expected you to “swallow.”

 

Some folks lives are hollow,

Shallow, empty, weighing light.

They need Jesus to fix them,

Wrong needs replaced by right.

 

Friend, is your life on empty

Running, but-barely – on short supply?

Are you grasping at earthly straws,

Waiting, yet dreading, to die?

 

Let Jesus fill your hollow life,

Fill it with purpose and song.

You too can shine and you can shout

Now – - – and Eternally long.

          – eab, 2/8/06

James Henry Fillmore – death, Feb. 8, 1936

I am resolved no longer to linger,
Charmed by the world’s delight,
Things that are higher, things that are nobler,
These have allured my sight.

Refrain

I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free;
Jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee.
I will hasten, hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free;
Jesus, Jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee.

I am resolved to go to the Savior,
Leaving my sin and strife;
He is the true One, He is the just One,
He hath the words of life.

I am resolved to follow the Savior,
Faithful and true each day;
Heed what He sayeth, do what He willeth,
He is the living Way.

I am resolved to enter the kingdom
Leaving the paths of sin;
Friends may oppose me, foes may beset me,
Still will I enter in.

I am resolved, and who will go with me?
Come, friends, without delay,
Taught by the Bible, led by the Spirit,
We’ll walk the heav’nly way.

Fillmore wrote the music; Palmer Hartsough to the above hymn.

 James Henry Fillmore, Sr. died this date, 2/8/1936 at Cincinnati, Ohio.  He started sup­port­ing his fam­i­ly when just sixteen by managing his dad’s sing­ing school.  Later he (and his bro­thers) found­ed the Fill­more Bro­thers Mu­sic House in Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio. Fillmore wrote the music; Jes­sie Pounds wrote the words in a thirty year arrangement of gospel songs.  He was born 6/1/1849, in Cin­cin­na­ti.

Re – Parable?

Do not try to repair

 

            the Lord’s Parables –

 

They’re not for man to change –

 

            They are “irreparable.”             

- eab, 11/27/09

Judge, Lawgiver, King

Isaiah * tells us God is Judge, Lawgiver, and King.

America, it seems, tried to produce the same thing,

But since merely men and not the great God,

“Judicial, Legislative, Executive” got the nod,

None of whom are trusted the whole power to swing.

                   - eab, 2/7/09        (*Isa 33.22)

Hannah Whitall Smith – birth, Feb. 7, 1832

The lump of clay, from the moment it comes under the transforming hand of the potter, is, during each day and each hour of the process, just what the potter wants it to be at that hour or on that day, and therefore pleases him. But it is very far from being matured into the vessel he intends in the future to make it.

            – Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life (Westwood, NJ:                                Fleming Revell Co., 1952), 33.

Hannah Whitall Smith was born this date, 2/7/1832, at Philadelphia, PA.  She was a daughter of well-to-do Quaker parents.  After she married Robert Piersall Smith they converted to the group called Plymouth Brethren.  They were said to have a “new experience” (1867) and began a speaking tour of the United States and Europe. Their “Higher Christian Life” meetings in England were popular.  In 1875 she published, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life a book which has been printed in several languages.

Context, Context!

Read Scripture correctly?

 

Read Scripture contextually!

- eab, 1/16/10