What Is More Important?

QUESTION – What’s more important

 

 

 

than working to advance God’s Kingdom? 

 

 

 

ANSWER – Loving the King! 

 

– eab, 11/22/11

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PRAISE TO GOD

 

Praise to Thee be given

From my mouth, Oh God.

Praise for things thought common,

Praise for things quite odd,

Praise for things thought small,

Praise for some items so big.

Praise for the bundle called “all,”

The sheep, the chicken, the cow, the pig.

                – eab,11/25/06

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Gerhard Tersteegen – birth, Nov. 25, 1697

God Calling Yet;  Shall I Not Hear?

 

God calling yet; shall I not hear?
Earth’s pleasures shall I still hold dear?
Shall life’s swift passing years all fly,
And still my soul in slumber lie?

God calling yet; shall I not rise?
Can I His loving voice despise,
And basely His kind care repay?
He calls me still—can I delay?

God calling yet, and shall He knock,
And I my heart the closer lock?
He still is waiting to receive,
And shall I dare His Spirit grieve?

Ah, yield Him all; in Him confide;
Where but with Him doth peace abide?
Break loose, let earthly bonds be riven,
And let the spirit rise to heaven.

God calling yet; and shall I give
No heed, but still in bondage live?
I wait, but He does not forsake;
He calls me still—my heart, awake!

God calling yet; I cannot stay;
My heart I yield without delay;
Vain world, farewell! from thee I part;
The voice of God hath reached my heart.

Gerhard Tersteegen [1] was born this date11/25/1697 at Meurs (maybe seenMors orMoers), Rhenish (maybe seenWestphalia or Nie­der­rhein),Prussia.  He was converted to Christ at age sixteen.  About 1724 he began doing religious teaching supported by gifts from friends. His ministry included the physical and spiritual needs, and the preparing of foods and simple medicines for those less blessed. After 1728, Tersteegen was an itin­er­ant minister in the Pro­test­ant “spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing move­ment” in Niederrhein.  He is known to have translated some French Quietist works.  And he left behind a hymn, “God Calling Yet; Shall I Not Hear?”

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[1] It is claimed that his real name was Dutch “Gerrit ter Steegen”

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Holy Spirit is not – – –

Ritual is predicable

 

 

 – – – and controllable. 

 

 

The blessed Holy Spirit is not.  

 

– eab, 10/12/11        

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Relationships?

Is some human relationship

 

 

 

keeping you from

 

 

 

your Prime Relative:

 

 

 

God the Father?              

– eab, 11/13/11

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CHILDHOOD SURVIVED

Do you still delight

To see a bird in flight,

Or watch him bring his feet from the rear

And put down his landing gear?

 

Do you thrill to see

Geese in their vee,

Pushing north in the spring

On outspread wing?

 

Do you like to see the limb sway

When a squirrel on his way,

Jumps from a tree to its neighbor

With seemingly small labor?

 

Do you still somehow enjoy

As you did when a girl, a boy,

The slight sly form of Mr. fox

Slipping by in white socks?

 

Do you bend your head low

To smell flowers in their glow,

Or take a few in where it’s mild

Samples of God’s natural, wild?

 

If one of the above “is you,”

You still do as you used to do,

Rejoice.  A little of your childhood days

Survived the balding or the “grays.”

                – eab,11/18/09      

 

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Haldor Lillenas – birth, Nov. 19, 1885

Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Greater than all my sin;
How shall my tongue describe it,
Where shall its praise begin?
Taking away my burden,
Setting my spirit free;
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.

Refrain Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus,
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea;
Wonderful grace, all sufficient for me, for even me.
Broader than the scope of my transgressions,
Greater far than all my sin and shame,
O magnify the precious Name of Jesus.
Praise His Name!

2. Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Reaching to all the lost,
By it I have been pardoned,
Saved to the uttermost,
Chains have been torn asunder,
Giving me liberty;
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.

3. Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Reaching the most defiled,
By its transforming power,
Making him God’s dear child,
Purchasing peace and heaven,
For all eternity;
And the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.

Haldor Lillenas was born this date,11/19/1885, at Island of Stord, Norway.  His Lutheran family moved to the US and after a stay in South Dakota (Colton, a few miles NW of Sioux Falls) settled  in Oregon.

 

Haldor was converted to personal faith in Jesus Christ at age 21 under the influence of the  Penial Mission in Portland.  He almost immediately felt a call to minister God’s Holy Word becoming a Nazarene as was his wife, Bertha Mae Wilson, also a song writer.

 

God gave Lillenas some 4,000 Gospel texts plus hundreds of hymn tunes, including the above.  In 1924 he founded Lillenas Music Company (bought by the Nazarenes in 1930) and worked there until he retired in 1950.  He passed away at Aspen, CO, 8/18/1959.

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Estranged Husband

When an estranged husband

 

 

and estranged wife

 

 

come to the foot of the Cross,

 

 

they aren’t far apart. 

 

– eab,11/13/11

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Picture – Poem

Picture worth a 1000 words?

 

It took WORDS to say that!

– eab, 1975

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Moon – Leaf

A late-fall leaf hung on the near tree;

A “finger-nail” moon hung in the sky.

They caught peripheral vision

This early morn, as I walked by.

 

One is a charming, distant white globe;

One close remnant of season past.

One has circled earth for long years;

One’s existence we know cannot last.

 

One gives light to a darkened ole world;

One gave shade in its own (past) “hay day.”

One will flutter some day to earth;

One, we all hope, stays far, far away.

 

One has a rough man in a moon face,

However, it’s basically all round.

One has rugged pointy edges,

Tenaciously the leaf “hangs around.”

 

Distant giant traveling the high sky,

Local leaf silhouetted down here,

Were made by our Heavenly Father

In His powerful, yet tender care.    

          – eab, 11/13/09

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