Kimmy's Ponderings

To paraphrase Lewis: We have replaced the question "Is it good?" with the question "Is it fun?" I so needed to read this today....we are in a 'battle' and we don't see it....it's not outside it's 'within' our walls. yes it can be good and fun....but sometimes it's fun and no good...producing what?

"But it took me a while to understand that religion is not a course in self-improvement. Religion is a surrender – that you allow a living God into your life by surrendering to that living God. And then you improve to please God, not please yourself." ~former President George W. Bush

Now Christ was probably born in the Spring but who cares...LOL Great Poem! Usually found on Christmas Cards. In the Bleak Midwinter Christina Rossetti (1872) In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter Long ago. Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him Nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away When He comes to reign: In the bleak mid-winter A stable-place sufficed The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ. Enough for Him, whom cherubim Worship night and day, A breastful of milk And a mangerful of hay; Enough for Him, whom angels Fall down before, The ox and ass and camel Which adore. Angels and archangels May have gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim Thronged the air, But only His mother In her maiden bliss, Worshipped the Beloved With a kiss. What can I give Him, Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb, If I were a wise man I would do my part, Yet what I...

Singing a special Christmas Song Tomorrow at Church. I learned two new precious songs and practiced 4 but This one made me cry in worship..so powerful..our shared testimony unto Him.....He is the Great Love that Came Down.. Love Came For Me If you had not come Tender baby King And Humbly left your throne To Reach someone Like Me If you had not walked upon this broken ground Where on earth would I be now? If you had not come If You had not come To Seek the sick and lame To set the captives free To break the prisoner's chains I'd still be in the dark Grappling for the door Looking for someway, somehow But Love Came for me Love Rescued me Love called my name Love took my place Sweet Lamb of God I'm bowing down My eyes have seen I'm finally free Love Came for me If You had not come Willing spotless Lamb My sin would be too much For you to take me as I am But Oh the Blood of Christ That washes over me Flowing from His Hands, His feet But Love Came for me Love rescued me Lov...

Trials and Pain: Faultfinders But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. --2 Corinthians 4:7-9 Nowhere else in the entire New Testament is the humanity of the great apostle [Paul] seen so clearly as when he staggers under the cruel attacks of the anti-Paul bloc in the Corinthian church. His sufferings are there the most poignant and nearest to the sufferings of Christ because they are inward and of the soul. For always the soul can suffer as the body cannot.... But from Paul and his afflictions we may learn much truth, some of it depressing and some altogether elevating and wonderful. We may learn, for instance, that malice needs nothing to live on; it can feed on itself. A contentious spirit will find something to quarrel about. A faultfinder will find occasion to accuse ...

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"I wonder if we're ready to consider the possiblity - just the possiblity now - that our Protestant-evangelical reaction to Darwin is amazingly similar to the Roman Catholic reaction to Copernicus and Galileo." -Brian McLaren

The following excerpt is from “Under Constraint,” a sermon preached Sunday morning 28 April 1878 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London: I have not much patience with a certain class of Christians nowadays who will hear anybody preach so long as they can say, “He is very clever, a fine preacher, a man of genius, a born orator.” Is cleverness to make false doctrine palatable? Why, sirs, to me the ability of a man who preaches error is my sorrow rather than my admiration. I cannot endure false doctrine, however neatly it may be put before me. Would you have me eat poisoned meat because the dish is of the choicest ware? It makes me indignant when I hear another gospel put before the people with enticing words, by men who would fain make merchandise of souls; and I marvel at those who have soft words for such deceivers. “That is your bigotry,” says one. Call it so if you like, but it is the bigotry of the loving John who wrote—”If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, re...

"What if there are thousands of John Calvins out there.... what if God decided to make a lot of them gay?" –– Brian McLaren , Lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary, Nov. 2005 Brian McLaren's response when asked about gay marriage: "You know what, the thing that breaks my heart is that there's no way I can answer it without hurting someone on either side." ––Brian McLaren, Time magazine interview, February 2005 ~~~ "I hesitate in answering "the homosexual question" not because I'm a cowardly flip-flopper who wants to tickle ears, but because I am a pastor, and pastors have learned from Jesus that there is more to answering a question than being right or even honest: we must also be . . . pastoral. That means understanding the question beneath the question, the need or fear or hope or assumption that motivates the question." --Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question, Out of Ur, Jan. 2006 ~~~ "Frankly, many of us don't know...

The Old Cross and the New ALL UNANNOUNCED AND MOSTLY UNDETECTED there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental. From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique-a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before. The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam's proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives ...

From "WHY REVIVAL TARRIES" -by Leonard Ravenhill. Today God is bypassing men -- not because they are too ignorant, but because they are too self-sufficient. Brethren, our abilities are our handicaps, and our talents our stumbling blocks! Elijah lived with God. He thought about the nation's sin like God; he grieved over sin like God; he spoke against sin like God. He was all passion in his prayers and passionate in his denunciation of evil in the land. He had no smooth preaching. Passion fired his preaching, and his words were on the hearts of men as molten metal on their flesh. Brethren, if we will do God's work in God's way, at God's time, with God's power, we shall have God's blessing and the devil's curses. When God opens the windows of heaven to bless us, the devil will open the doors of hell to blast us. God's smile means the devil's frown! Mere preachers may help anybody and hurt nobody; but prophets will stir everybody and madden som...

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties. Oswald Chambers There are times when we get 'side-swiped.' When Finally for a short time since the last time..... it's seemingly All quiet on the Northern Front when 'Bamm' faster than Emerill Lagasse can throw a shoemaker spice blend into a pot of Alligator Gumbo....adversity of the tailoredkind, special reserve blend comes to wield it's perfect work striking it's poker hot flame to our lives. Overwhelmed like standing over Pork Loins being blackened for a 200 person wedding...we choke for a moment while billows of black smoke rise..we're searching for the exit sign...for clean air. Then 60 seconds later...we're fixed...not going to run anywhere but to Dad. We run boldy to Him for we've learned His arms are our only refuge. With Him the air is cool and clear.....His Heart is Full with mercy and grace for our every need. Our overwhelmed heart is led by grace to the Rock that is hi...

I prayed for strength, and then I lost awhile All sense of nearness, human and divine; The love I leaned on failed and pierced my heart, The hands I clung to loosed themselves from mine; But while I swayed, weak, trembling, and alone, The everlasting arms upheld my own. I prayed for light; the sun went down in clouds, The moon was darkened by a misty doubt, The stars of heaven were dimmed by earthly fears, And all my little candle flames burned out; But while I sat in shadow, wrapped in night, The face of Christ made all the darkness bright. I prayed for peace, and dreamed of restful ease, A slumber drugged from pain, a hushed repose; Above my head the skies were black with storm, And fiercer grew the onslaught of my foes; But while the battle raged, and wild winds blew, I heard His voice and Perfect peace I knew. I thank Thee, Lord, Thou wert too wise to heed My feeble prayers, and answer as I sought, Since these rich gifts Thy bounty has bestowed Have brought me more than all I asked...

"For myself, I fear any kind of religious stir among Christians that does not lead to repentance and result in a sharp separation of the believer from the world. I am suspicious of any organized revival effort that is forced to play down the hard terms of the Kingdom. No matter how attractive the movement may appear, if it is not founded in righteousness and nurtured in humility it is not of God. If it exploits the flesh it is a religious fraud and should not have the support of any God-fearing Christian. Only that is of God which honors the Spirit and prospers at the expense of the human ego. "That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." - A.W. Tozer, The Divine Conquest

If It Looks Like A Duck Walks Like a Duck Smells Like a Duck Quacks Like a Duck Acts Like a Duck Chances are real good my friend it really is gen-u-ine Duck sincerely, a former Duck We live in a hyper sensitive politically correct culture taught to never call 'ducks ducks'. My Grandmother always called a 'spade a spade'. Spade is just another word for Duck. I always loved that about her. There was safety and trust in knowing that what you saw was what you got. Then I came to Christ and learned that God who is Truth spoke in truth. He adds up; What he says about Himself and what he does. HE who is reality brings people into reality through His Son. Today in the church we have thrown the Gospel and Biblical 'common sense' to the wind and have embraced every strange doctrine, every current trend; too many lies. I have wondered about all the people who watched the Duck. They act out like the characters of the famous story, The Emperor's New Clothes....the Emper...

Wisdom is not the Accumulation of Knowledge but the Application of Knowledge

TOZER: To stand by the truth of God against the current religious vogue is always unpopular and may be downright dangerous.... Christianity's scramble for popularity today is an unconscious acknowledgment of spiritual decline. Her eager fawning at the feet of the world's great is a grief to the Holy Spirit and an embarrassment to the sons of God. The lick-spittle attitude of popular Christian leaders toward the world's celebrities would make such men as Elijah or George Fox sick to the stomach.... Lot was a popular believer. He sat in the gates of Sodom. But when trouble struck, he had to send quick for Abraham to get him out of the jam. And where did they find Abraham? Out on the hillside, far away from the fashionable crowds. It has always been so. For every Elijah there have always been 400 popular prophets of Baal. For every Noah there is always a vast multitude who will not believe it is going to rain. We are sent to bless the world, but never are we told to compromis...

Sometimes The Opponent to Courage is Not Fear but Pride

If I think the same Expect the same React the same Say the same Do the same Resent the same Hate the same I will feel the same. Nothing changes if Nothing changes This 'thing' is too big for me. Today I can choose to cry out for help, to pray for a willing heart a courageous heart that will rise from misty low living into the abundant life purchased for me. I may not 'have it' on how to end a destructive cycle but I know who does....when we are weak He shows Himself strong on my behalf. It is a very good thing to know you are weak.....when we finally come to the end of doing or trying to do in our own strength we are enabled in the grace that knows no measure...love that has no bounds.

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. — Wilbur Rees

Evangelism: Modern Salesmanship They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. --1 John 2:19 In our eagerness to make converts I am afraid we have lately been guilty of using the technique of modern salesmanship, which is of course to present only the desirable qualities in a product and ignore the rest. We go to men and offer them a cozy home on the sunny side of the brae. If they will but accept Christ He will give them peace of mind, solve their problems, prosper their business, protect their families and keep them happy all day long. They believe us and come, and the first cold wind sends them shivering to some counselor to find out what has gone wrong; and that is the last we hear of many of them.... By offering our hearers a sweetness-and-light gospel and promising every taker a place on the sunny side of the brae, we not only cruelly d...

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"To remain divided is sinful! Did not our Lord pray, that they may be one, even as we are one"? (John 17:22). A chorus of ecumenical voices keep harping the unity tune. What they are saying is, "Christians of all doctrinal shades and beliefs must come together in one visible organization, regardless... Unite, unite!" Such teaching is false, reckless and dangerous. Truth alone must determine our alignments. Truth comes before unity. Unity without truth is hazardous. Our Lord's prayer in John 17 must be read in its full context. Look at verse 17: "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." Only those sanctified through the Word can be one in Christ. To teach otherwise is to betray the Gospel. Charles H. Spurgeon, The Essence of Separation

Whenever the method of worship becomes more important than the Person of worship, we have already prostituted our worship. There are entire congregations who worship praise and praise worship but who have not yet learned to praise and worship God in Jesus Christ." (Cornwall, Judson, Worship As Jesus Taught It. Tulsa: Victory House Publishers. 1987. pg. 70.)

In one Church, the pastor, apparently fed up with all the excuses given over the years as to why people don't go to church, included "Ten Reasons Why I Never Wash" in the Sunday bulletin: 1. I was forced to as a child. 2. People who wash are hypocrites -- they think they are cleaner than everybody else. 3. There are so many different kinds of soap, I can't decide which one is best. 4. I used to wash, but I got bored and stopped. 5. I wash only on special occasions, like Christmas and Easter. 6. None of my friends wash. 7. I'll start washing when I get older and dirtier. 8. I can't spare the time. 9. The bathroom is never warm enough in winter or cool enough in summer. 10. People who make soap are only after your money.

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually ...bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified. The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The whole church of God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a higher life. The Pursuit of God, 90.

‎"Much Christian leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead." – Henri J. Nouwen

A museum curator's job is to draw attention to the beauty of the art - he need not try to make it any more beautiful. Same for our witness.

From Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, pages 35-37 Jesus Christ stands between the lover and the others he loves. . . . What love is, only Christ tells in his Word. . . . Where Christ bids me to maintain fellowship for the sake of love, I will maintain it. Where his truth enjoins me to dissolve a fellowship for love’s sake, there I will dissolve it, despite all the protests of my human love. Because spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as a brother. It originates neither in the brother nor in the enemy but in Christ and his Word. Human love can never understand spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above; it is something completely strange, new, and incomprehensible to all earthly love. Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them. As only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others, too, can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the other person from ev...

"There were bells on the hill But I never heard them ringing, No, I never heard them at all Till there was you." I have had the song 'Till There Was You,' from the Musical, The Music Man echoing within the cranium for days now. I'm such a nerd. Yes.... I sang it. Alone. And I cried. ....Of course! Then laughed...with joy. Of course! It's no wonder that the Beatles and Ray Charles recorded this lilting love-ly melody. Even Adam Sandler had a sweet little old lady sing it in the movie, 'The Wedding Singer.' That's where I heard it again last weekend...... channel surfing. Of Course. I couldn't hear the bells either. I once heard but couldn't hear and saw but couldn't see....Till Jesus came into my heart. All has been changed. All has been made new and I will never be the same again. ....' in Your Light we see Light. I have been made to see Life and Light....Christ. My Ears that hear and My Eyes that see, The Lord is the Creator of the...

( The Thrush is a small forest bird. Thrush are known for their beautiful song) I rent an apartment on a property that I have nicknamed 'Coleman Forest' after my Landlord's Name. It has a Pennsylvania-like density of trees that loom neck bending high above the house. It was originally an over 100 year old Deer hunting lodge that has been added to a few times over. This Spring ..for the first time in my 46 years on this earthen sod, the appreciation of hearing birds singing has finally come for me. This Morning I am recently again in child-like wonder as they sing in mighty chorus full in their purpose with an added interpretive dance within the trees. No, Not a small enemic choir....but a very Lush Thrush. A sweet sounding creation groan proclaiming of our Creator Redeemer who lived, lives and will come again..little levitical priests calling for me too to come and worship. I have all my life lived in true New York suburbia.. once in a while you heard A SINGLE bi...

"......the Levites were the ministers of life. Christ, the great Levite, was the Minister of life; and real service to the Lord is that we minister life - not that people come necessarily into a great range of truth, a vast amount of knowledge and information that is purely intellectual or mental, but that they have life ministered to them. That is the seal of the real service of God." T. Austin Sparks The Spiritual Meaning of Service Chapter One

FB Entry Friday Night ...... Watched the movie, 'Let there be Blood,' Tonight...expecting this great Oscar nominated flick forever on my long list of movies to see that I haven't....WHAT was THAT? Double YUK YUK! I feel like I need to wash it off! LOL Still love Daniel Day Lewis' acting though....a repeat of The Last of the Mohican's would have been the better choice. FB Entry Saturday AM Thoughts .....I was really taken back as I watched the most ugly mocking portrayal of christianity I have ever personally seen on the screen last night... thinking this morning of the 'unchurched' looking in at Christianity or just what's offered on TV in the USA in the name of Christ....the hypocrisy, self/man glorifying, little God devaluing, the charlatan; Simon Magus of our day..boasting in the lusts and the pride of life with evil eyes upon that which they are beholding..and the 'church' follows them..scary to me too...I think the movie was really a needed...

Cowards never won heaven. Do not claim that you are begotten of God and have His royal blood running in your veins unless you can prove your lineage by this heroic spirit: to dare to be holy in spite of men and 'devils'." - William Gurnall.

The Bride Never Points to the Bride. Her cultivated Doves Eyes are fixed Upon her Groom. She has the heart cry of the Samaritan Woman at Jacob's well....."Come" and "See," God Give me that pure born from above constant and contagious Heart Cry pointing to YOU in the call to worship.

Worship is not to be experience based or experience driven. God is not after my outward expression. My outward expression should be the response and result of the already forming truth and reality of His inward work;that illuminated revealing of Him. That which is born otherwise will always be performance based . ~km

"You can draw near to God even though you cannot say a word. A prayer may be crystallised in a tear. A tear is enough water to float a desire to God." - Charles H. Spurgeon

"To the church, a revival means humiliation, a bitter knowledge of unworthiness and an open and humiliating confession of sin on the part of her ministers and people. It is not the easy and glorious thing many think it to be, who imagine it fills pews and reinstates the church in power and authority.... It comes to scorch before it heals; it comes to condemn ministers and people for their unfaithful witness, for their selfish living, for their neglect of the cross, and to call them to daily renunciation, to an evangelical poverty and to a deep and daily consecration.Because it says nothing to them of power such as they have learned to love, or of ease, or of success; it accuses them of sin, it tells them they are dead, it calls them to awake, to renounce the world and to follow Christ.” - James Burns in his 1909 book 'Revival, Their Laws and Leaders'.

Psalm 65:4 (King James Version) 4Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. O God who has ears to hear all prayer.vs3...You see and hear all flesh....Though we play a part..Though we say Yes and Agree ....God is and will always be THE Initiator..... It is Grace....that causes us to come.... to worship...to Behold..To see clearly....to see Christ. .Worship is the only right response to such amazing Grace. The Grace that MAKES ME TO BE...the Grace that CAUSES ME to respond to the Initiator and approach....that divine enablement that touches all Flesh. Grace that touches my flesh, my weakness', my undoness. Grace that is GREATER than all my sin...past present and future until that final day. Blessed, Happy is the Man.. yes Happy is the soul whom you choose...who finds it's joy in yours, You who delight to do Your "-God-Thing"...W...

If your eyes are fixed on God, the barren wilderness can flourish...if your eyes are on the pebbles at your feet, even fruit filled lands are waste places!

" Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger." SAINT PATRICK QUOTE

" You can look the other way once, and it's no big deal, except it makes it easier for you to compromise the next time, and pretty soon that's all your doing; compromising, because that's the way you think things are done. You know those guys I busted? You think they were the bad guys? Because they weren't, they weren't bad guys, they were just like you and me. Except they compromised... once. " Jack Bauer 24: Season One

Sin: Will always take you further than you want to go, Keep you longer then you want to stay, and, Cost you more than you want to pay. ...

Union with Christ is the heart or center of all that has been revealed of God's thought concerning man and of man's relationship to God. Union with Christ is like the hub of a mighty wheel. There are many spokes to that wheel - election, creation, redemption, salvation, sanctification, glorification; and then, like a series of subsidiary spokes - repentance, faith, justification, conversion, regeneration, and so on. These are the spokes of the wheel, but they all center in Christ and radiate from Christ and reach the rim, which is God. They unite us in Christ with God. To give all this its true and full value, it is necessary to contemplate or have revealed to us the meaning of Christ, to see what an immense thing has taken place by the Son of God becoming the Son of man, by God becoming incarnate. It is a question of our being taken, not into Godhead or Deity, but into God's Son incarnate. Now, the first preachers of the Christian evangel preached Christ. They did not, in ...

“The whole history of the Church is one long story of this tendency to settle down on this earth and to become conformed to this world, to find acceptance and popularity here and to eliminate the element of conflict and of pilgrimage. That is the trend and the tendency of everything. Therefore outwardly, as well as inwardly, pioneering is a costly thing.” “It is a costly and a suffering thing to come up against the religious system that has’settled down ‘ here. It is far more costly than coming up against the naked world itself. The religious system can be more ruthless and cruel and bitter; it can be actuated by all those mean things, contemptible things, prejudices and suspicions things that you will not even find in decent people in the world. It is costly to go on to the heavenlies, it is painful; but it is the way of the pioneer, and it has to be settled that that is how it is.” T. Austin Sparks (I finshed another little T. Austin Sparks Book yesterday...many happy tears, ponderin...

16Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. 17And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. * peculiar treasure

“It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.” We will become what we are beholding.

"It is reported that you intended in the rebuilding of the wall to make yourself King. and to have it proclaimed that there is a king in Jerusalem, and you are appointing prophets to preach of you." Nehemiah 6:6-7 When the enemy tries that line it is something very disconcerting. It is a horrible suggestion. 'You are trying to make a name for yourself, to get a position for yourself; all this afterall is only a secret motive of yours to get notoriety, to be something and to do something that will make the world take note of you.' If you have any meekness at all that shaft is a very dangerous, cruel one-God only knows what it costs. The enemy tries to impute a false motive to all your labours. 'After all, you only have your own ends in view, trying to do something, to make a name.' Yes, the enemy will stop at nothing-lies or slander. The answer is, 'What is the truth about this? is it true?' After all let us stand back from these lies of the enemy a...

"Dark is life's way, for the night is not yet o'er; the longed-for glimpse I may not meanwhile borrow; But, this I know, He goeth on before." All our supply is to come from the Lord. Here are springs that shall never dry; here are fountains and streams that shall never be cut off. Here, anxious one, is the gracious pledge of the heavenly Father. If He be the source of our mercies they can never fail us. No heat, no drought can parch that river, “the streams whereof make glad the city of God.