I'm a Georgia peach of Scottish ancestry, transplanted now in Missouri. I love my God, my family and my country - in that order. I enjoy rooting for my favorite American Idol contestants, knitting, reading, gardening, swimming, puppies, kitties, football, poetry, music, soaking in the hot tub, chocolate, Merlot and Margaritas (in moderation). Other than that... What do you want to know? And why?
I am crazy about my grand daughter Hannah Grace!
More Emergent-See Po-Motivator posters at Pyromaniacs
Are you a good person?
True Christian Love
A.W. Pink Love is the Queen of the Christian graces. It is a holy disposition given to us when we are born again by God. It is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. True spiritual love is characterized by meekness and gentleness, yet it is vastly superior to the courtesies and kindnesses of the flesh.
We must be careful not to confuse human sentimentality, carnal pleasantries, human amiability and affability with true spiritual love. The love God commands, first to Himself and then to others, is not human love. It is not the indulgent, self-seeking love which is in us by nature. If we indulgently allow our children to grow up with little or, no Scriptural discipline, Proverbs plainly says we do not love them, regardless of the human sentimentality and affection we may feel for them. Love is not a sentimental pampering of one another with a loose indifference as to our walk and obedience before the Lord. Glossing over one another's faults to ingratiate ourselves in their esteem is not spiritual love.
The true nature of Christian love is a righteous principle which seeks the highest good of others. It is a powerful desire to promote their welfare. The exercise of love is to be in strict conformity to the revealed will of God. We must love in the truth. Love among the brethren is far more than an agreeable society where views are the same. It is loving them for what we see of Christ in them, loving them for Christ's sake.
The Lord Jesus Himself is our example. He was not only thoughtful, gentle, self-sacrificing and patient, but He also corrected His mother, used a whip in the Temple, severely scolded His doubting disciples, and denounced hypocrites. True spiritual love is above all faithful to God and uncompromising towards all that is evil. We cannot declare, 'Peace and Safety' when in reality there is spiritual decay and ruin!
True spiritual love is very difficult to exercise because it is not our natural love. By nature we would rather love sentimentally and engender good feelings. Also many times true spiritual love is not received in love, but is hated as the Pharisees hated it. We must pray that God will fill us with His love and enable us to exercise it without dissimulation toward all.
You are what you believe
“You cannot separate what a man believes from what he is. For this reason doctrine is vitally important. Certain people say ignorantly, "I do not believe in doctrine; I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; I am saved, I am a Christian, and nothing else matters". To speak in that way is to court disaster, and for this reason, the New Testament itself warns us against this very danger. We are to guard ourselves against being "tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine", for if your doctrine goes astray your life will soon suffer as well. So it behoves us to study the doctrines in order that we may safeguard ourselves against certain erroneous and heretical teachings that are as rife and as common in the world today as they were in the days of the early Church”. Martyn-Lloyd Jones
Truth then Unity
“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 the truth: thy Word is truth.” Only those sanctified through the Word can be one in Christ. To teach otherwise is to betray the Gospel.” C.H. Spurgeon
"The Wolves in Lamb Woolies"
(Ode to Theological Liberalism)
Watch Out for the Wolves Within - John Piper
Excerpt: Let me just mention one feature to watch out for in the recognition of wolves. As I have watched the movement from Biblical faithfulness to liberalism in persons and institutions that I have known over the years this feature stands out: An emotional disenchantment with faithfulness to what is old and fixed, and an emotional preoccupation with what is new or fashionable or relevant in the eyes of the world.
Lets try to say it another way: when this feature is prevalent, you don't get the impression that a person really longs to bring his mind and heart into conformity to fixed Biblical truth. Instead you see the desire to picture Biblical truth as unfixed, fluid, undefinable, distant, inaccessible and so open to the trends of the day.
So what marks a possible wolf-in-the-making is not simply that he rejects or accepts any particular Biblical truth, but that he isn't deeply oriented on the Bible. He is more oriented on experience. He isn't captured by the great old faith once for all delivered to the saints. Instead he's enamored by what is new and innovative.
A good elder can be creative. But the indispensable mark when it comes to doctrinal fitness is faithfulness to what is fixed in Scripture—disciplined, humble submission to the particular affirmations of the Bible—carefully and reverently studied and explained and cherished. When that spirit begins to go there's a wolf-in-the-making.
So the third incentive for elders is the ever-present danger of wolves in sheep's clothing who twist the truth and lead the people away to destruction.
"From the very beginning, the battle between good and evil has been a battle for the truth. The serpent, in the Garden of Eden, began his temptation by questioning the truthfulness of God’s previous instruction: “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’? … “You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:1,4–5). And this has been his tactic ever since—casting doubt on the straightforward revelation of God."
John MacArthur
The Importance of Being “Truth-Driven”
“Our concern with truth is an inevitable expression of our concern with God. If God exists then he is the measure of all things, and what he thinks about all things is the measure of what we should think. Not to care about truth is not to care about God. To love God passionately is to love truth passionately. Being God-centered in life means being truth-driven in ministry. What is not true is not of God. What is false is anti-God. Indifference to the truth is indifference to the mind of God. Pretense is rebellion against reality and what makes reality is God. Our concern with truth is simply an echo of our concern with God.”
John Piper
Baptist General Conference Annual Meeting
July 1 & 2, 1993
Des Moines, Iowa
The Danger of Drift
"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated."D. A. Carson, "For the Love of God"
"A real Christian is an odd number, anyway. He feels supreme love for the One whom he has never seen; talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see; expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another; empties himself in order to be full; admits he is wrong so he can be declared right; goes down in order to get up; is strongest when he is weakest; richest when he is poorest and happiest when he feels the worst. He dies so he can live; forsakes in order to have; gives away so he can keep; sees the invisible; hears the inaudible; and knows that which passeth understanding."
A.W. Tozer
Truth becomes the sacrifice:
* when absolutism is out, and relativism is in;
* when obedience is out, and pragmatism is in;
* when teaching is out, and dialogue is in;
* when thus saith the Lord is out, and consensus of opinion is in;
* when using Scripture to judge right and wrong is out, and unity with tolerance at all costs is in;
* when the narrow way is out, and the broad way is in.
While Christians have slumbered, the new way of thinking and acting has been built up underneath the old, leaving the old to crumble virtually without notice.
In The Name of Purpose: Sacrificing Truth on the Altar of Unity
"No one can know the true grace of God who has not first known the fear of God."
A.W. Tozer
Truth’s Ancestry
by Horatius Bonar The old is better than the new,
The oldest still the best;
And on that oldest of the old
My stedfast faith I rest.
I rest where righteous men of old
Their resting-place once made;
The promise of the woman’s seed
To crush the serpent’s head.
That is the oldest of the old,
Yet newest of the new;
In every age the light of time,
In every age the true. |
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek him, seeking me;
It was not I that found, O Saviour true,
No, I was found of thee.
Thou didst reach forth thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea,
`Twas not so much that I on thee took hold,
As thou, dear Lord on me.
I find, I walk, I love, but, O the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord to thee;
For thou wert long before-hand with my soul,
Always thou lovedst me.
Anonymous |
White Revelations
by Georgia Starbuck Galatiansbraith To human eyes, too much of light
Is blinding as the blackest night.
And this is so, too, of the mind,
In total ignorance it's blind.
But more truth than it can absorb
Will overwhelm the mental orb.
So, lest our vision burn to ashes
God shows us truth in bits and flashes,
White revelations that the brain
Can comprehend and yet stay sane.
And we, poor fools, demand truth's noon
Who scarce can bear its crescent moon.
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| Your Political Profile: |
| Overall: 90% Conservative, 10% Liberal |
| Social Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal |
| Personal Responsibility: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal |
| Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal |
| Ethics: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal |
| Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal |
My Conservative Identity:
You are a Freedom Crusader, also known as a neoconservative. You believe in taking the fight directly to the enemy, whether it’s terrorists abroad or the liberal terrorist appeasers at home who give them aid and comfort.
