Good Friday

He was pierced for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our sins.
The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him
And by His wounds we are healed.

(Isaiah 53:5--written over 700 years before Christ's birth)

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Watch the video of "By His Wounds" from the CD Glory Revealed here on YouTube.

Happy Easter!  He is risen!

In Christ Alone

The photos in this post were taken during a recent trip to the Explorations in Antiquity Center. 

A mosaic of loaves and fish near the entrance to the Explorations in Antiquity Center.

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless Babe

A rock-cut manger.  Caves were often used as stables.

This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save

The inscription "King of Jews"--the written charge against Jesus--was written in three languages:  Hebrew, Latin, and Greek

A shadow box filled with a description of crucifixion, lots like the soldiers used to decide who would get Jesus' clothing, and an example of a crucifixion nail through a foot

They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing (Psalm 22:18 NIV)

'Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied

Existing trees were often used instead of an entire movable cross in areas that did not have an abundance of sturdy trees.  The condemned criminal would carry the horizontal piece rather than both the vertical and horizontal pieces; that is what is depicted here. 

For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

To the left and behind the cross, you can see the sponge on a hyssop stalk that is similar to what Jesus was given vinegar to drink from while he hung on the cross (John 19:29).  When the crucified person was on this type of cross (using an existing tree as the vertical piece), they were not very high off the ground.  Hyssop plants grow to be up to 60 cm long.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain

A body prepared for burial in a tomb

Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again

The empty tomb

Empty burial cloths (center), as well as a wrapped body and ossuary boxes

And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From a life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny

No power of @#!*% , no scheme of man
Could ever pluck me from His hand
'Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I stand


Listen to one version of "In Christ Alone" here on YouTube.

 More photos from our visit:

An example of a city gate on the right.

Bells hung from a doorpost.

Inside a home

A millstone:  But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. (Matthew 18:6 NIV)

 

For perspective on the immense size of the millstone.

 

The entrance to a tomb was small enough that an adult would have to crouch down to enter.

Sunsets

Peace is seeing a sunrise or a sunset and knowing Whom to thank. 

Anonymous  

 

 

 

 

All photos are SOOC.

Rest

Who can help being out of breath when the race is continued without intermission? Even beasts of burden must be turned out to grass occasionally. The very sea pauses at ebb and flood. Earth keeps the sabbath of the wintry months. And man, even when exalted to be God's ambassador, must rest or faint; must trim his lamp or let it burn low; must recruit his vigor or grow prematurely old. It is wisdom to take occasional furlough.

In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.

~Charles Spurgeon

Let the stable still astonish

But when the time was right, God sent his Son, and a woman gave birth to him. Galatians 4:4 (CEV)

Please click over to read the short poem Let the Stable Still Astonish by Leslie Leyland Field.

Merry CHRISTmas!

The Psalms of Ascent

I am revisiting the Beth Moore study I finished, oh, in late February, so let's pretend this is a time warp and go with it as part of the "What I Learned This Week" blog carnival hosted by Jo-Lynne at Musing of a Housewife, OK?

To keep this a little more readable without citing references constantly, I am simply grouping my notes by the weekly video sessions, since many of the references are the fill-in-the-blanks in the viewer's guide. This Bible study on the Psalms of Ascent brought in the history and the meaning of the Feasts to which the pilgrims were traveling.

To the best of my knowledge, I took accurate notes during this study. If you spot any errors, please let me know. If you want to add something you learned on this topic, whether through this particular study or something else, please feel free to leave it in a comment!

Ready?

~~~~~

Stepping Up: A Journey Through the Psalms of Ascent

by Beth Moore

Viewer Guide, Introductory Session:
The Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134) were sung on the pilgrimages to the Three Great Feasts in Jerusalem:
1. The Feast of Unleavened Bread/Passover (Spring)
2. The Feast of Weeks/Pentecost (Early Summer)
3. The Feast of Tabernacles (Fall)


Viewer Guide, Session Two:
Passover pictures the death of the Messiah.
The blood of the Passover lamb was painted on the door frame with the hysop plant (see Exodus 12:7, John 10:11 and Psalm 51:7). The cleansing of sins came through the blood of the sacrificial lamb.

Jesus Christ is our Passover (1 Corithians 5:7).

The Feast of the Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:17, Mark 14:1) pictures the burial of the Messiah. Leaven became symbolic of sin (Matthew 16:5-9). Beth quoted The Feasts of the Lord and said, “Ancient rabbis…believed that leaven represents the evil impulses of the heart. This fermentation implied a process of corruption.” The Feast of Unleavened Bread was a week of sanctification to get all of the leaven (sin) out of them.

Jesus Christ is our Unleavened Bread because He is without sin and without corruption.

The Feast of Firstfruits pictures the resurrection of the Messiah.

Jesus Christ is the Firstfruits (1 Corinthians 15:20-24).


Viewer Guide, Session Three:
The Feast of Weeks (Hebrew Shavuot) derives its name from the seven weeks separating it from the Feast of Firstfruits. It is also known by the Greek name of Pentecost (for “fiftieth“) as well as the Feast of the Harvest (Exodus 23:16).

The Feast of Weeks was a time of remembering their bondage; therefore, we (present-day believers) should focus on the freedom Christ has given you.

The Feast of Weeks was a time of great generosity: generous grace, and generous giving.


Viewer Guide, Session Four:
The Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths) has a strong emphasis on the Messiah (Psalm 118:24-26). This is the most Messianic of the Feasts, and there is always a great sense of expectancy with an invitation for God to bring the Messiah.
Palm branches are associated with the Feast of Tabernacles. In Matthew 21, there is an immediate leap forward into the Feast of Tabernacles. The palm branches showed the people’s expectancy that this was the Messiah.

This is also the picture in Matthew 17:4, when Peter asks “Shall I build three tabernacles?” He was thinking, “Is it time for the feast? This has to be the Messiah!”

The pinnacle moment of the celebration was the ceremonial water pouring each day, drawn from the Pool of Siloam and carried back to the temple to be poured out for God. (Beth quoted someone who said, “Those who have never experienced the joy of water drawing have never experienced joy in their lives.“ So…this was big.) The seventh day was the biggest celebration, and this is the setting of John 7:37-39 (see also John 7:2). The Israelite priests are dancing before the procession with torches and music, joyfully singing “Send Messiah now!” (Psalm 118) while the water is being poured out…and then Jesus says, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

Jesus Christ is the source of living water (John 4:10, Revelation 7:17).

One of the things Beth said, probably a few times, is "He keeps the Feasts!" or "He keeps the calendar!" As we learned in the Beth Moore Bible study on the tabernacle, the tabernacle was a pattern of the reality in heaven. These Jewish feasts are a pattern of a spiritual reality fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

~~~~~

If you have the chance to do this Bible study, please do it! And if you cannot do the entire Bible study, consider viewing the video sessions online at www.lifeway.com/women. You will be blessed by what you learn!

Visit Musing of a Housewife to see what others have learned this week.

Faith to be strong

Tuesday night was the final session for our Beth Moore Bible study, Stepping Up: A Journey Through the Psalms of Ascent. I have had a particular Andrew Peterson song in my head since I heard it before going to the Bible study this week. It turns out that this song fits quite nicely with the last video session, where Beth talks about how God will give us the strength to take the next step...daily grace. Praise God!

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And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Ephesians 2: 6-9

~~~~~

Faith To Be Strong

Give us faith to be strong
Father, we are so weak
Our bodies are fragile and weary
As we stagger and stumble to walk where you lead
Give us faith to be strong

Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it's hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong

Give us peace when we're torn
Mend us up when we break
This flesh can be wounded and shaking
When there's much too much trouble for one heart to take
Give us peace when we're torn

Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it's hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong

Give us hearts to find hope
Father, we cannot see
How the sorrow we feel can bring freedom
And as hard as we try, Lord, it's hard to believe
So, give us hearts to find hope

Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it's hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong
Give us peace when we're torn
Give us faith, faith to be strong

--By Andrew Peterson, from the album Carried Along (2000)

You can click here to listen to the song for free.

Tears are valuable

Scripture never condemns grief. Tears are valuable. They are God-given relief mechanisms.

There are some who chide tears as unmanly, unsubmissive, unchristian. They would comfort us with a chill and pious stocism, bidding us meet the most agitating passages of our history with rigid and tearless countenance. With such the spirit of the Gospel, and of the Bible, has little sympathy. We have no sympathy with a morbid sentimentality; but we may well question whether the man who cannot weep can really love, for sorrow is love, widowed and bereaved--and where that is present, its most natural expression is in tears. Religion does not come to make us unnatural and inhuman; but to purify and ennoble all those natural emotions with which our manifold nature is endowed. Jesus wept. Peter wept. The Ephesian converts wept on the neck of the Apostle whose face they were never to see again. Christ stands by each mourner, saying, "Weep, my child; weep, for I have wept."

Tears relieve the burning brain, as a shower the electric clouds. Tears discharge the unsupportable agony of the heart, as an overflow lessens the pressure of the flood against the dam. Tears are the material out of which heaven weaves its brightest rainbow.

F. B. Meyer, Abraham

"Be still, and know that I am God"

Early February is just hard for me. It holds the anniversaries of the deaths of two very important people in my life. With this in mind, I put the following quotes together for me as much as for you. I already had the general post in mind, but I pulled a lot of this from our pastor's sermon yesterday.

~~~~~

When you lay me down to die, I'll miss my boys. I'll miss my girls.
Lay me down and let me say goodbye to this world.
You can lay me anywhere, oh, but just remember this:
When you lay me down to die, you lay me down to live.

...When you lay me down to die, I'll open up my eyes
In the skies I've never known, in the place where I belong.
And I'll realize that His love is just another word for home.

I believe in the holy shores of uncreated light.
I believe there is power in the blood.
And all of the death that ever was,
If you set it next to life,
I believe it would barely fill a cup
‘Cause I believe there’s power in the blood.

Andrew Peterson, Lay Me Down
From the album The Far Country. Full lyrics are here.

You can listen to this song, and other Andrew Peterson songs, here. Also, he's on YouTube.

~~~~~

In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.

John 14:2 (NIV)


~~~~~

Soon you will read in the newspaper that I am dead. Don't believe it for a moment. I will be more alive than ever before.

Dwight L. Moody

~~~~~

What is mortal will be swallowed up by life.

2 Corinthians 5:4b (NASB)

~~~~~

You haven't lost anything when you know were it is. Death can hide but not divide.

Vance Havner

~~~~~

God is too good to be unkind. He is too wise to be confused. If I cannot trace His hand, I can always trust His heart.

Charles Spurgeon

~~~~~

Be still, and know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10a (NIV)

Wordless Wednesday: Without excuse

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Romans 1:20 (NIV)

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom or Wordless Wednesday for more Wordless Wednesday participants.

News Headlines

On the day when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is making news with her statement "Contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government" (Really? Tell that to European nations...), I thought I would share a beautiful story I found in my inbox today. Those of you who email me with various stories that are forwarded from inbox to inbox probably know that I will look on snopes.com or wherever before forwarding anything. Well, I investigated this story and found the text of this email nearly word-for-word here, and also found the story here and here.

~~~~~

Pam's Story

Pam knows about the pain of considering abortion.

More than 21 years ago, she and her husband, Bob, were serving as missionaries to the Philippines and praying for a fifth child. Pam contracted amoebic dysentery, an infection of the intestine caused by a parasite found in a contaminated food or drink. She entered into a coma and was treated with strong antibiotics before they discovered she was pregnant. Doctors urged her to abort the baby for her own safety and told her that the medicines had caused irreversible damage to her baby. She refused the abortion and cited her Christian faith as the reason for her hope that her son would be born without the devastating disabilities physicians predicted.

The doctors "didn't think of it as a life, they thought of it as a mass of fetal tissue," Pam said.

While pregnant, Pam nearly lost their baby four times but refused to consider abortion. She recalled making a pledge to God with her husband, "If you will give us a son, we'll name him 'Timothy,' and we'll make him a preacher."

Pam ultimately spent the last two months of her pregnancy in bed and, eventually, gave birth to a health baby boy August 14, 1987.

Pam's youngest son is indeed a preacher. He preaches in prisons, makes hospital visits, and serves with his father's ministry in the Philippines .

He also plays football. Pam's son is Tim Tebow.

Last year, the University of Florida 's star quarterback, became the first sophomore in history to win college football's highest award, the Heisman Trophy. Tim's notoriety and the family's inspiring story have given Pam numerous opportunities to speak on behalf of women's centers across the country.

She was the keynote speaker at the Oct. 23, 2008, benefit banquet for two Louisville ministries. A Woman's Choice Resource Center offers such services as free pregnancy tests, post-abortion counseling, adoption information, and material support. Necole's Place is a companion ministry that provides support services for women in need.

Several Louisville-area Kentucky Baptist churches and Long Run Baptist Association help support both ministries.

A Woman's Choice board chairman, John Schmitt, reported at the banquet that in the 20 years since the resource center opened, 4,500 children have been saved from abortion -- 400 in this year alone.

Speaking of the thousands of lives saved, Pam Tebow said, "That just blows my mind. Every little baby you save matters."

Inauguration Day

Pray for rulers and for all who have authority so that we can have quiet and peaceful lives full of worship and respect for God.
1 Timothy 2:2 (NCV)

Please remember to pray for our new president and his family. Here are some sites you may want to check out, too:

Pastor John Pearrell has written an open letter to our new leaders.

Beth Moore has opened the LPM blog to prayers for our new president today.

Max Lucado has a prayer guide on his website. There is also a downloadable PDF version on this page.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV)

Who do you say He is?

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Overheard

Grace [looking at a funny picture of herself around 9 months old]: Momma, I want you ta put dis on thuh-buh-log [the blog]!

~~~~~

Josiah [incredulous]: You mean I behaved all day for nothin'? [muttering under his breath as he leaves the room] What a waste!

~~~~~

Jason [singing part of a song he made up that uses any of our children's names]: There once was a little girl named Grace.

Grace [singing to the same tune]: There once was a little girl named Daddy.

~~~~~

Robert [after picking up the library books that were being held for me]" They're all for people like you. [BIG goofy grin]

The titles? One was from the "Complete Idiot's" series, and the other was from the "Dummies Guide" series. Oh, hardy-har-har.

~~~~~

Beth Moore [quoting a friend of hers, during the introductory session of the "Psalms of Ascent" Bible study that began at our church tonight, talking about overcoming nervousness, self-consciousness, etc.]: You're not good enough to mess God up!

Remind yourself of that the next time you are nervous about doing or saying something. And, please, remind me, too.

~~~~~

Grace [eating ice cream with Daddy]: Oh! My nose is cold! It needs a jacket!

~~~~~

Grace [excitedly opening the door for me as I came home from Bible study]: Hi, Mommy! We made cookies! And we saved you some! [She paused as she ran over to pick up the container on the the table, which she excitedly held out to me] HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

No, it's not my birthday. ;) Did I mention she was excited?

Joy to the World!

Joy to the world is not produced by consuming or purchasing or the things that we possess, nor is it found in their absence, or lack. Joy is a person, and that person is Jesus. He sowed tears of joy and sadness. He brings joy from our tears and fills our hearts with gladness at his coming. Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning. Joy to the world!

By Margaret Manning

Please follow the link to read the article this quote is an excerpt from. Pastor John included portions as part of his sermon on Sunday.

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;

His love endures forever.

1 Chronicles 16:34 (NIV)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

"Jesus loves me! This I know, for the Bible tells me so."

--Theologian Karl Barth, when asked what was the greatest thought to have ever passed through his mind.






Grace's exact lyrics:

Jesus loves me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones want Him be strong.
He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me.

We do want Him to be strong, don't we? And He is strong!

Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion

This page makes me so happy. (Thank you to Shannon, since I found the link through her blog!)

A Timely Reminder from Daniel

Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever;

wisdom and power are His.

He changes times and seasons;

He sets up kings and deposes them.

He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.

He reveals deep and hidden things;

He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him.

Daniel 2:20-22

More Clouds

And these are but the outer fringe of His works;

how faint the whisper we hear of Him!

Who then can understand the thunder of His power?

Job 26:14 NIV

God's voice thunders in marvelous ways;

He does great things beyond our understanding.

Job 37:5 NIV