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The Undriven Life—The Christian Difference, Part 3 by Carolyn Cote
The impromptu speech I gave that day was thought-provoking but not genius. Abortion became legal by a Supreme Court ruling on January 22, 1973. Average Americans were stunned and Catholics led the protests. They helped expose the truth of what abortion truly meant: innocent babies being killed with saline or dismembered in their mother’s wombs. Making abortion illegal again appeared straightforward—show America what abortion really was and they would never support it. In some cases, this informative approach worked but before long, clinics opened nation-wide and were performing an average of 4000 abortions a day. Still, the information campaign continued. The pro-abortion folks rebuffed every exposing truth: it’s not…
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Psalm 127:1 and 1 Cor. 3:11-23
I’m really good at good ideas to do good things. They spring up from the depths within, take form and within seconds they stand like monuments to my self. I can see God smiling down like an illuminating ray of sunshine on my finished work, pointing the way to others. If only more people were like me, I think. I should write a book to help them become more like me. God needs more people like me! What a good idea! You see how it goes. And goes. And goes. Driven by the “knowledge of good,” the process sources its energy from that very satisfying and powerful thing called, “self.”…
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Shelter-In-Place Faith
Homeland Security uses an interesting instruction to citizens when their region has a developing and dangerous situation: “Shelter-In-Place” I like this term, a lot. It suggests a faith-filled waiting–the perfect life-code for those who follow Christ. “Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart.” Psalm 27 “THE expression, “Wait on the Lord,” does not mean so much a rendering of service to the Lord, as a waiting for the Lord, a waiting before Him, to see what is His will for us. We do not understand that it has the thought of ministering to the Lord, as a servant would wait on his master,…
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A Night in the Chestnut Tree, John G. Paton
Out of all our experiences on this earth, none will transform us like that of being met by Christ in the midst of our pain, our fear, our need. John G. Paton describes one such occasion he experienced while fleeing the clubs of the natives who sought to take his life: “I climbed into the tree, and was left there alone in the bush. The hours I spent there live all before me as if it were but of yesterday. I heard the frequent discharge of muskets, and the yells of the savages. Yet I sat there among the branches, as safe in the arms of Jesus! Never, in all…
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You were changed in Him!
“Brothers in the context of our inclusion in Christ, we are blameless; we participate in this heavenly identity. We have become fully acquainted with Christ Jesus as the Ambassador and Chief Priest of our confession. Our lives co-echo the logic of God’s eternal conversation in him.” Heb. 3:1(Mirror Word, trans.) This life seems to move and radiate with such shifts, sometimes they seem to contain such ecstasy and at other moments such devastation. As a people of experience, we sometimes think and begin to believe all these moments added together define our person. Yet, in the midst of it all there is a whisper. There is a voice, an echo,…
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The Labourer’s Rest by Philpot (1802-1869)
J. C. Philpot’s spiritual treasure came from pressures within and without. From within he suffered chronic poor health and from without he suffered the consequences of choosing the heart of Christ over the religious institutions of his day. The following is a portion from one of his sermons preached in London, England, on July 27, 1845. “The Lord sees that many of His dear children are toiling and struggling to do something pleasing in His sight. And, whatever disappointments they continually meet-whatever rents are made in the web which they are weaving to clothe themselves with; however short they find the bed, and however narrow the garment-yet many go on…
