patience

Be patient under the enmity of the gates of hell. It is all working together for your good. It tends to sanctify. It will keep you awake. It will make you humble. It will drive you nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ. It will wean you from the world. It will help to make you pray more. Above all, it will make you long for heaven. It will teach you to say with heart and lips, 'Come , Lord Jesus. Thy kingdom come'. J. C Ryle

a Pastor's prayer

(I got this on my e mail and thought it was really good)

It seems prayer still upsets some people.

When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard;

"Heavenly Father,We come before you today, to ask your forgiveness and To seek your direction and guidance.We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good' But that is exactly what we have done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem. We have abused power and called it politics.
We have coveted our neighbour's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and Pornography and called it Freedom of speech and expression.
We have ridiculed the time honoured values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!'"

Hard lessons

How easy I find to trust in my own abilities or simply in my self and forget that is God who decides it all. That is US , walking in those ways that He prepared in advance for us to walk on and that our desires are subjected to His will. A lesson that it has been good to receive is this, on how God works in us to will and to act according to His good purpose. He puts desires in our hearts that we may act on them and then and even after we have that desire given by Him, he does not give what we desire... why?.. It is , at least in my life and experience, to work in me. To make me holy and search my heart. To understand that whether God does something or not, He is still God and He is enough.. my obedience is what he requires regardless of the end result, and to learn to trust in Him alone. And that it is He who governs my life. It is at this time that I find that I was trusting in the circumstances, my attributes, my emotions, obeying because of what I wanted, not because of my desire to simply obey my Saviour. But as God works, He is showing me how His sovereignty is in my life. And how He does as He pleases and no one can go against His will.

He is sovereign, He is my King and because obedience is better than sacrifice, I needed this good lesson of obedience, patience and contentment. And for as long as it will last this lesson, I with God's help will be transformed in another area that for many years I have cherished to be mine, forgetting that it is He who lives in me and not me anymore, so nothing in my life, belongs to me, and He has the right to do as He pleases with what is His.

He is enough, His love is sufficient to me, and there is nothing I desire apart from God. And I know I can say this not because I live a life of perfect contentment or holiness which I am still far from it, but because it is a gift of God who enables me to praise Him and glorify Him with my obedience which also was His doing in my life. Thanks be to God for His great mercy.

Shark

My son M, dissected a small shark today in our science class. His presentation was simply amazing!!, and with no problem he dissected the little shark. We saw its heart, liver, stomach, brain, intestine. It was really fun. The smell was not as bad as you can imagine, but the experience was unforgettable!.

Go cart

This HAD to be part of my blog.... M&S worked so hard at it and they were very proud of their end result. They raced it and did very good!. Daddy was the hero in this project!!!.

Volcano

And this is one of the reasons I home school... looking at this faces, makes it worth it all the "clean up " involved in the process of teaching.

quotations

"A man's state before God may always be measured by his prayers. "-J.C Ryle

"No time is so well spent in every day as that which we spend upon our knees. "-J. C. Ryle

"My brethren, let me say, be like Christ at all times. Imitate him in "public." Most of us live in some sort of public capacity—many of us are called to work before our fellow-men every day. We are watched; our words are caught; our lives are examined—taken to pieces. The eagle-eyed, Argus-eyed world observes everything we do, and sharp critics are upon us. Let us live the life of Christ in public. Let us take care that we exhibit our Master, and not ourselves—so that we can say, "It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me." —Charles Spurgeon

"Divine sovereignty is not the sovereignty of a tyrannical Despot, but the exercised pleasure of One who is infinitely wise and good! Because God is infinitely wise He cannot err, and because He is infinitely righteous He will not do wrong. Here then is the preciousness of this truth. The mere fact itself that God's will is irresistible and irreversible fills me with fear, but once I realize that God wills only that which is good, my heart is made to rejoice. "—Arthur W. Pink

“The anvil is not afraid of the hammer.”- Charles Spurgeon

"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him" -John Piper

"How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of a maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence. To say that God the Father has purposed the salvation of all mankind, that God the Son died with the express intention of saving the whole human race, and that God the Holy Spirit is now seeking to win the world to Christ; when, as a matter of common observation, it is apparent that the great majority of our fellow-men are dying in sin, and passing into a hopeless eternity: is to say that God the Father is disappointed, that God the Son is dissatisfied, and that God the Holy Spirit is defeated. We have stated the issue baldly, but there is no escaping the conclusion. To argue that God is “trying His best” to save all mankind, but that the majority of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the Creator is impotent, and that the will of the creature is omnipotent. To throw the blame, as many do, upon the Devil, does not remove the difficulty, for if Satan is defeating the purpose of God, then, Satan is Almighty and God is no longer the Supreme Being."- A.W. PINK


"The winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory. "—Richard Sibbes

"Afflictions are light when compared with what we really deserve. They are light when compared with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. But perhaps their real lightness is best seen by comparing them with the weight of glory which is awaiting us." —Arthur W. Pink

"The custom of sinning takes away the sense of it, the course of the world takes away the shame of it”- John Owen

"Be patient under the enmity of the gates of hell. It is all working together for your good. It tends to sanctify. It will keep you awake. It will make you humble. It will drive you nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ. It will wean you from the world. It will help to make you pray more. Above all, it will make you long for heaven. It will teach you to say with heart as well as lips, 'Come, Lord Jesus. Thy kingdom come'. -J. C Ryle

“Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you”- John Owen