This My Ebenezer...

All that we were--our sins, our guilt, Our death--was all our own: All that we are we owe to Thee, Thou God of grace, alone, Thou God of grace, alone. Thy mercy found us in our sins, And gave us to believe; Then, in believing, peace we found; And in Thy Christ we live, And in Thy Christ we live. All that we are as saints on earth, All that we hope to be When Jesus comes and glory dawns, We owe it all to Thee, We owe it all to Thee. Horatius Bonar (1808-1889) ----------- I grew up in a Christian family, actively attending church. From a young age I was blessed to know the facts that Jesus died for my sins, that He rose again, that we needed to be forgiven, that He was the only way to heaven, and that nothing I could do would earn my way there. However, it's been a gradual process of the Lord applying those truths to my heart and helping me to grasp their significance. Until I was in college, I would have said that I was saved at the age of four. That was when ...

With gratefulness to God for His saving grace, inspired by many conversations this year and by faithful expositions of God's word, especially John MacArthur's  The Gospel According to Jesus and sermons on Ezekiel 18 (several concepts and ideas) and Genesis 3:14-15. In particular I must credit John MacArthur for the last two lines, which are taken nearly directly from one of his Ezekiel 18 sermons. -------------------------- It's easy to be bitter, to focus on the pain Of circumstance and suffering, our own sin to explain. It's easy to make light of our offences grave or "small," To doubt God's good and holy word, forgetting He knows all. It's easy to excuse, deny, to shift away the blame To see the fault in others, protecting our own name Our first parents ere began it. We, their children, follow suit, Pointing fingers at each other for each fatal bite of fruit. T'was the serpent, Eve deflected. T'was the woman, Adam cri...

Dad talking to his "daughter girl" before sending her on a four-week trip to Puerto Rico Summer 2001 (me--Age 17) When I think of my Dad, I remember how much he loved to tell people about Jesus. He had been saved in college while studying to be an engineer, and his life radically changed after that. He quit engineering and went to Bible college, working his way through as a nurse's aid in the ICU. He told me once of an emergency situation and a dying patient. "Do you know Jesus?!" he earnestly asked, and the briefest smile came over the patient's otherwise suffering face. Bible college was where he met my mom, and they moved together to Baltimore so that he could be involved in full-time street evangelism. After a few years and a growing family, he started his own home improvement business. He loved being in people's homes so that he could tell them about Jesus, and he still occasionally did some street preaching. When I was young, he sometime...

One of my earliest memories is playing below a yellow and pink quilt, drap ed from my mom's lap. She was sitting, thimble on finger, hoop in hand, needle in her grasp, while lovingly hand-stitching some finishing touches on this blanket for my room. stockings that my mom made for my husband and me Mom is creative. She enjoys sewing and crafting of various kinds and likes to make us things. It's one way she shows her love for us. As we show interest, she enjoys passing on what she knows to us. "Laura Ingalls" costume that my mom sewed Mom is resourceful. When our living room suffered a large amount of water damage, she took the sofa cushion covers apart (to make a pattern) and reupholstered the sofa herself. Mom with her two middle daughters Mom is a hard worker. She raised us five children, including a child with special needs, and made sure we got our school work done. Sometimes she took a side job, such as selling furniture (to buy us b...

Just recently I came across this conference series on SermonAudio , and it has been really helpful to me. Here are some thoughts/ideas that have stuck... The flesh doesn't get weaker as we mature in Christ. So, I should not be surprised at sin. Neither should I grow confident in my own ability to resist temptation. However, it is encouraging to see how God is helping me to think more biblically and apply His truth in different areas. It's only by the grace and power of God and His word that we can live in a way pleasing to Him. "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it." (1 Cor. 10:12-13) A Christian's sin doesn't look any different from an unbeliever's. Ouch. I need to remem...