christianity | Recent Entries

"If people are thirsty, let them come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within them."

The Love of God is like a flowing stream. God longs for us to open our hearts, more and more, to the Holy Spirit and to open to love.

God offers us that flow, that love, because of God's givenness to us. We see that givenness in Jesus Christ: a givenness to the point of no turning back.

And God invites us to share in that givenness: to give ourselves to God, and to give ourselves to others in love and compassion and service.

The flowing stream can't just be kept for yourself. It flows as we open to others as well. That's love in action. The Spirit in action. A stream in flow.

"You have sent Your Spirit," the psalmist writes, "to renew the face of the earth..."

The dry and barren places of people's hearts, the loneliness, the lives hardened by hurt, the desolate and forsaken.

As Isaiah wrote: "Water will burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert."

If only we would open our hearts today, and let the Love of God flow through us to others. For as we do, the prophet also promises: you will also drink from the wells of salvation.

When we open to the flow, the power, the compassion of love. When we open to God.

susannah

Trust is the heart of relationship. Trust is how covenant is founded. With trust, we may dare to open up to love. With trust, we may find the courage to give ourselves to God.

90spastelcandy

Sometimes I wonder why a God who can be so loving & personal can also allow natural disasters and tragedies?

kay_mulan

https://kay-mulan.dreamwidth.org/351822.html

kay_mulan

https://kay-mulan.dreamwidth.org/350642.html

kay_mulan

https://kay-mulan.dreamwidth.org/345866.html

kay_mulan

https://kay-mulan.dreamwidth.org/345033.html In Pilipino. Translation coming before the end of next week.

https://kay-mulan.dreamwidth.org/344720.html Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the gift of tongues.

susannah

How often do you sense the numinous? The mysterious, awe-inspiring otherness of God? As a mountaineer, all through my life I have known moments when my being has been stilled - by a sudden sense of presence... of a God "just round the corner"... a sense of the deep mystery and loveliness of God. In a sense, I think God calls to us this way, all along our journey. Perhaps that's why people were drawn out to the wilderness. Perhaps that's what Moses felt when he saw the burning bush. I also feel it in great cathedrals sometimes. Or at dusk, as light fades, and the day stills. It's as if, sometimes, at God's choice, we are overshadowed by God's presence, and we know God is there, but God seems deep and beyond our words and explanations.

At times like this, we realise that though God is personal and can draw so close to us, God is also God, and beyond our control or definition. At this point, it is as if we are aware of a 'cloud of unknowing', and our tense mental control runs out of road, and in silence and wonder we become simply recipient. I love this 'hidden' God. This God who is so deep. The God, who when we stop and rest by the constantly flowing stream, is 'just around the next bend in the river'. And incites us, and touches us with yearning, and leads us on.

Do you have experiences like these?

susannah

How easily we get hurt, or hurt ourselves, and retreat into a protective hard shell. It's very understandable.

Yet God longs for us to open our hearts to healing and the touch of God's love. We can't do it ourselves. It's a work of grace.

Deep in our innermost place, God waits for us, day after day, all through our lives. Longs to comfort, reassure us. Longs to touch us with love and forgiveness and acceptance. Longs to open us up.

Being a Christian is opening our hearts and letting God in. It is also opening our hearts to others - not keeping God's love just for ourselves, but sharing it, letting it flow, just like God shares with us.

Open your eyes, open your ears, Jesus is trying to touch your heart. Open your mind, open your life, Jesus is wanting to show you. His grace is all you need, and in your weakness you'll have strength. Please don't be proud, please don't pretend, Jesus can see every need you have. Weakness is hard, failure is real, but Jesus can give you your freedom.

Jesus just longs for us to let down our defences, and let him touch our hearts with his gentle, powerful love. Longs to heal us where we hurt the most. Longs to open our hearts, and be there, be there with us.

susannah

I love the Book of Ruth. It is such a tender-hearted narrative. And I love the way a lot of its perspectives involve two women, walking with God, and the solidarity between them, and their faithfulness.

A lot of the Bible seems quite masculine-slanted in its voice (which is not to imply that God cares any the less about women). In the Book of Ruth though, there is a refreshing account of two women's fidelity in adversity, their feelings, their perspective.

Of course, I also love the good, decent, strong and masculine role of Boaz in the narrative. He demonstrates how a good estate should be run, he shows care, he shows respect for a woman's dignity, he shows faith.

In the way Boaz runs his household and estate, I like to think it reflects the eternal household and good estate of God, to which each of us is invited and called.

The Book resonates with mercy, love and grace.

susannah

May the God of all grace and love be with you, and may you know God's kindness and presence in your life. Please be assured that you are known, and understood, and dearly loved.

Current Location: United Kingdom

anotherheather

Any other Anglicans/Episcopalians in here? Thoughts?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/16/archbishop-of-canterbury-urges-breakup-of-divided-anglican-communion?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The archbishop of Canterbury is proposing to effectively dissolve the fractious and bitterly divided worldwide Anglican communion and replace it with a much looser grouping.

Justin Welby has summoned all the 38 leaders of the national churches of the Anglican communion to a meeting in Canterbury next January, where he will propose that the communion be reorganised as a group of churches that are all linked to Canterbury but no longer necessarily to each other.

He believes that the communion – notionally the third largest Christian body in the world with 80 million members, after the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches - has become impossible to hold together due to arguments over power and sexuality and has, for the past 20 years, been completely dysfunctional.

anotherheather

"The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." - Deuteronomy 31:8

"Dear Friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed." - 1 Peter 4:12-13

anotherheather

"O praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people. For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever. Praise ye the Lord." Psalm 117 (KJV)

anotherheather

"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18

anotherheather

(* I would say "Daily" but daily hasn't been happening...)

( 2 Kings 6:1-23 (ESV) )

Matthew 5:38-48 (ESV)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic,let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers,what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

anotherheather

Proverbs 3:1-6 (ESV)

My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

2 Timothy 3:14-17(ESV)

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

anotherheather

Psalm 27:5 (NRSV), "One thing I have asked of the Lord; one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life."

1 Corinthians 4:1-7 (GNB), "You should think of us as Christ's servants, who have been put in charge of God's secret truths. The one thing required of such servants is that they be faithful to their master. Now, I am not at all concerned about being judged by you or by any human standard; I don't even pass judgement on myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not prove that I am really innocent. The Lord is the one who passes judgement on me. So you should not pass judgement on anyone before the right time comes. Final judgement must wait until the Lord comes; he will bring to light the dark secrets and expose the hidden purposes of people's minds. And then all will receive from God the praise they deserve.

"For your sake, my brothers and sisters, I have applied all this to Apollos and me, using the two of us as an example, so that you may learn what the saying means, 'Observe the proper rules.' None of you should be proud of one person and despise another. Who made you superior to others? Didn't God give you everything you have? Well, then, how can you boast, as if what you have were not a gift?"

anotherheather

Two, since I will not be able to post tomorrow:

Matthew 4:18-25 (NIV)

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.

1 Corinthians 2:1-13 (NIV)

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived” —
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.

anotherheather

Philippians 2:5-11 (ESV)

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.