Christian Photographers Community

 

Hi Janet. Thank you for your great devotional.  This brings back a lot of memories.  If it was not for the men who took time to discipled me I would not be a Christian today so this brings back so many wonderful times to my memory about how the Lord gave these men and women the patients with me as I found it hard to understand.

Praise the Lord for his word.

I just posted and the whole thing went into cyber space!

Janet thanks for the devotional.

Gord, Papa John, Janet, Ruth Anne, amd others I may have missed I am praying.

I am off to bed.  Night all

Hi everyone.  It looks like I may be the first to post in the AM.  It is really foggy here this morning but warmer. 

Our daughter has terrible leg cramps and last night both legs cramped up about 3:30 am and they wouldn't go away.  Finally had to wake my wife up to rub them about 6:15 this morning.  She had done a lot of walking in her new job yesterday and that always makes them worse. 

We had good news on Pat's cell phone yesterday.  We went to the place we bought it and found that it was only the battery that was ruined and not the little chip in it.  They found another battery, apparently in an older phone, put it in and didn't even charge us for it.  So we didn't have to purchase a new phone.

My good friend Rod's wife is in the hospital as an x-ray yesterday showed the femur was only being held together by about 1/8 inch of bone as there was a big crack in it.  She has been on crutches since they returned from Hawaii at the first of the month and only two days ago did they find a small crack in the bone.  She will have the hip pinned at 5:30 pm this evening.  She is a wonderful Christian lady and I know she would appreciate your prayers for her safe surgery and good recovery.

Etta Sue, I also was remiss to comment on your photograph.  I saw your posting and then when I was writing simply forgot to mention it. 

I got a camera case for my belt for my Olympus camera and am going to try to keep it with in when I am out so if I see something I want a picture of I have my camera.  It is a little bulky as it is an older camera but the case is made specifically for it.

Well, it is time to leave for coffee this morning.  I have choir practice this evening so may not get back here before tomorrow.  Good to see everyone posting.

Good Morning. Janet that is a great devotional by Bill Bright.  Discipleship is so important especially in our young people.

Another great message last night from the evangelist.

Tonight is the last night he will be here so I know it will be good.

I have to go this afternoon and prepare the house for Joanne's return home. Get it all nice and clean, pick up the laundry and make her bed so they can just  put her right in it when they bring her home. I don't really know how much hospice will be there yet but I can't work any more hours than I am already. If they need more they will have to get another caregiver to come in when I leave.
Please keep them in your prayers.

TTYL

  Good one Janet! It's so easy to overlook those that the Lord has sent into our lives...Some aren't even worth the mention, Their seemingly small contributions to our growth, go un-noticed in our hurried lives. Like Paul said..."Friends, this should not be..."

Father, I publicly thank you for the many people you have sent into my life. Especially those that I never took notice of. Gently guiding me, with small course corrections, back to your path.

Lord Jesus, without those inumerable, unknown saints, I would still be fullfiling the sinful desires of the flesh, and totally lost. Bless you Father for your Grace, wisdom, and Love.

I was posting the award winning photo when I realized it was already on CP.  Check it out here.I really don't think it is that great of a photo so it must have been what I wrote.  I was told last evening at photo guild that second place was overall second place.  So I guess if there were more than two entries, I should feel elated!  Three from the guild didn't get placings but their photos will be on display. 

Ivalou and I are going to the movies this afternoon and before that to 'Arbys'.  She has coupons!!

I am battling a cold...sniff, sniff!

Good morning.  We have a beautiful spring day here.

Etta Sue, yes I have met Norm's sister.  She is a very nice lady.

Good to see everyone today.

Papa John

**********************
*TRUTH FOR LIFE DAILY*
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daily meditation
-----------------
I called him, but he gave no answer.  Song of Solomon 5:6

Prayer sometimes lingers, like a petitioner at the gate, until the
King comes with the blessings that she seeks. The Lord, when He has
given great faith, has been known to test it by long delays. He has
allowed His servants' voices to echo in their ears as if the
heavens were brass. They have knocked at the golden gate, but it has
remained immovable, as though it were rusted upon its hinges.

The Weekly Newsletter of Christianity Today International
Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Welcome

I live alone. But every evening, when I come home from work, I'm greeted by the smiling faces and ready laughter of some trusted companions. Often, Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer will "pop in." Or I'll invite Randy, Paula, and Simon over for a spirited debate. And late each night, I'll share an hour with Jay telling jokes.

Then, just before bed, I'll spend a few quiet moments with Jesus. Yet often, when I try to talk to him, our visits seem as one-sided as my nightly interactions with those television personalities. I wait endlessly for his responses and reach out futilely to touch his hand, until I begin to wonder if it's really possible to have a "personal relationship" with him.

When theology professor John Suk began to ponder that same question, he discovered having a "personal relationship" with Jesus is not only an impossible goal; it might also be an unbiblical expectation. His controversial article, featured on the Leadership channel's new blog, will give you a fresh perspective on the prevailing theology and language of evangelicalism.

Then, to find out the perspectives of other evangelicals on this important topic, don't miss the comments and responses beneath Suk's article. To offer your own perspective, take a moment to scroll down and vote in this week's poll.

And as you scroll, browse through the numerous articles from ChristianityToday.com in this newsletter's right-hand column. You'll find encouragement and advice on how you can best relate to your family, to your church, and of course, to Jesus.

Thanks for reading,

Andrea Bianchi,
Newsletter Editor
ChristianityToday.com Connection e-mail:

March 24, 2006
Your Own Personal Jesus: Is the language of "a personal relationship" biblical?
The song "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode describes the faith of many: "Your own personal Jesus. Someone to hear your prayers. Someone who cares." In this post, John Suk, a professor of homiletics at Asian Theological Seminary in Manila, The Philippines, challenges popular evangelical jargon by questioning whether having a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is poor theology or, worse, a capitulation to theraputic secular values? Below is an excerpt. You may read Suk's full article at Perspectives Journal's website.

Evangelicals generally insist that "the meaning and purpose of life is to have a personal relationship with Jesus." That's how a Methodist pastor I was listening to a few months ago put it. Philip Yancey says it another way in his Reaching for the Invisible God (Zondervan, 2000): "getting to know God is a lot like getting to know a person. You spend time together, whether happy or sad. You laugh together. You weep together. You fight and argue, then reconcile."

But we also confess that Jesus is not physically present on earth. So how does one have a personal relationship with someone you can't talk to, share a glass of wine with, or even email? We need to do some fundamental reflection on the whole notion of having a "personal relationship" with Jesus Christ. While, on the one hand, I respect the longing for intimacy with God that these words reflect, they also concern me because they betray a creeping sort of secularization of our language about God.

The phrase "a personal relationship with Jesus," is not found in the Bible. Thus, there is no sustained systematic theological reflection on what the phrase means. In fact, people experience the personal presence of God – in a wide variety of idiosyncratic and highly personal ways. Publicly, however, when people say they have "a personal relationship" with Jesus, it sounds like they are saying they have a relationship characterized by face-time, by talk-time, by touching, by all the things – and especially the intimacy – we usually associate with having a personal relationship with another human being.

As a result, using the language of personal relationship is bound to lead to all sorts of confusion. As a pastor I met more than a few people who experienced doubt, or perhaps anger, because they didn't experience Jesus the way their Christian friends claimed to.

The language of personal relationship with God has become popular due to the pervasive influence of the language of secularity. So Marsha Witten cogently argues in her book, All is Forgiven: The Secular Message in American Protestantism (Princeton, 1993), a close textual analysis of fifty-eight sermons on the parable of the prodigal son as found in Luke 15:11-32. Twenty-seven of the sermons were preached in mainline Presbyterian churches, and the rest to conservative Southern Baptists. In both traditions, Witten discovers, preachers respond to secularity by accommodating their language to it. Biblical language that emphasizes God's transcendence is replaced by language that emphasizes God's immanence. Jesus is not in heaven, at the right hand of God; he lives in our hearts. God is primarily seen as a "daddy," as sufferer on our behalf, and as extravagant lover. In these sermons the traditional language for God is accommodated to the human desire for connection and intimacy.

Furthermore, these sermons lack much sense that Christianity has anything to say beyond one's personal relationship to God. In both conservative and liberal denominations, the language of conversion has been replaced by the language of personal relationship. The language of personal relationship fits with secularity; the traditional language of conversion, of trading faiths through a dying to self, does not.

One cannot fail by recall David Wells' warning:


They labor under the illusion that the God they make in the image of the self becomes more real as he more nearly comes to resemble the self, to accommodate its needs and desires. The truth is quite the opposite. It is ridiculous to assert that God could become more real by abandoning his own character in an effort to identify more completely with ours. And yet the illusion has proved compelling to a whole generation. (God in the Wasteland, Eerdmans, 1994, 100-101.)

Is this possible? Do many Christians have a personal relationship not so much with Jesus, but with something in their heads, with something that they're comfortable with, a social construction driven by their need to go easy on themselves?

I've tried to pastor parents who just gave birth to a child with Down's syndrome. After a car accident, once, I buried a man's wife and only child. I've seen hundred of rotting bodies in a little church in Nterama, in Rwanda – victims of genocide. I have a foster daughter who gets calls from her real parents in Zimbabwe saying that their whole neighborhood has just been bulldozed by Mugabe's henchmen. Everyday I go to work, here in Manila, I see malnourished street children begging for coins.

In such a world I think that rather than focusing on "personal relationship," we need to recover the Psalmist's language of lament because it fairly represents how we ought to feel about Jesus' absence until he comes again to make all things new.

Second, we need to revisit Scripture's assertion that we are "in Christ." Being in Christ – even if it isn't a personal relationship – is a wonderful and cosmic reality, the new history begun in Christ. A further consequence of being in Christ, Lewis Smedes argues, is that it makes us "part of a program as broad as the universe," as opposed to a narrow, pragmatic, and personal program of that type described by Witten.

Rather than saying, "I have a personal relationship with Jesus," why don't we say instead, "I have faith in Jesus," or "I believe in Jesus." Where the language of personal relationship has a very questionable pedigree, amidst a therapeutic culture, to cut God down to a manageable size, the language of faith is deeply rooted in Scripture. The apostle John put it this way: "This is [God's] command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us" (1 John 3:23).


DISCUSS???

Good day to all off you
I trust you are all doing well
I enjoyed the devotional today Janet.
We are in the middle of rain-freezing rain here today.
I am making cabbage rolls here for my supper-to bad you can't all drop by.

Hi to all,

We just celebrated my mom's "91 st " birthday--still going strong and alert only by the grace of God.

Praises to HIM

I just posted an update in Prayer Requests regarding my husband's cancer last year.

I thought I would post it here for all to see.

My husband continues to do very well; in fact, he decided to start working in the yard "catching up" on much needed work that he did not get to last year because of his cancer.

While working in the yard, a couple pulled up in their car and walk over to him with big smiles on their faces.

Saying; we are so glad to see you working and looking so well--we have been praying for you.

Now my husband couldn't place who they were--never saw them before or so far even after that day so he asked:

Who told them about his illness and who were they and their reply
brought tears to his eyes;

They said that it was not necessary that he knew that information just know that they were there praying for him and off they went.

Thought I would share that with you and also like I told Jim--remember to always be kind to strangers; you never know when you are "entertaining angels."

Because IMO they are,

Take care and Love in Christ,

Joyce

Chris & Margit, Very thought prevoking post. My personal feelings on the matter are fairly sucinct. I believe that society as a whole has tried their best to rob God of his Holiness. His Sovereignty seems to be being replaced by "Warm & Fuzzy" theology.

Yes, I too believe in a loving Daddy "Abba, Father," But it is vital that we all remember that God is Righteous, Holy, Supreme, Above all that was, or is, or is to come! I wonder how many of us would fall flat on our faces in reverance before God were we to encounter Moses' burning bush?

I pray that I never become complacent in my view of our Lord! Peace, Ritz.

Well this afternoon  went over to thehospital and got the Holter monitor stuck on me.

Tonight I am going to church again.

nothing else is new.


TTYL

Chris & Margit:  as Ritz said, very thought provoking.  We strongly tend to try to form a god in our feelings who is like us - we "anthropomorphize" God and make Him after our own image.  We so very much need to remember what Solomon said: "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."  The "fear" referred to is a holy awe and a deep reverence, and should pervade all our thinking about the LORD GOD.  And it is THAT God Who is revealed in and through our Lord Jesus Christ.  As the disciples said, "and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory - glory as of the only-begotten of God."

Whew!  What a day this has been.  I went to Liberal with Darrel and we spent the whole day trying to get an alarm back in service; after twice getting the wrong control unit from the supplier.  And it looks as if he will have to go back again tonight!    Oh, my....

My Mom is in the hospital with a slight heart attack, so I need to go check on her.  Then in the morning early, it is back to the hospital again to get that MRI on Beth.

Right now, it's time to go to church, so...........later!

Janet,

Thanks to you (and Brother Bill Bright) for the great devotional.  I had someone to disciple me as a young US Marine.  I am grateful the Lord gave him a teacher's heart and sent him my way.

He taught me to pray, something like the chorus of this song...


In His Grip,
kevin

Hello Folks...

So nice to come in here and read your posts.  I miss your temperature and time though, Ritz but love your banner!  I wanted to check and see what weather you were having.  Today was a lovely day here in Guelph.

Think "Signs of Spring"

How be we have a little challenge for April and see what "Signs of Spring" we can capture.

I'll open a topic and we'll maybe allow you to either put a photo in that is in your albums and link to that or maybe enable the attachment feature on the site for this.

I know....it's early.  I will be glad when I have a full blown cold instead of just not feeling good.  Then I will know what to take for it!

Click Here!