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Friday, March 19, 2010 Reading for the Day John 17-18; 1 Peter 3-5 Focus on 1 Peter 3:1-7

Peter’s words to wives and husbands in 1 Peter 3:1-7 sound a call to mutual love, respect and service that swims upstream against the current of marriage advice in our day.  Our culture teaches that marriage is a 50-50 performance relationship, with each spouse in the relationship doing his or her part to hold up the “bargain.”  The problem is we can never know when we have done our 50% and it never seems like our spouse has done his or her 50%.  The reality we find from Peter is that our love for our spouses calls us to serve, to put him or her before ourselves.  In the case of husbands we are called to work hard to show our love through understanding, and in the case of wives to show love through obedience.  Those concepts aren't exactly modern, but they are proven.  When husbands live with understanding toward our wives, our wives know we love and care for them. When wives submit to their husband’s authority, we husbands recognize that our authority is delegated to us by God and that we remain under His authority.  Then we don’t see ourselves as “masters,” but as fellow servants with our wives in serving Jesus.  As we put Peter’s words about marriage to work in our marriages in the power of the Holy Spirit, we’ll see our marriages growing, flourishing, being renewed and restored in ways we may not even have thought possible.  May we take his words to heart—literally--and may we apply them in the power of the Holy Spirit—today!

Heavenly Father, I pray for every married couple who calls Jesus Savior and Lord. I pray You will pour out Your Holy Spirit in marriages that Jesus may be first and that husbands and wives may live faithfully toward You, each other and their children.  Glorify Yourself in our marriages today, that others may see You in them, in us, and give You all the glory.  This I pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Color test pattern sweater. Stand by, continued

Thursday, March 18, 2010 Reading for the Day John 15-16; 1 Peter 1-2 Focus on 1 Peter 1:17-20

Peter gives us a great image of how faith and works come together in our salvation in 1 Peter 1:17-20.  He tells us we will be judged based on our works.  That sounds like our salvation is dependent on what we do, but He also tells us God paid a “ransom” to save us from the empty lives we inherited from our ancestors.  That “ransom” was the precious blood of Jesus.  So which is it:  works or Jesus' free payment of our ransom?  YES!  We are saved by grace through faith, as we have read throughout the New Testament, except in James, where we found James emphasizing our part in the process.  But here Peter brings faith and works together as they ought to be.  We aren’t saved by our works, but once we are saved, our works begin to reflect the “new management” we're under in our lives.  We do our part and God does His part.  God’s part is absolutely essential, since it is His provision of Jesus that brings salvation to us.  Our part is also essential since even Jesus told us that not everyone who cries, “Lord! Lord!” will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the ones who do the will of His Father in heaven.  Works have their place—AFTER—we receive the free gift of salvation Jesus died on the cross to procure for us.  Faith AND works go together in the growing Christian life.  When faith is emphasized to the exclusion of works, our lives turn to license and we find the Apostle Paul’s question to Christians in Rome coming to mind, “Should we sin that grace may abound?”  Paul’s own answer to that question was, “May it never be!”  When works are emphasized overly much in our lives, we become proud, forgetting that even the ability to do good works is a gift from God!  May we trust Jesus enough today to be empowered to live out the good works He designed for us to do before the foundation of the world!

Heavenly Father, Thank You for designing us to live in faith and for that faith to result in good works. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit in this moment that I may live out my faith in thoughts, words and actions that honor You.  This I pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

etourneau:

— National Geographic Traveler

In 1919 a young man named Max Glucksman decided to construct a theater house that would be both grand and splendid. Newly immigrated to Buenos Aires, Glucksman was a visionary who saw his dream realized and opened his new theater, appropriately named The Grand Splendid. For years the theater presented Argentines with performances of all kinds and local greats such as Gardel and Corsini graced the stage. In 1924 Glucksman began broadcasting Radio Splendid from the fourth floor of the building, and his recording company Odeon recorded some of the early Tango greats. In the late twenties the theater was converted into a movie house and in 1929 showed the first movies ever presented with sound.

— El Ateneo in Buenos Aires - A bookstore to end all bookstores

I wonder if I could talk her into changing my oil next.

When the flowers start to pop up and out of the soil it is time to wear these. I am really loving this weather.

I just found out that I'll be participating i an eyeglasses review, and I'm totally psyched because I haven't had an eye exam or gotten new glasses in YEARS! My only concern is that I'm such an indecisive person. It takes me forever to choose an item from the menu when we go out to eat, you can imagine how I agonize over the decision of which glasses I'll be wearing every day, for years to come.

And what makes it even more tricky is that I'll be choosing glasses from an online store. I can totally see the advantage to this for people who are less picky than I am. I checked out the site, and there are a lot of great prescription glasses to choose from at outstanding prices. Shopping online could be a fabulous option; much quicker than spending tons of time in a crowded store.

But now I'm back to my dilemma - which pair of glasses should I get? The ones I have right now are semi-rimless with wide tortoise shell stems. Take a look.

I really like them, but I think I want something a little thinner and sleeker, not so chunky.

I'm really happy that there are so many to choose from because everyone's tastes are so individual. I just wish I weren't so indecisive. Here are my current top contenders. If you were to buy glasses online, which would you choose?

Choice #1 - Similar to what I have

Choice #2 - Sleek and sophisticated, in gold

Choice #3 - These are really pretty, with blue stems.

Please weigh in with your input! Please?

One more pound loss. Woot!

185

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. The Invisible Edge: Happy St. Patrick’s Day from the Edge

He could walk down your street. Girls could not resist his stare. The Modern Lovers - Pablo Picasso (via LORVentura)

Bethany's artwork.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 Reading for the Day John 13-14; James 4-5 Focus on John 14:1-6

Jesus’ claim: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through me,” puts Him on a level above everyone else who ever lived.  So many people in our day claim  there are “many ways to the top of the mountain,” as we seek spiritual direction and meaning in our lives.  In other words, many religious “paths” can lead to truth or enlightenment.  Jesus said He is the only path or way.  He is the only One who can lead us to God, because He IS God.  He is the only one who can ensure that our lives will be lived eternally with God in heaven.  Those claims make Jesus someone to take seriously or to dismiss completely.  Many have said Jesus was a great teacher, but He wasn’t God.  Actually, if Jesus wasn’t God, then He wasn’t a great teacher—He was a liar, or He lived under a great delusion—He was a lunatic.  You may have heard the statement that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, a legend or LORD.  He didn’t really leave us with many other options to consider.  His claims are so amazing and the actions recorded in the gospels so compelling we’re forced to see Jesus as greater than any human being who has ever lived, or as just so many stories.  The historic record both in the days of Jesus and in the centuries of the Church since offer compelling evidence that Jesus WAS and IS who He told us He WAS and IS:  the Son of the living God.  To be sure, faith will always play a role in what we believe about Jesus, since He isn’t here with us now, and since we can’t repeat many of the things He did in the “laboratory.” Even so, the evidence that Jesus is LORD was so strong in His own day that His original followers except for Judas gave their lives in serving Him.  The early church bore witness to Jesus’ powerful impact in the lives of those who belonged to it.  As we move through the season of Lent, a time of reflection on the life and ministry of Jesus, and of preparing for the celebration of Easter, Jesus’ words resound down through the millennia, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  May we put Jesus first.  May we follow Him.  As we do, may we know the assurance of our faith that only comes when we Jesus is OUR way, truth and life, and we come to know the Father through Him!

Heavenly Father, Thank You for Jesus’ bold proclamation that He is the only way to You. Thank You for validating that claim by raising Him from the dead, and by living in Jesus followers in an unbroken line from His days on earth to ours!  Fill us anew with Your Holy Spirit that we may be bold in bearing witness in our lives of how Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and that no one comes to You, our Heavenly Father, except through Him.  This I pray in His holy name.  Amen.