It’s holiness that makes us hush not happiness that runs away with pleasures leading us astray in nightmares while the waters rush.
With affirmations rich and plush we thank the Lord who made the sky, who made the earth and birds that fly and creatures on the land below and in the water. See! They show the glory of our God on high.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “hush” to be used in an A line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge and Eugenia offers “affirmations” for this week’s prompt. I was thinking of Jerry Bridges’ book, The Pursuit of Holiness.
With so many things that could go wrong but wouldn’t, Brian was worried. Survival depended on manna from heaven. Having no control over heaven he wondered, What if the manna stops?
It’s not that Brian didn’t like walking on water once he knew he wouldn’t sink. It was the actual stepping out of the boat that bothered him.
Regardless of these concerns, needless perhaps but afflicting Brian’s mind, there was no other way to the shelter.
Denise offers the word “shelter” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
These are photos of sand on a beach. I hope less detail motivates more interest.
There is a shell and markings where the ocean waves reached on the sand as the tide went out. I once saw a painting in a museum that was simply a canvas painted white. This sort of reminds me of that, but there is that shell.
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
Belief in millions or even billions of years of deep time, rather than thousands, rests on assumptions of uniformitarianism. These assumptions include asserting that no global catastrophes occurred in the past such as a high-energy global flood that would have accelerated change, that only low-energy processes built the mountains and carved out the canyons, and that currently measured rates of low-energy change were constant throughout time.
Assuming no global catastrophes and constant rates of change would allow these low-energy processes to be used like clocks extrapolating billions of years of deep time into the past. However, this extrapolation works just as well into the future. The rates of change coming from erosion and entropy give us a maximum age of how long current structures would survive. That means the age of the present structures cannot be older than the amount of time it would take to erode them away.
For example, if the entire fossil record would be eroded away in 10 or even 50 million years, the fossil record could not be older than that. It might be younger, but not older. If someone claimed that a fossil was over 100 million years old, the first question should be how did that fossil survive the effects of day-by-day, low-energy, uniformitarian erosion?
Although low-energy processes can effect a lot of change over millions of years they do not explain how the structures we see today, the mountains and canyons, got there in the first place. To explain them one needs high-energy catastrophes working faster than the low-energy erosion that would wash them all away.
Deep time uniformitarianism attempts to discredit Biblical events that explain why the earth is as it is and where it is going: Creation, Fall, Noah’s Flood, Babel, the Resurrection of Jesus and His Second Coming. When one begins to see that the present state of the earth confirms the view that it is young then a creation and global flood account as described in Genesis becomes plausible. When that becomes plausible the rest of the narrative does as well. When one realizes that all of this is more than plausible one’s whole life renews.
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
It’s perseverance that we need with faithful focus, pure of heart, repenting any wayward part. We let the Holy Spirit lead with prayer the writings that we read. Avoiding tricks deceivers play we stay upon the narrow way that follows closely His own will thus finding that we’ve served until the coming of the final day.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “will” to be used in a D-line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge.
George cut the lemon into halves. He squeezed the juice from each half into his water container. Then he cut the squeezed halves into quarters and ate them.
Distracted by the harmony of clouds and ocean during the morning’s sunrise, he almost forgot. He thanked God for lemons, even the most bitter ones. He thanked God for the one he received today.
Denise offers the word “juice” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Eugenia offers the word “harmony” to be used in this week’s Weekly Prompt.
Of men aged 18 to 49, 67 percent say pornography is morally acceptable. And of all Americans who say religion is not very important, more than two-thirds (76 percent) find pornography morally acceptable.
But I want to argue that the sexual revolution is not actually about expanding the bounds of sexual behavior. It’s about fundamentally challenging the notion that there is such a thing as wrong or right sexual behavior. It’s about blowing apart the whole notion of sexual morality.
Paul wrote in Romans 1:28 that God gives the disobedient over to a depraved mind. He wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:11 that God sends a strong delusion so the disobedient will believe the lie.
What lie might that be? Perhaps the lie is that there is nothing morally right or wrong with our sexual behavior nor how we deal with the consequences of it such as abortion or divorce. That means we don’t think we have to repent. That suggests that we don’t believe that there is any God to Whom we owe repentance. And all of that makes us forget about the “pursuit of holiness” that Jerry Bridges rightly pointed out is not an option.
The lie confuses us about repentance, God and holiness. The lie affects our beliefs and our beliefs affect our behavior.
If you don’t behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave.
Ven. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, quoted by revivedwriter
I am grateful to Michael Wilson for the link to the statistics source on moral attitudes towards pornography. I am grateful to Jim Lee and Mandy Sweigart-Quinn for calling my attention to Carl R. Trueman and Jerry Bridges. I am grateful to Jenna at revivedwriter for the quote from Fulton Sheen.
Weekly Bible Reading:John and Acts Commentaries: David Pawson, John, Part 6, Acts, Part 7, Unlocking the Bible Bible Project, John 1-12, John 13-21, Acts 1-12, Acts 13-28 Weekly Torah Readings 13 Shevat, 5782, Beshalach: ParashatExodus 13:17-17:16; HaftaratJudges 4:4-5:3
With little deeds I wrote my book. May viewers not be led astray. The cluttered moments blew away when upside down the world was shook and what was left is what I took. I reasoned rightly I should read the words I knew I ought to heed. “You’re much too late,” the devil said, “Tomorrow morning you’ll be dead.” This final chapter’s all I need.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “read” to be used in a C-line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge.
In the dining car of the express train to hell Ryan motioned for the waiter. When the waiter arrived he complained about the quality of the food saying, “Any decent chef would know how to prepare steak and don’t forget I’m riding your train first class.”
Sitting across the aisle from Ryan was a woman who escalated her protest of his butchery of sentient life forms as soon as she heard him order the steak special. Pointing to her with his thumb Ryan asked the waiter, “And could you, please, do something about that?”
The waiter apologized saying he would personally scold the chef, however, he regretted that he could not do anything about Ryan’s fellow passenger since she also held a first class ticket. Not wanting to further alarm the woman the waiter bent down and whispered an assurance in Ryan’s ear that shortly after reaching their destination he would never see her again.
Denise offers the prompt word “express” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 