In my notebook I found this short line that I copied from Amy Carmichael's biography.* I am still finding it true:

"'Home with all its prohibitions and opportunities to die daily.'"

Maybe it sounds negative. There are so many good things about home. But wait - this is one of them. This is one of the good things about home: opportunities to die daily. Daily dwelling with other imperfect people is something God uses to sanctify me. The wait outside the bathroom door, the dirty shoes on the rug, the instrument being practiced while I'm trying to study - these are the nitty gritty parts of home-life. But they are chances to die, to look not only to my own interests but also to the interests of others, to lay down my life for my brothers. Everything can't always be the way I want it, and that's actually good. When I see dirty shoes on the rug, I can mentally take them up like a sword, and instead of pricking the negligent "culprit" with it, I can turn it on my sin nature and plunge it to the hilt whispering - "Die! Die old self that loves clean carpets more than Jesus. Die!" (I am not saying that such things should not be corrected, but sisterly nagging is not the loving way.) And in those moments, I am amazed at the rebellious strength of my old nature. I feel it kicking, screaming inside me, "No don't kill me, you'll be so much happier if you turn and nag them." Sometimes I have listened to its pleading, and let it spring back up and do its thing, and I lose the chance to die and the chance to show love. But I want to die more often so I can say this in truth:

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." - Gal. 2:20 ESV

* A Chance to Die - the life and legacy of Amy Carmichael, by Elisabeth Elliot

Love is...

Love is...

Love is the
active desire for the
well-being and joy
of others.

"Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."

- 1 John 3:18 ESV

By Mighty Hands

Faint am I and cannot hold
My Savior for my strength is small
My heart grows feeble, waxes cold
A hopeless voice says, "You shall fall"

Unto my weary soul.

If my endurance rests on me,
O God, no hope have I,
But woefully to wane from Thee
With hollow sighing, till I die -

Unless Thou holdst my soul.

My Lord! My God! Thou Sovereign One,
Help me see those mighty bands
That bind me to Thy righteous Son
Fastened by Thy mighty hands -

In this may rest my soul.

I have no power - Thou hast all
And all my strivings turn to dust
And in my dust-bound self I'd fall
But thou hast promised and art just

By grace to hold my soul.

I rest in Thee. In Thee I trust
Predestined, Thou hast called me,
And in Christ Jesus made me just,
And thou shalt glorify me,

And never loose my soul.

These are the strong eternal bands
By sovereign grace bound iron-fast.
By great and, never-failing hands
That shall uphold me to the last.

Believe Thy God, my soul.

My new Second Verse to "Zacchaeus was a Wee Little Man":

Zacchaeus was a selfish little man
And a tax-collector was He
And when He took the people's tax
He took too much money
But when the Savior came to Him
He repented fully
And He said:
"All the money I ever stole -
I fully will repay
I fully will repay".

"Herein is Love" - Thoughts from Spurgeon

"Herein is Love" - Thoughts from Spurgeon

The other day I borrowed Humility and How to Get It - by Charles Spurgeon from our church library. (Humility is something I dearly need more of.) The book is a collection of Spurgeon's sermons, many on humility. The first sermon, however, is on love. I appreciated one of Spurgeon's colorful illustrations:
I am looking for "the springs of the sea," and you point me to a little pool amid the rocks which has been filled by the flowing tide. I am glad to see that pool: how bright! how blue! how like the sea from whence it came! But do not point to this as the source of the great waterfloods; for if you do I shall smile at your childish ignorance, and point you to yon great rolling main which tosses its waves on high. What is your little pool to the vast Atlantic? Do you point me to the love in the believer's heart, and say, "Herein is love!" You make me smile. I know that there is love in that true heart; but who can mention it in the presence of the great rolling ocean of the love of God, without bottom and without shore? The word not is not only upon my lip but in my heart as I think of the two things, "NOT that we loved God, but that God loved us." What poor love ours is at its very best when compared with the love wherewith God loves us!...I do rejoice in the love of saints to their Lord. Yet this is but a streamlet; the unfathomable deep, the eternal souce from which all love proceeds, infinitely exceeds all human affection, and it is found in God, and in God alone.

"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

- 1 John 4:10 ESV

Accepted in the Beloved

Accepted in the Beloved

"The pure, full love of God streams through the blood and obedience of Jesus to every soul that is lying under them, however vile and wretched in themselves."


"See what Christ thinks of the believer: 'As the lily among thorns so is my love among the daughters.' The believer is like a lovely flower in the eyes of Christ, washed in His blood, as pure and white as a lily. Christ can see no spot in His own righteousness, and therefore He sees no spot on the believer."

"You have drawn the Savior's blood and righteousness over your souls, and you know that the Father himself loveth you." - Robert Murray McCheyne

~~~~~

"To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." - Revelation 1:5-6 ESV

"Who is This Fair One in Distress?"
- by Isaac Watts

Who is this fair one in distress,
That travels from the wilderness?
And pressed with sorrows and with sins,
On her belovèd Lord she leans.

This is the spouse of Christ our God,
Bought with the treasure of His blood;
And her request and her complaint
Is but the voice of every saint.

“O let my name engraven stand
Both on Thy heart and on Thy hand;
Seal me upon Thine arm, and wear
That pledge of love for ever there.

“Stronger than death Thy love is known,
Which floods of wrath could never drown;
And hell and earth in vain combine
To quench a fire so much divine.

“But I am jealous of my heart,
Lest it should once from Thee depart;
Then let Thy Name be well impressed,
As a fair signet on my breast.

“Till Thou hast brought me to Thy home,
Where fears and doubts can never come,
Thy countenance let me often see,
And often Thou shalt hear from me.

“Come, my Belovèd, haste away,
Cut short the hours of Thy delay;
Fly like a youthful hart or roe
Over the hills where spices grow.”