For Rita - Sleep - The Valley of Vision

Blessed Creator,

Thou has promised thy beloved sleep;
Give me restoring rest needful for tomorrow’s toil.
If dreams be mine,
let them not be tinged with evil.
Let thy Spirit make my time of repose
a blessed temple of his holy presence.
May my frequent lying down make me familiar with death,
the bed I approach remind my of the grave,
the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing.
Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance
to they presence.
Weaken my attachment to earthly things.
May I hold life loosely in my hand,
knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender.
As pain and suffering betoken transitory health,
may I not shrink from a death that introduces me
to the freshness of eternal youth.
I retire this night in full assurance of one day
awakening with thee.
All glory for this blessed hope,
for the gospel of grace,
for thine unspeakable gift of Jesus,
for the fellowship of the Trinity.
Withhold not thy mercies in the night season;
thy hand never wearies,
thy power needs no repose,
thine eye never sleeps.

Help me when I helpless lie,
when my conscience accuses me of sin,
when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts,
when my eyes are held awake by personal anxieties.

Show thyself to me as the God of all grace, love and power;
thou hast a balm for every wound,
a solace for all anguish,
a remedy for every pain,
a peace for all disquietude.
Permit me to commit myself to thee
awake or sleep.

Amen.

Page 298 The Valley of Vision

Deliverance - The Valley of Vision

O GOD OF UNSEARCHABLE GREATNESS,

Before thee I am nothing but vanity, iniquity, perishing;
Sin has forfeited thy favour,
stripped me of thy image,
banished me from thy presence,
exposed me to the curse of thy law;

I cannot deliver myself, and am in despair.
But a resource is found in thee,
for without my desert or desire
thou didst devise an everlasting plan,
honourable to thy perfections,
and which angels desired to look into.
And the Word which announces all the glory of this goodness
is nigh me, invites me, beseeches, me.
May I, a convinced and self-despairing sinner,
find Jesus as the power unto salvation,
his death the center of all relief,
the source of all gospel-blessings.
Help me to repair to that cross,
be crucified to the world by it,
and in it find deepest humiliation,
motives to patience and self-denial,
grace for active benevolence,
faith to grasp eternal life,
hope to lift up my head,
love to bind me for ever
to him who died and rose for me.
May his shed blood make me
more thankful for thy merices,
more humble under thy correction,
more zealous in thy service,
more watchful against temptation,
more contented in my circumstances,
more useful to others.

Amen

Page 82 The Valley of Vision

Refuge - The Valley of Vision

O Lord,

Whose power is infinite and wisdom infallible,

order things that they may neither hinder,

nor discourage me,

nor prove obstacles to the progress of Thy cause.

Stand between me and all strife, that no evil befall,

no sin corrupt my gifts, zeal, attainments.

May I follow duty and not any foolish device

of my own.

Permit me not to labour at work which Thou wilt

not bless,

that I may serve thee without disgrace or debt.

Let me dwell in Thy most secret place under thy

shadow,

where is safe impenetrable protection from

the arrow that flieth by day,

the pestilence that walketh in darkness,

the strife of tongues,

the malice of ill-will,

the hurt of unkind talk,

the snares of company,

the perils of youth,

the temptations of middle life,

the moumings of old age,

the fear of death.

I am entirely dependent upon Thee for support,

counsel, consolation.

Uphold me by Thy free Spirit,

and may I not think it enough to be preserved

from falling,

but may I always go forward, always abounding

in the work Thou givest me to do.

Strengthen me by Thy Spirit in my inner self

for every purpose of my Christian life.

All my jewels I give to the shadow of the safety

that is in Thee—

my name anew in Christ,

my body, soul, talents, character,

my success, wife, children, friends, work,

my present, my future, my end.

Take them, they are Thine, and I am thine,

now and for ever, Amen

Page 244 from the Valley of Vision

Video for Anniversary of Roe v. Wade: “I’m Holding a Miracle”

Take the time today to watch this touching video. There’s no gruesome pictures of mutilation, just a celebration of the glories of life. I hope Christian pro-lifers would propel this video into the top ranks of YouTube videos. Only a few hundred have watched it as of right now.

A New President, Trapped and Blinded - Sermon Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from a sermon titled "The Baby in My Womb Leaped for Joy preached by John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church of Minneapolis, MN.

As everyone knows, our new President, over whom we have rejoiced, does not share this reverence for the beginning of human life. He is trapped and blinded by a culture of deceit. On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, he said, “We are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters.”
To which I say . . .

No, Mr. President, you are not protecting women’s health; you are authorizing the destruction of half a million tiny women every year.

No, Mr. President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom; you are authorizing the destruction of freedom for a million helpless people every year.

No, Mr. President, killing our children does not cease to be killing our children no matter how many times you call it a private family matter. Call it what you will, they are dead, and we have killed them. And you, Mr. President, would keep the killing legal.

Some of us wept with joy over the inauguration of the first African-American President. We will pray for you. And may God grant that there arises in your heart an amazed and happy reverence for the beginning of every human life.

Please take a few moments and listen or watch the entire sermon. Listen Watch Download Podcast

The Heart of the Gospel - John MacArthur

2 Corinthians 5:20-21 (ESV)
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

New Book - Get Outta My Face! - Rick Horne

Book Release at Westminister Books:

Get Outta My Face!, written for Christian parents, teachers, and youth workers, is about reaching angry, unmotivated, disinterested teens with biblical counsel. Such teens confused and insecure - are selfish; they want what they want, right now. They are corrupted by sin and this corruption is the cause of their problem. Despite all their sin problems, they are still made in the image of God, and this is the key to helping them. This book will help with addressing the teen's sin and bringing them to their God-given desires and godly actions. Far from dismissing or sugarcoating sin, this approach opens wide the door to evangelizing the unsaved teen and to helping the Christian teen grow in holiness and wisdom.

Author Information: Rick Horne, D.Min., serves the Lord as head of the guidance department at Delaware County Christian School in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, and directs the school counseling concentration for the Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction at Columbia International University.

Visit the bookstore.

How would you answer these 4 questons?

1. Are you a Christian?

2. What does it mean to be a Christian?

3. What does it mean to be born again?

4. What happens to a person when they die and they are not a Christian?

Please answer in a comment to this blog. If not then please answer the questions. After you have done this go to the web site Sheep or Goats and watch the short video.

The Evidence of the "In me" is the "I in you"

John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

What does it mean to be "In Him"

Read John 14:21 and you will see the following:

The one who is in Him-

• Has His commandments
• Keeps His commandments
• Loves Him
• Is loved by the Father
• Is loved by Christ
• He has disclosed Himself to him

Wimpy Theology Makes Wimpy Women - John Piper

My father would say that in order to understand something, it is sometimes helpful to look at its opposite. With that in mind give attention ot the quotes below from John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN, concerning the results of wimpy theology. Men this also applies to you.

The opposite of a wimpy woman is a girl named Marie Durant. In the late Seventeenth Century in . . . southern France, she was brought before the authorities, charged with the Huguenot heresy. She was fourteen years old, bright, attractive, marriageable. She was asked to abjure the Huguenot faith. She was not asked to commit an immoral act, to become a criminal, or even change the day-to-day quality of her behavior. She was only asked to say, “J’abjure.” No more, no less. She did not comply. Together with thirty other Huguenot women she was put into a tower by the sea. . . . For thirty-eight years she continued. . . . And instead of the hated word J’abjure she, together with her fellow martyrs, scratched on the wall of the prison tower the single word Resistez, resist! The word is still seen and gaped at by tourists on the stone wall at Aigues-Mortes. . . . We do not understand the terrifying simplicity of a religious commitment which asks nothing of time and gets nothing from time. We can understand a religion that enhances time. . . . But we cannot understand a faith which is not nourished by the temporal hope that tomorrow things will be better. To sit in a prison room with thirty others and to see the day change into night and summer into autumn, to feel the slow systemic changes within one’s flesh; the drying and wrinkling of the skin, the loss of muscle tone, the stiffening of the joints, the slow stupefaction of the senses - to feel all this and still persevere seems almost idiotic to a generation which has no capacity to wait and to endure.

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Gladys Staines who in 1999, after serving with her husband Graham in India for three decades learned that he and their two sons, Phillip (10) and Timothy (6), had been set on fire and burned alive by the very people they had served for 34 years, said, “I have only one message for the people of India. I’m not bitter. Neither am I angry. Let us burn hatred and spread the flame of Christ’s love.”

The opposite of a wimpy woman is her 13-year-old daughter Esther (rightly named!) who said, when asked how she felt about her father’s murder, “I praise the Lord that He found my father worthy to die for Him.”

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Joni Eareckson Tada who has spent the last 41 years in a wheel chair, and prays, “Oh, thank you, thank you for this wheel chair! By tasting hell in this life, I’ve been driven to think seriously about what faces me in the next. This paralysis is my greatest mercy”
Now where does this take us in regard to the ultimate meaning of true womanhood? It does not take us to wimpy theology or wimpy women. It is not wimpy to say that God created the universe and governs all things to magnify his own grace in the death of his Son for the salvation of his bride. That’s not wimpy. And it doesn’t lead to wimpy womanhood.
But it does lead to womanhood. True womanhood. In fact, it leads to the mind-boggling truth that womanhood and manhood—masculinity and femininity—belong at the center of God’s ultimate purpose. Womanhood and manhood were not an afterthought or a peripheral thought in God’s plan. God designed them precisely so that they would serve to display the glory of his Son dying to have his happy, admiring bride.

In other words, the ultimate meaning of true womanhood is this: It is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of his Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood.

-Quotes taken from John Piper from the the message “The Ultimate Meaning of True Womanhood” and from his book “Battling Unbelief”, pp.72-73