Jan 4, 2012 | Blog
Beginning my morning devotions in Mark’s gospel this year, I was immediately struck with how Mark begins his gospel.
He does not begin like with God as Creator as in Genesis “In the beginning God created” (1:1) or like John with Jesus as Creator, “In the beginning was the Word …Through him all things were made… (John 1:1)
But Mark leaps over God or Jesus as CREATOR and begins with God as REDEEMER: ‘The beginning of the gospel about Jesus’
Jan 3, 2012 | Blog
… “I wonder how long I might have to live.”
The pain in my shoulder and chest due to lifting weights, so I thought, had increased with such severity that I couldn’t lie down, sit up or stand still and I asked Rachel to get me to ER. The doctor’s questions over the phone the next day suggested something more serious to do with my heart. 3am in bed Friday morning, I found myself answering my worry question with a song:
“I’m in his hands, I’m in his hands, whatever the future holds, I’m in his hands. His ways I cannot see, have all been planned for me, his way is best you see, I’m in his hands.”
Yesterday I had an EKG and my local doctor happily informed me its just a muscle strain.
Jan 3, 2012 | Blog
… said the Indian lady at my book table Christmas Day.
“That does it,” “Lord, I’ve heard this too many times over the last 19 years.”
The first time. My professor at Regent College, Vancouver, turned to me, “Richard, you should write,” and then carried on his lecture.
Another time at my book table — I always have a book table when I speak, taking a moment before my message to introduce key titles that have impacted my life.
“Where is your book,” the lady said.
I don’t have a book.
Well, if you had a book I would buy your book?
So it’s time.
What to write about?
Who would publish it?
Have to make a start?
I am going to write a series of stories when life stopped still for me.
I will put them on my website. Take a look. Love your feedback.
A title that popped in my head, “Eleven tomato ketchup bottles.”
That’s one of the times, aged 14, life stopped still.
Dec 28, 2011 | Blog
This morning it was tough to get up to meet with the Lord and I had to have a one-on-one with myself before I could have a one-on-one with the Lord.
But I’m in good company. David first had to have a one-on-one with himself. “My heart says of you , “Seek his face. “He answers back to himself, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.” Psalm 27:8
Now he is ready for his one-on-one with the Lord. Just had my one-on-one with myself. You had yours yet?
Dec 24, 2011 | Blog
Opera was waning in popularity, and a depressed Handel thought to move from his London home on Brook Street back to Germany. Then in 1741 he was given a manuscript of prophetic passages taken from the Bible about Jesus, the Messiah, by Charles Jennens.
Consumed with putting the Scriptures to music, Handel locked himself away for twenty-four days. A visiting friend found him weeping uncontrollably as he spoke of seeing heavens open and the glory of God.
With all ticket sales benefiting the poor, Handel chose popular secular artists performing in theaters, not churches, for the masses to hear, not of a distant, disinterested, deistic view of God common in that day, “for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
Today, whether performed by mass choirs in the Sydney Opera House or flash mobs in the Mall of America, Handel’s Messiah, every Christmas still stirs like no other music ever penned.
Be stirred again: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE
Dec 24, 2011 | Blog
Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God. He created everything there is—nothing exists that he didn’t make. Eternal life is in him, and this life gives light to all mankind. His life is the light that shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it…
And Christ became a human being and lived here on earth among us and was full of loving forgiveness and truth. And some of us have seen his glory — the glory of the only Son of the heavenly Father! (John 1 Living Bible)
