Thursday, January 25, 2018
The roaring lion prowling around us has not been de-fanged...
Posted by Billy Ritchie at 8:58 am 1 comments
Labels: ancient practices, Books, charismatic churches, Christian Life, deliverance, fasting, prayer, scot mcknight, spiritual discipline, spiritual warfare
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Fasting because not for
I have been reading Scot McKnight’s book, Fasting: The Ancient Practices I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to understand and take your first steps into this spiritual discipline.
“Fasting is one of the ways the servants [of Jesus] keep themselves alert in this future-oriented waiting until the bridegroom returns. To what could you liken their discreet, mysterious joy as they wait? You could say it is like the quiet humming or whistling of a choir member earlier in the day of a concert. It’s like a mother and father cleaning the house and making up the beds in anticipation of the kids’ coming home at Thanksgiving or Christmas. It’s like standing in the airport terminal or train station, waiting for your loved one to appear. It’s like a fiancĂ©e patiently addressing the wedding invitations: The long-awaited event is not here yet, but it will come, and this is necessary preparation. In each case the energy is upbeat, forward-looking, and marked by the quiet joy of anticipation.”
Posted by Billy Ritchie at 2:08 pm 1 comments
Labels: ancient practices, Books, Christian Life, fasting, meditation, prayer, Quotes, scot mcknight, thomas ryan
Tuesday, January 09, 2018
To find ourselves we first must find Christ
Posted by Billy Ritchie at 8:30 am 0 comments
Labels: mere christianity, Quotes
Monday, January 08, 2018
Grace: nothing but acceptance
Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. … It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.” If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance. Paul Tillich, Shaking the Foundations
Posted by Billy Ritchie at 1:11 pm 0 comments
Friday, January 05, 2018
Sweeter than honey
“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.” Psalms 19:7-11 ESV
- It revives the soul
- It enlightens the eyes
- It emparts wisdom
- It enlivens the heart
- It captures our desires
- It enriches our lives
Posted by Billy Ritchie at 8:17 am 0 comments
Labels: Bible Reading, Christian Life, john piper, word of god
Thursday, January 04, 2018
Steadfast Hope
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. - Romans 15:4 ESV
Posted by Billy Ritchie at 9:13 am 0 comments
Labels: Bible Reading, Christian Life
Wednesday, January 03, 2018
Day long Meditation
“Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.” Psalms 119:97 ESV
- Meditation helps us focus on the Triune God, to love and to enjoy Him in all His persons (1 John 4:8)—intellectually, spiritually, aesthetically.
- Meditation helps increase knowledge of sacred truth. It “takes the veil from the face of truth” (Prov. 4:2).
- Meditation is the “nurse of wisdom,” for it promotes the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:8).
- Meditation enlarges our faith by helping us to trust the God of promises in all our spiritual troubles and the God of providence in all our outward troubles.
- Meditation augments one’s affections. Watson called meditation “the bellows of the affections.” He said, “Meditation hatcheth good affections, as the hen her young ones by sitting on them; we light affection at this fire of meditation” (Ps. 39:3).
- Meditation fosters repentance and reformation of life (Ps. 119:59; Ez. 36:31).
- Meditation is a great friend to memory.
- Meditation helps us view worship as a discipline to be cultivated. It makes us prefer God’s house to our own.
- Meditation transfuses Scripture through the texture of the soul.
- Meditation is a great aid to prayer (Ps. 5:1). It tunes the instrument of prayer before prayer.
- Meditation helps us to hear and read the Word with real benefit. It makes the Word “full of life and energy to our souls.” William Bates wrote, “Hearing the word is like ingestion, and when we meditate upon the word that is digestion; and this digestion of the word by meditation produceth warm affections, zealous resolutions, and holy actions.”
- Meditation on the sacraments helps our “graces to be better and stronger.” It helps faith, hope, love, humility, and numerous spiritual comforts thrive in the soul.
- Meditation stresses the heinousness of sin. It “musters up all weapons, and gathers all forces of arguments for to presse our sins, and lay them heavy upon the heart,” wrote Fenner. Thomas Hooker said, It is a “strong antidote against sin” and “a cure of covetousness.”
- Meditation enables us to “discharge religious duties, because it conveys to the soul the lively sense and feeling of God’s goodness; so the soul is encouraged to duty.”
- Meditation helps prevent vain and sinful thoughts (Jer. 4:14; Matt. 12:35). It helps wean us from this present evil age.
- Meditation provides inner resources on which to draw (Ps. 77:10-12), including direction for daily life (Prov. 6:21-22).
- Meditation helps us persevere in faith; it keeps our hearts “savoury and spiritual in the midst of all our outward and worldly employments,” wrote William Bridge. Meditation is a mighty weapon to ward off Satan and temptation (Ps. 119:11,15; 1 John 2:14).
- Meditation provides relief in afflictions (Is. 49:15-17; Heb. 12:5).
- Meditation helps us benefit others with our spiritual fellowship and counsel (Ps. 66:16; 77:12; 145:7).
- Meditation promotes gratitude for all the blessings showered upon us by God through His Son. Meditation glorifies God (Ps. 49:3).
Posted by Billy Ritchie at 4:50 pm 0 comments
Labels: Bible Reading, Christian Life, joel beeke, meditation, meditation helps, meditation provides, prayer, spiritual, thomas hooker, william bates
Tuesday, January 02, 2018
Gaining Wisdom
The researchers went on to say that there was now “295 exabytes of data floating around the world – that's 29,500,000,000,000,000,000,000 pieces of information. While this is enormous – 315 times the number of grains of sand on Earth – Dr Hilbert points out it is still less than one per cent of the information that is stored in the DNA of a single human being.”
So all the information in the world equates to an infinitesimally small amount compared with that of the creator! So it’s pretty clear where we should be going for our understanding of life and the universe. God the Holy Spirit has given us access to some of his wisdom through the Bible. Here is how John Piper talks about scripture.
Posted by Billy Ritchie at 10:32 am 0 comments
Labels: Bible Reading, Christian Life, Holy Spirit, Scripture, wisdom
Monday, January 01, 2018
Don’t just flirt with God’s Word, marry it!
Satan devotes himself 168 hours a week trying to deceive you and fill your mind with junk.
He has seen to it that you are surrounded almost entirely by a Christless culture whose mood, and entertainment, and advertising, and recreation, and politics are shot through with lies about what you should feel and think and do. Do you think that in this atmosphere you can maintain a vigorous, powerful, free, renewed mind with a ten-minute glance at God’s book once a day?
The reason there are church people who are basically secular like everyone else except with a religious veneer is that they devote 99% of their time to absorbing the trajectories of the world and 1% of their time to absorbing the trajectories of God’s word.
If you want to bring forth the will of God in your life like a mother brings forth a child, you must marry the Bible. For some of you, it is a stranger that you greet on the way to work but never have over for a relaxed evening of conversation, and seldom invite along to spend significant time with you on vacation. Do not, then, be surprised if you are ill-equipped to read the trajectories of God’s will for your own life.
John Piper (“He Will Send His Angel Before You”)
Posted by Billy Ritchie at 11:05 am 0 comments
Labels: Bible Reading, Christian Life