Joe Focht on Colossians

http://streaming.ccphilly.org/video.aspx?id=SAM922

http://streaming.ccphilly.org/video.aspx?id=SAM923

http://streaming.ccphilly.org/video.aspx?id=SAM924

Three excellent teachings from the book of Colossians that are quite challenging.
Well, I thoroughly enjoyed them anyway.
What do you reckon of them?

Another chapter

The Spiritual Person

by A.W. Tozer

---

ALMOST EVERY CHRISTIAN wants to be spiritual, but few know what the experience means. A lot of unfounded comfort could be swept away and much true consolation received if we could get straightened out.
It is difficult for us to shake off the notion that a person is as spiritual as he or she feels. Our basic spirituality seldom accords our feelings. There are many carnal persons whose religious emotions are sensitive to every impression and who manage to keep themselves on a fairly high plane of inward enjoyment but who have no marks of godliness upon them. They have a low boiling point and can get heated up over almost anything religious at a moment's notice. Their tears are close to the surface and their voices carry a world of emotional content. Such have a reputation for being spiritual, and they themselves may easily believe they are. But they are not necessarily so.
Spiritual people are indifferent to their feelings--they live by faith in God with little care about their own emotions. They think God's thoughts and see things as God sees them. They rejoice in Christ and have no confidence in themselves. They are more concerned with obedience than with happiness. This is less romantic, perhaps, but it will stand the test of fire.

( Article taken from This World: Playground or Battleground?, Chapter 8 )

 (found here: http://www.neve-family.com/books/tozer/world/08.html)

I hope someone else finds this as challenging and encouraging as I do. :)
Tozer certainly knew what he was talking about!!

This World: Playground or Battleground? Tozer strikes again. Good challenging stuff.

"The idea that this world is a playground instead of a battleground has now been accepted in practice by the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians. They might hedge around the question if they were asked bluntly to declare their position, but their conduct gives them away. They are facing both ways, enjoying Christ "and the world, gleefully telling everyone that accepting Jesus does not require them to give up their fun – Christianity is just the jolliest thing imaginable. The "worship" growing out of such a view of life is as far off centre as the view itself – a sort of sanctified nightclub without the champagne and the dressed-up drunks. "
(found in chapter 1)
http://www.calvarypo.org/HANDS/0692.pdf

A Scared World Needs a Fearless Church

by A.W. Tozer

---

NO ONE CAN BLAME PEOPLE for being afraid. The world is in for a baptism of fire, and whether or not this present conflict is the beginning of the ordeal, such a baptism will surely come sooner or later. God declares this by the voice of all the holy prophets since time began – there is no escaping it.
But are not we Christians a people of another order? Do we not claim a place in the purpose of God altogether above the uncertainties of time and chance in which the sons of this world are caught? Have we not been given a prophetic preview off all those things that are to come upon the earth? Can anything take us unaware?
Surely Bible-reading Christians should be the last persons on earth to give way to hysteria. They are redeemed from their past offenses, kept in their present circumstances by the power of an all-powerful God, and their future is safe in His hands. God has promised to support them in the flood, protect them in the fire, feed them in famine, shield them against their enemies, hide them in His safe chambers until the indignation is past and receive them at last into eternal tabernacles.
If we are called upon to suffer, we may be perfectly sure that we shall be rewarded for every pain and blessed for every tear. Underneath will be the Everlasting Arms and within will be the deep assurance that all is well with our souls. Nothing can separate us from the love of God – not death, nor life, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature.
This is a big old world, and it is full of the habitations of darkness, but nowhere in its vast expanse is there one thing of which a real Christian need be afraid. Surely a fear-ridden Christian has never examined his or her defenses.
A fear-stricken church cannot help a scared world. We who are in the secret place of safety must begin to talk and act like it. We, above all who dwell upon the earth, should be calm, hopeful, buoyant and cheerful. We'll never convince the scared world that there is peace at the Cross if we continue to exhibit the same fears as those who make no profession of Christianity.

( Article taken from This World: Playground or Battleground?, Chapter 2 )

found at http://www.neve-family.com/books/tozer/world/02.html

 Are you challenged by this or is it just me?

Today's excerpt from In Green Pastures

"The Beauty within

Bodily health is beautiful. Mental vigour is beautiful. But heart-purity is the glory of all loveliness. The heart makes the life. The inner fashions the outer. So, above all things, be pure-hearted. That you may be pure-hearted let Christ more and more into your life, that He may fill all your soul, and that His Spirit may permeate all your being. That the beauty of the Lord may be upon you, that the winning charm of God's loveliness may shine in your features, you must first have the beauty of Christ within you. The transfiguration must come from within. Only a holy, beautiful heart can make a holy, beautiful character."

Quite a challenge isn't it?

Washington Gladden's poem Ultima Veritas, and a couple of lines from Kisses from Katie

Ultima Veritas by Washington Gladden

    In the bitter waves of woe,
    Beaten and tossed about
    By the sullen winds that blow
    From the desolate shores of doubt,--

    When the anchors that faith had cast
    Are dragging in the gale,
    I am quietly holding fast
    To the things that cannot fail:

    I know that right is right;
    That it is not good to lie;
    That love is better than spite,
    And a neighbour than a spy;

    I know that passion needs
    The leash of a sober mind;
    I know that generous deeds
    Some sure reward will find;

    That the rulers must obey;
    That the givers shall increase;
    That Duty lights the way
    For the beautiful feet of Peace;--

    In the darkest night of the year,
    When the stars have all gone out,
    That courage is better than fear,
    That faith is truer than doubt;

    And fierce though the fiends may fight,
    And long though the angels hide,
    I know that Truth and Right
    Have the universe on their side;

    And that somewhere, beyond the stars,
    Is a Love that is better than fate;
    When the night unlocks her bars
    I shall see Him, and I will wait.

Are we content to wait eagerly to see Jesus? and are we quietly holding fast to the things that cannot fail?



"Why do you care so much about me, Lord?
The answer is simple. Because the God who created us loves us. 
Because He created each one of us for a purpose and He wants us to fulfil that purpose. Because the God who knows every hair on my head desires to lift me out of the dust and into His Glory." (Kisses from Katie)