prose & praise

just a truth i wanted to share this afternoon... feelings are important; extremely necessary, in fact, as to not be mistaken for a robot that's barely human. feelings are important and should not be disregarded. but do not be under the control of your feelings. because they are mutable, deceitful, often liars/not of the truth. feel as much as you can as you are able. but do not let feelings be what lead you. let capital-T truth lead you. "that's why you have to get yourself under the control of Scriptures!" this video has transformed my mind this week and i've already linked the full sermon in the last post, but here's a clip: and again, the link to the full sermon : https://www.ligonier.org/learn/conferences/is_there_life_after_death/in-the-likeness-of-his-resurrection-the-bodily-re/ shalom!

current fixations: 2 Corinthians, chapter 5 Deuteronomy 32 - the Song of Moses Save Myself by Ashe this Alistair Begg sermon on the resurrection Strange Fire by John MacArthur Yoga with Adriene - 10 min. session for neck, shoulders and upper back Chapter 19 of my story lately i’ve been thinking about offering a life update, but i’m torn because this isn’t that kind of blog. the kind of blog this is aims to rebel against our image-saturated culture that insists on appealing to the short-attention-span-holding masses easily satisfied by junk media, 260-character tweets, photos of delectable breakfasts, tangerine sunrises and leather-bound classics and 17-second video clips. rebel by positing that a human being is composed of much more than portrayed and received pixelated images on the screen. that we are, more important that what is seen, a people that have thoughts, emotions, and eternity-deep complexities that we cannot understand nor are unable to unravel in a lifetime. that a pictur

here's a fun thought--God is a planner. He's not a pantser, He's a plotter.  from the beginning of time to its end, God has planned what He's wanted for mankind. the redemption story--from the Fall of Adam and Eve to plight of Israel, the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, to the present days, the tribulation, the return of Jesus, the millennial reign, the forever--God has planned. He has known what will happen, He knows every nanosecond of future history, He knows what i'm going to write before i even write it. He knows what this blog post will end up looking. He knows !  this blows my mind!  Isaiah 55 declares:  "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,      neither are your ways my ways, declares the  Lord . 9  For as the heavens are higher than the earth,      so are my ways higher than your ways      and my thoughts than your thoughts." It goes on to say: "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven      and do not return there but wate

shalom!  here's some podcast suggestions for you folks out there who love listening to podcasts:  1. HeartCry Missionary Society: the entire True Gospel series (six parts) by Paul Washer of HeartCry Missionary Society (available from Apple and also part 1 is here ) opened my eyes to the capital-T truth. 2. Cultish: curious about cults or cultish religions? this one's for you! 3. Exploring My Strange Bible: no one teaches Hebrew words or comes up with the best analogies quite like Tim Mackie does. we refer to him at home as "that hevel guy". haha.  4. Door of Hope Church: based in Portland. 5. ADC (apologetics-dot-com) Radio Show: one of the first podcasts i've ever listened to about Christian apologetics. they discuss an array of subjects. just terrific. 6. TGC (The Gospel Coalition) Podcast: similar-ish to ADC. 7. John Piper Sermons: title's self-explanatory. ...hmm, i think 7's the magic number, eh? 

“There is something worse than holding our silence while the lost of this world run headlong into hell: the crime of preaching to a different gospel than the one passed down to the saints. For this reason, we must shun the gospel of contemporary evangelicalism, for it is a watered-down, culturally carved, truncated gospel that allows men to hold to a form of godliness while denying its power, to profess to know God while denying Him with their deeds, and to call Jesus “Lord, Lord,” while not doing the Father’s will. Woe to us if we do not preach the gospel, but even greater woe is due us if we preach it incorrectly!” - Paul Washer

I will never forget a line from a speaking engagement that the late Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias once had. And I will never forget it because I've ended up including it in one of my current WIPs. Ravi said a Hindu friend once asked him: "If (the Christian) conversion is truly supernatural, why is it not more evident in the lives of so many Christians I know?" Years later, this is the best answer I've found, from preacher Paul Washer: "I'll give you an illustration that I've used quite frequently from Charles Spurgeon...Let's say I have a bucket of slop, carcass slop, right here, and I have the finest meal that you can prepare on here on this side, and then we let a swine--a pig--go loose in the back. To which would he run? Would he run to the fine meal or would he run to the bucket of slop? "He would run to the bucket of slop and why would he do that? Because he's a pig, that's what pigs do. It is his nature to run to the bucket of

i promised myself consistency on this thing. and sometimes, i find myself thinking up on the fly what to write when friday and sunday come just so i can say i've written down something. so many other bloggers are much more disciplined in the way that they plan out every blog post and write them ahead of time. me, i'm doing this on the fly. nothing pre-planned, nothing pre-meditated. just me in real time.  i'm not looking to make you feel better about yourself by pointing to you ten things you could do right now to have a better you. there's really only one thing i can give you for that one: seek Jesus. and i'm not here to tell you the secrets of balancing social media, and how to do a proper 24-hour tech Shabbat weekly or how to look at your phone less or how to better you attention span. i'm not here to teach you how to plan your days and how to meet your goals, or how to create a reading schedule so you can finish at least 4 books a month. i'm not here to

 this week, i felt, for the first time in my life, truly...BORN AGAIN.  it started with the movie "American Gospel: Christ Alone" (on Netflix til November!). then I began listening to the True Gospel series from the HeartCry Missionary Society (find it in Apple! one day, i will link to it from here).  so thankful for the life of Pastor Paul Washer. in two episodes (just a little under 3 hours) the Holy Spirit through his life made me see who i am, truly, without God: utterly, completely DEAD. in the third episode, he says of the story about Lazarus, "dead men can't hear. did you know that? and dead men can't stand up? and dead men can't obey commands. dead men can't even hear God. so not only did Jesus *command* Lazarus to come forth, He gave him LIFE to come forth." apart from God, we are not just nothing. we are not just wicked. we are not just undeserving of all His mercy and grace. we are utterly dead. we are useless. we are garbage. we cannot do

blown away by what's happening in portland and how long before i've found out about it. so easy to go completely social media-free for me which sadly is one of the very few ways, i.e. social media, that i hear about rumblings of social unrests and i am shocked, just shocked. i've written a lengthy rant about this on a different platform a couple of weeks ago, and by this i'm not talking about BLM specifically, but the consequences from events transpiring, consequences not in the social sense, but in the sense of how it's been affecting the way that humanity is treating each other and i am in complete disbelief at the lack of compassion, at the staggering height of brokenness that is manifesting in all of us that is resulting in our hurting of each other, and so easily at that. people hear differently, of course, from what the words you actually say, no matter how careful and accurate you may be in structuring responses and somehow my spiel was heard as me being anti