Cold Bible Quotes

You can have everything in the world, but if you don't have love, none of it means crap," he said promptly. "Love is patient. Love is kind. Love always forgives, trusts, supports, and endures. Love never fails. When every star in the heavens grows cold, and when silence lies once more on the face of the deep, three things will endure: faith, hope, and love." And the greatest of these is love," I finished. "That's from the Bible." First Corinthians, chapter thirteen," Thomas confirmed. "I paraphrased. Father makes all of us memorize that passage. Like when parents put those green yucky-face stickers on the poisonous cleaning products under the kitchen sink.

I'm a reader and a storyteller, and God chose literature and story and poetry as the languages of my spiritual text. To me, the Bible is a manifesto, a guide, a love letter, a story.

His lyrical whistle beckoned me to adventure and forgetting. But I didn't want to forget. Hugging my grudge, ugly and prickly, a sad sea urchin, I trudged off on my own, in the opposite direction toward the forbidding prison. As from a star I saw, coldly and soberly, the separateness of everything. I felt the wall of my skin; I am I. That stone is a stone. My beautiful fusion with the things of this world was over. The Tide ebbed, sucked back into itself. There I was, a reject, with the dried black seaweed whose hard beads I liked to pop, hollowed orange and grapefruit halves and a garbage of shells. All at once, old and lonely, I eyed these-- razor clams, fairy boats, weedy mussels, the oyster's pocked gray lace (there was never a pearl) and tiny white "ice cream cones." You could always tell where the best shells were-- at the rim of the last wave, marked by a mascara of tar. I picked up, frigidly, a stiff pink starfish. It lay at the heart of my palm, a joke dummy of my own hand. Sometimes I nursed starfish alive in jam jars of seawater and watched them grow back lost arms. On this day, this awful birthday of otherness, my rival, somebody else, I flung the starfish against a stone. Let it perish.

I saw the gooseflesh on my skin. I did not know what made it. I was not cold. Had a ghost passed over? No, it was the poetry. A spark flew off Arnold and shook me, like a chill. I wanted to cry; I felt very odd. I had fallen into a new way of being happy.

She imagines that she is a seed, driven by the wind, that withstands cold and heat, the worst possible conditions, until one day it falls, like the Bible says, on fertile soil. She knows one day she will flower. This is inevitable. Winter always ends, and springtide blossoms in its place.

C. H. Spurgeon was once asked if he could reconcile these two truths to each other. “I wouldn’t try,” he replied; “I never reconcile friends.” Friends?—yes, friends. This is the point that we have to grasp. In the Bible, divine sovereignty and human responsibility are not enemies. They are not uneasy neighbors; they are not in an endless state of cold war with each other. They are friends, and they work together.

the “Bible Belt,” that gospel-haunted strip of American territory in which a man must, if only for business reasons, take his religion with the straightest of faces,

While we are often willing to spend time reading the Bible, praying, or participating in church programs and services, few of us recognize the importance of becoming good Christian case makers.

In the Bible, divine sovereignty and human responsibility are not enemies. They are not uneasy neighbors; they are not in an endless state of cold war with each other. They are friends, and they work together.

I don't think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is. It is a "hypaethral book," such as Thoreau talked about - a book open to the sky. It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther outdoors the better. Or that has been my experience of it. Passages that within walls seem improbable or incredible, outdoors seem merely natural. This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine - which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.

Are Christians victims of this post-Christian world? No. Sadly, Christians are coconspirators. We embrace modernism’s perks when they serve our own lusts and selfish ambitions. We despise modernism when it crosses lines of our precious moralism. Our cold and hard hearts; our failure to love the stranger; our selfishness with our money, our time, and our home; and our privileged back turned against widows, orphans, prisoners, and refugees mean we are guilty in the face of God of withholding love and Christian witness. And even more serious is our failure to read our Bibles well enough to see that the creation ordinance and the moral law, found first in the Old Testament, is as binding to the Christian as any red letter. Our own conduct condemns our witness to this world.

Don’t forget: Without fuel, a fire grows cold—and without the “fuel” of the Bible, prayer, and Christian fellowship, our faith grows cold.

REV3.15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. REV3.16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

The application of creative intelligence to a problem, the finding of a solution at once dogged, elegant, and wild, this had always seemed to him to be the essential business of human beings—the discovery of sense and causality amid the false leads, the noise, the trackless brambles of life. And yet he had always been haunted—had he not?—by the knowledge that there were men, lunatic cryptographers, mad detectives, who squandered their brilliance and sanity in decoding and interpreting the messages in cloud formations, in the letters of the Bible recombined, in the spots on butterflies’ wings. One might, perhaps, conclude from the existence of such men that meaning dwelled solely in the mind of the analyst. That it was the insoluble problems—the false leads and the cold cases—that reflected the true nature of things. That all the apparent significance and pattern had no more intrinsic sense than the chatter of an African gray parrot. One might so conclude; really, he thought, one might.

This is the shame of the woman whose hand hides her smile because her teeth are so bad, not the grand self-hate that leads some to razors or pills or swan dives off beautiful bridges however tragic that is. This is the shame of seeing yourself, of being ashamed of where you live and what your father’s paycheck lets you eat and wear. This is the shame of the fat and the bald, the unbearable blush of acne, the shame of having no lunch money and pretending you’re not hungry. This is the shame of concealed sickness—diseases too expensive to afford that offer only their cold one-way ticket out. This is the shame of being ashamed, the self-disgust of the cheap wine drunk, the lassitude that makes junk accumulate, the shame that tells you there is another way to live but you are too dumb to find it. This is the real shame, the damned shame, the crying shame, the shame that’s criminal, the shame of knowing words like glory are not in your vocabulary though they litter the Bibles you’re still paying for. This is the shame of not knowing how to read and pretending you do. This is the shame that makes you afraid to leave your house, the shame of food stamps at the supermarket when the clerk shows impatience as you fumble with the change. This is the shame of dirty underwear, the shame of pretending your father works in an office as God intended all men to do. This is the shame of asking friends to let you off in front of the one nice house in the neighborhood and waiting in the shadows until they drive away before walking to the gloom of your house. This is the shame at the end of the mania for owning things, the shame of no heat in winter, the shame of eating cat food, the unholy shame of dreaming of a new house and car and the shame of knowing how cheap such dreams are. © Vern Rutsala

When God intends a mercy for his people, he stirs up the spirit of prayer in them. Fervency unites the soul and directs the thoughts to the work at hand. It will not allow diversions and denies all foreign thoughts seeking to intrude. Pray fervently or you do nothing. Cold praying is no more prayer than a painting of fire is fire. How can prayers that do not even warm your own heart move God’s? A fervent prayer will never find a cold reception with God. Elijah’s prayer called fire down from heaven because it carried fire up to heaven.

Almost every Bible conference majors on today’s Church being like the Ephesian Church. We are told that, despite our sin and carnality, we are seated with Him. Alas, what a lie! We are Ephesians all right; but, as the Ephesian Church in the Revelation, we have ‘‘left our first love!’’ We appease sin—but do not oppose it. To such a cold, carnal, critical, care-cowed Church, this lax, loose, lustful, licentious age will never capitulate. Let us stop looking for scapegoats. The fault in declining morality is not radio or television. The whole blame for the present international degeneration and corruption lies at the door of the Church!

It is not fashionable to quote Stalin but he said once, "half a million liquidated is a statistic, but one man killed in a traffic accident is a national tragedy." He was laughing, you see, at the bourgeois sensitivities of the mass. He was a cynic. But what he meant is still true: a movement which protects itself against counter-revolution can hardly stop at the exploitation - or the elimination, Leamas - of a few individuals. It is all one, we have never pretended to be wholly just in the process of rationalising society. Some Roman said it, didn't he, in the Christian Bible - it is expedient that one man should die for the benefit of many.

ON A COLD CALL: Be brief. You must generate interest in about 30 seconds or less, or forget it. Make a strong statement about how you can help the prospect. Don't focus on how much money you can save them. That approach seems to be wearing thin. Talk about what you do for companies like hers, or how your product has worked for others.

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,  p day and night, shall not cease.

So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of My mouth.

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,  pday and night, shall not cease.

The "covenant" language in the Bible is not cold, legal language, but relational language.

Listen to me, David. I’m going to tell you something you didn’t learn from your minister or your Bible. For all I know it’s a message from God himself. Are you listening?” David only looked at him, saying nothing. “You said ‘God is cruel’ the way a person who’s lived his whole life on Tahiti might say ‘Snow is cold.’ You knew, but you didn’t understand.” He stepped close to David and put his palms on the boy’s cold cheeks. “Do you know how cruel your God can be, David. How fantastically cruel?” David waited, saying nothing. Maybe listening, maybe not. Johnny couldn’t tell. “Sometimes he makes us live.

If you are strong-headed, read about Moses and Peter. If you lack courage, look at Elijah. If there is no song in your heart, listen to David. If you are a politician, read Daniel. If you are morally corrupt, read Isaiah. If your heart is cold, read of the beloved disciple, John. If your faith is low, read Paul. If you are getting lazy, learn from James. If you are losing sight of the future, read in Revelation of the Promised Land.

..."I won't go to Mrs Henne-Falcon's party. I swear on the Bible I won't." Now surely all would be well, he thought. God would not allow him to break so solemn an oath. He would show him a way. There was all the morning before him and all the afternoon until four o'clock. No need to worry when the grass was still crisp with the early frost. Anything might happen. He might cut himself or break his leg or really catch a bad cold. God would manage somehow.

When it grew cold enough to shut the doors, and have fire at night, first thing after supper all of us helped clear the table, then we took our slates and books and learned our lessons for the next day, and then father lined us against the wall, all in a row from Laddie down, and he pronounced words—easy ones that divided into syllables nicely, for me, harder for May, and so up until I might sit down. For Laddie, May and Leon he used the geography, the Bible, Roland's history, the Christian Advocate, and the Agriculturist. My, but he had them so they could spell! After that, as memory tests, all of us recited our reading lesson for the next day, especially the poetry pieces. I knew most of them, from hearing the big folks repeat them so often and practise the proper way to read them. I could do "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "Casablanca," "Gray's Elegy," or "Mark Antony's Speech," but best of all, I liked "Lines to a Water-fowl." When he was tired, if it were not bedtime yet, all of us, boys too, sewed rags for carpet and rugs. Laddie braided corn husks for the kitchen and outside door mats, and they were pretty, and "very useful too," like the dog that got his head patted in McGuffey's Second.

Lord Jesus, you have called us to follow you. Grant that our love may not grow cold in your service, and that we may not fail or deny you in the time of trial, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

he’d read the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, and heard the Upanishads were no different—it was clear the battle for justice was in the heart; each soul was precious. “The great religions teach us,” he said through tears, “that the loss of one soul affects us all.” Whispers

And now for me, faith is less of a brick edifice of belief and doctrine and right answers than it is a wide-open sky ringed with pine trees black against a cold sunset, an altar, a welcome, bread and wine, an unfathomably ferocious love, and a profound sense of my belovedness.

3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; 3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the bible--for she often read aloud when her husband was absent--soon awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and roused in me the desire to learn. Having no fear of my kind mistress before my eyes, (she had given me no reason to fear,) I frankly asked her to teach me to read; and without hesitation, the dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her assistance, I was master of the alphabet, and could spell words of three or four letters...Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and, probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of their human chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade the continuance of her [reading] instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief.... Mrs. Auld evidently felt the force of his remarks; and, like an obedient wife, began to shape her course in the direction indicated by her husband. The effect of his words, on me, was neither slight nor transitory. His iron sentences--cold and harsh--sunk deep into my heart, and stirred up not only my feelings into a sort of rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital thought. It was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery, against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit: the white man's power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man. "Very well," thought I; "knowledge unfits a child to be a slave." I instinctively assented to the proposition; and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. This was just what I needed; and got it at a time, and from a source, whence I least expected it.... Wise as Mr. Auld was, he evidently underrated my comprehension, and had little idea of the use to which I was capable of putting the impressive lesson he was giving to his wife.... That which he most loved I most hated; and the very determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered me the more resolute in seeking intelligence.

hundred miles west and one would be out of the “Bible Belt,” that gospel-haunted strip of American territory in which a man must, if only for business reasons, take his religion with the straightest of faces, but in Finney County one is still within the Bible Belt borders, and therefore a person’s church affiliation is the most important factor influencing his class status.

The Incas were right to worship the sun, Father. God is fire. Combustion is the one inarguable blessing. A tree, oil, coal, a man, a civilization, a soul. They've all got to burn sometime. The warmth made by their passing may be the salvation of others. The ultimate value of the Bible, the Constitution, or any work of literature, really, is that they all burn very well, and for a while they keep back the cold.

The Incas were right to worship the sun, Father,” the Fireman said to Father Storey. “God is fire. Combustion is the one inarguable blessing. A tree, oil, coal, a man, a civilization, a soul. They’ve all got to burn sometime. The warmth made by their passing may be the salvation of others. The ultimate value of the Bible, or the Constitution, or any work of literature, really, is that they all burn very well, and for a while they keep back the cold.

The last time I’d been unwell, suicidally depressed, whatever you want to call it, the reactions of my friends and family had fallen into several different camps: The Let’s Laugh It Off merchants: Claire was the leading light. They hoped that joking about my state of mind would reduce it to a manageable size. Most likely to say, ‘Feeling any mad urges to fling yourself into the sea?’ The Depression Deniers: they were the ones who took the position that since there was no such thing as depression, nothing could be wrong with me. Once upon a time I’d have belonged in that category myself. A subset of the Deniers was The Tough Love people. Most likely to say, ‘What have you got to be depressed about?’ The It’s All About Me bunch: they were the ones who wailed that I couldn’t kill myself because they’d miss me so much. More often than not, I’d end up comforting them. My sister Anna and her boyfriend, Angelo, flew three thousand miles from New York just so I could dry their tears. Most likely to say, ‘Have you any idea how many people love you?’ The Runaways: lots and lots of people just stopped ringing me. Most of them I didn’t care about, but one or two were important to me. Their absence was down to fear; they were terrified that whatever I had, it was catching. Most likely to say, ‘I feel so helpless … God, is that the time?’ Bronagh – though it hurt me too much at the time to really acknowledge it – was the number one offender. The Woo-Woo crew: i.e. those purveying alternative cures. And actually there were hundreds of them – urging me to do reiki, yoga, homeopathy, bible study, sufi dance, cold showers, meditation, EFT, hypnotherapy, hydrotherapy, silent retreats, sweat lodges, felting, fasting, angel channelling or eating only blue food. Everyone had a story about something that had cured their auntie/boss/boyfriend/next-door neighbour. But my sister Rachel was the worst – she had me plagued. Not a day passed that she didn’t send me a link to some swizzer. Followed by a phone call ten minutes later to make sure I’d made an appointment. (And I was so desperate that I even gave plenty of them a go.) Most likely to say, ‘This man’s a miracle worker.’ Followed by: ‘That’s why he’s so expensive. Miracles don’t come cheap.’ There was often cross-pollination between the different groupings. Sometimes the Let’s Laugh It Off merchants teamed up with the Tough Love people to tell me that recovering from depression is ‘simply mind over matter’. You just decide you’re better. (The way you would if you had emphysema.) Or an All About Me would ring a member of the Woo-Woo crew and sob and sob about how selfish I was being and the Woo-Woo crew person would agree because I had refused to cough up two grand for a sweat lodge in Wicklow. Or one of the Runaways would tiptoe back for a sneaky look at me, then commandeer a Denier into launching a two-pronged attack, telling me how well I seemed. And actually that was the worst thing anyone could have done to me, because you can only sound like a self-pitying malingerer if you protest, ‘But I don’t feel well. I feel wretched beyond description.’ Not one person who loved me understood how I’d felt. They hadn’t a clue and I didn’t blame them, because, until it had happened to me, I hadn’t a clue either.

Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing. So,now, let us add Moby Dick to our blessing, and step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish; I have heard of Krakens... Lord, when shall we be done changing? Ah! it's a long stage, and no inn in sight, and night coming, and the body cold. But with you for a passenger, I am content and can be happy. I shall leave the world, I feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality.

After we were brought safely through,  l we then learned that  m the island was called Malta. 2 n The native people [1] showed us unusual  o kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold. 3When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. 4When  p the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another,  q “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea,  r Justice [2] has not allowed

With all this snow, with the sun not there, with the cold and dreariness, this place doesn't look like my America, doesn't even look real. It's like we are in a terrible story, like we're in the crazy parts of the Bible, there where God is busy punishing people for their sins and is making them miserable with all the weather. The sky, for example, has stayed white all this time I have been here, which tells you that something is not right. Even the stones know that a sky is supposed to be blue, like our sky back home, which is blue, so blue you can spray Clorox on it and wipe it with a paper towel and it wouldn't even come off.

The Glorious Garment of Praise, PRAISE AND WORSHIP. The Hebrew root for “garment” (‘atah) shows praise as more than a piece of clothing casually thrown over our shoulders. It literally teaches us “to wrap” or “cover” ourselves—that the garment of praise is to leave no openings through which hostile elements can penetrate. This garment of praise repels and replaces the heavy spirit. This special message of instruction and hope is for those oppressed by fear or doubt. “Put on” this garment. A warm coat from our closet only resists the cold wind when it is “put on.” When distressed, be dressed—with praise! Act according to God’s Word!

But Jesus could see inside people. And inside, in their hearts, Jesus saw that they did not love God or other people. They were running away from God, and they thought they didn't need a rescuer. They thought they were good enough because they kept the rules. But sin had stopped their hearts from working properly. And their hearts were hard and cold. "This woman knows she's a sinner," Jesus told them. "She knows she'll never be good enough. She knows she needs me to rescue her. That's why she loves me so much. You look down on this woman because you don't look up to God. She is sinful on the outside-but you are sinful on the inside.

I did not read the Bible to find Jesus but to answer the question, what should I do? I read indiscriminately and was often confused by scriptures that seemed to contradict each other. My solution was to go for balance: A little of this, a little of that, for all scripture is profitable. But by failing to filter what I read through the finished work of the cross, I unwittingly poisoned myself. I mixed the death-dealing words of the law with the life-giving words of grace. I thought I was zealous for the Lord, but in truth I was lukewarm. I was neither under the stone-cold ministry of the law nor walking in the white-hot heat of God’s love and grace.

As I sat and wrote line after line in one of the stories included in this book, I thought about the guy who wrote the Koran and the guy who wrote the Christian bible ( I know it was a great many people), and admired their resilience and skill at creating stories so incredible that they not only stood the test of time, but people took them as literal and believed them to be true, and still do today. They were guys just like me, pen in hand, and a bottle of wine on the desk. Maybe the woman would come in once and awhile and say that dinner's getting cold, and how much time are you going to spend writing when the kids need to go to practice? And the only time you spend with me is when we fuck....

As we search and explore, we must be careful not to read the Bible as if it’s guilty until proven innocent. This is one sure way to turn our faith into a cold, pure science. And our relationship with God will die as the romance fades. Martin Luther, the well-known reformer, referred to this as the difference between a magisterial use of reason and a ministerial use of reason. Someone who practices the former places himself above the Scriptures and judges whether it is true or false. That person becomes the final arbiter of truth and error. However, the person who practices the latter submits himself under the Scriptures, trusting the Word of God as the final arbiter of truth. This is what Augustine referred to as “faith seeking understanding.

Please don’t give me answers; though that is what I say, that is not what I long for in this chest of broken pieces. I do not want your sympathy, your pat Bible verses, or your lofty promises of prayer. No, I want something much more sinister than that. I ask you to suffer, to take my nails of my grief and drive them into yourself. I ask you to be silent, shut your mouth, and open your hands. Don’t say you understand. Just touch me. Will you hold my hand? Though it’s cold and bony, will you embrace me tightly? Can you wail as I wail, curse as I curse, pray as I pray? I don’t want to be fixed; I want to be known. I want your presence kneeling by my bed, feeling useless, powerless, helpless. Yes, for then, for then, you will understand a small part of me that few have had the courage to know.

During the Cold War between the democratic West and the Soviet Union, there were, of course, many in the West who said, ‘Better dead than Red [communist]’; but many others subscribed to the slogan associated with Bertrand Russell, the twentieth century’s leading atheist philosopher: ‘Better Red than dead.’ Russell’s slogan was consistent with that of much of the well-educated class in Britain. On February 8, 1933, right after Hitler came to power in Germany, the Oxford Union Debating Society held a debate on the resolution, ‘This House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.’ The resolution passed 275–153. The vote made an impression on Hitler and Mussolini, as it revealed that many of England’s best educated would prefer to live under Nazism or Fascism than to fight for freedom and risk death.

23Are they  bservants of Christ?  cI am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors,  dfar more imprisonments,  ewith countless beatings, and  foften near death. 24Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the  gforty lashes less one. 25Three times I was  hbeaten with rods.  iOnce I was stoned. Three times I  jwas shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers,  kdanger from my own people,  ldanger from Gentiles,  mdanger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 nin toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night,  oin hunger and thirst, often without food, [2] in cold and exposure. 28And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for  pall the churches.

The bookstore is owned by septuagenarian nudist Paul Winer, who has skin like burnished leather and wanders the aisles in nothing but a knit codpiece. When it’s cold, he dons a sweater. Paul can afford to keep his bookstore going because, technically, it isn’t a permanent structure, and that keeps the taxes down. It has no real walls—just a ramada roof above a concrete slab. Tarps span the space between them. Shipping containers and a trailer are annexes. Trailer Life magazine called it “the ultimate in Quartzsite architecture.” In an earlier career Paul toured as Sweet Pie, a nude boogie-woogie pianist known for his sing-along anthem “Fuck ’Em If They Can’t Take a Joke,” and he still performs spontaneously on a baby grand near the front of the shop, not far from a discreetly covered adult book section. There’s a Christian section, too, but it’s in the back and Paul usually has to help people find it. “They follow my bare ass to the Bible,” he declares.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.  sI have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 rFor I have come  tto set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 uAnd a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 vWhoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38And  wwhoever does not take his cross and  xfollow me is not worthy of me. 39 yWhoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Rewards 40 z“Whoever receives you receives me, and  awhoever receives me receives him who sent me. 41 bThe one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42And  cwhoever gives one of  dthese little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.

But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flintyhearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that "pure and undefiled religion" which is from above, and which is "first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation - a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, "Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting…. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.

It is clear that the confidence that the psalmist expresses is a divine confidence. He did not say, “I have enough grace to perfect that which concerns me—my faith is so steady that it will not falter—my love is so warm that it will never grow cold—my resolution is so firm that nothing can move it.” No, his dependence was on the Lord alone. If we display a confidence that is not grounded on the Rock of ages, our confidence is worse than a dream; it will fall upon us and cover us with its ruins, to our sorrow and confusion. The

God will stop at nothing to get through to us, overwhelming us with symbols, piling them up one on another without carefully codifying whether and how they all make sense. One thing they are not is tragically empty, distant, cold. They are humming, hot-blooded, and full of life.

Can we attest to moments of blowing it? I'm not a very good cook. One day, while my husband and I worked upstairs in our home offices, I heard a loud pop. The pop sounded like a gun. We both jumped up and ran downstairs. I turned toward the kitchen and found our lab looking up at the stove, tail wagging as if to say, "Up there!" Upon further investigation, I realized I forgot that I had put eggs in a pot to boil My forgetfulness created an unfolding of events that ultimately led to eggs exploding. Fragments of egg were everywhere! In my attempt to fix the situation, I grabbed the scalding pot and thrust it under cold water. My husband yelled, "No!" You guessed it. When the water hit the eggs, those that hadn't already burst exploded at that very moment. Shrapnel of egg hit me square in the face speckled my hair, and splattered my clothes. I stood dumbfounded--frozen as if I really were hit by shrapnel. I expected my husband to do what I felt Jesus would have done--grab a towel and help clean me up. Instead, he stood there, lips curled and eyebrows raised, and said, "You have egg on your face." Isn't that what we often do when the men in our life mess up? Sometimes our messes lead to those moments; sometimes they leave us broken and weeping--or at the very least, with egg on our faces.

Knowledge without devotion is cold, dead orthodoxy. Devotion without knowledge is irrational instability.

Driving in Olathe was likewise an exercise in patience. Going anywhere often involved waiting at railroad crossings as a long freight train passed. David

The Bible reads like a collection of books about people caught up in exodus and exile. It is a book that shows the destruction of imperialism and war. It shows how innocents suffer. The climax of the book is the suffering innocent saviour crucified on a tree. But, God is not done there, it is also a story of resurrection, redemption, and hope. It is the story of people with good news to share by words and action. It is counter-culture and more relevant now than some may realise. In an age of wars and rumours of war, an age of refugees in exile and mass exodus, it speaks of the need for love and compassion. The early followers of Jesus were famous for love and not hate. So while the extremists, the religiously ignorant, the politically cold, the divisive nationalists and the greedy arms dealers fuel the world's problems, and beat the war drums, let us the people of new birth be lights in the darkness and voices in the wilderness. Let us live and sing the song of love, for truly His banner over us is love. It is to that beat we march and in His name, not the gods of hate and war, but the God of love, the Prince of Shalom (peace). Soli Deo Gloria. Amen

43. Change Your Vocabulary, Change Your Attitude Our words have power. They have the power to change our lives for the better or for the worse. Even the Bible says: The tongue has the power of life and death. But what the heck does that mean?! You see, I think ‘trying’ isn’t the only word you should jettison from your dictionary. Let’s take the word ‘problem’ - that one instantly seems to me like a hassle and a pain. I replace it with ‘challenge’. All of a sudden, something that seemed oppressive and negative becomes an obstacle course to be negotiated. Changing the words you use will help you change your attitude to the situation you’re in and the life you live. Do you hear that? The words we use become the life we live. That’s why I have never ever had a ‘cold’ in my life. I have, though, occasionally had a warm! I refuse to call the weekend the weak-end - that symbolizes surrender. I call it a strong-end. (And I can guarantee you’ll do much more with those 48 hours if you live it like that!) And what about the words ‘alarm clock’? ‘Alarm’ to me says emergency and that my life is in danger. That’s a terrible way to start a day. I call it instead my ‘opportunity’ clock. Waking me up to give me the opportunity to get out there and grab life with both hands. And then, of course, there is the worst of all…the word ‘can’t’. When I hear an expedition member say it ‘can’t’ be done, I can never resist amending it to: ‘We haven’t yet found a way to do it.’ And therein lies the adventure! When you start to use words and phrases like these, for sure loads of people will think you’re crazy, but the good news is that you’ll make them smile, and you will be talking into existence the sort of outcomes that most people can only ever dream of… I’d take being called crazy to get that. Wouldn’t you?

The style of the Holy Ghost is one which conveys the truth to the mind in the most forcible manner,—it is plain but flaming, simple but consuming. The Holy Spirit has never written a cold period throughout the whole Bible, and never did he speak by a man a lifeless word, but evermore he gives and blesses the tongue of fire.

It is not fashionable to quote Stalin but he said once, “half a million liquidated is a statistic, and one man killed in a traffic accident is a national tragedy”. He was laughing, you see, at the bourgeois sensitivities of the mass. He was a great cynic. But what he meant is still true: a movement which protects itself against counter-revolution can hardly stop at the exploitation – or the elimination, Leamas – of a few individuals. It is all one, we have never pretended to be wholly just in the process of rationalising society. Some Roman said it, didn’t he, in the Christian Bible – it is expedient that one man should die for the benefit of many.

15‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold (invigorating, refreshing) nor hot (healing, therapeutic); I wish that you were cold or hot. 16‘So because you are lukewarm (spiritually useless), and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth [rejecting you with disgust]. 17‘Because you say, “I am rich, and have prospered and grown wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked [without hope and in great need], [Hos 12:8]

I was thinking how much you remind me of a man I have been reading about in the Bible. Jehoram is his name. Ever make his acquaintance?” “Not especially,” answered Greeves coldly, with evident annoyance at the digression. “He was one of those old Israelite-ish kings, wasn’t he?” “Yes, a king, but he blamed God for the results of his own actions.” “Mm! Yes. I see! But how am I to blame for having a daughter like that? Didn’t God make her what she is? Why couldn’t she have been the right kind of a girl? How was I to blame for that?

Whereas generosity depends on a trusting security, selfishness ultimately arises from deep fear that one can only depend on oneself, that one’s happiness rests precariously in one’s own hands. It is a strategy for facing what one perceives to be a cold, hard world. Thus, it betrays a mistrust of God’s loving care, a fundamental refusal to believe that God will provide all that is good.

In making policy on Palestine over most of the past century, leaders in both Britain and the United States were driven primarily by powerful strategic and domestic political considerations, rather than by principle. The strategic considerations included the goals of dominating this crucial piece of territory, keeping it in friendly hands, and denying it to others. The political ones included cold calculations of the considerable domestic electoral and financial advantages to be obtained from supporting Zionism, as against the negligible domestic political costs. There also existed naive sympathy for Zionism among many British and American politicians, based on a particularly Protestant immersion in the Bible. This sympathy was often combined with a laudable desire to make amends for the persecution of the Jews in different parts of Europe (often combined with a less laudable, indeed reprehensible, desire to have the victims of persecution find haven somewhere other than Great Britain or the United States). The result of such attitudes, which necessarily ignored or downplayed vital realities on the ground in Palestine, has been an enduring tragedy.

Jesus adds a warning that we can’t ignore: “If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand” (verse 5). If our coldness toward Jesus continues, he will blow the light out. The choice for an Ephesian church is repentance, or removal. If a congregation grows cold and worship becomes dead ritual, not many generations have to pass until the church is gone. The building or denomination may still be there; people may still come; someone may stand in the pulpit —but the light, the power, is gone. The lamp has been blown out by Jesus himself.

Maybe it was the aftermath of a dream that he couldn’t remember – so he told me – but Theophilus Baxter woke up one morning in the middle of October 1658, with an unpleasant sensation of trouble. The second session of the General Court of Sagadac Bay would begin its final meeting later in the day. Although the discussions had been uproarious, Theophilus believed that his presentiment related to matters beyond the court’s jurisdiction He shook his head vigorously and walked barefoot across the cold floor to a water basin on a small table in the corner. A splash of water on his face drove away tiny fragments of sleep. While still in his nightshirt, he took his leather-bound Bible – one Elizabeth gave when they were married – from its shelf next to the door and brought it to the edge of his bed, where he sat down to say a short prayer and to read a passage from Paul’s writings. He then dressed and went down the narrow pine stairs to the kitchen, where Elizabeth was setting the table for breakfast. During a pause in their talk about the needs of the day, his premonition of eventfulness returned. Elizabeth noticed the look in his eyes, a look of happiness cut short. (You’ll find scholarly summaries of our controversy in other places. I want to tell the personal side now, so I’ll add and subtract, embroider and elaborate. I’ll invent conversations. Some will complain about the liberties I’m taking, but our colony, an experiment in living, invites adventures that work to create understanding.) “What is it now?” Elizabeth brought a tray of biscuits from the hearth to the table. “We’ve had too much talk lately about God and the Bible,” Theophilus said. “I don’t understand much of the chatter, and I doubt anyone else does either. It’s bad for the country. I had a dream last night about Lydia Bowstreet.” “What would you want to dream about that troublemaker for?” “Things stick in our minds sometimes in the strangest way.

Big Pete didn’t like being distracted by those Bible verses, minutes before he took out a preacher in cold blood. He shook it off like a mosquito sucking blood from his neck.  The red carpeted aisle to the front of the auditorium seemed to go on forever.  Where

The essence of my belief is that there is a difference, a vast difference between fact and truth. Truth in the Scriptures is more than a fact. A fact may be detached, impersonal, cold and totally disassociated from life. Truth, on the other hand is warm, living and spiritual. A theological fact may be held in the mind for a lifetime without its having any positive effect upon the moral character; but truth is creative, saving, transforming and it always changes the one who received it into a humbler and holier man. “Theological facts are like the altar of Elijah on Mount Carmel before the fire came; correct, properly laid out but altogether cold. When the heart makes the ultimate surrender, the fire falls and true facts are transmuted into spiritual truth that transforms, enlightens and sanctifies. The church or the individual that is Bible taught without being Spirit taught has simply failed to see that truth lies deeper than the theological statement of it. We only possess what we experience!

God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys, and a spleen. He stretched against the walls and floated in the amniotic fluids of his mother. God had come near… . The hands that first held him were unmanicured, calloused, and dirty. No silk. No ivory. No hype. No party. No hoopla. Were it not for the shepherds, there would have been no reception. And were it not for a group of star-gazers, there would have been no gifts… . For thirty-three years he would feel everything you and I have ever felt. He felt weak. He grew weary. He was afraid of failure. He was susceptible to wooing women. He got colds, burped, and had body odor. His feelings got hurt. His feet got tired. And his head ached. To think of Jesus in such a light is—well, it seems almost irreverent, doesn’t it? It’s not something we like to do; it’s uncomfortable. It is much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation. He’s easier to stomach that way… .

During that time, “Hurry up or we’ll be late” was commonly heard, either yelled from the kitchen or hissed while we scurried into the back row at church. There was too much to do in too little time. Life was a blur. And I thought everyone lived like this. That was until I read about “hurry sickness” in The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg. My heart was skewered when I read that one of its symptoms is a diminished capacity to love. My children could have told you I had a problem. Only it wasn’t hurry sickness, it was hurry addiction. God dealt with my addiction to overload and hurry by taking it all away in a cross-country move. He made me go cold turkey as I said good-bye to working at my job, directing the children’s ministry, coleading the women’s ministry, being on the praise team, having my small group, leading Vacation Bible Study each summer, and more. God moved us 2,100 miles away—so far that I couldn’t even sneak back to lead a women’s event. I had no job, no church, and no friends, just lots of time. Since two of the boys were in school and the youngest had just started preschool, I had plenty of time to think and pray. And while there were lots of tears, I also experienced God in a new way. Very quickly, God connected me with Proverbs 31 Ministries. I started to learn that God had a better plan for my life than I did, and that I should look to Him for direction on my daily activities. I also learned that my first line of ministry was inside my home. I wasn’t completely cured of my hurry addiction yet, so I decided I would become the Best Homemaker Ever. And then I picked up a book called No Ordinary Home by Carol Brazo. And right in the beginning of the book I read something that brought about the biggest change in my life: If there were one biblical truth I wish I could give my children and lay hold of in my own deepest parts, it would be this one thing. He created me, He loves me, He will always love me. Nothing I do will change who I am. Being versus doing. The error was finally outlined in bold. I was always worried about what I was doing. . . . God’s only concern was and is what I am being—a child of His, forgiven, justified by the work of His Son, His Heir.[2] You know when you feel like an author has peeked into your living room window and knows exactly who you are? That’s what reading this was like for me. God wired me to be highly productive, but I hadn’t undergirded that with an understanding of my true identity. So in order to feel worthwhile and valued and confident, I was driven to take on more. More accomplishments equaled more worth. But it was never enough.

Not the kind of Bible study I’m used to, because I usually do the kind where a bunch of friends meet at someone’s house or a coffee shop and occasionally we do the actual study but mostly we talk and tell stories and pray at the end.

One can approach the Bible with a cold, rationalistic attitude, or one can do so with reverence and the desire to hear God speak.

King David had gotten old. He was so cold and frail that the court appointed a young woman to snuggle with him in his bed. No, they didn't have sex. Though the court did make a point of hiring someone beautiful, just to put a little sizzle in his chicken.

9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10And then many will fall away, y and betray one another, and hate one another. 11And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12And because wickedness is multiplied, most men’s love will grow cold. 13But he who endures to the end will be saved. 14And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.

God’s voice is glorious in the thunder.        We can’t even imagine the greatness of his power. 6 “He directs the snow to fall on the earth        and tells the rain to pour down. 7 Then everyone stops working        so they can watch his power. 8 The wild animals take cover        and stay inside their dens. 9 The stormy wind comes from its chamber,        and the driving winds bring the cold. 10 God’s breath sends the ice,        freezing wide expanses of water. 11 He loads the clouds with moisture,        and they flash with his lightning. 12 The clouds churn about at his direction.        They do whatever he commands throughout the earth. 13 He makes these things happen either to punish people        or to show his unfailing love.

My days of laziness have ruinously destroyed all that I had achieved in times of zealous endeavor; my seasons of coldness have frozen all the genial glow of my periods of fervency and enthusiasm; and my fits of worldliness have thrown me back from my advances in the divine life. I had need to beware of lean prayers, lean praises, lean duties, and lean experiences, for these will eat up the fat of my comfort and peace. If I neglect prayer for never so short a time, I lose all the spirituality to which I had attained; if I draw no fresh supplies from heaven, the old corn in my granary is soon consumed by the famine that rages in my soul.

We have to be careful, however, to distinguish between evidence and artifacts. The testimony of an eyewitness can be properly viewed as evidence, but anything added to the account after the fact should be viewed with caution as a possible artifact (something that exists in the text when it shouldn’t). The Gospels claim to be eyewitness accounts, but you may be surprised to find that there are a few added textual artifacts nestled in with the evidential statements. It appears that scribes, in copying the texts over the years, added lines to the narrative that were not there at the time of the original writing. Let me give you an example. Most of us are familiar with the biblical story in the gospel of John in which Jesus was presented with a woman who had been accused of committing adultery (John 8:1–11). The Jewish men who brought the woman to Jesus wanted her to be stoned, but Jesus refused to condemn her and told the men, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” When the men leave, Jesus tells the woman, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” This story is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture. Too bad that it appears to be an artifact. While the story may, in fact, be absolutely true, the earliest copies of John’s gospel recovered over the centuries fail to contain any part of it. The last verse of chapter 7 and the first eleven verses of chapter 8 are missing in the oldest manuscripts available to us. The story doesn’t appear until it is discovered in later copies of John’s gospel, centuries after the life of Jesus on earth. In fact, some ancient biblical manuscripts place it in a different location in John’s gospel. Some ancient copies of the Bible even place it in the gospel of Luke. While there is much about the story that seems consistent with Jesus’s character and teaching, most scholars do not believe it was part of John’s original account. It is a biblical artifact, and it is identified as such in nearly every modern translation of the Bible (where it is typically noted in the margin or bracketed to separate it from the reliable account).

The New England wilderness March 1, 1704 Temperature 10 degrees I will be brave, she told herself. I will stay strong. Lord, Lord, Lord, she said to Him. She had never needed Him more, but in this cold white wilderness, she could not feel His presence. The snowball fights ended. The sledding stopped. The march went on. Nobody could help Mercy. Everybody had their own trembling legs and hearts to deal with. Tannhahorens appeared by her side. He had covered his ears and shaved head with a great scarlet muff of a hat. In his long blue coat, he was astonishing, like something out of a Bible story. With mittened hands, he lifted Daniel from Mercy’s back, giving the little boy another bite of hard bread and setting him on his shoulders to ride high and comfortable, the way Eunice Williams was riding. Then he took Mercy’s hand to keep her from falling as the march went up yet another hill.

While tips are not expected, they are appreciated,” Max said. “Where to, sir?” “Why can’t you take anything seriously?” Carlos snapped. “You kill people for a living!” “You just answered your own question,” Max said, his tone turning cold. “When you have the amount of blood on your hands that I do, see how far you’ll go just to fight back the darkness.” “Oh...right,” Carlos replied quietly. “Plus the chicks dig the funny ones,” Max chuckled. “They like it when you tickle their funny bones.

The New England wilderness March 1, 1704 Temperature 10 degrees She had no choice but to go to him. She set Daniel down. Perhaps they would spare Daniel. Perhaps only she was to be burned. She forced herself to keep her chin up, her eyes steady and her steps even. How could she be afraid of going where her five-year-old brother had gone first? O Tommy, she thought, rest in the Lord. Perhaps you are with Mother now. Perhaps I will see you in a moment. She did not want to die. Her footsteps crunched on the snow. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. The Indian handed Mercy a slab of cornmeal bread, and then beckoned to Daniel, who cried, “Oh, good, I’m so hungry!” and came running, his happy little face tilted in a smile at the Indian who fed him. “Mercy said we’d eat later,” Daniel confided in the Indian. The English trembled in their relief and the French laughed. The Indian knelt beside Daniel, tossing aside Tommy’s jacket and dressing Daniel in warm clean clothing from another child. Nobody in Deerfield owned many clothes, and if she permitted herself to think about it, Mercy would know whose trousers and shirt these were, but she did not want to think about what dead child did not need clothes, so she said to the Indian, “Who are you? What’s your name?” He understood. Putting the palm of his hand against his chest, he said, “Tannhahorens.” She could just barely separate the syllables. It sounded more like a duck quacking than a real word. “Tannhahorens,” he said again, and she repeated it after him. She wondered what it meant. Indian names had to make a picture. She smiled carefully at the man she had thought was going to burn her alive as an example and said, “I’ll be right back, Tannhahorens.” She took a few steps away, and when he did nothing, she ran to her family. Her uncle swept her into his arms. How wonderful his scratchy beard felt! How strong and comforting his hug! “My brave girl,” he whispered, kissing her hair. “Mercy, they won’t let me help you.” In a voice as childish and puzzled as Daniel’s, he added, “They won’t let me help your aunt Mary, or Will and Little Mary either. I tried to help your brothers and got whipped for it.” He stammered: Uncle Nathaniel, whose reading choices from the Bible were always about war, and whose voice made every battle exciting. He needed her comfort as much as she needed his. “Uncle Nathaniel,” she said, “if I had done better, Tommy and Marah--” “Hush,” said her uncle. “The Lord set a task before you and you obeyed. Daniel is your task. Say your prayers as you march.” In a tight little pack behind Uncle Nathaniel stood her three living brothers. How small and cold they looked. Sam lifted his chin to encourage his sister and said, “At least we’re together. Do the best you can, Mercy. So will we.” They stared at each other, the two closest in age, and Mercy thought how proud their mother would be of Sam. “Mercy,” cried her brother John, panicking, “you have to go! Go fast,” he said urgently. “Your Indian is pointing at you.” Tannhahorens was watching her but not signaling. He isn’t angry, thought Mercy. I don’t have to be afraid, but I do have to return. “Find out your Indian’s name,” she said to her brothers. “It helps. Call him by name.” She took the time to hug and kiss each brother. How narrow their little shoulders; how thin the cloth that must keep them from freezing. She had to go before she wept. Indians did not care for crying. “Be strong, Uncle Nathaniel,” she said, touching the strange collar around his neck. “Don’t tug it,” he said wryly. “It’s lined with porcupine quill tips. If I don’t move at the right speed, the Indians give my leash a twitch and the needles jab my throat.” The boys laughed, pantomiming a hard jerk on the cord, and Mercy said, “You’re all just as mean as you ever were!” “And alive,” said Sam. When they hugged once more, she felt a tremor in him, deep and horrified, but under control.

The law of cause and effect is a basic law of life. The Bible calls it the Law of Sowing and Reaping. “You reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit” (Gal. 6:7–8 NRSV). When God tells us that we will reap what we sow, he is not punishing us; he’s telling us how things really are. If you smoke cigarettes, you most likely will develop a smoker’s hack, and you may even get lung cancer. If you overspend, you most likely will get calls from creditors, and you may even go hungry because you have no money for food. On the other hand, if you eat right and exercise regularly, you may suffer from fewer colds and bouts with the flu. If you budget wisely, you will have money for the bill collectors and for the grocery store.

15I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

COLD WORDS FREEZE PEOPLE, AND HOT WORDS SCORCH THEM, AND BITTER WORDS MAKE THEM BITTER, AND WRATHFUL WORDS MAKE THEM WRATHFUL. KIND WORDS . . . SOOTHE, QUIET, AND COMFORT THE HEARER. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

If Hitler's Mein Kampf (only the Bible has sold more copies his century), his speeches and opinions are the rantings of a madman as is claimed why are they not readily available so that we can judge for ourselves? Is it because the victor's lies cannot bear the cold light of objectivity? Here then is a rare opportunity to examine the authentic first-hand expressions uttered by German Leader who won the hearts of minds of hundreds of millions of Europeans.

As Believers we are not to be moved by our circumstances but we are to regulate our lives by the Word of God. I like the word regulate. It reminds me of a thermostat. When things get too hot, a thermostat kicks into action and goes to work cooling down the house to a comfortable temperature. When things get too cold, the thermostat kicks into gear and warms things up. That is how our faith is designed to operate. We have been created to believe the things God has promised in His Word, regardless of how things “look.” When we use our faith, based on the promises of the Bible, we can regulate or change our circumstances through believing, declaring, and standing on His Word.

During the Crusades, when Christians were in the mood to slaughter infidels, they were very cognizant of God’s sanctioning faith-based mass murder in parts of the Bible. During the Cold War, when the United States was part of an international multifaith alliance that included Muslim and Buddhist nations, this motif was played down; whole generations of American Christians were weaned on a misleadingly sunny selection of Bible stories.

In other words, Nida wanted this to become the Greek text for all linguists and “scholars” from then on. All those translators who believed the King James, Reina Valera, or lots of other Reformation Bibles based on the Received Text would now be out in the cold.

Vanishing cream for the mind, English writer Jeremiah Creedon calls it. It's beholding the mote in your brother's eye, says the Bible, while disregarding the beam in your own. Denial is refusing to listen to the voice that awakens you in the night and whispers, "You know, you really are an incredible jerk and you ought to do something about it!" "Beware thoughts that come in the night," cautions William Least Heat Moon at the start of Blue Highways, his evocative journal of self-discovery on the back roads of America. "They aren't turned properly. They come in askew, free of sense or satisfaction, deriving from the most remote of sources." Samuel Taylor Coleridge called those remote sources "an aching hollow in the bosom, a dark cold speck at the heart, an obscure and boding sense of something that must be kept out of sight of the conscience, some secret lodger, whom they can neither resolve to reject or retain." Denial is keeping from ourselves secrets we already know. It's choosing to forget what we can't bear to remember. It's making people tell us what we want to hear so we can keep believing the lies we've told ourselves, keep punishing those who dare to make us listen to the truth. Denial is the psychology of self-deception, the mind's deliberate failure to see things as they really are in order to protect ourselves from ourselves, says Donald Goldman, author of Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception. Familiar words of denial: It's not about the money. I am not a crook. I was only obeying orders. Business is business. I can quit whenever I want. I don't remember.

Complaining     “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Philippians 4:11).     God hates complaining. In the Old Testament, God rescued the Israelites from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. They had a miraculous escape through the Red Sea and were on their way to the Promised Land. Yet only two of the original group actually arrived at the final destination. The rest perished in the desert. Why? One contributing factor was their complaining.   First, they complained that they had no food so God graciously provided manna. This was food that miraculously appeared each morning for them to collect for their families for the day. However, it wasn’t long before they complained about the manna. They even went so far as to say that they preferred their lives of slavery in Egypt to another day of eating manna.   I’m disgusted by their ungratefulness. They were a complaining, grumbling bunch that couldn’t see how good they actually had it. They were constantly looking for the bad in their situation instead of focusing on how God had favoured them, heard their cries, saved them from slavery, and provided for them on their way to the Promised Land.   However, it’s easy for me to pass judgment on them as I read about their story in the Bible. It’s obvious to me what they did wrong. But I was recently convicted of my own behaviour. Some days I am no better than those complainers.   I can think specifically of a job I received. This job was a miracle from God in itself. My two co-workers had been waiting over three years to get this job – I had just applied a month before. It was only part-time hours so it allowed me to continue to pursue my other interests and hobbies. It was close to my home, within the hours that my children were at school and doing what I love to do – teach.   However, when I was first offered the job I complained about the topic I would be teaching – accounting. It was not my first love. I would have preferred to teach creative writing or marketing – something fun. But accounting? I balked. Then I complained about the cost of parking. Then I complained that I had to share an office. Then I complained that my mailbox was too high, the water was too cold, the photocopier was too far away, the computer was too slow – well, you get the point. Instead of focusing on the answer to prayer, I focused on the little irritants about which to complain.   Finally, I started to complain about the students – one particular student. She would come to class with a snarl and sit in the back of the classroom with her arms crossed, feet up and a scowl that would scare crows away. It seemed to me that she not only hated the topic I was teaching, but she also hated the teacher.   Each day, I returned home and complained to my husband about this particular student. Things didn’t improve. She became more and more despondent and even poisoned the entire class with her sickly attitude. I complained more. I complained to other teachers and my friends; anyone who dared to ask the question, “How do you enjoy teaching?”  

Prayer is spending time with God. ~ Sharon Espeseth         Covered     “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Ephesians 6:18).     Looking back, I recall the many times that I had done stupid things, yet somehow I didn’t get hurt. Specifically, I remember my university days as being full of stupidity. For instance, one cold November evening I decided to leave a house party and walk home. This wouldn’t have been so bad, however, it was 2:00 in the morning, I hadn’t told anyone I was going, and I had to walk 45 minutes to get home. When I think back, I shudder. Any number of bad things could have happened to me.   I made some poor choices, and although I suffered the consequences I sometimes felt as if the consequences were not as bad as they could have been. It recently occurred to me that I was being watched over and protected. I now know that my family frequently prayed for me.   Although I wasn’t serving God at the time, I was being covered in prayer by those who were. I am now led to believe that people I didn’t even know were praying for me. I make this assumption, not because I now know these people, but because I witnessed people praying for complete strangers.   In church and at Bible studies, prayer requests are often made for those we do not know. As part of a Christian writer’s group, I receive prayer requests via email for people I may never meet in my lifetime. Listening to Christian radio stations, prayer requests are voiced for others throughout the country and the world. As a member of many Christian associations, I receive newsletters and phone calls requesting prayer for strangers.   More recently, I witnessed first hand the outpouring of love for strangers through prayer. I was traveling east with a van full of women. We were excited about the conference we were going to together. However, on our drive we saw a slowdown of traffic on the opposite highway. There were police cars, ambulance, and fire truck lights flashing. In the centre of it all was a car, overturned on its roof. Another car was near with a smashed front end. The accident scene looked horrible. We automatically stopped our chatter and took a moment to pray aloud for the victims in the accident. We prayed for complete strangers. Although we may never know who they were, we followed Jesus’ directive to love our neighbours.   It’s comforting to know that my family and I are being prayed for. And I will continue to pray for people I don’t even know.       Prayer is my "alone" time with God. ~ Ruth Smith Meyer        

The next morning at dawn Tatiana stumbled out to the water, barely able to walk. She felt raw. Alexander followed her in. The Kama was cold. They were both naked. “I brought soap,” he said. “Oh, my.” Alexander washed her entire body. “With this soap I thee wash,” he sleepily murmured. “I wash you of the horrors that befell you, and I wash you of your nightmares…I wash your arms and your legs and your love-giving heart and your life-giving belly—” “Give me the soap,” Tatiana said. “I’ll wash you.” “Wait, how does it go? What did God say to Moses—” “Have no idea.” “Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day…” Alexander broke off. “I can’t remember the rest of it. Certainly not in Russian. Something about ten thousand falling at your right hand. I’ve got to brush up on my Bible and tell it to you. I think you’d like it. But you get my meaning.” “I get your meaning,” Tatiana said. “I won’t be afraid.” She gazed at him. “How can I be afraid now?” she whispered. “Look what I’ve been given. Give me the soap,” she repeated. “I can’t stand up,” Alexander muttered. “I’m finished.” Her hands with the soap moved lower. “Not quite finished.” He fell backward in the water. “Done for, certainly,” Tatiana said, falling on top of him. “But not finished.

Mora Take a step off of that silver bird from your planet And you brought a little bit of that cold with you Now wring me out like you would your bastarding father And you're so quick to stick to that scum Hungry like a piranha Swallow a little of that sea Now taste a little bit of the salt in me Throw up a little bit of it on your knees Now doesn't that bring you back to the beginning? Before you poured your elements away Now sink back to the bottom of it all Seal your lips with the black stitch of a secret Parade with that speechless dryness of the desert air Lay flat under the lime light you feed off all the fiction Cold callus and boiled between the bleak deep of your dirty hands Kiss your son now kiss your bible And you know I never wanted to see your face I just wont believe it Swallow a little of that sea Now taste a little bit of the salt in me Rub a little of it on your knees Now doesn't that bring you back to the beginning? Before you poured your elements away Now sink back to the bottom of it all Swallow a little of that sea Now taste a little bit of the salt in me Throw up a little bit of it on your knees Now doesn't that bring you back to the beginning? Before you poured your elements away Now sink back to the bottom of it all

Faye gulped. "I think a real reading of the Bible would lead you to remember that long ago God was the one who shook the waters in the great flood. So I don't think a little cold water thrown on Him by science is going to scare Him any.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16) Our outer self is wasting away. Our bodies don’t work correctly. They fall apart and fail us at the worst times. While we live in this fallen world, we live in bodies that are wasting away. I would argue that if we truly believe in total depravity, then we must accept mental illness as a biblical category. If I believe that sin has affected every part of my body, including my brain, then it shouldn’t surprise me when my brain doesn’t work correctly. I’m not surprised when I get a cold; why should I be surprised if I experience mental illness? To say that depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar, and every other disorder, are purely spiritual disorders is to ignore the fact that we are both body and soul. Mental illness is not something invented by secular psychiatrists. Rather, it is part and parcel with living in fallen, sinful world.

This chapter is loaded with multiple ways to introduce new adaptive challenges and break homeostasis. We recommend that you: Upgrade your macros (more protein, more fiber) Start lifting weights (if you’re not already) Change your weight training program Increase your weight training frequency each week Do an HIIT workout a week Progress to two HIIT workouts a week Do cold therapy Add walking Add rebounding Add yoga Add cardio Change the type of cardio Increase the intensity of cardio Increase anabolism Do sauna sessions Cut calories

Ecclesiastes declares that life has no meaning, that evil will be rewarded, and goodness punished. He says that even the most honorable man can be left in town to die in the street, while the greediest fool gets a eulogy and a proper burial. But either people skip that part of the Old Testament, or they never read the Bible at all, and instead they follow their instinct to mythify a sequence of random events and the stream of strangers they encounter in life: Good things happen to them or people they like and they think, “justice.” Bad things happen to people they don’t like and once again they think, “justice.” This is part of why a cold bump can be so effective: Lucien believed that he summoned me into his life by heart alone, by fate. He believed he deserved to fall in love (everyone believes they deserve this) and, in his specific case, with someone like me. His satisfied desire was a reward, as if it were part of a grand design based on birthright, on being from a good family, and making good choices, moral choices, and aesthetic ones too. We took turns kissing and talking, lying on the grass of the Place des Vosges. Lucien was telling me about Victor Hugo, how Victor Hugo, exiled to the island of Guernsey in the English Channel, had heard voices in the waves, addressing him on the subject of the future of France.

If you read the Bible as if it’s mainly about Israel, or mainly about you, it’s like reading it with a cold heart and your eyes shut. When you discover it’s mainly about Jesus, and God’s purpose for the nations through him, your heart catches fire and your eyes are opened.

Cat on the wall Christianity is something that the Bible never approves. Either it is black or white, no question of being grey Righteous or wicked (Psalm 1) Light or Darkness (I John 1 : 5, 6) Narrow or Broadway (Matthew 7: 13, 14) Belief or Unbelief (John 3: 18) Pure or defiled (Titus 1: 15) Obedient or disobedient (John 14: 23, 24) Lord or Baal (I Kings 18: 21) Wise or fool (Proverbs 1: 7) Hot or Cold (Revelation 3: 16) Eternal life or eternal punishment (Matthew 25: 46) Today is the day of Salvation. Decide your path now!

Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

Vegetables. Fruits. Nuts. Seeds. Meats. Eggs. Fish. That’s it. For millions of years our ancestors survived purely from these 7 things. Typically, the women gathered the nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables while men hunted for meat. Together these food sources provided the necessary components of a complete diet that sustained healthy living. Climate, geography, and luck mainly determined how balanced these sources were. But remember, regardless of how much of each food they ate, these were the only foods available to our ancestors, so naturally our bodies have adapted to their consumption. It wasn’t until about ten thousand years ago, a blip in our time on Earth, with the cultivation of plants and domestication of animals, that large quantities of breads, potatoes, rice, pasta, and dairy became available. These relatively new sources of calories were the main reason our complex societies were able to develop, and our overabundance is to a large degree due to them. However, for millions of years our bodies evolved on diets without any of these. The relatively miniscule time span since the domestication of plants and animals has not prepared us to live healthy lives with diets consisting of too many breads, pastas, rice, and potatoes. Yes, life expectancy has greatly increased in this time span, but this can be attributed not to new foods, but rather to man’s no longer having to live life on-the-go while dealing with hunger, thirst, illness, injuries, extreme cold, and fighting dangerous animals with primitive tools. So think of these new calories as little more than fillers. If you find yourself overwhelmed by nutritional definitions and rules, just ask yourself this: For millions of years before the domestication of plants and animals, what did we eat?

The nonbeliever, in turn, may begin to wonder what, exactly, he is opposing. Certainly, nobody, not even the most rabid Bible-smashing professional atheist, can deny that all the forces, principles and laws observable in nature may be aspects of one bedrock underlying in-form-ation system or implicate order active in all times and all places. "And this," as Aquinas says, "it is customary to call God." It may be conscious, even; or, if not conscious as we are conscious, It may still be "intelligent" in some sense. Yositani Roshi, trying to explain the Zen concept of "Buddha-mind" (the closest thing Zen has to a "God"), used to say it is not far away and metaphysical but always right where you are sitting now. "When the room gets cold at night and you pull up the covers without waking, that is Buddha-mind acting," he said. This "trans-personal" (or un-personalized) It is invoked by Lao-Tse as follows: Something cloudy and unclear Before existence and non-existence, Before heaven and earth, I do not know its name So I call it Tao