Good Riddance

I’m celebrating the end of January. After January, we’re on the upside of winter: three months down and three months to go. Our shortest day, back on December 21, was just over 5 1/2 hours long; today was nearly eight. That’s a difference in daylight that we can see.

I used to look forward to the cold, dark days of January. It was a good time for relaxing by the fire and working on a big jigsaw puzzle. But I’ve developed an allergy to pine, the only firewood available, so relaxing by a warm fire is out.

I did start to put together a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of a Van Gogh painting. I made it half way through before the cat pushed a puzzle piece onto the floor for the pup to chew, and by chew, I mean he made it into something that looks like a piece of used chewing gum. Now I can’t decide whether to go ahead and finish the puzzle or not. I only put a puzzle together so that when it’s finished I can spend a few days rubbing my hands across it’s perfectly put together pieces. This one ain’t gonna work for that.

Today there was a wild wind. Youngest son took the dogs on a short walk and came back with his cheeks burning. But tomorrow, the first day of February, will be several degrees above freezing.

It’s too bad the passage of time does nothing for a chewed puzzle piece.

Sunday's Hymn

Jesus Paid It All

I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

Refrain

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim,
I’ll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.

And now complete in Him
My robe His righteousness,
Close sheltered ’neath His side,
I am divinely blest.

Lord, now indeed I find
Thy power and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots
And melt the heart of stone.

When from my dying bed
My ransomed soul shall rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Shall rend the vaulted skies.

And when before the throne
I stand in Him complete,
I’ll lay my trophies down
All down at Jesus’ feet. 

Some hymns have an overabundance of YouTube videos to chose from and this is one of them. Here’s my favorite—a simple piano rendition.

There’s also a choral arrangement that shows up in a few videos, one of which is a performance during some sort of patriotic celebration in a Baptist church (I’m agin’ such things), and the other a Baptist youth choir performance, which, unfortunately, includes barefoot interpretive dancers (something else I’m not fond of). Here’s the youth choir, minus video, so don’t have to watch the girls. (If you want to hear the same arrangement done by adults dressed in red, white, and blue, go here.)

As long as I’m pointing out other videos of performances of Jesus Paid It All, I liked this saxophone perfomance, too.

And little Lilly:

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Praise, My Soul, The King of Heaven at Rosemary at Home
• Jesus, Let Thy Pitying Eye at Tried With Fire
• Gracious Savior, Gentle Shepherd at Field Stone Cottage
• How Blest Is He Whose Trespass at Hiraeth
• We Shall Shine As The Stars at The Happy Wonderer
• Lord’s Day 5, 2010 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Psalm 121 at Daily On My Way to Heaven
• Voices of the Past - January 30, 2011 at The Upward Call
• Sabbath Keeping at Thistle Grove Farms

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list.

No Hemming, Hawing and Tiptoeing Around

After yesterday’s quoted passage, J. Mack Stiles goes on to give us the rest of the bad news:

We are treasonous rebels who, without constraints, would murder and destroy God himself to establish ourselves in his place (John 19:15). … What awaits us—what we’ve all earned—is hell.

Does that offend you? Are you angry at these comments? Do you say, “It’s not true. I’ve never been in rebellion with God! It can’t be that bad. I’m a good person. What about Ghandi? I love God; we’re friends; I’m spiritual; ‘my God’ would never say such things.”

But I contend that if this news, this bad news, offends rather than humbles, you are the one most in danger. For it’s not said to offend but to instruct and to warn about a reality—the same warning my doctor might bring of a grave illness, but with far, far greater consequences.

…I am well aware of the umbrage people take at such news, Christians included. But why? Doesn’t our offense only point to our self-centeredness and self-righteousness? Those very sins we most hate in others?

Actually, our offense convinces me of its truth. The older I get, the less I feel compelled to avoid the subject by hemming, hawing and tiptoeing around, and the more I want people to open their eyes.

From Marks of the Messenger: Knowing, Living and Speaking the Gospel.