Dog Days of February

 Photo by Andrew Stark

 
This is Taffy. It’s been cold here and she’s been hibernating, except for the trip to her dog dish for supper and the 4 AM trip outside to do what she really should have done earlier. She’s made the wing chair in the living room her den, so I’ve covered it with a sheet.

More February Dog Days posts:

• Stacy’s long-haired dachshund is not hibernating. She likes to go outside, but the results are disastrous.
• Dorothy, guest blogging at Vizslocity, tells us a coyote adventure story that involves her little Maltese, Charlie.
• Kim’s dog post will increase your Vizsla vocabulary.
• Tim posts a photo of his family’s miniature schnauzer puppy. I helped puppysit a miniature schnauzer for a week in January and she was such fun! Only four months old, but so well behaved.
  

To give credit where credit is due: Rosemary used the title phrase in her comment about this month’s dog theme and I liked it, so I’m borrowing it from her until the end of the month when she can have it back. 

I’m inviting you to participate in the Dog Days of February. If you post anything dog related during this month, send me the link by clicking on the Contact button in the sidebar. I’ll link back to your post in the next February Dog Days post.

Need some ideas? Why not

• Post a photo or video of your dog.
• Tell us a doggy story.
  
• Write a piece about a childhood pet dog.
  
• Explain why you chose the pet dog you did.
  
• Say why you’d never in a million years have a pet dog.
• Search YouTube for humourous dog video and embed it.
  
• Rant about dog blogging and how stupid it is.
• Research dingoes or any other wild dog and inform us.
  
• Scan pictures from the bad dog calendar you got for Christmas and post them.
• Instruct us on the proper way to clip doggy toenails.
• Compose a poem on the delights of puppy breath.
• Share your homemade dog treat recipe.
  

And you don’t have to have a blog to participate. Just send me your contribution and I’ll post it right here for you.

Expect to see the next collection of doggy post sometime this coming Friday, February 8th.

What are you waiting for? Here’s your chance to dote on your pets in your blog and not feel guilty or foolish, because, after all, you’re just being a good sport and helping me out!

Book Review: The Great Exchange

My Sin for His Righteousness by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington.

I mentioned back in November that I’d be reviewing this book soon. When I made that foolish statement, I didn’t anticipate that The Great Exchange is not a book suitable for skimming. It is, instead, packed full of goodies, requiring that I make frequent stops for digesting as I made my way through. So here we are, three months later, and I’m finally finished up with reading and moving on to reviewing.

In The Great Exchange, Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington show us what the apostles taught in scripture about the atonement, patterning their work after George Smeaton’s The Apostles Docrine of the Atonement, a classic study written more than 130 years ago. There are two sections in this book: a first section summing up the teaching of the apostles on Christ’s atonement and placing this teaching in it’s historical context; and the second—the bulk of the book—examining the apostle-authored texts dealing with Christ’s atonement, moving from Acts through Revelation.

The authors are firmly convinced that the message of the cross is central to true faith.

The message of the cross—the historical gospel of the God-man, Jesus Christ, who personally visited the earth, which was created through him, with the mission of redeeming his own people with his own infinitely precious, bloody, substitutionary death—has been and must remain the solitary basis and the singular foundation of the Christian faith and worldview.

Click to read more ...

Sunday's Hymn: God's Righteousness

The rich theology and old-fashioned wording in this hymn makes it seem like an old hymn, but it was written in 2005.  It relates God’s righteousness to his justice and wrath and our propitiation.

In Righteous Glory Reigning

In righteous glory reigning, our God sits high enthroned,
His right and truth maintaining, His justice making known.
He stands above Time’s river, the worlds within His view,
His right hand will deliver to every man his due.

Before His bar no pleading excuses any flaw;
But wickedness exceeding ignites the flames of Law.
’Mid Sinai’s sounding thunder the verdict has been read:
All men, in awestruck wonder, fall down before Him, dead.

Such wrath, beyond all telling! Can it be turned aside?
Is there a strong, safe dwelling where Hell can be denied?
Can holy, perfect righteousness forgive and reconcile?
Can God, though angered, still bless the wicked and the vile?

Yes, yes, my soul has found out! There is a mercy sure!
A sovereign grace to sound out—a love both true and pure!
The flesh of God is given to meet the Law’s demands,
And now I am forgiven, while Christ in Heaven stands!

With that propitiation, God and His saints embrace!
That perfect expiation has saved His chosen race!
Now mercy kisses justice; now Truth and Love join hands,
Now Him in Whom our trust is: The Christ, our surety stands!

—-Neil Barham

More on God’s righteousness:

• God’s Righteousness
  

 Other hymns, worship songs, etc. posted today:

• Jesus, The Truth and Power Divine at joythruChrist
• The Collect for Quinquagesima at Magic Statistics
• The Holy Spirit, Lord, Alone at The Happy Wonderer
• Lord’s Day 5, 2008 at The Thirsty Theologian
  
• To Thee, O Lord, I Fly at Hiraeth
  
• I Stand Amazed in the Presence at Seasoning of the Heart
• The Heaven’s Declare Thy Glory, Lord at Whatever Things…

Have you posted a hymn this Sunday and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.