"...make me a crisis man..."

"Lord, make me a crisis man. Let me not be a mile-post on a single road, but make me a fork that men must turn one way or another in facing Christ in me." -prayer by Jim Elliot

An amazing quote by an amazing man. I desire to grow to be that kind of man. I want to be the kind of man who is so in tune with God that the world will look upon me and not wonder who I live for, but be forced to make a decision about who I live for.

[-
In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light my strength my song
This Cornerstone, this solid Ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled when strivings cease!
My Comforter my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand
-]

I didn't know there was a song with such true words contained in it as "In Christ Alone."

[-
In Christ alone! - who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This Gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
Till on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid:
Here in the death of Christ I live
-]

I love this song because there are no filler words, every word is about what the Lord has done and how what He has most graciously done has saved me.

[-
There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ
-]

I think I love this song even more because of the setting where I first heard it. It was last Saturday at the speech tournament right before the final results were announced.

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No guilt in life no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
Till he returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand!
-]

When we sang this song I was in complete amazement of how the Lord had decided to bless me. But, I also knew that no matter what the outcome had been, I still had only once choice. His name must be blessed, when His streams of abundance flow and when I am found in the desert place. That is the only choice for me.

And He is faithful and good. Always!

So, I know what kind of man I want to be. I want to be a man whose life demands a decision by this world because I am living for something greater than this world.

"This Cornerstone, this solid Ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
My Comforter my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand..."

"Practice makes perfect," they say

Who is "they"?

Perhaps "they" are simply the majority or something. Or perhaps it’s the qualified people (to speak in the given field.) Let's take "practice makes perfect" for instance. "They" in the area of this quote would be people who had practiced a lot and knew that it, most definitely, made perfect.

Though...

"someone" had to have said it first. And, either he was surprised/happy that it stuck, or he was left wondering where his gratuity/copyright was.

Some quotes we can say, "as (fill in name) says..." but with these ones, which the author is left to guess, we must simply say, "as they say..."

We're probably doing someone an injustice.

I shall now go back to what I've been doing this whole week... (guess)

"Be A Disciple"

Article 4 – Be A Disciple
By Nate Hanson

"After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 'Men of Galilee,' they said, 'why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven...'"

I wish I had been one of the Twelve. They heard Jesus talk about telling the world about Him and then they saw him go into heaven. When they saw him go into heaven and say that he would come back... I'm sure they didn't think it was going to be a very long time. I'm sure they were thinking days, weeks perhaps. So they rushed out and lived a life that was preaching the beloved Jesus to all. They saw him live, teach, suffer, and die.

They knew the truth. They told it to all. They died for doing so.

But it didn't matter because they knew Jesus would return and they must live for him. They heard him talk about the men who were entrusted with talents and how one man buried his to gain no return while the other man invested his and made his investment profitable. They knew they must live their life’s doing nothing but telling others about Jesus. It was dire to them, they knew their lives weren't long enough to accomplish their task with the greatness they wanted to; to see all come.

But they lived for a world greater than this one. They didn't hear Jesus' commands and "forget" to follow them. They didn't get too "busy" to follow Jesus' last words. And they surly didn't only follow his last commands when it was "safe" to do so.

No, rather they lived for their God, following Jesus commands to the point of death... because, as they had seen, death was only temporary.

[lfe] live for eternity

"A good song is ringing in my head..."

Article 3 – A Piece of Dust
By Nate Hanson

An exceprt from a blog post. This is a quote of a quote.

"Wow... Just imagine... Just imagine, for a moment that, that one little star up there is our universe... And you zoom in on that and you have the Milky Way... And you zoom in after that and you have the Sun... And you zoom in from there and you have Earth... And then, [laughing] you zoom in again and you have a little piece of dust that is you. And God is looking down on you..."

I love the word pictures that are painted here. We have gone zooming through the entire universe and it's galaxies and we come upon a small, insignificant piece of dust. God doesn't have to use us! We are not a "help" to God. We must get out of our world for a moment and see that we are not as skilled and as wise as we think. As is painted in this excerpt; we are nothing compared to the vast universe and galaxies that God has created. These wonders are a picture of how great and powerful our God is.

And He has chosen us to tell others about Him, to live our lives daily preaching the Good News through our actions! This is a privilege! The God who created the universe and has planned everyone's lives, who designed stars who's light shall never reach the earth has asked you to tell others about Him. What an amazing privilege!

But, unfortunately we don't usually consider it as so. Countless hours we waste away doing things that may not be directly evil, but aren't going to build the kingdom. We only have a certain amount of hours here on Earth, this amount is not known. We must live every day as if it were our last. This sounds so cliché to us after hearing it so much, but it doesn't change the truth. We can pass it off as something we hear way too often, or we can begin to live our life as if it is true.

The God who has created the universe has asked you to live a life of service to Him; living a life that tells everyone about Him. When you picture yourself as a piece of dust in relation to the infinite God, it's impossible to not live for Him.

[lfe] live for eternity

"Like history is gone..."

Article 1 – Live For Eternity
By Nate Hanson

It's hard to see now, and I struggle with this all the time. But I must stop and ask myself, "what are you living for?" The way I see it, we as Christians have a choice of two places we can live for. The first being this temporary Earth. This choice gratifies our self and our momentary lives; but what does it truly gain? What is the value of spending 80+ years trying to build up as much wealth or knowledge (knowledge, not “wisdom”) as possible?

The second choice is a course that many desire to take (I, myself, want to take it) and that is the decision that we will live for something greater than today, tomorrow, or 80 years down the road. Don’t be distracted by what the World calls “important” rather focus on the things God has called you to do.

We should say that this life doesn’t please me, this life cannot contain me… this life, and its temporary things will not define or limit me, or subtract from what I was created for. When we make this our resolution we can achieve marvelous things through our Lord, and meet the potential for which we were created.

[lfe] live for eternity