Laughing, weeping, living, loving and dying.
Updated blog:
18 months ago, the girl won a talent context (“The X-factor”) Which is UK’s “American Idol” programme. Now she is number one in the U.S.A. And I’ve been saying from the start this girl was destinied for great things!!
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-ctIC65PV0[/video]
That’s my teenybopper moment over with!
Apparently all her videos are disabled from being embedded so if you want to listen, go to This Url
I have been busily working the last few days on revamping and relaunching my A Puritan At Heart site. The Puritan daily quote is still there, and the content from my Puritannical site, is all accessible from there, and the puritannical site in its current web spot will be disappearing over the next few days, but all the content still accessible from a Puritan at heart. There is also a forum added to the site, and tho its not yet up and running, please consider registering for membership, as its open to registrations. Pure Genevan Discourse is a place to discuss the thoughts of Geneva, and also what the Puritans can still teach us today. Applying their teachings to our modern world. And Lord knows we need them! Anyone who has a particular interest in puritanism or and has enjoyed the stuff I write as regards Puritanism here or elsewhere then please consider registering at Pure Genevan Discourse. This site (Crazy Calvinist) may or may not be moved over to that url, on a separate bit of it, at this point I’m not sure. But if so, I shall put a forward on this domain to take folks there when coming here. Some of the links may not be fully working as yet, as its still under development, but the major part is done.
A poster used in England to encourage Church attendance. And it’s surely the truth, that you will go, and hear and do anything that isn’t part of what God instituted as His worship. And entertaining the congregation goes way above and beyond, the real purpose. So, yes, its certainly TRUE!
Anabaptist Catechism Question 4:
Q. What other arguments have you to prove that infants have not faith and are not to be baptized?
A. If they had faith they were presently to be admitted to the Supper and not excluded from communion therein, as many which re admitted to communion in baptism; whereas the communion in both is one and the same, the same thing signified in both, viz. our fellowship with Christ in his death and resurrection. So that all that are baptized into one body, are all made to drink into one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13), and the same preparation of faith and repentance are required for both; and he that is cast out of the one, is cast out of the other, seeing by excommunication he is like an heathen or publican.
Reply by Richard Hollingworth from the Catechist Catechised which was published in 1643 in a reply to the author of “The Anabaptist Catechism” which was published around the same time.
It is the judgement both of Mr Rutherford and Mr Hooker and others of New England, that infants of visible churches, born of wicked parents, members of the same churches, ought to be baptized. The reason may be that we, (when a child is presented to baptism) are to take notice of the parent’s church membership, not of his scandalousness. If the Church do not cast out the parents, why should the minister cast out the child? Parent’s where suspended, lose only their present fruition, not their fundamental right of membership. It is right to membership not the present fruition of it, nor their worthiness of that right, which does (as they conceive) transfer that privilege to infants. Mr Cotton in his “Way” (p. 115) conceives it is considerable if the grandfather or grandmother, making profession, still be living, and willing to undertake for the child; yea that in some cases a heathen child may be baptized in right of its household governor (Gen 17). Yet it is very far from their opinions that, these children, or the immediate parents of them should be admitted to the Supper.
Amongst the Jews, infants were circumcised; yet were they not presently admitted to the Passover. They could not come up (nor do we read they were carried) from the remote parts of Judea to Jerusalem where only the lamb was eaten. Nor could they eat it standing with “staves in their hands.”, and with “sour herbs” as was required ( Exod 12); nor keep it to the Lord (v.46) with spiritual respects to God’s glory, to God’s ends and rules and to have their “hearts prepared” as well as to be ceremonially clean (2 Chr 20:33; 30:17). And the same males were as well to be at the feast of tabernacles (as at the Passover) and to carry boughs (which was no infants work) to make booths or tabernacles to dwell in (Deut 16:16, 17;. With Lev 23:34, 35, 38-40). The children, yea those that could speak and ask questions, did not partake of the Passover as is implied in that they did not say “What mean we”, but “What mean you by this service?” it was not allowable to count them for the eating of the Passover that could not eat of it, viz., infants, sick persons, uncircumcised and unclean. The uncleanness of a proselyte was no bar to circumcision, but to the Passover it was (Numbers 9:6,10). An adult proselyte might in some cases be circumcise and baptized, and not presently admitted to the Passover.
To be continued.
Okay, there’s probably not one person alive who doesn’t tell a little white now and again; and probably no one alive who hasn’t at some point told a great big whopper of a lie, even if in childhood.
But I do not understand some folks seeming denseness when it comes to integrity. Especially when its companies or business people. I arranged for someone to call me about having some kind of video intercome for my door, so that I can see whose there before opening the door. A disabled woman living alone, can do little to defend themselves or stop anyone pushing past and entering on opening the door. But I called this company last Wednesday I think. And asked them to call me back when the right person was there, in the afternoon. So, the guy rang the next MORNING, when I was not in a fit state physically to be answering the phone, and so he left a message saying call this number. And it was a cell phone number so very expensive to call. So I thought if he wants the business, he will call back. And he did, this morning, but on me answering the phone, he said he had left a few messages and called several times. For some reason he assumed, maybe because of the holidays, that I had been out of the country. But with caller ID I knew it was a blatant lie about the messages and how many times he called. People who lie up front in order to ingratiate themselves to get business, are not someone you should employ to do a job I don’t think. So he’s coming tomorrow afternoon to give me a quote, and that will at least give me some idea of how much it will cost. But I would never employ someone who lies to me upfront. Would you?
Should the time now be coming when, cast off from all our present means of subsistence, we shall have to quit the Church of our fathers, let us cast ourselves on the good providence of God, and fulfil with all purity and zeal the work of missionaries.
Let us now fear the great ones of earth while we prosecute this sacred vocation. God is our helper, and let us not be afraid of what men can do unto us, who understand not the way or the work of God, while they despise and wonder, and if they repent not, will at length perish.
O that I followed the example of Christ, who, in fufilment of the work which His Father gave Him to do, was instant in season and out out season—the example of Him who blended good-will to men with glory to God, compasionating and relieving the wants of the creature–giving praise and thankful acknowledgement to the Creator. And of Him who ever alternated social duty with secret prayer [Thomas Chalmers-Sabbath Scripture readings]
Sadly, something often ommited in today’s society:
30And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
31And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
33But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
34And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
35And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
36Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
37And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
Shall the chaste spouse of Christ take upon her the ornaments of the whore? Shall the Israel of God symbolize with her who is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt? Shall the Lord’s redeemed people wear the ensigns of their captivity? Shall the saints be seen with the mark of the beast? Shall the Christian church be like the Antichristian, the holy like the profane, religion like superstition, the temple of God like the synagogue of Satan? Our opposites are so far from being moved with these things, that both in pulpits and private places they used to plead for the ceremonies by this very argument, that we should not run so far away from Papists, but come as near them as we can. But for proof of that which we say, namely, that it is not lawful to symbolize with idolaters (and by consequence with Papists), or to be like them in their rites or ceremonies, we have more to allege than they can answer. [George Gillepsie]
What is your immediate response if anyone asks you if you are harbouring any grudges, resentments, unforgiveness towards any one in your life past or present? Unforgiveness being the seed and root of bitterness? I’ve yet to hear even one person admit they may be or are bitter. It’s a thing almost all of us would shy away from admitting. Especially if Christians. Yet, it seems the prevailing trend amongst Christendom that you will go a long, long way, to find a Bible believing Christian who is not harbouring unforgivness; statistics suggest up to ninety five per cent of us are doing so. Yet would we admit it? Or would we even be aware of it always if we are? Hurts, and wounds, when caused by the sins of others, fester; and we may push them down and down, deep inside of us, so that we do not even think about it any longer. It’s part of our natural make up to do so. If anyone asks us if we are bitter or holding unforgiveness we will say no, truly believing that to be the case, and yet its a self-deception in the overwhelming number of cases. Because most of us are.
The wound that will not heal and still hurts; that can wreck you emotionally. The person who caused it making you see red, or not being able to think about them without anger or resentment, or not being able to talk about them and say even one thing in their favour that is not negative and filled with the bitterness of the hurt we feel.
The sin was theirs that caused the hurt, yet the same as anything in life, our response to that hurt is our responsibility. Unforgiveness lives in many of us, tho we will not know, or won’t admit to it. Yet its a fact of life that life hurts, and we do not go through life without many people trampling all over our hearts and seeming to break them into little fragments by the hurt we feel.
The Bible is full of verses about unforgiveness. One of the most notable is the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18. When he was forgiven such a huge debt by the king, yet refused to release a much lesser debt from someone who owed him and exacted payment, he was thrown into jail to be tormented. And how many of us who live with unforgiveness do not feel that torment, and the sseds of bitterness that comes from the hurt, and the way we have remained locked in unforgiveness become our jailors as much as those who tormented and jailed the unforgiving servant.
We become prisoners of our minds; our own emotions. Life becomes an emotional roller coaster. If the hurt is not up front and personal and you have an otherwise, full and busy life, you may be able to go many days or weeks without feeling the seeds of hurt and bitterness that comes from the act or sin that was done against you to hurt and wound you.
Someone famous in modern times, an athlete I believe, described harbouring unforgiveness as “Like drinking poison, hoping someone else would die.” Note that its us who drinks the poison tho, and its us who will die, in one way or another or maybe a little of a thousand deaths every day. We stand every chance of being in a prison tormented and locked up, until we start to remove these seeds and move on, with the unforgiveness dealt with in our hearts in a Biblical manner. The affect of not doing so, is to perhaps kill our souls little by little every day. We are drinking our own posion of unforgiviness, and snuffing out all spiritual life and perhaps our ability to commune with God, and we may question if we have been really forgiven ourselves because we do not experience it in any spiritual fullness. So, the sin or acts that were done against us, that caused us so much hurt and grief, and can still drag us to the floor in a snivelling wrecked heap, have to be sifted out and dealt with and purified rather than it continuing to poison us.
It is a hard thing to either admit or sometimes even be aware we are harbouring unforgiveness and have the seeds of bitterness sown in our hearts. So my question is, are you really, really sure, you are not harbouring resentment, or unforgiveness and thefore bitterness against someone for some hurt or wound or devastation. And if you can’t honestly answer no, after time thinking about this, remembering that none of us go through life being unhurt and wounded by it and people. Then perhaps it maybe a reason to ask God for the grace to be able to forgive. And to stop administering the cup of poison to ourselves, with no profit from it, and only harm and the way that leads to death in some ways. You can’t change the consequences of other people’s sin to us, or the harm we have been done. We can stop it still taking more from our lives than the original act or sin against us did. And bitterness in our hearts never doesn’t come exploding out at times, and infect and poison the things in life we treasure. Forgiveness not only gives us a proper avenue to go before God, it also, stops the acts of the past against us, continuing to take the good things from our lives in the present. And therefore it stops Satan having the victory. And there is nowhere more ripe for him to set up home, than an unforgiving heart.
Though it’s not just made for blogging, but any work where a text editor is required.
If you’re like me, when you’re writing on the computer, while it is and can be a great tool, you will also find it full of distractions. If also like me, you have the attention span of a gnat, that is all grist to the mill for reducing productivity. So, I sought around, and looked for something that would be an aid to this. And I found it in DarkRoom. Its a text editor that looks pretty much like windows dos system while you’re using it, it covers the whole of your screen including your taskbar and basically turns your computer into more of a word processing environment, i.e. a computer without the distractions that leaving windows open or having ones taskbar visible can create. You also need, Microsoft’s net framework version 2 to make it workable.
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