Perfecting Love...

Life/love's blows pay no attention to heart's desire...

Hearts desire, unless guarded with God's Word 

and honed with humility, 

is deceitful and desperately wicked

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,

My lips shall praise You.

Psalm 63:3

The Creator of earth and heavens loves us with

an everlasting love!

Yesterday we attended a beautiful outdoor service,

where nine believers with totally different life/love-stories/testimonies

all with the very same ending;

 faith in Jesus, in God's everlasting love, were baptized!

One young man shared being impacted by

 the story of the dying thief on the cross beside Jesus;

how only faith can save...

The thief had no time left to 'do', only repent and believe.

It's easy to become performance-driven and distracted.

Only by God's grace are we saved and through His grace

we are forgiven and in His grace,

we are able to follow Him and live obedient lives.

Rom.6:1-4

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

 2Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

 3Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized 

into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

 4Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, 

that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,

 even so we also should walk in newness of life.

One young woman testified,

'I put my faith in Him and it changed everything'.

When we trust and believe in Him

it changes our focus and motives!

Hallelujah!

Here is an excerpt from our daughter's testimony...

(one of the nine who were baptized)

We 'oldies' are often extra-refreshed and re-encouraged as we witness

faith's obedience of baptism!

Listening to the testimonies stirred reflection on the

purpose of the body of Christ on earth, the church...

While watching live-stream or 'screen' messages

 is certainly better than nothing, to teach and edify,

it cannot ever be a sufficient substitute for face-to-face fellowship

which produces and strengthens a bond of love and unity.

When each for the other lives

With love, with a lot of prayer

When the attention one gives

Is wholehearted in its care

When we seek God’s kingdom first

Longing for His holiness

When our hunger and our thirst

Is for more of righteousness

When we bind each other’s wounds

With compassion’s healing pow’rs

We will find our spirits tuned

To He whose love perfects ours

© Janet Martin

There Is A Fountain Filled with Blood

There is a fountain filled with blood
  Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
  Lose all their guilty stains:
  Lose all their guilty stains,
  Lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
  Lose all their guilty stains.

2

The dying thief rejoiced to see
  That fountain in his day;
And there may I, though vile as he,
  Wash all my sins away:
  Wash all my sins away,
  Wash all my sins away;
And there may I, though vile as he,
  Wash all my sins away.

3

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
  Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransomed ones of God
  Be saved, to sin no more:
  Be saved, to sin no more,
  Be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed ones of God,
  Be saved to sin no more.

4

E’er since by faith I saw the stream
  Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
  And shall be till I die:
  And shall be till I die,
  And shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme,
  And shall be till I die.

5

When this poor lisping, stammering tongue
  Lies silent in the grave,
Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
  I’ll sing Thy power to save:
  I’ll sing Thy power to save,
  I’ll sing Thy power to save;
Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
  I’ll sing Thy power to save.

 The Dying Thief- The Spurgeon Library