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

 

 

June's Joy...

 It's the final Saturday of this most darling of months; June

June’s pink peony pom-poms melt in russet afterglow...

June’s strawberry and cream delights, delight...

...then disappear 😋

And leave satisfied appetites grinning from ear to ear...

June’s pink peony pom-poms melt in russet afterglow

The meadow is a showcase of green-sheen and daisy-snow

The deluxe maple-parasol unfurls cool pools of shade

Enticing us to linger in its umbrous serenade

June’s hints of harvest ripple ‘neath an invisible bow

If we have eyes to see we are seated in the front row

For prime shows from a Maestro conducting a symphony

Where fields are full of music and gardens with poetry

June’s first-rate backyard getaways leave little to desire

The rise and fall of laughter and chatter round a camp-fire

The sweet mini-vacation beneath luscious, leafy limbs

The fading out of feathered flutes as drawn-out twilight dims

June bends the breeze with banter we all feel a small part of

It tips yon blue decanter and pours out a song of love

Romancing us with roses and enchanting us with show’rs

And sweeping us off bare feet with a grand fleet of wild flow’rs

June’s yearly visit is always too short and sweet, it seems

How dearly we anticipate this darling of our dreams

How butter-smooth and utter, the undoing of Her days

While hearts are heaped with happiness and lips are steeped with praise

June’s strawberry and cream delights, delight then disappear

And leave satisfied appetites grinning from ear to ear

While jolly shocks of hollyhocks are reaching for the sky

Arranged where June estranged gives way to heartthrobs of July

© Janet Martin

Facing Life' s Biggest Challenge; Love...

Life is full of test and disappointment,

frustration and disagreement,

but never justifies our rebellion to

the Giver of all we have...

So much more than meets the eye

is in the bud of bloom...

...in bud of day

in the bud of youth

Beloved, let us love one another, 

for love is of God;...

1 John 4:7

Let’s count our blessings, not our woes

Let’s love in spite of how life goes

For what good is all else we claim

If we put charity to shame

Let’s make the most of moment-gold

Poured, tick by tock into a mold

That we can never modify

No matter how hard we may try

Let’s live the first, Greatest Command

With humble heart and helping hand

Let’s pray while we traverse earth’s sod

And leave the details up to God

© Janet Martin

Luke 6:32-36

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? 

Even sinners love those who love them. 

 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? 

Even sinners do that. 

 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? 

Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 

 But love your enemies, do good to them, 

and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. 

Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, 

because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 

 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

A Call To Persevere...Jude 18-21

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. 

 They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers 

who will follow their own ungodly desires.”  

These are the people who divide you, 

who follow mere natural instincts 

and do not have the Spirit.

 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith 

and praying in the Holy Spirit,  

keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ 

to bring you to eternal life.

 

Best-Of-All Blessings

This poem was inspired by the flood of loving grad photos on social-media

from proud moms and dads...

One photo esp. inspired this poem as I stared at the tall, handsome, young man,

 that spent many hours at our house

and seems, was the size of the tots in the photos below not so long ago.

Reminds us to cherish the Here and Now,

the 'noisy joys of girls and boys' 💗

which filled the morning at Janet's/Grandma's house

They start so small;

life's best-of-all-blessings...

The momentum of to...

...and from, is subtle in its tugs

They start so small

Life’s ‘best-of-all-

Blessing' fills arms and hearts

The noisy joys

Of girls and boys

One of love’s sweetest parts

…while sparkling streams

Of hopes and dreams

Become the tender tide

Of smiles and tears

And days and years

That draw them from our side

The momentum

Of to-and-from

Is subtle in its tugs

As moments meld

To seasons felled

Beneath kisses and hugs

Time’s stellar flight

Of morn to night

Turns little people tall

While ‘I love you’

Fashions the flue

Through which youth's contrails fall

And keens us to

An avenue

Trampled, but not with feet

Where blessings of

Life’s best part; love

Makes thankfulness complete

 

© Janet Martin

Eph.5:2

And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us...

 

On Going Through The Change...

They don't call it The Change for nothing, my sister and I conceded as we

lamented some of the maladies of middle-age😓

As I pondered this it made me think of a few other changes

that we should, by God's grace, go through

(and some that eventually we will) by God's promise, 

go through...

***

Some changes are anticipated eagerly,,

like the change a new baby brings

or winter warming to spring

Others we would dodge if we could,

But changeless God, if we allow Him

works change for our good!

***

Always day changes to night

then night to day...

Change challenges and teaches us

It vexes and delights

It startles and beseeches us

With ruthless appetites

Oh, nothing stays the same for long

In life’s foray of days

The hand of change is sure and strong

Insisting on its ways

Both good and ill do not stand still

As surge of seasons roll

Change wistfully winnows until

All that remains is Soul

Change tempers us and teases us

The wrinkles it bestows

For all the ways it squeezes us

The least of our woes

Change changes us, estranges us

From who we used to be

A slow and steady genesis

To immortality

© Janet Martin

Behold, I tell you a [m]mystery: 

 shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 

52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 

at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, 

and the dead will be raised incorruptible, 

and we shall be changed.

1 Cor.15:51-52

Eph.4:17-24

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, 

that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 

18They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God 

because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

  19Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality 

so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

20That, however, is not the way of life you learned

  21when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, 

to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 

23to be made new in the attitude of your minds;

  24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Colossians 3:9-10

Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 

and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge 

according to the image of the One who created him—

Faithful One-Robin Mark

June Is Like a Poem

 

Some sweet June-stanzas already savoured today...💗💗😊

June is like a poem waiting to be reined

Earth a-throb with lyrics spilling unrestrained

Woodland, field and garden sparkle, pulse and brim

Filling hills and hearts and dells with nature’s hymn

June is like a poem written without ink

Filling loose-leaf pages with gold-orange-pink

From sunup to sundown stanzas dance and drip

Land and welkin burgeon with God’s penmanship

June is like a poem, summer-warm and sweet

Spilling like a love-song to earth’s music-sheet

From daisy-decanter, through leaf-canopies

Snared in barefoot banter, sighing on the breeze

June is like a poem waiting to be read

Wonderfully woven with botanic thread

Luring us with lyrics’ gleaming, teeming sheen

From the lily-lantern and fields silver-green

June is like a poem people cannot write

Lesser poets grapple with its pure delight

Delving into inkwells, dew and raindrop pearled

June is like a poem from God to the world

© Janet Martin

From the lily-lantern

and fields silver-green...

The Farewell We Are In...

Whenever I see the peonies begin to wilt and wither

I'm filled with a sense of loss...

Loss tends to make us bend a little closer to the bloom

To revel in the fragrant folds falling from summer’s loom

How subtle whirs the shuttle taming tendrils of the vine

Into a paisley fretwork of echo-woven design

Loss tends to make us kinder where we had been blind before

To how swift petals fade and fall to bloom for-nevermore

Whether the loss we suffer is a friend or season-flit

We find our hearts grow softer in the aftermath of it

Loss tends to make us more aware and thankful for Today

That ever- fleeting chariot that draws the years away

Filled with a holy hunger we can never quite appease

While petals fall from flowers like hours to memories

Loss tends to make us mindful of a deeper sense of Now

Its sorrow seems to kindle sweeter happiness somehow

As we learn to live slower and take time to take time in

Because Loss tends to tune us to the Farewell we are in

© Janet Martin

But as I mourn the end of another peony season I turn to

see that once again, the lily-lanterns are lit...

Loss tends to make us bend a little closer to the bloom...

The grass withers, the flower fades, 

But the word of our God stands forever.”

Isa.40:8

Always and All For God

 

The fruit of our labour is sometimes strawberries.

The fruit of our faith, ah, who can fathom?!

This poem was inspired first by a glorious wave of morning-tide

rolling over the rain-washed countryside...

...before heading out for a berry delightful morning

 at a nearby pick-your-own strawberry patch!

Always, and all for God who gives, may our motive be

Each moment-metered life one lives leads to eternity

All that we have, by time is tried; a sacred sea that pours

In waves of morn-to-eventide, awash twixt Eon’s shores

In waves of morn to eventide awash twixt Eon’s shores

Across still gaping graves, time flies, in season-repertoires

While we must choose who we will serve and thus the Soul’s reward

Some never look beyond Self-worth, some live to please the Lord

Some never look beyond Self-worth, some live to please the Lord

Some set their sights upon this earth as if they can afford

To ignore what some cling to like a lifeline sure and keen;

The substance of things hoped for and its evidence unseen

The substance of things hoped for and its evidence unseen

Instills with awesome purpose what would oft seem harsh and mean

Aware while moments dance and race we owe their no return

Always and all for God who grants the grace that none can earn

Always and all for God who grants the grace that none can earn

Where mercy meets us face to face as surely as the morn

Where wealth accrued cannot provide that which will save the soul

When waves of morn to eventide no longer swell and roll

© Janet Martin

And whatever you do, do it heartily, 

as to the Lord and not to men,

Col.3:23

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, 

the evidence of things not seen.

Heb.11:1