Sunday, April 24, 2011

Charles Spurgeon

During Secret Church, David Platt shared the conversion story of Charles Spurgeon. I had never heard it before, and I was very moved by it. Here it is:

Conversion of C. H. Spurgeon: The Prince of Preachers - compiled by Hy. Pickering

Charles SpurgeonC. H. Spurgeon, of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, was born at Kelvedon, Essex, in 1834; converted Jan., 1850, at the age of 15, at Colchester; gave his first Gospel address at Faversham when he was 16, and for thirty years declared almost weekly, to audiences numbering five or six thousand, the glorious Gospel of the blessed God; millions of his sermons have been scattered in all parts of the world. He quietly passed from Mentone to Heaven, Sunday, January 31, 1892.
Would you like to know how such a man got saved? Here is his own description of it:
"I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair now, had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning, when I was going to a place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a court and came to a little Primitive Methodist Chapel. In that chapel there might be a dozen or fifteen people. The minister did not come that morning: snowed up, I suppose. A poor man, a shoemaker, a tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had nothing else to say. The text was, 'Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.' He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter.
"There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in the text. He began thus: 'My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, "Look." Now that does not take a deal of effort. It ain't lifting your foot or your finger; it is just "look." Well, a man need not go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man need not be worth a thousand a year to look. Anyone can look; a child can look. But this is what the text says. Then it says, "Look unto Me." 'Ay,' said he, in broad Essex, 'many of ye are looking to yourselves. No use looking there. You'll never find comfort in yourselves.' Then the good man followed up his text in this way: 'Look unto Me: I am sweating great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hanging on the Cross. Look: I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend; I am sitting at the Father's right hand. O, look to Me! Look to Me!' When he had got about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes, he was at the length of his tether.
"Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. He then said, 'Young man, you look very miserable.' Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the pulpit before. However, it was a good blow struck. He continued: 'And you will always be miserable — miserable in life and miserable in death — if you do not obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.'
"Then he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist can, 'Young man, look to Jesus Christ.' There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that moment and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the Precious Blood of Christ."

Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

I found it here.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Missions slideshows

We had Secret Church this Friday night and i made these slideshows from BBC mission trips and some trips I have been on for the breaks.... except I didn't get to share them. Something about my mac not being compatible with the church's system.... oh well. It worked out well because Secret Church had awesome info and videos on the persecuted church around that they shared during the breaks (that we didn't know they were going to have). My heart is still so full and processing everything we learned/experienced last night. I will blog about it soon. In the meantime, be in prayer for the persecuted church around the world. We watched a video about some men in India who saw people in their village killed and their homes burned and lost everything in this world because they were Christians, and they still proclaimed victory in Jesus and gave Glory to His Name. What an eternal perspective! It was truly beautiful.

I hope the faces of these videos encourage your heart to pray, send and/or Go and to be a blessing to the nations today.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Some "LOVE" was added to our picture wall

I had a blank canvas hanging on my picture wall that I needed to do something with. I had a few different ideas but nothing that I really was in love with. Then I thought of this well known sculpture:


And thought.... how can I put that design on my canvas? This is what I ended up with:

What you need to do this too:

Canvas
Paint
Contact Paper
Scissors
A printer

What I did:

I enlarged the LOVE picture and printed it out. I cut out the letters to sort of make a stencil for my canvas.

I traced the stencil onto contact paper, and cut it out.
I painted the canvas white (I know its already white, but I like the texture of paint better than the plain canvas and I thought if I needed to touch up any areas with paint, it would be better if the whole thing was already painted white).

After the paint dried, I stuck the contact paper to the center of the canvas. If I ever do this again, I'll use a vinyl that will stick better. The contact paper didn't stick to the canvas as well as I had wanted it to.

I painted over the whole canvas (with the contact paper still stuck to it) with green paint.
Then I removed the contact paper from the canvas.... to reveal the LOVE :). It bled in a few areas. If you used a better vinyl I don't think it would do that as much. I had to touch up a few spots with white paint, and then I had my finished product.



Pretty easy. Things I will do differently next time will be to use spray paint instead of using a paint brush, use something that sticks to the canvas better, and maybe even do it on a piece of sanded wood instead of canvas. Anyways.... I hope you like it!

I also recently got this 8x10" canvas for free (well shipping was $15.... but that is still really cheap for a gallery wrapped canvas!). I still need to find something to put under my tree canvas. I have a shadow box I am thinking I will put there... I just need to decide what to put in it.



I hope you are enjoying this beautiful day!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Life was busy... and then we went on vacation.

Sorry for not blogging much lately. Our lives have been a little bit hectic and then we were out of town for a week. My cell phone broke while we were in Florida, and we did not have internet access, so it was actually a really quiet, restful, technology free vacay. I loved every second of it. Our vacation consisted of lots of reading, pool time, beach visits, time with my sweet grandparents, shopping, more reading, sleeping.... and rest. It was nice. Very very nice.

The one thing I realized as we were driving back to our home, is that this place is actually starting to feel like home to me. It has taken a while, and it's been a little rough at times, but I am now truly thankful that God has placed us here. I'm thankful for the sweet friendships I have made. I'm thankful for the church He has placed us in. I know this is where we are supposed to be right now, and I'm looking forward for what is to come while we are here.

Speaking of being thankful.... my book club just read One Thousand Gifts: A dare to live fully right where you are by Ann Voskamp.
The perspective this book gives you is invaluable. Here is the description on Amazon: Just like you, Ann Voskamp hungers to live her one life well. Forget the bucket lists that have us escaping our everyday lives for exotic experiences. 'How,' Ann wondered, 'do we find joy in the midst of deadlines, debt, drama, and daily duties? What does the Christ-life really look like when your days are gritty, long---and sometimes even dark? How is God even here?' In One Thousand Gifts, Ann invites you to embrace everyday blessings and embark on the transformative spiritual discipline of chronicling God's gifts.

In the craziness of life, this book reminds you to slow down, fix your eyes on Christ, trust Him, and be thankful. Read the book. You'll definitely be challenged/convicted/blessed by it.

And here are a few pics from our vacation :)