pardoned.net

Found some videos from a new Keith Green concert DVD up on youtube, of course I immediately ordered the dvd.

Estes Park ‘78

1. He’ll Take Care Of The Rest 

2. To Obey Is Better Than Sacrifice

3. The Sheep And The Goats

4. Asleep In The Light

5. The Victor

6. Make MyLife A Prayer To You

Jesus West Coast ‘80

1. So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt

2. My Eyes Are Dry

Live from The Daisy Club – LA

1. When I Hear The Praises Start

2. I Can’t Wait To Get To Heaven

3. I Can’t Believe It

4. Dear John Letter (To The Devil)

5. Easter Song

In some ways it feels like things are slowing down, but at the same time I feel like I’m caught up in a sprint fast approaching a heart attack. So much has changed in my life in such a short time, but the little details stand out brighter and clearer than ever. God has been confirming through many new insights into His Word that I am on the doorsteps of a grand new adventure, and this morning in talking with a friend about our impending old age I couldn’t help but remember a quote from the Will Ferrell movie Stranger than Fiction. Faced with his inevitable death Harold struggles to come to terms with who he is, I think hidden in here is some great wisdom.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Hell Harold, you could just eat nothing but pancakes if you wanted.
Harold Crick: What is wrong with you? Hey, I don’t want to eat nothing but pancakes, I want to live! I mean, who in their right mind in a choice between pancakes and living chooses pancakes?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Harold, if you pause to think, you’d realize that that answer is inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led… and, of course, the quality of the pancakes.

God has been preparing me for a new adventure, I’ve been praying about all of the things that I can do before going to grad school, assuming that I get accepted somewhere. I’ve been praying about visiting friends in different locations around the world, and about possibly doing some short term ministry. This morning I prayed about visiting my friend Yu in Japan, and while making some phone calls at work later in the morning I saw an urgent need for an English speaker to work with a church in Japan on the OMF website. I really want to see what doors God can open and what exciting adventures he has in store for this coming year, and for the rest of my life.

Dwight Lyman Moody said in a Sermon on the eighth chapter of Romans something which I find very refreshing in this present moment. ‘Note that the difference between a believer and an unbeliever is right here. An unbeliever is living in his day, and he has nothing but a long dark eternal night to look forward to; a Christian is now living in his night, and he has a grand morning that he is looking forward to. The day is ahead, the glory is ahead, the best of life is ahead; it is not behind.’ The best is yet to come.

Last night I recieved a gift that I cannot express thanksgiving for. An older-gentleman offered to give me books… I thought a few books, but I left his house with three boxes containing sixty-five books!
I am so excited, I can’t wait to get time to dig into them, most of them are Christian classics and great study material.
The boxes included a full set of Calvin’s Commentaries (22 volumes) Expository Thoughts on the Gospels by JC Ryle (4 volumes) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (4 Volumes) Strong’s and Young’s Concordances, writings from Wesley, Witfield, Spurgeon and much more. I can’t wait to get some time away to read!

I read this last night and was absolutely blown away. Definitely worth reading! 

By Charles Finney [original here]

Text. Ps. 40:1-3.–I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

Many of the Psalms should be regarded as inspired diaries, and as such they are most important way-marks to the Christian. The diaries of other men may mislead us. But when we find our experience to accord with that of inspired men, and with those parts of their experience which were recorded by the Spirit of God, we may be sure that we are in the same path in which they traveled to heaven. The 119 Psalm, together with many others, are manifestly of this character. They are as if the Psalmist had set up way-marks all along the pathway to heaven, and by recording his own experiences as on the mile-stones along the way, had given us the advantage of being certain whether or not we are in the way that inspired men have trodden.

I regard the text as an instance of this kind, wherein the Psalmist, after having passed through severe trials of mind, records both his trials, and deliverance for the benefit of all succeeding ages.

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By Charles G. Finney (Edited and paraphrased by Keith Green)

“They said therefore to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.’” - John 6:28-29

There are multitudes of anxious Christians who are inquiring what they shall do to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. They overlook the fact that “this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith” (I John 5:4) that it is with “the shield of faith” that they are to “extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one.” (Eph. 6:16) They ask, “why am I overcome by sin? Why can’t I get above its power? Why am I the slave of my appetites and passions and the sport of the devil?” They look all around them for the cause of all this spiritual wretchedness and death. Sometimes they think they have discovered the answer in the neglect of one duty, and at another time in the neglect of another duty. Sometimes they imagine they have found the cause of their wretchedness to be that they have yielded to one sin and sometimes in yielding to another. They put forth efforts in this direction and patch up their righteousness on one side, while they make a tear in the other. Thus they spend years running around in a circle, making dams of sand across the current of their own corruptions. Instead of at once purifying their hearts by faith (Acts 15:9), they are engaged in trying to stop the overflow of its bitter waters.

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