PCPrays

This is my first try at doing a “color splash” type of thing using PhotoScape.  PhotoScape is a free image editing tool.  Now it’s true that it’s not as good as PhotoShop but I don’t have an extra $700 to spend…  But hey, I think it turned out kinda okay.

Nyssa bought some new roses this week end and it was raining on Sunday so I went out and took a few quick pictures of them.  Let me know what you think.

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Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way.  The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?  For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”  Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”

So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord.  Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?  Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?  Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”  And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.  Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”  Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.”  Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.”  He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

Sometimes I think we tend to doubt the importance of prayer.  Whenever I’m in one of those type of moods this is the verse I turn to.  I don’t know why God would turn his ear to hear me, but He does and for that I am thankful.

The other thing that came to my mind just now was that they other day John Piper posted “To Pray for the world for a hour you first must have an hour of desire for the world”  I think you can see that type of desire from Abraham in this passage.  If he only cared about Lot he could have just been like “hey can you save Lot for me?”  But he wants to save the whole city.  He pleads with God to have mercy on this wicked city and to remember the righteous.  Again and again he goes to the Lord.

I pray that like Abraham I too will be fund faithful in praying for people.

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Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Zechariah 9:9-10

A sermon by Reverend Ron Dinunzio.

So as a good presbyterian Rev. Dinunzio had three points to this sermon.  The first one was that Jesus is righteous (that is He has kept the law of God perfectly) and that he bring salvation to his people.  The second point was that Jesus is gentle riding on a donkey.  He spoke some about different victory marches in history.  The third point was that Jesus brings peace to the nations.

Now Rev. Dinunzio was speaking about how the Jews expected the messiah to come and bring political peace.  They expected him to overthrow the Romans and that Israel would become the most powerful nation on earth.  As he was speaking on this I could not help but think about how we as American Christians expect the very same things.  We expect Jesus to act to cleanse America from all the evils that plague her.  We pray that Jesus will “heal our land” from abortion, homosexuality, socialism…  And then America will be back to her former glory.

And we wonder why the church in America does not have spiritual power.

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They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.”  The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.  Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah.  So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?”  The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’  Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”  But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “No, but you did laugh.”

Last night we read Romans 9.  In it Paul speaks of this very passage, Paul says

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”  This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.  For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.”

A lot of people want to take the O.T. out of the Bible.  I know just the other week my friend Richard was reading some works by the founders of a group called “The Brethern” and they are one of the groups that openly do this.  One of the reasons why I want to do this Bible Category is to learn more about the Scriptures.  Sure I know some of the stories from the O.T. but I don’t know it like I do the N.T.  Also I’m going to start doing it twice a week now, it’s been a year and I’m only on Genesis 18…  So I’m thinking that if I do it twice a week I might finish Genesis by next year.

The Lord sees your heart.  Sarah laughed in her heart, she doubted in her heart and the Lord saw that.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about how we think we are going good because we have not killed anyone or cheated on our spouse.  But Jesus asks if we have ever been angry with anyone or even looked at another person with lust.  If so He says that we are then guilty of breaking the law.

We need Jesus more then we will ever know.

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So Nyssa and My self are going to Murphy, N.C. again this year.  We rented the same cabin that we got 2 years ago.  I’m really looking forward to it.  That was my last vacation.  Last year I only took one or two days off, and so I’m just ready for a break.  We are still working on the dates but are thinking some time in July.

Marci is doing great, we have been blessed with a happy and healthy baby.  And is she ever cute, let me tell you what.  She has started talking a lot more (not with words yet, just baby talk) and she loves her Gabbie dog.   I’ll post a video of that bellow.  Be sure to check it out.

So I told Nyssa that I used to be 25 and owned a Jeep Wrangler.  Now I’m 30 (okay, I will be in August anyways) and own a mini-van.  I asked her if she still loved me, she said that she does.  So thats a good thing  :)  But yes, I sold the Jeep and we got a Dodge Grand Caravan.  We are happy with it, I know we were able to go out the other day and take Marci’s stroller.  We have not done that in a long time just because it was such a pain to get it in and out of her car.

But really it was time for us to get sell the Jeep.  I know that to keep it I would need to a lot of stuff to it.  Now it ran great, but it did need a new top, new speakers, the radio it self was not responding to much, and just a bunch of little stuff.  So I’m guessing that to keep it I would have needed to spend about 1 or 2 thousand on it and I really did not want to do that.

On a related note, it was raining on Sunday and as I was driving I thought to my self, “it’s nice not getting rained on in your own car”  :)  So if you ever think about getting a Wrangler I would tell you that they are great, just get a hard top.

We have been rather faithful in our family worship time.  It’s a good thing, I like it.  Right now we are reading Romans and just finished Romans 9:1-29 last night.  We have not been in a hurry just reading at our own pace.  We change what we do depending on the day, but the things that we do in our family time is pray, read Scripture, sing, watch a DVD from puritan picks, read from a book on the Westminster Shorter Catechism.  Sunday is family night for us and we will just play a game like Apples to Apples.  Also just before bed we have been reading Pilgrim’s Progress.  Now I don’t want to sound like we have it all down.  We don’t and I would like to just ask for prayer that we will remain faithful and that the Lord will bless us with this time.

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