DISCIPLE

  Holy Savior, we adore Thee,  Seated on the throne of God; Soon in glory, all before Thee  Shall proclaim Thy praise abroad. "Thou art worthy," "Thou art worthy,"  we were ransomed by thy blood. Savior, tho' the world despised thee, Tho' Thou here wast crucified, Yet the Father's glory raised Thee,  Lord of all creation wide. "Thou art worthy," "Thou art worthy,"  We shall live, for Thou hast died. And thó here on earth rejected,  'Tis but fellowship with Thee; Should we not with joy expect it, Here like Thee, our Lord, to be? "Thou art worthy," "Thou art worthy,"  Thou from earth hast set us free. Haste the day of Thine appearing,  With Thy ransomed saints to reign, Then shall end all days of mourning, We shall sine with triumph then. "Thou art worthy," "Thou art worthy,"  Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1813-1875) Hymn # 66 in Hymns of Worship and Remembrance

  Some Golden Daybreak Some glorious morning sorrow will cease, Some glorious morning all will be peace; Heart-aches all ended, school-days all done, Heaven will open — Jesus will come. Some golden daybreak Jesus will come; Some golden daybreak, battles all won, He’ll shout the victr’y, break thro’ the blue, Some golden daybreak, for me, for you. Sad hears will gladden, all shall be bright, Good-bye forever to earth’s dark night; Changed in a moment, like Him to be, Oh glorious daybreak, Jesus I’ll see. Oh, what a meeting, there in the skies, No tears nor crying shall dim our eyes; Loved ones united eternally, Oh, what a daybreak that morn will!   by Carl A. Blackmore (1904-1964) Hymn # 215 in Hymns of Worship and Remembrance

The back page of a book my wife has had for many years on canning and making preserves,  published in the 1960s by the Ball company.  She has preserved me well! I praise her and call her blessed in the words of Proverbs 31:29-3 "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised."    

 by William MacDonald,  from his book ONE DAY AT A TIME,  the daily reading for October 1st “For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” ( James 4:14 ) The insistent voice of the Holy Spirit reminds mortal man frequently in the Scriptures of the brevity of his life. By the repeated use of similes, the Spirit of the Lord impresses on us that our days are limited and passing swiftly. For instance, He likens life to a weaver’s shuttle ( Job 7:6 ), the device that darts back and forth in the loom almost faster than the eye can follow. Job speaks of life as wind ( Job 7:7 ), here one minute and gone the next, never to return. The psalmist echoes the sentiment, speaking of “a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again” ( Psa. 78:39 ). Bildad unnecessarily reminds Job that “our days on earth are a shadow” ( Job 8:9 ), a picture that is repeated in Psalm 102:11 , “My days are like a shadow that declineth.” ...

By Donald Norbie  (1923-2017)   Thoughts of Approaching Death All quotations are taken from the New King James Version.   ‘The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years’ , Ps. 90. 10. A hymn says, ‘Life at best is very brief’. Compared to eternity our life is just a little blip on the screen of time. During 2004 a woman died at 115 years old and was reckoned to be the oldest woman in the USA. She was reported as saying before she died, ‘Dying is so hard. I hope I do it well!’ It was not reported whether she was a Christian or not. Kenneth Hildebrand wrote a song years ago in which he said, ‘If I live well, praise the Lord! If I die well, praise the Lo...

Carl's dear mother Eunice P. Knott (1928-2020), passed into the presence of the Lord on October 1st, at 92 years of age, after a bout with Covid-19. We love her and miss her already. But our sorrow is not like that of people who have no hope.  It's real, but different, because as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, she is with the Lord!  Scripture says that for believers in Christ, dying is to be absent from the body and be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8), and to be with Christ is far better (Philippians 1:23).   Her house in Greenville, "home" with many happy memories for all of us who grew up there.   But her heavenly home is glorious and eternal. No tears, no sickness, no night in that beautiful home of light.   2018 - in Raleigh NC where Carl was preaching, she always liked to accompany him.     birthday dinner   she enjoyed reading the newspaper at breakfast she kept this fern on her back porch for years; it was one of her favorite...

   WILLIAM MACDONALD “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight…” ( John 18:36 ) The fact that Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world is enough to keep me out of the world’s politics. If I participate in politics, then I am casting a vote of confidence in the system’s ability to solve the world’s problems. But frankly I have no such confidence because I know that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” ( 1 John 5:19 ). Politics has proved singularly ineffective in solving the problems of society. Political remedies are nothing but a Band-Aid on a festering sore; they do not get at the source of the infection. We know that sin is the basic trouble in our sick society. Anything that fails to deal with sin cannot be taken seriously as a cure. It becomes a matter of priorities, then. Should I spend time in political involvement or should I devote that same time to the spread of the Gospel? Jesus answer...