dual personalities

We are off to another unseasonably warm week and I am not complaining.

I am slowly putting my house back together. I keep finding baby dolls and plastic cups and packages of wet wipes in odd places that remind me of our sweet visitors. Luckily now I do not have to pack up a box of odds and ends to send back to them but can wait until they/we visit again.

Also note: the amaryllis is blooming again. They are truly amazing plants.

I also caught up on my daily Bible reading. I was a tad behind.

Q: How is the word to be read and heard, that it may become effectual to salvation? 

A: That the word may become effectual to salvation, we must attend thereunto with diligence, preparation, and prayer, receive it with faith and love, lay it up in your hearts, and practice it in your lives. 

Q: If the matter we read or hear be good, is not that enough for our salvation? 

A: No, God requires that the word be read and heard in a due manner, and the manner of hearing is of special regard with God; Luke 8:18. Take heed therefore how ye hear. 

–John Flavel (1627-91)

Here are a few good things to read…This is an interesting article about whether we should pray the “vengeance” psalms. The boy and I were just discussing the issue of vengeance and how it is right “to leave room for the wrath of God.” However, I am all for reading those psalms which some find offensive, especially Psalm 58. The Anglicans, no surprise, exiled the imprecatory prayers from the psalter after WWI.

Do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones?
Do you judge uprightly, you sons of men?
² No, in your heart you work wickedness;
You weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth.

³ The wicked are estranged from the womb;
They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
⁴ Their poison is like the poison of a serpent;
They are like the deaf cobra that stops its ear,
⁵ Which will not heed the voice of charmers,
Charming ever so skillfully.

⁶ Break their teeth in their mouth, O God!
Break out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord!
⁷ Let them flow away as waters which run continually;
When he bends his bow,
Let his arrows be as if cut in pieces.
⁸ Let them be like a snail which melts away as it goes,
Like a stillborn child of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

⁹ Before your pots can feel the burning thorns,
He shall take them away as with a whirlwind,
As in His living and burning wrath.
¹⁰ The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked,
¹¹ So that men will say,
“Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
Surely He is God who judges in the earth.”

–Psalm 58

Food for thought. Read the article!

And this is about President Lincoln, the almost-Presbyterian. Very interesting.

And the inimitable Joni Eareckson Tada writes about grumbling.

The Lord be with you and bless you today.

*I Corinthians 5:1