“If Jesus had preached the same message that most ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.”
Leonard Ravenhill
All these pieces
Broken and scattered
In mercy gathered
Mended and whole
Empty handed
But not forsaken
I’ve been set free
I’ve been set free
Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost
But now I’m found
Was blind but now I see
Oh I can see it now
Oh I can see the love in Your eyes
Laying yourself down
Raising up the broken to life
You take our failure
You take our weakness
You set Your treasure
In jars of clay
So take this heart, Lord
I’ll be Your vessel
The world to see
Your love in me
Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost
But now I’m found
Was blind but now I see
Oh I can see it now
Oh I can see the love in Your eyes
Laying yourself down
Raising up the broken to life
Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost
But now I’m found
Was blind but now I seeOh I can see it now
Oh I can see the love in Your eyes
Laying yourself down
Raising up the broken to life
βHas it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become “unity” conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified.β
A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God
βBeware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just; a God who is all love, but not holy; a God who as a heaven for every body, but a hell for none; a God who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time, but will make no distinction between good and broad in eternity. Such a God is an idol of your own, as truly an idol as any snake or crocodile in an Egyptian temple. The hands of your own fancy and sentimentality have made him. He is not the God of the Bible, and beside the God of the Bible there is no God at all.β
J.C. Ryle
Darkness may throw a shadow over my outer vision, but there is no cloud that can keep the sunlight of hope from a trustful soul. One of the earliest resolves that I formed in my young and joyous heart was to leave all care to yesterday, and to believe that the morrow would bring its own peculiar joy. permalink
Fanny Crosby
O the blood
Crimson love
Price of life’s demand
Shameful sin
Placed on Him
The Hope of every man
O the blood of Jesus washes me
O the blood of Jesus shed for me
What a sacrifice that saved my life
Yes, the blood, it is my victory
Savior Son
Holy One
Slain so I can live
See the Lamb
The great I Am
Who takes away my sin
O the blood of the Lamb
O the blood of the Lamb
O the blood of the Lamb
The precious blood of the Lamb
What a sacrifice
That saved my life
Yes, the blood, it is my victory
O what love
No greater love
Grace, how can it be
That in my sin
Yes, even then
He shed His blood for me.

β§ Me & my lovely wife Sarah! β§Β
Yayβ¦8 years today!! πΒ
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Ephesians 5:25-27Β The Voice (VOICE)
Husbands, you must love your wives so deeply, purely, and sacrificially that we can understand it only when we compare it to the love the Anointed One has for His bride, the church. We know He gave Himself up completely to make her His own, washing her clean of all her impurity with water and the powerful presence of His word. He has given Himself so that He can present the church as His radiant bride, unstained, unwrinkled, and unblemishedβcompletely free from all impurityβholy and innocent before Him.
My Thoughts…
Each time our wedding anniversary comes round, i canβt believe how much our marriage has grown more and more fruitful. Our love keeps blossoming through every season and i thank God for Sarah who is not only my best friend, but my amazing wife! πΒ
I thank God for sustaining our marriage in Purity and Truth.Β
I thank God for not leaving us alone to figure out what to do, but for giving us, teaching, correction, training and a perfect Holy example to followβ¦to reflect the personal and intimate union between Christ and His Church. The mystery of marriage is its reflection of the oneness of Christ, the Husband, and His Church, the Bride of Christ.

There is no more lovely, friendly or charming relationship, communion or company, than a good marriage.
Martin Luther
βWhoever is truly humbled β will not be easily angry, nor harsh or critical of others. He will be compassionate and tender to the infirmities of his fellow-sinners, knowing that if there is a difference β it is grace alone which has made it! He knows that he has the seeds of every evil in his own heart. And under all trials and afflictions β he will look to the hand of the Lord, and lay his mouth in the dust, acknowledging that he suffers much less than his iniquities have deserved.β
John Newton, The Letters of John Newton
βWhy is it so hard to get people to study the Scriptures? Common sense tells us what revelation commands: ‘Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God’–‘Search the Scriptures’–‘Be ready to give to every one a reason of the hope that is in you.’ These are the words of the inspired writers, and these injunctions are confirmed by praising those who obey the admonition. And yet, for all that we have the Bible in our houses, we are ignorant of its contents. No wonder that so many Christians know so little about what Christ actually taught; no wonder that they are so mistaken about the faith that they profess.β
William Wilberforce, Real Christianity
It’s the light that pierces through you
To the darkest hidden place
It knows your deepest secrets
But it never looks away
It’s the gentle hand that pulls you
From the judgement of the crowd
When you stand before them guilty
And you got no way out
Some may call it foolish and impossible
But for every heart it rescues, it’s a miracle
It’s nothing less than scandalous
This love that took our place
Just call it what it is, call it grace
Call it grace
It’s the breath that’s breathing new life
Into what we thought was dead
It’s the favor that takes orphans
Placing crowns upon their heads
It’s the hope for our tomorrows
The rock on which we stand
It’s a strong and mighty fortress
Even Hell can’t stand against
Some may call it foolish and impossible
But for every heart it rescues, it’s a miracle
It’s nothing less than scandalous
This love that took our place
Just call it what it is, call it grace
Call it grace
Call it grace
Amazing, unshaking
This is grace, this is grace
Unchanging, unfailing
This is grace, this is grace
Some may call it foolish and impossible
But for every heart it rescues, it’s a miracle
It’s nothing less than scandalous
That Jesus took our place
Oh call it what it is, just call it what it is
Call it grace
βWhen God brings us to salvation, the most remarkable thing we see is that he transforms our hungers. He changes not just what we do but what we want to do. This is the work of the Holy Spirit within us β βfor it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purposeβ (Philippians 2:13).β
Ravi Zacharias, The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives
As a blind gamer, i was excited to be recommended(by my brother) a brand new racing game called βProject Carsβ for the PS4. Iβm able to attempt to play a few racing games, If they include Grand Prix tracks, i can often remember each corner from my sighted gaming days, playing F1 97 etc.Β
When i sat down to play for 15 minutes last night, i was surprised to be taught a lesson on being over zealous, while lacking wisdom! π

β§ Screenshot of my 1980 Capri (Group 5 β Team Zakspeed) β§Β
I chose the rather extreme Capri to drive and chose a familiar track. After leaving the pits i span off on nearly every corner as my tyres were cold and not up to race temperatures. An influx of thoughts filled my mind,β¦.
Over Zealous…
It reminded me of when i first became a Christian and first had revelation of the Truth when reading the Bible. I couldnβt believe what i was reading, and how it described meβ¦yes me! I then did what normally happens, and become over zealous like a screaming twin turbo engine and had to tell everyone, and point out the right and wrongs with everything and everyone around me!Β
I was making a lot of noise and using a lot of power and energy, Β but was lacking something vital, i failed to slowly warm up the tyres of Godly Wisdom!
As we mature, and grow in step with the Holy Spirit, we are given all we need to finish the race. And when we get the balance right, we can stay on track until the end, and if our tyres stay hot, even the storms wonβt be able to slow us down! π
Making Doughnuts…

β§ Screenshot of my 1988 Sierra RS500 Cosworth (Group A) β§Β
After selecting βDoningtonβ, my home town track in Derby, i decided to take the Sierra Cosworth for a ride. I stopped to make some doughnuts, and thought βHere we go again, all that power and energyβ¦and iβm just going round in circlesβ.
I want to thank God for not leaving us in the pits! But instead HeΒ empowers Β instructs and steers us towards the finish line! π
βOptimism hopes for the best without any guarantee of its arriving and is often no more than whistling in the dark. Christian hope, by contrast, is faith looking ahead to the fulfillment of the promises of God, as when the Anglican burial service inters the corpse ‘in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God’s own commitment, that the best is yet to come.β
J.I. Packer
βMade for spirituality, we wallow in introspection. Made for joy, we settle for pleasure. Made for justice, we clamor for vengeance. Made for relationship, we insist on our own way. Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment. But new creation has already begun. The sun has begun to rise. Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world … That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian: to follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God’s new world, which he has thrown open before us.β
N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense
βWe now demand glamour and fast-flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals…The tragic results of this spirit all all about us: shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies…the glorification of men, trust is religious externalities….salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit. These and such of these are the symptoms of an evil disease.βΒ
A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God
The splendor of a king
Clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice
All the earth rejoice
He wraps Himself in light,
And darkness tries to hide
And trembles at His voice
Trembles at His voice
How great is our God β sing with me
How great is our God β and all will see
How great, how great is our God
Age to age He stands
And time is in His hands
Beginning and the end
Beginning and the end
The Godhead Three in One
Father, Spirit and Son
Lion and the Lamb
Lion and the Lamb
How great is our God β sing with me
How great is our God β and all will see
How great, how great is our God
Name above all names
Worthy of all praise
My heart will sing
How great is our God
Name above all names
You’re worthy of all praise
And my heart will sing
How great is our God
How great is our God β sing with me
How great is our God β and all will see
How great, how great is our God!
βTo be really Bible-believing Christians we need to practice, simultaneously, at each step of the way, two biblical principles.
One principle is that of the purity of the visible church. Scripture commands that we must do more than just talk about the purity of the visible church; we must actually practice it, even when it is costly.
The second principle is that of an observable love among all true Christians. In the flesh we can stress purity without love, or we can stess love without purity; we cannot stress both simultaneously. To do so we must look moment by moment to the work of Christ and to the Holy Spirit. Without that, a stress on purity becomes hard, proud, and legalistic; likewise without it a stress on love becomes sheer compromise.
Spiritually begins to have real meaning in our lives as we begin to exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God. We never do this perfectly, but we must look to the living Christ to help us do it truly.β
Francis A. Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster
Godβs providence is not in baskets lowered from the sky, but through the hands and hearts of those who love Him.Β The lad without food and without shoes made the proper answer to the cruel minded woman who asked, βBut if God loved you wouldnβt He send you food and shoes?βΒ The boy replied, βGod told someone, but he forgot.β
George A. Buttrick
Β
I am what I am, as Popeye used to say, but unlike Popeye I know I am not all I could be. In God”s hands he continues to shape my life, and he continues to use everything I’ve experienced to shape me. I seem to remember that Michael Angelo was once asked how he turned a lump of marble into a beautiful carving of a horse. “Simple,” he said, “you just chip away everything that doesn’t look like a horse.”
My prayer is that God will continue to chip away everything that doesn’t look like the life he wants for me. If it doesn’t look like a horse yet, that’s because it isn’t finished!
Brother Benβs Email sent to me this morning.
Β
βI fear me that the Christian church is far more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and silken days than in those rougher times. We must be awake now, for we traverse the enchanted ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our own undoing, unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus a vehement flame. Many in these days of easy profession are likely to prove tares, and not wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces, but not the true born children of the living God.β
Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening
Baby 1: And you, you believe in life after birth?
Baby 2: Absolutely. Itβs obvious that life after birth exists. We are here to become stronger and to get ready for whatever awaits us next.
Baby 1: This is absurd. There is nothing after birth! What would life look like outside the womb!
Baby 2: Well, there are many stories about the other side. Iβve heard there is a blaze of light there, an intense and profound feeling of joy with deep emotions, thousands of things to live forβ¦ For example, Iβve heard that weβll eat with our mouth there.
Baby 1: Thatβs silly. We have an umbilical cord and that is how we eat. Everyone knows that we donβt use our mouth to eat! And, on top of that, no one has ever come back from the other world. Those stories are all coming from naive people. Life just ends at birth. Period. Thatβs the way it is and we must accept it.
Baby 2: Alright, then allow me to think differently. Thatβs for sure, I have no idea what life after birth looks like, and I canβt prove anything to you. But I like to believe that in the next world, weβll be able to see our mother and that she will take care of us.
Baby 1: βMotherβ? You mean that you believe in βMotherβ? Oh! So where is she?
Baby 2: Everywhere, donβt you see it! She is everywhere, all around us. We are part of her and itβs thanks to her that we are living right now. Without her, we wouldnβt be here.
Baby 1: This is ridiculous! Iβve never seen any mother so itβs obvious that she doesnβt exist.
Baby 2: I donβt agree. Thatβs your way of seeing things. Because sometimes when everything quiets down a little bit, we can hear her sing. We can feel her hugging our world! Iβm pretty sure that our life will start after birth.
βI think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests His power in the Bible. Everyone is looking for power in a program, in a methodology, in a technique, in anything and everything but that in which God has placed itβHis Word. He alone has the power to change lives for eternity, and that power is focused on the Scriptures.β
R.C. Sproul, The Prayer of the Lord
“Pray”
Father which art in heaven,Β Holy is your name
Let your kingdom come,Β Your will be done,Β On earth as it is in heaven
Father, give us our daily bread.Β And father, forgive our debts, as we forgive our debtors
Teach us to pray
Teach us to pray
Teach us to pray
Father which art in heaven,Β Holy is your name.Β Let your kingdom come
Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
Father, deliver us from evil.Β For yours is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever
Teach us to pray
Teach us to pray
Teach us to pray
Ahhh..amen
Teach us to pray.
Here I sit in the middle of eternity.Β This wheelchair has helped me sit still.Β Iβve observed with curiosity the way we Christians grasp for the future, as if the present didnβt quite satisfy.Β How we, in spiritual fits and starts, scrape and scratch our way along, often missing the best of life while looking the other way, preoccupied with shaping our future.Β In my least consistent moments I too try to wrest the future out of his hands.Β Or worse, I sink back into the past and rest on long-ago laurelsΒ But God is most concerned with the choices I make now.Β God, standing silently and invisibly and presently with us in the middle of eternity, is interested in a certain kind of change.Β He brings us choices through which we never-endingly change, fresh and new into his likeness.
Joni Eareckson Tada
βChristian community is like the Christian’s sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.β
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. β¨Β Β I love thee to the depth and breadth and height β¨Β Β My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight β¨Β Β For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. β¨Β Β I love thee to the level of everyday’s β¨Β Β Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. β¨Β Β I love thee freely, as men might strive for Right; β¨Β Β I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. β¨Β Β I love thee with the passion put to use β¨Β Β In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. β¨Β Β I love thee with a love I seemed to lose β¨Β Β With my lost saints,βI love thee with the breath, β¨Β Β Smiles, tears, of all my life!βand, if God choose, β¨Β Β I shall but love thee better after death
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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