The New Year is only a few days old. Let's commit ourselves afresh to reading the Word of God day-by-day. Here are some links which I hope you will find helpful.
Read a specific comment online
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Monterey is a picturesque community, 100 miles south of San Francisco. It is situated on the great Monterey Bay.
The Monterey Bay, gave to the city of Monterey all the bounty of the ocean. For decades Monterey fishermen brought back the fruit of the sea, the fish, that fed millions of people in America.
The backbone of this great fishery, and therefore of the economy in Monterey, was the annual catch of sardines.
These sardines were captured, brought to port, and then to Cannery Row – a row of fish canning operations lining the Monterey beach. There, of course, the sardines were packed into silver cans, wrapped in a red and black paper seal declaring them to be high-quality sardines from Monterey, California. They were then shipped throughout America and the world.
And the economy was good.
But, in the summer of 1905, something terrible happened. An economic disaster of unprecedented proportions happened to this bustling fishing town.
The disaster was this: the fishermen and their many boats, and many employees, simply over fished the sardine population. They did it to such a degree, that the sardines couldn't reproduce their stock – and, suddenly, sardines simply disappeared from the fisherman's nets! They were gone! And with them, were also, apparent to everyone, the good times for people in Monterey.
But – and this is a very important but – this was not the end of the story. A very great and ominous disaster had happened on their watch, but now something wondrous and hopeful, also took place on their watch.
Here is what, actually, happened: first, the people of Monterey and their churches, prayed. Now, whether you believe in prayer or not, that is secondary to the story. My duty is just to give hope and tell you how the story turned out, in actual history.
Most of the ship owners in Monterey doubled as their own ship captains. There were no big corporate fleets. It was mostly private fishermen who had built their fishing business to the level of having a ship or two, and going out daily and bringing the fish back. They worked hard at it, and they became better and better at what they did, and therefore became more and more successful.
But the sea had always helped them. Now that the sardines were gone, what next? What would happen to the economy, to the ship owners and captains, and to all the crews and their families?
The captains of the ships talked among themselves. As they talked, they told tales that they had heard long ago, about schools of great fish, that a Monterey fisherman and his ship and crew had once found.
But, these great fish, which were only known by the thin thread of perhaps a tall tale, were caught as far out as 200 miles from the shore! No Monterey fisherman and his crew, at least for decades, had gone beyond 20 miles!
No one ever dared to go that far! It had not yet entered the imagination of the people.
They had the vessels for it, and the crews. Now what they needed was some bold and intrepid captains, who would dare to go farther into deeper waters, than anyone ever had before.
And, in a true to life story, several believing captains, with their valiant ships and willing crews, set out to find out if the tales of these great fish had any truth to them.
They went fifty miles. Then eighty miles. Then over a hundred miles. But approximately one hundred and fifty miles out, they saw "boiling water" – a strange occurrence on the surface of the water that far out in the middle of the sea.
The captains and their crews, decided to fish these "boiling waters." For their efforts, they began to pull in yellowfin tuna anywhere from 100 to 300 pounds! And there was no end to them!
Now, dear reader, understand that until this date in history, no one in the entire world had ever eaten tuna. Well, maybe some long ago sea captain and his crew had. But for the most part, tuna had never been known before. It had never been seen or eaten!
So, the intrepid sea captains and their fishermen returned home to Monterey with great good news – and a big load of great fish!
Think about it. Sardines were only 4 to 8 inches long, and now the fishermen replaced them with tuna that were 4-8 feet long! The sardines weighed a half-pound at best, and the tuna weighed up to three hundred pounds. In fact, later, as fishermen found the will to go farther, they caught bluefin tuna, that weighed up to 1500 pounds!
Thus, by being willing to go further than anyone had gone before and by choosing to act in new ways rather than just sit and suffer, although the economy went down with the sardines – now it went up with the tuna! Following what might have been just a tall story by an old salt, turned out to give the people of Monterey a true, and much greater, story. They introduced tuna and tuna fishing to the world. Their ships got bigger. Their crews got paid more. More tourists came to Monterey. The little bustling fishing didn't go down with the sardines!
Somehow, the town, its people, and its economy all got a new lease on life. They grew. They prospered. And – they fed the whole world to a far greater degree.
In that summer day of 1905, when the sardine stock fell and the bottom dropped out of the sardine business, it shook everybody up. But, they said their prayers, decided to go further than ever before, chose to "seek a greater story" – and, however combined elements made it happen – tuna, much larger than sardines, and a tuna catch, much greater than the total sardine catch had ever achieved, was brought into the history, and to the palates, of the entire world.
The economy recovered and boomed.
My friends, could it be possible that right now, this very day, that even as you experience the loss of something you long felt secure and that you built your hopes on, just a little farther ahead, with a little willingness to keep your chin and morale up, exploring a little further, pursuing a greater, not lesser, story for you and yours, we might ourselves see our "sardines" not just gone, but our own kind of new, far greater, "tuna" right in front of us replacing our loss with something much better?
I believe that people with the American dream, don't just get better dreams. They get a better story. It comes complete with the faith, the new vision, the will to try, the solid meat of the fish, the adventures, and the tale to tell all our children about.
The measure of something great is that greater things still come out of it.
Say your prayers, stoke the embers of your dreams and visions. Listen to wise stories. Make your minds and ships go further into the ocean of the Spirit – and I believe either you yourself, or some intrepid captains, are going to come back with the equivalent of boatloads of silver tuna in our time – together with directions how you can get a lot more of them.
Copyright 2008 E. Zehnder
http://theeverlastingkingdom.blogspot.com
Mat 24:26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.
Mat 24:27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Mat 24:28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
Mat 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
Mat 24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Mat 24:31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
It is not suggested that the Bible does not require to be interpreted. By virtue of its finitude, human language is inadequate in its reference to God. To acknowledge the limitation of human language does not, however, lead inevitably to the demythologizing of the New Testament. That would also require a negative dogmatic assumption concerning the capacity of God to enter the human scene in a manner that is beyond human understanding. It may be more consistent as well as more Biblical, to acknowledge the limitation of human understanding in its reference to God and His activity in history. A recognition of this limitation would not lead to a bold demythologizing of the Gospel. It would lead to a humble faith in God and His amazing work of salvation. Christian theology must, therefore, be cautious of the idea of ‘the myth of God Incarnate.’ Those who think in terms of ‘the myth of God Incarnate’ appear to be more concerned with the question, “What can modern man believe? rather than the question, “What is the Christian Gospel?” To allow the first question to swallow up the second is to destroy the essential connection between the present proclamation of the Gospel and the historical foundation upon which that proclamation is built.
Religious language that requires to be continually modernized by a process of demythologizing or deliteralizing is no substitute for the New Testament Gospel which is grounded in facts - the fact of Christ’s resurrection which authenticates His incarnation (Romans 1:4). The centrality of Christ’s resurrection and incarnation for the Christian Gospel is made clear in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 15:3-11, 14, 17, 20; 1 John 4:2-3). Any interpretation of the Christian message which calls for a demythologizing or deliteralizing of the language of the New Testament must face the question of whether such an interpretation is not essentially founded on a denial of the basic facts of the Gospel. While the Gospel must be interpreted for each generation, we must take care that we don’t present an interpretation which is essentially a denial of the facts, for then we would have no Gospel to interpret.
Luke 1:26-38, 46-55 - Praising God For His Love, Grace And Mercy
God has come to us in love, grace and mercy. In love , He has sent His Son to be our Saviour. In mercy, He withholds from us the judgment we deserve. In grace, He pours upon us His salvation which we don’t deserve. Let us respond to Him by giving ourselves fully to Him. Committed to the Lord, trusting in Him and experiencing His power at work in us, let us join with Mary in praising the God of our salvation, “My heart overflowing with praise of my Lord, my soul is full of joy in God my Saviour” (Luke 1:46).
Luke 1:26-38, 46-55 - Commitment, Trust And God’s Action
Mary’s commitment was decisive. The conception of Jesus in her womb was a once-for-all event. With respect to His conception, her prayer, “Let it be to me according to Your Word” was unrepeatable. For us, there is a once-for-all beginning - the new birth. We are born of the Spirit of God. From this commitment, we move on to trust. We trust that there will be no ‘miscarriage’. God will complete His work in us - the work of His love, grace and mercy. When we trust in the Lord, persuaded that we are now “accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6), we begin to experience the power of God at work within us - He “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20).
Here are a few articles you may find helpful.
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‘Good News’- Let us ‘shout for joy’. ‘Good News’- Let us sing ‘songs of joy’. There is the Good News of God’s reign - ‘Your God reigns’. There is the Good News of our redemption - ‘The Lord has redeemed’ us. We are not to keep the Good News to ourselves. This ‘news of happiness’ is to be shared with everyone. We must let ‘all the ends of the earth see the salvation of our
Just imagine spending 40 days and 40 nights in the Teton Mountains and surrounding areas. The beauty, nature, peace, wonderful moments, beautiful sunsets and endless hours of being far from the hustle bustle of life.
