He alone is sovereign...

When we worship the Lord, let's remember that He is in control. Nothing alarms Him, or takes Him by surprise. Nothing is too big for Him to handle, or so small it escapes His attention. When the winds of my world begin to blow, He remains seated. When raging waves surround me, He governs their temper...I need not be moved...Because the Lord is seated and sovereign...He alone is sovereign. ...Ronald James image

A great many think because they have been filled once...

A great many think because they have been filled once, they are going to be full for all time after; but O, my friends, we are leaky vessels, and have to be kept right under the fountain all the time in order to keep full. If we are going to be used by God we have to be very humble. A man that lives close to God will be the humblest of men. I heard a man say that God always chooses the vessel that is close at hand. Let us keep near Him. ...Dwight Lyman Moody image

Lift up your heart to Him...

Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company; the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to Him. You need not cry very loud; he is nearer to us than we are aware of. ...Brother Lawrence image

The Taboric Light

by Dale M. Coulter
8/5/14

In most Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox liturgical calendars today marks the Feast of the Transfiguration. For conservative evangelicals, the transfiguration has apologetic weight since it points toward the deity of Christ. As important as this aspect of the transfiguration might be, however, it’s greater significance resides elsewhere. Standing between Jesus’s baptism and ascension, Christian tradition interprets this event both in its iconography and doxology as a revelation of Christ’s divinity, a foretaste of the eschaton, and a pledge of the perfectibility of the human person.

It is a moment of ecstasy on the part of the disciples in which they behold with unveiled faces the deified Christ. Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas bring out the full meaning for the Orthodox tradition as the manifestation of divine power in the beauty of the transfigured Christ. The body of Christ became translucent when the Taboric light illuminated every dimension thereby underscoring both his divine nature and the complete transformation of creation... the rest image

O Wondrous Sight! O Vision Fair!

O wondrous sight! O vision fair

of glory that the church shall share,

which Christ upon the mountain shows,

where brighter than the sun he glows!
 

From age to age the tale declares

how with the three disciples there

where Moses and Elijah meet,

the Lord holds converse high and sweet.
 

The law and prophets there have place,

two chosen witnesses of grace;

the Father's voice from out the cloud

proclaims his only Son aloud.
 

With shining face and bright array,

Christ deigns to manifest that day

what glory shall be theirs above

who joy in God with perfect love.
 

And faithful hearts are raised on high

by this great vision's mystery;

for which in joyful strains we raise

the voice of prayer, the hymn of praise.

-John Mason Neale image

These are the kind of downward steps...

Bibles read without prayer; sermons heard without prayer; marriages contracted without prayer; journeys undertaken without prayer; residences chosen without prayer; friendships formed without prayer; the daily act of prayer itself hurried over, or gone through without heart: these are the kind of downward steps by which many a Christian descends to a condition of spiritual palsy, or reaches the point where God allows them to have a tremendous fall. ...JC Ryle image