2020.11.30

In this NKJV year on November 26--Thanksgiving!--I was struck by the Psalmist's statement to the Lord:

Psalm 116: 17 
I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving,
And will call upon the name of the LORD.  

Which brought to mind

Hebrews 13: 15

Therefore by Him (the Lord Jesus) let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.  

A sacrifice can be defined as "giving up something that you want to keep especially in order to get or do something else". Perhaps this is the application: One will give up self-centered thinking--especially feeling sorry for oneself or focusing on very real suffering and pain and hurt--in order to give thanksgiving and praise to God, Who in His sovereign providence gives us all things and holds us in His fatherly hand.

2020.11.14

 A Chance to Die

What do you mean by the phrase "A Chance to Die"?

It's a Biblical phrase, representing a commitment--not at all easy!--to die: die to self and self-centered living and always wanting things to be the way I want them to be. The commitment is to live to obey and follow Christ.

Elisabeth Elliot, page 30 A Lamp for My Feet: "An older missionary said something to Amy Carmichael when she was a young missionary that stayed with her for life. She had spoken of something which was not to her liking. His reply was, 'See in it a chance to die.'"

Elisabeth Elliot's biography of Amy Carmichael is titled A Chance to Die.

Luke 9: 23 And (Jesus) said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."

Colossians 3: 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

2020.11.11

Fruitful growth in the pictures of trees in the Psalms:

    Psalm 1:3 (a godly person) is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

    Psalm 92:12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 

        13 They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.

        14 They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green,

        15 to declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

Alec Motyer's note for verse 14: "The world's ambition is to 'stay young'; the Bible's, to grow old                                                                         fruitfully. Deuteronomy 34:7."