"In My Father's Eyes"

From a distance He'd be watching me,
And I guess somehow He knew,
That in my heart I longed to be like Him.
In time the closer we became,
The more it seemed I grew;
I'd fall, He'd pick me up, and I'd try again.

He loves me even when I do
The things I shouldn't do
And when I fail to do the things I should.
I've heard it said that love is blind,
And I guess I know it's true:
He forgets the bad, and remembers all the good.

In my Father's eyes, there's no wrong I've done,
In my Father's eyes, I am the perfect son.
He must see Someone I can't see,
And it makes me want to try
To be like the Son that's in my Father's eyes.

And when this life is over,
My last trial I've gone through,
T'will be worth it all just to hear Him say "Well done."
And maybe then I'll understand
Just what He saw in me,
But I'm sure I'll find that He was blinded by the Son.

In my Father's eyes, there's no wrong I've done,
In my Father's eyes, I am the perfect son.
He must see Someone I can't see,
And it makes me want to try
To be like the Son that's in my Father's eyes.

"The Mirror"

I put down the Mirror and said do myself
"Was that really me that I saw?"
I thought there might be something wrong with the Mirror,
For it magnified every flaw.
The more grooming I tried
Made me realize that what I saw in the image was true.
The truth I can't hide,
"Lord change me!" I cried,
"Make me a reflection of You."

And I love this old Mirror, God's Holy Word,
And I've found that it always rings true.
Lord, if not for the Mirror, I know I'd be lost,
For it was there I found You.
When things come between this old mirror and me,
Your image won't be shining through.
But in view of the Mirror,
My purpose is clearer,
To be a reflection of You.

I pick up the Mirror and now I'm amazed,
That that's really me that I see.
And I know that there's nothing wrong with this Mirror;
I'm just not what I used to be.
The more that I grow,
It's so good to know,
That this transformation is true.
May it not be me Lord, but You that they see,
A living reflection of You.

And I love this old Mirror, God's Holy Word,
And I've found that it always rings true.
Lord, if not for the Mirror, I know I'd be lost,
For it was there I found You.
When things come between this old mirror and me,
Your image won't be shining through.
But in view of the Mirror,
My purpose is clearer,
To be a reflection of You.

Perspective

Bro.Forrest asked me to put up some ideas on how to stay out of a rut as a Christian; while my post was specifically about our testimony as it relates to our jobs, it's apparent that the outline God gave me is relevant to every part of our Christian life.

1. God's Pardon

While Jesus said not to look back after setting your hand to the plow, sometimes it's good to remember what God saved us from and where we could be today without Him. It's almost rote, this concept, but it shouldn't be. The problem in Christianity is that we KNOW things, but we don't MEDITATE on them like we're commanded to. We know that God saved us and gave us a new life in Him, but we fail to really ponder what that means to us and how we owe Him such a great debt. We are insignificant nothings in His sight, yet He took the time and sacrificed for US. God, giving us worms the time of day - marvelous!!

2. God's Provision

Where would we be without His daily provision in our lives? How could we take a single breath, walk a single step, utter a single word, without His direct allowance and care? Again, we take this for granted every day without really contemplating His incredible work in our lives. From the dwelling that He's given us, the food that He provides us the money for, the strength and skill to work and the very breath that keeps us alive, God is more gracious and caring than we could ever deserve. Remember that, next time you take a bite of something, take a step somewhere, or wake up alive and healthy, God didn't HAVE to allow you to do that: He is just providing another blessing that you and I don't even come close to deserving.

3. God's Promise

After all that, the Salvation of God and the blessings of God, He deigns to even bless us more: He promises to give us a home in Heaven for eternity. Not only does He view our scummy frame of dust and love us, He will reward us just for serving HIM! It reminds me of a song by Gary Duty:

"I stand in true amazement,
At Your vast and perfect Plan:
How you could save a wretch like me,
I'll never understand.
And to allow me, though unfaithful,
To serve you 'till the end,
And then to be rewarded,
I just cannot comprehend!"

To "go through the motions" or "get stuck in a rut" is an affront to the amazing, all-powerful God that made us, saved us, cares for us and has promised to reward us. If you find yourself in a day-to-day, hum-drum existence, just ponder and meditate on the things that God has done for us. Thinking about and knowing them is not enough: just as knowing that Christ died for our sins is not enough to save us, just knowing about God's miracles in our life isn't going to get us far. It's really a difference between a head knowledge and a heart understanding.

I hope this was a help to someone. God bless!

*runs out of ideas*

I just got home from work. Not too bad, overall; I'm very thankful to have a job right now, to say the least. It's just amazing, though, how keeping the Lord in mind and praying throughout the night (I'm on third shift) can make things go so smoothly. I work with a varied and somewhat odd group of people, each with their likes, oddities, preferred individuals and those they dislike. It gets a little complicated sometimes, but I just have to keep in mind that I'm there to serve God, and in turn my boss and the company, not the other people that I work with.

Sometimes it's easy to get into a rut (remember, a rut is simply a shallow grave with both ends kicked out ;) ) in work and get complacent with our abilities and our standard of work; it's those times that we need to remember that we should be doing our labor as unto the Lord that DIED for us and shed His precious BLOOD for us. We can do so little to repay Him, but our daily lives and walk with Him is the one thing that we have to repay Him with. We need to remember that not only is the Lord watching us when we work and go about our daily lives, but there are people out there that know that we are Christians, and are watching everything that we do. As the saying goes, we might be the only Bible those people ever read; will they see Jesus in us, or just us?

A while back I put up a poll on this site; here it is with the results.

What is the word of God?

The Textus Receptus	5 (16%)
The Critical Text	0 (0%)
Any valid translation	5 (16%)
Whatever I feel is most accurate	0 (0%)
The King James Bible	19 (63%)
Nothing, God didn't preserve His word	1 (3%)
Mother Goose	0 (0%)

Being that my regular audience is largely made up of King James Bible users or Believers (big difference, by the way), the response makes sense. However, the second-most picked choices are also no surprise to me. Shall we see why?

1) "The Textus Receptus

If you don't want to believe it, then go find a Greek text that disagrees with it, right? The problem with today's crop of "Fundamental," "Separated," "God-fearing," "inspired original autograph" knuckleheads is that they don't like SUBMITTING to something. Therefore, if they can "believe" a dusty old manuscript in an ancient and disused language (no one in the world knows how to SPEAK Koine Greek, people! It's a dead language!!) and use that to beat the King James Bible into submission, then they'll go for it. After all, why submit to a FINAL AUTHORITY when they can weasel their way out of things with some "The Greek" or "The Hebrew"??

2) Any Valid Translation

Obviously these people are less worried about appearances: they don't even CLAIM to believe any certain Text to be perfect. These people don't BELIEVE God in the first place, so why should they believe a BOOK? God PROMISED to preserve His perfect WORD forever, and they don't believe that, so they have no problem placing the WORDS of GOD in subjection to their own OPINIONS. Jesus used SCRIPTURE against Satan: you should probably get a good dose of these peoples' opinions, since they're so much more powerful than Scripture!!

There's my rant for today. I'm about to go to work and talk to a guy who doesn't even believe in God; he doesn't say there isn't a God, he simply doesn't believe in any deity at all. At least those people are honest: these rotten scoundrels that claim to be so "sold-out" for God sicken me. I'd rather talk to a dope-smoking lost man than an apostate like that.

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.
(Proverbs 29:2)

The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.
(Psalms 12:8)

The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
(Psalms 9:17)

That about sums it up. America is about to see the fruit of her wickedness. Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Like I said before, I do not support McCain, but this young man has my utmost respect for his service, sacrifice, and support of freedom. Going to Iraq in the first place might not have been the thing to do, as I don't believe we should be involved in foreign affairs, but once we set out on a course, turning back displays cowardice and weakness. Please watch the video; it should make any true patriot either tear up or shout for joy. At the very least, you'll understand true sacrifice.




God Bless America, and America, Bless God for all His abundant blessings!