Give me the Bible, star of gladness gleaming
To the wanderer and tempest tossed
No storm can hide the radiance peaceful beaming
Since Jesus came to seek and save the lost
Give me the Bible, Lamp of life immortal,
Hold up that splendor by the open grave
Show me the light from heaven’s shining portal
Show me the glory gilding Jordan’s wave
Give me the Bible, Holy message shining
Thy light shall guide me in the narrow way
Precept and promise, law and love combining,
Till night shall vanish in eternal day.
This is the S.S. Great Britain. It is the same ship pictured on the header of my blog. It was designed and constructed by famous bristol engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. People thought he was crazy to believe that a ship could be built out of steel instead of wood, but that is exactly what he accomplished with this beautiful piece of Bristol history, and forever changed the design and capabilities of ships forever. Ship shape and in Bristol fashion!
Studying last weeks message for sunday I came across a great quote from Bruce Milne concerning John 3.35: The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand.
Here is the quote: The mutual love of the Father and the Son means much in this Gospel…For the love of the Father guarantees the Son’s plenipotentiary powers.
Plenipotentiary: A person, esp. a diplomat, invested with the full power of independent action on behalf of their government, typically in a foreign country.
Plenary is also conceived within this word as well: unconditionally full, coming from the connection between two middle english words: plenarius: complete and plenus: full
My morning routine usually consists of a zombie-like walk to the french press and to my bible for my daily reading. It is a precious time that my wife and I have and I think I will write a separate post about our specific yearly reading plan in the future. Usually after my time in the Word and prayer Ill take 15 minutes to read through my google reader, and this morning this video showed up through Abraham Piper’s 22 Words blog:
Belonging to a small but prestigious group of large men who easily cry, you can guess that while watching this video I came into tears, not necessarily because of the Titanic’s great loss, but the truly beautiful analogy that is represented in this man’s testimony. I ask you to watch it again but with the words of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians alongside:
II Corinthians 2.14-17: Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of DEATH leading to DEATH, and to the other the aroma of LIFE leading to LIFE. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, as so man, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ.
While watching the clip, for a moment I felt the world. An existence lived with the constant putrid miasma of death forever surrounding us because of our sin. A life without any hope to rest upon because of our offense to the living God, and the only destiny we can see ahead of us is the judgment of our omnipotent Creator.
But Christ who was willing to put on flesh, to dwell among us, with the one purpose of Redemption upon His mind, He opens up that fragrance to us and we experience that Hope that is impossible outside of a perfect sacrifice.
We don’t deserve to smell that fragrance, to breathe in that great HOPE that Christ has given us, but his rich Gospel is to be opened and to be smelled, and it is by His great grace that Christ would use us, such unworthy vials, to hold such a costly fragrance and to diffuse it to a dying world.
There is something about layered music. Music that starts at such a minimalist pace and slowly adds instruments to a climactic crescendo. I appreciate especially solo artists that take the time to craft a song from a few lines or chords into something conceived so well. I don’t intend to put a whole of what I am listening to on this blog but this is a song thats been stuck in my head this week. I guess I am putting it on here more for my remembrance for the future than for news purposes. Anyway enjoy it!
