For God Alone

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26) Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down. Fix in us thy humble dwelling, all thy faithful mercies crown. Jesus, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art; Visit us with thy salvation, enter every trembling heart. Breathe, oh, breathe thy loving Spirit into every troubled breast; Let us all in thee inherit; let us find thy promised rest. Take away the love of sinning; Alpha and Omega be; End of faith, as its beginning, set our hearts at liberty. Come, Almighty to deliver, let us all thy life receive; Suddenly return, and never, nevermore thy temples leave. Thee we would be always blessing, serve thee with thy hosts above, Pray and praise thee without ceasing, glory in thy perfect love. Finish, then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be; Let us see thy gr...

One of my favorite classes at Southwestern Seminary was a course called Jesus and Personal Evangelism, which Dr. Roy Fish taught. Dr. Fish required only one text, The Great Physician by G. Campbell Morgan, a noted British evangelist, preacher, and author from a few generations ago. I will never forget the day we turned to Chapter Three in The Great Physician in which Dr. Morgan discussed the call Jesus extended to Andrew as found in John 1:35-41. Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, “What do you seek?” They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), “where are You staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day (now it was about the tenth hour). One of the two who heard John speak, an...

My daily walk-and-jog allows time for thinking. Recently, on one such walk/run, I recited the scripture from which the beloved hymn, Great Is Thy Faithfulness is taken: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;  they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23 Every morning of every New Day brings a new beginning for which we are grateful to our Creator. We rise in the morning following the night’s sleep, and are greeted with sights and sounds in nature: blue skies, gentle breezes, and birds singing their various songs. If there is anything the human race needs at present, it is the hope of a brighter tomorrow. Jesus offers strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow! This New Day, I share three songs with you, to encourage you on your walk. Years ago, singer/song writer, Ken Medema wrote a chorus called Every Day Is a Victory. It was originally recorded in 1975 during a live performance at ...

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.” (Psalm 95:7b-9) “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.” (Hebrews 3:7-9) This weekend, our church, Central Bearden is hosting one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Ken Medema. Ken is, without question, a poet-musician, a term I reserve for very few artists I have known through the years. (Cynthia Clawson, by the way, is another.) This will be the third or fourth time Central has welcomed Ken (and his wonderful associate, Bev Vander Molen), and my sixth or seventh since I first hosted him while serving Tallowood Baptist in Houston. I first ‘met’ Ken in the mid-seventies through his ...