Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

My blog has been pretty quiet lately, because what the Lord has been doing in my life lately feels too personal to publish. He has not been silent in these first few weeks at the Bible college. He has been working, bringing all kinds of things to my attention, and all I know is that I need Him to not stop working.

One of the pastors last night said something that I need to remember. I am here learning because I need God in my life more. It's not so that I can be smarter or better than others or even as good as others in my own eyes. The Lord directed me here, because I need to know more than I know right now and love God more than I do right now. I need. How true is that statement when I apply it to me next to God! I don't measure up. I don't understand. I don't have something of great value to offer. I need.  

I am so blessed to hear teaching daily that challenges me to take in God's word deeply into my life -- but if it stops at hearing that, it will be worthless. I need to seek God. I need to understand. And more than that, I need Him to change my life, to give me His character, because on my own I don't have it -- even now, if I try to live each day, each moment, without His power, I can't make it. When I am walking in my own strength and my own wisdom and following the desires of the flesh, I fail -- and I mean it, my life on my own strength is an epic fail... except that sometimes it's just a pitiable fail.

"Oh foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was so clearly portrayed among you crucified? ...Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?" (Galatians 3:1,3)

Some time ago, I was sharing with someone God's love for him. He could not accept it; he believed it would be better to die in his sin, because what he had done was too bad to allow God to take the punishment for him. He said I could not possibly understand. "My heart is black. Yours is white," he told me. I understand so much more deeply than he knew... and I wish I could have told you this then, my friend (though I think I tried) -- we are the same. On it's own, my heart stands as guilty before God as his... But the Lord does not leave me there. He sees me, with Christ as my covering, clothed in His righteousness, as sinless. And He has given me His Spirit to walk out a victorious life, if I will walk in it. My life does not have to be an epic fail.

This song has been coming up over and over in the past few weeks... during worship, in my mind, someone whistling the tune while walking in the hall. There are alot of big, old-fashioned words in it, but the essence is what we are reminded over and over and over in God's word -- we need Jesus, because in Him we have grace and life. The lines that stand out the most to me are these -- Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be. Let Thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee !

 Come, thou Fount of every blessing, 
 tune my heart to sing thy grace; 
 streams of mercy, never ceasing, 
 call for songs of loudest praise. 
 Teach me some melodious sonnet, 
 sung by flaming tongues above. 
 Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it, 
 mount of thy redeeming love. 

 Here I raise mine Ebenezer; 
 hither by thy help I'm come; 
 and I hope, by thy good pleasure, 
 safely to arrive at home. 
 Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
 wandering from the fold of God; 
 he, to rescue me from danger, 
 interposed his precious blood. 

 O to grace how great a debtor 
 daily I'm constrained to be! 
 Let thy goodness, like a fetter, 
 bind my wandering heart to thee. 
 Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, 
 prone to leave the God I love; 
 here's my heart, O take and seal it, 
 seal it for thy courts above. 

       Text by: Robert Robinson, 1735-1790

 

Jesus, I praise you because you are worthy. 

I love you, because you first loved me. 

I follow you, because you called me... 

May you never stop calling me closer. 

Thoughts after homework

There’s nothing quite like watching snow fall on beautiful grounds from the safe warm inside of a castle. Ok, “castle” may be a strong term for where I am – at least as an American steeped in fairy tales and Disney movies – but Kastely Zichy is a beautiful place to be in the wintertime. Sunday afternoon, after several hours of working on our Gospel of Matthew outlines, my roommate Jemma and I went out to play in the snow. There were a few others already on the top of a hill, sledding down on trash bags. We don’t have a whole lot to work with here, but we do pretty well with what we’ve got! It was funny to think about… just a few weeks ago I was in Oregon, working in a cubicle and coming home to a fairly quiet house – surrounded by people I knew. Just a few days ago I was sliding down a hill on a trash bag, surrounded by people I don’t really know, but I know something in them. They are here for the same purpose, to purposefully set aside time to draw closer to God, and because of that it doesn’t matter that Pieroska grew up in Hungary, Maksym came just last week from the Ukraine, and Jemma is remarkably good with snow for someone more used to the blistering heat of Australia.

And then after dinner it was back to the Matthew outline... well... after dinner and some hang-out time and talking with my parents over the telephone. The outline is a lot of work. I’m really not sure I’m doing it right – but the goal of it is not to do it perfectly, it’s to better understand what is said about Jesus and what Jesus said. I feel like I’m reading it with new eyes. The gospel of Matthew shows Jesus as King, who came to bring us into his kingdom. Jesus lays it all out – to follow him is not to lead a comfortable life (wherever you are), but it is to follow the way that leads to life. It is to build your life on a foundation of stone that is firm and strong and can weather the storms that will come whether you are ready or not. Jesus said that if you follow him you will be mocked, hated, perhaps persecuted. But he also said, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). Jesus did the hardest part for us. He made it possible for us to follow him. He made it so that we don’t have to face life all alone. He considered it less important that he was High King of heaven than that he loved us and we needed him. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God – that’s what it takes to enter the Kingdom of the King – the righteousness and glory of God. Because of this, “He made Him who knew no sin [Jesus] to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

I heard this song for the first time here at CCBCE, but the ideas in it are certainly not new… how powerful to think about this... that it was the King of Glory who stepped down from heaven for me, for you. He chose humiliation rather than leave us in sin. He chose to take on humanity, knowing what it would bring him. The humiliation was not his glory – he will come again in glory. But he chose to take that on as glory – not because he needs us, but because he loves us.

 

See His Love (by Tim Hughes)

See his love nailed to a cross  Perfect and blameless life given as sacrifice  See Him there all in the name of Love  Broken yet glorious, all for the sake of us  Chorus This is Jesus in His Glory  King of heaven, dying for me  It is finished, He has done it  Death is beaten, Heaven beckons me  Greater love no one could ever show   Mercy so undeserved, freedom I should not know  All my sin, all of my hidden shame  Died with Him on the cross, eternity won for us  Such a love, such love Such a love is this for me

Room 43's Very Very Official Dorm Meeting

Each week the dorm is supposed to get together and "do something," anything really, just to spend time with those people whose alarm clocks go off too early, or who leave dirty socks on the floor, or who snore... to remind yourselves that they really are fun people too. Our dorm doesn't really have any of those problems, other than the occasional early alarm clock. We hang out together all the time anyway and joke that we have daily dorm meetings. This was today's.... enjoy.  This is Room 43 (minus Niki).

 

E

Introducing the Adventures of Roz the Alligator

This is Roz.  She came with me to Hungary. To all of you who expressed interest in coming with me to Hungary, please do not be jealous of Roz. Unlike most of you, she fits in my bag. Jennifer and Kyle's son Eric also fits in my bag, but I left him behind because kidnapping doesn't really go along well with a Missions Training Program and babies don't go along well with dorm life. That and Jenn and Kyle would miss him alot.

 

Some of you may remember Jules, the Loch Ness Monster who came along on our travels two years ago. Roz is Jules' cousin. The resemblance is almost striking, isn't it?  

At the Redmond Airport

The last Oregonian we'll see for a while...

Have passport, ready to travel.

Saying goodbyes...

Anna is not happy that Roz fits better in my bag than she does. They had a rawr-ing contest. Anna won, but she still doesn't fit in my bag. :-(

    Now we're ready to go through airport security.

 

After about 22 hours of travel we arrived in Vajta, Hungary at "the castle" or in Hungarian, Kastely and started to get settled in. 

 

This is the view from the front entrance.

There is alot of snow.

I played ultimate frisbee in the snow on my second day here, but didn't take any pictures of that.

Roz at the back of the castle.

First walk through Vajta (Vai-ta) with fellow students... the student body is from all over the world - there are four continents represented here. 

 

After almost a week at the castle, I've started classes, gotten to know people's names and made some friends. It doesn't really feel like home... but it kind of feels like church camp, just with more accents and a few different languages. I love church camp.

The end for today.