Website Design Lesson

I don't know what made me think to do it, but this morning I checked to see what my blog looked like using Microsoft Internet Explorer (I use Firefox by the way). Well it was a mess. The layout wasn't anything like I expected. Since most people use IE, I've spent most of my free time today working on a setup that would render properly across multiple browsers. Let me know if something looks out of place.

The Pursuit of God

For some time now, I've been trying to put into words what I had in mind when I chose the name for this site, "Methodist Corner". I think the new tag line, "where God's previous working meets man's present response" (under the site name above), really captures the essence of what I was thinking. That is to say, things happen when God meets man. I wish I could take credit for it, but it actually comes from A.W. Tozer's book The Pursuit of God.

"We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. `No man can come to me,' said our Lord, `except the Father which hath sent me draw him,' and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for he act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: `Thy right hand upholdeth me.' In this divine `upholding' and human `following' there is no contradiction. All is of God, for as von Hugel teaches, God is always previous.

In practice, however, (that is, where God's previous working meets man's present response) man must pursue God. On our part there must be positive reciprocation if this secret drawing of God is to eventuate in identifiable experience of the Divine. In the warm language of personal feeling this is stated in the Forty-second Psalm: `As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?' This is deep calling unto deep, and the longing heart will understand it."

Follow this link to read the entire book online.

Updated Profile

I've finally updated my profile. Take a look.

Little Lambs Childrens Ministries

Today online, I met Mrs. Esther Murial founder of Little Lambs Childrens Ministries. Please take a minute to visit her website.

UMAction Briefing

Read the latest UM Action Briefing from the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Contents:

• Lake Junaluska Conference Center Hosts Pro-Homosexuality Event
• COSROW Chief Touts Liberalism
• Wesley Seminary Professor Defends Wesleyan Theology
• Six Annual Conferences Approve UMAction Resolutions on Abortion
• Bishop Hayes Urges Sound Doctrine at Confessing Movement Institute
• Methodist Building Issue to Go Before DC Attorney General
• Move Forward in Mission!

Disciplined Disciple

     My daughter, Marianne, asked me what she could do to improve her writing. She's only 9, but she loves to write about anything and everything. It doesn't matter to her; Fiction, non-fiction, or somewhere in between. Just put her in front of a computer or put a pen in her hand and she writes. She comes up with some amazingly creative story lines with complex characters. Anyway, enough bragging, back to the question.
     "What can I do to improve my writing?" she asked.
     "Just write," I replied. "Write every day whether you want to or not. A sentence, a paragraph, or a page full, just write."
     Reflecting on her question makes me think of "discipleship" and what we can do to walk closer each day with the Prince of Peace. I realize that the answer is much the same.
     "Pray each day whether you want to or not. One minute or one hour, just pray. Read your Bible each day whether you want to or not. A verse, a chapter, a book, just read. Show people each day that you love them whether you want to or not." Being a disciple requires discipline; imagine that. I hate to admit it, but that's something I need desperately to work on. But once again, my little girl gets to teach me a thing or two.
     "Lord help me to take my own advice each day and become a disciplined disciple"

Schaeffer on "The Trinity"

"Every once in a while in my discussions someone asks me how I can believe in the Trinity. My answer is always the same. I would still be an agnostic if there were no Trinity, because there would be no answers. Without the high order of personal unity and diversity as given in the Trinity, there are no answers.

The Persons of the Trinity communicated with each other and loved each other before the creation of the world. This is not only an answer to the acute philosophical need of unity in diversity, but of personal unity and diversity... We must appreciate that our Christian forefathers understood this very well in A.D. 325 when they stressed the three persons in the Trinity as the Bible had clearly set this forth. Let us notice that it is not that they invented the Trinity in order to give an answer to the philosophical questions which the Greeks had at that time understood. It is quite the contrary... The Christians realized that in the Trinity, as it had been taught in the Bible, they had an answer that no one else had. They did not invent the Trinity to meet the need; the Trinity was already there and it met the needs.

Let us notice again that this is not the best answer; it is the only answer. Nobody else, no philosophy has ever given us an answer to unity and diversity."

--by Francis Schaeffer, from He Is There and He Is Not Silent

Filed In:

• Quotes
• Theology

A Life Examined

Wondering
Wandering
Listlessly moving
Forward
Backward
To life's ebb and flow

Watching
Waiting
Desperately wanting
To be
To belong
But lost to it all

Reaching
Searching
Endlessly yearning
Seen
Heard
God knows me

Changing
Rearranging
Fashioned in love
Breathless
Fullness
I am complete