Chris Tomlin - Amazing Grace
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
O Ocaso da Vida
[The Sunset of Our Lives]
http://anchor.tfionline.com/pt/post/o-ocaso-da-vida/
Ó amigos que hoje se encontram,
No lindo dia com o sol a brilhar,
Eles me chamam a seguir
Os passos que estiveram a trilhar;
Deixaram para trás sua armadura,
Sua corrida terrena terminaram;
Guardaram a fé com paciência
E a coroa de vida ganharam.
Eles chamam gentilmente.
Docemente me chamam a seguir,
E vejo por entre as sombras
Abençoadas luzes de meu lar a luzir.
—Fanny Crosby
*
Eu acho que talvez o Senhor queira que passemos mais tempo sozinhos preparando para deixar esta terra e ir para o céu. Mais tempo em comunhão com Ele, refletindo sobre nossas vidas e vendo o que realizamos; pensando e orando muito sobre se estamos fazendo o nosso melhor para o Senhor, e orando sobre o que mais poderÃamos fazer.
Observamos o pôr do sol e pensamos no pôr do sol da nossa vida; vemos o amanhecer e pensamos no amanhecer do amanhã. Às vezes nos perguntamos qual será o nosso último amanhecer. Às vezes nos perguntamos se este é o último e se temos feito tudo que podemos, e se Ele vai dizer: “Bem está, querido filho!”
Quando você vê o pôr do sol, se pergunta se fez o que podia hoje. E ao ver o sol nascer, se pergunta se vai fazer todo o possÃvel amanhã.
O sol nascerá amanhã, sim amanhã,
O sol na sua glória espera por mim;
O sol nascerá amanhã, sim amanhã,
Nascerá com Jesus por toda eternidade.
—Slim Whitman
Não haverá mais tristeza, então, obrigado, Senhor! Não haverá mais doença, tristeza, dor ou morte! Não haverá mais pôr do sol, apenas o nascer do sol para nós no Céu.
Realmente o ajuda a ter as prioridades corretas e perceber o que é importante e o que não é. Acho que, em parte, é o Senhor nos preparando para morrer, porque isso é algo que todo o mundo terá de enfrentar, em um certo sentido, a sós com o Senhor ou com um de seus emissários. Graças a Deus não temos que enfrentar a morte sozinhos. Eles costumavam cantar uma antiga canção:
Não terei que cruzar o Jordão sozinho.
Jesus morreu pelos meus pecados.
Quando a escuridão eu vir enfim,
Ele estará esperando por mim.
Não terei que cruzar o Jordão sozinho.
—Thomas Ramsey
Seria ótimo se o ocaso de uma vida fosse tão lindo como o ocaso na criação de Deus. Seria maravilhoso se pudéssemos morrer de forma tão bela como o amanhecer. — De maneira tão linda, graciosa e tranquila, com algumas doces palavras de despedida, algumas palavras finais.—David Brandt Berg
*
William Nelson, general da União na guerra Civil, foi consumido pelas batalhas em Kentucky quando, em uma briga, foi atingido com um tiro mortal no peito. Ele havia enfrentado muitas batalhas, mas o golpe fatal veio enquanto ele estava relaxando com seus homens. E ele foi pego totalmente despreparado.
Quando os homens subiram as escadas correndo para ajudá-lo, o general tinha apenas uma frase: “Chame um clérigo; quero ser batizado.” Ele nunca teve tempo quando era adolescente ou jovem. Nunca teve tempo quando era soldado nem depois que se tornou general. E o seu ferimento não parou ou abrandou a guerra. Tudo à sua volta ficou praticamente inalterado, com exceção das prioridades do general. A poucos minutos de adentrar a eternidade, a única coisa que lhe importava era a preparação para a eternidade. Ele queria ser batizado. Trinta minutos depois ele estava morto.[1]
*
Quando Corrie ten Boom do famoso livro The Hiding Place [O Esconderijo] era uma garotinha na Holanda, ela se deparou pela primeira vez com a morte depois de visitar a casa de um vizinho que havia morrido. Ela ficou impressionada com o pensamento de que um dia seus pais também iriam morrer. O pai de Corrie a consolou com suas palavras de sabedoria. “Corrie, quando nós vamos à Amsterdam, quando é que lhe dou os bilhetes?”
“Logo antes de entrarmos no trem,” foi sua resposta.
“Exatamente,” disse seu pai, “e o nosso sábio Pai no céu sabe quando vamos precisar das coisas. Não queira correr na frente dEle, Corrie. Quando chegar a hora de morrer, você encontrará a força que precisa no fundo do seu coração bem na hora.”[2]
*
Um amigo meu visitou Portugal há alguns anos em uma turnê evangelÃstica. Ele ficou encantado em encontrar muitos crentes que eram “gigantes espirituais”, entre eles um missionário da Grã-Bretanha chamado Eric Barker. Ele tinha passado mais de 50 anos em Portugal pregando o Evangelho, muitas vezes em condições adversas.
Durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, a situação tornou-se tão crÃtica que Barker foi aconselhado a enviar a sua esposa e oito filhos para a Inglaterra por segurança. Sua irmã e seus três filhos também foram evacuados no mesmo navio. Apesar de seus parentes queridos terem sido forçados a partir, ele ficou para trás para continuar o trabalho. No dia do Senhor após a sua saÃda, ele estava diante de sua congregação e disse: “Acabei de receber a notÃcia de que toda a minha famÃlia chegou em segurança ao lar!” Ele então começou com o culto como de costume.
Mais tarde, o pleno significado de suas palavras foi revelado a todos. Pouco antes da reunião, ele soube que um submarino tinha torpedeado o navio, e todos a bordo se afogaram. Ele sabia que, porque todos eram crentes, haviam chegado ao “porto mais desejado”. Apesar de estar avassalado com a dor, ele foi capaz de elevar-se acima das circunstâncias, pela graça de Deus, e continuar a servir o Senhor. Saber que sua famÃlia estava desfrutando da imensa felicidade do Céu era o consolo de seu coração.—Henry G. Bosch
*
D. L. Moody costumava dizer: “Um dia vocês vão ler no jornal que D. L. Moody do Leste de Northfield está morto. Não acreditem em nem uma palavra! Nesse momento eu estarei mais vivo do que nunca!”[3]
Publicado pelo Âncora em agosto de 2016.
Hardly Anything or Everything?
http://anchor.tfionline.com/post/hardly-anything-or-everything/
Audio length: 8:05
Download Audio (7.4MB)
Mother Teresa once said, “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” How true! A few simple words, spoken by unassuming people, yet filled with the Lord’s Spirit and love, can reverberate throughout the lives of those they are spoken to in tangible and powerful ways.
There are so many situations where, if we stop to think about it, we can be sharing simple, kind words that will add up to having a substantial impact on others. It helps to think ahead a bit.
What could you say in scenarios like these that you will probably encounter: To a friend who is going through a rough patch? To a child? To your boss? To a teacher? To someone with a beautiful smile? To an elderly woman who has aged gracefully? To the night watchman? To the gardener? To the street sweeper? To the clerk in the store?
So much can happen through a few caring words.
Here’s one example:
A woman who worked for a major airline noticed a young man half her age in the hallway and in the lounge from time to time. He looked unkempt and always reeked of cigarettes. One day when taking a break she saw him standing near the door.
“Why are you smoking?” Her tone wasn’t harsh, just curious.
“Just a habit I picked up in high school.”
“High school? How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“Then you’ve only been smoking for a few years. You could stop, you know.”
“Think so?”
She nodded. That was the end of their conversation. She continued to encounter him occasionally over the next several months, at which time she would ask him if he had made any progress in quitting the habit, and expressed her concern for him. She always ended her conversation with “I care about you.” One day she again asked Greg, the young man, how things were going.
He replied, “Well, yesterday I had a stressful day. I smoked one—but just one.”
“Just one? You mean you’ve stopped?”
“For several weeks I’ve been smoke-free. Thanks for listening and for caring.”
The young man’s whole attitude had changed because someone cared.1
Another story that I heard some years ago, which left a deep impression on me, is about a marriage that was on the brink of ruin.
The husband had lost his job and soon became moody, sarcastic, and mean. The wife wasn't the support that she should have been. She didn’t realize how devastating the loss of employment can be to a man’s self-esteem, not to mention the intense burden of financial responsibility that most men feel for their families. The frustration and the resentment and frayed nerves grew. Things got so bad, it looked like divorce was inevitable. He started drinking and staying out late at night, spending the little money they had left.
One particular night, as she waited for him to stomp through the room on his way to the corner bar, she sat at the kitchen table, fuming. At the same time she could hear a small voice in her mind urging her to tell him that she still loved him. She did love him, but she didn’t love the situation she was in and all the pain that came with it. It was hugely difficult for her to say those words and he was almost out the door before she was able to eke out, “I still love you.”
Stopping dead in his tracks, he turned around, came back to her, knelt down and brokenly asked, “You do?”
Tears were streaming down his face. She started crying too, as they held each other, expressing their love and asking for forgiveness.
Those four little words saved their marriage and … her husband. He had been on his way out the door to end his life.
And here’s one more testimony by a man named Richard North that illustrates how a little comment made a huge difference in someone’s life—and in fact, in many other lives as well.
I was a thirty-five-year-old schoolteacher, and I’d been teaching for almost ten years. But here I was, contemplating quitting and beginning the search for a new profession. The idealistic fires of inspiration that I’d begun with had gradually died down, until lately more often than not I found myself wondering why I had ever chosen the teaching profession. I felt like I had given this job the best shot I could, but it just wasn’t worth it: the kids were belligerent and thoughtless, and the parents were too often angry and irritable. I felt that the years I’d spent teaching had been a waste. I had begun to wonder if anyone appreciated all that it had cost me. Ten years of my life invested, and it seemed as if I had nothing to show for it.
My transformation came about because of an assistant teacher who came to my classroom to help out and get some hands-on training. He had only been in my classroom for a couple of days when, as I happened to enter the teachers’ lunch room during lunch break, I overheard him talking to a couple of other assistant teachers.
“It’s amazing to me how much Mr. North loves the children. He’s so kind to them and takes the time to hear them out and to encourage them no matter what level they are on. What I wouldn’t have given to have had a teacher like that when I was their age.”
Hearing this comment had an immense effect on my weary soul. It helped me to remember why I had poured my life into a teaching career. I began to look at my profession from a new point of view and to regain my vision. As my perception of my job changed, so did my students’ behavior. By the time summer vacation had come around, I was a different person. Those few words of appreciation, accidentally overheard, had changed my life. I now had a reputation to live up to, and my rediscovered purpose and vision motivated many to strive for greater things.2
What impresses me is that the words we say—which can seem so matter-of-fact, so common, so meager, so insignificant, and often awkward—can, in fact, be invaluable and of great consequence to the person to whom—or about whom—we say them. What to us may seem like hardly anything can be like food to a starving soul, or water to a man dying of thirst. What costs us so little to give and seems so small in the bigger scheme of things can mean everything to someone else.
Originally published September 2012. Adapted and republished September 2016.
Read by Debra Lee.
1 Condensed from The Esther Effect by Dianna Booher (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001).
2 Richard North.
Monday, September 12, 2016
What is your child’s authority? ‘Science’ camp undermines creation
by Lita Cosner http://creation.com/ncse-child-authority?utm_media
Evolutionary teachers often use equivocation to indoctrinate unsuspecting students with the general theory of evolution (GTE).
Recently, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) published a series of blogs1 about a science camp they held for children, and what they wrote could be instructive for creationist parents.
First, it should surprise precisely no one that the NCSE is openly evolutionist. What was surprising to me is that multiple creationist families allowed their 9-to-11-year-olds to be in such an environment where they would obviously face challenges from authoritative adults challenging what their parents had taught them. Clearly at some point children will face evolutionist tests to their faith, but a 9-year-old child will likely see an evolutionist Ph.D. geneticist as having great authority. And it has been shown multiple times that science organizations like the NCSE are not neutral regarding religion.
The fact that strawberries have DNA does not explain how such a complex code could arise from an unintelligent source.
Second, the evolutionary teaching at the camp was full of what we call ‘bait and switch’ argumentation. For instance, the blog2 talks about how the kids learned about DNA and evolution by extracting DNA from strawberries. Well, what those kids did was very interesting operational science. But the fact that strawberries have DNA does not explain how such a complex code could arise from an unintelligent source, or how mutations, which are errors in the copying process, could give rise to more complexity instead of simply breaking what already exists. In fact, the camp itself is a bit of a ‘bait and switch’, because it was called a ‘science’ camp, but it really turned out to be more of an ‘evolution’ camp.
Third, one of the most powerful tools the camp leaders used was insisting that the dialogue was always respectful, and this is something we can wholeheartedly agree with. We have always advocated for creationist students in public schools to always engage with their teachers in a respectful manner.
If you are a parent, what are you doing to ensure that when (not if) your children are presented with evolution, they’re standing strong on the authority of Scripture?
Fourth, evolutionist scientists were consistently presented as ‘authorities’ to the students to counter creationist objections.3 While it is tempting to dwell on the growing number of creationist scientists who have invented things like the gene gun and the MRI scanner, there is a more important lesson to parents: a warning to be careful with who is presented as an authority in your children’s lives. Scripture tells us to be respectful to and pray for our authorities, and while civil authorities are in view in that passage, we can see how that would apply to teachers and professors as well.
We have argued before that parents have the ultimate authority for managing their children’s education, and that is the case no matter what educational choices a family makes for their children. Biblically, the most important element of a child’s education is ensuring that they know Scripture and are encouraged to believe it in all areas of their life. Many parents feel overwhelmed when it comes to teaching their children about a biblical worldview, but the great news is that there are more resources teaching biblical creation than perhaps at any other time in history. For instance, Refuting Evolution 2 was written specifically to refute a book that NCSE sent out to every science teacher in America.
The people who ran this camp genuinely believe that it would be best if those creationist children believed in evolution. But biblically, it’s not their call. If you are a parent, what are you doing now to ensure that when (not if) your children are presented with evolution, they’re standing strong on the authority of Scripture?
Related Articles
Further Reading
References and notes
Schoerning, E., NCSE runs a camp: part 1, 27 July 2016, ncse.com/blog/2016/07/ncse-runs-camp-part-1-0018318.
Schoerning, E., NCSE runs a camp: part 2, 28 July 2016, ncse.com/blog/2016/07/ncse-runs-camp-part-2-0018319.
Schoerning, E., NCSE runs a camp: part 3, 29 July 2016, ncse.com/blog/2016/07/ncse-runs-camp-part-3-0018320.
