lifted

Happily for us, the fundamental Christian message concerns not what we ought to do, but what God has done and what God is willing to do. In fellowship with Him and with others who are likewise trying to be like Him, we can be lifted up above our native possibilities.

Hugh Martin

maner and the means

The heart is a lonely thing to lose in the dead of night
The heart is a sad thing to lose in the throws of a fight
The heart is the match to the fire
And the embers of desire, to keep it burning

I am a shell of the manner and the means
Mine is a story of nothing as it seems
But when we have come this far
And still don't know who we are, does it keep burning?

I call for angels to breathe holy on this rust
I call the snakes to come out slowly from the brush
I need a massive overhaul
A revival to fall, to keep it burning

The heart is a costly thing to sell in the prime of the years
And my heart is thinly veiled in the usual fears
The heart is the dream, and the kiss
That there could be more than this . . . to keep it burning

~C.C.

new name

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

rev. 2.17

the world

By afflictions, God is spoiling us [i.e., taking away from us] of what otherwise might have spoiled us. When he makes the world too hot for us to hold, we let it go.

John Powell

Amado mio

Amado mio
Love me
forever
And let forever begin tonight

Amado mio
When we're together
I'm in a dream world
Of sweet delight

Many times I've whispered
Amado mio
It was just a phrase
That I heard in plays
I was acting a part

But now when I whisper
Amado mio
Can't you tell I care
By the feeling there
'Cause it comes from my heart

I want you ever
I love my darling
Wanting to hold you
And hold you tight

Amado mio
Love me forever
And let forever
Begin tonight

Many times I've whispered
Amado mio
It was just a phrase
That I heard in plays
I was acting a part

But now when I whisper
Amado mio
Can't you tell I care
By the feeling there
'Cause it comes from my heart

I want you ever
I love my darling
Wanting to hold you
And hold you tight

Amado mio
Love me forever
And let forever
Begin tonight
And let forever
Begin tonight
And let forever
Begin tonight

youtube
1946: Fisher, Doris; Roberts, Allen

My Deliverer

i will wait for you to move
for your mighty hand to save
when troubled waters rise
you are my hiding place
you are my hiding place

your walls are - salvation
your gates are praise
your walls are - salvation
your gates are praise

my deliverer
my deliverer
my deliverer is the Lord

who is like you mighty God
who can take me from your hand
as i walk with you in freedom
you're the rock on which i stand
you're the rock on which i stand

your walls are - salvation
your gates are praise
your walls are - salvation
your gates are praise

my deliverer
my deliverer
my deliverer is the Lord


(c)2008 Vamos Publishing
sixsteps Music
worshiptogether.com
Thankyou Music
spiritandsong.com

Screwtape

[T]he humans are to be encouraged to regard as the basis for marriage a highly-coloured and distorted version of something [God] really promises as its result. Two advantages follow. In the first place, humans who have not the gift of continence can be deterred from seeking marriage as a solution because they do not find themselves 'in love', and, thanks to us, the idea of marrying with any other motive seems to them low and cynical. Yes, they think that. They regard the intention of loyalty to a partnership for mutual help, for the preservation of chastity, and for the transmission of life, as something lower than a storm of emotion.
~The Screwtape Letters

liberating work of love

The reconciliation of man to God begins when God accepts the child of man, exactly as he is, into a relationship with himself—“this grace wherein we stand.” This He does for the sake of what man is to inherit, to become. And for the means, He gives him over to a Person, Christ, and a community, the Church; and in attachment to these, personality grows, freedom is attained, sin is forgiven, estrangement is ended, capacities for relationship extend. Reconciliation is the Spirit’s liberating work of love, exercised through a Person and a community of persons.

G. R. Dunstan

You're Beautiful

I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say
You’re beautiful

I see Your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of the stars
It’s all proclaiming who You are
You’re beautiful, You're beautiful

I see you there hanging on a tree
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne
Soon we will be coming home
You’re beautiful, you're beautiful

When we arrive at eternity’s shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful, You're beautiful, You're beautiful

I see Your face, You're beautiful, You're beautiful, You're beautiful
I see Your face, You're beautiful, You're beautiful, You're beautiful
I see Your face, I see Your face
I see Your face, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful

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~Phil Wickham
Copyright: 2007 Seems Like Music Phil Wickham Music

beat

Afflictions make the heart more deep, more experimental, more knowing and profound, and so, more able to hold, to contain, and beat more.

~John Bunyan

golden

She's alone tonight,
With a bitter cup and,
She's undone tonight,
She's all used up,

She's been staring down the demons,
Who've been screaming she's just another so and so,
Another so and so

You are golden,
You are golden, Child

You are golden,
(Don't let go)
(Don't let go tonight)

There's a fear that burns,
Like trash inside
And you're ashamed of the curse,
That burns your eyes

You've been hiding in your bedroom,
Hoping this isn't not how the story has to go
It's not the way it goes, It's your book now,
You're,

Golden,
You are golden, Child

You are golden,
(Don't let go)
(Don't let go tonight)

You're a lonely soul,
Inlet of broken hearts
You're far from home,
It's a perfect place to start


So this final verse,
Is a contradiction
And the more we learn,
The less we know

We've been talkin' about a feeling,
We both know inside but couldn't find the words
I couldn't write this verse,
I've seldom been so sure,
About anything before

Golden,
You are Golden, Child

You are Golden,
(Don't let go)
(Don't let go tonight)

This world is a dead man down (Golden, you are)
Every breath is a singing crown away, (Golden, Child, you are)
Like some debilitated king, (Golden, don't let go)
Don't let go tonight

Earth Spins and your mind goes round' (Golden, you are)
Green comes on the frozen ground, (Golden, Child, you are)
And everything will be made new again, (Golden)
Like freedom and spring, (Golden, Golden)
Hey, like freedom and spring, (Golden, you are, hey)
Like freedom and spring (Golden, Child, you are)
(Gold...)

~Switchfoot
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ancient

I wonder how often the spiritual cure of faith in the Son of Man, the Great Healer, has been tried on those possessed with our modern demons. Is it proved that insanity has its origin in the physical disorder which, it is now said, can be shown to accompany it invariably? Let it be so; it yet appears to me that if the physician would, like the Son of Man himself, descend as it were into the disorganized world in which the consciousness of his patient exists, and receiving as fact all that he reveals to him of its condition—for fact it is, of a very real sort—introduce, by all means that sympathy can suggest, the one central cure for evil, spiritual and material, namely, the truth of the Son of Man, the vision of the perfect Friend and Helper, with the revelation of the promised liberty of obedience—if he did this, it seems to me that cures might still be wrought as marvelous as those of the ancient time.

George Macdonald