Refine Me

Image by skeeze from Pixabay

Oh Lord my God, refine me
Into metals of purity
Let all that is unholy
Drip from me as dross.
I count the world loss
As I pick up my cross.
Pour me into Your cup and fill –
Make my will the shape of Your will!
Write eternity on my heart with Your quill.
❤

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And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God. Zechariah 13:9

And He said to them all, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” Luke 9:23

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Jeremiah 31:31-33

Review: The Agony And Glory Of The Cross

The Agony and Glory of the Cross by Charles B. Hodge Jr.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?” Luke 9:23-25

I started reading it last year, but I took it slow so that I wouldn’t miss much, and it was worth it. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from it:

“Jesus was not on the cross six hours, but thirty-three years. He lived the life before He died the death. Salvation is free, but it costs us everything – our lives!”

“The way up is down; we empty ourselves to be full. We confess being wrong to be made right. The strongest are the weakest; the poorest, the richest. We die to live and give to get.”

“Jesus was both totally humbled and totally exalted. His exaltation did not destroy His humanity; rather, it glorified His humanity. ”

“Our salvation is not for a moment but for a crucified lifetime.”

“The U.S. has the Declaration of Independence; Christians have the Declaration of Dependence.”

The author includes a special section especially for meditating on before each chapter. Very thought provoking stuff! (Though it looks like one of the later printings took out the meditations, which is a shame – so if you look into getting this book, try to make sure it’s the older printing with the “More Confusing Than Amusing” meditations before each chapter – it’s the one without the “Give The Gift of God’s Love” on the cover.) I enjoyed this book so much. This is the perfect book to read during this Holy week; or anytime before or after! 🙂

View all my reviews

Cross In My Heart

In a depressive fog, I ponder
How God parted the Red Sea;
I’m in awe of His power and I wonder,
Can He part the mist in me?

He saved three from a furnace so fiery,
The flames and heat had no say;
Smoke and mirrors inside of me,
Can My Savior take away?

He spared Daniel from the lion’s jaws,
The snarling and biting did not scare;
God delivered him from the lion’s paws,
Can God deliver me from this snare?

The Lord is omnipotent and is all knowing,
I can’t wrap my head around His strength and love;
I am in constant awe of the care He is showing,
From His throne in the heavens above.

See the fowls that fly in the air,
They do not sow nor they do not reap;
Likewise, the Shepherd, takes good care
Of His beloved flock of sheep!

I see His touch in everything,
My desire to serve Him grows;
And He makes my heart to sing,
So I do not feel quite so low.

To follow Jesus, I take up my cross daily;
For that’s what it says in Luke to start.
And then I deny myself and keep the
Thoughts of the cross in my heart. ♥

 

“Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” (Matthew 6:26)

And He said to them all, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

Humility – Jesus in the Wilderness

Some of you may remember that I’m slowly studying Humility by Andrew Murray and reading through the Gospels while paying attention to His humility. I thought perhaps you all would like to read a few notes I’ve been making as I go:

Matthew 4:5-7: Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, ‘He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ ”
Jesus said unto him, “It is written again, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ ”

Not only is Satan misquoting verses on Psalm 91 here, it wasn’t until a friend told me about this verse (I’m slowly working my way through the Gospels but I haven’t gotten to the end yet) that I realized how many angels Jesus had that He could have called, but didn’t:

Matthew 26:53: “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?”

Legion: “a military division varying at times from 3,000 to 6,000 foot soldiers, with additional cavalrymen.” (Thank you, Webster’s dictionary.) So, my friend encouraged me to do the math here. At the very least, 3,000 X 12 = 36,000, and at the most, 6,000 X 12 = 72,000.

And He said “more than.”

That’s a lot of angels.  😮

Just think, when the mobs surrounded Him, when Satan tempted Him, and when He was sent up to Cavalry to be crucified, He could have called 36,000 – 72,000 angels – or more! – to deliver Him.

But He didn’t, because it wasn’t His will – it was the Father’s will He obeyed. Now that is what I call humility.

Kneel Before God

Mission Completed!

Mission Completed

It is finished, it is done!
God’s Only Begotten Son
Battled His foes and He won!

Sin and Death have been defeated!
Jesus Christ in Heaven is now seated
At God’s right hand. Mission completed!

Mistaken Humility

“Ironically, those with this mindset are often fixated on self, thinking about self all the time and how awful self is… but still very much giving all their energy to self.”

↑ That was a response that one of my best friends had the Depression and Denying Self post I made last month. Quote from that:

Denying self. What does this mean? For years, I thought it meant denying self-worth. Statements like, “You don’t deserve (finish this sentence with any good thing, want, or idea)”, “You’re a worthless sinner”, “You’re not good enough” went through my head, and I let them have free reign. (And then those thoughts took the reigns, cut them, and let the worst run free inside me, and it nearly destroyed me. But that’s another post for another day.)

I guess today is that “another day” I mentioned.

I didn’t understand what humility was. I thought that it was “feeling humiliated”. So when my thoughts aimed to beat me up inside, I let them, saying, “This is humility. Jesus wants this.”

Wrong.

Oh, how mistaken I was; the truth was blurred into obscurity for quite a while.

Humility implies the state or quality of being humble; the absence of pride or self-assertion, while being humiliated implies feelings of embarrassment, making a fool of, dishonored, and shamed.
Even though it was self-loathing, it was still a focus on self that I shouldn’t have had. What a sneaky way for pride to attack; under the guise of mistaken humility!

 

Humility:

Mt:11:25: At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”

Lk:23:34: Then said Jesus, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted His raiment, and cast lots.”

Lk:23:46: And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit:” and having said thus, He gave up the ghost.

Jesus always gave glory to the Father. He was the prime example of humility.

 

Humiliation:

If being ridiculed, spit on, beaten up, forced to wear a crown of thorns, and hung naked upon a cross doesn’t give the impression of humiliation, I don’t know what will.

 

He went through the ultimate humiliation, but nowhere have I seen where He humiliated Himself. He knew Who He was and what He was placed here to do.

Likewise, I should know what I am here for and what I am here to do. Bring God glory. Spread the Gospel. Love Him.

(Special thanks to Pete for his Pride series; that was really helpful when writing this. 😊)