Old Covenant "Shadows"

The Old Testament (Covenant) is a book of illustration.  The New Testament (Covenant) is a book of explanation.

Please, let the New explain the Old.  Please, please, please.  I will shamelessly beg you, if that will convince you.  Please let the Cross be superimposed over your understanding of Old Covenant. 

Please let "Moses and Elijah" disappear from sight, and see the Lord Alone...Jesus, in all His glory.

Never, ever read the Old Covenant through any other lens or perspective but the Finished Work of Christ, unless you just love having a veil over your head.  In the Old Covenant  (which those who were His loved it, indeed.  It was all they had.  Profound, huh?) they looked forward TO the coming Christ.

From our vantage point, we look back THROUGH the Finished Work of Christ.  Any other perspective - whether that be law for the sake of law, or keeping the law in an effort to be blessed and mistaking that for Biblical faith - any other perspective will at the very least make you a poor Bible scholar, and will at worst make you a Pharisee.

Please, fear God in your approach to His Word.  Fear Him enough to turn loose of your Old Covenant perspective, no matter how secure or holy or mystical or special or important or spiritual it has made you "feel".  He has spoken in these last days through The Son.  In no one else is the Father "well pleased".  Put yourself  IN Him, by grace through faith, not through your own efforts to be well pleasing.  This is revelation, and I pray that you can finally hear it.

But you sort of have to humble yourself and want to hear it.  Or at least I had to.  Maybe you are the exception to every precedent.  That still is no nevermind to me, so long as you hear and you see and you put your whole trust in He who once walked the streets, two thousand years ago, breaking rules left and right, but fulfilling the law down to the last jot and tittle.  Oh, the cleverness and surpassing wisdom of God!


Strive to be a good student.  Rightly divide the Word of truth.  Rightly.  Divide.  It.  One is illustration, the other, explanation.

That Was SO 46 Seconds Ago!


46 seconds ago, there was Another Super Bowl Victory for a Manning.  I'd rather a Manning get another trophy than a Tom Brady any day.  No offense to my Patriot-Fan friends, but...

holla! 

I'm feeling smug. 

You Are the One That We Praise! You Are the One We Adore!

Lyrics to Wonderful, Merciful Savior:

Wonderful, merciful Savior
Precious Redeemer and friend
Who would have thought that a lamb could
Rescue the souls of men
Oh, You rescue the souls of men

Counselor, Comforter, Keeper
Spirit we long to embrace
You offer hope when our hearts have
Hopelessly lost the way
Oh, we hopelessly lost the way

[Chorus:]
You are the one that we praise!
You are the one we adore!
You give the healing and grace
Our hearts always hunger for
Oh, our hearts always hunger for

Almighty, infinite Father
Faithfully loving Your own
Here in our weakness
You find us
Falling before Your throne
Oh, we're falling before Your throne

[Chorus:]
You are the one that we praise!
You are the one we adore!
 You give the healing and grace
Our hearts always hunger for
Oh, our hearts always hunger for

Photoshop Class - Homework


...results of this week's Photoshop Class...a little rough around the edges (literally) but this is the first draft, and it took me only about a half an hour to do it.  Now, to master the technique could take more time...I need to work on constraining my proportions, I need to play with the white balance in one of the above photos, and I want to add a layer of dreamy "wash" over the whole thing.  I'll share results, as I work on this some more over the weekend. ("Please, Lord, let me find the time!") .

And now for the very best part. Are you ready? This particular class I am taking is a "paid" class - very reasonable charge, I must add.  But the instructor is offering a free basic Photoshop class in March! The class is being offered for either CS or Elements users - whichever program you have or wish to purchase (if you don't already have Photoshop). If you do not own a version of Photoshop, the software itself you do have to purchase - mine was a generous gift from The Preacher awhile back - but once you have it, the basic class on how to utilize Photoshop that I am telling you about right now is FREE!

Trust me when I tell you...I've played with Photoshop all by myself, trying to wrap my head around such a powerful program.  I've bought a book, "Photoshop For Dummies."

Not even kidding.

But nothing...nothing...has helped me make sense of this program like the lady I am about to introduce you to.  You will be emailing me, after your ten sessions of class (FREE), thanking me so much for making this introduction for you.  I am happy to be of help.  ::smile::  I am truly committed to sharing the best of the best with you, when I find it.  And oh.  I.  have.  found.  it. 

So, please click on the link below, and go "meet" the incredibly talented and very sweet Kim Klassen!  (We've never met, but we've emailed.  And she answers her email in an admirably timely fashion.)  



    kimklassencafe

PS.  I am one of those mystics who believes that names have meaning and can be very prophetic.  Note Kim's last name:  Klassen.  As in "Class" with a "K".  You truly will find her to be a gifted online teacher, who painstakingly puts together quality classes.

Mine and The Preacher's Strategy



The Preacher and I have a strategic plan for reaching people for Christ. It isn't bullet-pointed, or Power-Pointed, nor is it a pointed finger at everyone else, wondering how many churches do they plan on planting.

Our strategy really is...doing stuff.

Lots of stuff. Every day. Doing stuff with people, for people, about people, with loving people at the top of our agenda.

We are fanatical enough to believe God meant what He said when He said that if I say I love God, and  don't do stuff with people, for people, about people, with loving people being the driving force....well,   He says we don't actually love Him as much as we say we do.  If we don't love our brother who we can see, maybe we simply aren't that fond of God - or at least we aren't fond of properly portraying said love.

So yeah.  No detailed plan.  Just do stuff...with and for people...letting the love of God touch them in life-changing ways.

Prayer

Met with a friend to pray today...






...made myself a cuppa coffee, and went...


...no further than my own front porch! This friend gives me the sheer gift of coming to my house, but yet not coming to my house. Let me explain: We've never once gone inside, though I wouldn't mind it one bit if we did.

We've prayed in her car and on my porch, and she has never stayed more than a half an hour. We're both busy, and are not trying to get all up in one another's grill and force some sort of intense "BFF" thing.
There's been a few little tears shed - and I'm not against them. Most of them have been mine! But no one is out to vent and emote and drain the other person dry and pretend to call that "prayer"

.
It has actually just been simple....prayer. Thirty minutes, before the Throne, with someone to agree with me, and I with her. And it is rocking my world. In a good way.


Other than my mentoring/discipleship meetings, this has been the most refreshing thing to hit my agenda!

An Ordinary Day

In my Photoshop class, my assignment was to take pictures of my ordinary day today. Then, Thursday, my instructor is going to show us how to go into Photoshop and make a collage out of our "ordinary day" shots.

So. I thought, "Why not torture everyone with pictures of the mundane?"

Indeed. Why not?

So here you go. Never say you aren't my homies. I'm letting you into my oh-so-exciting ordinary day.

::as she stifles a yawn::

It was a thrill a minute. It started something like this:





Yup. Me in my jammies.


I felt thankful for bright morning sun. And by the way? I always. always. make my bed.


Then I went to visit Monkey. Sometimes I beat his momma to the punch, and I get the fun of getting him out of bed first thing in the morning. Not today...his momma was right behind me. You just can't see her, because she isn't a fan of having her picture made early in the morning. Especially when it will hit my blog by that night.


Monkey, eating his breakfast of toast with apple butter and some cut up bits of banana.



...preparing to go on my walk. In my blinding white tennis shoes and yoga pants. I told you...no dungarees and boots for me, thankyouverymuch. I should live in Texas, because even when up in a ponytail, my hair insists on being big.

My hair and I had words this morning. It told me in no uncertain terms, "Go big or go home."

Since I really wanted to get my walk in, I went big.


...what was next in line on Pandora...country music helps me get my walking mojo going...



...later in the afternoon...


...my kitchen windowsill. And no, I have not cleaned my windows since the week of Thanksgiving. When I accidentally sprayed oven cleaner all over them.


bought these at the Fresh Market today...along with some white beans and onions.
I made white bean chicken chili for dinner.




...the Preacher came home, after a long day spent helping with our Big Renovation downstairs at our church building. (It's BIG...the kitchen is being gutted out and moved to another room, we are putting in a fellowship/coffee room, an outdoor gathering area, new nurseries...everything is changing down there. God is good - all the funds are there to "git 'er done".) He comes home, and immediately gets to work on his laptop. After kissing me "hello". Then, he kissed me "goodbye" and had to go back to the church to help finish up leveling a floor.


...I light candles all over the house, most nights. It helps me unwind and relax.


Monkey's nite-nite bottle...

And then I took a bath, watched the last 30 minutes of a John Wayne movie with the fam, and now I will watch the 11 o'clock news and hit the hay myself. But I shan't bore you with those images. Oh - and there was laundry folding and cooking and cleaning and a semi-long counseling phone call, and some research, sprinkled all throughout the day. Put it this way - I stayed very busy.

Ordinary days. Is there such a thing?