Give up Yourself

"Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."

~C. S. Lewis

Mere Christianity

Happy Birthday Emma!

Note: Emma's on the left and cousin Ellie on right

Today is Emma's Birthday. Wow! She's twelve years old. My, time has flown. I'm so glad Emma's my sister. She is really fun to be with and...what's really special about this year, is that she now is old enough to compete in the NCFCA speech tournaments. In fact, I get to do a DUO with her actually so you can all cry about not getting to. Ha ha! I've been honored to be her brother all these years and hope I still will be, Lord willing, many years from now. Happy Birthday Emma Victoria Kruse!

-Your big brother, David

2 Cor. 6:4-10

2 Corinthians 6:4-10
"...As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything."

This verse has so many things in it and it would take some time to explain all of it. But I will say that this certainly isn't what the Prosperity Gospel teaches. The Prosperity Gospel would most likely take part of the last verse ("as poor, yet making many rich") and then misinterpret it.

Now, I believe that what Paul is telling us is that though we are persecuted, though we are thought of as impostors, we have so much more in Christ. Though we die, we live (in Christ). Though we are poor, we are rich (in Christ). Though we nothing, we have everything (in Christ).

After reading this passage, read it again. You are sure to get more out of it a second time.
If you don't have time for God's Word, you may be too busy. I encourage you to study and read the Bible and, if need be, to change your priorities.

Prayer

"There is no true prayer without the study of the Word of God and there is no true study of the Word of God without prayer."

~R. A. Torrey

Poll Post

I've added a poll to this blog. It will be going for a long time so vote over and over (I guess). You need to scroll down to see it. It'll be on the right hand side. Then move your mouse over and click, okay? I hope the directions are easy to follow.
Also, you can leave a comment if you want to tell me why you "clicked" on some instrument. Yes, it's an instrument poll. Have a great day! Bye now.

Books for Young Men

Books are needed terribly
In every man's younger days.
I find it quite extremely important
In, well, actually several ways.

First and foremost,
It increases character.
If you have none, well,
You'll have it when mature.

It doth also strengthen and help
Our weak & troubled vocabulary.
Seeing as how we're not the brightest,
Nor smartest, when we but only query.

And yet another thing I do know
It doth enhance.
Our intellect! 'Tis true.
Ha! Is it not somewhat new?!

Yes, indeed books are wonderful,
But are they good? Do they teach love?
Well, depending on the book that you buy,
I wouldn't plan on the behavior said above.

~David Kruse

The Triune or Three Personal God

"An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God –that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying-the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on-the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life-what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself."

~C. S. Lewis

Mere Christianity