Apples of Gold

[D. Allan]

APPLES OF GOLD

"A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." Proverbs 25:11 NIV

[D. Allan]

"...when you give a party, invite the poor, the lame, the crippled

and the blind. That way lies real happiness for you." -Luke 14, Phillips

[D. Allan]

"My word is like the snow and the rain that come down from the sky to water the earth." -Isaiah 55:10, - Good News Bible

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"The LORD is my shepherd, I have everything I need." - Psalm 23:1, New Living Translation

[D. Allan]

"He makes me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside quiet waters" - Psalm 23:2, NIV

[Gail]

Have you ever read that book, A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm? I forget the author's name, Philip somebody... It's been around for years

What an interesting book! He tells why it was so important for the sheep to have green pastures and still waters in their lives.

[D. Allan]

[color:6600CC]Philip Keller has written the book "A Shepherd Looks at the Twenty-Third Psalm." His thesis is that the psalm is written from the perspective of a sheep bragging about his shepherd across a fence to another sheep with a different owner.

So, when we read, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," the emphasis could be "the Lord is MY shepherd." Of course, we could have a discussion of each of the words in that opening line. - from a pastor's blog at http://www.fccofcc.com/blogs/day_blogs.cfm?d=10&m=9&y=2006

[D. Allan]

"LORD, my shepherd!

I don't need a thing.

You have bedded me down in lush meadows,

You find me quiet pools to drink from."

-Psalm 23, Peterson's 'The Message'

[D. Allan]

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for itself.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,

Doesn't have a swelled head,

Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn't revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything, Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies.

-I Corinthians 13, Peterson's 'The Message'

[D. Allan]

The mountains and the hills will burst into singing,

And the trees will shout for joy.

- Isaiah 55:12, Today's English Version

[D. Allan]

"Above everything else be sure that you have real deep love for one another,

remembering how love can 'cover a multitude of sins.'" First Peter 4:8, Phillips

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"This is a book about that most admirable of human virtues - courage. "Grace under pressure," Ernest Hemingway defined it." - John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage, p. 1

[D. Allan]

Jesus was quick to comfort them: "Courage! It's me. Don't be afraid." As soon as he climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Mark 6 - The Message

[D. Allan]

We tearme sleepe a death, and yet it is waking that kils us, and destroyes those spirits that are the house of life. Tis indeed a part of life that best expresseth death, for every man truely lives so long as hee acts his nature, or someway makes good the faculties of himselfe: Themistocles therefore that slew his Souldier in his sleepe was a mercifull executioner, 'tis a kinde of punishment the mildnesse of no lawes hath invented;.... It is that death by which we may be literally said to die daily, a death which Adam died before his mortality; a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point betweene life and death; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers, and an halfe adiew unto the world, and take my farewell in a Colloquy with God. - Sir Thomas Browne, Religo Medici (1643), Section 13.

[D. Allan]

But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:

"Wake up, O sleeper,

rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you." - Ephesians 5:15 (NIV)

[D. Allan]

And God blesseth them, and God saith to them, `Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that is creeping upon the earth.' - Genesis 1:28, Young's Literal Translation

[D. Allan]

"In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking

Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow,

Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick

Till I caught him up by the tail and brought him in,

Cradled in my hand,

A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling,

His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse,

His feet like small leaves,

Little lizard-feet,

Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away,

Wriggling like a miniscule puppy.

Now he's eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from his bottle-cap watering-trough-

So much he just lies in one corner,

His tail curled under him, his belly big

As his head; his bat-like ears

Twitching, tilting toward the least sound.

Do I imagine he no longer trembles

When I come close to him?

He seems no longer to tremble." - from 'The Meadow Mouse' by Theodore Roethke

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... keep your treasure in Heaven where there is neither moth nor rust to spoil it and nobody can break in and steal. For wherever your treasure is, you may be certain that your heart will be there too - Matthew 6:20,21, Phillips New Testament in Modern English

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What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross

What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee

What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage. - Ezra Pound, American expatriate poet (1885 - 1972)

[D. Allan]

"Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.... Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence" - Henri J. M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved, pp. 27, 28

[D. Allan]

"For we know how dearly God loves us because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love." - Romans 5:5, The New Living Translation

[D. Allan]

A Psalm of the Sons of Korah

A white-tailed deer drinks from the creek;

I want to drink God,

deep draughts of God.

I'm thirsty for God-alive.

I wonder, "Will I ever make it—

arrive and drink in God's presence?"

I'm on a diet of tears—

tears for breakfast, tears for supper.

All day long

people knock at my door,

Pestering,

"Where is this God of yours?"

These are the things I go over and over,

emptying out the pockets of my life.

I was always at the head of the worshiping crowd,

right out in front,

Leading them all,

eager to arrive and worship,

Shouting praises, singing thanksgiving—

celebrating, all of us, God's feast!

- Psalm 42:1-4, The Message, (MSG)

[D. Allan]

"A noiseless patient spider,

I marked where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launched forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul." - Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

[D. Allan]

"See how much the Father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called God's children - and so, in fact, we are. This is why the world does not know us: it has not known God.... The message you heard from the very beginning is this: we must love one another. We must not be like Cain; he... murdered his own brother Abel.

- I John 3, Today's English Version

[D. Allan]

"The more I become identified with God, the more will I be identified with all the others who are identified with Him. His Love will live in all of us. His Spirit will be our One Life, the Life of all of us and Life of God. And we shall love one another and God with the same Love with which He loves us and Himself. This love is God Himself." - Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p.65