Learning to Live by Faith

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Cor. 4:18 (NIV)

  • “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” by Walter C. Smith

    “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” by Walter C. Smith

    Hymnal Page Scan: Our Great Redeemer’s Praise page 7 | Hymnary.org

    Audio Recording:

    1 Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
    in light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
    most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
    almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.

    2 Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
    nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;
    thy justice like mountains high soaring above
    thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.

    3 To all life thou givest, to both great and small;
    in all life thou livest, the true life of all;
    we blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,
    and wither and perish but naught changeth thee.

    4 Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
    thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;
    all praise we would render, O help us to see
    ’tis only the splendor of light hideth thee.

  • Voice Note: Definition of sin, Learning about our sinful condition, and the hope of heaven

    Transcript: Okay, thank you for listening. Today I wanted to talk about something that happens when you’re studying the older commentaries, you’ll find that they take time to

    really give a good definition of terms so it’s words that I’m familiar with them. I’ve heard throughout my life. I thought I knew what they meant, but they really take time to break it down into like building blocks. So you’re like, ah.

    it gets you that foundation might be a word for it but it’s like you get it where um They give you these definitions that really make sense and you can remember off the top of your head.

    You can take time meditating on the concepts of them form the

    imagery with the concept in your mind. And again, it just expands that framework that you’re thinking in, the framework in your mind.

    So, one word I was going to talk about today that there’s a definition for is sin. So again sothat’s a word that we’ll remember with and you can think of that in terms of if you You think of sin as doing something wrong or bad. I think it’s in John Gill’s book that he was explaining what sin is. He used the word trespass. So, you might have prayed the Lord’s Prayer in the version of the Bible that says, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So, when you hear the word trespass, I think the first thing I think of is a sign that says, do not trespass. So what does that mean? It’s that sign saying, don’t step over the line onto my property. so it’s a trespass if you walk onto somebody’s property without their permission and the definition of sin from the Bible as a trespass, it’s Instead of like walking onto somebody’s property, God has this pathway laid out for you. And a trespass is if you step over the bounds of that pathway, if you step off of the pathway. And it really helped me to learn the definition of it the way John Gill was talking about because It goes along with all the imagery you’ve heard of sheep. So, as Christians, we’re sheep with a shepherd. Jesus is our shepherd. And if you’ve ever been to a sheep farm and watched sheep…Then you’ll see how they move and they’ll be there together in a group in the field. And then a few of them will take off in one direction. And the rest of the sheep follow them. So that’s why they always have to have people with them and sheep herding dogs that are trying to bring them back in again and keep them from wandering off. And so, A lot of the pictures that I’ve posted on here with hymns that I’ve posted, it’s images of that pathway. So there’s this pathway through the world that, and it’s God’s pathway. You stay, you’re walking with Him, and you’re safe. There’s safety on that pathway.

    And if you see off the pathway, then there’s danger. And.

    We are like sheep. And, we need a shepherd, we need a guide. So, even after you’re saved, even if you’re really trying to follow God. You’re still going to be wandering, so you’re always going to be, like throughout every day, you’re going to be wandering.

    You’re both trying to follow him and then you’re still going to be taking steps off the pathway and so…This is a really good image to use like when you’re meditating. It’s what you’re going to have to be doing. Throughout your life, when you see yourself taking those steps away from God, He gently brings you back to Him. Again, it’s practicing with that feeling of looking to him for guidance, listening to him as he’s calling out to you. Like, letting you know that you’re walking away from him. Lovingly being brought back next to him to walk on that pathway.

    So you’ve got the image of that pathway, and then the next question would be, how do we know What’s right and wrong or what is a sin? And I’ve written posts on here about the importance of seeing God as God. He’s God the King. He’s lovingly ruling over us. As the king, he’s the great law giver. So, you see, the Ten Commandments were given. And the first table was about our responsibilities towards God. The second table is our responsibilities towards our fellow man. And Jesus summarized that in the New Testament when someone asked him what was the greatest commandment. And he said, “The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.” So if you see that pathway, it’s God’s commands. You’re trying to stay in the pathway of his commands. And you’ll hear, when you read through the New Testament, you’ll hear Jesus saying, If you love me, you’ll keep my commands. So out of love to God, your father, your king, you’re trying to keep his commandments. You’re trusting that he’s trying to keep you safe. And if you work with that imagery, where you see the pathway is safe and everything outside of the pathway is dangerous. It helps you if you think of it that way. It helps you not walk off of the pathway as much. If that makes sense. If we see it as dangerous to walk away from God then that, would make us hesitate to do that as frequently.

    So I was saying it’s important to work with that imagery of the pathway because that’s what you’re going to be doing in your daily life, throughout your life. And why is that? It’s because even after you’re saved, there’s still the remains of your sin nature in there. So, I’ve been talking about the importance of learning about God and I’m also going to be talking about the importance of learning about who we are as humans. It helps us to learn like where we started out in the Garden of Eden, what we fell from, and what we lost in the fall. I’m still learning about that. Then, where we are now, on earth as we are waiting. We are waiting to meet God. Whether that happens, you know, at death or if he were to return in our lifetime or waiting to meet him. And so, we’re learning where we started out as humans, what we fell from, where we are now, and what we’re waiting to be restored to in heaven.

    Let me look at my notes here. Okay, so if we think about where the human race started out, Adam and Eve were created by God and placed in the Garden of Eden. Remember, the world was created perfect. And we’ve never seen it like that. We’ve never seen it without any of the effects of sin. So, the world was created perfect. Adam and Eve were without sin. And then, sin entered the world at the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden when they ate the fruit that God had told them not to eat.

    And this is something that we can talk about over time. Again, I’m trying to summarize a lot of things in a few minutes.

    I think it was John Gill that was talking about what we have to understand. Again, go back and read through that account.

    And we need to understand the seriousness of our rebellion.

    He’s saying that Adam and Eve had the ability to obey, and then they chose not to. So then, that was the entrance of sin.

    And, then we’re part of the fallen human race. So we’re born in a sinful condition and we’re not able to obey the law perfectly.

    We’re able to obey in general, but we’re not able to obey perfectly, so Adam and Eve had that ability to obey God’s command perfectly, and then they chose not to. And we’re born as part of the fallen human race. And that’s what I was writing about in the post one of the early posts on this website it’s something that I learned studying John Calvin’s writings.

    saying that we’re supposed to rejoice in God’s mercy to us.

    That he saw us being born in a sinful condition where we were totally unable to save ourselves. We were not able to meet the requirements of the law. We were not able to make atonement for our sinful condition, and … by our own righteousness.

    So out of love to us, God provided us with a redeemer, and he promised that redeemer right there in Genesis to Adam and Eve.

    But, and this is one of the really important things to talk about that it really helped me to learn about what it means. When you’re saying you’re trusting in Christ’s righteousness, we’re rejoicing in that gift of his righteousness to us. It’s saying that, it makes me think of, there’s a, one of the verses, there’s a hymn called, A debtor to mercy alone, and I think it’s in the first verse.

    that it says the terrors of law and of God with me can have nothing to do For Jesus’ obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from view.

    And you’re thinking ok obedience and blood. So I knew about Jesus’ death on the cross. So that’s talking about his blood and it says his obedience also. And I knew that he was perfect and without sin, and it really helps to learn more about what that means. He was obeying the law in our place so he worked out a righteousness for us um that then he gives to us, so he takes away the guilt of our sins. What was the matter of offense between us and God. And He gives us what’s pleasing in God’s sight, so He gives that righteousness.

    It’s really important to understand that. And again, I’m trying to summarize it really quickly. You’re hearing that throughout the New Testament. That we’re saved by faith (I meant to say grace), not by works. So we’re born in a condition where we’re not able to save ourselves from it. That’s why we rejoice in being given the Savior. And I think I’ll try and stop there because we’ll be talking about this over time.

    So, let me, one verse I was going to read to you that’s really interesting. It’s Genesis 5, 1 through 3.

    So, you know, Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, and then they fell, and that corrupted human nature.

    So then we are born as part of the fallen race. So Genesis 5, verses 1 through 3 says, “This is the written account of Adam’s family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them, and he named them ‘mankind’ when they were created.

    When Adam had lived one hundred thirty years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image, and he named him Seth.”

    So you see that it’s really interesting when it says he had a son in his own likeness in his own image. We’re still made in the image of God, but we also have inherited that corruption. Um.

    That’s going to be something to talk about over time, is that we’re rejoicing that God sent us a Savior. And We’re rejoicing in the righteousness of Christ that he worked out for us by obeying the law perfectly.

    And one thing, too, on the topic of sin is to remember that we’ve never experienced what it is like to be totally free from sin. Charles Spurgeon talks about this in a sermon called Saved in Hope. If you have time to listen to it or read it. what I do In Microsoft Edge, there’s a read aloud voice in the browser. So

    They have recordings of Spurgeon sermons, and for the ones they don’t have recordings of, I just use that read aloud voice so you can listen to it. That’s what I do. If you want to try that. He talks about it in there in Saving Hope. That was where I was learning about it. He talks about we’ve never been totally free from the effects of sin. So…Again, another theme that’s there in all of these older writings. And it’s The older writings study the Bible, so the themes are there in the Bible. And they are explaining them to you on these other writings is that we don’t have our full reward yet. Our souls are saved, so we’re totally saved. We have our salvation. We don’t have the full reward yet, because the reward is we get to go to heaven. And we’re not there yet. So we’re waiting on this life in heaven. We already have eternal life. Our souls are eternally alive. We are regenerated. We are eternally alive. But we’re not in heaven yet. But we get to start walking with God here.

    you know, we’re eagerly awaiting getting to be there in heaven with Him and So, I think it’s Matthew Henry that says this life is a preparation for the next. So there’s a process we’re supposed to be participating in of being fitted for heaven, prepared for heaven. And, if you read, I think it’s the last verse of Away in a Manger, it actually uses that phrase. Seeing that, it says, and fit us for heaven to live with you there. And that’s the sanctification process that we’re going through, where you’re made more and more like Christ. And then But you’re not going to be made perfect here. At death you’re made perfect. So, but we’re supposed to be going through that process of becoming more and more like him. And then we’re supposed to be meditating on and wondering what it’s going to be like to be transformed and to be living in the heavenly realms.

    So, what are the effects of sin? Sin brought in death decay uh corruption you know before the fall like in the creation things didn’t die so like trees didn’t die flowers didn’t die That’s what I was saying, that we’ve never seen it that way. Everything we see, we’re used to things growing old and then dying. And so that’s the effect on creation. It has that effect on people that we go through an aging process

    So. That’s decay, like you’re getting older. Matthew Henry was saying it, and he wasn’t saying it being pessimistic. or anything, you can say that just literally to be born is to begin to die. So in the fallen world, you’re born to be born is to begin to die. your

    body starts going through that process at first you’re just like growing up from a child into an adult But you’re still going through that. Then it ends up where you’re going to be getting older and then your body starts wearing down and shutting down. And the person passes away in old age. Talking about the effects of sin, it reminded me, I meant to say one of the things That’s really important to learn about is what we lost in the fall. So that would be, what was the effect of that first sin? and I’m still learning about this, but it darkened their spiritual understanding. That’s one of the important things to know is that we are born in that condition. We’re born separated from God. And then it’s the work of the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin, convince us of our own sin and our need for a Savior.

    And That process, like the imagery that goes with that, you’re illuminated or just…He’s opening your eyes. There’s a hymn in the hymnal that I’m trying to think of the words and I’m having trouble with my memory trying to get my thoughts going.

    You’ll see that I struggle to remember what verse it is or exactly what hymn I’m thinking of, but it’s talking about The chorus says open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine.

    So, we’re longing to know him. We’re in that state of having that darkened understanding. The world itself is in darkness. Remember when Jesus was being born, he was…

    During his incarnation here, he was the light shining into the darkness. And, this life in this world is compared to, you know, nighttime, midnight, and then the…sun’s rising. That’s heaven. Heaven is eternal day. This world is like nighttime. Going through that pathway. God’s leading you through.

    So,I was summarizing a lot of things quickly. But these are all things that are so important to be learning about. It would take, I’m hoping to do posts where we just go through the books.

    And talk about like one chapter. There’s so much in every chapter. and hopefully you’re seeing what happens when you start studying these things and seeing why the answer is to be spiritually minded because once you start like interacting with this information you’re reading about, it just lights up your mind. The gears start turning differently. It occupies your thoughts and it focuses your mind on God. And again, it just expands your awareness. It has this healing energy flowing through your mind and body. So that’s the effect that it has. These things are so interesting. Once you get started reading on it, then again, it changes you and can really help. So, I’ll probably stop there for today. As again, I was summarizing a lot of different things there but I think the main point is that we’re It’s really helpful to have that definition of sin and seeing that pathway. Keep working with that imagery of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

    He’s your guide through this life. He’ll guide you on that pathway. He’s trying to keep you on that pathway to keep you safe. to keep you out of harm. You know, things that would draw you away from him. And then we’re going to be learning more about God and who He is. And then it also helps to learn about who we are as humans and the condition that we’re in in this world. So we learned about where we started out in the Garden of Eden. what they fell from, what were the effects of that fall, and then the condition that we were born in, in a fallen condition. We’re saved from that. And then what we’re going to be restored to in heaven. And I’m still learning about this, but John Gill says that we’re actually, mankind is taken into…

    Well, you look at the friendship that they had with God in the Garden of Eden, and then there was the rebellion and the fall, and then God provided a redeemer, and mankind is actually going to be taken into a more exalted state of friendship with God in heaven because of our union with Jesus, than they were in the Garden of Eden.

    Again, these things are really interesting and it gets your mind working differently. Because, again, I was searching for answers about, okay, what’s the key here? So, okay, be spiritually minded.

    Okay, well, how is that going to work? but then when you start doing it, you start reading it, you see…why that’s the answer, so I hope that you’re seeing that. And I’ll probably stop there for today, so thank you for listening. And I’ll post again soon.

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  • Voice Note: Jesus – Prophet, Priest, and King

    Transcript: Alright. Thank you for listening. I’m hoping that making these voice notes is working. I’ve talked about in previous posts on here that when I was studying the Bible and studying commentaries to try and find out what’s the answer for when you’re struggling. You’re having a difficult time. What’s the key? The thing that they always point you to as the key is being spiritually minded. So There’s a Bible verse about set your mind on the things above. And so that involves…spending time studying the scriptures and learning more about God, and I had explained that when I was little. I believed in God. I knew that he was there. I could feel that he loved me. But I had some ideas of God that were not all the way accurate. It’s not like they were wrong, but it just wasn’t. I didn’t know enough about it.

    So, I talked about in a previous post There was a time that I was at church, and there was somebody that was dressed like Jesus, and I didn’t realize that it wasn’t Jesus. It really confused me when he walked past me without saying anything, because I thought Jesus was walking past me. And I felt a lot of relief when I realized that wasn’t really Jesus. I think I was telling that story in the last post. And so… God kept bringing that to mind.

    Because this was at the time I was in middle school, in the mid-90s, and that was when the talk had started that the world was going to possibly end in 2000. You were afraid of being left behind, and I thought Jesus had walked past me. And  God would bring that to mind again. Later, and like, um,remember that wasn’t me. And he was telling me that when I was struggling, like  feeling he wasn’t hearing me or just what was going on. He would say, Remember, it’s just that you don’t know enough about me. And he was calling me to his word, to study his word, to learn more about him.

    So I think… well, I’ve explained before that I think I had the idea in my mind, and I think most people probably have that idea of God as kind of being like an helpline that you call in crisis. And so if you’ve called that helpline and you’ve Things didn’t change. You feel like he didn’t answer your call. What’s wrong? What’s going on? Does God not love me? Does he not care what’s happening to me? What’s going on? And, again, the answers are there. That um God hears you. I was thinking about this one hymn that I haven’t posted on here yet. It’s one of my hymns, but the words are. It’s that I was writing out a prayer like that, feeling like that God wasn’t hearing me. And his answer to me was, he said, I heard every prayer. And I felt your every tear, like he felt me crying, he felt my pain, but then he explains And it talks about, it’s talking about what happened at the time that I was studying was that He has these purposes that he’s working out. We’ve got to know more about what to expect of life in the fallen world. And then we won’t experience as much confusion. if something painful is happening or if you’re going through an illness or something like that.

    So As I was talking about when I was little, I thought of God as that helpline, or when I was really little. I probably would have described Jesus as being the nice man in the white robe that’s so nice to people. and that’s accurate. It’s just that he’s more than that. And I had heard it said, these are things that I’m trying to get my thoughts together here because … so I hope I’m making sense while I’m talking. One of the things about learning about Christian meditation when you’re doing that, it’s taking time to stop and really think about things. and you’re forming the imagery in your mind so that you know it off the top of your head and then And I think just in life I really haven’t taken time to sit down and do that. So like I had heard of Jesus being talked about as king. I knew he was God. But I wasn’t taking the time to really form that image of him in my mind. And it really helps when you do that.

    So, Jesus is the nice man in the white robe. It’s important to remember that he was the God-man. So, he was God made flesh. And…I’m trying to summarize like a lot of different things that I’m hoping to get to talk to you about. It’s hard to summarize it briefly um but these are things that like what I’m hoping to be able to do is like um I’ll talk to you about what I’m studying on the day I was studying it, because I’m summarizing, like, I’ve already read the John Gill book so…

    I’m trying to summarize the entire book in a few minutes and so I’m having trouble trying to figure out how to do that.

    So, I think the main thing is Before I started studying the Bible on my own and then studying the older commentaries with it, I knew about Jesus’ life I knew that he had died on the cross.

    I knew he was the Son of God. It’s important to know all of those things. What’s helped me to learn about is everything that’s still going on now. everything that he’s doing for us now, and where we are in the timeline of history. So, for all of us, we’re living in the time after Jesus’ death and resurrection and ascension and before his return. And Jesus is still our mediator. So, after he ascended, he sat down at the right hand of God.

    All authority is given to him on heaven and earth. He’s ruling over a mediatorial kingdom Until the last day. So, what you’ll learn about in the John Gill, which, he’s studying the Bible, so you’ll learn about it in the Bible These pastors explain the scriptures to you, give you insights into the scripture. So

    Jesus has three offices of prophet, priest and king. And

    He’s our great high priest, so every time we’re praying, he offers our prayers to God for us. Which is why it’s really important to learn the Old Testament and to learn about the priesthood and the sacrificial system that they had. It was all symbolic. It all pointed to Jesus. And then he’s our great high priest now. So he’s always interceding for us with the Father. He’s watching over us. He’s the good shepherd. So. Again, I’m trying to summarize a lot of things in just a few minutes.

    So the main point I’m trying to make in this post is that if you can start really visualizing, meditating on Jesus as King. See, him there on his throne. It can help you move out of that feeling of wondering if he’s there, wondering if he’s hearing you, wondering if he sees what’s happening to you. to seeing that He’s there on His throne in heaven. He has a plan for the world and he’s working out his purposes. And you’re seeing how you fit into his kingdom like what what your calling is, what your place is in the body of Christ, rather than what I talked about The mindset that I’m still trying to get out of that I learned when I was little was that If I set my mind towards something, I could make it happen. That I think I can, I think I can, I think I can energy. And it was really only by trying that so many times and having it not work. You get to the point where you stop saying I think I can and you start saying I can’t. I know I can’t or you know just this isn’t working. This Something is off here. There’s got to be another explanation of what you’re supposed to be doing. So, it’s about…You learn about God. You learn about His will. You learn about how to walk with Him and to live in communion with Him and you’re Seeking his will for your life. Trying to find out what is the calling that he has for me. And

    So it’s really helped me through a lot of things.

    one thing too about the nice man in the white robe remembering that he was God made flesh And he dwelt among us. So, I know we just had Christmas recently. There’s so much that could be talked about there. you’re remembering like one thing that I didn’t know when I was little or didn’t register with me things to remember about that, that we’re supposed to be in awe that the Almighty God took on human nature and was born in a humble state and then he went through life here.

    to save us. So there’s some hymns that talk about that. There’s one that I’ve posted on here. It’s called He Wore a Crown of Thorns. And the first verse says, “‘Twas God’s own Son who came to earth, who chose to know a lowly birth.’” But though a king of matchless worth, he wore a crown of thorns.

    He wore a crown of thorns, that I might wear a crown of glory.

    he laid his heavenly splendor by to tell me love’s sweet story in poverty he walked life’s way In Olive’s garden, bowed to pray, he wore a crown of thorns that I might wear a crown of glory.

    So. That’s what we’re supposed to be in awe of, that the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Almighty God, laid aside his glory, came to earth, and he wore that crown of thorns. So that we could go to heaven with him and we’ll have a crown of glory.

    And there’s another one that’s called, that I have not posted a recording of yet. But it’s called Left Outside by Ada Habershon.

    H-A-B-E-R-S-H-O-N It says, A manger a cross a grave. were all that the earth could give to him who had come to save, who suffered that we might live. No room for him. No room for him. In the crowded inn. In the world of sin. No room for the Lord of all. Let me try and read through these other verses real quick.

    The world had been made by him, yet offered him nothing beside. No room could they find for him. The Savior was left outside. He came to his own dear land, yet was by his own despised. But they who received him knew their king who was thus disguised.

    I think when she says there, him who was thus disguised, saying that, remember, he had laid his glory aside. they had been thinking that the Messiah would be an earthly king that would restore an earthly kingdom in Israel and then when the Messiah was born You know, there was no room for him in the inn. He was placed, he was wrapped in swaddling clothes. Excuse me, swaddling clothes. And laid in the manger a feeding trough for animals and But they recognized him. many recognized him. So… Um, that’s one thing that I talk about at Christmas time, seeing when you’re driving by and you’re seeing the baby in the manger. There were… Jesus at times would ask his disciples, Who do you say that I am? Who do you say the Son of Man is? And as Christians we answer that by saying, He’s God.

    See, my Lord and my God, we recognize that that’s God’s Son, who took on human flesh, and came here. to save us from our sins.

    So I’m looking at my notes here. I tried to write down an outline of some things to try and talk about. It’s that thing that when you see When you really spend that time meditating, even if you just spend five or ten minutes thinking about it, as Jesus as king on his throne. you can just start changing the way that your mind works. It’s those terms. It’s just an expanded framework. It expands your mind. And you can feel comforted to see him there that he’s working his purposes out.

    Seeing that God is working His purposes out.. And you’re seeing where you fit into His kingdom.

    So there’s another hymn. I was going to mention another hymn when I was talking about it helps to know all that Jesus is doing for you now. Ah. Well, that actually, I’ll wait to talk about that another time because I’m trying to finish up here for today, but it’s that, um, so.

    We’re trying to get a fuller picture of Jesus than the nice man in the white robe because there’s just so much more there. There’s so much more that he can do for you. And the answers again are being spiritually minded and it’s learning about communion with God. That’s the key there is you get to spend time with Him. That’s what can help you out of a depression or out of anxiety or doubts or struggles, really spending time with him. That’s what He wants you to do. He’s calling you to have communion with Him. and the way to really be able to do that is we need to know more about more about Him, know more about who we’re putting our faith in, who we’re trusting. And

    I think it’s in the John Gill book. He was explaining that in ancient times. This was before anybody had devices where you could send someone a picture to show them what you look like. We could…you know everybody has profile pictures now so you can know what people look like but at that time if there was um you know, a distant kingdom, and they were hearing about another king. they would want to know who they were talking to or who they were hearing about so someone would paint a portrait of that king and they would send it to the distant kingdom So that they would know who that king was. I think it was John Gill that was explaining That’s what the Bible is for us. It’s a portrait of who Jesus is. And when he was saying that, it made me think of that. We had this picture. It was a painting of Jesus that we would have in our kitchen. And I was a little kid when that was first up there, and I didn’t realize that that wasn’t literally a painting of Jesus. It was someone’s idea of what he looked like. We don’t actually have a record of what Jesus looked like I think it was Matthew Henry that was saying if we needed to know then we would know like there would have been like a a drawing or something but we don’t know exactly what he looked like that’s an idea of what that artist was thinking of as Jesus. And it’s not that it’s all the way wrong. You’re just trying to get a more expansive view of it when you expand out and focus on the portrait that Jesus himself painted in the scriptures the Holy Spirit gave us. then that’s where the answers are. It’s too limited of a view if you’re just seeing that’s the nice man in the white robe. When you expand out and are thinking of him as prophet, priest, and king, and we study through all that he’s told us about himself, all that he’s taught us about what to expect in this life, That’s where you get those answers that can quiet your soul if you’re struggling with, you know, what’s happening in your life. As I was saying, like, when I was little, I knew God was there. and so I just, um…I was confused as to what was happening, and that it was in this process of finding those answers. So I’ll probably try and stop there for today.

    As these again are things that we can talk about over time on here, I hope it’s working to have the voice notes. Thank you for listening. I’ll post again sometime soon. Thanks.

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  • Voice Note: Meditation Imagery – Jesus our Captain

    Transcript: The imagery that I’m going to be talking about in this post that you can use during a meditation time is the imagery of Jesus as the captain of a boat.

    So, one important themes around the Bible is something that A.W. Tozer talks about in the beginning of his book. I think it’s called Pillar of Cloud, Pillar of Fire. He talks about the importance as Christians of knowing that we need a guide.

    to lead us through this life. We can’t go on our own. We need the Angel of the Lord, is what he’s talking about. We need Jesus to guide us through. So that works with imagery of Jesus being a shepherd. If you can see in some of the pictures that I posted with the hymns that I posted on here, there’s a lot of images of pathways. So our journey through this life, you can see it as being on a pathway through with the shepherd is guiding you.

    What I was going to talk about in this post is another type of guide. It’s like if Jesus is the captain of your ship. He’s guiding you on a journey. So. I think that I read about this image in a writing by John Owen. It might have been in his book about spiritual mindedness. So you’re uh when you believe in Jesus, you trust in him for your salvation. It’s like he becomes the captain of your ship. So you’re On the shore. And you look out. And you see the ocean. And you’re trusting Jesus. Because you’re getting into the boat with him to go on this voyage.

    You’re going on a voyage over the treacherous seas, and you don’t know the way.

    Remember, faith is trusting that Jesus Christ is who he says he is, and that he’s going to do what he said he’s going to do.

    So you’re Placing all of your trust, you’re trusting your all to him. You’re trusting the safety of your soul to him. Salvation, you’re trusting him for the salvation of your soul. You get in the boat with him. And, again, we don’t know where we’re going. We don’t know the way. He leads us through it, and we’re trusting that he’s guiding us to heaven. So when you’re meditating on that in your You know, you’re doing the calming breathing and you’re focusing your mind on one object. You also think through, like, what you feel.

    And if you’re on that ship and you see that a storm’s coming up ahead, you’re learning to look to your captain. So if you practice what that would feel like, practice thinking about that. Even if you spend just like 5 or 10 minutes doing that. Or 15 if you can.

    you’ll find that you’re training your mind to look to Jesus in all things. And during your day, if you experience a stressor, you’ll start looking to him faster and remembering to stop and pray. So agin with this imagery. It would be, you’re in that ship.

    Being out in the middle of the ocean, you can’t see anything on the horizon, any way that you look, you’re out there.

    The sea can be stormy at times. And you don’t know the way. So just, you can connect with that feeling and then that feeling of reassurance that, you know, Jesus knows the way. You’re there with your captain. He’s going to guide you through. Your destination is heaven. That’s the destination of that voyage, you trust that he’s going to get you to the port of heaven. There’s a lot of hymns that talk about the port of heaven.

    So I think I’ve posted some hymns on here that have that imagery of Jesus as the Captain, and there’s a lot of hymns that talk about it. And it’s something that, again,If you just spend five or ten minutes just thinking through that image and thinking through what you feel and training yourself to listen to Him. It can make a difference the next time you experience the stressor. Remembering to stop and look to Him to guide you through. So, I hope this And again, there are several hymns on here that you can listen to and think through that imagery of Jesus as the captain of your soul.

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  • Voice Note: A little bit about me and how I work with hymns

    Transcript:

    Okay, so I wanted to do a post where I tell you a little bit about myself.

    My name’s Lisa Weidley. I’m 43 years old, and I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee. and I’m a hymnwriter and I thought maybe by talking some of this through It’ll help me, you know, with getting out of this flare-up that I’m having of eosinophilic esophagitis. So,I started having chronic health problems when I was 16 years old. Before that, I had always been a quiet child. They always thought of me as like shy or nervous.

    And I always had really bad stage fright so it was really difficult for me to play in front of people. I didn’t play very much in front of people. So I play the flute and piano, and then by the time I was in middle school and high school, I’d start playing in more things at school on the flute. I was going to more competitions and things like that, and I really enjoyed playing, but it was really stressful…getting out there on stage, and then in my sophomore year of high school, I started getting sick and It took a long time to get a diagnosis, so that was 1999 when I started getting sick. and it was 2010 when I got the diagnosis of EOE, Eosinophilic Esophagitis and Gastroparesis And in 2012, I got the diagnosis of mind body syndrome.

    So EOE is a rare disease and it wasn’t really being diagnosed at the time that I got sick. So. I got lost in the system. I think a lot of people have had the same experience where They were diagnosed with having anxiety or generalized anxiety disorder.

    got lost in those years of just trying different anxiety medications or medications to try and help with that. But there was something else going on. So.

    So, like I had said, people thought that I was a shy or nervous child, and it was really more than that. I process the world differently, so mind-body syndrome is a central nervous system processing disorder. And EOE is an allergic immune condition. It’s where you have white blood cells in your esophagus.

    And it’s that they attack the tissue there, and they’re not really supposed to be doing that. So you’ll have trouble with food. You’ll have allergic reactions to food. So, again, at the time I started getting sick, I didn’t know about um

    Thankfully people are more familiar with now. Like about being a highly sensitive person. There’s that book by Elaine Aaron and um All of these holistic treatments, I didn’t know about any of that. It took you know it was through those years of being sick that thankfully I did find them and they really helped. But um…

    I’ve lost my train of thought, but I didn’t know about them then, but I found them during that time, and what I’ve learned is that, um,My mind-body processes things differently that shows up with that Allergic immune condition. I processed foods differently. There were foods that other people could eat that I couldn’t eat Without having a reaction and I take in information differently. there’s a lot of benefits to that, you know, that’s, you know, I’m musical and so It can be a good thing and then it’s something that…um…part of it for me is a disorder where I have trouble. It takes me a lot of times to process things, really think things through. So…Music was always healing for me. I started playing the piano when I was about three years old. That was when my mom bought a piano.

    We had it here at the house and I started playing it. So…

    Even though I didn’t have the diagnosis or didn’t know as much about it, I knew that it helped me when I played music. So when I would go to school, I would get home and then I would play on the piano for about 30 minutes not every day but It was therapeutic, so I played music therapeutically to process my feelings. It was always helpful.

    That’s the main way that I have played, because I struggle to play in front of people I’m trying to work through that stage right now.

    But like I said, people are much more familiar with these things now and more accommodating of it if you’ve got a processing problem. So I’m not a practitioner of any of the holistic techniques. They’ve been really helpful to me. But what I can talk to people about is It was in 2012 when I started seeing a counselor that used the holistic techniques, and she taught me how to meditate. And it was when I was doing the meditation or any of the other techniques that God was showing me that you could put imagery from the Bible in with your meditation and Have it be as part of your quiet time. So that’s what I can talk about. And so that was 2012 when I started with those techniques and meditating and using imagery. And

    Then, it was in March of 2014 that I started writing hymns. So

    I’m trying to get my thoughts together here. Some of what I learned with those healing techniques was how to get a new pathway and how to get a new thought pathway a new neural pathway.

    It’s a new path for your thoughts to take, and it would take too long for me to talk about it right now, but that brings a lot of healing. And I’m trying to think of a way to talk about it briefly, but you might be familiar with some of the terms cause Thankfully, people know so much more about it now. There are terms like If you’re retuning your nervous system, it’s talking about building capacity and resilience. And, Again, I’m not a practitioner of the techniques. What I can talk about is how you can use music to do that. And how you can…That is actually what you’re doing when you’re studying the Bible.

    You’re building capacity. You’re expanding that framework in your mind. because a lot of what is involved in processing your environment, the things that Don’t go through the things that you get stuck on, the things that are traumas are when, you know, It’s not resolved. You’re stuck on that question of why, and you’re trying to…write…find a way to write the story of that event in a way that it’ll process through. And In my other voice notes, I’ve talked a little bit about the struggles that you’re looking for answers and I found those answers by studying the Bible and then when you can apply those if you’re trying to resolve something or trying to work through a symptom that you’re having.

    you can use this biblical imagery and the, you know, the biblical principles. The answers to my questions were there.

    And so I was learning the language of the body. That’s one thing that you learn how to do. Your body is communicating to you through symptoms. There’s a message you’re supposed to get through that. And so I learned those techniques and learned how to process those messages. I experienced really great healing and I did really well for about 12 years and then I’ve been having this flare up. And I’m really hoping to get out of it soon. So I was you’re learning about your unconscious mind and things that are stored there and you’re trying to process through and resolve things I was making a lot of progress with that and I started writing hymns in 2014 and it was really healing for me and then I was the way that I worked was I would be feeling a really intense stressor.

    Well, I guess I should just talk a little bit about myself was that.

    when I was I started getting sick around the time I was 16 and part of the reason I, uh, they thought I was just stressed was because my parents were getting a divorce. And

    that was stressful, but that still got lost in that system. And then, 2012,It was during that time I was I had gotten a diagnosis and then I was getting a divorce. So I was trying to heal from that. Anybody who’s been through that knows that if you have a divorce, it just has a certain type of energy with it that you’re trying to work through. A certain type of anger or…

    bitterness you know something that you’re you’re trying not to be overwhelmed by it and so um if I was feeling, I would feel the stress energy and I would pray and ask God for a melody. I would pray for words to them. He would give me that. It was like…doing a puzzle in a certain sense of it you’d get the words put together and then I would when I would feel the same stressor, I would start singing that hymn. So I would stop the old thought patterns. I would sing through the hymn. It had very healing energy to it. and was able to develop new thought pathways that way. So what happens with that is it’s like brain training and you get to the point where When you’re feeling that certain stressor, you actually start hearing the music in your head instead of having the old thoughts.

    That’s how you can move forward and start, you know, keep going on your healing process. That works with the new hymns that I’ve written. It also works with all of these hymns out of the older hymns. And the hymns out of the hymnals, they all have so much imagery in them, such healing imagery. One thing that I found in studying the Bible and studying the older commentaries is that the answer that you find of how to feel better or how to heal is to be spiritually minded. John Owen, who was a pastor in the 1600s, wrote a book about being spiritually minded. It’s really, really helpful. I hope to talk about it sometime. But that’s the key. So as Christians, the key for our healing is you’re setting your mind on the things above, on the things of God.

    The way you do that is by studying his word, learning about him, and using that imagery from the Bible, really intentionally focusing your mind on that. And one way that you can really, that’s really very healing to do that is to use the hymns and imagery that’s there.

    So, again, I experienced a really tremendous healing in 2012, and I did well for about 12 years after that, then I’ve been stuck in this flare-up. And what I’m trying to work through with that right now…Some of it is for the hymns that I’ve written. I haven’t played them in front of people yet. I’ve only played them for a few people…and…Because I still have the stage fright, I’m still trying to work through that.

    And so I had stage fright before when I was playing hymns and music that I had not written. And so what I’m finding now, as I’m trying to…get comfortable playing the hymns. There’s an added element there that I’m playing words that I had written that are about, like…my personal emotions and I haven’t done that before so I don’t know if that’s somewhat connected to this flare up because The reason I always loved music was You can communicate things through music that you can’t necessarily put into words. It’s a language of itself. You connect to the feeling of the music. and you’re able to express your emotions through the way that you’re playing, just the…

    Because I’m an instrumentalist, not a singer, so I learned how to communicate just through the sound of music. And I think a lot of that was because I didn’t know how to put words with what I was feeling. We didn’t know as much about that when I was growing up, so it wasn’t until I got sick and was looking for answers, like trying to find a diagnosis, I learned to start processing through things. And so it was really big progress to be able to put words with my feelings when I started writing hymns. But It’s kind of how it’s ended up is I’ve written songs about things that I can’t really talk about. Just…It’s still a process for me of learning how to talk about my feelings or things like that. I don’t know if that’s…and all, like, what’s happening here with losing my voice. All this unconscious stuff is manifesting here. So…That’s why I’m hoping that just by talking about it and trying to put the music out there and Find people that connect with it. It can help me get out of this.

    If you’re familiar with the polyvagal theory of fight flight and freeze, what’s going on for me is I’m stuck in a deep freeze.

    and I’m trying to get out of that.

    So, again, I posted one of my hymns on here. It’s called Only You. and so I hope I made sense in what I was saying part of what I’m having trouble with is just getting my thoughts going. So I get frozen And I really think that people can find the music and connect with it.

    Hopefully I’ll experience healing here again and be able to get out of this deep freeze. I was going to talk about an example of imagery that can be used. I might do that as a separate post, just so that you can find it. easily if you wanted to listen to it again so I really hope it’s working to post these voice notes I hope you can hear me I can hear it when I listen to it on my computer, but I hope that you can hear it. and Thank you for listening and I’ll post that imagery in a separate post, and I hope that you find it helpful.

  • Voice Note: What is faith? The eye of the soul

    The audio cuts out sometimes in this voice note, but hopefully it works. Here is the transcript:

    Hi, I’m Lisa. Thank you for listening. I’ve started posting voice voice notes on here.

    I really hope that you can hear them. I’m having a flare-up of eosinophilic esophagitis and I’ve lost my voice. I’m going to be posting a transcript also with this voice recording so hopefully you can hear me.

    It’s a lot easier to talk than to try and write out a post. So I wanted to go ahead and start doing these voice recordings

    hopefully soon, I’ll have my voice again, and then I’ll be able to post that. So yesterday, I was posting about the name of the website. It’s Learning to Live by Faith.

    And I was talking about what faith means. So I was going to talk some more about that today. Yesterday I was saying that.

    Charles Spurgeon defines faith as believing that Jesus Christ is who he says he is, and that he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do.

    And there are many definitions of faith, many ways to look at it. You may have heard Hebrews 11:1 that says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” And

    I was going to be talking about that today. Spurgeon talks about faith as being the eye of the soul. So, There’s the realm that we live in, the visible realm, the world we see around us with our physical eyes.

    And then there’s that invisible spiritual realm that we see with an eye of faith.

    So With our physical eye, we can look around. We see creation. We see trees. We see houses. We see people. We can hear other people talking.

    The world that’s invisible to us now is the spirit world.

    We can’t see God or we can’t hear Him talking to us.

    There were times in the Bible where people hear the voice of God outside of their head, like they heard him talking to them.

    we can’t see God and we hear God if we hear god talking to us it’s usually talking in our hearts  he’ll give us a sense of what he’s saying So we can’t see God and we can’t see the angels or demons. We can’t see the spiritual realm. so

    And we can’t see heaven. That’s another thing. The New Jerusalem, the heavenly city, we can’t see it.

    But As I was talking about yesterday, the Spurgeon says the three elements of faith are knowledge, belief, and trust. So we’ve…You have to hear about something to have knowledge of it. So we’ve heard of the things of God. We’ve heard of heaven. And…Christians believe that to be true, so we take that next step of believing that it’s true, and then the next step of putting our trust in it. So We’re believing that it’s there.

    So we have the hope that we’re going to get to go to heaven by grace, by saving faith in Jesus. And we believe that heaven’s there, that we just can’t see it with our physical eyes.

    It’s not visible to us right now, but it exists. It’s there. And so we see it with an eye of faith. So that’s…

    That verse Hebrews about how faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Uh in one.

    sermon, one Spurgeon sermon. I can’t remember exactly what sermon it was, and that’s part of why I want to go ahead and start posting voice notes about what I’m studying that day because then I can be sure to be able to find where I read it and be able to reference it.

    But I think it was a Spurgeon sermon. He was giving an example about how With faith, we’re connecting to things that are there. We just can’t see them. so he used the example of, like, if you were in a dark room, and there was a chair in the room, but the lights are off, you can’t see the chair but it’s there, it exists. Like, if you shine a flashlight on it, you see it. But it was there the whole time. You just couldn’t see it until that light was shined on That’s what it is with heaven. That it’s there. It’s real. God’s real. The angels are real. The spiritual realm is real. We just can’t see it…Until we’re there.

    After death, when you go to heaven, then you’ll be able to see everything. We’ll see God face to face. We’ll see everybody that’s there in heaven. And we’ll…

    be able to see and hear them, talk to them. Right now, it’s invisible to us.

    So it’s important to think of it that way…that, you know…as in…

    I’m going to be talking on here about meditating and when you’re meditating You’re supposed to hold an image in your mind. You focus on that image while you’re meditating. And as Christians we can use imagery from the Bible.

    And it’s important to know that you’re not using your imagination. You’re not…creating something in your mind you’re connecting to what’s there you’re seeing it with an eye of faith um Now, at the same time, we can only, we can’t comprehend what it looks like.

    So in that sense, I mean, it’s beyond our imagination. We can’t really even imagine what it looks like. You’re just…knowing that something is there that you can’t see…and you’re waiting to see what it looks like. You’re trying to connect to a sense of it.

    And that’s important. That can get your mind working the right way if you know it’s there. There’s just a veil in between us and heaven right now.

    It’s a different veil than what’s talked about when the veil was torn in the temple. It just veils it from our sight.

    So, it’s important to think of it that way. You’re connecting to what’s real. It’s there. We’re waiting for it.

    so faith is believing that Jesus is who he said he is and that he’s going to do what he said he was going to do. So what is it that we’re putting our faith in? we’re putting our faith in the promises of God. that we’re going to be saved and we get to go to heaven.

    And that’s one thing to remember that our reward, we…don’t have it fully yet we’re not in heaven yet we’re waiting so we’re here one imagery that’s really helpful I can’t remember exactly which commentary I read it in, but it was saying that.

    Earth is our temporary home. Heaven’s our permanent home. So, when we’re on Earth, It’s like being in a waiting room or in the lobby for heaven. The main event is that we get to go to heaven.

    God’s kingdom is not of this world. So it makes me think of if like you’re in the lobby of a theater or something, you know, you’re waiting for the [the audio cuts out here] scenery and everything curtain, and you’re waiting for the curtain to be pulled away and then you see what’s there. [the audio cut out a little bit here] what I’m looking for. … We’re waiting.to see what our reward looks like, and it’s beyond our comprehension, but we can spend time thinking about it.

    So faith is the eye of the soul. It’s assurance about what we do not see. But how do we know what we’re trying to connect to…what we’re trying to see? So That gets into talking about two types of revelation. You have general revelation and special revelation.

    So general revelation is creation when you look around.

    If your verse, Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

    So we look around at the world around us. God’s attributes are displayed in his creation. When Christians look around, we see A world that God lovingly created for us as an habitation for man to be in communion with him.

    And then special revelation is God’s word. It’s the Bible. And in that, he tells us who he is. That’s how we know his name. we learn about His plan of salvation. And with the Bible, we’re going to God. And we’re seeing who he’s told us he is. What we have to be careful about is making him without realizing it, making up ideas of God. That’s what I did when I was little. That’s what I was talking about some yesterday.

    that without realizing it, I had made up ideas of God that were not the full revelation of him that you could get from the scriptures. So that’s why I was getting confused and That’s why if you’re looking for answers, then you can go to the scriptures and learn about who God’s told us that he is.

    So, as I’ve been talking about on here when I was growing up, I hadn’t really read the Bible much. I had a children’s Bible. I had read that. I had read through The book of Proverbs. I had gotten that. Someone had given me a book of the Proverbs. I had read through that. And I grew up going to church.

    but I had had that experience of I thought I was doing things right I believed that God would answer me that he could help me and then things didn’t change. A lot of stuff was going on. I knew that God loved me, but you were I was confused about how everything was going. And God was leading me to start studying the Bible.

    So again, without realizing it, and it might be, you know, You might have had, you know, I think a lot of people have this idea about God that he’s someone to call on in a time of help.

    So I had thought of him as like a helpline. And that’s not all the way wrong, it’s just not the most accurate way to see him.

    He’s more than that. Where you call on him and help. Call on him in a time of need for help.

    There have been times where there have been things going on. I hadn’t gotten an answer.

    I think I had the idea that, you know, if you went to church and you were praying, following God then he would answer you and certain things wouldn’t happen you know and I think we all kind of get stuck in that thought that you can see like This would be another thing to talk about. But in the book of Job, Job’s friends were thinking good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people. And…So, if you had things going on, um, And these are things I continue to struggle with even after studying the Bible and after I’ve gotten sick and going through an illness and everything. But we think that…

    So that’s where I was. I knew that God loved me and I knew he would have the answers, but that’s where the confusion was.

    And so there was one time that I was calling out to God about some things. And didn’t you hear what I said was happening? And it was like God answered, well, did you hear what I said? So I was asking him, did you hear what I said was going on here? And he said, didn’t you hear what I said to expect out of this life? And I was thinking, well, no. And A.W. Tozer talks about this a lot in his Sermons and Books and Martin Lloyd-Jones. They both preached in the 20th century in the 1900s. And Christians are not taught to have the right expectations of this life, that we’re living in a fallen world. so…we get the wrong expectations and then that’s where you can have you can really be struggling so that’s something that we’ll talk about over time. It’s that they talk about in the older commentaries too, that we live in a fallen world. So things don’t always happen as they should in terms of right and wrong.

    There are right things that happen and there are wrong things that happen. So remember the world was created perfect.

    There was no sin and then once sin entered into the world, it brought destruction and death with.

    There’s going to be injustices. Things are not always going to go as they should.

    Until the end. And then at the end, there’s the day of renewal. Everything will be set right. And forever in heaven we’ll be at

    be a perfect peace and rest. So in the Christian life, you suffer in this world. And then you never suffer again in heaven. So…

    When I started studying the Bible, which is the special revelation, that’s where God teaches you.

    And I’ve written about it some on here. He teaches you that he works through afflictions. there’s a verse that says, it is through much tribulation that you enter the kingdom of heaven.

    And then, again, then you’re at perfect peace and rest. There’s a lot of hymns that talk about it. Be still, my soul is one. At the end of the…I can’t remember which verse it is, but it says, through thorny ways leads to a joyous end.

    So there’s thorns on this life, there’s thorns on the pathway, and then it opens up into eternal day. Where there’s no suffering. You’ll never suffer again. There’s nothing painful. And.

    Jesus is the good shepherd. He leads you on that pathway home. So, while we’re in a fallen world and things don’t always happen as they should in terms of right and wrong, but God’s sovereign over everything that happens. He has a loving plan for your life. He’s watching over you. Nothing’s ever outside of God’s control. There’s always a purpose in the things that are happening, and we can seek Him about that.

    One thing to know too is that a lot of God’s purposes are hidden. There’s a verse that says, now we know in part.

    In this life, now we know in part, then we will know fully even as we are fully known. There’s a lot that’s not revealed to us yet.

    But both in the general revelation and in the special revelation, in his relationship with us, God reveals enough of who he is to us. So that we know that we can trust him. We know that he’s good. He’s shown us that he’s good. So we put our faith in him. We have a saving faith in him.

    We believe that He’s there, and the saving faith is when you repent and believe, and you submit to Him as your Lord, God, Heavenly Father. And you live in obedience to him.

    So there’s a story that I think would be helpful to tell about how God was working with me. again, he said it lovingly when he said, when I was saying, did you hear what I said? He was lovingly saying like, Well, we didn’t hear what he had said. Like, the answers were there. And he wanted me to know that the answer was knowing him more.

    So this was happening around when I was in fourth or fifth grade. It was sixth grade when I started studying the Bible, I had that one-year Bible that I started reading. And so this happened when I was in about the fifth grade.

    We were, this was around the time that the talk had started about that the world might end in the year 2000. And there was a lot of, you know, the things I was hearing were sensationalized and could be very scary. When you were hearing them, not to be left behind, or, you know, didn’t know. You wanted to make sure you were saved. And so there was one Sunday morning, I was at church I had not looked at the bulletin yet. It was just a regular Sunday. It wasn’t a holiday or anything. I had gone to Sunday School on the first floor and then gone up the steps to the second floor and it was one of those times where for some reason You turn the corner and there’s like nobody around. It’s just me. And I heard someone walking up the steps.

    that I had just walked up. I looked to see who it was, so they’re walking up from the first floor. It’s a dark hallway. a kind of narrow staircase, and I looked, and it looked like it was Jesus walking up the steps. He was taking a few more steps. I was like, that really looks like Jesus. And I…

    uh had that i felt very scared i thought what’s happening the first thing you think when you think you see Jesus standing there is that you’re getting ready to die. So he kept walking towards me, and I thought, okay, what am I going to say, what’s he going to say?He got to the top of the stairs And he just walked down the hallway without saying anything and had this really, you know,bad feeling when that happened. I thought, oh no, he just walked right past me. And at the same time, I had that feeling of like, this can’t be right.

    And I watched him, he kept walking down the hall, and somebody in one of the classrooms called out and said, oh, oh, hi, Gary. Oh, are you playing Jesus today? I didn’t realize that. And I was like, oh, okay, so see, it wasn’t Jesus. I didn’t realize we had only been going to that church for a little while, and I didn’t realize they had somebody that really, really…

    it looks like Jesus when he puts on the robe and he was walking around by himself. Um, so I thought, oh, I guess that wasn’t him. Well,And I felt such a feeling of relief. I knew that couldn’t be right. Because…I knew Jesus loved me. I knew I had believed in him. But it was that was what was going on at that time. I was afraid you were going to be left behind.

    So God kept bringing that to my mind over the years, like when leading up to studying the Bible there, when I would be struggling with a question.

    He would say, remember, you know, how you thought that was me and then it wasn’t me.

    And that’s how he was working with me, that, like, I had these ideas of God that weren’t all the way accurate, and that that was the problem. If you draw closer to him.

    you’ll see who he really is. And that’s what’s happened over the years, and that’s what I’m going to be talking about on here

    And I’ll stop today with one more thing to say today is that

    When you’re thinking about what faith is, it’s believing in what you can’t see now.

    But faith is only necessary in this life because, again, when we’re in heaven, we’ll be able to see everything.

    That’s what it means that faith becomes sight. So there’s a verse, it’s 1 Corinthians 13:13

    That says, “And now these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” And if you look at the commentaries on that verse, it might have been Matthew Henry that was saying, why is it said that the greatest is love? It might be because love will be there forever. Love remains forever. Um, Faith and hope are only necessary in this life, in your earthly life, because once you get to heaven, your faith becomes sight and your hope is realized.

    So that’s an interesting thing to remember that it helps you remember what faith is. It’s Your sight for the invisible world now. It’s the way you see what you can’t see now. Let me try and say that again. Faith is the eye of the soul. It’s the way that you see the unseen. Now, we see what we’re waiting for with an eye of faith. And then once we get there, our faith will become sight. So that’s one way to help remember.

    What is it? What are we doing? We’re trying to connect to that unseen world, which is our reward, and that’s where we’re getting to go.

    So thank you for listening. I really hope that you can hear what I’m saying. And I’ll post a transcript with it too. and

    Hopefully this works and I’ll keep posting on here about what I’ve been studying. Thanks

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  • Voice Notes: What “Learning to Live by Faith” Means and My Hopes for This Website

    I’m currently having a really bad flare-up of Eosinophilic Esophagitis and I have lost my voice. I want to try posting a voice note on here of me whispering and see how that works.

    This is a transcript of the voice note:

    Alright, so I wanted to try posting a voice note on here and see if it works. I’m not sure if you’re going to be able to hear me, but I’m going to try.

     and use this speech-to-text app that’ll put a transcript up too of what I’m saying.

     I’ve been posting, like, written posts, but it’s easier to just talk. So I was going to try it this way.

     What I’m hoping that this website will be is a resource of devotional materials and also recordings of hymns.

     What really made a difference in my life was when I started doing daily quiet times.

     about 30 minutes a day, and a lot of times I would play through hymns too. So what I’m going to try and do on here

     as I still do daily quiet time, so I’m going to try and post about what I’m studying.

     that day. So whatever commentary I was reading from, whatever I was studying about, post it on there. And then also be trying to have

     hymn recordings posted so that people can

     spend time listening to devotional materials and then playing through hymns and if you do that 30 minutes a day

     every day, it can really change your life. So the, um,

     The website is called Learning to Live by Faith. So what I was going to talk about today is just talk some about what that means.

     And so, let’s start out by saying, what is faith? What does the word faith mean? When I was growing up,

     I think I thought of faith as belief. You’re believing in something. I had that book.

     about the little engine that could. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

     If you just put all your energy towards something and set your mind to it, you can make it happen. And I think that is a type of faith.

     That’s what I thought growing up in the church. I thought of faith as believing.

     I would pray to God, and everybody’s probably had this experience of you have something going in your life, you pray about it,

     You believe that God can help you keep praying and then things don’t change or what you were praying for doesn’t happen.

     I remember feeling like when I was little, I thought, well, but I believed.

     I thought I had done everything right. I believed. I prayed. But then things didn’t change. And so…

     It was about when I was in the sixth grade that I started doing

     quiet times on my own. I just started reading the Bible. I had a one-year Bible, and I started reading through that, trying to find these answers.

    And so I’m trying to share now what I learned over the years. and Hoping that it’ll help.

     I’m hoping to find people who want to study the Bible together and talk about it.

     I had written a post on here about what is faith.

     And there’s a Charles Spurgeon sermon that’s really, really helpful if you have time to listen to it.

     And he defines faith, Spurgeon defines faith as believing God is who he says he is and that he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do.

     So faith is belief. There has to be an object for your belief. So for Christians, Jesus Christ is the object of our faith.

     We believe he is who he says he is. and That he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do. and

     in order to really be able to put your faith in him, I needed to know who he was. And the more you learn about him,

     And the more time you spend studying the Bible, the closer you grow to Him, your faith increases. So…

     There’s one book by John Gill. It’s called Doctrinal Divinity that I started reading in 2022

     and it was extremely helpful. He starts out by doing a lot of chapters about the attributes of God

     So that’s one thing I want to be talking about on here. If you learn about who God is about his

     His goodness, His love, His mercy, His grace, and also His almighty power. And you’re focusing on that.

     and spending time meditating on that. Again, you grow closer to Him.

     And it’s easier to put your faith in Him. And

     These will be things that I’ll take time to talk about over time. That’s the one thing I’m having trouble with now during this flare up, I’m having trouble concentrating

     but in that Spurgeon sermon about faith, he says that faith has three elements, knowledge, belief, and trust.

     So…

     There’s a Bible verse that talks about how can they believe if they haven’t heard. So it’s important to tell people about Jesus and to be

     teaching them from the Bible. And then, so you hear information about God, and then you believe it.

     And then you put your trust in Him and he talks about casting your all on Jesus.

     So again, I had to start over here for a minute.

     Well, I’ll be talking about like what faith is. Um…

     The things that I’ve been studying have, again, it’s learning more about who God is. One of the

     First things in that book, and also in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, where they start off, that’s so important, is…

     Recognizing that God’s not a human being. He’s infinitely higher than us, so He’s divine. He’s God.

     So he doesn’t do anything like a person does it. He’s operating as God.

     and so that’s one thing to remember like if you’ve had something happen in your life or like we’re asking Him questions about what happened and remember who it is that we’re

     asking who we’re going before. We’re going before the Almighty God. We trust in His infinite wisdom.

     his righteousness, his goodness. I know that he has the answer to my questions. So that can be a starting point there of how to think about

     about God. One thing Calvin talks about is

     Think about yourself and your human condition. We’re in a sinful condition, in a fallen world. Alternate between thinking about that and looking up to God.

     and thinking about His righteousness and goodness. Those are things that you can start using in your daily meditation time.

     So I might stop here for today. I’m really wondering if people can hear me on here.

     I hope so, because maybe I can go ahead and start posting, like, talking about what I’ve been studying that day.

     I really hope you can hear what I’ve been saying. And these are things that I’ll be posting about on here over time. So I’ll stop here for today and post again if this seems to work.

  • New Hymn: “Only You”

    Melody Line:

    Keyboard Recording:

    Piano Recording:

    Voice Note with words to hymn:

    I want to share a hymn with you that I wrote. It’s called “Only You.” I posted audio of me playing it on the keyboard and the piano. I’m not sure that the audio on the piano recording is clear, so I also played it on the keyboard. And I posted audio of just the melody line to be sure you can hear it. Please let me know what you think of it. If you click on the title for this post, there will be a comment box at the bottom of the page. I hope you enjoy it! These are the words to the hymn:

    Only You
    Words and Music by: Lisa A. Weidley

    When from the path I’ve strayed
    And the waves wash me away,
    I will lift my eyes to Him,
    He’ll come save me, He’ll forgive.

    He’ll come by my side,
    Hold me closely, stem the tide
    Till I’m safely on the shore
    By Your grace, Lord, nothing more.

    Only You, Lord,
    Only You, Lord,
    Can cleanse me from sin,
    Give new life within,
    And carry me onward.

    Down that path I’ll go,
    Troubles follow, sorrows grow.
    Still I lift my eyes to Thee,
    The One who sees me, meets my need.

    By Your pow’r I’ll stand,
    Safely walking hand in hand;
    Though I stumble, though I fall,
    You pick me up, yes, stand me tall.

    Only You, Lord,
    I only need You, Lord;
    When my strength has failed,
    Your love prevails,
    And carries me onward.

    When the end draws near,
    No more trials, no more fear,
    I will lift my eyes to Thee,
    Now at last, Lord, You I’ll see.

    From Your throne You’ll come,
    All the earthly battles done;
    You will find me, give me rest
    In Your arms, Lord, heaven-blessed.

    Only You, Lord,
    I only need You, Lord;
    At the end of the road
    You’ll carry me home,
    And I’ll wake in heaven.

    Copyright ©2015 Lisa A. Weidley

  • “His Banner” by Fanny Crosby

    “His Banner” by Fanny Crosby

    Hymnal Page Scan: Showers of Blessing 102. I sit at the feet of Jesus | Hymnary.org

    Audio Recording:

    1 I sit at the feet of Jesus,
    Nor heed as the time goes by,
    His banner of love is o’er me,
    And happy indeed am I.

    Refrain:
    Under his banner I peacefully dwell,
    Peacefully dwell, blissfully dwell,
    And Jesus my King has taught me to sing
    ‘Tis well with me now, ‘tis well.

    2 I sit at the feet of Jesus;
    Was ever a joy like mine?
    I list to the words of comfort
    That fall from his lips divine. [Refrain]

    3 I sit at the feet of Jesus,
    In perfect and calm repose;
    He crowneth my head with blessings,
    With rapture my heart o’erflows. [Refrain]

    4 Come, sit at the feet of Jesus,
    Ye weary and toil-oppressed;
    Come, learn of the meek and lowly,
    Who giveth his children rest. [Refrain]

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  • “Sitting at the Feet of Jesus” by J. Lincoln Hall

    “Sitting at the Feet of Jesus” by J. Lincoln Hall

    Hymnal Page Scan: Evening Light Songs 175. Sitting at the feet of Jesus | Hymnary.org

    Audio Recording:

    1 Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
    Oh, what words I hear Him say!
    Happy place! so near, so precious!
    May it find me there each day;
    Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
    I would look upon the past;
    For His love has been so gracious,
    It has won my heart at last.

    2 Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
    Where can mortal be more blest?
    There I lay my sins and sorrows,
    And, when weary, find sweet rest;
    Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
    There I love to weep and pray;
    While I from His fullness gather
    Grace and comfort every day.

    3 Bless me, O my Savior, bless me,
    As *I sit low at Thy feet; [*I’m waiting]
    Oh, look down in love upon me,
    Let me see Thy face so sweet;
    Give me, Lord, the mind of Jesus,
    Keep me holy as He is;
    May I prove I’ve been with Jesus,
    Who is all my righteousness.

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