The Lord is clearly interested in beauty. Some form of the word is used 76 times in the Bible. We are told that God "hath made every thing beautiful in his time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). He so highly exalts the proper concept of beauty that He often associates it with holiness (Psalm 29:2; 96:9; 110:3). Unfortunately, men tend to pervert beauty as they do all that they touch. God reminds us that outward "beauty is vain" (Proverbs 31:30) and human "beauty is a fading flower' (Isaiah 28:1). Men corrupt beauty and make the "beauty of a man" a focus for idolatry (Isaiah 44:13). Eventually, man's perverseness causes his "beauty to be abhorred" (Ezekiel 16:25). The very concept of what is beautiful is no longer recognizable.
Today's how-to, from www.wikihow.com provides in-depth information about a creative way to obtain stuff without spending any money. Are you interested? It is called "dumpster diving". No, I'm not kidding. Here are some tips and warnings for those of you who are chomping at the bit to take your first dive.
Note: What follows is an introduction I just wrote to a lesson on Mark 6:1-26 entitled "Changes in the Ministry of Christ." I thought it might be an encouragement to someone who is presently going through some great changes.
Alfred Edersheim wrote a major life of Christ called "The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah." Edersheim's Jewish heritage gave him interesting insights into many of the beliefs and ways of life during the time of Christ. In his book (Vol.11, p.12), he wrote of the Jewish traditions concerning the defilement of hands and the accusation that Jesus did not keep these traditions (as recorded in Mark 7:1-9).
About two weeks ago (I cannot find the exact date), a construction worker was digging up a peat bog somewhere in Ireland for the purpose of creating commercial potting soil when he saw something in the bog. That something turned out to be an ancient selection of psalms in Latin that has been dated to around 800AD-1000AD. The discovery has been called a miracle find because of the unlikely chance that it would be preserved in a peat bog and the equally unlikely chance that it would be discovered.
Gary North, in "Millennialism and Social Theory" (p.136-137), demonstrates the worldly outlook of the Christian Reconstructionists. He labels those who disagree with his postmillennial doctrine as "pessimillenialists." That is, they are pessimistic because they do not believe that Christians will conquer the world before the physical return of Christ. One of the greatest faults he sees in premillenialists is their conviction that Christians should be looking for the return of Jesus Christ. According to him: "Christians were told to look skyward prior to the fall of Jerusalem... But their deliverance came in history... That one-time deliverance of the early Church is today long behind us. It is surely time for Christians to begin lookingforward, in time and on earth, for their deliverance, not upward." He even scolds an amillennialist for saying, "Come, Lord Jesus, come."
I was seeking last night for a word of encouragement from the Lord and He gave me this. Psalm 119:83 ? ?For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes.? Bottles in Bible times were most often made of animal skins. In the smoke, they would dry out and lose their softness. Troubles to the saint are like smoke to the bottle. We cannot see the way to go and we dry out and lose our ability to adjust. But we still have the compass of God?s precepts. We must not forget them. They will keep us on solid ground even when we are in the smoke.
