Luke 31:24-25

He (Jesus) said to them, 24"Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 25Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' "But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.'

Psalm 4:6 Many are asking, "Who can show us any good?" Let the light of the Lord shine of your face shine upon us, O Lord?

Several selections from "Sacred Marriage" by Gary Thomas
 
     "...Martin Luther gave this advice five centuries ago:  'Let the wife make the husband glad to come home and let him make her sorry to see him leave.'  
 
     Women want men who aspire to be

               Kings (even if only at a local level)
               Warriors (protectors who make them feel safe)

I often find myself becoming frustrated and angry with the “incompetence” of complete strangers; especially when I am driving. I never thought of this as a problem but lately the Lord has been challenging me on it.

In Matthew 5: 21-22, Jesus has this to say about the subject:

Luke 5:15-16
… the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.   But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

God wants us stirred up and impassioned by the truth in the word, he wants our focus to be the eternal.  How easy it is to fall into the trap of hearing the Truth, and then not applying it to our lives. 

Genesis 8:13 By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering of the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.

John 15:15-16 (New King James Version)
15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.

My new year started rather despondently.

Revelations is a tough book for me to read through, it's intimidating.  And I dont think I understand what the specific illustrations represent.  But the screaming reality of it is that whether I understand how it relates to the world I understand, I was not created for this present reality.  I was created for eternity, for a reality so far removed from Yakima, Wa, United States, 2008.  I need to choose to be obedient and diligent in this place, but it is all with the ultimate goal of spending eternity speaking out the profound truth: Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty, Who was an