Friday, October 17, 2014
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Article: Callouses by Rusty Hilliard
Anyone who has ever played guitar will tell you that there is a very painful process that all guitarists must experience on their way to becoming the “NEXT BIG THING.” When you first pick up a guitar, be it electric or acoustic, following your first few times playing your fingers will hurt and be painful to the touch. There are a couple of solutions that can be tried in order to help the struggling student survive the pain.
First, you can apply Apple Cider Vinegar to the tips of your fingers both before and after playing. When trying this method, you might also want to ice your hand for a few minutes along with the vinegar. Secondly, you can adjust the action on the strings of your guitar. The action on a guitar is the distance between the frit board of the guitar, and the strings. If the action is set too high, it will make the guitar harder to play. Finally, coat the tips of your fingers with clear finger nail polish. It offers enough protection to allow the player to still move around the strings with ease, and yet avoid the pain which have stopped so many through the years.
However, the best advice for a burgeoning guitarist is to play through the pain. You see, the more you play, you begin to develop callouses on the tips of your index, middle, ring, and pinky fingers. These callouses form a hard protective layer of skin over the fingers which you use to play, and this allows you to play longer and longer.
With guitar, callouses are a good thing, but when the conversation turns to the heart of the child of God, far too many of us have formed callouses where they shouldn’t be. Nehemiah 2:17, reads: “Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.”
By the time that this speech is made by Nehemiah to the children of Israel, the walls around Jerusalem have been gone for 125 years. In fact, the remnants of the nation which God had chosen as His own have been living in the rubble heap for some 10 years at this time; they’ve seen the destruction that is Jerusalem. So, why then does Nehemiah bring up the devastation that is obvious? He does it for a very simple reason: the broken walls, the burned gates, the devastated city was normal, and had formed a callous over their hearts. Therefore, before the rebuilding could take place, Nehemiah had to break through the protective coating on the hearts of the Israelites.
How many of us have become calloused to sin? We see God’s Word being violated, burned, misapplied and twisted each day, yet we just say that this is the way of the world. Folks, that is your calloused heart speaking. As children of the living God, we need to break through the hard coating that is over our hearts, and stand against the “wiles of the devil.” (Ephesians 6: 11) We should remove the politically correct tag that so many of us have placed upon our chest as a badge of shame, and go to war against the darkness which threatens our families, country, world, and even our Father’s house. (1 Timothy 3: 15, Numbers 32: 6)
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Columbus Day, October 12, 2014
Columbus Day
Look just beyond the yellow slide on the playground and draw a line in your mind 522 miles southeast toward the Atlantic- flying over Fort Pierce and then Freeport, you will come to the small Bahamian island whose original name was Guanahani. Lush and green split by a lagoon, twelve miles long, five miles wide, it was the scene of an inevitable miracle.
In 1485, 34-year-old Genoa native Christopher Columbus proposed to King John II of Portugal a voyage to discover a short cut to the Orient. Abounding with spices and gold, it was widely theorized that the far away East could be reached by going west. He was rejected. In 1485, he tried again and failed. Dejected, he made one last attempt and appealed to the new, united Spanish monarchs. Queen Isabella I was impressed but a committee scoffed, it was impractical.
For two years, through bouts of frustration, he continually lobbied the royals. They were intrigued but too engaged in the Reconquista of Granada, a war to rid Spain of an Islamic invasion from north Africa. For nearly 800 years, the Muslims were a thorn in the Christian Spain. Innumerable battles kept them at bay, finally, on January 2, 1492, the last Muslim ruler was defeated.
Watching this completion of victory, Christopher Columbus thought of passages from the prophet Isaiah.
42:10 Sing to the Lord a new song, And His praise from the ends of the earth,You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, You coastlands and you inhabitants of them!
41:9a “Listen, O coastlands, to Me, And take heed, you peoples from afar!
51:5 “My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, And my arms will judge the peoples; The coastlands will wait upon Me, And on My arm they will trust.
Columbus seized the opportunity to appeal to the queen… and was rejected. Thinking his cause was lost, he left town on a mule. Yet, when the king heard of her decision he vetoed it and had Columbus returned to the castle. On the evening of August 3, he set sail.
Five weeks later, at 2 am on October 12, 1492, sailor Rodrigo de Triana shouted “Tierra! Tierra!” (Land! Land!). Columbus led a prayer.
“O Lord, eternal and omnipotent God,
Thou hast, by Thy holy word,
created the heavens, the earth, and the sea;
blessed and glorified be Thy name;
praised be Thy majesty,
who hast deigned that,
by means of Thy unworthy servant,
Thy sacred name should be acknowledged
and made known in this new quarter of the world.”
Upon landing, Columbus named the land after Christ the Savior, in Spanish, “San Salvador.”
Across 522 miles, across 522 years, Christ remains San Salvador. His wisdom, His Word, His wonderful love still guides us through uncharted waters. The isles have heard Him; and in this land of flowers (Florida), we, the inhabitants from the East and all other directions, recognize that our hearts and our prayers point blessedly upward. In Christian love, let’s turn the world upside down. –Jason Goldtrap
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Severo Hernandez baptized on September 18, 2014.
Romans 6:4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
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