...thoughts expressed here are not necessarily final.
April 10, 2006 Passion Week
Meditations
| Hungry We are fainting for your presence Lord we crave to taste and see To savor the sweet flavor Of your holy delicacy. To drink the living libation- Water of life flowing free Our mouths would taste the total truth Taste your goodness, Lord, and see. With our bodies, Thee we worship With our souls we shall declare What our minds will never cease to know With our whole hearts we will share. Like a beggar that has found good bread We will not keep our peace We will pass it on to others And their hunger will increase. When we eat of this your body And we feast upon your meal We are satisfied but in return We want more than our fill Paradox of satisfaction Mixed with hunger so sublime We will ever seek to taste of you In a way that transcends time. April 8, 2006 Anthony Foster |
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Hand Made Created in the image of the Holy One We're conformed into His likeness until all is said and done Crafted from the dust and formed like pots of clay By the strong right hand of Yahweh we are hand made. We are vessels for the glory that you place in us to bear We are living tabernacles for the presence you place there We're a temple for your Spirit and we long to serve you well To show the world the radiance of a life in which you dwell. Mirror of our souls reflect the living light Eyes of our hearts open to behold the sight Lord fit our tabernacle for the service you desire Form these living stones into an altar for your fire. For the mirror reflects your glory And the heart's eyes see you shine You fill the temple with your radiance And your light renews our minds We're partakers of your presence We're transformed as there we stand Laid bare before your holiness Clothed in raiment made by your holy hand Dressed for service in your court oh Lord Your wish is our command. Anthony Foster April 9, 2006 |
| Dressed to Live We stood before our Creator Naked and ashamed And tried to cover up and hide In garments we had made Clothe us in garments of skin A sacrifice to cover over sin Strip off the old man and put on the new Jesus we want to be clothed in You. With a waistband and breastplate Give me the tunic and the ephod of a priest Or a coat of many colors your favor to display When this is wrapped about us our spirits are released. Clothed with joy and gladness Strength and dignity will be our dress Clothed in your salvation Wrapped in robes of righteousness You craft the raiment in which we're displayed With precious jewels adorn our heads The strong right hand of Yahweh weaves An embroidered dress of golden threads Clothed with power from on high And a pearl of matchless price Adorned with our heavenly dwelling I want to be clothed in Christ. With armor to fit us for battle And purple robes of royalty Clothe us with compassion Clothe us with holy humility. Anthony Foster April 8, 2006 |
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Carry the Weight
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Look upon the Pierced One
Emmanuel's lifeblood was outpoured to cover all our sin
Plunge us deep within its flow and we shall be made clean
Emmanuel's wounds shall never fail
His precious blood for us avails
Look upon the pierced one
Look on Him and be undone!
His bleeding brow and wounded side and bruised and battered face
The nail pierced hands and feet His glory won't erase.
Emmanuel ever intercedes
He blesses hearts as his heart bleeds
Look upon the pierced one
Look on Him and be undone!
The blood of sacrifices past
Brought atonement that could never last
When the Savior breathed his dying breath
The work was finished by His death.
He is the lamb for sinners slain
Though dead he has stood up again
So look upon the pierced one
Look on Him and be undone!
Anthony Foster
April 12, 2006
Precious Blood
When blood is all you ever see
The day to day becomes familiarity
We avert our eyes from His wounded side
But Emmanuel's veins are opened wide.
This is the precious blood I plead
This is the blood of the woman's seed
The anointed one on the altar is bound
His blood is falling on the ground.
Now precious blood of priceless worth
Is covering the dust of earth
From the bread of heaven flows new wine,
Anointing men with its flow divine
The seed that dies shall soon arise
As the blood flows the vine still grows
The lifeblood that was spilt on earth
Flows from above to give new birth.
This is the precious blood I plead
This is the blood of the woman's seed
The anointed one on the altar is bound
His blood is falling on the ground.
Now precious blood of priceless worth
Is covering the dust of earth
From the bread of heaven flows new wine,
Anointing men with its flow divine
Anthony Foster
April 12, 2006
No Other Sacrifice
The wages I am due are nothing short of death
It was my sin that required this bloody mess.
The dust shall drink its fill
This was the Father's Will
But the spilling of the blood still takes away my breath.
Nothing else can cleanse
Nothing covers over sins
Nothing else can pay redemptions price
Nothing else frees us
But the precious blood of Jesus
There is no other sacrifice.
No coat of many colors, the one covering is red
A sacrificial sign that the innocent has bled
No more bloody hides of the first sacrifice
No longer naked, we are clothed in Christ.
Much fruit shall come because the woman's seed is dead.
Nothing else can cleanse
Nothing covers over sins
Nothing else can pay redemptions price
Nothing else frees us
But the precious blood of Jesus
There is no other sacrifice.
Now when He is arisen, He defeats the final foe
When we are grafted into Him His life through us will flow
The True vine evermore shall live
New life abundant He shall give
From death He takes the victory so all the world can know.
Nothing else can cleanse
Nothing covers over sins
Nothing else can pay redemptions price
Nothing else frees us
But the precious blood of Jesus
There is no other sacrifice.
Anthony Foster
April 13, 2006
It is a grace that I was born in my day and not in first
century Jerusalem. Who knows where my allegiances would have lain. Seeing
Jesus in the flesh may have occasioned the same reaction in me that it
did in so many of the religious Jews of the day. Jesus was just "too
much to take". When Jesus said "blessed is he who has not seen
and yet believes", I wonder if there was not a double-entendre at
work. Most people (especially the educated and well positioned) who saw
Jesus did not believe, in fact the more they saw of Him the more they
were revolted. In some senses it is easier to believe in Him from a distance.
I must look at this carefully and measure it against His hard sayings.
Do I really believe the Jesus of the scriptures, or some sort of sanitized
version filtered through two thousand years of revisionism? Do I really
hate mother, brother and my own life in following Him? Do I really take
up the cross He spoke of? Do I have a clue of how to count the cost of
building a tower? Have I taken solace in grace in a wrong-headed fashion,
explaining away the fact that His demands are too much for any of us?
With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
Am I like the Pharisees who having seen blood flow all their lives were
ready to spill innocent blood to cover over their sins with no comprehension
of the cosmic even taking place? Is the absence of blood in my vocabulary
a help or a hindrance? I so easily accommodate its absence. When I was
a child I was around slaughterhouses and we killed meat for our food,
but I was never at ease with the presence of blood. The sight of my own
blood causes me to wretch.
As I meditate on the blood of Christ, on His Passion this week, I am confronted
with the disconcerting and convicting power of His Holy Spirit on these
matters. I want to learn the way of repentance on this front. To discover
how to live in the light of the death, burial, and resurrection of the
Son of God. He died for all so that those who live might no longer live
for themselves, but by faith in the Son of God. Living in theplace God
planted me is to live with assurance that my times are in His hands, as
I am.
From News of the Weird:Crime Really Doesn't Pay:
In July 2005, News of the Weird reported Jared Gipson's extremely bad
idea of trying to rob Blalock's Beauty College in Shreveport, La. The
20 students and teachers inside (almost all women) beat him to a pulp
with curling irons, hair dryers, chairs, a table leg, and their fists
(leaving him with 21 cuts that had to be stitched). In March 2006, Gipson,
24, was sentenced for that attempted robbery, and as a recidivist, got
25 years in prison (and might have received more except that several of
the women asked the judge for leniency). [Shreveport Times, 3-4-06]
Search users 'stop at page three'
Most people using a search engine expect to find what they are looking
for on the first page of results, says a
US study.
At most, people will go through three pages of results before giving up,
found the survey by Jupiter Research and marketing firm iProspect.
LOS ANGELES - ABC will offer four prime-time shows including
"Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" on its Web site
for free for two months beginning in May as it continues to expand the
ways consumers can watch
TV online.
-The editors of the technology and pop culture blog took down the comment
option about two years ago. Back then, they wanted to put an end to abusive
comments, personal attacks on the Boing Boing crew and some spam. Today,
their
reason for not bringing it back is simpler: an explosion in junk posts
on blogs.
In today's data-happy era of accountability, testing and No Child Left
Behind,
here is the most astonishing statistic in the whole field of education:
an increasing number of researchers are saying that nearly one out of
three public high school students won't graduate,
Where would we be without the blood?
From John Fischer’s devotional: you can subscribe
here
"On one hand, I suppose it makes theological sense. On the other,
that's a lot of blood. And for that reason, maybe they got it better than
we did, since they still had physical blood to deal with for the forgiveness
of their sins. Someone had to get their hands sticky over their sin. The
blood had to be on somebody. In their case it was the priests. In our
case it was the High Priest, Jesus, with our blood on his hands. But in
every case, whether it was a lamb or the Lamb of God, it was the blood
that did it. It was the blood that forgave us. It was the blood that washed
us clean in our Father's eyes.
But do we get it? I'm not sure I do, but I'm not sure I have to. It's
ultimately a mystery: I can't tell you why there has to be blood. I only
know that if God requires it, I need it; I want it; and believe me, I'll
take it."