Larry Devich
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Verizon Wireless Broadband
I use Verizon Wireless Broadband to connect to the Internet. I am currently sitting in Central Park in San Ramon where I rode on my bike this afternoon. Current temperature is 91 degrees with a 5 mile an hour breeze. I find that I get much better connections here than at home! At home I get downloads at ~400 - 500 kbps while here I am getting 2 X that speed.
To the left is a photo I took with my cell phone of the spot I'm posting this from.
Well, I guess what this means is that I will just have to get out of the house more often! :-)
I'm also following the Giant's game online, they are now ahead 8- 0 in the bottom of the 9th, but San Diego has loaded the bases with 2 outs... I can't post this until the game is over now... oops Josh Barfield just hit a Grand Slam Home run to make the score 8-4 Giants... and now the game is over and the final score was 8-4 Giants... :-) I guess I'll mount up on my bike and ride the 5 miles back home now.
¶ 8/17/2006 02:49:00 PM 0 Comments
To the left is a photo I took with my cell phone of the spot I'm posting this from.
Well, I guess what this means is that I will just have to get out of the house more often! :-)
I'm also following the Giant's game online, they are now ahead 8- 0 in the bottom of the 9th, but San Diego has loaded the bases with 2 outs... I can't post this until the game is over now... oops Josh Barfield just hit a Grand Slam Home run to make the score 8-4 Giants... and now the game is over and the final score was 8-4 Giants... :-) I guess I'll mount up on my bike and ride the 5 miles back home now.
Thursday in Week 10 of Pentecost - Commemoration of Johann Gerhard, Theologian
King David reminds us in this week’s psalm of undeserved love, mercy, and protection. The Merciful Steward is the creating Word, spoken by the Heavenly Father, who has knitted you together cell by cell in the womb of your mother, even as He Himself took on His own flesh in His Blessed Mother’s womb.
The Lord has had an active hand in your creation, from your first days and months inside your mother up to this very moment, and He will continue to do so as He leads you in the way everlasting.
These words are great comfort to the Church. They were a great comfort to Johann Gerhard. And if ever there was one who needed this comfort, it was Johann!
At the age of 15, he was sick for a year with tuberculosis and dropsy. Around Christmas, when he was 19 years old, he became ill to the point of death, and he even wrote a will. After a little more than two years of marriage, his first wife, Barbara, delivered a baby boy who only lived for 17 days. Soon she, too, fell asleep in Jesus. Johann grieved deeply for his wife and son.
After three years he married Maria Mattenberg. But sadness touched their marriage as well, as three of their ten children died in infancy. Sickness continued to haunt him, as he suffered from rheumatism, vocal troubles, kidney problems, asthma, and weakness. In addition, he was threatened with imprisonment several times during the Thirty Years War.
Most people suffering through all of these hardships easily collapse, cry, and blame God. We live in a time and place where many would tell you that it might have been best for his four children that they died. In fact, many would tell you that it might have been better if Johann had never been born.
Not so! The Lord has searched you and known you. He formed your inward parts. He knitted you together in your mother’s womb. He displays His glory in your salvation through Jesus! And so, even as you are in the depths of despair, your loving Lord is reminding you that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Take heart, dear Christian; God has searched you and knows your heart, and He will lead you in the way everlasting!
~~~~
Daily Readings
Joshua 9:3-21
Romans 15:1-13
Matthew 26:69-75
Morning and Evening Psalms
84, 85 86-88
In Joshua and again in Matthew we read of great hero's of the faith who fell. Joshua took it upon himself to make peace with the Gibeonites, without consulting the LORD. Peter, who had given such a great confession when he said "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God", now denies his Lord three times in a single night, no longer trusting God but fearing for his own life.
Romans 15 instructs us to "bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up." This is in the context of Romans 14 where Paul writes that we ought not to do what might cause a weaker brother to stumble, such as eating certain foods they might think are sinful to eat, even though we know it is no such thing. I recently read in "The Fire and the Staff" a commentary on this very subject. In it Klemet Preus makes a very important distinction between those times when we must bear with the weak and other times when we must stand up to those who would impose a law on us in place of the gospel of grace. Paul made a similar distinction as is shown in Galatians 2:10-12 when he opposed Peter at Antioch when he began go along with those Jews who were still following the Law and refused to eat with Gentile believers. So it is with us today, we bear with the weak and oppose the strong who would impose law on us, such as those who would put conditions on receiving grace like giving you a set of "Four Spiritual Laws" you must follow to receive grace! Really there is no law you can follow, you are spiritually DEAD (Ephesians 2:4-6) according the bible and cannot do the things listed in that false law! Thanks be to God, Jesus has done it ALL for us! That is the whole point of the thing after all, that we cannot come to God on our own, therefore God has come to us to save us.
Higher Things Commemoration of Johann Gerhard, Theologian
“For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13)Joshua 9:3-21
Romans 15:1-13
Matthew 26:69-75
Morning and Evening Psalms
84, 85 86-88
In Joshua and again in Matthew we read of great hero's of the faith who fell. Joshua took it upon himself to make peace with the Gibeonites, without consulting the LORD. Peter, who had given such a great confession when he said "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God", now denies his Lord three times in a single night, no longer trusting God but fearing for his own life.
Romans 15 instructs us to "bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up." This is in the context of Romans 14 where Paul writes that we ought not to do what might cause a weaker brother to stumble, such as eating certain foods they might think are sinful to eat, even though we know it is no such thing. I recently read in "The Fire and the Staff" a commentary on this very subject. In it Klemet Preus makes a very important distinction between those times when we must bear with the weak and other times when we must stand up to those who would impose a law on us in place of the gospel of grace. Paul made a similar distinction as is shown in Galatians 2:10-12 when he opposed Peter at Antioch when he began go along with those Jews who were still following the Law and refused to eat with Gentile believers. So it is with us today, we bear with the weak and oppose the strong who would impose law on us, such as those who would put conditions on receiving grace like giving you a set of "Four Spiritual Laws" you must follow to receive grace! Really there is no law you can follow, you are spiritually DEAD (Ephesians 2:4-6) according the bible and cannot do the things listed in that false law! Thanks be to God, Jesus has done it ALL for us! That is the whole point of the thing after all, that we cannot come to God on our own, therefore God has come to us to save us.
Higher Things Commemoration of Johann Gerhard, Theologian
King David reminds us in this week’s psalm of undeserved love, mercy, and protection. The Merciful Steward is the creating Word, spoken by the Heavenly Father, who has knitted you together cell by cell in the womb of your mother, even as He Himself took on His own flesh in His Blessed Mother’s womb.
The Lord has had an active hand in your creation, from your first days and months inside your mother up to this very moment, and He will continue to do so as He leads you in the way everlasting.
These words are great comfort to the Church. They were a great comfort to Johann Gerhard. And if ever there was one who needed this comfort, it was Johann!
At the age of 15, he was sick for a year with tuberculosis and dropsy. Around Christmas, when he was 19 years old, he became ill to the point of death, and he even wrote a will. After a little more than two years of marriage, his first wife, Barbara, delivered a baby boy who only lived for 17 days. Soon she, too, fell asleep in Jesus. Johann grieved deeply for his wife and son.
After three years he married Maria Mattenberg. But sadness touched their marriage as well, as three of their ten children died in infancy. Sickness continued to haunt him, as he suffered from rheumatism, vocal troubles, kidney problems, asthma, and weakness. In addition, he was threatened with imprisonment several times during the Thirty Years War.
Most people suffering through all of these hardships easily collapse, cry, and blame God. We live in a time and place where many would tell you that it might have been best for his four children that they died. In fact, many would tell you that it might have been better if Johann had never been born.
Not so! The Lord has searched you and known you. He formed your inward parts. He knitted you together in your mother’s womb. He displays His glory in your salvation through Jesus! And so, even as you are in the depths of despair, your loving Lord is reminding you that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Take heart, dear Christian; God has searched you and knows your heart, and He will lead you in the way everlasting!
~~~~
Johann Gerhard (1582-1637) was a great Lutheran theologian in the tradition of Martin Luther (1483-1546) and Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586) and the most influential of the seventeenth-century dogmaticians. His monumental Loci Theologici (23 large volumes) is still considered by many to be a definitive statement of Lutheran orthodoxy. Gerhard was born in Quedlinburg, Germany. At the age of fifteen he was stricken with a life-threatening illness. This experience, along with guidance from his pastor, Johann Arndt, marked a turning point in his life. He devoted the rest of his life to theology. He became a professor at the University of Jena and served many years as the Superintendent of Heldberg. Gerhard was a man of deep evangelical piety and love for Jesus. He wrote numerous books on exegesis, theology, devotional literature, history and polemics. His sermons continue to be widely published and read. [From "Commemorations Biographies," Lutheran Service Book, LCMS Commission on Worship]
¶ 8/17/2006 07:40:00 AM 0 Comments
