Sunspots 916

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*: 

Computing: Gizmodo reports that the FBI says you should be using an ad blocker.

Health: (or not) Gizmodo has published a list of the weirdest medical cases of 2022, many of them stupid things people have done to themselves.

Politics: NPR reports that Fox's Sean Hannity knew that Trump had lost the election -- it wasn't "stolen" -- but gave airtime to such beliefs, anyway.

Science: NPR says that dogs can smell time. Really.

CNN reports that two new minerals have been found in a large meteorite,

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

WIth Christ in the School of Prayer, excerpt 158

I know -- it's Christmas. But I'll just follow my normal posting pattern.

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I do this, not because I'm a powerful prayer warrior, but because I'm not. Murray was. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

Let us seek to enter into the spirit of what the Saviour here teaches us. There is a danger in our evangelical religion of looking too much at what it offers from one side, as a certain experience to be obtained in prayer and faith. There is another side which God’s word puts very strongly, that of obedience as the only path to blessing. What we need is to realize that in our relationship to the Infinite Being whom we call God who has created and redeemed us, the first sentiment that ought to animate us is that of subjection: the surrender to His supremacy, His glory, His will, His pleasure, ought to be the first and uppermost thought of our life. The question is not, how we are to obtain and enjoy His favour, for in this the main thing may still be self. But what this Being in the very nature of things rightfully claims, and is infinitely and unspeakably worthy of, is that His glory and pleasure should be my one object. Surrender to His perfect and blessed will, a life of service and obedience, is the beauty and the charm of heaven. Service and obedience, these were the thoughts that were uppermost in the mind of the Son, when He dwelt upon earth. Service and obedience, these must become with us the chief objects of desire and aim, more so than rest or light, or joy or strength: in them we shall find the path to all the higher blessedness that awaits us.

Sunspots 915

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Christianity: (and Politics) A Christianity Today article strongly argues against Christian Nationalism.

Computing: (or Health) Gizmodo reports that Google is developing software to read the handwriting of doctors.

Education: (and Computing) NPR reports on ChatGPT, which will write your papers for you, among other things.

Environment: Coyotes almost never attack adult humans. There is now an explanation for the death of a hiker, by coyotes, on Cape Breton Island, according to Gizmodo.

NPR reports that Louisiana is about to replace land lost to washing away with sediment from the Mississippi River.

NPR reports on a mountain lion in the Los Angeles area, which has been there for about ten years. It was subsequently euthanized.

Humor: (and Weather) NPR reports on how some snow removal equipment is getting goofy names, and is being followed on-line.

Politics: The Conversation on bipartisan bills to upgrade the way elections are counted and reported.

NPR on how Russia has been trying to ingest Ukraine for a century.

Science: According to NPR, some scientists think that time is an illusion.

The Conversation discusses stuttering.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

 

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 157

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I do this, not because I'm a powerful prayer warrior, but because I'm not. Murray was. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

Entire consecration to the fulfilment of our calling is the condition of effectual prayer, is the key to the unlimited blessings of Christ’s wonderful prayer-promises.

There are Christians who fear that such a statement is at variance with the doctrine of free grace. But surely not of free grace rightly understood, nor with so many express statements of God’s blessed word. Take the words of St. John (1 John iii. 22): ‘Let us love in deed and truth; hereby shall we assure our heart before Him. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.’’ Or take the oft-quoted words of James: ‘The fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much;’ that is, of a man of whom, according to the definition of the Holy Spirit, it can be said, ‘He that doeth righteousness, is righteous even as He is righteous.’ Mark the spirit of so many of the Psalms, with their confident appeal to the integrity and righteousness of the supplicant. In Ps. xviii, David says: ‘The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath He recompensed me. . . . I was upright before Him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity: therefore hath the Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness.’ (Ps. xviii. 20-26. See also Ps. vii. 3-5, xv. 1, 2, xviii. 3, 6, xxvi. 1-6, cxix. 121, 153.) If we carefully consider such utterances in the light of the New Testament, we shall find them in perfect harmony with the explicit teaching of the Saviour’s parting words: ‘If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love;’ ‘Ye are my friends if ye do what I command you.’ The word is indeed meant literally: ‘I appointed you that ye should go and bear fruit, that,’ then, ‘whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you.’

Sunspots 914

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

The Arts: NPR has posted on the wildlife comedy photo awards. Worth seeing!

Christianity: A Christianity Today article examines the effect of  reading the Bible on a device, rather than from a book.

Reader's Digest tells us why red and green colors are symbolic of Christmas. (They mention some other colors, too.)

Computing: Gizmodo reports that Elon Musk now wants employees to sleep at the office.

Politics: NPR reports that nearly a million people became US citizens in the past year.

Science: NPR reports on a 190-year-old tortoise.

2.4 million year-old DNA has been used to determine what organisms lived in the locale where it was deposited, according to an article in The Scientist.

NPR reports on a new type of treatment for cancer, using gene editing.

When I was in college, over 5 decades ago, there was discussion of using atomic fusion (the sun, and Hydrogen bombs, use this) for power generation, but a drawback was that it took more energy than it released. That has been licked, apparently, according to NPR, but we are still a long way from using fusion as a power source.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 156

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I do this, not because I'm a powerful prayer warrior, but because I'm not. Murray was. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

‘Bear fruit, that the Father may give what ye ask;’ Or, Obedience the Path to Power in Prayer.

‘Ye did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide: that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He may give it you.’—John xv. 16. ‘The fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much.’—James. v. 16.

THE promise of the Father’s giving whatsoever we ask is here once again renewed, in such a connection as to show us to whom it is that such wonderful influence in the council chamber of the Most High is to be granted. ‘I chose you,’ the Master says, ‘and appointed you that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide;’ and then He adds, to the end ‘that whatsoever ye,’ the fruit-bearing ones, ‘shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you.’ This is nothing but the fuller expression of what He had spoken in the words, ‘If ye abide in me.’ He had spoken of the object of this abiding as the bearing ‘fruit,’ ‘more fruit,’ ‘much fruit;’ in this was God to be glorified, and the mark of discipleship seen. No wonder that He now adds, that where the reality of the abiding is seen in fruit abounding and abiding, this would be the qualification for praying so as to obtain what we ask. Entire consecration to the fulfilment of our calling is the condition of effectual prayer, is the key to the unlimited blessings of Christ’s wonderful prayer-promises.

Sunspots 913

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*: 

The Arts: NPR reports that Pantone has selected its "color of the year."

Christianity: A Christianity Today article on "The Theological Foundations of Natural Science."

Computing: (and Sports) FiveThirtyEight discusses the high-tech balls being used in the World Cup competition.

Education: Grammarphobia considers three different meanings of the word, "lap."

History: Gizmodo reports on some scribbles in the margin of a medieval manuscript.

Politics: An article in The Conversation says that a federal judge has ruled that it is illegal to prevent domestic abusers from having access to guns.

Science: The Scientist reports that some moths emit noises to avoid being eaten by bats.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading. 

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 155

 This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I do this, not because I'm a powerful prayer warrior, but because I'm not. Murray was. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24.

Blessed Lord! Thy lesson this day has again discovered to me my folly. I see how it is that my prayer has not been more believing and prevailing. I was more occupied with my speaking to Thee than Thy speaking to me. I did not understand that the secret of faith is this: there can be only so much faith as there is of the Living Word dwelling in the soul.

 
And Thy word had taught me so clearly: Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak; let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God. Lord, teach me that it is only with Thy word taken up into my life that my words can be taken into Thy heart; that Thy word, if it be a living power within me, will be a living power with Thee; what Thy mouth hath spoken Thy hand will perform.

Lord! deliver me from the uncircumcised ear. Give me the opened ear of the learner, wakened morning by morning to hear the Father’s voice. Even as Thou didst only speak what Thou didst hear, may my speaking be the echo of Thy speaking to me. ‘When Moses went into the tabernacle to speak with Him, he heard the voice of One speaking unto him from off the mercy-seat.’ Lord, may it be so with me too. Let a life and character bearing the one mark, that Thy words abide and are seen in it, be the preparation for the full blessing: ‘Ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’ Amen.