Recently I have been thinking much about this.
Extrapolation from Romans 1:16-25 (MEEV)
“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from one faith to another.
The just shall live by faith, the wrath of God being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who profess truth but practice unrighteousness; because such as may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has showed it to them.
For the eternal but invisible things of God’s Power and Godhead from the creation of the world, are clearly manifested in creation so that they are without excuse.
Whereby, when they knew God, instead of glorified him as God and being thankful; they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into images made like to corruptible men, birds, four footed beasts, and creeping things.
Wherefore God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: changing the truth of God into a lie, and worshipping and serving those created images more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.
Conversely those who, having seen “the eternal but invisible things of God’s Power and Godhead from the creation of the world”, worship the glory of the incorruptible God, have no need of ‘excuse’. Amen”.
God seeks those that worship him in spirit and in truth.
And, for my part, there is nowhere that I can do that better than in creation’s places of extreme peaceful solitude, such as on the hill tops of the Austrian Alps, or along the gently wave lapped shoreline of isolated stretches of the Mediterranean coast.
I well remember holidaying in the Austrian Alps and climbing the long uphill stretches of the surrounding pastural meadows.
The higher I climbed the more rarified the atmosphere became, and the increasingly faint became the sounds of civilisation.
Eventually all that could be heard was the faint sound of cow bells from the lower reaches.
And I sat me down on an outcrop of rock and, as per the choral piece “All in an April evening….I thought on the Lamb of God”.
And I meaningfully recited the words of the hymnal chorus
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in his wonderful face.
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim.
In the light of his Glory and Grace.”
Coupled with
“There is a place of quiet rest.
Near to the Heart of God.
A place where sin cannot molest
Near to the Heart of God”
That just has to be ‘My Church’
Extrapolation from Romans 1:16-25 (MEEV)
“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from one faith to another.
The just shall live by faith, the wrath of God being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who profess truth but practice unrighteousness; because such as may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has showed it to them.
For the eternal but invisible things of God’s Power and Godhead from the creation of the world, are clearly manifested in creation so that they are without excuse.
Whereby, when they knew God, instead of glorified him as God and being thankful; they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into images made like to corruptible men, birds, four footed beasts, and creeping things.
Wherefore God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: changing the truth of God into a lie, and worshipping and serving those created images more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.
Conversely those who, having seen “the eternal but invisible things of God’s Power and Godhead from the creation of the world”, worship the glory of the incorruptible God, have no need of ‘excuse’. Amen”.
God seeks those that worship him in spirit and in truth.
And, for my part, there is nowhere that I can do that better than in creation’s places of extreme peaceful solitude, such as on the hill tops of the Austrian Alps, or along the gently wave lapped shoreline of isolated stretches of the Mediterranean coast.
I well remember holidaying in the Austrian Alps and climbing the long uphill stretches of the surrounding pastural meadows.
The higher I climbed the more rarified the atmosphere became, and the increasingly faint became the sounds of civilisation.
Eventually all that could be heard was the faint sound of cow bells from the lower reaches.
And I sat me down on an outcrop of rock and, as per the choral piece “All in an April evening….I thought on the Lamb of God”.
And I meaningfully recited the words of the hymnal chorus
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in his wonderful face.
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim.
In the light of his Glory and Grace.”
Coupled with
“There is a place of quiet rest.
Near to the Heart of God.
A place where sin cannot molest
Near to the Heart of God”
That just has to be ‘My Church’