--Update--

I went to see my dad after work today. He is doing much better, he will be released from the hospital tomorrow.
I am indebted to the Lord for his great work in my dad's life.
Continue to pray for a good recovery; my dad wont be able to work until January.
Thanks again for all of your prayers lifted up on his behalf.

Praise HIM!

gap

--Quick Update--

My dad is doing better. He has been tranferred to a private room, though he is still under careful watch. Please continue to pray for him.
Last night I went to see my dad and I read this Psalm to him, I pray that this will be an encouragement to you as it was for him and my mom.

Psalm 116
1 I love the LORD, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.

2 Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.

3 The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave [a] came upon me;
I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.

4 Then I called on the name of the LORD :
"O LORD, save me!"

5 The LORD is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.

6 The LORD protects the simplehearted;
when I was in great need, he saved me.

7 Be at rest once more, O my soul,
for the LORD has been good to you.

8 For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,

9 that I may walk before the LORD
in the land of the living.

Please Pray for my Dad

Last night I got a call at around 9:20 PM from my mom telling me that she was with my dad at the hospital because he had some chest pains. He ended up having a heart attack and going into surgery to have a procedure done that will clean his obstructed arteries. He is doing well now, but please pray for his recovery. I was reminded last night of God's sovereignty and his fatherly care for my own dad. As I was talking to my mom and brothers, we were all reminded that God cares a lot more for my dad than I ever would and that he is using this to sanctify him further.
So please pray for him, his name is Ruben.
I will keep you abreast of the latest.

Thanks.

Why do we go to church?

This week at our Bible study, as it is customary this semester, I will be preaching on the one another's: This week we will be going through Hebrews 10:

22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;

24 and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,

25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

I will be emphasising why church? Why must we be at church? Why is it that God chose Christians to be part of a body? This is a tough assignment in our individualistic society, yet God's word never stutters. We are call not to forsake our own assembling together.

Pray for me, I will let you know how it goes.

Article: Be A kinder Calvinist

Abraham Piper writes a great article on being a kinder calvinist... and a good husband as well.

Click here
gap

Cael got us sick!

Today I stayed home from work. I have a nasty cold, which I can feel getting better.
While I am licking my wounds reading/studying, Melissa is decorating for Christmas, what a trooper.

I will be back tomorrow.

By the way, we took Cael to see Santa, he had no idea what was going on and even though he will never believe in Santa, but we still thought it would be cute to take a picture of him. So here it is:

The One Another's

I found this on The Kairos Journal Website; by the way, excellent website.


“Exceeding Love and Brotherly Kindness”—Dionysius of Alexandria (c. 190 – c. 264)

Dionysius the Great was bishop of Alexandria, in Egypt, from 247 until his death. During this time, the Christians in Alexandria suffered persecution under the Emperor Decian. For several years Dionysius led the church whilst in hiding. A number of his surviving letters contain horrific descriptions of believers being tortured and murdered because they would not deny Christ. However, persecution was not the only threat; the city also suffered civil strife, plague and famine. In one letter, Dionysius writes about a time when Alexandria was struck by a severe plague. He describes the response of the surrounding pagans—one of utter selfishness. When the pagans abandoned their fellow-men, the Christians stayed to help.

[The heathen] thrust aside any who began to be sick, and kept aloof even from their dearest friends, and cast the sufferers out upon the public roads half dead, and left them unburied, and treated them with utter contempt when they died, steadily avoiding any kind of communication and intercourse with death; which, however, it was not easy for them altogether to escape, in spite of the many precautions they employed.

However, in spite of the way they had suffered at the hands of their neighbors, the behavior of the Christians could not have been more different.

Certainly very many of our brethren, while, in their exceeding love and brotherly-kindness, they did not spare themselves, but kept by each other, and visited the sick without thought of their own peril, and ministered to them assiduously, and treated them for their healing in Christ, died from time to time most joyfully along with them, lading themselves with pains derived from others, and drawing upon themselves their neighbours’ diseases, and willingly taking over to their own persons the burden of the sufferings of those around them. And many who had thus cured others of their sicknesses, and restored them to strength, died themselves, having transferred to their own bodies the death that lay upon these. And that common saying, which else seemed always to be only a polite form of address, they expressed in actual fact then, as they departed this life, like the “off-scourings of all.” Yea, the very best of our brethren have departed this life in this manner, including some presbyters and some deacons, and among the people those who were in highest reputation: so that this very form of death, in virtue of the distinguished piety and the steadfast faith which were exhibited in it, appeared to come in nothing beneath martyrdom itself.1



Footnotes:

1 Dionysius of Alexandria, “Epistle XII – To the Alexandrians”, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 6, trans. S.D.F. Salmond (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1886), 108-109.