Fascinating Facts of the Faith

2008 by Barbour Publishing, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-60260-013-3
www.barbourbooks.com

Women of the Faith
Fanny J. Crosby
(1820-1915)
American hymn writer and poet

The Parents of baby Frances Jane Crosby, born March 24, 1820, became alarmed when they noticed their tiny infant’s eyes were red and inflamed. A doctor wasn’t readily available, so when Frances was six weeks old, her parents took her to a practitioner who was later exposed as a quack. After his prescribed treatment, the infection gradually healed, but the damage to little Frances’s eyes was permanent. She was blind.
Fourteen years later, Frances traveled by stagecoach to the New York Institute for the Blind. She described the day as the happiest of her life. Miss Crosby spent two decades at the Institute. When her own schooling there was complete, she stayed on as a teacher. Nationally recognized as “The Blind Poetess,” she was called upon many times to write and recite a poem for visiting U.S. presidents and other dignitaries.
In 1858 Frances (better known as Fanny) married a fellow teacher and blind musician, Alexander Van Alstyne, and they left the institute to begin a new life. Sadly, their only child died in infancy. Fanny’s life work was redirected in 1864 when William Bradbury encouraged her to write Sunday school hymns.
Fanny Crosby perceived her blindness as a gift from God. She even believed the practitioner’s mistake became a prelude to her writing nearly nine thousand hymns. “Blessed Assurance” and many other beloved hymns became favorites at D.L. Moody’s revivals and are still being sung in congregations today.

FACT: Fanny Crosby never earned more than four hundred dollars per year and gave away anything not needed for basic living. She spent countless hours ministering in street missions and the slums of New York, where she also lived.

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.
Philippians 4:12

Praying for These

The good reports regarding Jenny keep coming. Your prayers are appreciated, please continue. Rosemary is home and improving well. Perry is home and slowly gaining strength — prayers appreciated. I cannot confirm word on Iris but hoping she will be going home soon, and possibly already there. Elaine just sent me an email and she is rallying – prayers appreciated, please continue.

ABBA, we thank You for these reports, so grateful! And we continue to ask for complete recoveries for each of these.  We continue to ask You favor and tending of all on our caring list as well as protection and safety for our IDOK Troops. I praise You and thank You for the continuing ministry of the hymns and poems You gave to Fanny to write. Thank You for the life she lived and for the promises she now enjoys with You. We pray to likewise do as You have called us to do in our allotted time here.
Again, we pray for the peace and salvation of Israel. And for repentance and an awakening among the people of America. Thank You for this Country. Thank You for ordaining and birthing it; please forgive us and have mercy upon us, redeem us, JESUS, I pray.
Thank You for each IDOK; thank You for every word You have given through this ministry and I pray that each will be used again and again for Your Glory and the betterment of others. Amen and amen.

Until Then + + +
Kathie

CONFERENCE BEGINS TONIGHT

Fascinating Facts of the Faith

2008 by Barbour Publishing, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-60260-013-3
www.barbourbooks.com

Notable Books
With Christ in the School of Prayer
By Andrew Murray (1885)

     Readers today may not be aware that the book they hold in their hands, With Christ in the School of Prayer, debuted more than a hundred years ago. Still in print, Andrew Murray’s classic exposition continues to gather devoted readers with its message of hope and confidence in the power of prayer.
     Murray, a minister in the Dutch reformed Church in South Africa, found his congregations sadly lukewarm in regard to prayer. He realized that for most believers it was routine, ineffectual, and shallow. In With Christ in the School of Prayer, Murray aimed to light a fire in the prayer lives of believers by designing thirty-one lessons around the prayers of Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospels. He framed each study to bring readers to a fuller realization of God’s work in their lives. In the book, Murray invites believers to communicate with God not to gain favor with Him, but in order to joyfully surrender to His will and purpose. 
     Murray’s spiritual insights frequently ran afoul of orthodox Reformed theology. Nonetheless, he held to his conviction that each believer should expect and would receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
     While the language of the original appears dated to the modern reader, Murray’s short, concise chapters appeal to contemporary taste. His fervent passion for his subject comes across through real-life examples familiar to anyone who has grappled with what it means to pray. In Murray’s words, fellow believers hear and learn from the vibrant voice of passion, experience, wisdom, and faith.

FACT: Andrew Murray wrote, “If there is one thing I think the Church needs to learn, it is that God means prayer to have an answer, and that it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what God will do for His child who gives himself to believe that his prayer will be heard.”

[Jesus said,] “This, then, is how you should pray:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.'”
Matthew 6:9

What would Andrew Murray say about the Church as a whole today? To be sure across this world there are pockets of Believers who are fervent prayers — we need more.

Praying for These

Reports on Jenny are very good — she is out of PICU and will soon be going home to continue her recovery.  Thank You, JESUS!! 
Last I heard Iris was coming along well.
I’m waiting for current word on Rosemary and Perry — but I am expecting good reports from each.  Keep praying.

ABBA, thank You for the privilege of prayer. Thank You for saints long ago as to our time who are now with You.  Thank You for the promise of fellowship and perhaps comparing notes in the eternity. Thank You for the glorious future You are preparing  for us.  Thank You for Jenny’s recovery. Thank You for recoveries for Iris, Rosemary and Perry too. Thank You for Your tending and interventions with all who are listed at Praying for These. Thank You for our IDOK Troops and we continue to pray for safety, protection and safe returns home for each of them. And as You have brought her to mind I pray for Elaine, thank You for blog friendships and I ask that You continue to minister to her and through her. Thank You for the conference this weekend — I only ask that You be there in Your Glory and heal and restore Your Daughters in JESUS name. Amen and amen.

Until then + + +
Kathie

Be sure to spend some time in corporate worship with other believers this weekend.  And, and — it is not too late to get that ticket and get to the Conference. Click HERE for more information.

Fascinating Facts of the Faith

2008 by Barbour Publishing, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-60260-013-3
www.barbourbooks.com

Particularly as you read the first sentence, know the date of its writing was July 1741. Yes, 1741.

Important Sites
Enfield, Connecticut
Epicenter of the Great Awakening

     Along the Eastern Seaboard in the early 1700s, the fledging British colonies were quickly sliding away from their religious roots. Many people lived on small farms or plantations miles away from their neighbors. Church membership dropped as families became more self-sufficient and didn’t want to travel a long distance to attend church. Among the dwindling group of still-staunch Puritans, there was concern that the younger generation was becoming too “frivolous” and that morality was on a downhill slide. Then a wave of religious fervor rolled over the colonies. It became known as the “Great Awakening.” Enfield Connecticut, was at the epicenter of the revival.
     In July of 1741, Calvinist Congregationalist minister Jonathan Edwards traveled to Enfield to preach at a local church. He’d previously preached “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” at his own church in Northhampton, Massachusetts, with little response. But the Enfield church was different.
     When people heard Edwards (who has been described as “monotone” and “boring”) preach on Deuteronomy 32:35, their emotional response to his “fire and brimstone” message was overwhelming. People wept, swooned, went into convulsions, and even barked like dogs. So many people committed their lives to God that Edwards preached the sermon several times. His words were also printed and distributed around the countryside. As a result, a revival took place throughout the churches of New England.
     Today, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is frequently used in high school and college English classes as a classic example of Puritan literature.

FACT: Due to a surveyor’s error, Enfield was originally settled as part of the colony of Massachusetts. Though the error was corrected in 1695, the citizens didn’t pursue legally becoming part of the colony of Connecticut until 1750.

It is mine to avenge: I will repay. In due time their foot will slip;
their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.
Deuteronomy 32:35

Perchance you would like to read ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’, please click HERE.

Thus far I have not read the sermon in its entirety. Truth is I have read only a minute portion, but what I have read is not what I expected — I’m not sure what I did expect. Albeit, the pictures drawn on the walls of my mind, I believe by the HOLY SPIRIT, are scenes of HUGE Amazing love, mercy, and grace. My Savior, my God sends NO ONE to hell — He in His Love and Grace and Mercy keeps us out of hell as long as He can and it is His desire that NO ONE ever go there. And, in truth, no one does other than by their very own choice.

Until then + + +
Kathie

Praying for These

Another installment from Fascinating Facts of the Faith. Not a song this time but rather an important site. Here goes. See if you are familiar with this.

Oberammergau Bavaria

     “In the early 1600s, much of what is modern-day Europe faced a seemingly unbeatable foe: the Black Death. As the bubonic plague swept the countryside, one small town in Bavaria boldly called on the only one they knew who could stop this indiscriminate executioner. They called out to God.
     In 1633, nearly every family in Oberammergau had lost someone to the plague. So its citizens joined together and vowed that if God would spare their town, they would honor Him by performing a “Play of the Suffering Death, and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ” every ten years until the end of time. As the number of deaths radically diminished, plans for the Passion Play began to take shape. In 1634, on a stage erected on the still fresh graves of the town cemetery, Oberammergau performed its first Passion Play. Every decade for the last three centuries (except 1870 and 1940 during times of war) has seen the Passion Play grow in scope and popularity.
     The now world-famous Passion Play is performed in years that end in a zero. The pageant involves over two thousand actors, whose good moral standing is as crucial as their acting talent. Hundreds of musicians and stage technicians also take part in the production. Anyone involved in the musical extravaganza must have lived in Oberammergau for at least twenty years. Performed in an open-air theater before an audience of more than five thousand, the play lasts more than six hours and is repeated five days a week from May through September.

FACT: Every ten years, on Ash Wednesday a year before the Passion Play is to be performed, the “Hair Decree” goes into effect. All the men in Oberammergau involved in the performance begin to let the hair on their heads and faces grow out.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves
and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,
then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14″

If this is new information for you and/or if you are pleased to read these Thursday Fascinating Facts of the Faith, please let me know.

This story and something I heard on Christian talk radio has formed a question for me. It has been said that Esther was called to be Queen of Persia in such a time as to deliver the Jews from destruction. The actions of one woman in obedience to God saved a nation. What acts of obedience am I called to in such a time as this to turn back the tide of destruction that is coming to bare on America? What acts of obedience are you called to in the same regard?

Praying for These

Until then + + +
Kathie