Poetry Saturday—O Love That Will Not Let Me Go

March 25, 2017 — Craig T. Owens
O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee,
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.


O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to Thee,
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.




O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee,
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shalt tearless be.




O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee,
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red,
Life that shall endless be. —George Matheson








Bryan Duncan has beautifully set this poem to music—












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Thinking Christianly

March 7, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.” —C.S. Lewis


“To think secularly is to think within a frame of reference bounded by the limits of our life on earth: it is to keep one’s calculations within this-worldly criteria. To think christianly is to accept all things with the mind as related, directly or indirectly, to man’s eternal destiny as the redeemed and chosen child of God…. There is nothing in our experience, however trivial, worldly, or even evil, which cannot be thought about christianly.” —Harry Blamires


“Most of us do not think; we live healthy ordinary lives and don’t bother about thinking at all; but when an upheaval comes from underneath proving that the basis of things is not rational, we find the value of the Bible attitude, which is that the basis of things is tragic and not rational…. We have to live based on our relationship to God in the actual condition of things as they are.” —Oswald Chambers


“God wants a child’s heart, but a grownup’s head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as a good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim.” —C.S. Lewis


“Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.” —Apostle Paul (Colossians 2:8)


“We do not think on the basis of Christianity at all. We are taught to think like pagans for six days a week and to reverse the order for one day, consequently in critical moments we think as pagans and our religion is left in the limbo of the inarticulate.” —Oswald Chambers


[Emphasis in these quotes added by me]


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7 More Quotes From “Jesus Always”

January 25, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




jesus-alwaysIn Jesus Always by Sarah Young, we hear Jesus speak the words of Scripture to us in His first-Person voice.


“I am training you to view your life from a heavenly perspective—through eyes of faith. When things don’t go as you had hoped to, talk with Me. Seek My face and My guidance. I will help you discern whether you need to work to change the situation or simply accept it.”


“The more you keep your gaze on Me—in quiet times and busy times—the better you can reflect My glory to other people. … When you are aware that I am present with you, you’re less likely to do or say something that’s displeasing to Me. When you’re struggling with difficult circumstances or painful feelings, awareness of My presence offers courage and comfort.”


“If you aspire to reach the heights—especially the high places of achievement and recognition—be prepared to shoulder the responsibilities that accompany success. But don’t forget to enjoy the satisfaction of accomplishing good things with Me, through Me, and for Me.”


“Pursuing a close walk with Me is the best way to live in the present. Keep bringing your thoughts back to Me whenever they wander. Return to Me joyfully, beloved. I will take great delight in you and rejoice over you with singing.”


“You tend to waste energy trying to determine whether your resources are adequate for the day. You keep checking your ‘power gauge’ instead of looking to Me for My provision. How much better to simply acknowledge your insufficiency when you awaken! This frees you to rely on My boundless sufficiency.”


“Your becoming a Christian was only the beginning of the work I’m doing in you. You need to be made new in the attitude of your mind and to put on the new self—becoming increasingly godly, righteous, and holy. This is a lifelong endeavor, and it is preparing you for heaven’s glory.”


“See Me smiling on you in radiant approval. My limitless love falls continually upon you, like heavenly snowflakes that melt into your upturned face. No matter how distressing your circumstances, this love is sufficient to sustain you. Someday you will even ascend to Heaven on it. I eagerly anticipate the time when I will take you into glory—to be with Me forever!”


Be sure to check out my review of Jesus Always by clicking here, and you can read the first set of quotes I shared from this book here.


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Thursdays With Oswald—What Makes Life Worth Living?

January 12, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




Oswald ChambersThis is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.


What Makes Life Worth Living? 


     Think of the devastations and havoc throughout the world just now. What is going to make up to the people who are broken? To say that “every cloud has a silver lining” is a kind lie. Unless a man can get into a relationship with the God Whom the Bible reveals, life is not worth living. …  


     Solomon says whether you are wise or foolish, upright or not, a king or tyrannized over by a king, successful or a failure, in society or solitary, stubborn or sagacious, all alike ends the same way. All is passing, and we cannot find our lasting joy in any element we like to touch. It is disastrous for a man to try and find his true joy in any phase of life, or in the fulfillment of ambition, or in physical or intellectual solitariness, or in society; he will find his joy only in a personal relationship to God. …


     When once a man is there, he receives a hundredfold more of all he gave up to get there, and he never demands an infinite satisfaction from those other relationships. The man or woman who does not know God demands an infinite satisfaction from other human beings they cannot give, and in the case of the man, he becomes tyrannical and cruel. It springs from this one thing, the human heart must have satisfaction, but there is only one Being Who can satisfy the last abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.


From Shade Of His Hand


As a Christian, you have an opportunity to show people how much joy there is for a life in Christ. And then Peter tells us to be ready to tell people the Source of your joy (see 1 Peter 3:15-16).


Do you have the spiritual courage and moral backbone to show and tell? Chambers says, “The Christian faith is exhibited by the man who has the spiritual courage to say that that is the God he trusts in, and it takes some moral backbone to do it.”


Let’s do this!






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Thursdays With Oswald—Jesus Makes Joy Possible

January 5, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




Oswald ChambersThis is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.


Jesus Makes Joy Possible


     “These things have I spoken unto you,” said Jesus, “that My joy may be in you.” What joy did Jesus have? He failed apparently in everything He came to do; all His disciples forsook Him, He was crucified, and yet He talked of His joy. The joy of Our Lord lay in doing what the Father sent Him to do. His purpose was not to succeed, but to fulfill the design of His coming—“For I am come down from heaven not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.” … 


     “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked.” But who is God? I have never seen God, or spoken to Him. An omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent Being does not amount to anything to me; He is an abstract finding of man’s intellect. Can God take on hands and feet and man’s way of doing things, and manifest Himself on the plane on which we live? The Bible says that that is what God did do. Jesus Christ lived a human life on this earth…. What Jesus Christ exhibited was not omnipotence and omniscience and omnipresence, but absolute holiness in human flesh, and He said “he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” … 


     The essence of Christianity is not adherence to principles; but a personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ at work in the whole of my life. 


From Shade Of His Hand


Are you basing your “success” on what you are accomplishing? If so, prepare yourself for disappointment.


But if you define “success” as a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, be prepared for an eternity of limitless joy!






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7 Quotes From “The Dawning Of Indestructible Joy”

December 21, 2016 — Craig T. Owens 




the-dawning-of-indestructible-joyThe Dawning Of Indestructible Joy is a wonderful book from John Piper to prepare your heart for celebrating Christ’s First Advent! It’s arranged as a 25-day countdown until Christmas morning. Check out my review of this book here, and then enjoy a few quotes that caught my attention.


“The coming of Jesus was a search-and-save mission. ‘The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost’ [Luke 19:10]. So Advent is a season for thinking about the mission of God to seek and to save lost people from the wrath to come. … ‘As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you’ (John 20:21). It’s the story of how the vertical advent of God in the mission of Jesus bends out and becomes the horizontal advent of Jesus in the mission of the church. In us.”


“If there is a longing in your heart this Advent for something that the world has not been able to satisfy, might not this longing be God’s Christmas gift preparing you to see Christ as consolation and redemption and to receive Him for who He really is?”


“Christmas is about the coming of the Son of Man who ‘came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.’ These words in Mark 10:45, as a brief expression of Christmas, are what I hope God will fix in your mind and heart this Advent. Open your heart to receive the best present imaginable: Jesus giving Himself to die for you and to serve you all the rest of eternity.”


“Take the very personal words of the Apostle Paul and make them your own. ‘The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20). This is how Jesus destroyed the works of the devil and rescued us from our sin. Don’t leave Christmas in the abstract. Your sin. Your conflict with the devil. Your victory. He came for this.”


“The point is that when Jesus comes, He confirms the truth of all God’s promises. He shows that God is trustworthy; He keeps His word. … Christ came to prove that God tells the truth, that God keeps His promises. Christmas means that God can be trusted.” 


“It is God’s message of hope this Advent that what is good need never be lost and what is bad can be changed. The devil works to take the good and bring the bad. And Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil [1 John 3:8].”


“This is what God does again and again. He may be doing it for you this Advent season—graciously and tenderly frustrating you with life that is not centered on Christ and filling you with longings and desires that can’t find their satisfaction in what this world offers, but only in the God-man. What a Christmas gift that might be! Let all your frustrations with this world throw you onto the Word of God. It will become sweet—like walking into paradise.”






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Thursdays With Oswald—Christ’s Incarnation Means Our Freedom

December 8, 2016 — Craig T. Owens 




Oswald ChambersThis is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.


Christ’s Incarnation Means Our Freedom


     Other religions deal with sins; the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ faced in man was this heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored it in our presentation of the Gospel that the message of the Gospel has lost its sting, its blasting power; we have driveled it into insurance tickets for heaven, and made it deal only with the wastrel element of mankind. …  


     The revelation is not that Jesus Christ was punished for our sins, but that He was made to be sin. “Him who knew no sin” was made to be sin, that by His identification with it and removal of it, we might become what He was. … Jesus Christ went straight through identification with sin that every man and woman on earth might be freed from sin by His atonement. He went through the depths of damnation and came out more than conqueror; consequently everyone of us who is willing to be identified with Him is freed from the disposition of sin, freed from the connection with the body of sin, and can come out more than a conqueror too because of what Jesus Christ has done. … 


     The Holy Spirit will take my spirit, soul and body and bring them back into communion with God, and lead me into identification with the death of Jesus Christ, until I know experimentally that my old disposition, my right to myself, is crucified with Him, and my human nature is now free to obey the commands of God. 


From The Shadow Of An Agony


As we approach the time of year we celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus, it’s amazing to think that He didn’t come just to identify with our sin, but to be made sin! Without Jesus Christ’s death on a Cross in our place, there is no hope for us.


As we celebrate the First Advent, it’s a good idea to keep in the front our our minds what Christ’s Incarnation means for us. It means we can be freed from sin—free to obey God, and free to look forward to Christ’s Second Advent, where He will take away His saints to be with Him forever!






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