The following poem was written by Charles Spurgeon when he was at the ripe old age of 18.  I am amazed at how loaded this poem is. It is filled with such sweet words of love for the Savior, I found myself drawn to read it multiple times. 

IMMANUEL.

When once I mourned a load of sin;
When conscience felt a wound within,
When all my works were thrown away;
When on my knees I knelt to pray,
Then, blissful hour, remembered well,
I learned Thy love, Immanuel.

When storms of sorrow toss my soul;
When waves of care around me roll;
When comforts sink, when joys shall flee;
When hopeless griefs shall gape for me,
0ne word the tempest’s rage shall quell–
That word, Thy name, Immanuel.

When for the truth I suffer shame
When foes pour scandal on my name;
When cruel taunts and jeers abound;
When “Bulls of Bashan” gird me round,
Secure within Thy tower I’ll dwell–
That tower, thy grace, Immanuel.

When hell enraged lifts up her roar
When Satan stops my path before;
When fiends rejoice and wait my end
When legioned hosts their arrows send,
Fear not my soul, but hurl at hell,
Thy battle cry, Immanuel.

When down the hill of life I go;
When o’er my feet death’s waters flow;
When in the deep’ning flood I sink;
When friends stand weeping on the brink,
I’ll mingle with my last farewell
Thy lovely name, Immanuel.

When tears are banished from mine eye;
When fairer worlds than these are nigh;
when heaven shall fill my ravished sight;
When I shall bathe in sweet delight,
One joy all joys shall far excel,
To see Thy face, Immanuel.

Today we’re going to visit the girltalk blog. In today’s post Janelle Bradshaw shares an excerpt from “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer, and also shares her mom’s famous hot chocolate recipe. We have a special oppurtunity during the holidays to meditate on the birth of our Savior. Pull up a chair, make some hot chocolate and meditate on our mysterious LORD. You can read the excerpt below or check out the whole post here.

“It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. ‘The Word became flesh’ (Jn. 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. And there was no illusion or deception in this: the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation….The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity–hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory–because at the Father’s will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear” (“Knowing God” p. 53, 63)

So many times when we go to read our word we are distracted and unfocused. We can tend to read the bible with such casualness and flippancy. I know that I often do. Just this morning I was pleaing with the Lord for mercy and fresh grace to be able to read His word with more of a dire hunger and fervency. Would I be more attentive to the words if Jesus was speaking them straight to me? So many times we are completely unaware that He is speaking these words directly to us- to you… to me. Do we read the bible with such of an awareness to this truth? We can get so caught up in our lives, even in our serving, that we forget to keep the main thing- the main thing. Our actions will not result in cheerful serving if our heart is not first feeding on God and His word. It is possible to read the word and not to feed on it. Let us make sure we are feeding on it! Mike Bullmore preached a wonderful sermon at New Attitude entitled, “Feeding on the Word”. You can listen to the entire sermon by downloading it from New Attitude’s website. If you do not have time to listen to an entire sermon, you should definitely check out this next link.

At the worship conference a man named Ryan Ferguson recited part of Hebrews. Although he memorized the entire book of Hebrews, he only recited chapters 9 and 10. His passion and ardor for the word of God was contagious. After seeing his passion and the effect it had on the entire body of Christ, I think we all left that service ready to memorize the whole New Testament. By the end of the day we had sucumb to the fact that God had gifted him generously in that particular way, and we would have to lower our commitment to only memorizing the book of Philemon. However, his passion for knowing God’s word still sticks with me today. It wasn’t like hearing someone just recite a poem, His words brought life with them. In order to get an accurate taste of the affects he had on all of us, you will have to see it for yourself!

 To watch the video clip click here and scroll up. It is only eleven minutes and well worth it! Â