Showing posts with label Hank B.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hank B.. Show all posts

Monday, January 3, 2011

A Family Never Ends

I John 5:11 And this is the testimony, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

The older I get, the more grateful I am for eternal life. The past few years have been difficult ones for my family. My Sister and my Dad died within two years of each other, I , lost my job after nearly 12 years, and my Mother-in-law was diagnosed with dementia and now lives with us. But through it all, we have become closer as a family, and we have learned so much about the depth of love God gives us through each other.

This year, for Christmas, I wanted to give something to my Mom that would comfort her with the truth that, even though my Sister and Dad are no longer with us here on earth, the family we have is an eternal one, and nothing, not even death, can take that away from us. So I began by collecting photographs containing my Sister and Dad for a collage. Then my amazing wife came up with a brilliant idea. She said, "Why don't you write a poem about family and put it in the middle of the collage?" And so I did just that. This Christmas, I hope you will be as blessed as I am by the experience of God's love shared with your family, and by the knowledge that the family of God never ends. Here is the poem. Merry Christmas, Everyone, and Happy Birthday, Jesus!

A Family Never Ends

A family begins, but a family never ends.
Across time and eternity, its loving reach extends.
It shapes who we are, and who we will become,
And reminds us with pride where we all came from.
It stays in our hearts no matter where we roam,
And provides us a place we can always call home.
God provides the love on which a family depends,
And since a family is love, a family never ends.

Love in Jesus,

Hank

Friday, June 11, 2010

He First Loved Us

Today's passage comes from the daily devotional series from one of my favorites, Charles Spurgeon. I hope it blesses you as much as it blessed me. Have a wonderful weekend!

Hank

"We love Him because He first loved us." — 1 John 4:19

There is no light in the planet but that which proceedeth from the sun; and there is no true love to Jesus in the heart but that which cometh from the Lord Jesus himself. From this overflowing fountain of the infinite love of God, all our love to God must spring. This must ever be a great and certain truth, that we love Him for no other reason than because He first loved us. Our love to Him is the fair offspring of His love to us. Cold admiration, when studying the works of God, anyone may have, but the warmth of love can only be kindled in the heart by God's Spirit. How great the wonder that such as we should ever have been brought to love Jesus at all! How marvellous that when we had rebelled against Him, He should, by a display of such amazing love, seek to draw us back. No! never should we have had a grain of love towards God unless it had been sown in us by the sweet seed of His love to us. Love, then, has for its parent the love of God shed abroad in the heart: but after it is thus divinely born, it must be divinely nourished. Love is an exotic; it is not a plant which will flourish naturally in human soil, it must be watered from above. Love to Jesus is a flower of a delicate nature, and if it received no nourishment but that which could be drawn from the rock of our hearts it would soon wither. As love comes from heaven, so it must feed on heavenly bread. It cannot exist in the wilderness unless it be fed by manna from on high. Love must feed on love. The very soul and life of our love to God is His love to us.

"I love thee, Lord, but with no love of mine,
For I have none to give;
I love thee, Lord; but all the love is thine,
For by thy love I live.
I am as nothing, and rejoice to be
Emptied, and lost, and swallowed up in thee."