Idoltry - so easy

Please forgive the earlier Post, I hit the wrong button and don't quite know how to recover.  I'll send the whole and finished post a little later - after I recover from my digital, spelling and other woes!

 Recently a republished book by A.W. Tozier, The Pursuit of God -was given to each of us in our Tuesday morning group. First published in 1948 this book has become a classic i.e. challenging, deeply penetrating, gift for me and I hope for the others in our group.

In 1949 I first heard about Jesus, really heard, that is, and have believed in Jesus sense that evening in  LaJolla, California..  By now dozens of books, including the Bible, have shaped and reworked my thinking and my life. Tozer's many books have sat on my bookshelf for many years, The Pursuit of God  from at least 1980. My latest reading has again provided application challenges!

Chapter two titled, "The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing" provided the title for this blog. While leading discussions on the book of Genesis and re-encountering Abraham and Issac Tozer's insights into the impact of things and even people in our life is what has struck me.
"Our Lord referred to the tyranny of things when He said to His disciples", "If and man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall his lose his life: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find his life." (Matthew 16:2-25)

Copyright laws prevent me from copying the next 2 or 3 pages of the book but I can copy the verses in Genesis 22: 1-2. "Some time later God tested Abraham. God said to him, Abraham!  Here I am, Abraham replied.  Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Issac, whom you love , (my emphasis) and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice Isaac  there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."  Sacrifice "whom you love" !t of his little sister a few weeks ago and remembered what a 6 year old felt like at her funeral.   

  

Prayer Breakfast - Livonia,Mi Thursday A.M.

Thursday morning was the 40th annual Livonia PB. After all these year I have become a little jaded with another community breakfast.  We have had some truly great speakers and some who were "marginal' and one or two who could have stayed at home and let us eat our quiche in peace.  This was not one of those breakfast!  Yesterday General Charlie Duke was the speaker. Humble, articulate, candid and really well received!  "Charlie", as he prefers to be called, was the10th man to walk on the moon. He spent 72 + hours on the moon in 1972.

 He and his wife Doris have written a book titled Moon Walker.  A delightful conversational style of writing with candid details about what it take to become an astronaut and also how a marriage ultimate survived that quest.  Are all we American males the same - really? I'm beginning to think that we are! The book is a great read and Doris' story within the total story can give hope to any one of us.

I share this blog because I've been around the Prayer Breakfast world for quite a long time 1959 - 2014 - another one comes up next Tuesday and then another on May 21st here in Michigan and who knows how many more will there be around the country. I'm forced to believe that each of them will be great - but I know better.  Sometimes a "life of their own" just isn't that good and how many GREAT speakers are there ?.  It also seems that the truly great speakers now charge and arm and a leg to make an appearance. So I carry on dreaming and hoping that Jesus will be, in some way or another, the focus of each PB as Jesus was the gentle focus of the Livonia PB.  I was warmed and deep;y blessed by Charlie Duke and his book

A day and a time really worth while!