IF

The following is a famous poem that Jay shared on his blog, by Rudyard Kipling. For an enhanced experience, click on the video link below, and you will hear the poem read aloud by Sir Michael Caine as you read along!


If you can keep your head when all about you,
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too.

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise.

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master,
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,
And treat those two impostors just the same.

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken,
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings,
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss.

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew,
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you,
Except the will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute,
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!


Posted in J.Ferris: Reposts with Notes | 1 Comment

Two Different Economies

This past Saturday and Sunday, among other things, we spent the time reading through the book of Revelation. In reading over Chapters 17-19 once again, I was struck by the difference in the two economies. The Economy of Babylon, the prostitute, and the economy of the Kingdom of God, the Bride. One is an economy of getting, and the other is an economy of giving. The medium of exchange of the former is a lie, and the medium of exchange of the latter is the Love of God – the Agape that was redefined at the cross.

Love!

  • By Jay Ferris, originally posted March 2012
Posted in J.Ferris: Current Events | Leave a comment

For Us, It’s Not About The Numbers

It may be about the numbers with God – so we need to let Him be the one who is looking for a number: Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their  brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.” Revelation 6:11

For us, however, it’s about intimacy in Christ.

When I first began to study the Scriptures, the ‘begats’ were a big problem for me like they seem to be for most, especially most Christians. But, then one day I discovered that the life is in the begats, and life is what Jesus came to bring us, ‘more abundant life.’

What I would like to comment on, however, has to do with origin and destiny. For me these are fairly practical concerns.

We were made male and female in God’s image. For me the irreducible meaning of this is that male and female is all about relationship. There was relationship in the Godhead before the world began, and we were made male and female in the image of that relationship. It is written that we were created for fellowship with Him. Ultimately, male and female speaks of that fellowship. That fellowship is the point of everything. Not to get the point is to be dead-ended in our sexuality, hung up on chemicals and plumbing. The problem is so bad that to say ‘sexual hang up’ is to be redundant. To be sexual without getting the point is to be hung up.

Ultimately, sex is about relationship, and intimacy, not about reproduction. For the present, reproduction is a fringe benefit of intimacy, an intimacy which is so compelling we would have been extinct by now without it.

Where continence is concerned, getting the point is the most important thing. And so, from the perspective of the New Testament, we look back on Genesis, and see that becoming ‘one flesh’ is all about Christ and the Church.

Is she reproductive? Probably not as much as He died to make her, but however long it takes, in the end, she is the completion – or as you prefer -the perfection of Him. He is The Great Lover of our souls, and even when we are not faithful, like Hosea, He is faithful.

Relationship with Him is what it’s all about. If it’s working right, that will make me reproductive, but first, and last, it is relationship He is after, and intimacy, which is the cry of the human heart.

  • By Jay Ferris.

Originally posted on March, 2012

Posted in J.Ferris: Reposts with Notes | Tagged , | Leave a comment