Culinary catastrophe

As a little light relief from my usual musings which tend to be more profund I have decided to share with you the experience I had with some cod steaks I cooked tonight.

My brother was kind enough to buy me a mini grill endorsed by a former American boxer famous for losing to Mohammed Ali and now being a Baptist pastor. It has been cooking up a storm and I was getting confident but tonight things went awry. I had bought some cod from a a well-known supermarket chain here which said they were desalinated which boded well. I put them on the grill and they were definitely cooked but I have never eaten anything so salty in my life. Moral of the story. Don't buy cod if it's not from a good old fashioned chippy wrapped in newspaper/greaseproof and without a good big portion of greasy chips!

Shalom.

Andy.

Comfort for the beleaguered believer

Hi folks!

It is my pleasure and I also feel my responsibility to introduce you to lesser-known Christian writers from the past for your edification and encouragement.

(If you are feeling down and need spiritual encouragement right now and feel impatient scroll on down to the quote! I tend to ramble in my blogs. It is the beauty of a blog that you have freedom so to do! And I know others, like me are interested to know the history of our Reformed forefathers whose writings are such a tonic to the soul.)

Today I want to give you a taste for Octavius Winslow, contemporary and friend of the great Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

First some biographical information. "Octavius Winslow, 1808-1878, descended from Edward Winslow, a Pilgrim leader who braved the Atlantic to come to the New World on the Mayflower in 1620. Octavius’s father, Thomas, an army captain stationed in London, died when he was seven years old. Shortly after that, Octavius’s God-fearing mother took her family of ten children to New York. All of the children became Christians, and three sons became evangelical ministers. Octavius later wrote a book about his family’s experiences from his mother’s perspective, titled Life in Jesus.

Winslow was ordained as a pastor in 1833 in New York. He later moved to England where he became one of the most valued nonconformist ministers of the nineteenth century, largely due to the earnestness of his preaching and the excellence of his prolific writings. He held pastorates in Leamington Spa, Bath, and Brighton. He was also a popular speaker for special occasions, such as the opening of C. H. Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1861. After a short illness, he died on March 5, 1878, and was buried in Abbey Cemetery, Bath.

Winslow wrote more than forty books, in which he promoted an experimental knowledge of the precious truths of God. Several of his books have been reprinted recently." (They are available through the Banner of Truth Trust.)(Taken from http://www.reformedreader.org/winslow.htm)

Now for anyone of you feeling like your spirituality is at a low ebb I urge you to get a hold of Winslow's books Help Heavenward and Personal Declension and Revival of Religion of the Soul. The latter is available for free download in pdf format from David Legge's (former pastor of the Iron Hall) website (http://www.preachtheword.com/bookstore/declension.pdf)and it is from it that I take the following quote. What comfort to know that no matter how low you feel spiritually, if you are truly saved, He is only one prayer away and will welcome you back and revive those flagging energies.

“...Remember that though your love has waxed cold, the love of your God and Father towards you has undergone no diminishing: not the shadow of a change has it known. Although he has hated your declension, has rebuked your wandering, yet His love he has not withdrawn from you. What an encouragement to return to him again! Not one moment has God turned his back upon you, though you have turned your back upon Him times without number: His face has always been towards you; and it would have shone upon you with all its melting power, but for the clouds which your own waywardness and sinfulness have caused to obscure and hide from you its blessed light. Retrace your steps and return again to God. Though you have been a poor wanderer and have left your first love, - though your affections have strayed from the Lord, and your heart has gone after other lovers, still God is gracious and ready to pardon you; He will welcome you back again for the sake of Jesus, His beloved Son in whom he is well pleased, for this is his own blessed declaration: "If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then I will visit their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.”

(Octavius Winslow. Chapter 2, pp62-63 of Personal Revival and Declension of Religion in the Soul. Banner of Truth Trust Edinburgh 2000)

I trust you will take the time to explore the richness of the writings of our predecessors like Winslow whose theology always is applied in a pastoral tone and whose writings almost always are devotional in nature. They exalt Christ and lift the soul from the many sloughs of despond into which the enemy seeks to cast us.

The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed! Maranatha!