House Project : Christmas Edition

Are we spending time with family this break? Oh, yes, lots of time. Every day, in fact. What do we spend our time together doing? Construction, of course! Yes, that house project started way back there at the beginning of summer is still a very happening project, although it has come a long way over the months that we have been in Texas. We left with the roof just barely on and came back to painted walls and installed cabinets. But there is still much more to be done and that's what we've been busy at this past week.

Oreo Cheesecake

Cheesecake is a family favourite at just about any occasion...especially Christmas. So...in honour of Christmas and our Sunday School Christmas party I made...Cheesecake! And in spite of what most people think, it is extremely simple to make!

OREO CHEESECAKE

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CRUST:
1/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs
  1TBSP granulated sugar

FILLING:
3 - 8oz pkg cream cheese, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
3 TBSP flour
5 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup sour cream
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CRUST: Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in crumbs and sugar. Press into bottom of ungreased 9 inch spring-form pan. Bake at 350 degree for 10 minutes.

FILLING: Beat cream cheese, sugar and flour in mixing bowl until blended.
Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, until mixed. Add vanilla and sour cream. Mix. Pour mixture over crumbs.
  Bake in 350 degree oven for about 1 hour or until set. 

Decorate with Oreos.

(Serves 12)

 

*Thank you Mom for the recipe! :)

What is Enlightenment?

           This is an excerpt from the final section of one of Mike's final papers analyzing the Enlightenment period, and specifically Immanuel Kant's ideas in his paper "What is Enlightenment?" As I was editing the paper (one of my many helper-completer tasks :) I found it very...well...enlightening and so I thought I would share it.

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Enlightenment is, “man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in one’s own mind without another’s guidance.”                                                                            --- Immanuel Kant ----

....Cornelius Van Til, in reference to Kant’s supposed autonomy, says that "The very idea of Kant’s Copernican revolution was that the autonomous mind itself must assume the responsibility for making all factual differentiation and logical validation. To such a mind the God of Christianity cannot speak. Such a mind will hear no voice but its own. It is itself the light that lighteth every man that comes into the world. It is itself the sun; how can it receive light from without?"

             God never intended for man to be autonomous. Even from the beginning man was always to be dependent upon God’s revelation, both general as well as special. The Christian belief that God created the universe and all things suggests that there is a distinction between man and God and the realm of knowledge. God’s knowing is authoritative as well as exhaustive. It then follows that if man is to know anything it is that he is “thinking God’s thoughts after Him” (Prov 22:17-21). Christian philosophers do well to compare their theology to their philosophy in order to see that there would be no contradiction in its basic presuppositions.
            Often philosophers assume neutrality in teaching that human reason is an objective standard, free of prejudice. Christians are often told to lay aside their religious commitments in order to think objectively so that they might find truth. This also goes contrary to Christian philosophy; for if Christianity wishes to hold that God is indeed the Creator as well as the Sustainer of all things, it then follows that neutrality is impossible and that everything in creation, including all facts, must be related to Him in some way and express the meaning which He has infused in all of creation.  It is as Abraham Kuyper once said, “There is not an inch in the entire domain of...human life of which Christ, who is sovereign of all, does not proclaim ‘Mine.’”....

  
                            What then is true enlightenment? 
True enlightenment is not man coming to the understanding of the nature of reality through his own autonomous reasoning; instead, the Scriptures speak of light as a person. Jesus says, “I am the Light of the world” (John 8:12). Being enlightened is more the matter of one’s disposition toward Christ (Matt 6:22-23); one must receive the Light in order to be enlightened. The Scriptures refer to Christ as “the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (John 1:9). They also speak of “all the treasure of wisdom and knowledge” as residing in Christ (Col 2:3). It is clear then that if one is to know the true nature of reality he must first submit himself to God, who knows all things. This is true enlightenment; anything else is darkness.

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"The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God in the Dock."                                                      --- C. S. Lewis ---

Daniel & the Valley of Vision

Today's Word of Life QT in Daniel 4 reminded me again of the great paradoxes we find in the scripture as well as the blaring differences we find between the thinking of the world and the way God desires us to think. I went back to this prayer i found and was reminded of those things.

Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee
in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold
thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley."

~ The Valley of Vision

And the Countdown to Christmas Begins!

 

 

----- Fort Worth, TX - Parade of Lights - Friday, November 25, 2011 -----

So Blessed, So Thankful

For the relationship we share with Christ, though Christ; for the relationship we share with each other; for our families; for health; for God's continual provision for Mike to attend school here at Southwestern; for our friends far away from us; for the friendships he's brought into our lives since we've moved to Texas - for all of these (and more) WE ARE THANKFUL!

Today, on this American Thanksgiving day, we were blessed and renewed in our thankfulness for the friendships that the Lord has brought into our lives. Jackson and Heather were one of the first couples we got to know after moving to Texas over a year ago; and, as we have spent time with them, we have come to appreciate their love for the Lord, their love for their family, and their love for people. Their hospitality has been extended to us on more than one occasion (which means so much when being so far from family and friends we've spent most of our lives with) and today they gave us a taste (literally :)) of their family's thanksgiving traditions. It was a blessing to spend the day with them and their sweet boys! And now we've officially experienced our first American Thanksgiving...duck, football, hockey, apple pie, and all! :)

The Silence of Heaven

     "I think there is nothing so startling in all the graces of God as His quietness. When men have raged untruths in His name, when they have used the assumed authority of the Son of God to put to death His real children, when they have with calloused heart twisted the Scriptures into fables and lies, when they have explained the order of His creation in unfounded theories while boasting the support of rational science, when they, using powers He grants them, claim universal autonomy and independence, He, this great silent God, says nothing! His tolerance and love for His creatures is such that, having spoken in Christ, in conscience, in code of law, He waits for men to leave off their bawling and turn for a moment to listen to His still, small voice of the Spirit. Now, after so long a time of restrained voice, bearing in Almighty meekness the blasphemies of His self destroying creatures, now, how shall it break upon the ears, the consciousness, hearts, and minds of reprobate men, the voice of One so long silent?
      "It shall thunder with the force of offended righteousness; rage with lightning bolts upon the seared consciences; roar as the long-crouched lion upon dallying prey; leap upon, better, destroy, and utterly consume the vain reasonings of proud humankind; ring as the battle shout of a strong, triumphant, victory-tasting warrior; strike terror and gravity to souls, more forcefully than tortured screams in the dead of night!
      "O God, what shall be the first tones of Your voice again on earth? And what their effect? Wonder and fear, denizens of dust, for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with battle-cry, with the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet blast of God Himself made more terrible, if that could be, by the long suffering of His silence."

---- Jim Elliot, November 29, 1949, in The Journals of Jim Elliot ----

In the meantime, Heaven is silent.

      "Yes, but it is not the silence of callous indifference or helpless weakness; it is the silence of a great sabbatic rest, the silence of a peace which is absolute and profound - a silence which is the public pledge and proof that the way is open for the guiltiest of mankind to draw near to God."

---- Sir Robert Anderson ----

"For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him"

---- 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 ----

(As quoted by Elizabeth Elliot, in Secure in the Everlasting Arms, Pgs.28-30)