Thursday, July 21, 2016

"My Heart, Christ's Home"...from an earlier posting...

When I was growing up, a good friend of ours, Bob Munger, wrote a little booklet you may have read, called "MY HEART-CHRIST'S HOME".

He says that as a young christian, when Christ entered his heart, in the joy of this new relationship, he told him "Lord, I want this heart of mine to be yours. I want you to settle down here and be fully at home. Let me show you around so you can be comfortable"...

Then he walks with Jesus into each room of his heart, now Christ's home...


The Study...


Or the library, the study of the mind. It's a small room with thick walls, but it's important as it is the control room of the house.As Jesus looked around at the books and magazines on the shelf, and at the pictures on the walls....Dr.Munger says...
"As I followed his gaze, I became uncomfortable. Strangely enough, I had not felt bad about this room before, but now that he was there with me looking at these things, I was embarrassed. There were some books on the shelves his eyes were too pure to look at. On the table were a few magazines a christian has no business reading. As for the pictures on the walls - the imaginations and thoughts of my mind - some of these were shameful".

"Red faced, I turned to Him and said 'Master, I know this room really needs to be cleaned up and made over. Will you help me change it to the way it ought to be?"


And of course, Jesus agreed, and He began to replace the old with the new, His life changing new.

Jesus told him... "First of all, take all the materials you are reading and viewing which are not true, good, pure and helpful, and throw them out! Now put on the empty shelves the books of the Bible. Fill your library with Scripture and meditate on them day and night. As for the pictures on the walls, you wil have difficulty controlling these images, but I have something that will help", and He gave me a full sized portrait of Himself. "Hang this centrally, on the wall of your mind."... I did, and I have discovered through the years that when my thoughts are centered on Christ, the awareness of His presence causes wrong and impure thoughts to back away."...

You get the idea... he took Jesus from room to room, and this little 28 page booklet is a picture of our hearts, as rooms in a home. And seeing each 'room' through Jesus' eyes, made a vivid impression on me as a teenager when I read this.

Just like a home, our hearts and minds have different parts... emotions, fears, thoughts, gifts, hopes, joys, .... and He wants to be the Lord over all of them!

Better yet, He has promised to enter into each of those places, and change and rearrange them, so that our Heart truly will be His home!...

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

'Great American'... reposting some old ones this summer...

Some years ago when we lived in Austin, Texas, my husband had left the corporate business world and we headed into our own publishing business. At the same time, his ongoing love for antiques, particularly the kind that men collect, the early west expansion, gold mining, etc. , made it a natural to have a small antique shop, as we published a book on the subject.
We found the perfect location!


On the highway south of Austin, a red and white 2 story building with the flag flying out front. We named the whole thing Great American, and the real breakdown of that was...

The lower floor was Great American Antiques...

The upstairs was Great American Publishing...
When the phone rang and they asked for the marketing department for our recently first published book... I put them on hold and ran upstairs to tell my hubby there was a call for the 'publishing business'. :)

I designed this little business card, which perfectly pictured our building and have saved it all these years.
We had some good days in that little building. The school bus even dropped our kids off there on their way home from school. When we published the first book, we casually saw (anxiously waited for) the mail truck outside the window and walked (ran!) to see how many orders were in the box. This was also the little office where we published Charlie Schreiner's book on the 100 year anniversary of his YO Ranch in Kerrville. We have a copy of the book he gave us, bound in longhorn hide which sits in my hubby's office.
It was in Austin where we met
Charles Harrelson, and he and Joe walked across the highway and sat with their coffee in Dairy Queen as they talked about life, and he shared PART of who he was. The rest we found out later...

More chapters from the journey. All 3 of our kids were baptized in Austin. My dad flew in from California and joined our pastor in the baptism. These were 3 kids whose salvation and baptism we wanted 'signed, sealed and delivered!'...

Austin, Texas was a good chapter.