what does the word quarry refer to in the poem the snowstorm

April 07, 2022 Post a Comment

NOTE: THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 9/24/2012.
THIS IS THE REVISED, EXPANDED VERSION PUBLISHED 9/22/2015.
GOD'Due south POIEMA: Dearest, if you are IN CHRIST by grace through organized religion (Eph ii:8,9), practise you know what God says about you in Ephesians 2:10? You are God's "WORKMANSHIP, created IN CHRIST JESUS for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." The Greek word for "WORKMANSHIP" is POIEMA which gives us our English language words POEM and POETRY. Poiema means "something made" and in context is something made past God Himself. As a new creation skillfully and artfully created IN CHRIST JESUS (2 Cor 5:17), accept you e'er thought of your new (supernatural) life equally a work of "divine poesy?" Love, as believers "each of our lives is the papyrus on which the Principal is producing a work of fine art that will fill up the everlasting ages with His praise." (S Gordon)You are God's masterpiece. You are His verse form. Y'all are His piece of work of art. When we expect at ourselves this fashion, nosotros begin to understand our incredible value in Christ. Indeed, every bit C S Lewis said "We are a divine work of art." "If Rembrandt's artistic masterpieces have great, undisputed value, would not God's one-of-a-kind human masterpieces convey fifty-fifty greater value?" (D Robertson)

Timothy Keller asks "Practice you know what it means that yous are God'southward workmanship? What is fine art? Art is beautiful, art is valuable, and art is an expression of the inner beingness of the maker, of the creative person. Imagine what that means. You're beautiful, you're valuable, and you're an expression of the very inner being of the Artist, the divine Artist, God Himself. You encounter, when Jesus gave Himself on the Cross, He didn't say, "I'm going to dice merely so yous know I love you." He said, "I'm going to die, I'm going to drain, for your splendor. I'g going to re-create you into something cute. I volition turn y'all into something splendid, magnificent. I'm the Artist; you're the fine art. I'm the Painter; you're the canvas. I'one thousand the Sculptor; y'all're the marble. You don't look like much there in the quarry, but I can see. Oh, I tin can see!" Jesus is an Artist!" And you beloved are His crowning achievement, His masterpiece!

The idea of poiema is that our new life in Christ is like a poem which expresses "course and blueprint along with beauty. Like the underside of grandmother'southward cross-sew together, the everyday of our lives may wait to be knotted and hopelessly tangled. Just when we turn the material over, nosotros see design and beauty that was in that location all along but that we never foresaw." (Gage) Perhaps yous don't feel much like a work of divine poetry, just regardless of how you feel, the truth near you as God's workmanship, is that you are His "MASTERPIECE" (NLT), His "HANDIWORK" (NAB), His "WORK OF Art" (NJB), in fact, a work of art that is ane of a kind! You are "custom designed", "tailor-made," by the Master'south hand. "Each of our lives is the sheet on which the Master is producing a piece of work of art that will fill the everlasting ages with His praise." (John Phillips)

J C Philpot – Consider what is here declared of those who are saved by grace through faith—that they are God's "workmanship"—the fruit and product of His artistic manus. All, then, that we are and all that nosotros have that is spiritual, and as such adequate to God, we owe to the special operation of His power. At that place is not a thought of our heart, give-and-take of our lips, or piece of work of our easily, which is truly holy and heavenly, simple and sincere, glorifying to God or profitable to human being, of which He is not by His Spirit and grace the divine and immediate Author!

C H Spurgeon says information technology this way – " You have seen a painter with his palette on his finger and he has ugly little daubs of paint on the palette. What can he practice with those spots? Go in and come across the picture. What splendid painting! In an even wiser style does Jesus act toward us. He takes us, poor smudges of paint, and He makes the blessed pictures of His grace out of usa. It is neither the brush nor the paint He uses, merely information technology is the skill of His own hand which does it all." (Praise the Lord!)

Indeed, the redeemed should sing out like David "I will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well." (Ps 139:14)

As Spurgeon says " If nosotros are marvelously wrought upon fifty-fifty before we are built-in, what shall nosotros say of the Lord's dealings with u.s.a. after nosotros quit His secret workshop, and He directs our pathway through the pilgrimage of life? What shall we not say of that new birth which is even more mysterious than the first, and exhibits even more than the love and wisdom of the Lord."

O to be like Thee! O to be similar Thee,
Blessed Redeemer, pure every bit One thousand art!
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
stamp Thine ain image deep on my middle.
-Thomas Chisholm

The just other NT utilize of the Greek word poiemais in Romans one:20-note where Paul writes " For since the creation of the globe His invisible attributes, His eternal ability and divine nature, accept been clearly seen, being understood through WHAT HAS BEEN Made (All one Greek Discussion – POIEMA) so that they are without alibi."

Equally creationist Henry Morris says "God has written two poetic masterpieces, equally information technology were, one in the physical creation, one in the lives of men and women redeemed and saved by His grace (Eph ii:8). Both give eloquent testimony to the eternal power and Godhead of the Creator-Redeemer." Two great "divine poems" – the created world and re-created, redeemedmen and women in that world. Even equally the "heavens are telling of the glory of God and their area is declaring the work of His hands" (Ps 19:ane-note), nosotros too as God's MASTER CREATIONS should never be aback to let others see His WORKMANSHIP in us by our Spirit enabled obedience to Jesus' command to "Let your light smooth earlier men in such a mode that they come across your GOOD WORKS, and glorify (give a proper opinion of) your Begetter Who is in heaven." (Mt 5:16-note) Every bit new creatures in Christ, we need to remember that we were created for God's celebrity, and created for good deeds, because it is by our skillful deeds that our Begetter gets all the glory (cf Ps 115:i-annotation). Indeed, the chief end of each of our lives is "To glorify God and to savor Him forever." (Westminster Shorter Catechism) In summary, Eph two:8-10 teaches that we are saved not BY expert works but FOR expert (supernatural) works and in the mystery of His amazing grace He even rewards u.s.a. for those Spirit enabled works (cf 2Cor 5:ten-annotation, Rev 22:12-note)!

Dr Due west H Houghton, pastored the Calvary Baptist Church in NYC and after served as president of Moody Bible Establish. When Dr. Houghton became pastor of the Baptist Tabernacle in Atlanta, a man in that city hired a private detective to follow Dr. Houghton and study on his bear. After a few weeks, the detective was able to study to the man that Dr. Houghton's life matched his preaching. As a outcome of Houghton's faithful life as God's "POIEMA", that human being became a Christian.

In Ps 143:v David prays "I remember the days of old. I meditate on all Your doings. I muse (meditate) on the WORK (LXX = POIEMA) of Your hands." Accept you meditated on the truth that now IN CHRIST, you are "the Piece of work (poiema) of" His hands? Information technology is adept to meditate on what God has made and rest in the conviction that "He Who began a good work in you lot will consummate information technology in the day of Christ Jesus." (Php 1:6-note).

Regarding the works we equally God's workmanship are to piece of work out,Eastward W Moore writes that "The works are prepare, waiting for u.s.a., all nosotros have to do is to be willing to be led into them. How many disappointments nosotros should accept been spared in life if nosotros had ever acted on this conviction. God knows what we are fitted for far amend than we know ourselves. He who made us knows whereof we are fabricated. He won't put "square pegs into circular holes. If we would be useful in Christ'due south service our wisdom is "to have no program except to enter into His plan for us and imitate Paul who said "Lord, what practice yous desire me to practice? (to which Jesus replied) "Arise and go to Damascus and there you will be told of all that has been appointed for yous to do." (Acts 9:6NKJV, Acts 22:10) Lowell adds that "No man is born into the earth whose work is not built-in with him; there is ever work, and tools to piece of work even so, for those who volition."

Slap-up Master, teach u.s.a. with Your skillful hand;
Allow non the music that is in the states die!
Great Sculptor, hew and smooth us; nor let
Subconscious and lost, Your form inside us lie!
—Horatius Bonar

ILLUSTRATION – Kent Hughes – " In Christ nosotros are of untold worth. This great truth may be hard to really take hold of as we be in delicate human bodies carried along in the rush of modernistic-day busyness. Some of the states take had things happen which make usa dubiousness our worth. But we are His "workmanship" — His work of fine art. Moreover, we are in process (Phil 1:6). Michelangelo was in one case asked what he was doing as he chipped abroad at a shapeless rock. He replied, "I'1000 liberating an angel from this stone." That's what God is doing with usa. We are in the easily of the Swell Maker, the ultimate Sculptor Who created the universe out of nothing, and He has never still thrown away a rock on which He has begun a masterwork. His tools are Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, His Discussion, and the preaching of the Give-and-take." And often God's Spirit uses difficult circumstances or difficult people to sculpt our character into His "masterpieces" conformed to the image of His Son (Ro viii:29)."In Christ" we are of untold worth. This smashing truth may be hard to actually accept hold of as nosotros exist in frail human bodies carried along in the blitz of modern-day busyness. Some of us accept had things happen which make us dubiousness our worth. Just we are his "workmanship" — his piece of work of art. Moreover, nosotros are in process.

Joni Eareckson Tada who became quadriplegic after a tragic accident, describes herself every bit God's "poiema" in her book A Place of Healing writing "(God) has a plan and purpose for my time on earth. He is the Chief Artist or Sculptor, and He is the One Who chooses the tools He will use to perfect His workmanship. What of suffering, then? What of illness? What of inability? Am I to tell Him which tools He tin can use and which tools He can't utilize in the lifelong task of perfecting me and molding me into the beautiful image of Jesus? Practice I really know meliorate than Him, so that I can country without equivocation that it's always His volition to heal me of every physical affliction? If I am His verse form, do I have the correct to say, "No, Lord. You demand to trim line number 2 and burnish upwards lines three and five. They're only a little bit dark." Do I, the poem, the thing being written, know more the poet?"

THE CRAFTSMAN'S TOUCH – Dennis Fisher writes "I recently saw a documentary about the making of a Steinway piano. It traced the meticulous care that goes into crafting this fine musical instrument. From the cutting of copse until the piano appears on a showroom floor, it goes through endless delicate adjustments by skilled craftsmen. When the year-long process is complete, accomplished musicians play the piano and oft comment on how the same rich sounds could never exist produced by a computerized assembly line. The secret to the final product is the craftsman'southward bear upon. When the tabernacle was built, we see that God as well valued the craftsman's touch on. He chose the craftsman Bezalel and said of him: "I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in agreement, in knowledge, and in all style of workmanship, to pattern artistic works, to work in gilded, in silver, in bronze, in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood" (Ex. 31:3-five). Today God's Spirit dwells in the hearts of believers (who are His temple – 1Cor six:19). Yet the call to craftsmanship has non concluded. Now each individual believer is God'southward "workmanship" (Ephesians two:x-note). The Master Craftsman is the Holy Spirit, who chips abroad at flaws in our character to make each of us like Jesus (Ro 8:28, 29). And as nosotros yield to His workmanship, we will find that the secret to the final production is the Craftsman's touch." (The Craftsman's Touch – Our Daily Staff of life)

The Spirit is the Craftsman
Who makes us similar the Son;
He'll mold and shape our being
Until His work is done. —Sper

The Male parent gave the states the Spirit
to brand united states like His Son

Jon Courson reminds u.s.a. that "God is proverb, 'Y'all are My poetry. You're special to Me. I'm not giving up on you.' He is making y'all something not only useful but beautiful, something that is poetic." Indeed, every believer is God's poem in a world of prose, God'south beauty in a world of gloom, God's fine art in a world of moral degradation. And God's well-nigh marvelous creation is making spiritually dead men alive in Christ! Created in God'southward image (Ge 2:7), yet born in sin, we are redeemed and re-created in the image of His Son. Dear saint, don't ever forget that you lot are the subject field of Christ the Creator's (Jn ane:three) two creations, and as the event of His second creation, you are His ultimate workmanship, His most lyrical poem, His crowning accomplishment, His greatest masterpiece and you volition be "on display" to show the universe the full extent of His creative genius throughout eternity!Hallelujah!

PLAY MICHAEL Card'S "POEM OF YOUR LIFE" with lyrics below

Life is a song we must sing with our days
A verse form with significant more than than words can say
A painting with colors no rainbow can tell
A lyric that rhymes either heaven or hell!
We are living letters that doubt desecrates
We're the notes of the song of the chorus of faith
God shapes every second of our piddling lives
And minds every minute as the universe waits by

CHORUS:
The pain and the longing
The joy and the moments of calorie-free
Are the rhythm and rhyme
The free poetry of the verse form of life

So wait in the mirror and pray for the grace
To tear off the mask, see the art of your confront
Open your ear lids to hear the sugariness song
Of each moment that passes and pray to prolong
Your time in the ball of the trip the light fantastic toe of your days
Your canvass of colors of moments ablaze
With all that is holy
With the joy and the strife
With the rhythm and rhyme of the poem of your life
With the rhythm and rhyme of the poem of your life