The aesthetic experience of God, the encounter of the human soul with divine beauty, is more than merely enjoyable, it is profoundly transforming. There is within it the power to persuade and to convince the inquiring mind of truth. This may well be the Spirit’s greatest catalyst for change. Paul alluded to this in 2 Corinthians 3:18 when he said, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another.” The point is that what we see is what we be! We do not simply behold beauty: beauty takes hold of us and challenges the allegiance of our hearts. Beauty calls us to reshape our lives and exposes the shabbiness of our conduct. It awakens us to the reality of a transcendent Being to whose likeness of beauty we are being called and conformed by His gracious initiative. Beauty has the power to dislodge from our hearts the grip of moral and spiritual ugliness. The soul’s engagement with beauty elicits love and forges in us a new affection that no earthly power can overcome.

Sam Storms

CATEGORY	CUISINE	TAG	YIELD
			1	Servings

INGREDIENTS

		Ice cubes with raisins frozen in them to look like "insects"
4		Bottles (1-pint) cranberry juice
2 1/2	c	Juice from 2 (1-pound, 14-ounce) cans of spiced peaches
1	c	Fresh lime juice (about 8 limes)
2	c	Orange juice
		Sugar to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Keep the juices refrigerated until you are ready to use them. In a punch
bowl, combine all the juices. Add the ice cubes and serve.
MAKES 20 CUPS
Posted to EAT-L Digest 10 Oct 96
From:    Janeen Meister <jasmine@MILLCOMM.COM>
Date:    Thu, 10 Oct 1996 23:26:56 -0700

A Message from our Provider:

“Buy into the firm foundation – Jesus!”

I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the law. The law is the needle, and you cannot draw the silken thread of the gospel through a man's heart unless you first send the needle of the law to make way for it. If men do not understand the law, they will not feel that they are sinners. And if they are not consciously sinners, they will never value the sin offering. There is no healing a man till the law has wounded him, no making him alive till the law has slain him.

C.H. Spurgeon

I can remember when I was an undergraduate student, how enlightening it was to learn from William Temple that what the Bible means by sin is "self-centeredness." Let me tell you how Temple puts it in his great little book, Christianity in the Social Order. He says, "I am the center of the world I see. And where the horizon is depends on where I stand. Education may make my self-centeredness less disastrous by broadening my horizon of vision. It's like a man climbing a tower who sees further in terms of physical vision while remaining himself the center and the standard of reference. I am the center of the world I see." That's what the Bible means by sin. Luther talks about man curved in on himself. Malcolm Muggeridge talks about the dark little dungeon of my own ego. That is sin, a twist of self-centeredness that has us imprisoned. But God's order is that we love him with all our being, and then that we love our neighbor and put ourselves last. Sin is the reversal of the order.

John Stott