Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. - Romans 5

Sunday, November 12, 2017

"..A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further turned away from God would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world---- and might even be more difficult to save. For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now.."
- C.S. Lewis

The zing, the relevance

”If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desire not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, we are like ignorant children who want to continue making mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a vacation at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
 - C.S. Lewis

My generation has traded infinite joy for drink and sex and ambition. I struggle with this a lot too, with being jealous of my peers. What does "drink" and "sex" and "ambition" look like colloquially? What are the pleasures of my generation, the generation of millennials and yuppies, and the generations to come (iGen/Gen Z)? How do we live for eternity Lord? 

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/why-are-so-many-so-silent
http://adam4d.com/normal-christianity/

Sigh...these are so me. So so me right now...

https://vimeo.com/112919409 

“God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any, or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.” 
 - Jonathan Edwards

“That very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors.”
- C.H. Spurgeon 

Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. Many have so light an apprehension of God’s holiness and of the extent and guilt for their sin that consciously they see little need for justification, although below the surface of their lives they are deeply guilt-ridden and insecure. Many others have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day to day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance or the relative infrequency of thier conscious, willful disobedience. Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand on Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in the quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctificaiton as faith is active in love and gratitude.
— Richard Lovelace 

The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly 
  - Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Soren Kierkegaard 

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose 
  – Jim Elliot

http://diendiendien.blogspot.com/2015/06/musings-at-4am-at-night.html

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