It is the Gospel that gives freedom. The Gospel is rooted in true facts about what God has accomplished in history for us. Love and acts of love should permeate every facet of our lives, but if we simply do good without giving testimony of the only One who really is good, we simply load people down with moralism looking to us as an example. It is hard to speak truth with humility, but indeed it is a road we must walk if we are to be anything other than vague, nice people.
Love for others that only remains an emotion, that does not make it to concrete action, is a constipated and useless love, theoretical and dead. Similarly, love that is only action but no affection is merely mechanical, robotic, and dishonoring to the one for whom the action is being made. Both! We need both.
Imagine standing on the golden shores of eternity, the water from a distant sea splashing on your resurrected toes, the sky painted a thousand brilliant colors you have not yet seen, like our sunsets here except new, and feeling a song - old and yet new and beautiful - rising and enveloping you, like the very heartbeat of the place, a song of freedom about a Lamb. And you know - this place is not about me, but banish the thought that I'd ever want to be anywhere else. All the pain from before is real, not forgotten, but so tiny in the immensity of this moment, as you are embraced by the hands of love that bear the unmistakable scars. You are wrapped in an embrace planned from eternity past, before time and space and stars and people. Loved before time. Glory. Rest. Home in Jesus.
Rules may modify behavior and minimize certain kinds of destruction. But they do not have the power to change the heart. Rules may be helpful en route to a heart change, but they are but a means to an end, the structure merely surrounding what is really supposed to be going on.
Who are you trying harder to find? Yourself or God? Your true self lies on the other side of an encounter with the God who made you, knows all your sins, and will fully forgive you at the cost of his Son's life.
You give glory to the things you lean on most.
God is not in love with some future version of you. He's not sitting around waiting on you to get your act together. The cross is the loudest declaration possible that God already knows we're screw-ups. He knows! And he still loves us!
When our obedience to God is not joyful, it is because we think we would be happier pursuing some other course. We think we know ourselves better than God, and we think we could plot out a better plan. That is pride. May we repent and seek a simple obedience, letting our each breath be one of Thanksgiving to our God.
We ought to give total control of our lives over to God, but how can we give him that when we refuse to aggressively fight the other things that control us?
Each culture has developed deeply entrenched sinful blindspots, and when we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, we will awaken to a countercultural impulse at exactly those points within our culture. And for the glory of Christ, we become holy rebels.
Is there much of a difference between disbelieving something and believing it but acting as if it wasn't true?
What would the world look like if we pursued loving others with the same passion and time and energy that we pursue entertainment?
Other religions attempt an ascent to God by contemplation or action or enlightenment; Christianity instead stresses the need for a mediator. If we ever happened upon God through some means of ascent and found him as he is in his very essence, we would be destroyed by his glory, unable to stand the consuming fire that is his presence. Christianity accepts Christ by faith as our necessary mediator, whose shed blood shields us from God's righteous wrath, as we come to know him as he means to be known.
Christ was sacrificial, kind, patient, selfless, forgiving, and joyful in his loving death for us. And knowing that love changes us into something new, serves as example, and motivates our love for others. Is Christ's love at the bottom of your other loves? Does your love look anything like his?
Suffering exists so that in grace Jesus could be glorified through suffering for us.
In Christ we see the perfect marriage of mind and heart. Ultimately thinking exists for the sake of feeling. We use our minds to drink deeply from truths in order to fire our hearts' love and affection for Christ.
Joyless submission to Christ is impossible when at the heart of his commands is a call to find joy in him.
For the sake of Jesus and his Gospel, may we be an exceedingly merry band of half blind amputees with beautiful feet giving away Good News and cups of cold water. (Matthew 5:29-30, Romans 10:15, Philippians 1:27)
The record of your life - not your good intentions - is the measure of your real priorities.
This life is an exercise in giving back to God things that he was just letting me borrow in the first place: my time, my money, my talents, my energy, my relationships, my past, my present, my future, my life.
Jesus was homeless. He was born in a barn. He had no place to lay his head. No mansion. No wife or family. No money in the bank. He was tempted but resisted. He had friends, but among them he was betrayed, denied, and disbelieved. He was mocked, spit on, beaten, bloodied, and brutally crucified. He bore the wrath of God against mankind's sin. Yet, the joy of Jesus exceeds all men at all times put together.
Oh, to live life with a patient urgency and a broken-hearted boldness and an enemy-love!
The truth sets us free. The Bible is the clearest, fullest, deepest source of truth - the standard by which all other truth is judged. Therefore, to the degree we ignore Scripture, we make ourselves slaves to the lies and half-truths (which are really lies) that society, our families, and our own dark hearts tell us. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
It is mighty presumptuous to rule God out of hand a priori, and if its possible he exists, what could be more important than finding out who he is, what he is like, and what he requires of us? And what thing in your heart keeps you from this search and submission? For the sake of your soul, would you kill that thing to find God?
God is bigger than the elephant in the room. Actually, he made the room... and the elephant.
A relationship with Jesus and good theology go together. You are inevitably a theologian... the question is whether you are a good one. You have thoughts about God... the question is whether you have true thoughts. God is not honored by our indifference toward the truth he has revealed about himself, and insofar as I build my life on lies and comfortable half-"truths", I have wasted it.
I notice you didn't include all the six word statuses. Too much for one post? :) I don't think I tell you this enough, but I appreciate all the things I've learned from you over the years. It's really made an impact on my relationship with God. So thanks. Just an FYI, I think my favorite one of these is the second to last one.
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