Quotes and musings 7.14.15

Some good quotes from "How People Change" by Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp.

Christian joy is not about avoiding life while dreaming about heaven. It is about taking an utterly honest look at all earthly life through heaven’s lens. There we find hope.

Christian friendships do not simply help us bask in the sunshine of God’s grace; they also help us to roll up our sleeves and strive after holiness.

Christianity’s change process does not revolve around a system of redemption but around a person who redeems.

Living in community pushes us to die to ourselves.

Trial can come in the difficulty of blessing. Riches can be as much a trial as poverty!

Trials do not cause us to be what we have not been; rather, they reveal what we have been all along. The harvest the trial produces is the result of the roots already in our hearts.

The Christian life is a state of thankful discontent or joyful dissatisfaction. That is, I live every day thankful for the grace that has changed my life, but I am not satisfied… It is a fight for me to want nothing less than all that is mine in Christ.










To define grace as acceptance without acknowledging irresistible change is to deny the dna of grace. ‪#‎lovewinssouls‬ - Buck Burch

Links - week of July 11

Can I be a Christian and NOT go to church?

Space the Final Frontier 

One Perfect Pastor

Suffering from Self-Righteousness? 

The sermon that helped push colonies toward independence 

Quotes and Musings 7.7.16

"The final problem is not to prove men wrong but to win them back to Christ. Therefore, the only ultimately successful apologetic is, first, a clear, intellectual statement of what is wrong with the false doctrine, plus a clear, intellectual return to the proper Scriptural emphasis, in all its vitality and in its relation to the total Christian Faith, plus a demonstration in the life that this correct and vital Scriptural emphasis meets the genuine needs and aspirations of men in a way that Satan’s counterfeit does not." ~ Francis Schaeffer


Here's Baptist theologian E. Y. Mullins - 92 years ago, in 1924, on the crossroads Christians were facing. We're still there!

"On the one hand, man is held to be in bondage to sin and in need of a divine redemptive power working within to emancipate him. On the other, it is held that no such bondage exists. All man needs is education.

With one group, something new is needed by sinful men; with the other, merely a recognition of one’s likeness to God is sufficient.

With one group a power from without, with the other an unfolding from within is required.

With one group, man accepts a saving grace to which by reason of sin he can make no just claim. With the other, he merely claims what is already his own.

With one group, Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, and our Lord and Savior. With the other, he is the son of Joseph and Mary and an inspiring example of filial devotion to God.

With one group, conversion as the result of evangelistic preaching is one of the permanent aims of Christianity. With the other, education and training, or ethical culture, are the only needs.

With one group is a great missionary passion based on the conviction that the world needs a saving Christ. With the other, altruism in the form of schools, hospitals and social reorganization is the chief need.

With the evangelical group, there is no denial of the ethical and social needs and results. Indeed they are held to be implicit in the whole Christian movement. The causes carry the effects in themselves at every stage. But the effects are impossible without the causes. The radical group insist much upon the ethical and social effects, but sever them from the causes, as those are conceived by the evangelical group."

God Answers Prayers

^{1st Thessalonians 5: 16} Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray without ceasing, ¹⁸ in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

 The New King James Version. (1982). (1 Th 5:16–18). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

I had 3 prayers answered in the last week. One was a month long issue related to finances.  Another was 6 month issue related to relationships. Finally, there was one that was almost 2 years related to strategic planning.

Now I'm certain I had many more answered, but the timing of the three caused me to ponder the power of answered prayer. God's timing is not ours. To be honest, too often you and I are really impatient. I read of Abraham's prayer and faith and recognize that God took 25 years to answer one and I am prone to give up way too soon. But God is gracious and He does answer prayers.  I needed t be reminded of this. God answered in a single day 3 different prayers of three different time spans. I was blown away and blessed amazingly and reminded once again to keep depending on God, keep leaning into him and to praying until He answers.

So be encouraged, the same God who answered my prayers, will answer yours. Rejoice, pray, endure, give thanks.

Links

Shaping your heart

Single most important habit

How to tell is someone is truly sorry

The horror of sex-trafficking 

15 words and 15 seconds - Marriage builders

Links

LGBT Wants your KIDS

Political Issues

LGBT and Religious rights - California LAW

Offended?

9 Sins of the Church

Quotes and Musings

Everyone wants forgiveness or peace with God without cost or commitment. That want peace as a commodity(earned) or property (controlled) but not as a gift that one must respond to and have relational responsibility toward.- Chris Gilliam


Counteracting Moralistic Therapeutic Deism:

"Imagine for a moment an area of a city that is of historical interest. There are two very different ways of getting to know that area. The first is the sort of knowledge that a new tour guide possesses, which he passes on to other outsiders. He gathers this information from maps, books, and other external sources, which gave him important functional information that enables him to navigate the area. He may also pick up another level of detail that goes beyond purely functional information, such as interesting history, famous residents, and notorious events. Yet as vast as the guide’s knowledge may become, there is still a yawning gap in the amount of information as well as the depth of knowledge he acquires compared with someone who grew up in that area. Rather than the flat, functional knowledge of the tour guide, the ‘local’ possesses a deep and complex intuitive understanding …

"Some Christian leaders and pastors are tempted to become spiritual ‘tour guides.’ At one level, this is a satisfying role. Our knowledge is clean, clear-cut, and well presented. Our responsibilities are clearly defined and fit within scheduled time frames - our Sunday tours! Yet, at the more fundamental level, tour guides create tourists rather than residents - consumers of knowledge rather than participants in actual communities. We may introduce people to the basic contours and city limits of the gospel - ‘map knowledge’ - but how do we fundamentally reorient them within the new neighborhood of the gospel? Given the significant influence of the modern social imaginary, discipleship must be embedded within a Christian social imaginary in order to be an effective journey of counterformation. This will require a new vision of life, a new story to live within, a new community to be part of, and new practices to live by.” ~ Jonathan Grant