Profound Implications:

“It is not the strength of your faith 

 but the object of your faith 

 that actually saves you.” 

- Timothy J. Keller

Afflictions 101

"I believe in homiletics. But not much.

A thousand sorrows teaches a man to preach."

- John Piper

Priorities

The first, great, and primary business 

to which I ought to attend every day was, 

 to have my soul happy in the Lord. 

 - George Mueller

Weighty Wisdom

"Probably all the failures of my life 

can be laid at the feet

 of my failure to be happy in God."

- Dr. John Piper

The Infinite Joy of God

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"He is… the holiest and happiest being,
not only that is, but that can be conceived."

“You cannot conceive of a greater happiness than omnipotent power engaged in the omnipotent enjoyment of infinite glory.”

- John Piper, Why Expositional Preaching is Particularly Glorifying to God

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"My Records are Jesus Christ"

“When he is challenged by some men (presumably Jews) who refuse to believe anything that is not to be found in “our ancient records” (the Old Testament?), Ignatius responds, “But for my part, my records are Jesus Christ, for the the sacred records are his cross and death and resurrection and the faith that comes through him.”

- An Introduction to the New Testament, Carson & Moo, p. 738

Is it Midnight?

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Christ calls me 
to believe his daylight
at midnight 
- Samuel Rutherford
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Scandalous

"The idea that evangelical pastors can be sent to ministerial oversight of congregations without first having a solid grounding in biblical theology is one of the scandals of our time.  Show me a church without a good appreciation for the Old Testament and biblical theology and I'll show you a church with a weak understanding of the gospel."

- Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture

Crosses?

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Neither need we fear crosses, 
or sigh, or be sad for anything 
that is on this side of heaven, 
if we have Christ. 

- Samuel Rutherford
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Lewis: The Source of Happiness

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"God cannot give us 
happiness and peace 
apart from Him, 
because it is not there.  
There is no such thing."

- C.S. Lewis
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To Judge or Not to Judge?

"By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are."

- Dietrich Bonhoefffer

A Powerfully Potent Paragraph

The first paragraph of C.S. Lewis' excellent book, The Weight of Glory, is quite possibly one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful paragraph that I have ever read (apart from Scripture).

That said, I'm only going to post the first portion of that paragraph to highlight what I've been thinking about for a week or two now;

"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point."

A few paraphrases from my recent meditations on this paragraph:

Love does not merely sacrifice self for the sake of an other, but love does so while sincerely pursuing the happiness of the other.

Love is not the delight one takes in an other, rather it is the delight one takes in delighting the other.

The happiness of an other is the end that love is the means to.

"Oblivious to Our Eventual Oblivion"

Justin Taylor recently had a helpful blog post on Pascal and addictions to distraction.  Taylor quotes from Douglas Groothuis:

"Diversion consoles us—in trivial ways—in the face of our miseries or perplexities; yet, paradoxically, it becomes the worst of our miseries because it hinders us from ruminating on and understanding our true condition. Thus, Pascal warns, it “leads us imperceptibly to destruction.” Why? If not for diversion, we would “be bored, and boredom would drive us to seek some more solid means of escape, but diversion passes our time and brings us imperceptibly to our death.” Through the course of protracted stupefaction, we learn to become oblivious to our eventual oblivion. In so doing, we choke off the possibility of seeking real freedom.

Diversion serves to distract humans from a plight too terrible to encounter directly—namely, our mortality, finitude, and failures."

"The compulsive search for diversion is often an attempt to escape the wretchedness of life. We have great difficulty being quiet in our rooms, when the television or computer screen offers a riot of possible stimulation. Postmodern people are perpetually restless; they frequently seek solace in diversion instead of satisfaction in truth. As Pascal said, “Our nature consists in movement; absolute rest is death.” The postmodern condition is one of oversaturation and over-stimulation, and this caters to our propensity to divert ourselves from pursuing higher realities."

- Douglas Groothuis


HT:JT

"Make friends with your trials"

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Make friends with your trials, as though you were always to live together, and you will see that when you cease to take thought for your own deliverance, God will take thought of you.
- Francis de Sales
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Bonhoeffer on Sovereignty

"Everything we cannot thank God for, 
we reproach Him for."


- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Quote from Bonhoeffer, by Eric Metaxas

Today's dose of Bonhoeffer:

"With that we have articulated a basic criticism of the most grandiose of all human attempts toward the divine - by way of the church. Christianity conceals within itself a germ hostile to the church. It is far too easy for us to base our claims to God on our own Christian religiosity and our church commitment, and in so doing utterly to misunderstand and distort the Christian idea."

"One admires Christ according to aesthetic categories as an aesthetic genius, calls him the greatest ethicist; one admires his going to his death as a heroic sacrifice for his ideas. Only one thing one doesn't do: one doesn't take him seriously. That is, one doesn't bring the center of his or her own life into contact with the claim of Christ to speak the revelation of God and to be that revelation. One maintains a distance between himself or herself and the word of Christ, and allows no serious encounter to take place. I can doubtless live with or without Jesus as a religious genius, as an ethicist, as a gentleman - just as, after all, I can also live without Plato and Kant.... Should, however, there be something in Christ that claims my life entirely with the full seriousness that here God himself speaks and if the word of God once became present only in Christ, then Christ has not only relative but absolute, urgent significance for me.... Understanding Christ means taking Christ seriously. Understanding this claim means taking seriously his absolute claim on our commitment. And it is now of importance for us to clarify the seriousness of this matter and to extricate Christ from the secularization process in which he has been incorporated since the Enlightenment."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Quotes from "Bonhoeffer" by Eric Metaxas

Quotes from Bonhoeffer

"Where a people prays, there is the church; and where the church is; there is never loneliness."


"It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, that a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity."


"Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued."


"The religion of Christ is not a tidbit after one's bread; on the contrary, it is the bread or it is nothing.  People should at least understand and concede this if they call themselves Christian."

- Detrich Bonhoeffer
Quotes taken from "Bonhoeffer" by Eric Metaxas

Subtitle: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

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"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed for a plot to assassinate Hitler
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After enjoying John Bird's review of "Bonhoefer" I've just purchased a copy for myself.  The subtitle alone is sufficient motivation for me to read this book, not to mention the subject of the bio. Biographies have historically not been my favorite type of literature for they are often to boring to keep my attention.  This biography is different.  John was right and I cannot wait to read more!

Urgency & Happiness

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"It is not as urgent 
as you think it is, 
God is urgent."

- John Piper
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"Man was designed by God 
for exceeding inexpressibly 
great happiness."

- Jonathan Edwards
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HT:DG

Thomas Gates on Affliction

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"Affliction is God's forge 
to soften the iron heart."

- Thomas Gates
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