Eyes to See

"..That's the beautiful thing about coming to faith. It's not about changing anything in your world - at least not at first, It's about coming to see the world that you already know, but in a new way. It's a new set of lenses and a new language, so that now when you look at the same world, you see something different, and you hae a new vocabulary to describe familiar expereinces...

..This is about coming awake to God. And if we become awake to God, we become awake to everything and everyone around us."

Jonathan Martin, Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, pages 14-15

Reading "Prototype"

I'm currently reading a great book called , Prototype: What Happens When You Discover That You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think, by Jonathan Martin. The author is pastor of Renovatus Church in Charlotte NC. Here's a trailer video describing what the book is about.





What a concept! What an explosive idea! Expect a lot of quotes to be posted here.

The Great Commission Revisited

Hat Tip" Thinking Out Loud

The Cost of Forgiveness

“The Cross is not simply a lovely example of sacrificial love. Throwing your life away needlessly is not admirable — it is wrong. Jesus’ death was only a good example if it was more than an example, if it was something absolutely necessary to rescue us. And it was. Why did Jesus have to die in order to forgive us? There was a debt to be paid — God himself paid it. There was a penalty to be born — God himself bore it. Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering.”

— Tim Keller The Reason for God  (New York, NY: Dutton, 2007), 193

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

A Problem of the Heart

David Poulson on Idolatry 

“The last line of 1 John woos, then commands us: ‘Beloved children, keep yourselves from idols’ (1 John 5:21). In a 105-verse treatise on living in vital fellowship with Jesus, the Son of God, how on earth does that unexpected command merit being the final word?”

“If ‘idolatry’ is the characteristic and summary Old Testament word for our drift from God, then ‘desires’ is the characteristic and summary New Testament word for the same drift. Both are shorthand for the problem of human beings.”

“Idolatry is a problem of the heart, a metaphor for human lust, craving, yearning, and greedy demand.”

“The deep question of motivation is not ‘What is motivating me?’ The final question is, ‘Who is the master of this pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior?’ In the biblical view, we are religious, inevitably bound to one god or another. People do not have needs. We have masters, lords, gods.”

“Unconditional love says, ‘I love you just as you are.’ But the Gospel is better than unconditional love. The Gospel says, ‘God accepts you just as Christ is.”

Read the rest. 

HT Vitamin Z

Motive

"To those who wonder what good is Christian faith if it's not going to make a difference, I reply: If you're a Christian mainly because you want to be changed, that's a problem. If you've given your life to God mostly because you are tired of yourself and want to be a different person—well, that may suggest you're merely using God to fix you. That's not faith. That's not love of God. That's love of self.

If you look into your heart and determine that you have given your life to God mostly because you are tired of the world and wish it were different and think that teaming up with God can make it so, then you are merely using God to fix the world you are sick of. That's not faith or love either. Again, you're just using God. "

             -Mark Galli (Entire article is well worth a read)

God Alone Suffices

Nothing disturbs thee,
Nothing frightens thee;
All things pass;
God never changes.
Patient endurance attains all things.
Nothing is wanting
in which God possesses.
God alone suffices.

- St. Teresa of Avila

Beware the Sin of the Good Guy

From Tullian Tchvidjian:

The Bible makes it clear that self-righteousness is the premier enemy of the Gospel. And there is perhaps no group of people who better embody the sin of self-righteousness in the Bible than the Pharisees. In fact, Jesus reserved his harshest criticisms for them, calling them whitewashed tombs and hypocrites. Surprisingly to some, this demonstrates that the thing that gets in the way of our love for God and a deep appreciation of his grace is not so much our unrighteous badness but our self-righteous goodness.

In Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels, I retell the story of Jonah and show how Jonah was just as much in need of God’s grace as the sailors and the Ninevites. But the fascinating thing about Jonah is that, unlike the pagan sailors and wicked Ninevites, Jonah was one of the “good guys.” He was a prophet. He was moral. He was one who “kept all the rules”, and did everything he was supposed to do. He wasn’t some long-haired, tattooed indie rocker; he was a clean-cut prep. He wasn’t a liberal; he was a conservative. He wasn’t irreligious; he was religious. If you’ve ever read S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders, than you’ll immediately see that the Ninevites and the sailors in the story were like the “greasers”, while Jonah was like a “soashe.”

What’s fascinating to me is that, not only in the story of Jonah, but throughout the Bible, it’s always the immoral person that gets the Gospel before the moral person. It’s the prostitute who understands grace; it’s the Pharisee who doesn’t. It’s the unrighteous younger brother who gets it before the self-righteous older brother.

There is, however, another side to self-righteousness that younger-brother types are blind to. There’s an equally dangerous form of self-righteousness that plagues the unconventional and the non-religious types. We “authentic,” anti-legalists can become just as guilty of legalism in the opposite direction. What do I mean?

It’s simple: we become self-righteous against those who are self-righteous. We become Pharisaical about Pharisees.

Default Mode of the Heart

From Christians in Context:

Worship is the default mode of our hearts. We were made to worship. It comes naturally. No one needs to be taught how to worship. However, there is a problem. Our hearts were made to worship God, and that is no longer their default mode. Instead, our hearts will look for and find anything other than God to worship. As John Calvin famously said, "The human heart is a factory of idols". What comes naturally is no longer worship of the Creator but rather worship of created things.

Identifying Idols 

The deceptive thing about these idols, these false gods we worship, is that they rarely take the form of a little golden statue (at least not in our culture). But they are here and we worship none the less. When we look to a created thing to provide for us what only the Creator can provide (meaning, significance, acceptance, approval, ultimate joy, comfort, security), not only do we set ourselves up for disappointment, but we commit idolatry in the process.
Here are just a few questions to help you identify potential idols in your own life:

• What do you brag about?

• Where do you go for comfort?

• How do you explain or identify yourself?

• What do you want more than anything else?

• What do you sacrifice the most for (in time, money, sweat)?

• Who's approval are you seeking?

• What gets the best of your attention, energy, creativity, and effort?

• ...for a more extensive list and explanation, click here.

Good things turned into god things...

After working through those questions, a shock often comes at the realization our idols are usually good things. A spouse, a job, children, a passion or hobby, your church, your position in that church, your health, your looks, your skill and talent, the list is endless. But one thing that almost all idols have in common is that we begin to form our identity around that thing. "I'm a Red Sox fan." "I'm a mother." "I'm a Deadhead." "I'm a Calvinist." And, as Mark Driscoll has said, "When a good thing becomes a god thing, that's a bad thing". When our idol begins to become our identity, other questions are even better at helping us pinpoint those "functional saviors":

• What, if it was taken from you, would shake your faith in God?

• What would make you angry at God or question his love?

• What would you give up everything else for to keep from losing?

• What do you fear the most?

In the Lion's Den

Easy A

From Tullian Tchvidjian, quoting Steve Brown:

My friend Steve Brown tells a story about a time his daughter Robin found herself in a very difficult English Literature course that she desperately wanted to get out of.

She sat there on her first day and thought, “If I don’t transfer out of this class, I’m going to fail. The other people in this class are much smarter than me. I can’t do this.” She came home and with tears in her eyes begged her dad to help her get out of the class so she could take a regular English course. Steve said, “Of course.”

So the next day he took her down to  the school and went to the head of the English department, who was a Jewish woman and a great teacher. Steve remembers the event in these words:

She (the head of the English department) looked up and saw me standing there by my daughter and could tell that Robin was about to cry. There were some students standing around and, because the teacher didn’t want Robin to be embarrassed, she dismissed the students saying, “I want to talk to these people alone.” As soon as the students left and the door was closed, Robin began to cry. I said, “I’m here to get my daughter out of that English  class. It’s too difficult for her. The problem with my daughter is that she’s too conscientious. So, can you put her into a regular English class?” The teacher said, “Mr. Brown, I understand.” Then she looked at Robin and said, “Can I talk to Robin for a minute?” I said, “Sure.” She said, “Robin, I know how you feel. What if I promised you and A no  matter what you did in the class? If I gave you an A before you even started, would you be willing to take the class?” My daughter is not dumb! She started sniffling and said, “Well, I think I could do that.” The teacher said, “I’m going to give  you and A in the class. You already have an A, so you can go to class.”

Later the teacher explained to Steve what she had done. She explained how she took away the threat of a bad grade so that Robin could learn English. Robin ended up making straight A‘s on her own in that class.

That’s how God deals with us. Because we are, right now, under the completely sufficient imputed righteousness of Christ, Christians already have an A. The threat of failure, judgment, and condemnation has been removed. We’re in-forever! Nothing we do will make our grade better and nothing we do will make our grade worse. We’ve been set free.

Knowing that God’s love for you and approval of you will never be determined by your performance for Jesus but Jesus’ performance for you will actually make you perform more and better, not less and worse. In other words, grace mobilizes performance; performance does not mobilize grace.

If you don’t believe me, ask Robin!

Checking Messages

What To Do With Your Bible

Well, here are 14 ideas (actually commands from the Bible itself)

1. Read it. Nehemiah 8:8. And may I suggest that it be read slowly, carefully, prayerfully, in large portions, repeatedly, reverently and with a willing spirit to follow its precepts.

2. Believe it. Romans 10:8. Because it is the Word of faith. It has been given to increase our faith in God and His working in the Universe.

3. Receive it. James 1:21. Here it is the engrafted word that is to be received as the soil received the seed, or the tree receives the graft. Taking the Word of God in our heart life, allowing it to grow and bear its own fruit in motives and actions.

4. Taste it. Proverbs 19:10. For it is the good Word of God. Some seem to be afraid of the Bible for fear it will require them to do something they do not wish to do. Be not afraid; it is good and right in all its requirements.

5. Eat it. Jeremiah 15:16. This process suggests that we not merely taste but actually live by it, as Jesus said, “Ye shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4.

6. Hold it fast. Titus 1:9. It is a faithful word. All its promises are true; all its history is true; and its statements are truth. Therefore we are to rest our faith upon it.

7. Hold it forth. Philippians 2:16. Because it is the Word of Life. All who come under its beneficent rays feel its life giving power.

Meditation on Truth

“It is the unhurried meditation on gospel truths and the exposing of our minds to these truths that yields the fruit of sanctified character.”

      — Maurice Roberts  The Thought of God   (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1993), 11

HT Of First Importance

Pray for Oklahoma

I HATE TORNADOES!!!!

Conversation at an Athiest's Garage

HT: Vitamin Z

Speak That I May Hear

Who will bring me to rest in You?

Who will send You into my heart
so to overwhelm it
that my sins will be blotted out
and I may embrace You, my only good?

What are You to me?
Have mercy that I may speak.

What am I to You
that You should command me to love You,
and if I do not,
are angry and threaten vast misery?

Is it, then, a trifling sorrow not to love You?
It is not so to me.

Tell me, by Your mercy, O Lord, my God,
what You are to me.
“Say to my soul, I am your salvation.”

So speak that I may hear.
Behold, the ears of my heart are before You, O Lord;
open them and “say to my soul, I am your salvation.”

I will hasten after that voice,
and I will lay hold upon You.
Hide not Your face from me.
Even if I die, let me see Your face lest I die.

- Augustine of Hippo

HT:  Kingdom People

Jaming on Prayer

In Process

"Discipleship is the process of becoming a genuine follower of Jesus Christ. We don't complete the process this side of eternity, but it is a continual learning of who Jesus is and striving to be like Him. Discipleship combines teaching, studying, circumstances of life and Holy Spirit revelation to transform us into His image."

               - Ron Edmondston @ Church Planter Weekly

Remember Two Things

“My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior.”

— John Newton, quoted by Jonathan Aitken in John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace  (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2007), 347

HT: Of First Importance

Worth a Look

Some links worth a look:

Why Doesn't God Always Heal the Sick? - Sam Storms

Warning About Fake Facebook Pages Asking for Money

Is God's Presence Limited to Scripture? - Rachel Held Evans

Church Should be a Taboo Free Zone

Idols Beneath it All

From a sermon by Tim Keller entitled “A World Full of Idols” (March 29, 1998) referencing Acts 17:16 -  "Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. "

What did he see? He saw idols under everything.

You say, “Of course he saw idols.” He was distressed because he saw idols. Go to Athens today, you’ll see idols everywhere. There’s Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty. There’s Ares, the god of power and war. There’s Apollo, the god of music and art. There’s Bacchus, the god of fraternities. You can go to all of these and say, “Of course, they were out there. They were statues. Everybody can see them.”

But that’s not what the word “see” means. The text could easily have used a simple Greek word for “see,” blepo [βλέπω] or something for “just take a look.” But the word Luke uses to describe what Paul was doing there is the word theoreo [θεωρέω], the word “to theorize” or “to get underneath.” This is the key to working out how to be a Christian in the public world.

Paul saw that underneath all the art, underneath all the business, underneath all the government, underneath all the philosophy, were idols. The real problem with the world is not the bad things, but the good things that have become the best things. He saw what we should see, and this is how it changes the way we do things, that under every personality are idols, under all psychological problems are idols, under every culture are idols, under all moral problems are idols, under all social problems are idols, under all intellectual problems are idols. …

Rather, you have to say, “Jesus Christ is my glory, is my beauty, is my goodness, is my righteousness, is my love, is my meaning.” Then what happens? You’re going to do things differently than other artists. You’re going to dance differently than other dancers. You’re going to do business differently than other businessmen and women.

Hat Tip: Tony Reinke 

The Real Monsters

Though St. John saw many strange monsters in Revelation, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.

- GK Chesterton

Jaming the Gospel

A 4 minute "sermon jam" from Matt Chandler on "what is the gospel."  Good stuff!

Home Renovation

One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right, and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably, and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

— C. S. Lewis  Mere Christianity(London: William Collins, 1970), 172

HT: Of First Importance

Saying Amen

I can only say Amen to these words from Kevin DeYoung:

"The word amen is not Christianese for “prayer over.” It means something much more beautiful and significant.

I had a friend in college who thought because of our freedom in Christ we shouldn’t say “amen” to conclude our prayers.  So he started ending his prayers with “groovy” (you would have thought I was in college in the 1970s). He thought it was pretty cool, a little bit of needed rebellion against tired old Christian cliches. But amen is not the same as groovy.  Amen means “let it be, “so be it,” “verily,” “truly.”  When you finish your prayer with “Amen” you are saying, “Yes Lord, let it be so. According to your will, may it be.” It’s a final note of confirmation at the end of our prayers.

More than that, the Heidelberg Catechism reminds us that “amen” is also an expression of confidence. “Amen” means “This is sure to be!” It reminds me of this good news: “It is even more sure that God listens to my prayer, than that I really desire what I pray for” (Question and Answer 129). God is gracious to hear our prayers much better than we pray them. “Amen” bears witness to our desire for God’s purposes to be done and to God’s promise that they will. Your style may be groovy, but your prayers deserve an “amen.”"

The Dark Side of Mother's Day

In churches all over America tomorrow morning, a moment will be taken to honor all the mothers in the congregation. That is certainly a good thing, something to be encouraged. However, pastors and church leaders, let's also remember and publicly acknowledge the darker side of Mother's Day.

1. Some people in your audience tomorrow will be mourning the loss of their mothers, and in some cases the loss may be fresh, raw and extremely painful. We need to acknowledge the pain of those who may be in mourning.

2. There may be some in your congregation who did not have good mothers. Due to alcoholism or drug addiction, or their own history of abuse, some women aren't good mothers, and in turn hurt, neglect and abuse their own children. We need to acknowledge the pain of those present in church tomorrow who hurt from abuse, neglect or abandonment from their mothers. They need to be helped to walk through grief, anger and forgiveness.

3. It is possible that there are women in your audience who are suffering from infertility; desperately wishing to be mothers but unable to conceive. Mothers Day can be painful for them, and for their husbands. Don't forget them tomorrow. A public compassionate word of encouragement and support may mean all the world to them.

Let's all praise and honor our mothers, and the mothers of our children. But let's not forget those who hurt on Mother's Day.

See also: When Mother's Day is Hard

Twilight Followers

"Vampire Christians are people who want a bit of Jesus’ blood so they dodge hell but really don’t want anything to do with him. They had no vision for, or intention of, following him."

     - Dallas Willard

(Probably also read "Twilight" novels)

Truth Wins

From LifeSite News - Truth wins out in the end.

May 8, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A pro-choice reporter who has been present in the courtroom listening to testimony in the Gosnell trial has changed his mind on abortion, according to one of his fellow reporters.

“That's the power of the Gosnell trial,” reporter JD Mullane told former Gov. Mike Huckabee during a recent appearance on the Huckabee Show.

Mullane, a pro-life columnist for the Bucks County Courier Times, has been present in the courtroom from the very beginning of the Gosnell trial. His regularly-updated Twitter account has become the go-to place for breaking updates on the case.

“There is one journalist sitting in that courtroom who writes for a local publication who has told me that he is very liberal, very pro-choice,” Mullane told Huckabee, “but after sitting through the testimony in the Gosnell trial, he's reconsidered. He's changed his mind.”

Testimony in the case has featured former employees of Gosnell describing how “hundreds” of babies, many of them past viability, were born alive in the clinic only to have their spinal cords snipped by Gosnell or one of his assistants. Employees described babies moving, breathing, screaming, and even "swimming" in a toilet after being born alive.

“For 40 years abortion in this country has been waged in the court of public opinion. This is a court of law. And the testimony that comes out of there is under oath,” said Mullane. “None of the evidence is doctored. It's for real. It's a capital case. And the testimony of one witness is far heavier than all the pro-choice editorials and op-eds that have ever appeared in, say, the New York Times.”

Pro-life activists have charged the mainstream media with ignoring the Gosnell trial over fears that publicity will hurt the cause of legal abortion. Mullane suggested that their fears are well-founded. 

Celebrating Ascension Day

Are you celebrating "Ascension Day"? Maybe we all should celebrate today. From Jared Wilson:

Today is Ascension Day, traditionally marked on the 40th day after Easter Sunday. The doctrine of Christ’s ascension has many implications. Here are just five.

1. Jesus is really alive.

The reality of Christ’s ascension, inextricable from the resurrection event, tells us that he did not raise from the dead only later to die again like Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter, the widow of Nain’s son, Eutychus, or Tabitha. Jesus’ body will not be found because he took its glorified tangibility to heaven.

2. Heaven is thicker than earth.

We tend to think of heaven as the ethereal place of disembodied spirits. And in a way it is. But Elijah is there. And Enoch. And so is the risen, glorified, incarnate Christ. Jesus is there, taking up material space. He is touchable, present. Clearly, heaven is not less real than earth but more. It is a thicker reality than our four-dimensional space, more vibrant, more colorful, more real.

3. God’s plan for human dominion of earth is being realized.

The first Adam and his helper Eve were charged with filling the earth and subduing it. They screwed it up. But God’s plans cannot be thwarted. Man will reflect God’s glory in dominion over creation. In the Incarnation, then, God sends his only Son to right the course, reverse the curse, and begin the restoration of all things. The second Adam does the job, and even in his glorification, the incarnational “miracle of addition” (see below) persists, fulfilling God’s plan for man to reflect divine glory in dominion over creation. The God-Man, who is the radiance of the glory of God, rules over the earth and is even now subduing his enemies. “The ascension means that a human being rules the universe” (Tim Keller). Just as God planned.

Dancing in Our Brokenness

From Andrew Peterson at The Rabbit Room:

...Jesus is making us into something. C. S. Lewis wrote that God is making us into “little Christs.” We all ache for the day when we’ll be free of our sins, our bad habits, our bitterness, the things about us that we think ugly or undesirable. But perhaps the road of sanctification will be an easier one when we recognize in ourselves the sin of self-consciousness, the sin of reputation management, the sin of lying to ourselves. To live our lives with a pretense of self-sufficiency, strength, and have-it-togetherness is to diminish the visible work of God’s grace. One of your greatest blessings to the community around you may be your utter brokenness, it may be something about yourself that you loathe, but which Christ will use for his glory. When Jesus is Lord of our brokenness we are free to rejoice in the mighty work he has yet to do in us. We are free to enter the stage in the face of the devil’s accusation, “You’re not good enough.”

The Christian’s answer: “Exactly!”

And we dance.

HT Dane Ortlund

RIP Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard went to be with the Lord this morning. Prayers up for his family. He will be greatly missed.

Dallas Willard, a prominent philosopher on a "quiet quest to subvert nominal Christianity" (according to a 2006 CT profile), died today after losing a battle with cancer. He was 77.

HarperOne broke the news:

Beloved author of THE DIVINE CONSPIRACY and critical thought leader Dallas Willard passes. Rest in peace, Dallas. bit.ly/10blVF2

— HarperOne (@HarperOne) May 8, 2013

Come!

“Come for repentance, if you cannot come repenting. Come for a broken heart, if you cannot come with a broken heart. Come to be melted, if you are not melted. Come to be wounded, if you are not wounded.”

           — Charles Spurgeon    "The Precious Blood of Christ"

HT: Of First Importance

Today is the Day Your Procrastinated About Yesterday

Some good stuff from my old college buddy, Dennis Ritchie:

Today is the day I put off yesterday.

There are hard things to do. There are people to love. There are responsibilities that come with that.

If I’m going to pursue my dreams, now is the time, in the middle of all the other things pressing in. That’s always been the way. Today is no different.

If there were endless time and money and ability we would never have to choose. We would never have to decide what’s really important to us. We would never have to expose who we are by choosing.

We wouldn’t need character or discipline. We wouldn’t need courage. We could just take things as they come knowing we could always get back to important things later.

The urgent would always take priority over the important, which we could always delay. It would be dreadful.

So today I’m forced to choose, to eliminate the unimportant, to be ruthless in my priorities, to commit before God and man. That’s why God invented time. That’s why we have an expiration date.

Otherwise we would postpone ourselves.

In the choices I make today I will reveal to all who I am. May I choose wisely, act courageously and be worth all of the love that’s been invested in me.

Amen.

Ahem, not that you are "old," Dennis - It's just been a long time since we were in college. I enjoy his blog, The Art of Standing, and recommend it to you to enjoy also.

Have You Studied This Book For Yourself

A powerful Francis Chan "Sermon Jam" - A challenge to read the Bible for yourself.

Prayers for Dallas Willard

Please pray for Dallas Willard, an influenecial Christian leader and one of my favorite authors. From CT

Dallas Willard has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, according to a tweet from the author's official Twitter account. Willard, who is a University of Southern California philosophy professor, is 77 years old.

Willard is well known to many Christians from his books on spiritual formation, including The Divine Conspiracy (which Christianity Today selected as Book of the Year in 1998), The Spirit of the Disciplines,Hearing God, and Renovation of the Heart.

Willard has been a provocative Christian thinker since the 1960s, when he abandoned ministry to study philosophy. Since then, he has "devoted [himself] to reestablishing the exalted place moral reasoning once held in the academy."

May the Lord be with him and his family in this time of trial. 

Change of Perspective

“Does anyone truly understand the message of the cross apart from brokenness, contrition, repentance, and faith? To repeat rather mechanically the nature of the transaction that Christians think took place at Golgotha is one thing; to look at God and his holiness, and people and their sin, from the perspective of the cross, is life-changing.”

— D. A. Carson The Cross and Christian Ministry 
(Grand Rapids, Mi.: Baker Books, 2003), 64

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

You Revive Me

I love this song! "You Revive Me" as sung by Christy Nockels on the Passion:White Flag CD:

Chorus:

You revive me

You revive me Lord

And all my deserts are rivers of joy

You are the treasure I could not afford

So I'll spend myself till I'm empty and poor

All for You

You revive me Lord

Verse 1:

Lord I have seen Your goodness

And I know the way You are

Give me eyes to see You in the dark

And Your face shines a glory

That I only know in part

And there is still a longing
A longing in my heart

Verse 2:

My soul is thirsty

Only You can satisfy

You are the well that never will run dry

And I'll praise You for the blessing

For calling me Your friend

And in Your name I'm lifting

I'm lifting up my hands

Bridge:

I'm alive

I'm alive

You breathe on me

You revive me

This entire album is wonderful. I highly recommend it.

Over the Top Forgiveness

Powerful "Sermon Jam" from Matt Chandler. Listen and let it sink in that "God is not disgusted with you."


Hat Tip: Provocations and Pantings

Do It Again

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

              -G. K. Chesterton

Words Fail Me

Words fail me....No comment necessary.

Out of Wrath, Peace

“Redeeming love and retributive justice joined hands, so to speak, at Calvary, for there God showed Himself to be ‘just, and the justifer of him who hath faith in Jesus’.

Do you understand this? If you do, you are now seeing to the very heart of the Christian gospel. No version of that message goes deeper than that which declares man’s root problem before God to be his sin, which evokes wrath, and God’s basic provision for man to be propitiation, which out of wrath brings peace.”

— J. I. PackerIn My Place Condemned He Stood (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 41




Hat Tip: Of First Importance

A Measure of Praise

Those brilliant folks at Apple just keep on inventing cool stuff....

From: The Sacred Sandwich

Ability

“Don’t think of Christianity as having to do what a peevish God wants. Think of it as now being able to do what a good God demands” 

         - Kevin DeYoung, The Hole in our Holiness, page 112

HT: Sam Storms