Listening

- just because I love this quote, and believe that skills in listening is going to go a long way in establishing healthy, growing communities -

"When I ask you to listen and you start giving advice, you have not done what I have asked. When I ask you to listen and you begin to tell me why I shouldn't feel the way I do, you are trampling on my feelings. When I ask you to listen and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as it may seem. Listen. All I asked you to do was listen, not talk or do. Just hear me. I am not helpless. Perhaps discouraged for faltering, but not helpless. When you do something for me that I need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and weakness. But when you accept as fact that I feel what I feel no matter how irrational, then I can stop trying to convince you and get on with understanding what's behind that irrational feeling and when that's clear, the answer will be obvious and I won't need advice." - Anonymous

PS - a thought on living in community

Discovered these wise words today, which are a useful illumination into my thoughts of yesterday:

The Gospel can only be witnessed to by a plurality of persons, because the witness to the gospel is something that happens between and among persons, not simply within them. One Christian can talk about the Gospel, but two or more Christians can enact its truth and power, namely in the way they treat one another. Individual righteousness is inconceivable in the New Testament apart from its expression in relation to others within the body.
- Tommy Givens

Quotes for the morning

If we find God boring, we are like five-year-olds who find sex boring. The problem is not with sex.

- John Piper

"A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God." Sidney Sheldon

God continues His work

TheresALotThatNeedsToBeWrittenHereBecauseIveBeenPrivilegedToHaveHadSomeReallyGoodConversationsWithPeopleInTheLastFewDaysAndWithGodAsWellAsSomeReallyIntenseThoughtSessions:

StuffAboutMyself,MyInsecurities,MyDesiresAndAmbitions,MyThoughtsAndEmotions. StuffAboutGod,AboutWhatIThinkOfHim. StuffAboutPeopleAndHowIInteractAndPerceiveThem.

RealizingAllOfThisHasBeenFruitfulButCrushingAndOverwhelmingAndThoughtProvokingAndHumbling.

At the same time, God remains to be praised:

You never abandon what You have begun. Make perfect my imperfections.
- via St_Augustine's Twitter Account

I'm not where I want to be. But, hopefully, I'm not what I used to be.

my way or Your way

If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.

- attributed to St Augustine on Twitter

Sanctuary

Sanctuary: [...] a right to be safe from arrest in the sanctuary of a church or temple, recognized by English law from the fourth to the seventeenth century.
- Wikipedia

"The church is full of weirdos. This shouldn't surprise you. The Rotary club won't have them; the athletics club won't take them. But the church - the church takes them all in."
- Frank Retief

Even though the church no longer legally provides sanctuary, it's good to know that the body of Christ still performs a role as a place of refuge, albeit socially.

What a glorious picture of grace.

the attitude of serving

You will certainly carry out God’s purpose, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John

via @CSLewisDaily on Twitter

God's love...

I can't brag about my love for God because I fail Him daily, but I can brag about His love for me because it never fails.

- Owl City (yip, the pop act) via his Twitter

God's been saying a lot to me lately about His love for me. I must ponder these things, but I will write again.

The Weight of Glory

I've just finished reading C. S. Lewis' essay "The Weight of Glory", and all I can say is... Wow. God really gifted him with insight and with writing ability.

I've included the link above, so while you click on it and open up the PDF, I leave you with some winning quotes :)

If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of
the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you 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 ideal 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

we remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy. But is there any reason to suppose that reality offers any satisfaction to it? “Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.” But I think it may be urged that this misses the point. A man’s physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did)that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to
may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted
to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all,
only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one
or other of these destinations.

[Thanks to JP for the link to the PDF :)]

Calvinism and the arts

"It is the vocation of art, not merely to observe everything visible and audible, to apprehend it, and reproduce it artistically, but much more to discover in those natural forms the order of the beautiful, and, enriched by this higher knowledge, to produce a beautiful world that transcends the beautiful of nature. And this is what Calvin asserted: viz., that the arts exhibit gifts which God has placed at our disposal, now that, as the sad consequence of sin, the real beautiful has fled from us."

Kuyper - on Calvinism and the arts

[Many thanks to Sam Groves, patient man, who typed that out for me in an email. Follow him and his wife's blog here. Sarah writes the coolest stuff :) And they have many kids, one of them named JEDI. 'Nuff said.]

Self-control and grace

I'm re-reading Tim Chester's book You Can Change, and I've been struck again by his insistence that only Jesus can ultimately change us.

It's been my experience, however, that I quite often end up forgetting this, like Tim Chester points out:

It seems that our first instinct when we want to change is to do something. We think activity will change us. We want a list of do's and dont's. (p.47)

Whenever I want to get something done, my first instinct is to do something RIGHTNOW. If I can't do something about it RIGHTNOW, I get antsy and start drawing up lists and plans, preparing for that moment of RIGHTNOW when I can do something. [Anal, much? Yes.]

Yet, if a recent study in TIME is anything to go by, it appears that there's evidence suggesting that self-control will never get us anywhere:

The prevailing theory is that because self-control is a finite resource, when you deplete it — say by consistently choosing carrots over cupcakes or by refraining from splurging at the shoe store — you're less likely to be able to control urges toward anger or aggression when they arise at inappropriate times.

Then why do we keep on persisting with our little rituals and rules? This, Tim Chester suggests is due to an error in cause and effect. Behaviour doesn't correct behaviour. Heart corrects behaviour:

Our rituals might change our behaviour for a while, but they can't change our hearts. (p.48)

So what now, hey, Tim Chester, what now??

The answer is simple: Stop relying on rules and legalism to change your heart, when you should be loving Jesus more and more so that your heart's desires change focus. He puts it far more eloquently than me, though:

In Greek mythology, the Sirens would sing enchanting songs, drawing sailors irresistibly towards the rocks and certain shipreck. Odysseus filled his crew's ears with wax and had him tie him to the mast. This is like the approach of legalism. We bind ourselves up with laws and disciplines in vain attempt to resist temptation. Orpheus, on the other hand, played such beautiful music on his harp that his sailors ignored the seductions of the Siren song. This is the way of faith. The grace of the gospel sings a far more glorious song than the enticements of sin, if only we have the faith to hear its music. (p.64/65)

--
See previous posts from here onward.

Thought for today

The danger with 'cultural Christianity': it sells Jesus as Savior, without demanding Jesus as Lord.You can't have the one without the other.

- Johan Verster via his Twitter account

words, words, words

As someone who's been trained in the literary discipline, words are a natural fascination. Add to this, the emphasis laid upon words in the Christian faith: God spoke the world into being, God who talks to us through His Word, the Bible, and His Son who preached, and we, His people, communicate and build relationships through words.

K. Myers' words are thus quite provocative/ concerning/ interesting...

A culture that is rooted more in images than in words will find it increasingly difficult to sustatin any broad commitment to any truth, since truth is an abstraction requiring language.
- K. Myers

Thoughts?

From Calvin's Institutes. Read, and be awed.

Institutes II.xvi.19

When we see that the whole sum of our salvation, and every single part of it, are comprehended in Christ, we must beware of deriving even the least portion of it from any other quarter. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that he possesses it; if we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, we shall find them in his anointing; strength in his dominion; purity in his conception; gentleness in his nativity, in which he was made like us in all respects, in order that he might learn to sympathise with us: if we seek redemption, we shall find it in his passion; acquittal in his condemnation; remission of the curse in his cross; satisfaction in his sacrifice; purification in his blood; reconciliation in his descent to hell; mortification of the flesh in his tomb; newness of life in his resurrection; immortality also in his resurrection; the inheritance of a celestial kingdom in his entrance into heaven; protection, security, and the abundant supply of all blessings, in his kingdom; secure anticipation of judgement in the power of judging committed to him. In short, since in him all kinds of blessings are treasured up, let us draw a full supply from him, and none from any other quarter.

Some men, not content with him alone are borne hither and thither from one hope to another, even if they concern themselves chiefly with him, they nevertheless stray from the straight way in turning some part of their thinking in another direction. Yet such distrust cannot creep in where men have once for all truly known the abundance of his blessings

Free grace

Noun, not verb. I don't need freeing.

Or, no, maybe I do.

I'm still thinking me me me, do do do so much, when I should be thinking Jesus Jesus Jesus, done done done.

I love this explanation by Tim Keller about what the actual implications of grace:

"Consider the free grace of Jesus until there is (a) no cowardly avoidance of hard things (since Jesus faced evil for me), (b) no anxious or rash behaviour (since Jesus' death proves God cares & will watch over me). It takes pride to be anxious - I am not wise enough to know how my life should go. Consider free grace until I experience calm thoughtfulness and strategic boldness."

Yeah, no more cowardlyness! No more anxiety and rashness. Let's be real trusting children of God.

Marriage, and the sanctity

Let me get this straight...Charlie Sheen can make a "porn family", Kelsey Grammer can end a 15 year marriage over the phone, Larry King can be on divorce #9, Britney Spears had a 55 hour marriage, Jesse James and Tiger Woods, while married, were having sex with EVERYONE. Yet, the idea of same-sex marriage is going to destroy the institution of marriage? Really?

Stole this off a friend's FB page. Think the point is arguing for same-sex marriage, but all I can see is how people have completed trashed the sanctity of marriage. No wonder less and less marriages are taking place - who'd want to, with examples like this?

A few quotes that have been on my mind lately:

"What we want is not more books about Christianity, but more books by Christians on other subjects" - CS Lewis

‎"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Mahatma Ghandi.

"God does not expect me to do more than I can." - For Christians who try to take on more than they can manage in the name of Christ.

Fireproof

No, no, no, don't get excited. This isn't really a post about the movie- I haven't watched it and don't intend to any time soon. I just wanted to share with you a quote that Princess Sarah gave to me from the movie:

Don't follow your heart; lead it.

Temptation

C.S. Lewis on temptation:

"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in."