29 May 2012

creativity for God's glory



From Stephen Altrogge on Desiring God:



Every man, woman, and child is creative. When we create, it pleases God, because He sees us reflecting his image. He sees us “imaging” him to the rest of the world. God loves to see his image shine throughout the world.

But creativity is hard work. It takes work to create a poem or garden or car engine or piece of furniture. It requires killing our laziness and working faithfully over extended periods of time. It requires a willingness to receive criticism with humility. It requires sweat and elbow grease. It requires diligence and faithfulness. It’s easier to not make anything at all. To be a consumer. To suffocate the creative gifts that God has given us.
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26 May 2012

notes 26 may 2012

1. This blogger talks about why she doesn't make her son share.
2. This quote below from Jonathan Dodson via Desiring God encouraged my heart so much. 
 Prayer is about love not about lists. It is about drawing near to God, not about impressing God. It is about enjoying his grace not enduring guilt. In fact, our genuine guilt for loving something altogether more than we love the Father is gone in Christ. God so loved us that he sent his only Son to be cut off in death so that we might be wonderfully united with him in life. Prayer is a response to the Father and the Son; it is a warm reaction to what they have together done for us. Prayer is communion with God, a cementing of souls together in a common delight, in this case, a delight in God and his grace towards us in Christ. It begins and continues with honest words about our loveless lives, our guilt-ridden approaches to prayer, and a shameless embrace of God's reckless love and grace.
3.


I love this definition of and reminder about gospel community. Via Vitamin Z.

14 May 2012


From Lydia Brownback, via Desiring God
I was paralyzed by the volume of projects on my plate and found myself unable to make headway with any of it. I came home one day and cast myself onto my bed and cried out to God, “I just can’t do this anymore, Lord!”
Over the next day or so he answered my cry with the conviction that my trouble had more to do with my attitude than with my workload. It wasn’t his enabling that I’d really wanted. It was free time. In my desire to fill up more hours with relaxation and personal comforts, I had ceased to see that the work on my plate was a gift, as all kingdom work is. In writing and speaking, I’m not doing God any favors; he is blessing me with the privilege of getting to do it. (italics mine)

05 May 2012

notes cinco de mayo

1. Mozart and Vince Gill by Doug Wilson.
2. Fine Culture and Folk Culture from John Piper via Justin Taylor.
Intrinsic vulnerabilities of high culture include elitism and snobbishness. In demanding high levels of intellect and skill, it easily inflates the ego of those who succeed in it, and tempts them to look with contempt on folk culture with its simpler achievements. It easily isolates technical expertise from the larger issues of life and attempts to give it intrinsic value instead of defining its value in relation to other, more important spiritual and personal realities. It is inevitably less accessible to average people and therefore tends toward performance rather than participation, and this performance orientation carries again the tendency toward an atmosphere of aloofness and distance.
 ...
Folk culture keeps the truth clear that elite groups of intellectuals and artists that look with contempt on the common man and his needs and tastes are not admirable persons no matter how accomplished their talents. Folk culture has the potential of reminding us that God must have loved the common people because he made so many of them. Folk culture is by nature incarnational: it clothes its claims with the skin of ordinary people and affirms implicitly the value of getting through to the mind and heart of the masses.
3. How Classical Education Shapes Us as God Intended by Bradley Green.
4. "Stop telling people to 'Be Jesus to people'". Jeff Vanderstelt via Justin Taylor