I should be working on my Cézanne paper for art history.
1. From Jonathan Dodson's post over at the Resurgence:
The gospel is good news whether someone perceives it to be good to them or not. But the only reason we know is because we experience its grace-saturated goodness in our everyday lives. We know the gospel is good, not just in theory, but in the experience of suffering, parenting, dating, working, and so on....The trouble, of course, is that there are so many people who don’t know the power of the gospel like you and me. They don’t know how the gospel is good news for them.
2. 'Five Tips for Authors Who Also Happen to Be Mothers' from Sibella Giorello, an author I happen to know.
3. And thanks to Sibella for a link to here, an article about a book and a Pringles analogy.
4. Soundtrack.
1. From the Wall Street Journal, this article by Camille Paglia, 'How Capitalism Can Save Art'
In a progressively post-Christian society, the importance of hospitality as an evangelistic asset is growing rapidly. Increasingly, the most strategic turf on which to engage the unbelieving with the good news of Jesus may be the turf of our own homes....
The reason this is no minor biblical theme is because the streams of hospitality flow deeply from the well of God. Christians love the stranger, because we have been loved by the Father when we ourselves were strangers. Hospitality rises in its purest form when we heed Paul’s counsel, “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).
In Jesus, we find ourselves now to be the enemy who has been loved, the sinner who is saved, the stranger who is welcomed. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). And welcomed strangers should be quick to learn to welcome other strangers.
1. This article from Desiring God by Jonathan Parnell on what love really is: a work of divine grace that causes joy to well up in our hearts which overflows into giving to others. This has changed my week and hopefully my whole life!
2. This article by Christine Hoover on how believers are no longer orphans and how this truth changes our lives. We don't have to take care of ourselves. We don't have to be strong. We don't have to protect ourselves from being taken advantage of. We can be dependent. We are free to be weak. We are loved. We are accepted, we belong. We can trust God. We don't need to be scared of getting close to people. We are not on the outside looking in.
3. Another article: 'Practicing the Presence of the Holy Spirit' by Justin Taylor on Richard Lovelace's book.
We should make a deliberate effort at the outset of every day to recognize the person of the Holy Spirit, to move into the light concerning his presence in our consciousness and to open our minds and to share all our thoughts and plans as we gaze by faith into the face of God.
We should continue to walk throughout the day in a relationship of communication and communion with the Spirit mediated through our knowledge of the Word, relying upon every office of the Holy Spirit’s role as counselor mentioned in Scripture.
We should acknowledge him as the illuminator of truth and of the glory of Christ.
We should look to him as teacher, guide, sanctifier, giver of assurance concerning our sonship and standing before God, helper in prayer, and as one who directs and empowers our witness.
We should particularly recognize that growth in holiness is not simply a matter of the lonely individual making claims of faith on the basis ofRomans 6:1-14. It involves moving about in all areas of our life in dependent fellowship with a person: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16 NASB).
When this practice of the presence of God is maintained over a period of time, our experience of the Holy Spirit becomes less subjective and more clearly identifiable, as gradually we learn to distinguish the strivings of the Spirit from the motions of our flesh. (pp. 130-131)
1. From a sermon by Steve DeWitt via Justin Taylor:
You can put all the parameters in place, have accountability partners, and date high quality Christians, but sexual desire will overwhelm all the boundaries unless in my heart I have one thing – a greater desire for God’s pleasure than sexual pleasure. That doesn’t just happen. I have to stoke my desires for God while starving my desire for sexual fulfillment.
2. From Tullian Tchividjian:
God uses his law to crush hard hearts and his gospel to cure broken hearts. The law is God’s first word; the gospel is God’s final word. And when we rush past God’s first word to get to God’s final word and the law has not yet had a chance to do its deep wrecking work, the gospel is not given a chance to do its deep restorative work. Sinners never experience the freedom that comes from crying “Abba” (gospel) until they first cry “Uncle” (law).
1. This quote from Russ Ramsey, via Justin Taylor:
So many things in life fall into this category—events you simply cannot bottle for later—like the birth of a child, the funeral of a loved one, a sunset, the presentation and enjoyment of a great meal, a surprise party, a concert, climbing out of a cold tent in the mountains and restoking the campfire as you watch the sun come up, sifting through the rubble of a flood or a fire, kissing your daughter’s forehead as the nurses wheel her off to surgery, asking your girlfriend to marry you, or watching a thunderstorm roll in.
In our amazing era of digital immediacy, I can tell the world where I am and what I’m doing while I’m doing it. I can present myself as a busy man living a rich and full life. I can take pictures of my meals, log my locations, snap photos of the people I’m with, and weigh in on what’s happening around the globe 140 characters at a time. But none of these things mean I’ve been paying attention.
The degree to which we are able to be present in the moment, psychologists say, is one of the chief indicators of mental health and security in our personal identity. I can buy that. And I would submit that this takes a lot of courage.
2. Last week I read the following quote from Jonathan Harris via SwissMiss:
The more you document your own life, the more you check in, you tweet, the more you post photos of what you did last night, the more you do all of this stuff, or even in my case, the more you listen for little lines of dialogue that can make their way into stories, the more you photograph moments, in a way, the more you start to step out of those moments, and if you do that too much, you become a spectator to your own life.
1. This post by Tim Keller, 'The Gospel vs. Moralism.'
'Every sin is rooted in the inordinate lust for something which comes because we are trusting in that thing rather than in Christ for our righteousness or salvation. We sin because we are looking to some- thing else to give us what only Jesus can give us. Beneath any particular sin is the general sin of rejecting Christ’s salvation and attempting our own self-salvation.'
2. This post by Jen Smidt about fearing God. 'The fear of the Lord leads to life and whoever has it rests satisfied; (s)he will not be visited by harm.' Proverbs 19:23
