February 2012
130 posts
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“The great weakness in the North American church at large, and certainly in my life, is our refusal to accept our brokenness. We hide it, evade it, gloss over it. We grab for the cosmetic kit and put on our virtuous face to make ourselves admirable to the public. Thus, we present to others a self that is spiritually together, superficially happy, and lacquered with a sense of self-deprecating...
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“In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.”
Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging
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Instead let their be a flood of justice, An...
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Walking Paradoxes
Our lives are but a breath, but our breaths are drawn from your divine Spirit. You have created us as walking paradoxes. Specks of dust and divine-image bearers. We are constantly restless until we rest in you.
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The axis of the Christian moral revolution is love, and it is the only sign given by Jesus by which the disciple would be recognized. The danger lurks in our subtle attempts to minimize, rationalize, and justify our moderation in this regard.
Turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, offering no resistance to injury, being reconciled with one’s brother, and forgiving seventy times seven are...
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“Si comprehendis, non est Deus.”
– St. Augustine (via invisibleforeigner)
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“What we would like to do is change the world—make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute—the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words—we can, to a certain extent, change the...
cleansingflow asked: I've been really getting into AW Tozer since you've been posting it. Any books to recommend? Keep it real my dear brother in Christ :)
Anonymous asked: Could you explain what the following quote means: "I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least." I don't think I understand it....
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“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”
-Dorothy Day
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Between Now and the Next →
New blog post from my dear brother, Jobin Sam. Please do yourself a favor and read through this post and his writings, a few times. Such a kindred spirit.
“ Even when I had nothing to give, it was about the fact that my hands were given to hold. It wasn’t about “making a difference”, it was about loving the different. And, in an age of pop-culture philanthropy,...
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“People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state—it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle…. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of...
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nomoresea:
“The poor in spirit will be making the kingdom of heaven happen. The meek will be taking over the earth, so gently that the powerful won’t notice until it’s too late. The peacemakers will be putting the arms manufacturers out of business. Those who are hungry and thirsty for God’s justice will be analysing government policy and legal rulings and speaking up on behalf of those at the...
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solideogloriaa:
“O my God, Thou fairest, greatest, first of all objects, My heart admires, adores, loves thee, For my little vessel is as full as it can be, And I would pour out all that fullness before thee in ceaseless flow. When I think upon and converse with thee, Ten thousand delightful thoughts spring up, Ten thousand sources of pleasure are unsealed, Ten thousand refreshing joys spread...
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Isaiah, Amos, and many of the prophets wrote about what God wants to bring about in the future—the kingdom of God, the new heaven and new earth, a healed material creation: “The wolf lying down with the lamb; the child playing with the cobra and adder without fear” (Isaiah 11). Absolute wholeness and well-being, physically, spiritually, socially, and economically. When John the...
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joyandbicycles:
“I want oh God, to see you, savor you, be satisfied in you, trust you, desire you, so deeply, so firmly that your infinite value, that your beauty, your treasure, would shine off our lives whether by life or by death.”
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John Piper (via yhwhlives)
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WatchAscend the Hill: Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go
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Help me, Lord, to remember that religion (Christianity) is not to be confined to the church … nor exercised only in prayer and meditation, but that everywhere I am in Thy Presence. Susanna Wesley
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“If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because he himself is the way… if you are looking for a goal, hold fast to Christ, because he himself is the truth… if you are looking for a resting place, hold fast to Christ, because he himself is the life.”
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
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The creation is quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite and the most abundant furnishings. Everything in it tells us of God.
John Calvin, Common Prayer
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invisibleforeigner:
“Scholarship is its own kind of cloak. It’s a cloak of knowledge. It doesn’t matter whether it’s philosophy, medicine, theology, or aeronautical engineering, when we’ve read all the primary literature, and all the secondary literature, and every single scholarly article on a subject, we’ve built up a pretty impressive cloak. We know all there is to know. We can think of a...
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“The stone that was rolled before Christ’s tomb might appropriately be called the philosopher’s stone because its removal gave not only the pharisees but, now for 1800 years, the philosophers so much to think about.”
Søren Kierkegaard
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“It is impossible to exist without passion.”
-Søren Kierkegaard
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“People try to persuade us that the objections against Christianity spring from doubt. The objections against Christianity spring from insubordination, the dislike of obedience, rebellion against all authority. As a result people have hitherto been beating the air in the struggle against objections, because they have fought intellectually with doubt instead of fighting morally with...
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“Give yourself to prayer, to reading and meditation on divine truths: strive to penetrate to the bottom of them and never be content with a superficial knowledge.”
Jonathan Edwards, The Life of David Brainerd
Oh for men and women who experientially and deeply know the Lord. Not puppets but Prophets to proclaim the coming Kingdom.
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Christianity does not consist of begrudging obedience and checking off a to do list. Biblical Christianity is seeing the beauty of Christ, and being so infatuated with Him, that your love for Him drives everything you do. It’s about finding a treasure in a field, and being so overjoyed, you sell all that you have to buy that field. It makes no sense to the world, but you have a hunch. You know...
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It may be true that man cannot live by bread alone, but the mere fact that Jesus added the “alone” means that man cannot live without bread. Religion must never overlook this, and any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the economic conditions that damn the soul, the social conditions that corrupt men, and the city governments that...
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GPOY: Lewis finds at the Book Store
Hey Planet Tumblr, sorry for my somewhat less of a presence here. I’ve been trying to live a little more of life in the real world and in my community. Anyways, here are some finds from the book store downtown today.
Found three C.S. Lewis Classics:
The Abolition of Man
The Great Divorce
Mere Christianity
More and more additions to the never...
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For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
Paul of Tarsus, 1 Cor 9v16
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“The goal of my life and the reason for writing this book is to direct the attention of more and more people to the pleasures of God some of the infinite measure of his worth and excellency; and, in seeing this glory, be transformed to the likeness of his Son; and give ourselves so passionately to the work of mercy and missions, that all nations will see and give glory to our Father in...
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earthstranger:
“If I speak in the tongues of Reformers and of professional theologians, and I have not personal faith in Christ, my theology is nothing but the noisy beating of a snare drum. And if I have analytic powers and the gift of creating coherent conceptual systems of theology, so as to remove liberal objections, and have not personal hope in God, I am nothing. And if I give myself to...
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Stop Surfing Tumblr for 60 Seconds
officialjamesbarnett:
… and pray for the materially poor.
Pray for those with a spirit of despair.
Pray for your family, your friends, your enemies.
Pray for those caught in warzones.
Pray for those who have been convinced that heroism means killing brothers & sisters.
Pray for the children being sold as sex slaves in your own country and throughout the world.
Pray for the elderly who...
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Basil of Caesarea, a fourth-century monk and bishop, wrote, “I cannot persuade myself that without love to others, and without, as far as rests with me, peaceableness towards all, I can be called a worthy servant of Jesus Christ.”
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Common Prayer: Feb 14th
Love is stronger than our addiction to war. -St. Valentine
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Just bought tickets to the Nashville, As Cities Burn show in April.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
Best Valentines Day ever despite getting up at 2:45am for work at Chick-Fil-A. Pulling a 16 hour day between the two jobs, yikes.