This Sunday’s readings: John 17:6-24

Reflections

True, a man will often have to wrestle with his God—but not for growth. The Christian life is a composed life. The Gospel is Peace. Yet the most anxious people in the world are Christians—Christians who misunderstand the nature of growth. Life is perpetual self-condemning because they are not growing. And the effect is the loss of tranquility to the individual.
~ Henry Drummond, 1851-1897, Scottish evangelist/Author

The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time. / But God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situation where we will be in trouble if He doesn’t come through.
~ Francis Chan, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God

No one enjoys being cross-examined, or accused of having something wrong in their lives. But as we grow as Christians we come to the painful recognition that we have an almost unlimited capacity for self-deception. We slowly learn that we need to be stopped in our tracks by God. He uses Scripture to do this… We cannot reach our destination if we are travelling in the wrong direction.
~ Sinclair B. Ferguson, Pastor/Author

The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people.
~ A. W. Tozer, 1897-1963, Pastor/Author, Christian Missionary Alliance

And how often pursuit after spiritual growth originates in the natural self perhaps only because we cannot bear the thought of falling behind or because we seek some personal gain. Bluntly stated, the doing of good is not sin but the manner, methods, or motive in such good-doing may be surfeited with our self.
~ Watchman Nee , 1903-1972, Chinese Church leader/teacher

This Sunday’s readings: John 17:13-19

Reflections

Remember then that there is only one important time, and that time is now. The most important one is always the one you are with. And the most important thing is to do good for the one who is standing at your side. This is why we are here.
~ Jon J. Muth, 1960- , Illustrator/Writer, The Three Questions

We are not sent into this world mainly to enjoy the loveliness therein, nor to sit us down in passive ease; no, we were sent here for action. The soul that seeks to do the will of God with a pure heart, fervently, does not yield to the lethargy of ease.
~ Dorothea Dix, 1802-1887, Nurse, Advocate for Mentally Ill

I would like to buy $3 worth of God please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 dollars’ worth of God please.
~ from collected writings 1971, Wilbur Rees, 1925-2018, Pastor/Author

An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.
~ Walter Bagehot, 1826-1877, English Journalist/Essayist

I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward…. How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?
~ Penn Jillette, famed atheist, illusionist and comedian