This Sunday’s readings: Luke 2:8-14

Reflections

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945, Pastor-Theologian

Happy are those whose self-centered lives have been crushed and reshaped by the Master’s hand to be full of mercy.
~ John Hagee, 1940- , Pastor

I want God, not my idea of God. I want my neighbor, not my idea of my neighbor. I want my spouse, not my idea of my spouse. I want my self, not my idea of my self.
~ C.S. Lewis, Author/Professor

If we live in a denial of the realities of our need and we persist in this, we run the risk of existing in this forever. We will move towards something that’s like an asylum. Those in hell are diminished by the fact that they have denied the reality of themselves and the grace of God as well.
~ Dr. Jerry Root, Professor Emeritus, Wheaton College

If the only thing human beings needed were a little external tweaking of their life circumstances, then the coming of Jesus to earth wouldn’t make any sense. But if the greatest danger to all of us lives inside us and not outside us, then the radical intervention of the incarnation of Jesus is our only hope.
~Paul Tripp, author and speaker

This Sunday’s readings: Luke 1:46-55

Reflections

The ultimate test of our spirituality is the measure of our amazement at the grace of God.
~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), Welsh-born medical doctor and preacher

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this artificial scaffolding…
~ Letters of Thomas Jefferson, (Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823)

Those who will never be fooled can never be delighted, because without self-forgetfulness there can be no delight, and this is a great and grievous loss.
~ Alan Jacobs, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis

I’m convinced that the best solutions are often the ones that are counterintuitive—that challenge conventional thinking—and end in breakthroughs.
~ Nathaniel Wyeth, 1911-1990, American Inventor

The secret to freedom from enslaving patters of sin is worship. You need worship [together]. You need great worship [together]. You need weeping worship [together]. You need glorious worship [together]. You need to sense God’s greatness and to be moved by it [together]—moved to tears and moved to laughter [together]—moved by who God is and what He has done for you [together].
~ Tim Keller, Retired Pastor/Author