Reflections

…creating our own version of god means we can tame it. A created thing can only do what we allow it to do unlike the true God who isn’t manageable. He can’t be put on a shelf or told to hush. We want to worship what we can control.
~ Jackie Hill Perry, Contemporary writer and hip-hop artist

The promise of the new covenant is not that we’re liberated from God’s word, but that we’re liberated to keep it. … Our desires are to mature, so that our souls, brought to life by the Spirit, move us to pursue real treasure and eternal glory with passion.
~ Peter Leithart, The Ten Commandments: A Guide to the Perfect Law of Liberty

The list of blessings and curses in the Torah reminds us that we must choose each and every day to be active partners with God working to repair the world.
~ Abraham Heschel, Rabbi and leading 20th Century Jewish Theologian

Nations pass away, thrones crumble, but the church remains. What is then the power which has protected this church, thus assailed by the furious billows of rage and the hostility of ages? Whose is the arm which, for eighteen hundred years, has protected the church from so many storms which have threatened to engulf it? … I marvel that whereas the ambitious dreams of myself, Caesar, and Alexander should have vanished into thin air, a Judean peasant—Jesus— should be able to stretch His hands across the centuries and control the destinies of men and nations.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), During his exile on the island of St. Helena

This Sunday’s readings: Deuteronomy 29:9-20

Reflections

When we preach the love of God there is a danger of forgetting that the Bible reveals not first the love of God but the intense, blazing holiness of God, with His love at the center of that holiness.
~ Oswald Chambers, 1874-1917, Evangelist

Paul would not only be astonished by our lackadaisical attitude towards holiness, but he would be horrified that mostly we just don’t care – unity and holiness to Paul, is the greatest thing. Unity is easy if you don’t care about holiness. Holiness is easy if you don’t care about unity. … Paul was trying to hold these two things together throughout his ministry.
~ N.T. Wright, Research Fellow, Oxford

Deep in our timid hearts is a desire to be loved mildly, nothing more. That way, we retain control, we set the terms, we avoid risk. Our loving God, in His ferocious intensity, will have none of it.
~Ray Ortlund, contemporary pastor and author

My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.
~ Job 42:5-6

The Resurrecting power of God is at the Christian’s fingertips, yet they never access it because they are afraid to tell the truth about themselves.
~ Scott Sauls, Pastor, Christ Presbyterian Church

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”
~ Luke 5:8

This Sunday’s readings: Isaiah 6:1-10