Monday, April 25, 2011

Godcrastination

Every week for just over a month, I've composed a massive email for close friends consisting of 'random' spiritual insights that I discover while sifting through my google reader account of other peoples blogs. Sometimes I come across things really impacting - short quotes, a youtube video, someone's personal analysis of scripture; and I copy-paste them into the email to send at the end of the week. Its a sort of basic summary of my week spiritually.

Here's the first one...

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“Let us suppose, in the manner of some romances, that a king was betrothed to a beautiful wife, whose picture was sent to him before he himself saw her. But when she set out on her journey to him, she fell sick of some loathsome disease, such as the smallpox or leprosy.

But suppose that he knew before she came to him that she should be restored to her first primitive beauty, and that even though he knew he would be tr
oubled by her disaster, distemper, or disease, he easily quieted himself for that little space of time in which her infirmity, though greatly disfiguring her, was to continue. For he himself would be her physician, the only one who could cure her and restore her to her first perfect beauty, which he know he could and should do. Thus he would show all love and peace toward her, even though her disease was loathsome, in full hope of her recovery.

This is the case between Christ and the church.”
— Thomas Goodwin
A Habitual Sight of Him: The Christ-centered Piety of Thomas Goodwin
(Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2009), 113
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[Suffering] is manure cast o
n the ground of the Spirit Tree. His goal through this is that we would love that which is lovely a little bit more. His aim is that we would walk in joy more than we did before. His purpose is that we would exhibit more peace even in the midst of this great battle. The Great Gardener is cultivating the fruit of the Spirit.

There is, therefore, nothing extraordinary about what we are going through. There is no special revelation we’re supposed to come away with. We are instead studying in the school of Christ, which has as its end that we would become more like Him.

RC Sproul

(via Ligonier Ministries)

(Extended upon further down)
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32 “For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of.
33 Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?
34 Or has any god ever a
ttempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him.
36 Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.
37 And because he loved your fathers and chose their offsprin
g after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power,
38 driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day,
39 know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

Deuteronomy 4:32-39
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Oh my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned,
at least let them leap to hell over our bodies and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

Spurgeon

(via Tony Reinke) (:D I like!)
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If I had not felt certain
that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings.

Adoniram Judson, missionary to Burma
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"Are we really being guided as we thought? How do we know we're on the right track? Is there any such destination as the place we think we're going to? Here faith simply has to suspend judgment on what God is doing. Faith does not know why, but it knows why it trusts God who knows why. We do not trust God because he guides us; we trust God and then we are guided, which means that we can trust God even when we do not seem to be guided. Faith may be in the dark about guidance, but it is never in the dark about God. What God is doing may be a mystery, but who God is is not."
Os Guinness, God in the Dark: The Assurance of Faith Beyond a Shadow of Doubt, p.176.
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“The bad news is far worse than making mistakes or failing to live up to the legalistic standards of fundamentalism. It is that the best effo
rts of the best Christians, on the best days, in the best frame of heart and mind, with the best motives fall short of that true righteousness and holiness that God requires.

Our best efforts cannot satisfy God’s justice. Yet the good news is that God has satisfied his own justice and reconciled us to himself through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son. God’s holy law can no longer condemn us because we are in Christ.”
— Michael Horton
Christless Christianity
(Grand Rapids, Mi.: Baker Books, 2008), 91
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William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.


Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.
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... Suffering, however, is rarely given as a narrowly targeted response to a very specific sin. God did not find that I have trouble keeping Book 17, Chapter 12, subsection D paragraph four of His law, then check His Great Physicians Desk Reference to send the right anti-biotic for that weakness. Nor did He send this to help me grow a third arm of holiness. That is, this hardship will not bring forth some weird, never-before seen form of righteousness. The changes He has designed for this are incremental, common, plain. Cancer is manure cast on the ground of the Spirit Tree. His goal through this is that we would love that which is lovely a little bit more. His aim is that we would walk in joy more than we did before. His purpose is that we would exhibit more peace even in the midst of this great battle. The Great Gardener is cultivating the fruit of the Spirit.

There is, therefore, nothing extraordinary about what we are going through. There is no special revelation we’re supposed to come away with. We are instead studying in the school of Christ, which has as its end that we would become more like Him. To that end suffering is indeed a great teache
r. Her lessons, however, are rather ordinary. When this is over, I pray I will look a little more like Jesus. I pray the same for my wife. It may be His will, however, that she should sooner come to look exactly like Him. Either way, this much I know. Goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

(Juicy Nuggets In the Valley of Death by R.C. Sproul Jr. Mar 08, 2011 ~ wife is suffering from leukaemia - 3rd time she has had cancer - defeated twice already ...)
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I believe that every Christian is a spiritual snowflake. Just like you are literally the only one of your kind, even if you're a twin you're different than your twin. Your fingerprints are different, your teeth are different, and other parts of you are different. Every one of us stamped with absolute uniqueness, we are all creative idiots, in that sense. We are peculiar, we are unique. There's no one like us. We are spiritual snowflakes. And I believe that when the Spirit of God gives to every believer gifts, He gives them individually to each believe
r absolutely peculiar to that believer.

You say, "Well now wait a minute, John [the preacher]. If I read in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 I read that there are just a few gifts listed there. I mean, a few specific ones. It talks about, for example, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, distinguishing of spirits, various kinds of tongues, interpretation. And then if you look at Romans chapter 12 you have another list of gifts and you look there and there are just a few suggested there. For example in Romans 12 you have prophecy, service, exhortation, giving, leading, showing mercy." You say, "Well, you know, there's only about a dozen of them listed here. How you going to divide a dozen gifts up among millions of Christians and make them all different?"

Let me tell you how. I believe you have a list of gifts in Romans 12, a
list of gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. The fact that they are different shows how much latitude there is in their definition. Paul lists some in the Roman passage, he lists some in the Corinthian passage and there is some duplication and some non‑duplication. And it's almost as if he's just suggesting broad categories. The best way to understand it would be that they're like colors on a palette and each gift would be a color and as God takes His brush and paints you, He dips into different color categories and paints you a unique color. You're not the same as someone else. Even if you had fifteen people or twenty or five thousand who all had a gift of teaching, you could have them all teach and they would all teach differently, uniquely. Why? Well because the category of gift is just that, it's a category into which God dips, as it were, and then again maybe dipping into those other categories to make you unique.

And then there's more than that. Ephesians 4:7 says the measure of Christ's gift. He uses that phrase, "the measure of Christ's gift." He measures out that gift in different ways. You might have a gift of teaching, of gift of showing mercy, a gift of service, a gift of faith or whatever, but the measure by with which you are given that gift might vary. We have many people in this church with the gift of teaching but it's different in each case. So you have the measure of the gift.

Not only that, in Romans 12:3 Paul says when God gives the gift He also gives the measure of faith to operate that gift. So you have your gift measured out and then you have the right amount of faith to operate that gift measured out. A measure of grace, a measure of faith is linked with the measured gift for effective use. And so while all of us have gifts, the Lord is making us very unique. That passage in 1 Corinthians 12 emphasizes this same point from another vantage point. He says there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit. There are varieties of ministries in which those gifts are used but the same Lord. And there are varieties of effects that result from those gifts being used. So you have varieties of gifts, varieties of ministries in which the gifts operate, varieties of effects because you have varieties of grace, if you will, measured out, varieties of faith measured out. Everyone of us comes out as a spiritual snowflake.

People say to me, "What's your spiritual gift?" Well I can't label it and say preaching or teaching. My spiritual gift is that which I do to serve Christ. It's a composite of a number of things. Obviously it would include preaching and teaching and would include perhaps exhortation. Your gift may be a combination of other things but it's you who are absolutely unique. Even Timothy who did so many things, who prea
ched and taught, who did the work of an evangelist, who counseled and exhorted, who had to demonstrate leadership again and again in his life, he had all of those capabilities rolled into one thing but when his gift was addressed it was addressed as if he only had one gift...the gift...the gift that was given to you do not neglect, it says in 1 Timothy 4:14. He received the gift.

So you have a special gift. It's a combination of the colors, as it were, on the palette of giftedness that come together to make you unique and there's nobody like you, absolutely no one like you.

The Christian's Duty in a Hostile World, Part 3; by John MacArthur
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“Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start dow
n the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.”
of Yoda, but prompted
by my lit tutor: “it will consume you”. more than watchmen wait for the morning

Interestingly enough - if you guys don't know Obi-Wan's apprentice kinda was Darth Vader - but Obi-Wan was the apprentice of Jedi Master Qui-Gon, who is the one who dies in movie 1 (Qui-Gon Nooooooooo!) and his first apprentice went evil too. ...

Just random.
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We are living in turbulent times. These are not the days to take the matters of eternity lightly, it is time to live right & do good.

This year will begin many cataclysmic events that will shake our world. Naturally, government, economics like we have never seen.

But when the world shakes, God’s love remains steady as a rock. Don’t build your life on sand, but build your life on faith in Christ.

Don’t live for the things of this world, or represent the dark side. That is what a lot of others are doing, but all that darkness will fade

Because angels have been released and darkness will cease to hold on to their feeble thrones. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken!

Don’t think that living foolish is cool, because it is ignorance. Whatever you do, do it for the glory of God, live to inspire, serve & love


Don’t think that what happened in Japan won’t happen where you are. There is nothing in this world that’s dependable outside of faith in God

Pray for our brother & sisters in Japan, do what you can to help. Pray for yourself, your city, your world to wake up. The days are evil

Life is short, live every day as if it were your last. If you love well you will live well. Living 4 self is empty. Worry is not worth it.

You may think that the “good guys” seem to never win? Think again. Read the book of Revelation, that is what we are in, I know who wins.

GOD

WAKE UP, JMA
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http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/briefing/library/5445/


Would recommend reading this article next time you're bored - the 'swedish method of Bible Study' - very simple but sounds like it works.. :)

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‘My heart and I’, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(Don't worry - nothing to do which anything atm - I just love poetry...
Then again, I'm sure we've all had days where 'we're tired, my heart and I')

Enough! we’re tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.

The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason’s knife,
As Heaven’s sweet life renews earth’s life
With which we’re tired, my heart and I.

You see we’re tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colors could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune’s end,

We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we’re tired, my heart and I.

How tired we feel, my heart and I
We seem of no use in the world;

Our fancies hang gray and uncurled
About men’s eyes indifferently;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet:
What do we here, my heart and I?

So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
It was not thus in that old time
When Ralph sat with me ‘neath the lime
To watch the sunset from the sky.
“Dear love, you’re looking tired,” he said:

I, smiling at him, shook my head.
‘Tis now we’re tired, my heart and I.


So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
Though now none takes me on his arm
To fold me close and kiss me warm
Till each quick breath end in a sigh
Of happy languor. Now, alone,
We lean upon this graveyard stone,
Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

Tired out we are, my heart and I.
Suppose the world brought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems

Of powers and pleasures? Let it try.
We scarcely care to look at even
A pretty child, or God’s blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.

Yet who complains? My heart and I?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out:
Disdain them, break them, throw them by!

And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used, - well enough,
I think, we’ve fared, my heart and I.

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“If the cross shows me that I am far worse than I had ever imagined, it also shows me that my evil has been absorbed and forgiven. If the worst thing any human can do is kill God’s son, and that can be forgiven, then how can anything else not be forgiven?”
— Rebecca Pippert
Hope Has Its Reasons

(San Francisco, Ca.: Harper & Row, 1989), 104
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"Being humble is not a matter of pretending to be worthless, but is a form of realism, not only regarding the real badness of one's sins and stupidities and the real depth of one's dependence on God's grace, but also regarding the real range of one's abilities. Humble believers know what they can and cannot do. They note both their gifts and their limitations, and so are able to avoid both the unfaithfulness of letting their God-given powers lie fallow and the foolhardiness of biting off more than they can chew."
- J.I. Packer

via Joshua Harris

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“A Substitute has appeared in space and time, appointed by God Himself, to bear the weight and the burden of our transgressions, to make expiation for our guilt, and to propitiate the wrath of God on our behalf. This is the gospel.”
— R. C. Sproul
The Truth of the Cross
(Orlando, Fl.: Reformation Trust, 2007), 81

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Most people today don’t believe that, but it does. Love is not like a glob of gelatin, something with no center, no parts, and no hard edges that easily morphs into whatever shape its container requires. Love has a center and boundaries. It has resources and rules that sometimes constrain, sometimes enable what love does.

That means it’s proper to speak of love’s nature, love’s limits, love’s affirmations, love’s judgments, even love’s discriminations. Love embraces some things. But it excludes others. Love can be angry. Love discerns the difference between right and wrong. Love can say “you must” or “no.” Love can call a fake a fake. Love can—believe it or not—hate.

There are probably a number of reasons why we confuse love with something like gelatin. For one, love has remarkable elasticity. It molds itself around the most unlikely objects. It
’s patient and kind. It’s long-suffering and tender. It does not insist on its own way but tries to conform itself to the beloved for the beloved’s good. Indeed, it sacrifices itself for the beloved’s good. Is there anything in the universe so wonderful as love? Yet it’s because love is self-sacrificing, even for its enemies, that we’re tempted to think that it doesn’t have strong edges or a solid center. When we give way to that sort of thinking, we move from talking about love as a glob of gelatin to love as infinite space. It becomes all encompassing. It’s said to be everywhere. Of course, when people say it’s everywhere, we eventually realize it’s nowhere. Then we stop believing in love.

No, there’s a limit to love’s conformities. Some tolerances it cannot grant, some allowances it won’t accept. Love won’t delight in evil, market deception, or trade in untruth. Love rejoices in the truth.

In fact, truth and truth in its different forms, like righteousness and justice, give love its structure—its resources and rules. Ultimately, if not immediately, love demands the truth. It requires righteousness. It judges injustice. Yet it’s at just this point that our understanding of love often gets trippe
d up. We think of love as willing to overlook treachery and betrayal. Love is forgiving, we say. But this is too simplistic. Love always addresses the betrayer. It faces down the fabricator. It may persist in loving, but it does not abide pretence. It may grant forgiveness, but it will not condone corruption. It commands repentance and calls for atonement. Love always hopes, but it doesn’t bury its head in the sand. It’s realistic and rugged. It counts the cost and then sometimes perseveres, sometimes walks away. How strange love is.

Love can conform, but it cannot compromise. When something calling itself love relies on fiction or foul play, that thing being called love is not love. It’s a perversion or shadow of love. Love has many shadow-like phantoms, things that have the outline of love but lack the substance. Yet these phantoms are almost always likeable at first. The phantom fanaticism, like love, feels rational and looks heroic. The phantom narcissism, like love, sings of romance. The phantom naiveté, like love, walks for miles on end. The p
hantom all-acceptance, like love, loves the unlovely. The phantom religiosity, like love, bares its neck to the executioner. But all these phantoms are hypocrites and idols, making the right faces but having no heart.

Perhaps this is another reason we have a hard time recognizing love. We all choose the face of our favorite phantom. If we have confused love with romantic feeling, we look for faces happy and soft. If we have confused love with all-acceptance, we look for faces smiling and warm. In all these we confuse the face for the heart. But in a broken and fallen world, how many faces do you think love, real love, wears?

Think about it like this: Love plants and love plucks up. Love kills and love heals. Love breaks down and love builds. Love weeps and love laughs. Love mourns and love dances. Love casts away and love gathers. Love keeps silent and love speaks. How many faces is that?

Love begins not on the face but in the heart. Love is: the heart’s prizing of the beloved. Love is: taking pleasure in the beloved’s good. Love is: delighting in the beloved’s gain. That’s w
hat love is.

Do you see love’s beauty and love’s glory? Love involves a two way, not a one-way, movement. It moves inward and outward at the same time, though the movements are different. Love gains, and the beloved receives: love gains pleasure; the beloved receives honor. The word “selfish” is not right to describe this transaction, but nor is the word “selfless.” Love somehow transcends these things because it gains pleasure in the giving of itself. This is love’s beauty. What is beauty? Beauty is the power of attraction. And just as the faces of beauty in this world tempt men to worship, so the beautiful vision of the lover prizing the beloved attracts us to worship love itself.

Notice, this is also the glory of love—it’s resplendent beauty. It’s beauty and glory are one and the same.

Holiness, truth, and wisdom all point to love. What is holiness? It’s the single-minded commitment to the glory and beauty of love. What is truth? It’s the servant that points to the glory and beauty of love. What is wisdom? It’s the ability to discern truth pointing toward love in the places that we least ex
pect to find love.

What, finally, is love? The right question is not what, but who. Who is love? God is love. And God’s love is holy, just, and wise, because God is holy, just, and wise. These, indeed, are what give love its structure.

Original Preface to 'The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love'
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“In both its precepts and penalty, the law of God in its most exactin
g requirements was fulfilled by Jesus. And He did this in our place as our representative and our substitute.”
— Jerry Bridges
The Discipline of Grace: God's Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness
(Colorado Springs, Co.: NavPress, 1994), 58
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“A young minister, while visiting the cabin of a veteran Scotch woman who had grown ripe in experience, said to her, ‘Nannie, what if, after all your prayers and watching and waiting, God should allow your soul to be eternally lost?’

Looking at the youthful novice in divinity, she replied, ‘Ah, let me tell you, that God would have the greatest loss. Poor me would lose her soul, and that would be a great loss; but God would lose his honor and his character. If he broke his word, he would make himself a liar, and the universe would go to
ruin.’

The veteran believer was right. Our only real ground of salvation lies in God’s everlasting word.”
— Theodore Cuyler
"Wayside Springs"
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“The pattern of the Cross means that the world’s glorification of power, might, and status is exposed and defeated. On the Cross Christ wins through losing, triumphs through defeat, achieves power through weakness and service, comes to wealth via giving all away. Jesus Christ turns the values of the world upside down.”
— Timothy Keller
The Reason for God
(New York, NY: Dutton, 2008), 196
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