The dearest idol I have known,
Whatever that idol be,
Help me to tear it from thy throne,
and worship only thee…
- William Cowper, “O For a Closer Walk with Thee”
Filed under: Quotes, Reflection, Religous
August 31, 2009 • 3:20 pm 0
Tear Down my Idols
August 17, 2009 • 2:41 pm 0
Can we say this…
I was reading out of Taste and See by John Piper this morning and he smacked me across the face…
Here’s what he smacked me with:
Can we say the following with Augustine?
How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose!…You drove me them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place…O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation.”
Or are we in bondage to the pleasures of this world so that, for all our talk about the glory of God, we love televeision and food and sleep and sex and money and human praise just like everybody else? If so, let us repent and fix our faces like flint toward the Word of God in prayer: Oh, Lord, open my eyes to see the sovereign sight that in your presence is the fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
Filed under: Quotes, Reflection, Religous
April 27, 2009 • 4:03 pm 0
Tozer Gut-Punch
Saw this quote the other day and it’s been hounding me since…
Tozer says this in his book Whatever Happened to Worship, Tozer writes:
“Oh, brother or sister, God calls us to worship, but in many instances we are in entertainment, just running a poor second to the theaters. That is where we are, even in the evangelical churches, and I don’t mind telling you that most of the people we say we are trying to reach will never come to a church to see a lot of amateur actors putting on a home talent show.”
Ouch.
Filed under: Quotes
April 21, 2009 • 4:15 pm 0
Jesus Wants the Rose!
Matt Chandler once gave this illustration at a Desiring God conference and it has been rocking my world every time I think about it. It truly communicates the gospel in all it’s beauty.
During my freshman year of college, I sat next to a 26-year-old single mother trying to get her degree. We began a dialogue about the grace and mercy of Christ in the cross. Some other guys and I would go over and babysit her child and try to talk with her. A friend of mine was in a band playing in the area and we invited her to hear him. She agreed. She thought it would be a concert. I knew better. It was shady and she agreed to come.
The minister got up and said, “Today I want to talk to you about sex.” And I immediately thought, Uh oh. He took a red rose, smelled it, showed how pretty it was. Then, threw it out in the crowd and told them to smell the rose. “I want you to smell it and touch it and feel the texture in it.” (There were about 1000 people there.) He then began one of the worst, most horrific handlings of what sex is and isn’t that I ever sat through. It was fear-mongering at its best.
I’m thinking, with Kim beside me, What are you doing? As he wrapped up, he asked, “Where’s my rose?”
Some kid brought the rose back and it was broken. The petals were broken. And he lifts it up. And his big crescendo is to lift up that broken rose and say, “Now who would want this?”
Anger welled up within me and I wanted to say, “JESUS WANTS THE ROSE! That’s the point of the gospel! That Jesus wants the rose. That he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Filed under: Quotes
April 2, 2009 • 3:17 pm 0
Thicken our Skin.
Lord, thicken our skin.
Not that we be less tender, but that we be less easily offended.
Take away our bent to self-pity.
Give us a passion for the truth that is stronger
than our inborn passion for being praised.
Forgive us, Father, for calling words unloving just because they were tough.
Forgive us for attributing malicious motives
to people when we don’t know their motives.
Help us to learn from Jesus
when to be tough and when to be tender.
Guard us from justifying merely human anger with the hard sayings of Jesus.
But don’t let us become so mushy that we can’t speak a firm word in season.
We marvel at the words of our Lord Jesus.
How unpredictable He was!
No one ever spoke like He did.
He is in a class by Himself.
We bow before Him and shut our mouths.
We are eager for Him to speak – and to speak any way He pleases.
We are the silent learners.
He is the sinless teacher.
We put our hands upon our mouths and take our place at His feet.
Do with us as You please, Father.
We are not Your judge, nor the judge of how Your Son speaks.
Have mercy on us – tough or tender – and lead us to Your everlasting joy.
In the name of Your Son, our Lord Jesus,
Amen.
- John Piper, from Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ
Filed under: Church, Culture, Quotes, Reflection
April 1, 2009 • 3:52 pm 0
Blind to all but Christ.
O Father, make known to us the glory of your Son!
O Spirit, shine the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ Jesus into our hearts!
Blind us to all but him.
Captivate us with his splendor,
that we, like Moses, might say not to the passing pleasures of sin.
Help us to rest in Christ alone
as the treasure greater than all earthly rewards.
- Sam Storms, The Hope of Glory: 100 Daily Meditations on Colossians
Amen.
Filed under: Quotes
March 25, 2009 • 11:13 am 0
Great quote
I just read this from Richard Foster the other day:
“If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship.”
Filed under: Quotes, Reflection, Religous
March 22, 2009 • 2:58 pm 0
Punched in the Gut.
Brennan Manning punched me in the gut last night as I was re-reading Ruthless Trust.
Brennan wrote:
“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-depricating humor that passes for humility. The irony is that while I do not want anyone to know that I am judgemental, lazy, vulnerable, screwed up, and afraid, for fear of losing face, the face that I fear losing is the mask of the impostor, not my own.”
Filed under: Church, Personal, Quotes, Reflection, Religous
