The Christian Church has put a spiritual hierarchy on jobs. Ministers and missionaries are on top, then perhaps doctors and nurses come next, and so on to the bottom, where artists appear. Artists of whatever kind have to compromise everything to entertain. Art is fluffy froth that is no good in the Kingdom of God. What nonsense.
In the modern world, we are primarily confronted with the extraordinary spectacle of people turning to new ideals because they have not tried the old. Men have not gotten tired of Christianity; they have never found enough Christianity to get tired of. Men have never wearied of political justice; they have wearied of waiting for it.
Torrance uses the analogy of an embrace. When we hug someone, there is a double movement. We open our arms and in so doing give ourselves to the beloved. But in the embrace we also draw that person close to us...One hand, Christ, opens the relationship, the other hand, the Holy Spirit draws us into that relationship with the Father.
You’ve heard the saying “time heals all wounds.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Time won’t heal all wounds. Jesus will. By His wounds, we are healed. That’s what this book is all about. There is a real answer to the why question, and it’s much better than anything you could ever make up.
Creatures cannot image even the true God in biblical thinking generally speaking. Nevertheless - and here is the extraordinary exception - there ARE "gods" in the world. There ARE images of God placed in a temple. These images are none other than the human beings - ALL human beings - whom God has created and set in his temple-cosmos.
The modern belief that highly advanced civilizations from other planets are visiting the Earth via spacecraft is a ruse. If real, they are beings created apart from the procreative processes established for life on Earth (Gen. 1). And since they are not direct creations of God Himself, their origins must be sought from other sources.
Good soldiers know that if they don’t recognize who their enemy is, they are destined to lose the war. That is also true for those of us who battle in God’s army. Even though Jesus put the enemy under His feet and won the victory for us, we still must move into that victory. There are still battles to be fought in prayer.
If I murmur in the least at affliction, if I am in any way uncharitable, if I revenge my own case, if I do anything purely to please myself or omit anything because it is a great denial, if I trust myself, if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me, or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God’s.
He bolted right through the wooden cross arm at the parking garage exit and power-slid into traffic. A torrent of car horns and skids enveloped his vehicle, but the tears in Danny's eyes created the inability to differentiate one vehicle from another. The colors of the automobiles bled into each other like melting rainbow sherbet.
It is the will of God that we live not only as rational beings, but as 'new men' regenerated by the Holy Spirit in Christ. It is His will that we reach out for our inheritance, that we answer His call to be His sons. We are born men without our consent, but the consent to be sons of God has to be elicited by our own free will.
If we can keep the Christians thinking of themselves as sinners not sons and daughters, we can make them view their relationship to The Adversary as a negative-sum-game: They fall in a hole, He pulls them out, they fall back in, etc... That way they never get anywhere; they’re always either standing next to a hole or down in it.
Christianity, in contrast, is for all cultures. This is a theme of the New Testament, St. John’s vision of the redeemed in Revelation 7. Christianity is for every tribe, every nation, every language, every time, for every culture. That’s really quite unique from other religions because Christ died for the sins of the world.
Let us be so taken up with the knowledge of God's goodness and the desire to fellowship with Him that our emotions are warmed and our outer man reflects great love. Although we must not seek emotional experiences for their own sake, we must not shun them merely because others misuse them or ignore God's instructions on worship.
The difference between this waiting period and the wait that I had already been enduring was that I was no longer hoping that he would see me, wishing that he would work, or wondering if he would care. Instead, I knew that he would be at work in my marriage, and that somehow, someway, someday he would be glorified through our sufferings.
He is the Way.Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.He is the Truth.Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.He is the Life.Love Him in the World of the Flesh;And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.
