“God is easy to live with. Satan’s first attack upon the human race was his sly effort to destroy Eve’s confidence in the kindness of God. Unfortunately for her and for us he succeeded too well. From that day, men have had a false conception of God, and it is exactly this that has cut out from under them the ground of righteousness and driven them to reckless and destructive living.
Nothing twists and deforms the soul more than a low or unworthy conception of God. Certain sects, such as the Pharisees, while they held that God was stern and austere, yet managed to maintain a fairly high level of external morality; but their righteousness was only outward.
Instinctively we try to be like our God, and if He is conceived to be stern and exacting, so will we ourselves be. The truth is that God is the most winsome of all beings and His service one of unspeakable pleasure.
The fellowship of God is delightful beyond all telling. He communes with His redeemed ones in an easy, uninhibited fellowship that is restful and healing to the soul.
He remembers our frame and knows that we are dust. He may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this He does with a smile, the proud, tender smile of a Father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day to look more and more like the One whose child he is.”
– A.W. Tozer in The Root of the Righteous, pp. 13-16. As quoted in the newest Banner of Truth Magazine (issue 531; Dec. 2007).
perjantai 30. joulukuuta 2011
God is easy to live with!
Lainaus Tony Reinken blogista. A.W.Tozer puhuu:
sunnuntai 13. marraskuuta 2011
Octavius Winslow:n sana tälle päivälle
NOVEMBER 13.
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light." Matthew 11:29, 30
HOW shall we array, in their strongest light, before you, the motives which
urge the cultivation of this poverty of spirit? Is it not enough that this is the
spiritual state on which Jehovah looks with an eye of exclusive, holy, and
ineffable delight? "To this man I will look." Splendid gifts, brilliant
attainments, costly sacrifices, are nothing to me. "To this man will I look, that
is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my word." To this would
we add, if you value your safe, happy, and holy walk—if you prize the
manifestations of God’s presence—the "kisses of His mouth, whose love is
better than wine"—the teaching, guiding, and comforting influence of the
Holy Spirit, seek it. If you would be a "savor of Christ in every place"—if you
would pray with more fervor, unction, and power—if you would labor with
more zeal, devotedness, and success, seek it. By all that is dear, and precious,
and holy, by your own happiness, by the honor of Christ, by the glory of God,
by the hope of heaven, seek to be found among those who are "poor and of a
contrite spirit," who, with filial, holy love, tremble at God’s word, whom Jesus
has pronounced blessed here, and meet for glory hereafter. And though in
approaching the Great High Priest, you have no splendid and costly
intellectual offerings to present, yet with the royal penitent you can say, "You
desire not sacrifice, else would I give it: you delight not in burned offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O
God, you will not despise." "This, Lord, is all that I have to bring You."
Avoid a spurious humility. True humility consists not in denying the work of
the Holy Spirit in our hearts, in under-rating the grace of God in our souls, in
standing afar off from our heavenly Father, and in walking at a distance from
Christ, always doubting the efficacy of His blood, the freeness of His salvation,
the willingness of His heart, and the greatness of His power to save. Oh no!
this is not the humility that God delights to look at, but is a false, a counterfeit
humility, obnoxious in His sight. But to "draw near with a true heart, in full
assurance of faith," in lowly dependence upon His blood and righteousness; to
accept of salvation as the gift of His grace; to believe the promise because He
has spoken it; gratefully and humbly to acknowledge our calling, our
adoption, and our acceptance, and to live in the holy, transforming influence
of this exalted state, giving to a Triune God all the praise and glory; this is the
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light." Matthew 11:29, 30
HOW shall we array, in their strongest light, before you, the motives which
urge the cultivation of this poverty of spirit? Is it not enough that this is the
spiritual state on which Jehovah looks with an eye of exclusive, holy, and
ineffable delight? "To this man I will look." Splendid gifts, brilliant
attainments, costly sacrifices, are nothing to me. "To this man will I look, that
is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my word." To this would
we add, if you value your safe, happy, and holy walk—if you prize the
manifestations of God’s presence—the "kisses of His mouth, whose love is
better than wine"—the teaching, guiding, and comforting influence of the
Holy Spirit, seek it. If you would be a "savor of Christ in every place"—if you
would pray with more fervor, unction, and power—if you would labor with
more zeal, devotedness, and success, seek it. By all that is dear, and precious,
and holy, by your own happiness, by the honor of Christ, by the glory of God,
by the hope of heaven, seek to be found among those who are "poor and of a
contrite spirit," who, with filial, holy love, tremble at God’s word, whom Jesus
has pronounced blessed here, and meet for glory hereafter. And though in
approaching the Great High Priest, you have no splendid and costly
intellectual offerings to present, yet with the royal penitent you can say, "You
desire not sacrifice, else would I give it: you delight not in burned offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O
God, you will not despise." "This, Lord, is all that I have to bring You."
Avoid a spurious humility. True humility consists not in denying the work of
the Holy Spirit in our hearts, in under-rating the grace of God in our souls, in
standing afar off from our heavenly Father, and in walking at a distance from
Christ, always doubting the efficacy of His blood, the freeness of His salvation,
the willingness of His heart, and the greatness of His power to save. Oh no!
this is not the humility that God delights to look at, but is a false, a counterfeit
humility, obnoxious in His sight. But to "draw near with a true heart, in full
assurance of faith," in lowly dependence upon His blood and righteousness; to
accept of salvation as the gift of His grace; to believe the promise because He
has spoken it; gratefully and humbly to acknowledge our calling, our
adoption, and our acceptance, and to live in the holy, transforming influence
of this exalted state, giving to a Triune God all the praise and glory; this is the
humility which is most pleasing to God, and is the true product of the Holy Spirit.
maanantai 17. lokakuuta 2011
maanantai 8. elokuuta 2011
Godless Impatience, lainaus Tony Reinken blogista
Tony Reinke Craig M Gayn kirjasta.
One of the more thoughtful books I’ve read in the past couple of years is Craig M. Gay’s, The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It’s Tempting to Live As If God Doesn’t Exist (Eerdmans, 1998). It’s a book about worldliness, and by worldliness the author means “an interpretation of reality that essentially excludes the reality of God from the business of life” (4). He fills out this definition as he exposes many of the sometimes subtle symptoms of worldliness that emerge in our contemporary culture, developing his book around five of the most prominent symptoms.
Here I’ll try to boil them down as best as I can:
Control–Following in the footsteps of Postman and Ellul, Gay argues that man seeks to control every dimension of his world through technology, and never more so is this the case than today. On one hand this leads to many helpful and useful advances, on the other hand it leads to…
Secularism—The aspirations of the modern man to this technological control of the world leave less and less room for any god, only the “self-defining self.” God—if ever referenced at all—becomes a “god of the gaps,” a god whose necessity is limited to the areas of life that remain outside our control. We have technology for the rest of life. Which leads to…
Individualism—The forces of control and secularity combine to encourage individualism, a fix-it-yourself mentality that breaks apart personal relationships and community. Which leads to…
Anxiety—Man becomes an individualized self, a responsibility that we are ill suited to carry. “The assumption of godlike responsibilities [in seeking to control our lives by ourselves] has turned out to be a heavy burden and that we have become increasingly anxious beneath the weight of this burden” (p. 308). Which leads to…
Impatience—Combine control, secularity, individualism, and the anxiety from these godlike responsibilities and you end up with “what is possibly the master theme of modernity, and now of ‘postmodernity’: that of impatience” (p. 308).
In light of these symptoms, believers are faced with snowballing implications.
As Christians, we are called to cultivate an eschatological worldview of hope demonstrated in our spiritual disciplines of waiting and watching. This hope is undercut by modern forms worldliness. For example, instead of cultivating hope in eternal promises of God we are easy snookered by wave after wave of immediate current events. “By completely relativizing eternity over and against the events of the day, or week, journalism renders such things as character, perseverance, fidelity, and hope largely meaningless” (201).
According to Gay, when you put together all these modern symptoms of worldliness you arrive at “anxious impatience.” Gay writes:
…anxious impatience is evident in virtually all aspects of modern social and cultural existence, and not least in the increasingly frantic pace with which so much of life is carried on today. It is largely by reason of impatient frustration, after all, that we have been persuaded to try to perform the functions of the hidden—and, indeed, seemingly absent—God.
“God is either unwilling or incapable of helping us,” we say in effect, “therefore we have no choice but to help ourselves, to take matters into our own hands, and to try to engineer a habitable environment for ourselves.” Ironically, it is this same anxious impatience that has consequently moved us to surrender ourselves so naively to the dehumanizing techniques of the modern world.
Indeed, it is anxious haste that has incited us to mortgage ourselves to technical rationality for the sake of its promise of control. “After we have taken control of the world,” so we tell ourselves, implying that taking control of the world must somehow enable us to take control of ourselves, “then we will discover how to be human persons again.” But the horizon keeps receding, and we always seem to be waiting for the promised control to be established.
The longer we are forced to wait, however, the more anxious we become; and the more anxious we become, the more prone we are to placing what little hope we have left into the possibility of technical-rational control, and thus to giving ourselves over to dehumanizing modern systems; and so forth. It is an unfortunately vicious cycle.
Modern secular society is thus a culture of anxious impatience, a culture in which so much stress has been placed upon human abilities and human agency that the modern mind has effectively lost the ability to trust anything, or more importantly anyone, else. (310–311; his eph.)
That point is worth our reflection, as are each of his symptoms of modern worldliness summarized earlier.
“Living in but not of the modern world, must mean, at the very least, living patiently and expectantly before the living God, refusing to surrender ourselves and our churches to the various schemes that are finally only expressions of modernity’s, and now postmodernity’s, godless impatience” (313).
One of the more thoughtful books I’ve read in the past couple of years is Craig M. Gay’s, The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It’s Tempting to Live As If God Doesn’t Exist (Eerdmans, 1998). It’s a book about worldliness, and by worldliness the author means “an interpretation of reality that essentially excludes the reality of God from the business of life” (4). He fills out this definition as he exposes many of the sometimes subtle symptoms of worldliness that emerge in our contemporary culture, developing his book around five of the most prominent symptoms.
Here I’ll try to boil them down as best as I can:
Control–Following in the footsteps of Postman and Ellul, Gay argues that man seeks to control every dimension of his world through technology, and never more so is this the case than today. On one hand this leads to many helpful and useful advances, on the other hand it leads to…
Secularism—The aspirations of the modern man to this technological control of the world leave less and less room for any god, only the “self-defining self.” God—if ever referenced at all—becomes a “god of the gaps,” a god whose necessity is limited to the areas of life that remain outside our control. We have technology for the rest of life. Which leads to…
Individualism—The forces of control and secularity combine to encourage individualism, a fix-it-yourself mentality that breaks apart personal relationships and community. Which leads to…
Anxiety—Man becomes an individualized self, a responsibility that we are ill suited to carry. “The assumption of godlike responsibilities [in seeking to control our lives by ourselves] has turned out to be a heavy burden and that we have become increasingly anxious beneath the weight of this burden” (p. 308). Which leads to…
Impatience—Combine control, secularity, individualism, and the anxiety from these godlike responsibilities and you end up with “what is possibly the master theme of modernity, and now of ‘postmodernity’: that of impatience” (p. 308).
In light of these symptoms, believers are faced with snowballing implications.
As Christians, we are called to cultivate an eschatological worldview of hope demonstrated in our spiritual disciplines of waiting and watching. This hope is undercut by modern forms worldliness. For example, instead of cultivating hope in eternal promises of God we are easy snookered by wave after wave of immediate current events. “By completely relativizing eternity over and against the events of the day, or week, journalism renders such things as character, perseverance, fidelity, and hope largely meaningless” (201).
According to Gay, when you put together all these modern symptoms of worldliness you arrive at “anxious impatience.” Gay writes:
…anxious impatience is evident in virtually all aspects of modern social and cultural existence, and not least in the increasingly frantic pace with which so much of life is carried on today. It is largely by reason of impatient frustration, after all, that we have been persuaded to try to perform the functions of the hidden—and, indeed, seemingly absent—God.
“God is either unwilling or incapable of helping us,” we say in effect, “therefore we have no choice but to help ourselves, to take matters into our own hands, and to try to engineer a habitable environment for ourselves.” Ironically, it is this same anxious impatience that has consequently moved us to surrender ourselves so naively to the dehumanizing techniques of the modern world.
Indeed, it is anxious haste that has incited us to mortgage ourselves to technical rationality for the sake of its promise of control. “After we have taken control of the world,” so we tell ourselves, implying that taking control of the world must somehow enable us to take control of ourselves, “then we will discover how to be human persons again.” But the horizon keeps receding, and we always seem to be waiting for the promised control to be established.
The longer we are forced to wait, however, the more anxious we become; and the more anxious we become, the more prone we are to placing what little hope we have left into the possibility of technical-rational control, and thus to giving ourselves over to dehumanizing modern systems; and so forth. It is an unfortunately vicious cycle.
Modern secular society is thus a culture of anxious impatience, a culture in which so much stress has been placed upon human abilities and human agency that the modern mind has effectively lost the ability to trust anything, or more importantly anyone, else. (310–311; his eph.)
That point is worth our reflection, as are each of his symptoms of modern worldliness summarized earlier.
“Living in but not of the modern world, must mean, at the very least, living patiently and expectantly before the living God, refusing to surrender ourselves and our churches to the various schemes that are finally only expressions of modernity’s, and now postmodernity’s, godless impatience” (313).
tiistai 1. maaliskuuta 2011
Danin todistus
Tässä amerikkalainen Dan.
Kuinka upea todistus siitä miten Jumala vetää ihmisen totuuteen ja armoon!
Ja kunnioitukseni myös pastorille, joka kohtelee aidon lämpimästi ja veljellisesti haastateltavaansa,niinkuin kuuluukin. Hieno todistus!!!
Kuinka upea todistus siitä miten Jumala vetää ihmisen totuuteen ja armoon!
Ja kunnioitukseni myös pastorille, joka kohtelee aidon lämpimästi ja veljellisesti haastateltavaansa,niinkuin kuuluukin. Hieno todistus!!!
Pastor Bill Interviews Dan from Mars Hill Church | Ballard on Vimeo.
sunnuntai 6. helmikuuta 2011
torstai 3. helmikuuta 2011
Lainaus Mike Wilkersonin kirjasta.
Jesus as the Bread of Life
Many come to Jesus with their own motives. Some come to him for mere “bread,” expecting an endless meeting of everyday desires. They come to have their old appetites satisfied, not to get new ones. They don’t actually believe that Jesus offers what is more satisfying. For them, bread, water, comfort, control, achievement, affirmation, and pleasure seem to satisfy. In the end, they turn away from Jesus, cynical and self-righteous, saying: “I tried, he failed.” Yet they never had an appetite for him at all but only absorption in themselves.
Others claim to be satisfied in Jesus, but for them, he is simply another escape from reality, for they are unwilling to face the pain of their true need and brokenness. Instead, they add him to their lives like a coat of varnish, concealing their true condition.
We cannot simply will ourselves to be satisfied in Jesus. Just as it is impossible to put sin to death except by the Spirit, so it is impossible to see Jesus as the bread of life except by the Spirit (Rom. 8:13; 2 Cor. 3:18).
Excerpt taken from chapter 5 of Redemption: Freed by Jesus from the Idols We Worship and the Wounds We Carry.
Many come to Jesus with their own motives. Some come to him for mere “bread,” expecting an endless meeting of everyday desires. They come to have their old appetites satisfied, not to get new ones. They don’t actually believe that Jesus offers what is more satisfying. For them, bread, water, comfort, control, achievement, affirmation, and pleasure seem to satisfy. In the end, they turn away from Jesus, cynical and self-righteous, saying: “I tried, he failed.” Yet they never had an appetite for him at all but only absorption in themselves.
Others claim to be satisfied in Jesus, but for them, he is simply another escape from reality, for they are unwilling to face the pain of their true need and brokenness. Instead, they add him to their lives like a coat of varnish, concealing their true condition.
We cannot simply will ourselves to be satisfied in Jesus. Just as it is impossible to put sin to death except by the Spirit, so it is impossible to see Jesus as the bread of life except by the Spirit (Rom. 8:13; 2 Cor. 3:18).
Excerpt taken from chapter 5 of Redemption: Freed by Jesus from the Idols We Worship and the Wounds We Carry.
Tilaa:
Blogitekstit (Atom)