Tag Archives: Christianity
Where the Heart Ends
The heart is the treasury, the hand and tongue but the shops; what is in these, comes from that; the hand and tongue always begin where the heart ends.
Courageously Doing God’s Will
Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will.
Look What Has Come into the World
The early Christians did not say ‘look what the world is coming to!’ but ‘look what has come into the world!’
The Measure of Christ’s Torment
Biblically faithful Christianity does not present itself as a nice religious structure that makes happier parents and well-ordered children and good taxpaying citizens. It may produce better parents and taxpaying citizens, but the issues at stake in biblical Christianity have to do with eternity: heaven and hell, matters of the utmost significance, your relationship to your Maker, what God has provided in Christ, what the cross is about, the resurrection.
At the end of the day, what hell measures is how much Christ paid for those who escape hell. The measure of his torment (in ways I do not pretend to begin to understand) as the God-man is the measure of torment that we deserve and he bore. And if you see that and believe it, you will find it difficult to contemplate the cross for very long without tears.
For When Are You Living?
We are not living just for this day or the next; we are living for all of eternity.
More Loved and Accepted in Christ Than We Ever Dared Hope
The gospel of justifying faith means that while Christians are, in themselves still sinful and sinning, yet in Christ, in God’s sight, they are accepted and righteous. So we can say that we are more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope — at the very same time.
This creates a radical new dynamic for personal growth. It means that the more you see your own flaws and sins, the more precious, electrifying, and amazing God’s grace appears to you. But on the other hand, the more aware you are of God’s grace and acceptance in Christ, the more able you are to drop your denials and self-defenses and admit the true dimensions and character of your sin.
Tim Keller, Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: Living in Line with the Truth of the Gospel (Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2003), 2.
Trying To Be Holy without Christ
I pity those who try to be holy without Christ! Your labor is all in vain. You are putting money in a bag with holes. You are pouring water into a sieve. You are rolling a huge round stone uphill.
Doing Doctrine
We are called by God to do theology, that is, to live our lives with a moment-by-moment consciousness of God.
All or Nothing
Christ says, “Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there; I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked — the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: My own will shall become yours.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1952), 167.
Life Is Worship 