Reblog: How to Discover Your Spiritual Gifts | RELEVANT Magazine
Have you ever taken a spiritual gifts assessment and thought, “Does that one come with a gift receipt? ‘Cause I really want to exchange it.”
Spiritual gifts don’t work that way. Spiritual gifts (as described in Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 and Ephesians 4:7-12) are meant for the recipient to experience the joy like opening gifts when we were young—because the gifts we are given are intended to help us become our true selves. Spiritual gifts are all intended to help us serve others, and in so doing, we are ultimately becoming more like the one who gives the best gifts of all.
Read the whole article: How to Discover Your Spiritual Gifts | RELEVANT Magazine.
Behind enemy lines
Enemy-occupied territory–that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going. He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery. I know someone will ask me, ‘Do you really mean, at this time of day, to reintroduce our old friend the devil–hoofs and horns and all?’ Well, what the time of day has to do with it I do not know. And I am not particular about the hoofs and horns. But in other respects my answer is ‘Yes, I do.’ I do not claim to know anything about his personal appearance. If anybody really wants to know him better I would say to that person, ‘Don’t worry. If you really want to, you will. Whether you’ll like it when you do is another question.’
–Mere Christianity, CS Lewis
Reblog: Dandelion Dreams | Tear Drops Falling
I question the flowers, and I question my heart. How can fields of dandelions go unnoticed and simply grow there, smiling always for their King without any tending and with no acclaim? How can they shed their yellow petals for seeds of fuzz, releasing all their dreams into the wind?
If I was a dandelion, could I praise my King despite the seemingly insignificant role my life played? Could I be brave enough to let children and pets, wind and rain blow my seeds hither and thither, never knowing whether or not another flower would spring forth from my efforts?
Reblog: ‘Jesus Was a Rebel’ | Christianity Today
But there are dangers in getting too much mileage out of this rebel talk. Sure, Jesus was a rebel. Yes, Christianity is subversive. But that should not be the end goal of our faith. We shouldn’t be enlisting young hipsters to join the cause because they think Jesus is a Che Guevara-esque revolutionary. They should be joining the cause because they need God’s grace, not because they want to take down some system or join some romantic revolutionary cause. A faith built upon rebellion is, at the end of the day, not going to be very sustainable. We can’t be a church primarily organized around fighting against things.
This is an idea that Donald Miller expressed in an article in the New York Times: that we have to be devoted followers of Christ first, and “rebels” second:
If you’re a Christian, you need to obey God. And if you obey God, you’re going to be seen as a rebel, both within American church culture and popular culture. But that’s not the point. The point is to obey God.
Indeed, of all the marketing tactics wannabe hip churches might be engaged in, “Jesus was a rebel” is one of the more legitimate, but it also can backfire in the worst ways. Churches that focus too much on “Hey! The gospel is subversive!” may undercut the fact that the gospel is the gospel. It is the Good News—the best news—for the world, significant and life-changing in a way that mere “subversion” could never be.
Reblog: Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Higgs Boson? | Her.meneutics
Which brings me to my faith crises. When I contemplate what science is teaching us about the vastness of the universe, I’m confronted with the uncomfortable fact that the God in my head-the one I pray to every night-definitely does not exist. Belief in an intelligent agent who created the cosmos is reasonable enough, but as astrophysicist Hugh Ross noted, “the immensity of the cosmos made me doubt that a Creator of such awesome magnitude had communicated—in words—to mere humans on this tiny speck called Earth.”
But before you call the theology police, let me explain. Consider what astronomy has taught us about creation. William P. Blair, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, scaled the awesome distances of the universe for “normal” people. He says, “imagine the distance from the earth to the sun (93 million miles, or about 8 light minutes) is compressed to the thickness of a typical sheet of paper. On this scale, the “edge” of the Universe … is not reached until the stack of paper is 31 million miles high.” We don’t know what (or Who) is beyond the universe, but we know it’s expanding at an ever-increasing rate!
Two things occur to me when I consider these staggering distances. First, that image of God in my mind isn’t big enough to create something so incredibly awesome. To paraphrase J. B. Phillips, my God is “too small.” Creation is correcting my theology—if only I will let it.
Why is this so important? A. W. Tozer said that what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us, because our worship of Him and the tenor of our spiritual life cannot rise above our concept of God. Perhaps that’s why we truly trust Him with so little in our lives. When I consider what astrophysics teaches us about creation, and subsequently what kind of Being must be behind it, Isaiah starts to make a whole lot more sense. “Woe is me!” he cries out. “For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King!”
Second, when I consider the size of the universe, it’s hard to imagine why a being who is able to create something of such magnitude would concern himself about creatures so seemingly insignificant as humans. Compared to the universe, earth itself—not to mention individual human beings—is less than a grain of sand. Why would he trouble himself to not only communicate with us, but send his son to die for us? “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers-the moon and stars you set in place, what is man,” asks the Psalmist, “that you are mindful of him?” Truly, who are we that such a Being would communicate with us?
So I’m a little afraid of astrophysics—not because it persuades me towards atheism, but because it challenges the small ideas I have about God.
Inspiration: quick five
Reblog: Why Missional is so hard « Empowering Missional
When we create churches where people come to ‘see what they can get’ rather than a culture of ‘seeing where they can give’ it makes it hard to empowering people to be missionaries to those around them.
Insightful, and uncomfortably true, not just of churches in America but churches in general. Read the whole post: Why Missional is so hard « Empowering Missional.
Reblog: An Angry God Vs. A God Who Gets Angry | The American Jesus
God is certainly angry in this passage, but what God is angry about is absolutely essential for understanding both what makes God angry and God’s essential nature. If God loves as much as we believe he does, then it makes sense that God would get angry when the object of his love is hurt, neglected, oppressed or abused. But it is critical that we understand that the beginning and ending point of God’s anger is God’s love. God’s love spurs God’s anger only to bring about a more loving world.
Do yourself a favour and read the whole post: An Angry God Vs. A God Who Gets Angry | The American Jesus.
Reblog: When we weep {And then there are no more tears} | acupofbliss
You see, one can choose to die of a broken heart or one can choose to be reborn out of the shattered pain. Choose to live again. Choose to beat in tempo with the ebb and flow of the stream of days.
Yet, when this type of transformation is made, it is not our heart that beats again, but rather HIS. You see, when the heart has felt so much grief, then it can’t just resurrect itself again. It’s lost its rhythm. It’s lost its timing. It’s forgotten the pulse of life, of hope, of joy.
I think that is when the Creator of the Universe leans down, wraps His arms around His child, and breathes once again into his mouth. Returns the air that was so cruelly sucked out. I believe He presses down on the panting heart and pulses with it until it can once again operate on its own. All the while, He holds and rocks. Rocks and holds. Whispers words of Love. Sings over His dying child until the child remembers his own song. The words of joy that lilt and skip over the mundane moments.
There are no words for how true and painful and beautiful this is. Thank you, Lauren. Read the whole post: When we weep {And then there are no more tears} | acupofbliss.
