Christianity is not a religion; it is the announcement of the end of religion.
Quotes
Reblog: Just ‘love the sinner’. Period | Sojo.net
The real problem with “Love the sinner; hate the sin” is that hate comes so much more naturally to us. . .
And when you start hating sin, you’ll find it is oh so much easier to hate other people’s sin — i.e., sins toward which you have no particular inclination — than your own. Which makes you no less sinful than those you judge, but a lot more hypocritical.
I say let’s focus on just trying to “love the sinner” for a while. When and if we get that down — if we learn to truly love sinners as Jesus did — then maybe we can talk about hating their sins.
Read the whole post here.
Seeking God’s manna
[Your spiritual food] must be continually sought. Do not try to live on last year’s manna. Stale experiences are poor food… [Y]ou need to have a daily realisation of the things of God.
[B]e not idlers with the Word of God–search it. Get up early in the morning to read your Bible if you cannot do it at others times. Steal from your sleep a happy hour to read the Scriptures. Diligently and earnestly seek the Lord, for He has said, “They that seek Me early shall find Me.”
–Charles Spurgeon, ‘Lessons from the Manna’, no. 2332. Read the whole sermon here (it’s in PDF format and free to download).
Grace in a nutshell
[T]he Christian is the man who no longer seeks his own salvation, his deliverance, his justification in himself, but in Jesus Christ alone. He knows that God’s Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him guilty, even when he does not feel his guilt, and God’s Word pronounces him righteous, even when he does not feel that he is righteous at all.
–Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Love
“That love of God is hard and marvelous. It cannot and will not be broken because of our sins.” – Julian of Norwich
Theology
“Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God’s incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.” – Henri Nouwen
Teaching
“When Jesus wanted to teach his disciples about atonement, he didn’t give them a theory; he gave them a meal.”- N.T. Wright
Holiness
Can I be holy if my brother or sister is hungry, or homeless, or in prison, or sick or a slave? Can I be holy if I do not do everything in my power to change the situation in which my brother or sister finds himself or herself? Sometimes what I do is the simple act of charity and personal caring; sometimes what I must do must involve challenging the systems that put my brother or sister in that situation. (Gooch, 2006:44.)
Listening to Jesus listen
When you and I venture to listen to another person ‘in the Name of Jesus Christ’ there is an unseen listener present, Jesus himself. We have to listen to him listening. We have to know Jesus and be ready to learn all his meanings too. And in the context of this listening it may be that he will have something new to say, something we have never heard before. And if we listen very carefully, with concentrated attention, it is likely that we will hear him speaking to us through the lips of a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew, a man or woman of some tribal religion–or nearer home, a Marxist or a humanist. Jesus, now as always, is very full of surprises.
–Max Warren on ‘a theology of attention’.
Prayer Monday | July 29, 2013
What does prayer do for God? For one thing, he likes your company.
I cannot imagine a greater motivation to pray—that God enjoys having me in his presence. He enjoys my company and delights in listening to me! He doesn’t get bored with my repeated requests, and he doesn’t moralise if I get it wrong in what I ask for. He doesn’t laugh at me if I put silly, even impertinent, requests. He never makes me feel stupid. There is no rejection, only total acceptance.
… It is such a dazzling thought, that the same God who has countless billions of angels worshipping him sixty seconds a minute day and night, to whom the nations are but a drop in the bucket and who knows all about every leaf on every tree in the world, also welcomes my company—because I am indeed very important to him.
—Did You Think To Pray? By R.T. Kendall
your mess, His Message 