“But really, we should just face it. The message of the cross is going to sound like nonsense to the people around us. It’s going to make us Christians sound like fools, and it most certainly is going to undermine our attempts to ‘relate’ to non-Christians and prove to them that we’re just as cool and harmless as the next guy.
– Greg Gilbert in What is the Gospel?
By nature, Simon Peter was brash, vacillating, and undependable. He tended to make promises he couldn’t follow through with and appeared to lunge wholeheartedly into something only to bail out before finishing. When Jesus first met Simon, He gave him the nickname Peter, which means “Rock.” It appears He wanted the new name to be perpetual reminder to him about who he should be. Whenever He called him Rock, the Lord was commending His student for acting the way he ought to be acting.
When the Lord calls a disciple, He not only knows who he or she is, He also knows who he or she should be – and will be. If He can make a vacillating character like Peter as stable as a rock, He can also transform our character flaws and make us stand at the very point where we would otherwise fail. Thus His strength is perfected in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Have you seen that pattern in your own spiritual growth?
-MacArthur in “From the Ordinary to the Extraordinary” devotional
Since the very beginning of time, people have been trying to save themselves in ways that make sense to them, rather than listening and submitting to God… Indeed I believe one of the greatest dangers the body of Christ face today is the temptation to rethink and re-articulate the gospel in a way that makes it center on something other than the death of Jesus on the cross in the place of sinners.
– Greg Gilbert in What is the Gospel?
Man-Centered humans are amazed that God should withhold life and joy from his creatures. But the God-centered Bible is amazed that God should withhold judgement from sinners.
-John Piper
This needs to sink in. Our paradigm is wrong. Somewhere along the line we have become convinced that we are entitled to the best life possible.
Mathew, the former tax collector (who was sometimes called Levi), was considered one of the most despicable people in Israel before Jesus called him. He had taken a job with the Roman government to extort taxes from his own people – and that tax money went to pay for the Roman occupation army. To make matters worse, tax collectors commonly took more money than the Romans required and lined their pockets with the difference. So, the fact that Jesus dined with tax collectors, and then chose one of them to join his inner circle of disciples, did not sit well with the religious elite.
Does something in your past cause you to doubt your worthiness to be a disciple of Jesus? If so , you’re exactly the kind of disciple He sought, found, saved, trained, and then appointed to represent Him. His grace gives you all the “qualification” you need to become an extraordinary asset in the cause of Christ.
We are not the result of random chance and genetic mutations, gene re-assortments, and chromosomal accidents. We are created! Everyone of us is the result of an idea, a plan, and an action of God himself. And that brings both meaning and responsibility to human life (Gen 1:26-28).
– Greg Gilbert in What is the Gospel?
Below is a simple quote that reminds us on how we are to treat temptation. We must resist and flee from that which would tempt us lest it overcome us.
It is better to shun the bait than to struggle in the snare.
-Ravi Zacharias
“Anger is murder to one’s own self, as well as to its objects.”
-Charles Spurgeon
We take a the mirror of God’s image, which was intended to reflect his glory in the world, and turn our backs to the light, and fall in love with the contours of our own dark shadow, trying desperately to convince ourselves (with technological advances or management skills or athletic prowess or academic achievements or sexual exploits or counterculture hair styles) that the dark shadow of the image on the ground in front of us is really glorious and satisfying.”
John Piper – Supremacy of God in Preaching
I came across this simple quote in my notes recently. I heard this at a conference back in 2006 and it is still so true.
Nobody has ever offended me, as greatly as I have offended the Lord and yet He is still blessing me.
-Bruce Blakey
Thank the Lord that He is not spiteful but rather that He is faithfully caring for His children.
tyrosha
