Month: June 2015

I had always vaguely felt facts to be miracles in the sense that they are wonderful; now I began to think them miracles in the stricter sense that they were willful. I mean that they were, or might be, repeated exercises of some will. In short, I had always believed that the world involved magic; now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician. And this pointed a profound emotion always present and sub-conscious; that this world of ours has some purpose; and if there is a purpose, there is a person. I had always felt life first as a story; and if there is a story there is a story-teller.
–G. K. Chesterton

This is simply another re-stating of the idea that an intelligent design requires and intelligent designer. Chesterton came to realize through the basic study of this world, that there was a purpose for it – a purpose for its facts and for its natural laws – and that there was a Person behind the purpose. As a story-teller himself, he realized that this life is itself a story and that there was a Great Story-Teller behind it all.

It is feared that many today who profess to be Christ’s never learn wisdom, and this through failure to attend sufficiently to God’s written Word…. How long is it since you read right through the Bible? Do you spend as much time with the Bible each day as you do even with the newspaper? What fools some of us are! And we remain fools all our lives, simply because we will not take the trouble to do what has to be done to receive the wisdom which is God’s free gift.
–J. I. Packer

I recently challenged our church family to read one chapter of the New Testament each day. If we would do that simple task, we would continue to be changed by God on a regular basis!

Sin is not small, because it is not against a small Sovereign. The seriousness of an insult rises with the dignity of the one insulted. The Creator of the universe is infinitely worthy of respect and admiration and loyalty. Therefore, failure to love Him is not trivial… it is treason.
–John Piper

Yep.
No matter what others might be saying… Sin IS a big deal.

Once a man has experienced the mercy of God in his life, he will henceforth aspire to serve. The proud throne of the judge no longer lures him; he wants to be down below with the lowly and the needy, because that is where God found him.
–Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Are you able to remember where God found you? You were a rebellious enemy of His, and yet He still loved you enough to die for you. You were lowly and needy – unable to provide your own salvation, so He did it for you.

He served us.
That knowledge should drive us to want to serve others.

The more I get to know Jesus, the more impressed I am by what Ivan Karamazov called “the miracle of restraint.” The miracles Satan suggested, the signs and wonders the Pharisees demanded, the final proofs I yearn for— these would offer no serious obstacle to an omnipotent God. More amazing is His refusal to perform and to overwhelm. God‘s terrible insistence on human freedom is so absolute that He granted us the power to live as though He did not exist, to spit in His face, to crucify Him. All this Jesus must have known as He faced down the tempter in the desert, focusing His mighty power on the energy of restraint.
–Philip Yancey

Dads everywhere know how quickly they will fight for their children if they are threatened. And yet, the strongest Father that ever existed restrained Himself from destroying those who threatened His Son and placed Him on the cross.

I am so thankful for a God who loves me so much that He engaged in the Miracle of Restraint so that He could send Jesus to the cross to die in my place. It is hard to even wrap my mind around.