The tragedy is that our eternal welfare depends upon our hearing, and we have trained our ears not to hear.
–A. W. Tozer
It takes effort to listen to God. It is not our natural tendency. But if we will take the time and make the effort to retrain our ears, then we will hear the marvelous truths of salvation and discover the secrets of having an abundant life in Him.
Who will you listen to today?
Paul had one great passion in his life – to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified. What we are willing to die for shows our belief, but what we are willing to live for and suffer for shows our radical commitment to our beliefs.
–John Piper
Living a life that is daily crucified to Christ is harder than physically dying for Him. But doing so shows your radical commitment to His Lordship.
I would die for Jesus before I would renounce Him, certainly. But the more important question is whether or not I will live for Him.
Greatness defined:
You can gauge the size of a ship that has passed out of sight by the huge wake it leaves behind.
–Philip Yancey
In line with this idea, Yancey provides this quote from H. G. Wells:
“More than 1900 years later, a historian like myself, who doesn’t even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering irresistibly around the life and character of this most significant man…. The historian’s test of an individual’s greatness is ‘What did he leave to grow?’ Did he start men to thinking along fresh lines with a vigor that persisted after him? By this test Jesus stands first.”
Have you considered the greatness of Jesus?
Have you allowed the huge wake He left behind to impact your life?
The old man, alas, yet lives within me. He has not yet been entirely crucified; he is not yet entirely dead. He still lusts strongly against the spirit, and he will not leave the kingdom of my soul in peace. But You, Who can command the power of the sea and calm the tumult of its waves, arise and help me.
–Thomas à Kempis
Amen. God help me to crucify my sinful thoughts, attitudes, actions, and words.
Why, then, any miracles? Did they make any difference?
I readily concede that Jesus, with a few dozen healings and a handful of resurrections from the dead, did little to solve the problem of pain on this planet. That is not why He came. Nevertheless, it was in Jesus’ nature to counteract the effects of the fallen world during His time on earth. As He strode through life Jesus used supernatural power to set right what was wrong. Every physical healing pointed back to a time in Eden when physical bodies did not go blind, get crippled, or bleed nonstop for twelve years — and also pointed forward to a time of re-creation to come. The miracles He did perform, breaking as they did the chains of sickness and death, give me a glimpse of what the world was meant to be and instill hope that one day God will right its wrongs. To put it mildly, God is no more satisfied with this earth than we are; Jesus’ miracles offer a hint of what God intends to do about it.
–Philip Yancey
I can’t wait!