Category: Quotes

I want to know God…

The question is not whether we are good at theology, or “balanced” in our approach to problems of Christian living. The question is, can we say, simply, honestly…that we have known God, and that because we have known God the unpleasantness we have had, or the pleasantness we have not had, through being Christians does not matter to us? If we really knew God, this is what we would be saying, and if we are not saying it, that is a sign that we need to face ourselves more sharply with the difference between knowing God and merely knowing about Him.
–J. I. Packer

I want to know God… personally, intimately, deeply… and not just know about Him.

Your private devotional life has the power to kill you like nothing else does. By “kill you,” I mean that it has the power to kill the “me-ism” that is inside you (and me) that will again and again cause you to be in the way of, rather than part of, whatever it is that God is doing at the moment. Private personal worship is an effective tool of grace in the hands of God to kill those things in you that must die in order that you be what you have been called to be and do what you have been appointed to do in your place of ministry.
–Paul David Tripp

This is the quote that I have placed at the top of my annual “Personal Worship Plan” to remind me to make sure I have a solid plan of action to kill the things in me that keep me from becoming the person God desires.

Again, here is a blank copy of that worship plan if you would like to use it yourself:
(Just click on this pdf image link to open or download the file.)

…rather than being a perfect portrait that assures people that the gospel is true, you and I are called to be windows through which people look and see the glory of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. It is our weakness that demonstrates both the essentiality and power of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only His ever-present and powerful grace could enable a person, who still needs to be transformed himself, to be used as an instrument of His transforming grace in the lives of others. This frees us from pretending that we are what we are not. It frees us from boasting about what we could never have produced on our own, and it frees the people we serve from putting us on a messianic pedestal that should be reserved for Jesus only. We must preach to ourselves a gospel of ongoing weakness and sufficient grace.
–Paul David Tripp

Yesterday, I commented that we must show people who Jesus is, but we must remember that we are not a perfect reflection. We are not messiahs. Only Jesus is. Therefore, get rid of all the dirt, grime, and filth that could make it difficult to see through you; become as clear a window as you possibly can so they can look through you to see Jesus.

It is staggering that God should love sinners; yet it is true. God loves creatures who have become unlovely and (one would have thought) unlovable. There was nothing whatever in the objects of his love to call it forth; nothing in us could attract or prompt it. Love among persons is awakened by something in the beloved, but the love of God is free, spontaneous, unevoked, uncaused. God loves people because he has chosen to love them and no reason for his love can be given except his own sovereign good pleasure.
–J. I. Packer

Follow this idea…
God chose to love us when we were unlovable.
God placed within us His Holy Spirit.
God has given us the power to love others with His compassion.
Therefore, we can choose to love others with compassion and patience, even though they are difficult.

God tells us: Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile… why? Because it is what God did for you. Now do it for others to show them who God is!

Why should we want Him to have control of our lives?
Besides the fact that He deserves it because of who He is, He knows He is the only one in the universe who can control us without destroying us. No one will ever love you like Jesus. No one will ever know you better, care more for your wholeness and pull more for you. You don‘t need fifteen years of analysis to discover you are unrepeatable. The last breath Jesus breathed on this planet was for you. Jesus will meet you wherever you are, and He will help you. He is not intimidated by past failures, broken promises or wounds. He will make sense out of your brokenness. But He can only begin to be the Lord of your life today—not next Monday or next month but now. And the great and joyful paradox is that while He totally transforms us, He makes us more ourselves than ever before.
–Rebecca Pippert

I am so glad He is transforming me to be more myself that I ever was on my own!