“
For me, a writer aware of how much more complex each book becomes with each sentence added, it was the clarity of the patterns and structure in Scripture and their ability to intermesh with one another through as many levels as I could imagine that convinced me that the Bible couldn’t be the creation of a man or any number of men, and was certainly not the product of separate men divided by centuries, but was of another world: supernatural.
I was forced to admit under no pressure but the pressure of the text itself that it could be only what it claimed it was, the Word of God.
”
—
Larry Woiwode (HT: Justin Taylor)
Amen.
6:29 pm • 7 May 2013 • 2 notes
“The people in your congregation did not become active participants in your ministry so that collectively they could make you feel better about yourself and more secure with your ministry gifts. God didn’t call you to your particular ministry position so that you could finally cobble together an identity that you could live with. The leadership of the church didn’t call you to be their pastor because they knew that you needed a forum where you could find meaning and purpose. The troubled people in your congregation did not come with their troubles so that you could feel needed, essential, and appreciated…So you will never find in your ministry the rest of heart that every human being seeks. And when you look there, it only ends in anxiety, frustration, hurt, disappointment, anger, and bitterness and may ultimately lead you to question the goodness of God. I am convinced that what we often call “ministry burnout” is often the result of pastor’s seeking in their ministry what cannot be found there, and because it can’t be found there they end up weary and discouraged.”
—
Paul Tripp, A Dangerous Calling, p. 202
A quote for pastors, but I think it’s pretty darn applicable for everyone who spends a lot of time serving in ministry. Our identity and rest are in Christ, we are in ministry not for ourselves, but to pour ourselves out for the good of others and for the glory of our King!
2:43 am • 11 March 2013 • 3 notes
“It is a very easy thing for us to get into a desponding state of heart, and to mistrust the promises and faithfulness of God, and yet, all the while, to look upon ourselves as the subjects of a disease which we cannot help, and even claim pity at the hands of our fellow-men, and to think that they should condole us, and try to cheer us. Perhaps they should; but, at any rate, we must not think they should. It will be far wiser for each one of us to feel, ‘This unbelief of mine is a great wrong in the sight of God. He has never given me any occasion for it, and I am doing Him a cruel injustice by thus doubting Him.’”
— Charles H. Spurgeon (via winfredluong)
2:56 am • 27 January 2013 • 3 notes
“
Acedia [Sloth ‘the sin of the empty soul’]…means a life driven by mere cost-benefit analysis of ‘whats in it for me.’…Acedia is the sin which believes in nothing, cares for nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing and only remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die
…a person characterized by acedia—in which their driving passion is their own needs, comfort, and interests—does not necessarily look lazy at all. Indeed, this type of person seems to generate lots of activity…[but] it puts the cynical self at the center of your life. And when you do that you release all the worst vices and sins to be the main animating energy behind your work.
”
—
Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavor
…Dang. Sounds a lot like me.
2:32 am • 27 January 2013 • 2 notes
“
Why are we not free enough from fear and anxiety to allow ourselves to go full stretch in following Christ?
One reason it seems i that in our heart of hearts we are afraid of the consequences of going the whole way in the Christian life. We shrink back from accepting burdens of responsibility for others because we fear we should not have the strength to bear them. We shrink back from accepting a way of life in which we forfeit security because we are afraid of being left stranded. We shrink from being meek because we are afraid if we do not stand up for ourselves we shall be trodden down and victimised, and end up among life’s casualties and failures. We shrink from breaking with social convention in order to serve Christ because we fear that if we did, the established structure of our life would collapse all around us, leaving without a footing anywhere. It is these half-conscious fears, this dread of insecurity, rather than any deliberate refusal to face the cost of following Christ, which makes us hold back.
…Now let us call a spade of spade. The name of the game we are playing is unbelief, and Paul’s ‘He will give us all things’ stands as an everlasting rebuke to us
”
—
J.I. Packer,Knowing God
Man, so much wisdom in this book, but I have I have a feeling I passed over it much too quickly. Will have to reread sometime in the future!
4:12 pm • 29 December 2012 • 3 notes
“Perhaps, some of you may say, like David, ‘It is good that I was afflicted’, but you must come to this, ‘It is good that I am afflicted.’ Not just good when you see the good fruit it has wrought but to say when you are afflicted, ‘It is good that I am afflicted. Whatever the affliction, yet through the mercy of God mine is a good condition.’”
— Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
11:05 pm • 3 September 2012 • 5 notes
“Show a little faith to Him, and He gives more faith”
— Jim Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty
8:52 pm • 16 July 2012 • 1 note
“It is our duty and our privelege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices, whose lot is to be consumed; we are to spend and to be spent, not to lay ourselves up in lavender and nurse our flesh”
— Charles Spurgeon, p.162 in “A Minister’s Fainting Fits”
3:58 am • 24 June 2012 • 2 notes
“There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all sophomores.”
Mortimer J Adler & Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book
haha… this is so true.
4:53 pm • 19 November 2011 • 1 note
