Where Does Average Come From?
Where Does Average Come From?
It comes from two places:
1. You have been brainwashed by school and by the system into believing that your job is to do your job and follow instructions. It’s not, not anymore.
2. Everyone has a little voice inside of their head that’s angry and afraid. That voice is the resistance–your lizard brain–and it wants you to be average (and safe).
-Seth Godin, Linchpin p. 5
How Is Your Spiritual Life Going?
“How is your spiritual life going?”
I used to answer this question by looking at the state of my devotional activities: Did I pray and read the Bible enough today? The problem is that by this measure the Pharisees always win. People can be very disciplined, but remain proud and spiteful. How do we measure spiritual growth so that the Pharisees don’t win?
-John Ortberg, The Me I Want to Be, p. 21
What They Should Teach in School
What They Should Teach in School
Only two things:
1. Solve interesting problems
2. Lead
-Seth Godin, Linchpin p. 47
You Can’t?
At the age of four, you were an artist.
And at seven, you were a poet.
And by the time you were twelve, if you had a lemonade stand, you were an entrepreneur.
Of course you can do something that matters. I guess I’m wondering if you want to.
There may be a voice in your head that is ready to announce that you can’t possibly do what I’m describing. You don’t have what it takes; you’re not smart enough or trained enough or (sheesh) gifted enough to pull this off.
I’d like to ask for a simple clarification.
You can’t–or you don’t want to?
-Seth Godin, Linchpin, p. 32
Jesus: Too Dynamic to be Safe
We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine — ‘dull dogma,’ as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man — and the dogma is the drama…. This is the dogma we find so dull — this terrifying drama which God is the victim and the hero. If this is dull, then what, in Heaven’s name, is worthy to be called exciting? The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused Him of being a bore — on the contrary; they thought Him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround Him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certifying Him ‘meek and mild,’ and recommended Him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.
— Dorothy Sayers
200 million non-churched
There are about 200 million non-churched people in America, making America one of the four largest ‘unchurched’ nations in the world.
-John Piper, in a January 31 sermon, “I will build My Church”
Truth About All Reality
Christians whose worldview–whose way of looking at the world–is decisively shaped by the Bible’s story line cannot forget that we human beings have been made in the image of God; that our first obligation is to recognize our creatureliness, and thus our joyful obligation to our Creator; that sin is nothing other than de-godding God; that our dignity as God’s image bearers is horribly marred by our rebellion; that the entire race, and all of human history, is rushing toward final accountability before this God who is no less our Judge than our Maker; that there is a new heaven and a new earth to gain and a hell to fear; that our sole hope of reconciliation with this God is by the means he himself has provided in his Son; that the people of God are made up of human beings from every language and tribe and nation, and, empowered by God’s Spirit, are growing in personal and corporate obedience and love, rejoicing to come under the reign of God in anticipation of the consummation of that reign. Meanwhile, we are enjoined to do good to all, especially–but certainly not exclusively!–to those of the household of faith. In other words, Christianity does not claim to convey merely religious truth, but truth about all reality.
-D.A. Carson
Against Self-Pity
A great post from Justin Taylor, making me thankful for Martin Luther-like friends in my life:
All of us need a Martin Luther in our lives now and then—a friend who is not afraid to stand on gospel promises and get in our face with gospel truth when we would rather wallow in self-pity.
Here is a portion of a letter from Luther to his friend Philip Melachnton (June 27, 1530):
Those great cares by which you say you are consumed I vehemently hate; they rule your heart not on account of the greatness of the cause but by reason of the greatness of your unbelief. . . .
If our cause is great, its author and champion is great also, for it is not ours. Why are you therefore always tormenting yourself?
If our cause is false, let us recant; if it is true, why should we make him a liar who commands us to be of untroubled heart?
Cast your burden on the Lord, he says. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him with a broken heart. Does he speak in vain or to beasts? . . .
What good can you do by your vain anxiety?
What can the devil do more than slay us? What after that?
I beg you, so pugnacious in all else, fight against yourself, your own worst enemy, who furnish Satan with arms against yourself. . . .
I pray for you earnestly and am deeply pained that you keep sucking up cares like a leech and thus rendering my prayers vain.
Christ knows whether it is stupidity or bravery, but I am not much disturbed, rather of better courage than I had hoped.
God who is able to raise the dead is also able to uphold a falling cause, or to raise a fallen one and make it strong.
If we are not worthy instruments to accomplish his purpose, he will find others.
If we are not strengthened by his promises, to whom else in all the world can they pertain?
But saying more would be pouring water into the sea.
HT: David Sunday
Stop Tinkering
Stop tinkering with your soul and look away to the perfect One.
-A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God
Books
Oswald Chambers in a letter to his sister:
I have been having a reveling few days. My box has at last arrived. My books! I cannot tell you what they are to me–silent, wealthy, loyal lovers. To look at them, to handle them, and to re-read them! I do thank God for my books with every fibre of my being. Friends that are ever true and ever your own.
