Husbands love your wives! Even if it is hard. Christ never complains to the Father like Adam did “The woman Thou gavest me”, nor does he wish he were with someone else.- Gavin Beers, 19 June, Twitter
We live and die; Christ died and lived. —John Stott
To take a glimpse within the veil,
To know that God is mine,
Are springs of joy that never fail,
Unspeakable! divine!
John Newton@john__newton
"…it is possible to have the best intentions and ignore the cultural possessions of a people, and to preach the gospel pure and simple, without any application to their specific characteristics. History has shown that such a procedure is questionable...such a method does not take seriously enough the people to whom one speaks. God, in contrast, takes us, and those to whom we speak, very seriously, and as his ministers we ought to do the same. Abstract, disembodied and history-less sinners do not exist; only very concrete sinners exist, whose sinful life is determined and characterised by all sorts of cultural and historical factors… I must bring the gospel of God’s grace in Jesus Christ to the whole man, in his concrete existence, in his everyday environment. It is obviously then a great error on my part if I do not take a person’s culture and history seriously."
J. H. Bavinck, An Introduction to the Science of Missions (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1960), p. 81.
Character development always involves a choice, and
temptation provides that opportunity. For instance,
God teaches us love by putting some unlovely people
around us. It takes no character to love people who
are lovely and loving to you.
God teaches us real joy in the midst of sorrow, when
we turn to him. Happiness depends on external
circumstances, but joy is based on your relationship
to God.
God develops real peace within us, not by making
things go the way we planned, but by allowing times
of chaos and confusion. Anyone can be peaceful
watching a beautiful sunset or relaxing on vacation.
We learn real peace by choosing to trust God in
circumstances in which we are tempted to worry
or be afraid.
Likewise, patience is developed in circumstances
in which we're forced to wait and are tempted to be
angry or have a short fuse. God uses the opposite
situation of each fruit to allow us a choice.
--Rick Warren (1954- )
_The Purpose Driven Life_ [2002], Chapter 26,
"Growing Through Temptation"
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