by Elizabeth | Jun 26, 2010 | Learning Story
As I sit in the corral gate of the Phoenix airport, I hear a child calling to its mother and turn, expecting to see my dear friend’s daughter…but of course, I left her at her house, sleeping. Last night, introducing my dear, now-35-year-old friend, whom I met when she was a 15 – yr-old babysitter, grew into a ‘daughter,’ and then evolved into a true friend, I realized how truly precious it is to have friendships that span almost a lifetime. What a gift. So, as we are close to boarding, I offer some Charles Spurgeon quotes on friendships. Spend some time today thanking God for your friends and asking God to make you a better friend.
“The vanity of all friendship which is not found in true principle, was never more
plainly expressed than in an honest, but heartless, sentence of one of Horace
Walpole’s letters. “If one of my friends happens to die, I drive down to St. Jame’s
Coffee-house, and bring home a new one.” The name of “friend” is desecrated in a
worldling’s mouth—but there is a friend. FA85
A friend to everybody is often a friend to nobody. PT34
If we would always recollect that we live among men who are imperfect, we should
not be in such a fever when we find out our friend’s failings. PT66
Anger against enemies must not make us forget our friends, for it is better to
preserve a single citizen of Zion, than to kill a thousand enemies. TD70:4
One heart in two bodies is the realization of true brotherhood. TN123
The friendship of bare compliment is the fashion of this age, because this age is the
age of deceit. 120.109
We are one in Christ; let us be friends with one another; but let us never be friends
with one another’s error. If I be wrong, rebuke me sternly; I can bear it, and bear it
cheerfully; and if ye be wrong, expect the like measure from me, and neither peace
nor parley with your mistakes. 250.204
And first let us learn to set loose by our dearest friends that we have on earth. Let us
love them—love them we may, love them we should—but let us always learn to love
them as dying things. 349.10
There is one thing about the usefulness of which all men are agreed, namely,
friendship; but most men are soon aware that counterfeits of friendship are common
as autumn leaves. 899.613
Lip-love, proverbially, is a thing to be questioned; too often it is a counterfeit. Love
which speaks can use hyperbolical expressions at its will, but when you have heard
all you can hear of love’s speech, you are not sure that it is love; for all are not
hunters that blow the horn, and all are not friends who cry up friendship. 1128.470
Men in going through the world make many acquaintances, but out of these they
have few special objects of esteem, whom they call friends. If they think to have
many friends, they are, probably, misusing the name. 2091.339
Any man can selfishly desire to have a Jonathan; but he is on the right track who
desires to find out a David to whom he can be a Jonathan. 2336.567″
by Elizabeth | Jun 24, 2010 | Learning Story
“So, my dear family, this is my appeal to you, by the mercies of God: offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and appropriate worship. What’s more, don’t let yourself be squeezed into the shape dictated by the present age. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can work out and approve what God’s will is, what is good, acceptable and complete.” Romans 12:1-2
I learned this verse many years ago, in my early Christian days. Sadly, over the years I think I marginalized it in my vigilant battle against “works-righteousnesss.” In his book, After You Believe, N.T. Wright writes about this strange happening in all camps of contemporary evangelical Christianity, reminding us that THINKING is a necessary and essential part of growing as a Christian. Listen to how he says it:
“Part of the problem in contemporary Christianity, I believe, is that talk about freedom of the Spirit, about the grace which sweeps us off our feet and heals and transforms our lives, has been taken over surreptitiously by a kind of low-grade romanticism, colluding with an anti-intellectual streak in the culture, generating the assumption that the more spiritual you are, the less you need to think.
I cannot stress too strongly that this is a mistake. The more genuinely spiritual you are, according to Romans 12 and Philippians 1, the more clearly and accurately and carefully you will think, particularly about what the completed goal of your Christian journey will be and hence what steps you should be taking, what habits you should be acquiring, as part of the journey toward that goal right now. Thinking clearly and Christianly is thus both a key element within the total rehumanizing process (you won’t be fully human if you leave your thinking and reasoning behind) and a vital part of the motor which drives the rest of that process.” P. 158
by Elizabeth | Jun 22, 2010 | Learning Story
Headed to the airport at 4:00 a.m. Destination Phoenix. Here’s Wednesday’s post early, a gem from Keller on why neither religion nor irreligion will transform our hearts into loving ones:
Galatians 5:5-6
“For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly dwait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus eneither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but fonly faith working through love.”
“….neither religion nor irreligion count toward inner character change and a heart
of real love. Verse 6b says that faith literally energizes love. Neither religious moralism
nor licentious irreligion can do this because both are essentially selfish and insecure.
Selfishness and insecurity cannot produce love, which is self-donation. The faith Paul
says produces love is that which was just described in v.5. It is the faith that reflects
upon the certainty of our righteousness and welcome with the Father. If we do that,
Paul tells us that two things will happen:
a) Negatively, the ups and downs, good performance and bad performance will now
neither puff us up nor cast us down (“neither circumcision nor uncircumcision have any
value”) because our standing in Christ is not effected by either.
b) Positively, this eagerly-awaiting faith of v.5 now will naturally produce a great deal of
love (“faith expressing itself in love”). If we are reminding ourselves and living in light of
this hope, we will have a heart sloshing over with love. Put another way, if we find our
love running dry or cold, we are not by faith looking at our hope.
So vv.5-6 could be paraphrased: “Gospel faith produces a certainty that we are holy and
beautiful. The more conscious we are of this certainty, the less we will be subject to
ups and downs and the more we will find our hearts melted with love.”
by Elizabeth | Jun 22, 2010 | Learning Story
I know it probably won’t end up being the number-one read ‘post,’ but let’s go back to Genesis 3 and our inherited tendency to blame. This runs deep, and the good news of the gospel is acknowledging our own sin is, while terrifying, also, the smooth path to living in the freedom of forgiveness. Hear an excerpt from Cornelius Plantinga’s devotion on this verse in Beyond Doubt:
“The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate,’…The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.'” Genesis 3:12-13
“At three I had a feeling of
Ambivalence toward my brothers.
And so it follow naturally
I poisoned all my lovers.
But now I’m happy; I have learned
The lesson this has taught;
That everything I do that’s wrong
Is someone else’s fault.
In this folk song, Anna Russell jabs at the no-fault ethics of certain psychiatrists, who have developed an allergy to personal guilt. The allergy has spread…
Deep in our fallenness is the urge to shrug off personal blame. We see it early on in the lineup of figures in the Garden — each pointing a finger at someone else. And we keep on seeing it in the familiar attempt to fix blame on heredity or environment…
Apart from the gospel of Christ, we are tempted to say we have no sin. We are tempted to see ourselves not as sinners but as victims, nto as fallen but frustrated, not as wrong but as misunderstood or underestimated.”
Cornelius Plantinga, Beyond Doubt: Faith-Building Devotions on Questions Christians Ask
by Elizabeth | Jun 21, 2010 | Learning Story
“The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’…The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.'” Genesis 3:12-13
One of the things I love about Scripture is how it shows me why I do some of the inane things I do, and points to how bad things would really be if it weren’t for God’s redemptive work through Jesus Christ.
Do you blame someone else for The Fall? Spouse, brother, mother, friend, boss?
Do you know what I mean? The blue light glows on the fancy dishwasher, but when I open it, the dishes seem to be coated with a cloudy film. “Why did Kip choose this dishwasher,” I grumble. (Probably because it was the best the store had to offer at the time, and he wanted to make it easier for us to do the zillions of dishes a family of six plus their friends piles up! (But that redemptive thought comes later…))
My friend called me and complained, “My boss!!! She wants me to enter 10,000 records — all these phone numbers and addresses and some stupid code number.” I commiserate, “Oh, she wants you to do it by the end of the week?” “No, she’s giving me two months.” “Well, is that enough time?” “Yehhhhhh…but it’s just so demoralizing. She just doesn’t see I have better potential than that.” “Oh, so this isn’t your job? What is your position?” “Well, actually, I am a data entry clerk. I just think my boss should give me better work to do.” Oh, pulling weeds can be so not fun.
Or, to quote Adam, “God, YOU created this woman who caused all the trouble!!” Maybe it was something you asked for, like a move, a house, a spouse, or a child, and now you’re unhappy. Or maybe it was something you didn’t ask for, like an oil spill, a flood, a divorce…Maybe it happened, as with Adam, because you sinned against God. Maybe it happened, more tragically, because your boyfriend betrayed you. Have you ever quoted Adam to God?
I have. I’ve done all-of-the-above blaming and worse. It’s a nowhere land.
Thankfully, I don’t stay in this nowhere land, by the kind leading of the Holy Spirit, I am led out of my fallen self into LIFE:
“Oh wretched woman that I am! Who will save me from this body of sin and death? Thanks be to God…who set me free from the law of sin and death…” (Read the whole thing in Romans 7:24- 8:4…I’m leaving out a lot of good stuff!!!).
Dear Jesus, we thank you for setting us free from our blaming shaming hearts and showing us a different way to live! When we get mad today and want to find the nearest scapegoat, let us remember you have already been made the scapegoat, the only True Sacrifice for our sins! And because of that, make us thankful, truly thankful, for Your rescue and kindness which leads to life! In the perfect, matchless name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, AMEN!”
by Elizabeth | Jun 19, 2010 | Learning Story
“…we are already God’s children, and we can’t even imagine what we will be like when Christ returns. But we do know that when he comes we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.” I John 3:2
Now read it again. Slowly this time. Ask yourself, “Do I truly believe this?” Do you believe you are God’s child? If so, what difference does that make in the day you have ahead of you?
Even though you can’t imagine what you will be like when Christ returns, try for just a few moments. Just try.
What will you be like when you are fully like him? What are you like now, since you have already been adopted by his Father?
What will it be like to see him as he really and truly is?
[Forgive me if I am too demanding in my questions. These are the ones I asked myself as I discovered this verse written in my handwriting of 15 years ago in a notecard stuck in a Buechner book where I was searching for a clever quote to post today:). It occurred to me that I had already posted this favorite verse of mine earlier this week, but perhaps more as an afterthought when it should indeed be the focus, the center of attention. I hope you enjoy imagining what is real as much as I am. Here is a painting that gives me a window into what I will be like.]
