Adoption = Call to Ministry

Tripp: Your adoption into the family of God was also a call to ministry..." That doesn't mean you need to quit your day job.

Lacking Nothing

ElyseFitz:

Those who "lack nothing" are not those who have everything they might desire but those whose faith has been tested thru suffering.

Sanctification

@timchestercouk: "Sanctification is the progressive narrowing of the gap between confessional faith and functional faith."

Fighting Fear of Man

Mark Dever:

"If you fear the Lord, you can deal with your fear of man. But you cannot please God if you live to please men."

A Christian View of the World

Christian attitude toward world is complex: "You have to cherish the world at the same time you struggle to endure it." Flannery O'Connor

Functional Gods

PaulTripp

What I can't live without, making me doubt God's love when it is absent, is a functional God-replacement, directing my heart more than him.

The Life of the Cross

PastorTullian

Tim Keller: "Any person who only sticks with Christianity as long as things are going his or her way is a stranger to the cross."

Gospel Math

@PastorTullian on mathematics of the gospel: Jesus+Nothing=Everything; Everything-Jesus=Nothing.

Praying with Eyes Open

A few times that I've watched Matt Chandler preach, I've noticed that he often (or maybe always) prays with his eyes open. So as he's preparing to pray at the beginning or end of his sermon, rather than shut his eyes he is looking at his congregation as he prays.

This struck me as a bit odd, but I wonder if it should. Does anyone else regularly pray with your eyes open? What do you think of this practice? Are there any biblical statements about shutting our eyes when we pray?

Longing

In my sermon yesterday, I mentioned that every longing we have ever experienced is, at bottom, a longing for the return of Jesus. Though I didn't say it, I had this quote from C.S. Lewis on my mind:

There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; more often I wonder whether we have ever desired anything else.

Top on the To-Do List

Elyse Fitzpatrick:

What's on your "to do" list today? "We have thought on your steadfast love, O God."

Fashion

Spurgeon: "Fashion is the law of multitudes, but it is nothing more than the common consent of fools."

Blitter

As I mentioned last week, I've been posting a fair amount on Twitter, as I find good short quotes in my reading and re-tweeting some thoughts of others.

One problem with Twitter is that the posts aren't archived (or at least I haven't figured out how to do it), which means, for instance, that the quote I really liked from Elyse Fitzpatrick two months ago is very difficult to find today.

So I've decided that I'm going to be posting those tweets that I want archived here on the blog too. Let's just saying I'm bleeting -- a mixture of blogging and tweeting. That way if I want to find one of those quotes for a sermon or some other purpose, I should have better chances of finding it. I'll still be posting on Twitter too, but I suppose the best of Twitter (at least according to me) will be here too.

This is going to increase the number of posts on the blog (especially as I try to get some of my favorites from the last few weeks all up on the blog), but they'll be short (140 characters at most) in length so they won't take long to read.

Ambition

Excuse the Twitter lingo:

RT @PastorTullian Dave Harvey: A good ambition becomes a selfish ambition when it's our only ambition. It's called idolatry.

My question: what if your only ambition is to magnify Christ?

Hoops Redemption

What a cool article from the Wall Street Journal about former NBA player Manute Bol (tall guy on the left, for the sports-challenged), who recently passed away at the age of 47. As a kid I watched Bol swat shots and rain 3's for years; I never would have imagined we'd spend eternity together in glory.

Here's a few quotes from the article:

Bol reportedly gave most of his fortune, estimated at $6 million, to aid Sudanese refugees. As one twitter feed aptly put it: "Most NBA cats go broke on cars, jewelry & groupies. Manute Bol went broke building hospitals."

When his fortune dried up, Bol raised more money for charity by doing what most athletes would find humiliating: He turned himself into a humorous spectacle. Bol was hired, for example, as a horse jockey, hockey player and celebrity boxer. Some Americans simply found amusement in the absurdity of him on a horse or skates. And who could deny the comic potential of Bol boxing William "the Refrigerator" Perry, the 335-pound former defensive linemen of the Chicago Bears?

Bol agreed to be a clown. But he was not willing to be mocked for his own personal gain as so many reality-television stars are. Bol let himself be ridiculed on behalf of suffering strangers in the Sudan; he was a fool for Christ.

Read the whole thing here.