We cannot conceive how the Divine Spirit dwelled within the created and human spirit of Jesus…. What we can understand…is that our own…existence is…but a faint image of the Divine Incarnation itself – the same theme in a very minor key.
~ C.S. Lewis, Miracles, p147
These quotes come to you from our missionary speaker at Cornerstone, Jason Fuentes. His sermon was entitled “God Has Commended Us To Function” and was taken from Luke 10.
“When religion says, “Do!” Christ says, “It was done on the cross.” Jason Fuentes
“Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good or good people better. He came to make dead people live!” Jason Fuentes
“Christian, you do not go to church. You are the church!” Jason Fuentes
“Our weaknesses become assets when put in God’s hands, but our excuses will always be liabilities.” Jason Fuentes
The Atlantic Sky from the shores of Doolin
The Son of God became a man to enable men to become the Sons of God. We do not know…how things would have worked if the human race had never rebelled against God and joined the enemy…. You and I are concerned with the way things work now.
~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p178
“And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans–and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused–and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself.”
― Sigrid Undset
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/make-it-anywhere/
Today the Daily Post has asked…“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere,” goes the famous song about New York City. Is there a place — a city, a school, a company — about which you think (or thought) the same? Tell us why, and if you ever tried to prove that claim.
I’ve never made it out of my hometown. Something of pain or shame exists in that admission and I am not really sure why. I suppose it means that somewhere in my younger self there was this dream that lived for a time in the understanding that I was made for “bigger” things… “bigger” places. Yet something held me at the borders of my own lands. What was it? A spell? A fear? A psychic wall? A dream? A Calling?
My mother wanted me to be a doctor. My father, I think, wanted me to be anything that got me away from this place that I never got away from. My sister has moved all over the world and my children (some of them) display the same signs of wanderlust that leads to adventure while I live like a Hobbit never wanting to stray too far from my own front door.
I think maybe the shame and guilt of only making it as far as my own garden might have more to do with the dreams of others than with my own dreams. For as long as I can remember I only ever aspired to a quiet life of pastoral bliss, walking the rocky New England Fields and listening to the bubbling of the stony fresh-water brooks that dot our landscape. I want to hear the twittering of the birds in the trees and feel the winds of these Massachusetts seasons as they pass over me in repose.
I want to see the world, truly see the world from my own vantage point, the place where I was planted by the Great Himself. I think it has been given to others to run the earth as they watch the sky. They must do that for themselves to succeed. If I can stand and occupy this little space for a time, my time, then that is “big” enough and I can make it “anywhere”, which after all is only ever really “here”.
The Heaven posts are a devotional word study through the Bible using every reference to the word “Heaven”.
The Way By the Cliffs of Moher
“he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;”
Psm. 103:10,11
Sometimes in my place of prayer I become overwhelmed with a sense of my own sinfulness. I feel like Isaiah standing in the Temple of the Lord, who said “ “Woe to me!…I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Isaiah 6:5
Does that ever happen to you?
At such moments I could easily be swallowed alive by the feelings of guilt if it were not for a truth buried even more deeply within me. That truth is Jesus loves me! Jesus forgives me! Though my sins were as scarlet He has made them white as snow! AND If Jesus has forgiven me who am I not to forgive myself?
The truth is His love is higher than the Heavens. How high is that? Well I guess it depends on which Heavens we are talking about?
Is it higher than the first Heaven the Heaven which the birds fly in? Well then that is about a mile high. That’s pretty high but I think God’s love is bigger than a mile.
Then is it higher than the second Heaven. the Heaven where the planets and stars dwell? Well that is much higher. We are talking light years not miles. And who knows where the end of the universe is? Well no one on this planet, but still our universe is measurable. I think God’s love for me is even bigger than that.
It is higher than the third Heaven, a place beyond the boundaries of time and space, framed in eternity a thing itself unaffected by time. The distance to it cannot be measured by any of our human standards. That is the love God has for me, immeasurable by my standards and yet it is even higher than that!
Let’s suffice it to say God’s love is so big and vast and immeasurable I cannot lose it. If I don’t want God’s love I purposely have to throw it away because there is no other way to get rid of it. Now there’s a guilt killer if ever there was one!
Nancy’s challenge to us this week is all about the word: WHITE
http://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/a-photo-a-week-challenge-white/
As soon as I saw the word my mind went immediately to….. SNOW
But honestly snow is not all bad. Isaiah the prophet speaking for God said,
“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” Isaiah 1:18
The Daily Post has asked, “What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received that you wouldn’t give to anyone else? Why don’t you think it would apply to others?”
You can find out how others responded by going to
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/not-for-thee/
I suppose it is not JUST for me but I definitely know it’s not for everyone. The best piece of advice I ever received came directly from God and it was the call from Him to become a full-time minister of the gospel.
Ministry is not just a job. It’s a calling, which is to say it is not what I do but what I am. The line between working in ministry and being a full-time minister is drawn when ministry stops being something you do and becomes something you are. I could no more stop being a minister than I could stop being a white guy. At this point in my life it has less to do with my particular job than it does with how I go about my particular job. It ain’t for everyone because it ain’t who everyone is.
Me reclining after walking up the “Rocky” stairs at the Philadelphia Art Museum.
Anybody who has been reading Lillie-Put for any length of time knows I have just come through one of the busiest autumns I have ever clocked. Now I am in a season of rest and recuperation.
God has been speaking to me about several things I am to pursue during this season. One of the items on that list is a deeper level of faith. I spoke about this a bit in my series, “Laboring to Rest.”
As I was meditating this morning, God spoke to me about another item to be added to that list, listening.
One of the issues I am dealing with coming off of the fall harvest is a feeling of both physical and mental exhaustion. My brain feels like it has been sand-blasted and as if all the ideas in it have been turned to dust.
Of course, I realize that is just a feeling and a misconception mixed together. The truth is the ideas are still there because they were not inspired by me in the first place. Any of my really good ideas started out as God’s ideas and since He never grows weary, His ideas can’t be blasted away by my busyness. What has changed is not His ability to create through me but my ability to connect to Him so the creativity can flow. Restoring the creative connection is going to require intentional active listening.
I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.
Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.
So now I am dedicating a large chunk of my prayer time to reading the Word and just sitting quietly before God and practicing the art of what the Quakers called centering down.
How do you practice the discipline of listening to God?
