Complete strangers felt like Jesus had known them for years because he articulated back to them the deepest reasons why they had come.
To know Jesus is to internalize his love in a way that allows us to answer the spiritual poverty in others.
Only one thing is necessary, time with the Lord.
As we ace loss with Christ by our side, it freezes into sharp relief all that cannot be taken from us.
The fall happened and continues to happen at the moment of self-sufficiency.
Struggles are permitted by God to remain, for, without them, pride would run rampant.
Mourning implies relinquishment.
God’s answer to prayer often takes on a different shape than we have in mind.
Do what we can for today, trust the Lord for tomorrow.
When we pursue justice we pursue the Lord.
Thirsting for God’s righteousness is the only way to be filled for it demands an emptying of ourselves first.
God is the god of ULTIMATE satisfaction.
Conflict has a tendency to freeze our own opinion into a sense of righteousness.
You cannot thirst after two ‘versions’ of righteousness.
The times in my life when I become deeply joyful are the times in my life when I have chosen to be merciful.
In the sermon on the mount, Christ is also giving people a list of Guarantees, since his kingdom WILL inevitably come.
God blesses those who allow him to cleanse them.
Has Satan succeeded in making me too busy to pray?
Realize our reliance, mourn our complacency, Humble ourselves, Thirst for righteousness, Tell the truth, Show mercy and seek God’s word on the matter.
It is not the successful that get called ‘children of God’ but the peacemakers.
God uses the ‘tough stuff’ of life to unearth the diamonds in Scripture that I/we otherwise would have missed.
Nothing makes you more irrelevant than never having had to endure suffering.
When you put people first above programs, you’re putting God first.
I am convinced that the real reason why we find evangelism ‘hard’ is because we are too concerned with how we look before men.
Avoiding trials is the fastest path to loneliness.
When you study the bible even when you’re not ‘getting anything out of it’ you’re ironically learning the deepest lesson from it: that it’s not about you.
God’s special revelation(s) does not run according to the schedules of our felt needs.
The best way to prep for future hard times is to give thanks in all minor trials.
You can’t change a culture of complaint by complaining about it.
Likewise, you can’t stamp out gossip by gossiping about those who gossip.
Only in the presence of Jesus, can my frustrations morph into praise.
Anyone can be a prophet because anyone can know the mind of the Lord.
God’s existence now completely flips the purpose of life. It is now to be salt and light.
Believing the words of Christ puts the meaning of life in reach.
I have noticed that I have indeed often been far more ‘effective’ at being salt and light in the moments when I have been at my weakest.
Those who seek publicity at the expense of soul-care, are forgetting a key truth; everything ends in publicity.
You are the light of the world….by beginning at home.
Few are called to be a blazing pillar of fire, but we can all be a little candle that at least gets someone thru a blackout.
If Satan can’t get people to doubt the existence of Christ, he will sow misunderstanding as to why he came.
The bible is the only book that is read in order to get to know its author.
So much modern biblical interpretation comes out of the desire to be right rather than be at rest.
The bible is not written for the scholars but the lovers.
Relationships grow the most in the space of tension.
The reason why we’re scared of Jesus is also the reason why we’re attracted to him: he tells the absolute truth. He is the truth.
The testimony of creation will always contradict the testimony of culture.
Our fallen-ness expresses itself in our inconsistency. The doctrine of total depravity it is also the doctrine of total inconsistency.
Unrelenting effort out of mere duty often produces either addiction or hatred of the object.
Give up trying and take up training.
Genuine worship cannot occur where there is no reconciliation.
God prefers reconciliation over sacrifice.
Kingdom living is more about peacemaking that point making.
Hell is regret filled souls desperately trying to pay back the debt they once ignored.
God keeps addressing his word to the unseen places.
Satan kills a soul by encouraging negotiation with sin.
The fulfillment of the marriage covenant is more than about the success of your marriage.
Human justice just ends in human violence.
Christ is born and dies in the same way, with absolute vulnerability.
Live as if God is in the process of supplying the need. That’s faith.
It’s as I give away rights and possessions for the sake of others do I then come to a place where I can perceive his providence.
Trust must be lived if I am to see the truth of it.
Prayer is where enemies are transformed into friends.
If the character of God is generosity, then the desire to give can only increase the closer you get to God.
It is in times of lack where we learn the difference between reliance and lip service.
The opposite of assumption is perspective, that is why prayer and meditation are so important to every Jesus follower.
Arrogance paints a picture of others devoid of any colors.
Jesus redefines holiness not as not merely acceptability to God but living the very life of God.
The is much spiritual activity that takes place in opposition to rather than in worship of God.
The more of our lives that commercialize the more we die a little inside.
We are not merely commanded to carry the cross for others but to do so in relative silence.
When God answers prayer, he answers the ‘heart’ behind the prayer whom offers it up, because prayer is never merely words but a posture and disposition.
A hypocrite will feel like God has not answered prayer but what they are praying for is not really what they are aching for.
Satan will do everything to propagate the assumption that the subject of the prayer automatically equates with the purpose/reason for the prayer.
A trial purifies and re-centres the prayer life.
Holiness is the pursuit of active gratitude.
Pray alone but expectant rather than for publicity with secret cynicism.
I pray God does NOT need: formula, repetition, complexity, theological vocab, volume, demonstration, acting, a system, directions, annunciation, position.
The greatest difference between Christianity and other faiths is seen in the space of prayer.
God invites us to pray because we already have his attention.
Discipleship is learning to pray. It is learning to relate.
For ‘His kingdom come’ it must be ‘prayed here’.
We must be reminded daily, where our daily bread is really coming from.
The greatest lesson of 2018? God provides.
God says, you have not because you do not ask; Satan says: you have not because you’re not good enough.’
We need to forgive as a community because God forgives as a community. (Trinity)
Yet when we forgive someone, how often do we see ourselves doing so for the sake of a wider community.
I once thought that being right would solve everything, now I realize that it is being forgiven.
Some of the most beautiful truths of life have no immediate application and that’s ok.
To imagine that we can resist temptation without God’s help is to claim equality with God.
The phrase ‘I need help’ is the most truly human sentence we can utter.
Perhaps the fact that we find people draining is more of a revelation of our false expectations.
God is interested in the reason why people worship.
I am trained to think that application is always about doing something more, not less.
Maturity replaces elitism.
We equate what is seen with ‘secure’
Only God changes the way in which we see the world.
The eye of evil glares with a sense of ownership and conquest.
It is in the rapid response that the flesh reigns.
In order to ruthlessly eliminate hurry, rather than worry about it, pray about it.
The central discovery of the Christian life is that God can be known as the father.
Idols are reached for in order to placate the gnawing worries or flee from exhaustion.
It is sin, (not Jesus) who introduces complexity into life.
There is no hope in the short-term future because that is not where God’s presence dwells.
Prayer can simply be worrying out loud to God and in his presence.
Jesus in Mt 7:1-2 introduces the thought that NO one is beyond accountability.
Trusting the Lord with all your heart includes the broken and angry bits.
No insight is really a godly insight if not arrived at through humility.
For most of my life, I have not been a Spirit LED person.
Our response is always in relation to our deepest identity.
We lack in prayer when and because we seek for life to be predictable and/or controllable.
I want to ruthlessly eliminate hurry that I might relentlessly ask, seek and knock.
Christ desires to increase both our endurance and expectation simultaneously.
God gives only good gifts. The real issue so often is that we settle for less than his good.
