Skip to main content

Thoughts That Made Me Think

Dear Friends,

One of my goals in sending these “thoughts” out is to give people food for thought. Not so much “answers,” since answers are not always what people need. But material that will get you to think. Jesus did that through His common tactic of asking questions which would get the listener to think about things from a different perspective. God’s perspective, of course, rather than the generally accepted religious or cultural perspective.


This week’s “thoughts” fall into that category. Certain people speak of things in a way that gives us cause to pause, and think, and sometimes (after contemplating their words) nod in agreement, wondering why we’d never thought of it that way before! These are just a few that I ran across. In fact, I’d love to hear back from you if any get you to think about things in a slightly different way. Enjoy.

“The most qualified to speak the gospel are those who truly know how unqualified they are to speak the gospel.”
Tertullian

“We’re already in the presence of God. What is absent is awareness.”
Richard Rohr

“A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is “merely relative,” is asking you not to believe him. So don't.”
Roger Scruton

“The heavenly banquet cannot begin until all those whom I have hurt are ready to welcome me, in all my flawed and contradictory humanness.” Madeline L’Engle

“Every good and God-given gift can be used in the wrong way – including God’s grace (Jude 4) and His words in the Bible (Ps. 56:5, Acts 13:10, II Tim. 4:3-4, Matt. 24:4).” Anonymous

“People do not decide one day, “I think I'll become an addict.” No, they feel pain or rejection or loneliness and seek something to provide relief...but the addiction keeps enlarging the very void it was meant to fill.”
Philip Yancey

“That there was no room in the inn was symbolic of what was to happen to Jesus. The only place there was room for Him was on the cross.”
William Barclay

“If a religious holiday isn’t a holy day it will soon become a hollow day.”
Robert Leroe

“Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me. I want people to know ‘why’ I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved.” Will Rogers (in his older days)

“Anger often arises out of the frustration of not being understood. Better yet, it arises out of the frustration of having our opinion belittled by someone who has no intention of even trying to understand what we’re saying.”

“The roots of anger are almost always found in some kind of pain…when anger is present, look for the pain.”
R.C. Sproul

“Anxiety is contemplating your future without putting God into it.”
Robert Leroe

“The unregenerate heart can no more understand the gospel than a horse can understand astronomy,” said Charles Spurgeon. “If God doesn’t show us the way, we will never find it,” said Miguel Nuñez. For, “Of what avail is an open eye,” said Ibn Gabirol, “if the heart is blind?”

“You are required to believe what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true.”
R.C. Sproul

“As long as we read the Bible (or any spiritual book), simply to acquire knowledge, our reading does not help us in our spiritual life,” said Henri Nouwen. “You only believe the part of the Bible that you DO,” said Rick Warren. “God himself does not give answers,” said Frederick Buechner, “He gives himself.” Jesus made this very clear when he told the religious leaders, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5:39)

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”
Werner Heisenberg (1932 Nobel Prize in physics, for the creation of quantum mechanics.)


“If you believe what you like in the Bible, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Bible you believe, but yourself.”
St. Augustine

“The Bible's purpose is not to show you how to live a good life. The Bible's purpose is to show you how God's grace breaks into your life against your will, and saves you from the sin and brokenness you would otherwise never be able to overcome.”
Tim Keller

“Being a Christian is like being pregnant—you either are, or you aren’t. And if you are, there will eventually be visual evidence that you are.”

“Your life as a Christian should make nonbelievers question their disbelief in God.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“A Christian should be – a mind through which Christ thinks; a voice through which Christ speaks; a hand through which Christ helps; an ear through which Christ listens; and a heart through which Christ loves.”
Robert Leroe

“If the gospel truly is the word of God, it can withstand the hardest questions I can ask it, and the toughest challenges I can throw at it. And if it can’t, it’s not worth my devotion.” Rosann Catalano



In the Service of Jesus, Pastor Jeff

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts From Horatius Bonar

Dear Friends, If you are like me, you may have had a bad experience in the past with churches that stressed “holiness.” Not because churches shouldn’t, but because the focus was placed on outward conformity to externalisms, or a prescribed set of moralism’s that sucked the atmosphere of grace out of the church. In fact, the more effort-based versions of “holiness” are stressed, the more grace disappears – and the vacuum left in its wake is filled with even more rigid standards of morality and law-based duties – driving all who truly struggle with sin into hiding or pretending. And of all the books I have ever read on holiness (or godliness) none (in my opinion) hold a candle to “God’s Way of Holiness” by the Scottish minister Horatius Bonar (1808-1889). A book I have given to numerous people to read. If you were one who was turned off, or wounded, by a form of holiness based on what Bonar calls, “constrained externalism” or self-effort, I offer you this selection as a taste of w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thoughts From Thomas Wilcox

Dear Friends, Every once in a while, you come across an individual who can say a lot in a very little space. I don’t possess that ability, but Thomas Wilcox (1621-1687) did. Below are some of his profound insights on the Gospel found in the only tract he wrote, originally entitled, “A Choice Drop of Honey from the Rock Christ.” And don’t think that because it’s about the Gospel, you can just brush it aside because you already know it. Jerry Bridges (one of my profs at seminary and a prolific author who passed in 2016) once played us a recording in class of the responses given by best-selling Christian authors at a Bookseller’s Conference in response to the question, “What is the Gospel?” The responses were lacking at best and a couple of them made us wonder if could even be Christian at all. So, read these excerpts from his tract and see if you get what he means and if you agree. (I have updated the language where possible.) Enjoy. “When you believe and come to Christ, you...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thoughts On Lent from Jeremy Linneman

Dear Friends, As we have entered the time of the church year traditionally called “Lent” (from the Old English word “lencten” referring to the season of Spring) there is always the common idea floating around that, “I should probably give up something for Lent.” The question is “Why?” Why give something up or practice self-denial? And the only good answer is: God in Scripture calls his people to do so, it actually benefits us, is intended to benefit others, and brings glory to God. We find this idea stated explicitly in Isaiah 58:6-9. There God says to his people who are fasting simply to deprive themselves of something (to prove their earnestness?) or in an attempt to be, “heard on high” (trying to manipulate God into answering our often self-focused prayers?) “This is the real reason he wants His people to fast: “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is i...
Post a Comment
Read more