Sunday, 15 July 2012
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Saturday, 3 December 2011
Sanctification (2)
While cleaning the pool again this morning the thought came to me: Why am I cleaning this pool? Obviously because I hope to swim in it some time soon. Then the next thought came to me: why is the Lord cleaning us continuously in the same way (cf. previous post)? Because He is holy and wants us to be holy so that He can have fellowship with us and us with Him.
Rev.3:20 - "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have a feast with him, and he with me."
Rev.3:20 - "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have a feast with him, and he with me."
Sanctification (1)
I stay on a farm with only sun panels for electricity currently. I also have a small pool outside the house that needs a diesel generator to drive its pump (the sun panels do not provide enough power). The generator is still being fixed with the result that the pool became very dirty with leaves, sticks and other dirt sinking right to the bottom.
As summer started, I started cleaning the pool with a net as far as possible. While doing this, the Spirit showed me that this is the way He cleanse us as Christians. If I just skimmed the surface of the pool, it looks fairly clean, but all the muck still lies at the bottom. When I actually scraped along the bottom with the net, all the muck came up and dirtied the water and I needed to skim the surface again to get rid of the "new" leaves. In the same way He sometimes need to reach down into the insides of our heart to "stir things up" so that the deep sin lying there can come to the surface, be confessed and cleansed by the blood of Messiah (1 John 1:7-9). But, over the days the whole pool, including the bottom, was becoming clean.
Jer. 17:9-10 - "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
As summer started, I started cleaning the pool with a net as far as possible. While doing this, the Spirit showed me that this is the way He cleanse us as Christians. If I just skimmed the surface of the pool, it looks fairly clean, but all the muck still lies at the bottom. When I actually scraped along the bottom with the net, all the muck came up and dirtied the water and I needed to skim the surface again to get rid of the "new" leaves. In the same way He sometimes need to reach down into the insides of our heart to "stir things up" so that the deep sin lying there can come to the surface, be confessed and cleansed by the blood of Messiah (1 John 1:7-9). But, over the days the whole pool, including the bottom, was becoming clean.
Jer. 17:9-10 - "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
Thursday, 3 November 2011
To be positive
One of my friends in a letter: "I have bronchitis, laryngitis and a fractured toe. Otherwise I’m fine!" :-)
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Two of my favorite quotes recently discovered (and an old one)
1. "...Jesus Christ has not come to establish social justice any more than he has come to establish the power of the state or the reign of money or art. Jesus Christ has come to save men, and all that matters is that men may come to know him. We are adept at finding reasons-good theological, political, or practical reasons, for camouflaging this. But the real reason is that we let ourselves be impressed and dominated by the forces of the world, by the press, by public opinion, by the political game, by appeals to justice, liberty, peace, the poverty of the third world, and the Christian civilization of the west, all of which play on our inclinations and weaknesses. Modern protestants are in the main prepared to be all things to all men, like St. Paul, but unfortunately this is not in order that they may save some but in order that they may be like all men." - Ellul, Jacques. The Ethics of Freedom. English version, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1976. pp.254–255
2. “The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any word in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. ‘My God,’ you will say, ‘if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I every get on in the world?’ Here in lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.” - Soren Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. Charles E. Moore (Farmington, PA: Plough, 2002), p.201.
3. "The Cross is not the terrible end of a pious happy life. Instead, it stands at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Discipleship and the Cross. As translated by Barbara Green and Reihhard Krauss (2001), p.87
2. “The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any word in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. ‘My God,’ you will say, ‘if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I every get on in the world?’ Here in lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.” - Soren Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. Charles E. Moore (Farmington, PA: Plough, 2002), p.201.
3. "The Cross is not the terrible end of a pious happy life. Instead, it stands at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Discipleship and the Cross. As translated by Barbara Green and Reihhard Krauss (2001), p.87
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
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