More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
December 13 - December 13, 2023
But I knew even then that God’s providence was neither arbitrary nor fickle.
experience with them real Christian living.
Christ chooses you or you’re dead. After Christ chooses you, you respond because you must. Period.
know, I told my audience, why over fifty percent of Christian marriages end in divorce: because Christians act as though marriage redeems sin. Marriage does not redeem sin. Only Jesus himself can do that.
Here’s my challenge to you: For those with church ties, start going to church in honest vulnerability. For those of you who are not going to church at all, come to church with me. Make a six-month commitment. Pray with me for God’s saving and guiding grace, and then we can talk about whether or not church is filled with hypocrites.”
Through the study of these books, I became convinced that the worship of the Lord was the most important thing that we can do. Notice: I did not say that it is the only thing that we do.
hermeneutics is the study of how we make meaning out of text.
How did I get away with this? The secular academic world is bold in its protection of worldview. And,
He repented because God gave him eyes to see. Until this happens, no personal experience can topple his critical perspective.
The more God-centered our worship practice, the more mercy-centered our life.
The reason for this submission and obedience, according to the Scriptures, is that the wife is to be a living illustration of the Church in its submission to Christ. When a wife refuses to live in submission to her husband, this picture of the Church’s relationship to Christ is distorted before the world.
Submission refers to the inner attitude of the heart. It is therefore invisible and secret. Obedience is the outward expression of submission seen in the behavior of the wife. A wife may outwardly obey her husband and yet inwardly despise him. She is, therefore, not in submission to him in spite of her outward behavior. If this is the case, then the picture presented is no different from those who go through the motions of religious activities and yet have no regard toward Christ in their hearts.
True religion, which is pleasing to God, is obedience which flows from the humble...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
edification of his wife in all purity and holiness. Your role, then, as a Christian husband, is to nurture your wife in the faith, and to provide for her spiritual as well
as her physical welfare.
I quote this text in full because it shows that in Christ anyone can have a good marriage.
People whose lives are riddled with unrestrained sin act like rebellious children. Sin, when unrestrained, infantilizes a person.
When Christ is at the center of our marriage, Kent’s headship and my submission have allowed us to be a functional team.
happy family fears God and strives
obedience.
Shorter Catechism
Question: What is Adoption? Answer: Adoption is an act of God’s free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all of the privileges of the sons of God.
Galatians 4:7: “Therefore, you’re no longer a slave (orphan), but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.”
“So, is it chic for white women to adopt black kids these days?” I took a deep breath and stood up to meet his gaze. “Are you a Christian?” I asked him. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “Did God save you because it was chic?”
When Christ is at the center of our marriage, we have been able to maintain a Christian household that ministers to others. When Christ is not at the center, all of our good intentions are swallowed up by selfishness.
How do we put Christ at the center? By intentionally holding all things captive to Christ, each moment of each day. By never daring to do anything without fervent prayer, seeking the Lord’s wisdom, counsel, blessing, and life-sustaining breath. I learned, during those years, that the idea that one is ever too busy to pray is delusion of the most dangerous variety.
We in the church tend to be more fearful of the (perceived) sin in the world than of the sin in our own hearts. Why is that?
believe that there is no greater enemy to vital life-breathing faith than insisting on cultural sameness.
They imparted to me in a firsthand way the serious dangers of isolating our children from real life.
Adult children can appear obedient when they are tuning out instead of acting out. College life tends to bring out all the fears and doubts and perceptions of contradictions and hypocrisies.
Real fellowship requires stepping outside of you, and our church community stretched us and enriched us. We
My unsaved neighbor needed Jesus more than this college student needed to hurl a few well-rehearsed epithets about the evils of public schools.
Betrayal
and risk are at the heart of the gospel life. This I know: God heard my prayers.
You can’t play poker with God’s mercy—if you want the sweet mercy then you must also swallow the bitter mercy.
We see this as an investment in community. Anything worth doing will take time and cost you something.
“Dear one, we all have to check the voices of our own sick mind with the Bible. Daily. You are no different.”
the inner spiritual lives of pastor’s wives: The experience of really knowing the man behind the pulpit, counting the costs of his week, palpably knowing how deeply Satan wants the gospel to simply die from lack of interest, and seeing the Holy Spirit triumph in his preaching even when just the hour before all looked grim, is a great shot in the arm to enduring faith. I wish that others knew this: Pastor’s wives get the cream of the ministry, even as we sacrifice certain aspects of our personal, private, and family lives to have this. I have found my life as Kent’s wife to be full, rich,
...more
I believe that a church is a community of believers, and a community serves each other, in sickness and health.
God is asking you to crush the idolatry of pregnancy, to
Compassion means “with suffering” and involves entering into the suffering of another in order to lead the way out.
Mercy ministry always comes down to this: You can help, but only Jesus can heal.
Jesus is the word made flesh, and our faith and our deeds of love puzzle together with the Lord of lords and King of kings setting the sequence that makes the pattern of grace-filled life.
