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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Lisa Whittle
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August 31 - September 20, 2020
That is, our deepest affections (whatever it might be that we focus on most devotedly) shapes the way we believe and, in turn, the way we live.
We do some of these things because we are under a false assumption of emotional martyrdom as if the overdoing is in some way producing the humility and selflessness we can’t seem to otherwise find.
But real is what makes us live without a facade or the complication of having to wonder if people accept the true us. Real is what changes people. It is what makes them decide they are willing to give Jesus a try.
Jesus drew people in because He was real, and that is the real attractiveness. Our true appeal will always be our truth lived out.
But it’s time to grow out of our obsession with ourselves and pursue identity with God,
Choosing real over pretty is choosing to free our souls from the grip of an overfocus on self—something that is the root cause of most of our distresses.
The real us, who God made us to be—flaws, mistakes, bruises and all—is a mighty force for people to come to know Him. Choosing real is choosing Jesus because it’s trusting His creative instincts that we were made good.
Sometimes we have to get wrecked to get real.
When people know that we are that corner to take refuge in from the storm—not the same refuge as Jesus but a safe human refuge in a world that feels disconnected and bitter—they will feel safe.
It is always the love that calms the most afraid, draws in the skeptics, brings back the prodigals, and changes the hardest hearts. Judgment can never do that.
4. We judge because we recognize in others what we don’t like in ourselves.
The way we judge others for the things we recognize in us is a sign that we are struggling to love ourselves, first, which makes it impossible for us to love another.
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. . . . Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16 NIV).
Love can’t tolerate watching people live unwell. The goal is their health and transformation and, in the process, our joy and fulfillment at having been a voice God used. But the relationship may be strained for a while, and we have to be willing to love people enough to sit in that tension and trust God.
you will never have authority over something you are entertained by.1
Give up anything that takes time away from a pursuit of holy living.
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.
Denial of freedom, in cases where flesh would win over spirit, is caring enough about the soul and about Jesus that we deny things that won’t benefit our relationships with Him even though our freedom may allow for them.
The issue is how we’ve become a Christian culture no longer shocked by our own casual acceptance of the world’s ideas.
Holiness feels rigid and unrelenting only when we are in an active state of compromise, self-focus, or rebellion. It feels legalistic only to a self-centered heart.
When we grow weary enough of the complications of our life, we will do whatever it takes to declutter our hearts.
1 John 2:15–17
Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away,
along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.
The truth is, maybe nothing changes us more into the person we want to become than serving other people.
but the more she gave of herself, even from a place of her own lack, the more she was filled. Not only that but she watched her family meet Jesus. This is a picture of what giving your whole self to Jesus can do.
The best way to kill our flesh is to serve someone else—an important remedy.
As we serve God, our eyes have to stay on Him and on the goal of true and biblical ministry, without need for repayment or earthly reward or yes, even human gratitude. Service is not about what we can gain, but what we lose in us for our soul’s sake—selfishness, pride, lust for power—and what we give to the kingdom to contribute to God’s great plan. Serve, and don’t worry about elevation. It is a powerful Jesus-first offering.
God doesn’t make requests based on what will make people happy. He tells us to do things that honor Him and further kingdom work.
When I’m all about me, I’m the farthest away from God. The two mentalities cannot coexist—we cannot possibly want to be seen and known and want God to be seen and known too. One of us has to fade that the other might shine brighter.
The way Jesus intended service to operate does not involve our preferences. It involves our unregulated yes and our ongoing obedience to a cause greater than self-desire or preservation.
to grow as a believer, we have to die to hype.
The idea of having a king to “be like all the other nations,” and to “fight [their] battles” for them was a hyped-up perception formulated in the heads of insecure, lazy people who thought they wanted what other people had, even to their detriment. They weren’t bad people. They were just looking for a shortcut.
to be swayed by the culture and impressed by word of mouth and packaged sound bites over a proven track record is a form of blind acceptance.
We do ourselves a massive favor when, instead of reacting, we watch, listen, and ask questions, which is exactly what a wise person will do.
The true success of a person is not in whether she can make her life work; it’s in whether she can die to her life enough for Jesus to work in her.
