29 May 2015 All In

All In

posted by

Jesus wasn’t afraid to be graphic. When driving home a major point, He used strong metaphors—like amputating hands or plucking out eyes if they lead you astray.

Jesus offended people in his first lesson on communion, saying they’d have to drink His blood and eat His flesh. (John 6)

Jesus on the crossAnd He’s willing to go way beyond metaphors when everything is at stake. His crucifixion—a most violent death—was necessary to resolve our separation from God.

Dollarphotoclub_64487779

 

 

No mild mannered version of Jesus will do.

What’s the underlying message? What is He saying with such bold language and sacrificial actions?

“I want you all in.”

And so the question is on the table—“Are you?”

It starts by having a real relationship with God. You can’t settle for religious activity. Your internal life has to match your external life. In the words of James Ryle, you have to grow to the point where you have nothing to fear, nothing to hide, nothing to prove, and nothing to lose. And you have to let God be God—refusing to shape Him into the modern day image of what seems socially acceptable.

God is God, and we are not. Scripture is pretty graphic when we don’t get that right.

“Is the axe to boast itself over the one who chops with it?

Is the saw to exalt itself over the one who wields it?

That would be like a club wielding those who lift it,

Or like a rod lifting him who is not wood.

Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts,

Will send a wasting disease among his stout warriors;

burning reeds. fireAnd under his glory a fire will be kindled like a burning flame.

And the light of Israel will become a fire and his Holy One a flame,

And it will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in a single day.

And He will destroy the glory of his forest

And of his fruitful garden, both soul and body,

And it will be as when a sick man wastes away.

And the rest of the trees of his forest will be so small in number

That a child could write them down.”

–Isaiah 10:15-19 (NASB)

In other words, Jesus is the head, and we are not. We are the body. All this is to prepare you for a startling and disturbing dream I had one night.Continue reading

Filed Under: 2015, God's design Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
18 September 2014 The Healed Soul

The Healed Soul

posted by

“The soul is healed by being with children.”

–Fyodor Dostoevsky

Happiness came at last for Dostoevsky in his mid-forties. Anna Snitkina and Fyodor Dostoevsky married and enjoyed sixteen wondrous years.

Anna’s writings gave us an intimate glimpse of Dostoevsky as an adoring husband. Once, he waited three hours for her on a street corner when her return was delayed. He also took great joy in giving her beautiful gifts—even when money seemed scarce.

8b0c79d0b2He had a tireless love of children and soothed the housekeeper’s children when he heard coughing or crying in the night. As a devoted father, he helped with bathing and feeding their children, unlike men of his day. Anna described him…

“Fyodor was uncommonly tender with his daughter, fussed over her, carried her about in his arms, sang her to sleep and felt so happy that he wrote (a friend), ‘Oh, why aren’t you married and why don’t you have a child? I swear to you that ¾ of life’s happiness lie in that, and ¼ at most in the rest.’”[i] Anna added, “Neither before nor since have I seen a man with such a capacity to enter the world of children.”[ii]

Dostoevsky also proved to be deeply passionate about God. He knew the depths of spiritual battles and once wrote:

“Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.”[iii]

Another time he wrote, “God sends me sometimes instants when I am completely calm; at those instants I love and feel loved by others, and it is at those instances that I have shaped for myself a Credo where everything is clear and sacred for me. This Credo is very simple; here it is:Continue reading

Filed Under: 2014, Character, Destiny, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
11 September 2014 Furnace of Doubt

Furnace of Doubt

posted by

“I believe in Christ and confess Him not like some child; my hosanna has passed through an enormous furnace of doubt.”

– Fyodor Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky as young manOrphaned at age seventeen, Dostoevsky had his whole life before him. Though he graduated from a military engineering school, honoring his father’s wishes, he did not want to be an engineer. With a small income from his father’s estate, Dostoevsky devoted himself to writing and achieved instant notoriety with the publication of his first novel, Poor Folk. That success gave him access to intellectual and literary circles in St. Petersburg, where he became involved in the sociopolitical issues of the day.

Now watch as God dramatically intervened in his circumstances…

Dostoevsky joined the Petrashevsky Circle, a utopian socialist group that secretly published propaganda against the Russian Tsar. In April 1849, he and others were arrested for sedition and sentenced to death. While he waited in prison for his execution, a small group of women brought him a New Testament. As he pored over the Gospel accounts, a profound shift occurred in his understanding of life.

Dostoevsky mock executionBut after eight long months in prison, execution day came in late December. Blindfolded and stripped, the first three prisoners were tied to stakes. Dostoevsky stood with the next group of three, waiting. A firing squad took aim. At the very last moment,Continue reading

Filed Under: 2014, Character, Destiny, God's design Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
Next Page »