“She’s married me for what I receive from it, and I’ve married her because of what she receives from it.”
Bob Warren said this in a really quick statement, but I wonder if I sat and thought about this all day???
Monthly Archive for December, 2005
These two quotes are from “Velvet Elvis” by Rob Bell, which you should go out and buy right now.
p, 144
God’s strength, not mine.
God’s power, not mine.
So what does this mean for the Christian life? To begin, Christians are people
learning who they are in Christ. We are being taught about our new identity. Do
you see how deeply this new identity affects the life of a community? I heard a
teacher say that if people were taught more about who they are, they wouldn’t
have to be told what to do. It would come naturally. When we see religious
communities spending most of their time trying to convince people not to sin,
we are seeing a community that has missed the point. The point isn’t sin management.
The point is who we are now.
p. 170
I am learning that the church has nothing to say to the world until it throws better parties.
By this I don’t necessarily mean balloons and confetti and clowns who paint
faces. I mean backyards and basements and porches. It is in the flow of real
life, in the places we live and move with the people we’re on the journey with,
that we are reminded it is God’s world and we’re going to be okay.
“There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.”
(Matthew 17.2-3, NIV)
“Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.”
(Luke 9.32, NIV)
So Jesus gets changed, and looks like He’s made out of lightning. There is no reference though to Elijah and Moses looking like lightning! It is because those guys dwell in glory, but in Jesus, God’s glory dwells!
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”
(Hebrews 1.3, NIV)
These guys were saturated in God, but God Himself never lived in them, by Holy Spirit or by physical body. In Jesus we have All of God.
“‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.””
(Haggai 2.9, NIV)
The 1st Century Jews were looking for the Glory to fill the temple as it had been filled before, with fire so great that none of the priests could do their job. But 500 years later their hearts would be so hardened and they would be so prejudiced against Galilean Tektons, that they wouldn’t even see the Glory that would walk right in and teach them in a whole new way.
