Bits & Pieces (11/28/12)

Great Purpose – Struggling with why God has allowed something to happen in your life? Read this short but powerful quotation.

Forgiveness in Marriage – “How we can settle for such less when we reduce ‘love’ to a mere warm and fuzzy emotion! The Gospel—which is love’s highest and best expression ever to appear on earth—is anything but warm and fuzzy! It is a deliberate act, a choice of self-sacrificing for the good of the other party forgiving them in spite of whatever wrong they have done. Truly, love is not fuzzy; it’s hardcore.”

What is a Christian’s Responsibility to Government? – “The function of government is to restrain evil and to maintain, uphold, and protect the sanctity of life and of property. Given this function, the Christian understands that government is ordained of God, and so Christians, first of all, are called to respect whatever it is that God institutes and ordains.”

The Act of Gratitude – “Gratitude lies in contingency, in the recognition that the goods we have might not have been.  I was recently asked by a friend what single thought they should take away from reading Chesterton’s Orthodoxyand I answered along these lines.  Joy comes conditionally, as the recognition and response to the limits on our lives.  But it also comes conditionally in a deeper sense.  The contingency of the world is tied to its goodness, and our celebration of joy is inextricable from the wonder that all might have been different than it is…”

A Challenge to Be Tolerant  – “Everybody has a point of view they think is right and everybody judges at some point or another.  The Christian gets pigeon-holed as the judgmental one, but everyone else is judging, too.  It’s an inescapable consequence of believing in any kind of morality. ”

Four Words That Change Every Situation – “There is no situation too great for God. There is no heart too hard for God. There is no budget too tight for God. There is no boss too difficult for God. God is your helper! He is my helper! Those four words change every situation.”

 

 

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Bits & Pieces (11/27/12)

Purchasing Joy – “When life is busy I feel like buying that new device or that new piece of software will restore order. When I’m bored or feeling down, I can find myself thumbing through the Best Buy catalog, just browsing, hoping to notice something that will make all the difference. It’s joy I want, and I somehow think I can buy it. Of course it never does make that difference.”

Good News of Great Joy – A free advent book from the folks at Desiring God.

Always a Good Time to Mediate on God’s Mercy – “Maybe your day has just started, or it’s well under way, or it’s over and you’re ‘in the time zones that are sleeping right now.’ No matter what time it is, it’s a good time to give thanks to God for his rich mercies that are ever-new to us through Jesus Christ and share your joy with all who will listen.

Pain & Christian Marriage – “While being a Christian couple does not make marriage easy or pain-free, we do have some great advantages that should make it easier and healing” and this post provides a few of them.

The Church and Violence Against Women– “An abusive man is not an over-enthusiastic complementarian. He is not a complementarian at all. He is a pathetic aping perversion of Adamic leadership. He rejects male headship because he rejects his role as provider and protector. As the culture grows more violent, more consumerist, more sexualized and more misogynistic, the answer is not a church more attenuated to the ambient culture, whether through a hyper-masculine paganism or through a gender-neutral feminism. Instead, the answer is a truly counter-cultural church, a church that calls men to account for leadership, a leadership that cherishes and protects women and girls.”

A Surprising Response – A man who was documenting rejection got a surprising response to his elaborate doughnut request.

 

 

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