Religion: ‘My identity is built on being a good person.’ Gospel: ‘My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on Christ’s.’
We have to be careful not to elevate our preferences to moral standards and judge others by them. We only do so to feel superior.
If we are not deliberately thinking about our culture and our context, we will be conformed to it without ever knowing.
When I forget the gospel I become dependent on the smiles and evaluation of others.
The common moral framework: Do anything as long as it does no harm to others. Problem: Whose definition of harm?
God loves and defends those with the least economic and social power, and so should we.
Jesus says, “I want you to follow me so fully, so intensely, so enduringly that all other attachments in your life look weak by comparison”
We’ve got at least two other streams of that are filled with good, helpful material on meditation – the Catholic stream and the Quaker stream that are not primarily based on meditating on the Scripture.
I have long profited from Adele Ahlberg Calhoun’s gifts in the field of spiritual development, and I am delighted that she has compiled her experience with spiritual disciplines into book form. I highly recommend it and I look forward to using it as a resource at our church.
Christians don’t believe that goodness gets you to heaven. Christians believe it’s exhausting to rely on your own goodness to please God.
When we try and use fear or pride to stop from sinning, we are forgetting that we sin because of either fear or pride.
We are regularly in danger of having too light a view of our sin and also too light a grasp of what Jesus has done to free us from our sin.
If you seek to serve people more than to gain power, you will not only serve people, you will gain influence.
If we pick out which parts of the Bible we dislike, we actually have a god we’ve created. How can that god ever call you out on anything?
Are you living to justify yourself, or are you living because you are justified?
Ironically, the insistence that doctrines do not matter is really a doctrine itself.
If you didn’t earn your salvation how are you going to un-earn it?
If you have to run away from something that used to be an idol, you’re actually still enslaved by it. It’s still controlling you.
Forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one granting the forgiveness. To not retaliate is to absorb the cost.
When you experience God it is deeply personal, but it’s not at all private.