Justifying My Whole Existence

I'm forever in pursuit and I don't even know what I am chasing. . . And now in one hour's time, I will be out there again. I will raise my eyes and look down that corridor, with 10 lonely seconds to justify my whole existence.

— The character “Harold Abrams”
Chariots of Fire

Mother Theresa on Doubt

My smile is a great cloak that hides a multitude of pains...[people think] my faith, my hope and my love are overflowing and that my intimacy with God and union with his will fill my heart. If only they knew.

— Mother Teresa,1958

Plagued by doubts...

I am plagued by doubts. What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely paid too much for my apartment.

— Woody Allen

The nations first appear in the biblical grand narrative in the context of life after the flood—God’s catastrophic judgment on human wickedness. By Genesis 11 the nations have been scattered in confusion. The conflict of nations mirrors the brokenness of humanity as a whole. With undoubtedly deliberate intent, the final book of the Bible comes to its climax with the picture of the nations purged of all sin, walking in the light of God, bringing their wealth and spendor into the city of God, contributing their redeemed glory and honor to the glory and honor of the Lamb of God (Rev. 21:24-27). The brokenness of humanity is healed at the river and tree of life (Rev. 22:1-2). And between these two great scenes in Genesis and Revelation—the primal and ultimate state of the nations—the Bible records the story of how such cosmic transformation will have been accomplished. It is, in short, the mission of God... God’s mission is what fills the gap between the scattering of the nations in Genesis 11 and the healing of the nations in Revelation 22. It is God’s mission in relation to the nations, arguably more than any other single theme, that provides the key that unlocks the biblical grand narrative.

— Christopher J.H. Wright
The Mission of God

Smack 'em up side the head with Glory....

What we have lost...is a full sense of the power of God — to recruit people who have made terrible choices; to invade the most hopeless lives and fill them with light; to sneak up on people who are thinking about lunch, not God, and smack them up side the head with Glory.

Barbara Brown Taylor
Home By Another Way

Frame on Culture

Frame on Culture:

(1) Seeking to transform culture in this way does not mean trying save the world apart from God’s grace. It simply means obeying God as our thankful response to his grace.

(2) A transformational approach does not assume an unrealistic optimism about what is possible in fallen society. We know, just as much as the dualists do, that the world is fallen, deeply sinful, totally depraved. But we also have confidence in God’s common grace and his special grace. Real change for the better can occur, and history shows that it has occurred. Not perfection, but real change for the better.

(3) To apply Christian standards to art, for example, does not mean that we must turn our artistic works into salvation tracts. The Bible doesn’t require that. I do believe that the gospel of salvation is a fit subject, indeed a glorious subject for artistic treatment. Bach’s Passions and Da Vinci’s Last Supper are proof of that. But art should deal with all aspects of God’s creation.

(4) A transformational approach does not mean that every human activity practiced by a Christian (e.g. plumbing, car repair) must be obviously, externally different from the same activities practiced by non-Christians. There is always a difference, but often the difference is that of motive, goal, and standard, rather than anything external. The Christian seeks to change his tires to the glory of God, and the non-Christian does not. But that’s a difference that couldn’t be captured in a photograph. When changing tires, Christian and non-Christian may look very much alike.

(5) Critics have often bemoaned the lack of high standards in Christian art, music, and other cultural activity. To some extent, anyway, these critics are right. But the answer to this problem is not to accept secular standards uncritically. (Again, even if we did, which ones should we accept?) The answer is rather to be more faithful to God, both in his special and in his general revelation. We ought to be humble enough to learn what we can from the knowledge in these areas that God has given to unbelievers. But we should always be challenging it on the basis of our knowledge of the true God.

Pelikan on the Reformers & RCC

From Reformed Catholicism:

Here are a number of passages from Pelikan in his The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (Abindgon Press, 1959), interspersed throughout the chapter entitled “The Tragic Necessity of the Reformation”, and found on pp. 48-54:

Hence the Reformation was indeed a catholic movement. If we keep in mind how variegated medieval catholicism was, the legitimacy of the reformers’ claim to catholicity becomes clear. With men like Augustine and Bernard on their side, the reformers could well protest against the usurpation of the name ‘catholic church’ by their opponents. A leading irenic and orthodox theologian of the seventeeth century Johann Gerhard (d. 1637) spoke for all the reformers when he said: “If the papists want to prove the truth of the name ‘catholic’ as applied to their church, let them demonstrate that the dogmas of their church are catholic, that is, that they are in conformity with the catholic writings of the prophets and apostles!….If the papists want to deny us the name ‘catholic’ let them demonstrate that we have seceded from the catholic faith and that we deny the mystery of the Trinity.”

Not a new ‘Protestant’ gospel, then, but the gospel of the true church, the catholic church of all generations, is what the Reformation claimed to be espousing. Substantiation for this understanding of the gospel came principally from the Scriptures; but whenever they could, the reformers also quoted the fathers of the catholic church. There was more to quote than their Roman opponents found comfortable. Every major tenet had considerable support in the catholic tradition.

That was eminently true of the central Reformation teaching of justification by faith alone. For the reformers, this teaching stood or fell with the question of biblical support for it; but because it was so important to the very life of the church, the reformers could expect to find it being taught by theologians between Paul and Luther, too. That the ground of our salvation is the unearned favor of God in Christ, and that all we need to do to obtain it is to trust that favor–this was the confession of the great catholic saints and teachers. Justification by faith alone really means justification by grace alone, “grace” understood not as something in man which wins God’s good will, but as something in God which makes man pleasing to him. Without this teaching, the reformers maintained, there was no church, catholic or otherwise, but only a human institution built upon human merit. The target of their critique was only one strand in the development of the medieval teaching on justification, and with other strands of that development the reformers had a definite affinity……

Loyalty to the catholic fathers consisted in subordinating them to the Scriptures, as they had subordinated themselves to the Scriptures.

In their own way, therefore, the reformers not only retained but actually restored the ancient Christian definition of catholicity as identity plus universality….

According to both of these Reformers (Luther and Calvin) the church had been Christian and catholic before the papacy; therefore it could be both Christian and catholic without the papacy. In the name of such Christian catholicity they were willing to challenge Rome….

To save itself from its own distortions, catholic Christianity has repeatedly needed prophets, who have been born of Mother Church but have grown up to denounce her for her harlotry. Tertullian, Bernard of Clairvaux, Savanarola, Luther — all these were sons of the catholic church whose devotion to the church compelled them to speak a prophetic word against the church as it was…

Tripp on Losing Heart

Tripp's commentary on Ps. 27

"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."

What causes a person to lose heart? What makes a person want to give up? Why do we ever entertain fantasies of running away? What causes us to have little enthusiasm for what we once found very motivating?

Your motivation to continue is only as strong as what you've placed your hope in. Perhaps this is why we so easily lose heart in the face of obstacles, opposition, or difficulty. Perhaps what we've unwittingly done is to have tried to build our reason to continue on the shifting sand of flawed and impermanent things that were never meant to be the foundation of our meaning and purpose or inner sense of well-being. No human being is capable of carrying your hope. This side of heaven we're all weak and flawed in some way. No circumstance can carry your hope. Every situation you're in is in someway touched by the brokenness of the fall and isn't under your control. Amassing physical pleasures and possessions won't give you lasting hope. For all of their momentary enjoyment, they fill the sense, but do not satisfy the heart. When you look horizontally for your reason to continue you'll inevitably end up losing hope.

This is precisely why you could hear no better advice than in the three words that begin and end the last verse of Psalm 27, "Wait for the Lord." What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for your husband to finally become romantic? Are you waiting for your wife to finally agree that your marriage isn't so bad after all? Are you waiting for that job that will fulfill you? Are you waiting for life to get easier? Are you waiting for your church to finally become all a church could be? Where do you look and say, "If only I had________ then my life would be_________?

There's only one place where stable and reliable hope can be found. There's only one place of rest for your heart and surety for your soul. There's only one reliable place to find your reason to get up in the morning and continue. There's only one source of motivation that's sturdy enough to weather the storms of life in a fallen world. "Wait for the Lord" really does say it all.

When your hope is in the Lord, when you're getting your inner sense of well-being and security from him, when he's the reason you continue even when things are hard, then you're building your life on something that's reliable and sure. When you're waiting on the Lord, you've placed your hope in One who's the ultimate source of everything that's wise, good and true. When you wait for the Lord, you're placing your safety in the hands of One whose power is unmeasurable. When you wait for the Lord, you're getting your comfort from One whose love is boundless. When you wait for the Lord, you can be secure in the reality that he rules over all things. When you wait for the Lord, you can live with confidence because you know that every one of his promises is true. When you wait for the Lord, you can be hopeful even in weakness because you know that his grace is sufficient.

We lose heart because we tie our hope to the wrong things. What are you waiting for? To what have you tied your hope? "Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

Paul Tripp: Losing Heart

20,000 'little popes' & their Bible

"I would rather have 20,000 “little popes” with their Bibles, all believing they can err and be corrected by scripture, rather than one pope who cannot err or be corrected by scripture."

The Internet Monk, Five Questions on the iMonk & Catholicism

Valley of Vision: A Present Salvation

May I be always amongst those who not only
 hear but know You,
 who walk with and rejoice in You,
 who take You at Your word and find life there.

Valley of Vision: God Enjoyed

I bless You that You have made me capable
 of knowing You, the Author of all being,
 of resembling You, the Perfection of all excellency,
 of enjoying You, the Source of all happiness.

O God, attend me in every part of my arduous
 and trying pilgrimage;
 I need the same counsel, defense, comfort
 I found at my beginning.

Let my Christianity be more obvious to my conscience,
 more perceptible to those around.
 While Jesus is representing me in heaven,
 may I reflect Him on earth.
 While He pleads my cause, may I show forth His praise.

Sherpherding a Child's Heart

Rick Gamache of Sovereign Grace Fellowship asks his kids these questions....

# How are your devotions?
# What is God teaching you?
# In your own words, what is the gospel?
# Is there a specific sin you’re aware of that you need my help defeating?
# Are you more aware of my encouragement or my criticism?
# What’s daddy most passionate about?
# Do I act the same at church as I do when I’m at home?
# Are you aware of my love for you?
# Is there any way I’ve sinned against you that I’ve not repented of?
# Do you have any observations for me?
# How am I doing as a dad?
# How have Sunday’s sermons impacted you?
# Does my relationship with mom make you excited to be married?
# (On top of these things, with my older kids, I’m always inquiring about their relationship with their friends and making sure God and his gospel are the center of those relationship. And I look for every opportunity to praise their mother and increase their appreciation and love for her.)

HT: JT

Man who says he followed every verse of the bible for a year...

Extreme Makeover

NEWSWEEK: It’s been a little over a year since your experiment ended and you shaved your beard. How’s the life of sin?
A. J. Jacobs: It’s all right. I miss my sin-free life, but I guess I was never sin free. I was able to cut down on my coveting maybe 40 percent, but I was still a coveter. Flat-screen TVs, the front yard of my friend in the suburbs, a better cell phone, higher Amazon rankings. And that's not to mention coveting my neighbor's wife. I live in New York, I work in publishing, so there’s a lot of coveting, lying and gossiping.

Shift Happens

Leithart on Faith & Reason

"We have...a conflict of various faith-reasons...."

For centuries, Christians have posed the dilemma of Christian theology as a problem of faith v. reason. That's a non-starter, a concession of defeat, for it assumes that there can be such a thing as a faith-free rationality. But there cannot be.

What we have is not a conflict of faith and reason, but a conflict of various faith-reasons or reason-faiths.

HT: Leithart