Practice doing with less than usual, not buying even when you can afford it, buying nothing but necessities for a time, and spending time in the shadow of Calvary. How much less you’ll find you need when you see how much Christ gave! Draw up your budget at the cross.
– David Murray in Reset
Hedonism, materialism, narcissism: these are some of the many loves that keep us from loving Jesus. Loving him more always requires us to love other things less.– Phil Ryken in Loving Jesus More
This may be the truest test of our love for our Lord: will we go out and love the church that he died to save?– Phil Ryken in Loving Jesus More
The Lord Jesus has eyes that can burn through every conceivable façade and defense that we can devise to hide our true selves from others, eyes that penetrate right into our hearts. When his eyes are upon you, He sees right through you. He knows all things; nothing in my life is shielded from His gaze, even those things that I hide from myself. Nothing is hidden from Him.
– Joel Beeke on Revelation 2:18-29 in Revelation
The more trouble we have seeing Jesus, the more we wander into foolish thinking. The consequences are devastating: sinful patterns of self-indulgence, angry conflicts with other people, and bitter thoughts about ourselves as well as others. If these are some of the struggles that we have – habitual sin, broken relationships, self-loathing – then we must not be seeing the love of Jesus the way that God wants us to see it.
– Phil Ryken in Loving Jesus More
Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:
What We Need Most – Kevin DeYoung
I’m convinced that more evangelism, more prayer, more fruitfulness, more holiness will flow from the fountain of our lives only when we start drinking more deeply of Christ.
70 Prompts for Praising God – Lianna (Of Larks)
Praise Him with me through this list of 70 prompts…
The King Is Within Earshot – Tim Challies
If you would simply consider how much God loves that other person, you would never speak ill of him.
The Weight of the Church – Nicholas Batzig
…the church is far weightier than any job or school in this world. It is the place of God’s promised spiritual blessing.
Hope you have a great week worshiping our great Lord with your local church!
Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:
Yes, You Can Please Your Heavenly Father – Kevin DeYoung
Over and over, more than a dozen times in the New Testament, we have this motivation. We ought to be generous. We ought to be godly. We ought to love and live a certain way because it pleases God.
Lay Aside the Weight of Discouragement – Jon Bloom (DG)
What discourages us is not as powerful as it feels in the moment. We overcome our fear by confronting our discouragement and exercising faith in God’s promises. Those are precious moments in which we will see the power of God.
The Blessing of Weather That Confounds the Control-Freak – Trevin Wax
In a world where we try to sustain the illusion that we are in control of reality, the weather does not comply. Again and again, we remember: This is bigger than us. We must react to reality, for we cannot subdue it. Call it common grace for a technologically idolatrous age.
Study at the University of Jesus – Erik Raymond
In other words, you are never to graduate from the University of Jesus. You are always attending. Always studying. Always learning. Always marveling.
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day!
The only worthiness we have for entrance into God’s Kingdom is in Christ.
The only worthiness we have with which to come before God is in Christ.
And the only worthiness we have to qualify us for ministry is in Christ.
If we are to progress in any aspect of the Christian life,
we must look outside ourselves and only to Christ.
– Jerry Bridges in Transforming Grace
If Jesus reigns, then by definition, I cannot reign.
I must be a subordinate.
If Jesus is active today, right now,
then I must first and foremost surrender to his influence
on a minute-by-minute basis.
– Gary Thomas
Brian J. Mikul 