my burg

God thunders wondrously with his voice;  he does great things that we cannot comprehend.   For to the snow he says, 'Fall on the earth,'  likewise to the downpour, his mighty downpour.   He seals up the hand of every man,  that all men whom he made may know it.   Then the beasts go into their lairs,  and remain in their dens.   From its chamber comes the whirlwind,  and cold from the scattering winds.   By the breath of God ice is given,  and the broad waters are frozen fast.   He loads the thick cloud with moisture;  the clouds scatter his lightning.   They turn around and around by his guidance,  to accomplish all that he commands them  on the face of the habitable world.   Whether for correction or for his land or for love,  he causes it to happen.   (Job 37:5-13 ESV)

We await salvation from Christ  because he makes us, ingrafted into his body,  participants not only in all his benefits  but also in himself. If you contemplate yourself,  that is sure damnation.  But since Christ has been so imparted to you  with all his benefits  that all that is his is made yours –  that you are made a member of him,  indeed one with him –  his righteousness overwhelms your sins;  his salvation wipes out your condemnation;  with his worthiness he intercedes  that your unworthiness may not come before God’s sight. Surely this is so:  We ought not to separate Christ from ourselves  or ourselves from him.  Rather we ought to hold fast bravely with both hands  to that fellowship by which he has bound himself to us. Christ is not outside us  but dwells within us.  Not only does he cleave to us  by an indivisible bond of fellowship,  but wi...

Herman Bavinck on the relationship between faith and assurance (or certainty, as truth relates to us)... "Faith is certainty and as such excludes all doubt. Whoever is stricken by guilt and crushed and honestly seeks refuge in Christ is already a believer. To the degree that he exercises a shelter-seeking trust he also possesses an assured trust.  How else would a sinner convicted of his own guilt ever dare to approach God and evoke His grace unless in the depth of his heart, without being consciously aware of it himself, he shared in the certainty of faith and the hope that the Father of Jesus Christ is merciful and great in loving kindness? ... "The assured trust is thereby included in this shelter-seeking trust. And both develop together. The stronger the shelter- seeking trust becomes, the stronger becomes the assured trust.  And if the latter is small and weak, we may confidently conclude that the first too is needy and incomplete. Faith, therefore, does not attain ...

"If you're thirsty, you may drink.” They were the first words [Jill Pole] had heard since Scrubb had spoken to her on the edge of the cliff. For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken.  Then the voice said again, “If you are thirsty, come and drink,” and of course she remembered what Scrubb had said about animals talking in that other world, and realized that it was the lion speaking. Anyway, she had seen its lips move this time, and the voice was not like a man's. It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way. “Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion. “I'm dying of thirst,” said Jill. “Then drink,” said the Lion. “May I - could I - would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill. The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized ...

...from a Christian, Spirit-filled perspective (from Dan Mock's sermon today): With that in mind, that the 10 commandments are a result of intimacy with God, I want to refocus them for you from a Christian, Spirit-filled perspective: When you love me with your whole heart: 1. You will delight in me alone because I AM your All in All. 2. You won’t need pictures or statutes or anything else as a surrogate for me in your worship because I fill your mind, your heart and your imagination with my steadfast love. 3. You will treat my name as sacred because my name is the most special word that crosses your lips. 4. You will spend a whole day with me each week because you trust me enough to know that I’ll provide you with everything you need through the other 6 days. 5. You will honor your father and mother because you know that that relationship is a tangible representation of our relationship. 6. You won’t murder because you see my handiwork and the vestiges of my ...

“For when death had entered into the human race through man’s disobedience , it was fitting that life should be restored through the obedience of man . When the sin which was the cause of our condemnation had its beginning from a woman , it was fitting for the author of our justice and salvation to be born of a woman . Since the devil, when he tempted man, conquered him by the tasting of a tree , it was fitting for him to be conquered by man’s bearing of suffering on a tree . And a good many other things, when we consider them carefully, show the inexpressible beauty of our redemption , thus accomplished.”  (Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus Homo )  “No matter how many strong enemies plot to overthrow the church, they do not have sufficient strength to prevail over God’s immutable decree by which he appointed his Son eternal King.”   (John Calvin, quoted by Eric Alexander in The Supremacy of Jesus Christ in John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine & Doxology ...

Newton’s law of gravity says that the force of attraction between two objects is proportional to the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them.   But these words do nothing more than describe the equation:  F = G{m1m2}/d2  That is, the law itself is a mathematical expression. The whole of nature appears to be built out of mathematical Legos! You may ask why my verbal statement of the law isn’t just as good as the mathematical equation. Couldn’t the maths be nothing more than shorthand — just a convenient way to write down the law?  Actually, no. To be meaningful, the verbal statement has to include words such as ‘is’ (implying an equality), ‘proportional’, ‘product’ and ‘squared’ — mathematical language which demonstrates that the law is essentially mathematical, not verbal.  The fact that the structure of the physical cosmos is fundamentally mathematical is really strange — because mathematics is entirely a construct ...

...is a perennial and serious problem in ministry.  It's like the best man in a wedding trying to get the bride to like himself more than she likes the groom.  This quote was shared with me by a friend in ministry... At the same time, it is important  that the spiritual director be vigilant that he is not assailed by a desire to please others, or else even though he might carefully penetrate the things of the internal life and provide for what is necessary of external concerns, he seeks the love of the laity more than he seeks the Truth; or supported by his good works and appearing otherworldly, his love of self separates him from his Creator. For he is the enemy of the Redeemer, who through the good works that he performs desires to be loved by members of the Church rather than by Him. For indeed, a servant is guilty of adulterous thoughts if he desires to please the eyes of the bride when he is sent by the groom to offer gifts.  Gregory the Great, ca...

"[The gospel] assumes nothing on his part other than that he is a sinner who needs reconciliation and peace and salvation. And it promises and gives these to him by way of faith and repentance. In both respects the gospel answers to the most perfect and beautiful idea of religion we can form for ourselves. For on the one hand it is nothing but the good news of grace and salvation. It doesn't pose a single demand—not of age or generation, of race or language, of class or wealth. It poses no conditions, it asks nothing, it demands nothing, it is no law but the opposite of all law. It is broadly human and completely universal, because it presupposes nothing but what is common to all men, namely, the need to be freed from the misery of sin. In accordance with this, on the other hand, the gospel con­fronts man with nothing but a moral choice, the choice to accept the gift of God's grace in faith or to spurn it in hardness of heart...  "The choice for or against the gosp...

"When we say ‘science explains’ something we usually mean that there exists a scientific description of the phenomenon in question. Thus the force of gravity — rather important since it keeps us from bumping around on the ceiling like helium balloons — can be expressed by a simple mathematical formula. The formula equates the gravitational force between two objects to the product of their masses multiplied by a universal constant (the ‘gravitational constant’) and divided by the square of the distance between them. But does the equation ‘explain’ why you don’t bump your head on the ceiling? Not really. It tells us there is a force that keeps your feet on the ground, but you knew that already. It also quantifies that force, allowing us to calculate its strength in any particular case, which is extremely useful. But it doesn't tell us why there is such a force, why it follows an inverse square law, and why the ‘gravitational constant’ has the value that it does. The equation is...

"Here in the cross is where every enemy of joy is overcome: divine wrath, as he becomes a curse for us;  real guilt, as he becomes forgiveness for us;  lawbreaking, as he becomes righteousness for us;  estrangement from God, as he becomes reconciliation for us; slavery to Satan, as he becomes redemption for us;  bondage to sin, as he becomes liberation for us;  pangs of conscience, as he becomes cleansing for us;  death, as he becomes the resurrection for us;  hell, as he becomes eternal life for us."  — John Piper, from  When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy , p 91.  Quoted by Of First Importance .