my burg

I have been reading in the Gospel of Mark recently.  I've been impressed how eternally relevant and fresh his Word is.  And in Mark, Jesus utters some very brief statements that bring amazing comfort, or questions that bring sharp conviction.  The Holy Spirit applies them as powerfully now as he did then.  I need to hear these brief -- but eternally relevant -- words often: For comfort and courage:  "Son, your sins are forgiven." (Mark 2:5 ESV) "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease." (5:34) "Do not fear, only believe." (5:36) "Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid." (6:50) “All things are possible for one who believes.”  (9:23) "Go your way; your faith has made you well." (10:52) For conviction and searching the heart:  "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" (4:40) "Why are you making a commotion and weeping?"  ("The child is not d...

Carl Henry, as a young man undergoing conviction of -- but struggling with -- the truthfulness of Christianity, reasoned along the lines of Pascal's "wager" ( Pensees , #233)... This is a right use of that very good question, "what have I got to lose?" ...  "I somewhat understated my readiness by a fallback to Pascal's wager.   'If I go ahead, and there's nothing to it, I have nothing to lose,' I said; 'if I don't go ahead, and there is something to it, I have everything to lose.'"  ~ Carl F. H. Henry, Confessions of a Theologian , p. 46. ________________    Further thoughts from Pascal... #236  "According to the doctrine of chance, you ought to put yourself to the trouble of searching for the truth. For if you die without worshiping the True Cause, you are lost. -- 'But,' say you, 'if He had wished me to worship Him, He would have left me signs of His will.' -- He has done so, but you neglect t...

“If you know what He has done at infinite cost to himself—He’s put you into a relationship so that you’ll never be rejected by Him—then your motivation when you sin is to go get Him. You want fellowship with Him.  "When the thing that most assures you is the thing that most convicts you, you’ll be okay because when you’re convicted of sin in a gospel way it drives you toward God.   "Without the gospel we hate ourselves instead of our sin. Without the gospel we’re motivated through all sorts of awful fear and pride to change and it doesn't really change our hearts; it just restrains our hearts.”  (Tim Keller, "How the Gospel Changes Us", posted by Of First Importance )

And Jacob said, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, 'Return to your country and to  your kindred, that I may do you good,' I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the  faithfulness that you have shown to your servant , for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two  camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me,  the mothers with the children.  But you said, 'I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea,  which cannot be numbered for multitude.'" (Genesis 32:9-12 ESV) Jacob was a conniving man, a man full of schemes and deceit. God called him in sheer undeserved grace and spared his life from  a murderous brother whom he had cheated. Ironically (and lovingly), the Lord placed him in another family where he himself became the target of hostile s...