“When I began to look into [glory] I was shocked to find such different Christians as Milton, Johnson, and Thomas Aquinas taking heavenly glory quite frankly in the sense of fame or good report. But not fame conferred by our fellow creatures—fame with God, approval or (I might say) “appreciation” by God. And then, when I had thought it over, I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” With that, a good deal of what I had been thinking all my life fell down like a house of cards.
I suddenly remembered that no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child—not in a conceited child, but in a good child—as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised.”
— C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
People are done selling. And the public is tired of being sold.
It’d be really helpful if we could just start calling things what they are, rather than adding weight, burden, and panic to buyers who are tricked into things they don’t really want.
But I digress; can we agree that after a while, people see right through you if you falsify and elaborate your product? Your gains will be short-lived. People might see your hi-res photos, your well-designed website, and your weekly cutting-edge emails, and they might promptly buy something for the first time. But don’t expect them back as new versions come out.
When that buyer realizes that the property you laced with fine temporary furniture is surrounded by stained carpets and chipped paint, the sleek camera’s interior comes with mediocre technology, and only the first chapter of your book is even insightful, the enticing lure of their first buy is altogether depleted.
I can’t help remembering God’s words to Moses in Exodus 3 where he describes how he should be portrayed to a world that wants to know something true. God in his glory doesn’t need to elaborate or urge people of his character with extras—he just asks that they embrace something that already is.
It needs no selling, it just needs stating: “I Am who I Am.”
We are now in a world where a major company can slowly die by missing the launch of one key product into the market. They panic to play catch-up. They didn’t see the value, but the consumers have moved on.
Innovation and creativity are taking the place of reliability and long-standing products in many industries.
Isn’t it ironic that a church’s success is actually based on maintaining the very original idea? Sure, methods can be adapted to fit the audience, but the “vision and values,” the “mission statement,” if you will, should not deviate from preaching Jesus Christ crucified for our sins [1 Cor 2:1-2]. The churches that do this and stop trying to re-invent their core beliefs will succeed.
While the Palm Pilot was created and then quickly died to smart phones only a few years later, churches preaching the same Bible of the ages are thriving.
God offers more freedom than anyone, any system, any government, or any idea ever has.
He loves you no matter what you’ve done.
Nobody offers you freedom like this!
Your boss doesn’t sympathize with you or particularly like you when you fail to meet demands. You’ll hear if it wasn’t enough.
You still need to pay back the bank first—they don’t care about your family and that times are tough.
Your teacher wants it done correctly, or your grade will show the failure.
Be free in Jesus and you will have the pleasure and joy to go where you want, do what you want, and live how you want—because the Holy Spirit will be taking you there.
“If I have all faith,
so as to remove mountains,
but have not love,
I am nothing.”
— 1 Corinthians 2:2
Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath,
for of what account is he?”[Isaiah 2:22]
I give so much weight to people and even to what is being said, built, done, and seen in culture.
Rarely do I stop in a day and consider the majesty of the Lord or what wondrous glory is his character. He has power and control over all nations and he alone has the authority to call everyone an idolatrous sinner who has whored after created gods.
Father, I have done this! My eyes rarely breach my computer screen let alone a rooftop—and far rarer the cityscape. My idols look attractive; I’d like to stay quiet and comfortable as to not be noticed or criticized, but how stifled my worship of you has been! May I rise early in the morning with no music or distraction, but a great need for you and a reminder of how far beyond creation you are, to the point of having mastery over it.
The ox knows its owner, and the donkey knows its master’s crib,
but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.[Isaiah 1:3]
God, help me understand my owner and my true Home about these houses. None of this is permanent—help me to glean and trim my life to be focused on just a few things for your glory!
Amen
“Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance, through which he wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory, and calls into his kingdom. In your love, you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
“We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he “wants a woman.” Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want. He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus. How much he cares about the woman as such may be gauged by his attitude to her five minutes after fruition (one does not keep the carton after one has smoked the cigarettes).” — C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
whatcom falls park (Taken with instagram)
morning (Taken with instagram)