Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joyis offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
–C.S. Lewis
What happens when the worst happens? I stumbled across the story of a Canadian Pastor whose daughter was murdered. The subsequent interview that he and his wife gave on the 1 year anniversary is truly a remarkable tribute to the all sovereign God of the universe.
This is the Pastor’s Blog.
The School of Christ
Mar 10
It is then, we say, in the successive stages of his experience, that the believer sees more distinctly, and adores more profoundly, and grasps more firmly, the finished righteousness of Christ. And what is the school in which he learns his nothingness, his poverty, his utter destitution? The school of deep and sanctified affliction. In no other school is it learned, and under no other teacher but God. Here his high thoughts are brought low, and the Lord alone is exalted.
- Octavius Winslow
If man’s only problem was that he were a sinner, how great would his prospect for life be. For if that were his only problem, he would repent and be pardoned from the horrible wrath to come. Man’s greatest predicament is not that he is a sinner but that he does not know nor care. He is “dead in trespasses and sins”. Reflect for a moment upon Paul’s damning assessment.
None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Romans 3:10-18
Man’s condition is utterly hopeless. There is but one hope…
I Can’t Do It
Feb 26
“It is no good giving me a play like Hamlet or King Lear, and telling me to write a play like that. Shakespeare could do it — I can’t. And it is no good showing me a life like the life of Jesus and telling me to live a life like that. Jesus could do it — I can’t. But if the genius of Shakespeare could come and live in me, then I could write plays like this. And if the Spirit could come into me, then I could live a life like his.”
- William Temple