The farther from God that you realize yourself to be, the closer you really become. Redemption is not a strain for him, as if you were helping him out by giving him fewer things to redeem. Being one of God’s people is not a matter of finding natural virtues in yourself and displaying them instead of your natural weaknesses. Continue reading “Defending yourself against God”

Consider this: if your fiancee loved you as much as you love God, would you break off the engagement? Soon God’s people will become his bride, though you don’t have to take part in that. Once the marriage takes place, if not before, his people will do nothing but worship him and praise him. Does that thought disturb you, of never ceasing to praise God? Do you have a hard time doing it now? Does the thought make heaven seem enslaving or boring? You don’t have to take part in that either. However, you may not like the alternative. There will be no alternative in heaven.

Why worry about the state of your soul? Why seek more from God? Well, why seek more from your marriage? The Bible compares God’s loving relationship to his people to a husband’s relationship to his wife. However, since love for God and love for spouse have both grown cold, it becomes ever harder for us to understand what God meant, or to even care. For some couples, it’s hard to imagine wanting to die for each other. For some Christians, it’s hard to believe (as opposed to mentally assent) that Jesus wanted to die for them. But when you were first falling in love, was a visit to your loved one an obligation, or was it joy? Did Romeo spend regular time beneath Juliet’s window to keep her from getting mad at him, or because nothing could have kept him away? Continue reading “I’m no Romeo.”

Did you know that your toothbrush is also an excellent tool for cleaning around the toilet? Except that once you use it that way, you’ll find it less effective and less pleasant in your mouth. That’s all that holiness really means. God wants to set you apart, sanctify you, make you holy (all mean the same thing) for his purposes. Yes, the mind, body and will that God made for his own purposes will also serve well for other purposes. God made them well. But, like a fine woodworker’s tools, the more you use them for something for which they weren’t intended, the more trouble you’ll have when you try to use them for the right purpose. A person who wants to be holy isn’t nitpicking or negative or arrogant or legalistic, any more than a person who wants to defend his toothbrush from me.