Random Thoughts

Some thoughts culled from my random file. Some have occurred to me in moments of quiet reflection, some in discussion with others. Some are aphoristic and avuncular. I didn’t know what else to do with them, so I put them here. For your edification, inspiration and/or motivation — or your money cheerfully refunded.

• If we delight ourselves in the Lord, we will end up with the desires of our heart. If we delight ourselves in the desires of our heart, we will end up with nothing.
• If we get things right in the small moments, we will be alright when the big moments come.
• Discipleship is a process. So is salvation. The invitation to one is the invitation to the other. The life of the age to come is lived out as discipleship in this present age.
• God is love. All the fullness of God dwells in Jesus. Which means that all the fullness of love dwells in Jesus.
• In the Parable of the Prodigal, the extravagant love and grace of the Father was just as much for the elder brother as for the younger, prodigal one … and both were in desperate need of it.
• Good theology leads to wonderful doxology. Isn’t that what we are really supposed to mean by “orthodoxy”?
• When we offer great praise to a great God, we develop great expectation.
• Every little moment of decision is a moment for repentance and conversion. Will I turn to God and yield to the change He wants to work in me? Or will I turn away from God and remain as I am? And every day brings those little moments. So every day is a good day to repent and be converted again.
• Both pride and shame tell us lies.
• The problem I see with both the old “turn or burn” gospel and the new “lovey-dovey, feel good” gospel is that they are both focused on us — on me. But the gospel of the Bible always focuses us on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is Christ-centered, not us-centered, and that makes all the difference.
• Grace is God holding out His hand to you. Faith is taking hold of God’s hand.
• The Trinity means that the Father is present to us through the Son by the Holy Spirit. By faith, we partake of His life, now and forever.
• The Father sends the Spirit, the Spirit shows us the Son, the Son reveals the Father.
• Sanctification, to put it in Trinitarian terms, is the work of God in me, through the life of Christ in me, by the power of the Holy Spirit in me. Which is also what salvation is.
• The Christian faith in five seconds: We have union with the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit.

More random thoughts …