Random Thoughts

Some thoughts culled from my random file. Some have occurred to me in moments of quiet reflection, some in interaction 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.

• Paul tells us to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). He did not leave us the option of just one or the other, truth or love. We must do both. We must speak the truth, but we must do it in love. Truth and love are, first and most importantly, personal — that is, they are about a person. For God is love and Jesus is the Truth (1 John 4:9; John 14:6). So if our communication fails to reflect truth or love, it fails to reflect the Lord Jesus, and we come short of the glory of God.
• Because we’ve been given the sword of the Spirit (the Word of God), the temptation is for us to think that we are supposed to hack away at people with it.
• God is love. He who abandons love abandons God.
• God is love. He who has faith in God has faith in love.
• Jesus saves us with a salvation that truly changes us.
• The cross is the intersection of heaven and earth, of time and eternity, of creation and the Creator.
• When Jacob wrestled with God, who prevailed? Jacob won a blessing … but that was always what God wanted to do for him.
• The world looks for someone to exercise authority and be the “tie-breaker.” Christ looks for those who will submit to each other. Big difference.
• The way of Christ always turns the world on its head. And the world always fights hard against it. Christians often do, too.
• The closer we know the Lord, the more guidance will take care of itself. The better we know His heart, the more we will know what to do.
• We tend to know what we like and like what we know are. Then we are uncomfortable with what we don’t know, and fearful of anyone who knows something we don’t.
• I learned about Christ from the Church and from the Book. But it is because I have met Christ that I have realized that the Church and the Book are true.
• Everyone is a heretic to someone.
• Salvation by grace through faith is a relationship, not a contract. Which means no loopholes, just friendship.

More random thoughts …