Random Thoughts

Some thoughts culled from my random file. About faith, love, life and relationship with God. Some have occurred to me in moments of quiet reflection, some in interaction with others. Some are aphoristic and avuncular. Many have been tweets on Twitter and updates on Facebook. For your understanding and edification — or your money cheerfully refunded.

• The gospel is, first, the public announcement that the kingdom of God has come into the world — and that Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, is God’s Anointed King. Then it is the personal call to participate in that kingdom through faith in King Jesus.
• The gospel in five seconds: The kingdom of God has come into the world and Jesus Christ is King over all. Come trust Him with your life and follow Him.
• When you are able to let something go, it has become your servant, not your master.
• With regard to man in relationship with God, repentance means to turn to God, or return to God.
• Justification, in the context of biblical covenant, means that one is counted as fit for fellowship; in regard to man in relation to God, it is the verdict of righteousness — i.e., that one is right with God, in right relationship with Him.
• Love is giving yourself to another without reserve.
• The Christian faith is not about a God who created the world out of loneliness. It is about Three Persons who created the world out of the overflow of love they have for each other — and they desire to catch us up into their fellowship.
• An assumption is something that can be made without thinking. Some assumptions may be reasonable. Others are not. Assumptions often function as faith for some people. Some aspects of faith may be based on reason, but the Christian faith is ultimately based on revelation, and everything must be rethought in light of it. And that takes a lifetime.
• I trust God to be continually at work in me, so how l “measure up” is now His problem.
• Faith pleases God and love fulfills the commandments. So whatever is of faith and expresses love is good ... and will measure up.
• Christ is not only the light we see, but the light by which we can see everything else properly. So our lives as Christians cannot be compartmentalized. We cannot speak of the Christian life as if we also have some other life we can live in addition to or instead of our life in Christ.
• We want to be faithful, but I think we can get too focused on our own faithfulness — as if it were indeed our own and not the faithfulness of God at work in us — and then we get discouraged. But if we focus on the faithfulness of God, we become like what we behold ... and there is no discouragement in that.
• The apostle Paul said, “When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” In the meantime, His glory starts poking through in our lives.
• Quit trying to justify your existence. It is God who created and loves us, Jesus the Messiah who redeems us and the Holy Spirit who transforms us.
• There is a difference between becoming a Christian and becoming Christian. One may take a moment, the other takes a lifetime.

More random thoughts …