Pennywise (by Drop Dead Quirky)
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The Mother’s Hand. 1966 by Antanas Sutkus
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plenitudotemporis reblogged lajoiedespetiteschoses:
Blue Dusk, Stone Cottages, Wales
photo via happy
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plenitudotemporis reblogged mustardseedgrows:“The pain of sacrificing our old selves is nothing compared to the joy of Christ living in us in our transformed lives.”
— A.W. Tozer (via mysaviorlove) -
Two-Hundred Proof Grace
John Dink has assembled some excellent quotes on his blog. This one from Robert Capon is one of my all-time favorites.
The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case. (Robert Farrar Capon, Between Noon and Three, pg. 114-115)
Reflecting on this quote, John writes, “Sola Gratia, Grace Alone, was not merely a leaning of the Reformation… it was a pillar. The reformers trumpeted God’s grace as the only Christian method, with no compromise. The Gospel was being unleashed again, not reinvented, but rediscovered… the unending love of God, freely given to the undeserving. The truth–so scandalous, so surprising, our hearts have to be sitting down to hear it… God saves sinners single-handedly, He will not be needing our help.
In fact, diluting the Gospel with our own help is precisely why grace ceases to amaze us. So busy trying to help Jesus help us, we hardly ever taste His gift and we remain unchanged and unmoved by it.
Over time, our blended, balanced, watered-down cup of grace leaves us cynical and sober. We want so desperately to mix in some of our rule-keeping or our performance… we’d give anything to add something of our own label! But it never turns out as we had hoped. We start to feel like we can’t keep up our end of the bargain – we feel as though we’ve failed.
But… what if we don’t need our own label? What if Jesus kept up our end of the bargain for us?
Those who are broken and bold enough to ask the questions, find themselves seated at a table with smiling sinners – too drunk on grace to remember the rules, and yet, they all seem to know them by heart. We’re served glass upon glass and something happens… the Gospel becomes the power of God and the wisdom of God. The power of God, because we taste something strong enough to save us. The wisdom of God, because we taste something good enough to change us. The bar is always open and the drinks are all paid for–just thank the Bar Tender, raise your glass and drink it straight. It’s all Grace.”
Are you busy mixing or do you drink grace straight? Are you always in a spiritual hurry or is your soul free to rest and raise a glass? Is it possible that free grace in Christ causes people to love like Christ?
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So beautiful…
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On Beer and Love
There I was, in the kitchen, having a theological discussion about alcohol and how we ought to think about it. It was a good conversation, too. With a good friend, no less. I really enjoy back-and-forth conversations with good friends who love Jesus (and some who don’t). I’m NOT talking about stupid arguments and debates like “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”, but good, honest, earnest conversations about sin, God, grace, tostadas, movies, culture, beer, sex, literature and all the rest.
Yet, as we neared what would be the end of our fruitful conversation, I felt the need to repent and clarify. Had I sinned against my friend with whom I was conversing? In a sense, yes. Here’s how:
We were having a conversation about alcohol and how Christians ought to interact with it in various forms and in varying circumstances. It really was a GOOD conversation. One of the reasons it was so good was due to the fact that we both come from a place of legalism. At one point-in-time we both had an unbiblical understanding of alcohol and how saints ought to think about, and interact with it. We are also good friends. We’ve also, in the past, offended each other unintentionally. All three of those things led us into the conversation with the utmost delicacy and a (maybe to a fault) tender disposition. I’m not saying it was perfect, no conversation ever is, but it was certainly good and God glorifying, I think.
“So, Sean…” you might be asking “why did you have to repent/clarify anything? It sounds like you were having an honest, humble discussion with a friend.” True enough! I was. Here’s how I sinned: I was carrying on the discussion as if it merely existed within a vacuum; as if I was among robots and mirrors. Was I talking like a man who wants to be a pastor? Who loves and cares for people? Who sees their pain and scars and sympathizes with them? Or was I talking like a person who spends a lot of time with his nose in books, totally immune to the emotions and baggage that all men have?You see, this other person that I was talking to, well…she’s a person. She’s had some very horrible things happen to her, and a man’s sinful abuse of alcohol is why those things happened. When we’re talking about alcohol, even with a bible-believing Christian, we’re not interacting with a book. You’re not observing a dry canvas with flat words. I was interacting with someone who exegetes truth, not just with her brain, but with her heart. The heart is wicked, of course, and it deceives us. Our emotions and past experiences do too. But they’re still real. When my friend thinks about alcohol, she doesn’t think about the grid of scriptures that come together to form a solid biblical foundation for how one ought to think about beer, she thinks about her drunk ex-husband throwing her down a flight of stairs while she was pregnant.
So there I stood, in my opinion, very theologically accurate, but still wrong. Still wrong. I had to tell my friend that I in NO way wanted to minimize her suffering. I had to apologize to her, letting her know that I could not, and still can’t, imagine the pain that she had and still has to deal with. I had to look her in her moist eyes and see a whole person, not a cardboard cutout of a woman resembling homo sapien.
What I was missing was balance. Balance between heat and light. Balance between passion for truth and passion for my sister in Christ who bears the scars of alcohol abuse. Does that change my opinion? No. Does it change the way I interact with my sister? Absolutely. I nearly wept as she told me about her ex-husband, and maybe I should have just let the tears go. I want to bear the burdens of my brothers and sisters, not Lord theologically precise positions over them. God didn’t do that with me.
Brothers, I’m sharing this with you so that my ignorance, the ignorance of a 25 year old, won’t go to waste. Love your brothers and sisters. Love your neighbors. By no means, brothers, ought you to compromise. Hold your truth with an Iron fist. But first, friends, slip on a satin glove. I pray that the Lord would continue to teach me how to love people well in conversations, debates and arguments. Maybe you can join me in that prayer.
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solideogloriaa reblogged deathbybillions:
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STEVEN BROOKS
I am very glad to have discovered Steven Brooks’s portfolio. His work slowly releases details of nocturnal and crepuscular atmospheres, quiet and calm. It is easy to be captured by this magic silence that, as himself wrote us, seems to call us into the scene. There is no desire to excessively impress the viewer, but to be caught by the wonderful and serene fortuity of our daily encounters.
«I’ve never been much of a talker. Regretfully, I’m not much better at listening. I think I’m too distracted by everything I see…and I see everything. I’m especially fascinated by the world we’ve built. Literally, the objects, structures, and infrastructure: built for a myriad of purposes, most of which are relatively fleeting, especially in America. I like to observe cycles of formation, reclamation, and reuse—natural and man-made—the flux of all things tangible. I’m also interested in the relationships between our built and natural environments and how they relate to us, whether people are present, or just the clues they leave behind. Coupled with my visual nature, these interests led me to photography and inform my process. My research is incidental to daily life.
To me photography is, simply put, an exercise in pointing things out. Although I appreciate “democratic” photographs that appear to be made in an offhand, casual manner, that isn’t what I’m after. I’m more interested in infusing a touch of formality into my pictures. Dramatic or unusual light and a carefully composed frame can transform the most banal subject matter into a scene that appears conceptualized, even painted. If not quite idyllic, the scene might say, “Look at me. I’m fabulous.” I like that irony, and I find the process of discovering it endlessly invigorating. It motivates me to keep looking, everywhere and always.
When I was younger, I believed that I was compelled to roam and take pictures as a means of better understanding the world. Although that is a nice sentiment, I’m no longer convinced that it’s even remotely true. If anything, I’m increasingly perplexed by it. What I am confident of, however, is that photography helps me appreciate the world simply by making it more interesting. It allows me to revel in perpetual curiosity».
© Courtesy Steven Brooks -
plenitudotemporis reblogged loveeyoux3:
