wordsmithin': impetuous‏

Extra! Extra! Read all about it HERE.

im·pet·u·ous ~ adj.

1.Characterized by sudden and forceful energy or emotion; impulsive and passionate.

2.Having or marked by violent force:

I loved this word the first time I heard it though I’m quite certain I had no idea what it meant.

It just sounds neato mosquito or “neats mosquits” (neetz moskeetz).

Abbreves?

evs

NBD.

So anywho…

I thought of this word recently when thinking about our run-head-first friend, Peter.

Matthew 14:28

And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

Peter was nothing if not passionate.

More often than not, I find myself using this word to describe the negative default of our childlike tendency to think with our deceptive, little hearts.

We often run toward desire without discernment.

In some seasons, the Spirit sets us on fire at the hearing of His Words.

1 Thessalonians 5:19


Do not quench the Spirit.

I am not saying that we should exclusively act without thinking and/or plod along with planning.

However, in response to the Spirit we would do better to be more impetuous in response to His pursuit and less pragmatic in response to our panic.

the greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him

Oswald put his finger on the fanatical this morning when he warned:

Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ.The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him. It is easier to serve than to pour out our lives completely for Him. The goal of the call of God is His satisfaction, not simply that we should do something for Him. We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles. Are we more devoted to service than we are to Jesus Christ Himself?

It is so easy to become so busy in good and Godly activity that we miss God as a result.

The Gospel is an indicative declaration.

It is something God did.

The Gospel leads to imperatives.

Because God did, you do _____.

The “you do’s” are never a substitute for the “God did.”

Work hard for God.

But do not miss God in all your hard work.

The Church is not Jesus.

Serve the Church.

Worship Jesus.

thoughts from "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky‏

"He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because every one proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices."

Luckily this was just a book and this kind of disease doesn't exist, right?

we win even when we fail‏

“Because He (Jesus) won, we win even when we fail.” ~ Erwin Lutzer

 

On my commute to work this morning I heard the very tail end of message by Dr. Erwin Lutzer where he made the previous statement.

 

It called to mind these verses:

 

Romans 8:1-3a

 

Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus,² because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.³ What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did…

 

The Accuser is right: We are wrong.

The Accuser is wrong: Christ is enough!

wordsmithin': etcetera‏

Extra! Extra! Read all about it HERE.

et cet·er·a ~ n
Abbr. etc.

1. A number of unspecified persons or things.

2. Additional odds and ends; extras.

I do not remember when I was first introduced to this abbreviation or phrase. I imagine I saw it regularly showing up at the end of lists and learned that it represented a shorter way of exhausting every possible item in a list.

I heard the word recently in message by Eric Ludy found HERE.

I had never thought of the term in Christian terms.

Are you willing to be an “et cetera?”

An afterthought.

A servant who is ignored.

One counted faithful by God and discounted by men.

The life hereafter will largely be comprised of et ceteras.

But you say what about St. John, St. Peter, St. Augustine, Luther, Moody, Billy Graham, etc…

There will be more people whose names you are learning for the first time upon introduction in the life hereafter than there will be Spurgeons or John the Baptists (who was greatest of men here and to be least of those in Heaven).

Some will be Driscolls.

Most will be nobodies.

It isn’t that you can’t be considered.

It is that you must be WILLING to be ignored.

So are you?

mantra

The following is a trustworthy saying,

Jesus solely.
Jesus only.
Jesus always ever be.

By Himself.
By Him alone.
By His stripes.
By and by.

second circs worse than the first‏

For the record, I know that circs is not the most common abbreve.

 

Matthew 12:43-45

 

⁴³ “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.⁴⁴ Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.⁴⁵ Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

 

I had never really understood these verses very well and then yesterday at Biolife while donating plasma while listening to the White Horse Inn podcast (“Christianity vs. Pop Spirituality” to be specific) I finally got it.

 

The key word is “empty.”

 

I had always read the parable and immediately jumped to salvific implications for the person whose soul was now vacant where demons used to dwell. But salvation is not in being emptied or vacated, but in being indwelt, in being filled by the Holy Spirit.

 

The person from this parable is no longer being inhabited by demons, but they are not hosting the Host either. Out with the bad ghosts in with the Holy Ghost. But nope. Not this person.

 

Empty.

 

That is how the demons found this person when they returned.

So why not take up residence again and invite some of your friends?

Seems like just as good a place as any to hang out.

 

I found additional insight in the Ligonier article found HERE.

 

I finally get it.

I feel like I understand now.

 

Even if we got rid of our bad habits, addictions and attitudes we would find ourselves vacant.

 

We are at our very best merely empty.

 

Salvation is found not in getting rid of something horrendous; it is realized in receiving something glorious.

 

We are not saved by casting off our demons.

We are not saved by jettisoning our sinking ship.

There is no salvation to be found in us.

There is no innocence to mine from the depths.

There is no state to return to yield righteousness.

There is no purity to uncover.

The deeper in you go the darker you find it.

 

In other words…

 

We cannot save ourselves by cleaning house.