Annie

“Yes, Jesus was the template for what Godness looks like. If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus of Nazareth. But the mystery of the incarnation is that he was also the template for what real, true humanness looks like. He’s the Son of God and he’s the “son of Adam.” If you want to know what a human being, fully awake and alive, ruling over the world as a conduit for the Creator God’s love looks like in flesh and blood — then look at Jesus.”
― John Mark Comer, Garden City: Work, Rest, and the Art of Being Human.

“For the next three to six months, what concrete practices will help me close the gap between my deep longing and my lived reality in terms of my relationships with God, myself, my community, and the world?”
― Aaron Niequist, The Eternal Current: How a Practice-Based Faith Can Save Us from Drowning

“The question of what happens to me after death is not the major, central, framing question that centuries of theological tradition have supposed. The New Testament, true to its Old Testament roots, regularly insists that the major, central, framing question is that of God’s purpose of rescue and re-creation for the whole world, the entire cosmos. The destiny of individual human beings must be understood within that context.1 If the goal is getting our souls into heaven, then every part of the Christian life (except evangelism) is secondary. Discipleship becomes optional. Mission and community become mere add-ons. But the story of God that Jesus embodied goes far beyond a onetime salvation transaction. Wright added this: The whole point of what Jesus was up to was that he was doing, close up, in the present, what he was promising long-term, in the future. And what he was promising for that future, and doing in that present, was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God’s ultimate purpose—and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that larger project.2 Can I get an “Amen”? We’ve been invited to become colleagues and partners with God in the larger project of healing and restoring all things for the sake of the world.”
― Aaron Niequist, The Eternal Current: How a Practice-Based Faith Can Save Us from Drowning

“We’re image bearers, created to rule, to partner with God in pushing and pulling the creation project forward, to work it, to draw out the earth’s potential and unleash it for human flourishing — to cooperate with God in building a civilization where his people can thrive in his presence. And in this cosmic agenda, each of us has a vocation, a calling from God, a way that God wired us, somebody to be and something to do — because the two merge in perfect symmetry.”
― John Mark Comer, Garden City: Work, Rest, and the Art of Being Human.