Ashleigh Stehr > Recent Status Updates

“We’ve learned that friends, magnets-like, pull us out of ourselves. So when one of us feels like our downcast mood disqualifies us and should keep us away from friends, we remember that friendship is actually what we most need.”

Gods image is less reflected in a hermit’s home than it is around a meal with laughter and love.

Friendship love is, therefore an essential part of Christian love. Far from being at odds with Christian love, friendship is a central way in which we live it out. Christian love and true friendship belong together; they are not enemies but friends. We should feel no ultimate tension between the two: Christian love expresses friendliness to all and enjoys friendship with a few.

“So we believers may rejoice to know that our conversion was no accident, but an act of God which has its place in an eternal plan to bless us with the free gift of salvation from sin (2:8-10); God promises and purposes to carry his plan through to completion, and since it is executed by sovereign power (1:19-20) nothing can thwart it.”
- packer, “the grace of God”