Aliyah > Recent Status Updates

"Our human hearts keep defaulting back to the nonsense that we can sort ourselves out. Listen for the hiss of the serpent and spot the lie - you are not a god, you need God. We cannot fix ourselves, and God knows it. It is only in Jesus that we have the answer to our own deepest needs."

".. we have a God who is not hiding; he can be known. We are not dealing with a distant and dark deity that hides away from mere mortals like us. We have a God who can be known in and through his Son."

"That God is rich in mercy means that your regions of deepest shame and regret are not hotels through which divine mercy passes but homes in which divine mercy abides. It means that the things about you that make you cringe most, make him hug hardest."

"... it is Christ's gentle heart that adorns him with beauty; or put the other way, what most deeply attracts us to Christ is his gentle, tender, humble heart."

"Our sinning goes to the uttermost. But his saving goes to the uttermost. And his saving always outpaces and overwhelms our sinning, because he always lives to intercede for us."

"In our pain, Jesus is pained; in our suffering, he feels the suffering as his own even though it isn't - not that his invincible divinity is threatened, but in the sense that his heart is feelingly drawn into our distress. His human nature engages our troubles comprehensively. His is a love that cannot be held back when he sees his people in pain."

"... you can deal with mystery in your life. Why? Because you know the One behind the mystery is gloriously good, worthy not only of your trust but also the worship of your heart. It really is true that peace...is not found in figuring out your life, but in worship of the One who has everything figured out already. "

Hahaa after 2 years I finally picked it back up and finished it!

"We've completely missed what God is after, what he's doing, and how to relate to him. He made it very clear that he's not after our external behaviors but instead after our hearts. He doesn't want what you do. He just wants you."

Speaking of David in the context of Psalm 4:
"It appears that little good can come out of this moment in his life. Yet in his grief and discontent, he knows remarkable peace. He even talks about his heart being filled with joy! Why? Because at the deepest of levels, neither his peace nor his joy is based on circumstances, but on the God who rules the circumstances."

"We shall be tossed by the storms together, and, together, can fear what we endure, and shall not need to fear what we imagine. We can endure whatever comes, so we endure together."

"You do not know where following Jesus will take you. Neither do you know the specifics of what will be required of you. But you know who you are following and can trust Him through every circumstance. You can be fully confident to follow the Lord, no matter where, no matter what, no matter with whom."

"Without Jesus the Son, we cannot know that God is truly a loving Father. Without Jesus the Son, we cannot know him as our loving Father. But as Luther discovered, through Jesus we may know that God is a Father, and 'we may look into His fatherly heart and sense how boundlessly He loves us. That would warm our hearts, setting them aglow.'"

"The beautiful, loving holiness of this God makes true godliness a warm, attractive, delightful thing. It is not about becoming more mean and pinched, for this God is not mean and pinched. Holiness for God, said Edwards, 'is as it were the beauty and sweetness of the divine nature,'... And most essentially, to know and enjoy the God who is love means becoming, like him, loving."

"So next time you look up at the sun, moon, and stars and wonder, remember: they are there because God loves, because the Father's love for the Son burst out that it might be enjoyed by many. And they remain there only because God does not stop loving."

"That is, God is simply bursting with warm and life-imparting nourishment, far more willing to give than we are to receive."

"He himself [Richard Sibbes] was adamant that it is our view of God that shapes us most deeply. We become like what we worship."

"He himself [Richard Sibbes] was adamant that it is our view of God that shapes us most deeply. We become like what we worship."

"For eternity, the Father so loves the Son that he excites the Son's eternal love in response; Christ so loves the church that he excites our love in response; the husband so loves his wife that he excites her to love him back. Such is the spreading goodness that rolls out of the very being of this God."

"Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness."

"Behold...He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."
Not only will every tear be wiped from our eyes, but HE will wipe every tear from our eyes! What a day that will be!!

"Sin is far worse than we have ever realised. God's grace is much better than we have ever dared to imagine!"

"There is no evil that the father's love cannot pardon and cover, there is no sin that is a match for his grace...Jesus shows the father pouncing on his son in love not only before he has a chance to clean up his life and evidence a change of heart, but even before he can recite his repentance speech. Nothing, not even abject contrition, merits the favour of God. The Father's love and acceptance are absolutely free."

"When we grow forgetful of God, or when we question whether God has forgotten us, we can turn there [the Bible] to gaze on his steadfast love to all generations. Unlike generations before us, we have unprecedented access to this priceless reminder. Bibles by the billions, literally. And every copy, from the dog-eared to the disregarded, is whispering, "Remember." Remember the God who remembers you."

"If we...are not vigilant to discern the lies from the the truths, we will end up listening to whichever voice is shouting the loudest."

"Rather than trying to learn all of the right words, have all of the right booklets, anticipate all of the right questions and memorise all of the right intros and Scripture, we should approach evangelism with wisdom. This means that we become people who incarnate the gospel and speak of it freely because our hearts and minds have been captivated by it."

Death has lost its sting. The grave holds no victory. My visible world may scream loss, but the victory cannot and will not be held back. And because of that, because life wins and has won already, because of all Jesus has won for us, I – like you – can be defiantly joyful.

"Atticus, he was real nice..."
..."Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."