What a great thought

Puritans just knew their stuff!! I actually found this quoted on Monergism.com. Great site.

Glory follows afflictions, not as the day follows the night but as the spring follows the winter; for the winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory. - Richard Sibbes

Gripped by Grace

"A Christian or a Religious Secularist, Which am I?"

The following couple of paragraphs are in the new book, "The End of Secularism" by Hunter Baker.

I have only read the introduction online but it looks interesting. The reason I have placed this in my blog is that as I read what he said about himself in his days before he was a Christian, I realized he describes many Christians today.

I hope you will read it and think.

"I believed in God, but I didn’t see what difference that made to anything outside my private world. Private religion is at the heart of secularism. My relationship with God was simple. If I felt fear, I asked him to protect me. If I wanted, I asked him to provide. His character was not particularly of interest to me. The God who existed in my mind during my life up until college was essentially a cosmic genie.

Beyond the realm of my personal desires and wishes, I saw no place for God other than in ceremonies like baptisms, weddings, and funerals. That god is an accessory to occasions. He is like a magical charm designed to do what we want him to do. There are times when we bring him out with ornaments, bows, and ribbons. Otherwise, we box him up in the attic and only occasionally remember or contemplate him. For me, the private god-in-a-lantern model was the appropriate way to think about God and/or religion."

Gripped by Grace,
Hal

The Prayer We Parents Rarely Pray

This is actually a quote from Doug Wolter @ Life2gether. I wanted to share it with you.




We’ve all been there before as parents.

Your child has been told what to do and doesn’t do it.
You’re tired and irritated.
You have no patience left in your parenting tank.
And so, you yell at your child (and perhaps even discipline your child) in anger and frustration.

But what good does it do?

Even though you took charge of the situation, your heart feels empty and frustrated and so does your child’s.

Let’s rewind the tape.

Your child has been told what to do and doesn’t do it.
Instead of reacting in anger, you acknowledge the fact that you are tired and lacking in patience.

So before speaking to your child, you speak first to God.
Just a simple prayer asking Him something like,

"Father, I need your help right now.
I need your Spirit to give me patience and wisdom to talk with my child.
I can’t do it on my own.
I need you and my child needs you.
Without you, Jesus, I can do nothing.
So be with me now as I go.
Open up my heart and my child’s heart to you."

With a simple prayer such as this one, we take our parenting out of our hands and put it into God’s hands. We admit we cannot parent on our own. And so we pray a simple prayer of dependence … a simple prayer of reliance … a simple prayer of surrender.

This is the prayer we parents rarely pray. But I wonder how it would change us, and I wonder how it would change our families.

Of Tyrants and Moral Busybodies

Wow, it is as if C.S. Lewis lived in the USA today.


“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
-C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock, p. 292.

Gripped by Grace,
Hal

The Holy God

"Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again.".
C.S. Lewis


Consider this passage of scripture to support Lewis's statement:
"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."Heb. 10:32

Think about it.

Gripped by Grace,
Hal

Man and Evil

In preparing for my Sunday morning message on "The Christians View of Man" I found the following quote form Albert Einstein, not a believer by the way.

"The world is too dangerous to live in-

not because of people who do evil,

but because of people who sit and let it happen."
Albert Einstein (1879-1984)

Very interesting statement. Most don't leave comments but what do you think? Is he correct?
I have found others by various authors I'll be sharing in the next few days. Not "cheery" thoughts but they do make you think.


Gripped by Grace,

Hal

Our Great God and King

from my reading...

" God's essential relationship to us is that of a great King who has delivered us from death and calls us to serve Him by obeying His written word."

John Frame
"The Doctrine of God" p.35