The danger in constantly rebuking complacency within the Church is the solution offered. The cure for a complacent relationship with the Lord is not more work and discipline. This will lead to failure, which leads back to complacency.
You begin to understand reckless pursuit of God when you understand your pursuit does not change his approval of you. Nothing you can do will make Him delight in you more than He does right now.
The solution to complacency in the end turns out to be Rest. Do not think these two words are synonymous. Complacency is to apathy as Rest is to love.
You do not say a husband is complacent because some years later he still loves the woman he married. The love has stayed constant but not stagnant. The results look the same to the untrained eye, and maybe even the actions or affections are identical. But both members understand that the love does not grow from the actions, rather the actions and affections from the Love. The bride rests, knowing, believing, trusting that the husband loves her.
One of my masters said it beautifully, “I’m tired of striving to be who You already say that I am. I am Yours.”
So yes, brothers and sisters, apathy is not what your Father desires. But do not be mistaken, He does not desire your striving and discipline. He just wants you.
take a listen/watch if you have a second!
(Source: vimeo.com)
“I am very thankful that the Buddhist Nirvana is not the apex of the spiritual life, or I should be the least spiritual of all men, if absolute satiation were the ideal.” - Jim Elliot
“And so the ineffable unapproachable God who invented space and the human heart invaded space to reach the depths of human hearts. It’s all a part of his perfect plan: sinners in the hands of God holding on a kite string. Connecting a redeemed Humanity by the finished work of the King of Kings.”
"And I say also this. I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes."
out of the silent planet
"The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community [even if their intentions are ever so earnest], but the person who loves those around them will create community."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (via alexmonacella)
(via juliazurn)
A Constant Process: One of the most encouraging statements I've heard from a Christian leader on homosexuality
“I do want to emphasize that I do not consider homosexuality to be worse than any of the zillion sins I commit every day. In fact, it is a tribute to the infinite grace and mercy of God that the sanctuary roof stays up each day that I walk into the room. In any case, we are not on some kind of…
(Source: juliazurn)
"I, who live by words, am wordless when I try my words in prayer. All language turns to silence. Prayer will take my words and then reveal their emptiness…in this strange patterned time of contemplation that, in time, breaks times, breaks words, breaks me, and then in silence, leaves me healed and mended."
Madeleine L’Engle
"If God is satisfied with the work, the Work may be satisfied with itself."
The Fix
You were in before you were out, you were found before you were lost, you were fixed before you were broken, you were lifted before you fell, you were home before you started.
