Matthew 28:18-20Acts 11:25-26 Mark 1:17
Some people claim that we can be Christians without necessarily becoming disciples. I wonder, then, why the last thing Jesus told us was to go into the world, making disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that He commanded? You’ll notice that He didn’t add, “But hey, if that’s too much to ask, tell them to just become Christians—you know, the people who get to go to heaven without having to commit to anything.Francis Chan
NOT a Religious Box NOT Religious Activities NOT a Political Party NOT a Set of Morals NOT a Set of Facts
Disciple Anxious Disciple Unaware Disciple Not a Disciple
Romans 3:19-20
“I think that in the last day God is going to take our brain out of our head, put it on a table there in his courtroom, plug in a recorder, and punch rewind. We are going to have to sit there and listen to our brain replay everything we have ever done, said, and thought. The prosecuting attorney doesn’t have to say a word.”– Some smart dude at harvard
Romans 3:20Romans 6:23a Romans 3:23Romans 3:21 Romans 3:22-23 Romans 3:24
Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness, obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.Tim Kreider
Romans 3:25
I went back to church thinking that it would be like an epidural, like it would take the pain away, like I would just replace research with church. And then church would make the pain go away…. Faith in church was not an epidural for me at all, but it was a midwife, who just stood next to me saying, “Push, it’s supposed to hurt a little bit.” It was a completely new experience going back for me… I believe God is love. It makes total sense to me that Jesus would have to be the Son of God because people would want love to be like unicorns and rainbows.And so then, people go, “Oh my God, love is hard, love is sacrifice, love is eating with the sick, love is trouble, love is rebellious.” And so I was listening to this Leonard Cohen song, and it said, Love is not a victory march, Love is a cold and broken Hallelujah. Love is not easy. Love is not hearts and bows. Love is very controversial, really…. In order for forgiveness to really happen, something has to die…. Whether it’s your expectations of a person, there has to be a death for forgiveness to happen. In all these faith communities, where forgiveness is easy and love is easy, there is not enough blood on the floor to make sense of that. And so I thought about why forgiveness is so hard in our culture. Because there are two affects (or emotions) that people fear the most, and it’s shame and grief. If something has to die in order for forgiveness to happen, and people are deathly afraid to feel grief, then we just won’t forgive anybody. Because I don’t want to feel grief. I thought faith would say, I’ll take away the pain and discomfort. But what it ended up saying is that I’ll sit with you in it.Brene Brown
Romans 3:26
The way to God is wide open. There is nothing standing between the sinner and his God. He has immediate and unimpeded access to the Savior. There is nothing to hinder. No sin can hold [you] back, because God offers justification to the ungodly. Nothing now stands between the sinner and God but the sinner’s ‘good works.’ Nothing can keep him from Christ but his delusion … that he has good works of his own that can satisfy God … All they need is need. All they must have is nothing … But alas, sinners cannot part with their ‘virtues.’ They have none that are not imaginary, but they are real to them. So grace becomes unreal. The real grace of God they spurn in order to hold on to the illusory virtues of their own. Their eyes fixed on a mirage, they will not drink real water. They die of thirst with water all about them. John Gerstner
Heavenly Father, I admit that I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed,
