Saltshakers
Matthew 5:13a : “you are the salt of the earth”
Vision: to love God wholeheartedly, to serve and preserve one another and to bring flavour to the rest of the world
Speak with love
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Sunday, January 15, 2006, 10:46 PM
girls cell..
Day by day, hour by hourPain drips upon the heart
As, against our will, and even in our own despite
Comes Wisdom from the awful grace of God
-Aeschylus
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscious, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
-C. S. Lewis
Matthew 9:12-13,
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Peter said in Phillipians 3:7-9
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
"Sometimes I'd like to ask why He allows poverty, famine, and injustice when He could do something about it."
"I'm afraid God might ask us the same question."
No matter how deep our darkness, He is deeper still.
- Corrie ten Boom
Every tear we shed becomes His tear, He may not wipe them away yet, but He will.
- Peter John Kreeft, Ph.D.
God knows that Jesus is more than an explanation. He is what we really need. If your friend is sick and dying, the most important thing he wants is not an explanation; he wants you to sit with him. He is terrified of being alone more than anything else. So God has not left us alone. And for that, I love him.
- Peter John Kreeft, Ph.D.
I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross....In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside His immunity to pain - He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of His. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering. 'The cross of Christ...is God's only self-justification in such a world' as ours.
- John R. W. Stott
The Bible and the Coal Basket
Author Unknown (Adapted)
An old man lived on a farm in the mountains of eastern Kentucky with
his young grandson. Each morning Grandpa was up early sitting at the
kitchen table reading his Bible.
His grandson wanted to be just like him and tried to imitate him in
every way he could.
One day the grandson asked, "Papa, I try to read the Bible just like
you but I don't understand it, and what I do understand I forget as
soon as I close the book. What good does reading the Bible do?"
The Grandfather quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and
replied, "Take this coal basket down to the river and bring me back a
basket of water." The boy did as he was told, but all the water leaked
out before he got back to the house.
The grandfather laughed and said, "You'll have to move a little faster
next time," and sent him back to the river with the basket to try
again.
This time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty before he
returned home. Out of breath, he told his grandfather that it was
impossible to carry water in a basket, and he went to get a bucket instead.
The old man said, "I don't want a bucket of water; I want a basket of
water. You're just not trying hard enough," and he went out the door
to watch the boy try again.
At this point, the boy knew it was impossible, but he wanted to show
his grandfather that even if he ran as fast as he could, the water
would leak out before he got back to the house. The boy again dipped
the basket into river and ran hard, but when he reached his
grandfather the basket was again empty.
Out of breath, he said, "See Papa, it's useless!" "So you think it is
useless?" The old man said, "Look at the basket."
The boy looked at the basket and for the first time realized that the
basket was different. It had been transformed from a dirty old coal
basket and was now clean, inside and out.
"Son, that's what happens when you read the Bible. You might not
understand or remember everything, but when you read it, you will be
changed, inside and out. That is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives."