“If you aren’t developing a generous heart, then you don’t get grace. Grace gives.”\n-@JoshPatterson (unrelated, I think) SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Grace gives", url: "http://www.deTheos.com/2009/11/01/grace-gives/" });

“The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self-absorbed, focused on my quiet and me. If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy. Learning to pray doesn’t offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer busyness we can develop an inner quiet. Because we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love … and thus to be busy, which in turn drives us even more into a life of prayer. By spending time with our Father in prayer, we integrate our lives with his, with what he is doing in us. Our lives...

We need Jesus and His Gospel, both on our worst days and on our best. "On my worst days of sin and failure , the Gospel encourages me with God’s unrelenting grace toward me." "On my best days of victory and usefulness , the Gospel keeps me related to God solely on the basis of Jesus’ righteousness, not mine." - Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer Preach it to yourself daily. Start today. Preach it to others daily. Start tomorrow. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Worst + Best", url: "http://www.deTheos.com/2009/06/14/worst-best/" });

“The prophets searched. Angels longed to see. And the disciples didn’t understand. But Moses, the prophets, and all the Old Testament Scriptures had spoken about it — that Jesus would come, suffer, and then be glorified. God began to tell a story in the Old Testament, the ending of which the audience eagerly anticipated. But the Old Testament audience was left hanging. The plot was laid out but the climax was delayed. The unfinished story begged an ending. In Christ, God has provided the climax to the Old Testament story. Jesus did not arrive unannounced; his coming was declared in advance...

“As God, Christ is the destination to which we move; as man, the path by which we go.” - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion , 3.2.1 (via OFI ) SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Journey: our destination + path", url: "http://www.deTheos.com/2008/12/09/journey-our-destination-path/" });

"Before you can ever make a clean and unamended confession of your sin, you have to first begin by confessing your righteousness. It’s not just your sin that separates you from God; your righteousness does as well. Because, when you are convinced you are righteous, you don’t seek the forgiving, rescuing, and restoring mercy that can be found only in Jesus Christ." (p. 22) “Grace is for the willing and we only become willing when we confess not only the gravity of our sin, but our inability to deliver ourselves from it. Then our willingness opens to us all the sustenance...

From tonight’s "Morning and Evening" via Spurgeon: "And they follow me."—John 10:27 We should follow our Lord as unhesitatingly as sheep follow their shepherd, for He has a right to lead us wherever He pleases . We are not our own, we are bought with a price—let us recognize the rights of the redeeming blood. The soldier follows his captain, the servant obeys his master, much more must we follow our Redeemer, to whom we are a purchased possession. We are not true to our profession of being Christians, if we question the bidding of our Leader and Commander. Submission...

As every day is His, these will work at all times too… Tozer on looking outside ourselves: “While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves – blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very thing he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him .” - A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, Inc., 1993), 85. [HT: Of First Importance ] Wesley on...

"Remember, then, dear friends, that the punishment of the flock was borne by the Shepherd, that the flock died in the Shepherd, and that the flock now live because the Shepherd lives; that their life is consequently a new life; that he will bring all his sheep that as yet are not called, out of their death in sin, even as he has been brought out of his own death; that he will lead onward and upward those that are called, even as he went onward and upward from the grave to the throne; that he will preserve them all their journey through, even as he was preserved by the blood of the everlasting...

“Transcendent living is Christ-centered living. Living for Christ is the only way you will ever be liberated from your bondage to the overwhelming tendency to shrink the size of your life to the size of your life. The only way to spin free of the narrow confines of your little cubicle kingdom is to live in the big sky country of Christ-centered living. You will never win the battle with yourself simply by saying ‘no’ to yourself. The battle only begins to be won when you say ‘yes’ to the call of your King, the Lord Jesus Christ.” - Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More (Greensboro, NC:...