God can allow you to pass through storms and get to your success. But what the devil loves to do is to make you not to realize it that the storm is over. He wishes to keep you in condemnation even at the time you have to feel liberated.
The knowledge of God without that of man's misery causes pride. The knowledge of man's misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in Him we find both God and our misery.
[Jesus] plan called for action, and how He expressed it predicted its success. He didn't say "you *might* be my witnesses," or "you *could* be my witnesses," or even "you *should* be my witnesses." He said "you *will* be my witnesses.
Dunia ni uwanja wa vita wa vita ya dhambi ya vita ya maisha! Kuishi maisha ya kufikirika ni kushinda vita ya maisha ya vita ya dhambi. Vita ya dhambi ya vita ya maisha si vita ya kufikirika! Bila Yesu katika maisha yetu hakuna atakayeishinda.
Each confrontation between Jesus and another person or group reveals what we do to each other, personally and on a public level. Each is an indictment against Christians, followers of the man crucified, the suffering servant, the Lamb of God.
If your life is Christ, then your death will be only more of Christ, forever. If your life is only Christlessness, then your death will be only more Christlessness, forever. That's not fundamentalism, that's the law of non-contradiction.
How ought we to love God, Father?" he asked in a whisper."By loving men, my son""And how ought we to love men?" "By trying to guide them along the right path""And what is the right path?""The one that rises"- Nikos Kazanzakis, Christ Recrucified
God beckons me to exhilarating adventures that are without number, beyond all conceivable boundaries, and effortlessly eclipse the furthest reaches of my imagination, all while I sit languishing in stifling adventures of my own limited creation.
Herein lies the great difference between divine weakness and human weakness, the wounds of Christ and the wounds of man. Two human weaknesses only intensify each other. But human weakness plus Christ's weakness equals a supernatural strength.
The power of the bleeding love of God is stronger than the power of Caesar, of the law, of Mars, Mammon, Aphrodite and the rest. This is the point that Paul grasped. And that is the reason for the Colossians' gratitude. The battle has been won.
The passion of Jesus is lonely only as all our deaths are lonely. He is with us in the loneliness of death, too. And so, he and we are not alone even there. The same blow that strikes him dead, strikes us all dead, and it strikes us in the same way.
Good works" are those works that have their origin in Jesus Christ--whose activity is released through your body, presented to Him as a living sacrifice by a faith that expresses total dependence, as opposed to the Adamic independence (Rom. 12:1, 2).
Jesus Christ died to save us from our sins; we tend to concentrate on that merciful fact. But isn't it also true He lived to show us a lifestyle free from sin? So, wouldn't following in his footsteps be something like preventative medicine?
How wonderful it is being a sheep in the flock of God. Our shepherd is the one that created the grass that we need for pasture, He is the one that created the rivers and the waters, He is the one who holds everything in His hand and He is my Shepherd.
The mysterious, invisible authority of the divine child over human hearts is more solidly grounded then the visible and resplendent power of earthly rulers. Ultimately all authority on earth must serve only the authority of Jesus Christ over humankind.
