oozey mess
Three Goblin Art
sheepfilms
hello vonnie
occasionally subtle
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Sade Olutola
YOU ARE THE REASON
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Cosmic Funnies
trying on a metaphor
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Xuebing Du
tannertan36
styofa doing anything
Cosimo Galluzzi
we're not kids anymore.
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Misplaced Lens Cap
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@anoceanofprofundity
What are books to you?
Here’s the landmark essay “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors” by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, written in 1990.
Posters are available to at my shop.
Thanks to the Children's Book Council for featuring "Books Are..." in their Get Caught Reading series.
10 Things “Yahweh” Means
Good stuff from John Piper—
God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (Exodus 3:15)
God’s name is almost always translated LORD (all caps) in the English Bible. But the Hebrew would be pronounced something like “Yahweh,” and is built on the word for “I am.”
So every time we hear the word Yahweh, or every time you see LORD in the English Bible, you should think: this is a proper name (like Peter or John) built out of the word for “I am” and reminding us each time that God absolutely is.
There are at least 10 things the name Yahweh, “I AM,” says about God:
1. He never had a beginning. Every child asks, “Who made God?” And every wise parent says, “Nobody made God. God simply is. And always was. No beginning.”
2. God will never end. If He did not come into being He cannot go out of being, because He is being.
3. God is absolute reality. There is no reality before Him. There is no reality outside of Him unless He wills it and makes it. He is all that was eternally. No space, no universe, no emptiness. Only God.
4. God is utterly independent. He depends on nothing to bring Him into being or support Him or counsel Him or make Him what He is.
5. Everything that is not God depends totally on God. The entire universe is utterly secondary. It came into being by God and stays in being moment by moment on God’s decision to keep it in being.
6. All the universe is by comparison to God as nothing. Contingent, dependent reality is to absolute, independent reality as a shadow to substance. As an echo to a thunderclap. All that we are amazed by in the world and in the galaxies, is, compared to God, as nothing.
7. God is constant. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He cannot be improved. He is not becoming anything. He is who He is.
8. God is the absolute standard of truth and goodness and beauty. There is no law-book to which He looks to know what is right. No almanac to establish facts. No guild to determine what is excellent or beautiful. He Himself is the standard of what is right, what is true, what is beautiful.
9. God does whatever He pleases and it is always right and always beautiful and always in accord with truth. All reality that is outside of Him He created and designed and governs as the absolute reality. So He is utterly free from any constraints that don’t originate from the counsel of His own will.
10. God is the most important and most valuable reality and person in the universe. He is more worthy of interest and attention and admiration and enjoyment than all other realities, including the entire universe.
“The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to Him, is not to believe that He loves you.”
— John Owen
Lord, help me, for I am often lukewarm and chill; unbelief mars my confidence, sin makes me forget Thee. Let the weeds that grow in my soul be cut at their roots; grant me to know that I truly live only when I live to Thee, that all else is trifling.
Charles Spurgeon
They who, through grace, have some evidence of the forgiveness of their sins, have reasons to be of good cheer, whatever outward troubles or afflictions they are under.
Matthew Henry
“God did not become an idea, a principle, a programme, a universally valid belief, or a law; God became human.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics
Three Rings for the elvenkings under the sky.
Seven for the dwarf lords in their halls of stone.
Nine for mortal men doomed to die.
The Lord may not give gold, but He will give grace: He may not give gain, but He will give grace. He will certainly send us trial, but He will give grace in proportion thereto. We may be called to labor and to suffer, but with the call there will come all the grace required. What an "end" is that in the text—"and glory!" We do not need glory yet, and we are not yet fit for it; but we shall have it in due order. After we have eaten the bread of grace, we shall drink the wine of glory. We must go through the holy, which is grace, to the holiest of all, which is glory. These words and glory are enough to make a man dance for joy. A little while—a little while, and then glory forever!
CH Spurgeon
“In me there is darkness,But with You there is light;I am lonely, but You do not leave me;I am feeble in heart, but with You there is help;I am restless, but with You there is peace.In me there is bitterness, but with You there is patience;I do not understand Your ways,But You know the way for me.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (via breanna-lynn)
Seven Indicators of True Salvation
Seven Indicators of True Salvation If you were put on trial for being a Christian, would the evidence of your life be overwhelmingly clear that you know Christ and that He knows you? Genuine salvation is a life-changing experience. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come”(2 Cor. 5: 17). Good works do not remove sins, nor can they save anyone. But after a person is genuinely saved and is truly transformed by Christ, specific good works will start showing up as evidence or proof of their salvation. These seven things are not the cause or roots of salvation, but they are the fruits of true salvation. The book of 1 John gives us seven key indicators of genuine salvation revealing that someone is truly saved and knows God.
A lifestyle of obedience to God. Though Christians stumble and make mistakes, the big picture direction and habit of a true believer becomes one of submission and obedience to Christ. They will want to read and follow God’s Word. The Holy Spirit in their lives bends them toward greater and greater obedience. What about you? Have you been living a lifestyle of obedience toward God? “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked”(1 John 2:3–6).
A confession of Jesus as the Christ, God’s Son. First John 2:22–23 says, “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.” While cults communicate that Jesus was merely a good teacher or prophet, God’s Word says He is the Christ, the sinless Son of God, and the Lord of all. Do you openly confess that Jesus Christ is God’s Son, or do you believe Him to be merely a good teacher or prophet?
A lifestyle of repentance of sin. Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish”(Luke 13:3). Though we all stumble in many ways (James 3:2), true believers will be confessing and turning away from sin, while false believers will not. First John 3:9–10 says, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.”
Genuine love for other believers. “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him”(1 John 3:14–15). God’s Spirit pours out God’s love into the hearts of God’s children (Rom. 5: 5; Gal. 5: 22). Do you have a genuine love for other believers?
The discipline of God your Father. “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are”(1 John 3:1). Even as a loving earthly father disciplines his children, God promises to discipline His children when they get out of line. He says this is one of the evidences of true salvation. “God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons… All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness”(Heb.12:7–8, 11). Have you experienced the clear discipline of your heavenly Father in your life?
The presence of God’s Holy Spirit. “This is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us”(1 John 3:24). If you are a true believer, then God’s Spirit is in you and will testify with your spirit that you are a child of God (Rom. 8:16). He will also convict you when you sin (John 16:8), reveal what God’s Word says when you read it (John 14:26), and pour genuine love, joy, and peace in and through you toward others (Gal. 5:22). Have you been experiencing these evidences of the Holy Spirit in your life?
Faith in Jesus alone for salvation (and not yourself). “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life”(1 John 5:12–13). Or as Paul said in Philippians 3:9, “Not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.” Have you been trusting in Jesus alone for your salvation, or trusting yourself or your church?
These seven things are signs of a changed life—litmus tests revealing whether God has really made you a new creation or not. They don’t come naturally and are impossible to fake long-term. The world, the flesh, and the devil are all against you doing these things and will push you in the opposite direction from them. But if you look at your life over the past few months from a fifty-thousand-foot view, do you see these things? Do you see a genuine love for other believers? Or not? Repentance of sin? Or not? Obedience to God? Or not? The discipline of your Father? Or not? The evidence of God’s Spirit? Or not? A confession of Jesus as God’s Son? Or not? A genuine faith in Jesus alone for salvation? Or not? If these indicators reveal a true relationship with Christ, then rejoice and rest in it. If they do not, then don’t put off the command of Scripture to repent and believe in Jesus Christ, placing your faith in Him alone for genuine salvation.
The Breath Before the Plunge
I have a lot of fears. I am afraid to be alone. I am afraid of failure. Afraid of the future. Afraid of rejection. Of being misunderstood. I fear loneliness. Letting people down. Not meeting their expectations. Being exposed, vulnerable. Of not having enough. Not being enough. Not knowing enough. Not being prepared.
I'm afraid of letting God down. Of displeasing Him, of failing Him, of getting to the end of my life and... not passing the test. Not reaching the finish line.
I'm afraid of looking into myself. I am afraid of sorting through my junk, my dirt, my secrets, my shame, my sins, my broken parts. I'm afraid of what I will find. I'm afraid I won't be able to finish what I start. I am afraid it will hurt. I am afraid of myself.
But I'm doing it. I'm looking at the pile that is me... staring it down and picking up one item at a time, and tidying my heart.
I identify each object, each desire, every ache and regret, every idol, every fear... and apply truth to it. I speak the truth about it to myself. I recognize that each of these things is a part of me, is what makes me into present me, and will inevitably shape future me... but they do not need to remain in me. I can let them go.
I see these fears now, and all that they entail, stacked in a row, arranged as a mental list, and I check them off one by one... and ponder what I'll do with them.
It is not the end of a struggle. It is merely the breath before the plunge.
To look them in the eye is to issue a challenge. To see them for what they are is to speak truth to myself––I must do something to them if I would be changed... master them and be their lord, name them and tame them, take them out and throw them away, shape and fashion them, or remove and burn and crucify and mortify them.
But I must dive in. And as I await this cold, dark start of the newest leg of the race of my life, I breathe. Whisper prayers and propositions and promises...
He is enough. I have enough grace for today. He is working in me. He is with me to the end. His Spirit empowers me. His Word is a sword. Nothing can separate. No more condemnation.
Deny yourself. Pick up the cross. Follow Him. Surrender. Find your rest in Him. Cry out to Him. Cling to Him. Humble yourself. Repent. Believe.
Jesus paid it all. His love never fails. He hears my prayers. He knows my needs. He heals. He mends. He protects. He shields. He transforms.
Save me. Have mercy. Be faithful. Help me reach the end. Hold me fast.
Breathe, once more. Then, jump.
