sorting hat

where i try to let God's word infiltrate my thoughts, sort them out and process them as i share and look back

[wordproofed-blog]

"Justification costs us nothing, but sanctification costs us EVERYTHING."

Jen Wilkin

[wordproofed-blog]

"You want a beautiful long white dress and the traditional veil. You want music and flowers and a train of attendants. Not to prove that you are a "mood-loving show-off". To us, sign and sound and symbol and movement are a part of worship and celebration, and you want your wedding filled with the visible, tangible, audible signs of the invisible and transcendent meaning." Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be a Woman

Reading this right before rushing off the train at Redfern Station (because I had spent the majority of the trip dreaming over various iterations of origami wedding decorations on Pinterest) gave me a new shock to my system. Thinking through and actually making decisions to put things into practice for this wedding has refreshingly made me think though a lot of new things! Praise God for the people (real and literary) who have provided fresh [to me] insights and provoked thoughts I were previously closed to.

I've been championing the embodiment and value of practising liturgy as transcendent ways of being and thinking and doing worship, while hypocritically[?] and being falsely-humble-and-spendthriftly reducing the wedding ceremony.

I need reminders:

- to not strip away beauty for money's sake,

- that ceremony is its own kind of purpose,

- and that the Great Wedding at the end of the age will be filled with as much pomp and glory as exists, to befit the Bridegroom and the Bride which he made precious at such a high cost.

Above all, you must be rid of the hideous idea, fruit of a widespread inferiority complex, that pomp, on proper occasions, has any connection with vanity or self-conceit. A celebrant approaching the altar, a princess led out by a king to dance a minuet, a general officer on a ceremonial parade, a major-domo preceding the boar's head at a Christmas feast - all these wear unusual clothes and move with calculated dignity. This does not mean that hey are vain, but that they are obedient, they are obeying the hoc age which presides over every solemnity. The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for everyone the proper pleasure of ritual." C. S. Lewis, in his Preface to Paradise Lost

[wordproofed-blog]

"It is a task to which you are called. If it is a task, it means you work at it. It is not something which happens. You hear the call, you answer, you accept the task, you enter into it willingly and eagerly, you committ yourself to its disciplines and responsibilities and limitations and privileges and joys. You concentrate on it, giving yourself to it day after day to a lifelong Yes." Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be A Woman

Having gotten engaged and letting people know, it feels realer than I ever expected. This ring (even if a placeholder) is foreign, a sensation on my hand that changes how I carry myself, my fingers, my hand. I'm probably not wearing it on the right hand, and definitely not on the right finger (it always changes depending on the time and local customs, right?!) but there is definitely a heaviness, an awareness of something greater that wasn`t there before.

[1000drawings]

[alistairradley]

“If you dislike a holy God now, why would you want to be with Him forever? If worship does not capture your attention at present, what makes you think it will thrill you in some heavenly future? If ungodliness is your delight here on earth, what will please you in heaven, where all is clean and pure?”

— J.C. Ryle

[thesovereignword]

As Christians, it’s important to make sure the doctrine we’re listening to is biblically sound and doesn’t stray from what God says in His word. If a Bible teacher is making you feel good when they talk, but is never saying a word about repentance, or the consequences of sin, or discussing anything that might be taken offensively, you need to be careful and find out if they’re really helping you enough spiritually.

Some truths are hard to swallow, but they are no less important because of that.

Make sure you are challenging yourself as a Christian and do research on anyone (or anything) you think might be actively deceiving you.

[alexander-james-ink]

To make people hungry for God you have to eat in front of them.

[alistairradley]

“The worship to which we are called in our renewed state is far too important to be left to personal preferences, to whims, or to marketing strategies. It is the pleasing of God that is at the heart of worship. Therefore, our worship must be informed at every point by the Word of god as we seek God’s own instructions for worship that is pleasing to Him.”

— R.C. Sproul

[newlifepureheart]

If you really love God, maybe it’s time to mature in your faith. Maybe it’s time to realize that true love never takes advantage of the other person’s patience and longsuffering. Love doesn’t ask questions like, “How much is too much?” or “How far is too far?” It doesn’t say, “Hey, if I walk away and do my own thing for a while, I can always come back.” Instead, it grieves over the thought of breaking that precious fellowship even for a moment. It sticks close to home and tries to stay clean. Its desire is always to please and honor the beloved.

[recovery-with-jesus]

[divine-aphasia-deactivated20180]

How can you live with the terrifying thought that the hurricane has become human, that the fire has become flesh, that life itself came to life and walked in our midst? Christianity either means that, or it means nothing. It is either the more devastating disclosure of the deepest reality in the world, or it’s a sham, a nonsense, a bit of deceitful play-acting. Most of us, unable to cope with saying either of those things, condemn ourselves to live in the shallow world in between…

N. T. Wright // For All God’s Worth (via existential-celestial)

[wordproofed-blog]

Extract from C.S. Lewis’ Transposition

Where we tend to go wrong is in assuming that if there is to be a correspondence between two systems it must be a one for one correspondence--that A in the one system must be represented by a in the other, and so on. But the correspondence between emotion and sensation turns out not to be of that sort. And there never could be correspondence of that sort where the one system was really richer than the other. If the richer system is to be represented in the poorer at all, this can only be by giving each element in the poorer system more than one meaning. The transposition of the richer into the poorer must, so to speak, be algebraical, not arithmetical. If you are to translate from a language which has a large vocabulary into a language that has a small vocabulary, then you must be allowed to use several words in more than one sense. If you are to write a language with twenty-two vowel sounds in an alphabet with only five vowel characters then you must be allowed to give each of those five characters more than one value. If you are making a piano version of a piece originally scored for an orchestra, then the same piano notes which represent flutes in one passage must also represent violins in another.

As the examples show we are all quite familiar with this kind of transposition or adaptation from a richer to a poorer medium. The most familiar example of all is the art of drawing. The problem here is to represent a three-dimensional world on a flat sheet of paper. The solution is perspective, and perspective means that we must give more than one value to a two-dimensional shape. Thus in a drawing of a cube we use an acute angle to represent what is a right angle in the real world. But elsewhere an acute angle on the paper may represent what was already an acute angle in the real world: for example, the point of a spear on the gable of a house. The very same shape which you must draw to give the illusion of a straight road receding from the spectator is also the shape you draw for a dunces' cap. As with the lines, so with the shading. Your brightest light in the picture is, in literal fact, only plain white paper: and this must do for the sun, or a lake in evening light, or snow, or human flesh.

...

It is clear that in each case what is happening in the lower medium can be understood only if we know the higher medium. The instance where this knowledge is most commonly lacking is the musical one. The piano version means one thing to the musician who knows the original orchestral score and another thing to the man who hears it simply as a piano piece. But the second man would be at an even greater disadvantage if he had never heard any instrument but a piano and even doubted the existence of other instruments. Even more, we understand pictures only because we know and inhabit the three-dimensional world. If we can imagine a creature who perceived only two dimensions and yet could somehow be aware of the lines as he crawled over them on the paper, we shall easily see how impossible it would be for him to understand. At first he might be prepared to accept on authority our assurance that there was a world in three dimensions. But when we pointed to the lines on the paper and tried to explain, say, that "This is a road," would he not reply that the shape which we were asking him to accept as a revelation of our mysterious other world was the very same shape which, on our own showing, elsewhere meant nothing but a triangle. And soon, I think, he would say, "You keep on telling me of this other world and its unimaginable shapes which you call solid. But isn't it very suspicious that all the shapes which you offer me as images or reflections of the solid ones turn out on inspection to be simply the old two-dimensional shapes of my own world as I have always known it? Is it not obvious that your vaunted other world, so far from being the archetype, is a dream which borrows all its elements from this one?"

[wordproofed-blog]

Eager to start anew, I told myself, "I will try to be careful in what I do, that I may not sin with what I say or claim; I will try to hold my tongue when the wicked are in my presence, so that I may not be provoked to speak in anger." I was mute and silent; I tried to hold it in but my distress grew worse. My heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue: "O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is nothing compared to you, most Ancient of Days. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah "And now, O LORD, for what do I wait? My hope is in you. Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me the scorn of the fool! "Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears!" Psalm 39:1-5, 7-8, 12a I tried my hardest to keep from sinning, but the depths of my depravity make than an impossibility. My attempts at holiness make me realise my need for the Holy God who is eternal, and so far above me Deliver me from my sin! I don't have the power to do it on my own, I'm at your mercy

[wordproofed-blog]

It's been a while since I initially filled in that survey indicating my interest in being an ASGL, but I saw this and was reminded of something I wanted to achieve; Through ALL of small groups, be it welcoming, messaging, ice-breakers, announcements, bible study, prayer, socials... I want OTHERS to know the JOY that is found in JESUS - that God reveals to us his merciful, sovereign and wholly-good nature through ALL of the bible - that we have this ASSURANCE of salvation, because of JESUS, and HIS goodness and steadfastness, not ours I'm still figuring it out, exactly how i can EXUDE and communicate this joyfulness in the sweet gospel, genuinely and without putting on a show

[wordproofed-blog]

Esther not an example, but a pointer to Jesus

"Esther saved her people through identification and mediation . Her people were condemned, but she identified with them and came under that condemnation. She risked her life and said, "If i perish, i perish." Because she identified, she could mediate before the throne of power as no one else could, and because she received favour there, that favour was transferred to her people.

Saving people through identification and mediation - does that remind you of anyone?

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived in the ultimate palace with ultimate beauty and glory, and he voluntarily left them behind. Phillippians 2 says that he had equality with the Father, but he did not hold on to it; instead, he eptied himself, identified with us, and took on our condemnation. He did not do it at the risk of his life but at the cost of his life. He didn't say, "If i perish, i perish," but "When i perish, i'll perish." He went to the Cross and died; he made atonement for our sins. Now he stands before the throne of the universe, and the favour he has procured is ours if we believe in him.

His is ULTIMATE mediation."

Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavor

[wordproofed-blog]

Much praying is not done because we do not plan to pray.

"We do not drift into spiritual life; we do not drift into disciplined prayer. We will not grow in prayer unless we plan to pray. That means we must self-consciously set aside time to do nothing but pray. What we actually do reflects out highest priorities. That means we can proclaim our commitment to prayer until the cows come home, but unless we actually pray, our actions disown our words." - Don Carson, "A Call to Spiritual Reformation"

[wordproofed-blog]

Two years ago at a major North American seminary, fifty students who were offering  themselves for overseas ministry during the summer holidays were carefully interviewed so that their suitability could be assessed. Only three of these fifty - 6 percent! - could testify to regular quiet times, times of reading the Scriptures, of devoting themselves to prayer.

Don Carson "A Call to Spiritual Reformation"