Standing On The Shoulders of Giants

  Each of the Fruits of the Spirit
is but a Phase of Love.

Joy is love exulting.

Peace is love reposing.

Patience is love enduring.

Goodness is the good manners of love.

Kindness is love in action.

Faithfulness is love confiding.

Gentleness is love yielding.

Self-Control is true self-love.

There is an unseen Deity present, a knowing, feeling Personality, and He is indivisible from the Father and the Son, so that if you were to be suddenly transferred to heaven itself you wouldn’t be any closer to God than you are now, for God is already here.

  “Every viewpoint 

is a view from a point, 

and we need to critique 

our own perspective 

if we are to see and follow 

the full truth 

The only real success

is faithfulness.

What is right 

in the light of the present set of facts 

may not be able to stand up 

under the scrutiny of unfolding days.

 If I knew you and you knew me,
And each of us could clearly see
By that inner light divine
The meaning of your heart and mine:
I’m sure that we would differ less
And clasp our hands in friendliness,
If you knew me, 

and I knew you.

 Faith 

never knows where it is being led, 

but it loves and knows 

the One Who is leading.

 Faith is not intelligent understanding; 

faith is deliberate commitment to a Person 

where I see no way.  

  We can all see God 

in exceptional things, 

but it requires the culture of spiritual discipline 

to see God in every detail. 

 No matter 

what your given name, 

God knows it. 

In love, God calls you ...

 by your name, 

and you belong to God.  

   Wisdom 

has nothing to do with how many “gray cells” you possess. You can be smart as a whip 

but still full of foolishness 

 Faith 

is stepping off 

the map of what’s known 

and making a new road 

by walking into the unknown. 

    Sooner or later 

everyone should be arrested 

or imprisoned 

for a good cause. 

  The church 

did not develop or perpetuate the liberating attitude 

that characterizes Jesus’ treatment of women 

in the Gospels. 

 Jesus…

constant[ly] refus[es] to approach or judge people 

as members of a 

class, face, sex or category of any kind, 

but only as an individual. 

He deals with the human being, ignoring the label, 

and this is the heart of Jesus’ ‘inclusivity. 

   …the traditional picture 

of people going to either heaven or hell as a one-stage postmortem journey 

(with or without the option of some kind of purgatory or continuing journey as an intermediate stage) 

represents a serious distortion and diminution of the Christian hope. 

· …people who believe in the resurrection, 

in God making a whole new world 

in which everything 

will be set right at last, 

are unstoppably motivated to work for that new world in the present.

   Jesus and Paul contradicted the Old Testament even though they valued it as God’s word. They established a new set of criteria, which made faith and grace the center of Christianity…Scholars call this approach the “canon within the canon,” which means that within the accepted canon, or list of writings finally gathered into the Bible, there is a subset of texts that serve as the central theme by which all others must be measured 

  Discerning a central theme requires the reader to make judgments 

about 

which parts of the Bible constitute its essential message and which parts 

represent culturally conditioned advice. 

      The Bible has authority in my life because it makes sense of my experience and speaks to me about the meaning and purpose of my humanity in Jesus Christ. 

In spite of its ancient and patriarchal worldviews, 

in spite of its inconsistencies and mixed messages, 

the story of God’s love affair with the world 

leads me to a vision of New Creation that impels my life. 

       …beliefs are stated with a caution 

that recognizes that no human being 

can be absolutely right when making statements about God. 

Humility is an awareness that God 

might choose to act in ways that defy the best theories, 

the recognition that the surprising work of God 

is not yet finished 

and that at the end-of-life human beings 

may be stunned by the grace of God. 

I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. 

I just wish that God didn’t trust me so much.

 Comparison

is 

the thief

of 

joy.

  God doesn’t judge us 

on our raw material at all,

 but on 

what we have done with it. 

A proud person 

is always looking down 

on things and people, 

and, of course, 

as long as you are looking down, 

you cannot see something that is above you.

 You can’t claim to be good 

if you’ve never been tempted to be bad.

You can’t claim to be faithful, 

if you’ve never had the opportunity to be unfaithful.

You are as close to God 

as you choose to be.

God is far more interested 

in what you are 

than what you do.

The smile of God is the goal of your life.

Abraham was old, Jacob was insecure, Leah was unattractive, Joseph was abused, Moses stuttered, Gideon was poor, Samson was codependent, Rahab was immoral, David had affairs and all kinds of family problems, Elijah was suicidal, Jeremiah was depressed, Jonah was reluctant, Naomi was a widow, John the Baptist was eccentric to say the least, Peter was impulsive and hot tempered, Martha worried a lot, the Samaritan woman had several failed marriages, Zacchaeus was unpopular, Thomas had doubts, Paul had poor health, and Timothy was timid. 

What excuse have you been using?

 …if the Gospel 

is about having the right information, 

then being right is everything. But, if the Gospel 

is about transformation, 

then being Christ-like is everything. 

 …nothing is true 

unless it lines up 

with the revelation of Christ. Nothing points the way to God unless it aligns 

with the teachings of Jesus. Nothing contains the words of life 

unless those words correspond to the words spoken by Jesus 

  It is impossible for me 

to imagine that Paul 

had plans, or hopes, 

or even secret fantasies 

of forcibly repressing people. 

In his own words 

I can read only that he tried to persuade them not to start swinging at one another on any excuse.

  Christianity 

offered anyone, no matter how poor and powerless, an alternative inheritance…  

‘We offer you an equal share of a community, such as most of you could only dream of before. You forfeit it only if you are disorderly,....’ 

No wonder Christianity grew like mad.

   People deserve a God 

who is neither white nor male nor cisgender, nor heterosexual nor Republican 

because any other God 

isn’t big enough 

to bear the title 

or merit any reverence. 

 …fear 

burns up 

what we say we believe 

and 

reveals what we actually believe. 

I’m convinced 

our current versions of the Christian faith 

need to be stripped of a variety of old covenant leftovers... 

We are dragging along a litany of old covenant concepts and assumptions that slow us down, divide us up, 

and confuse those 

standing on the outside peering in.  

   Against every Jewish fiber in their Jewish bodies [the apostles] determined that Gentiles everywhere would have access to the God of their fathers without making a single trip to the temple and without sacrificing a single animal. All the benefits, none of the blood. But what’s more mind-boggling than that, they decided unity in the church was more important than the law of Moses.

  I have learned that faith means 

trusting in advance 

what will only make sense 

in reverse.

Jesus knew the sensation of getting no answer to his pleas.

 We do not pray to tell God what He does not know, nor to remind Him of things He has forgotten. He already cares for the things we pray about … He has simply been waiting for us to care about them with Him. When we pray, we stand by God and look with Him toward those people and problems 

   God, 

show me 

what You are doing today 

and 

how I can be a part of it.

     Maybe we can see things through tears 

that we can’t see dry-eyed.