wholesomeness.

each sunday, my churche's bulletin has a menagerie of awesome quotes that relate to the sermon for that day. here's some of my favorites. enjoy.

"Let him who wants a true church cling to the Word by which everything is upheld."
Martin Luther

"It is not the business of the church to adapt Christ to men, but men to Christ."
Dorothy Sayers

"Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow."
Aesop

"Character in a saint means the disposition of Jesus Christ persistently manifested."
Oswald Chambers

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort, you will get neither comfort nor truth."
C.S. Lewis

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved-loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."
Victor Hugo

"One hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship."
A.W. Tozer

"There are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one of them. As the Christian life is, above all things, a state of union with Christ, and of union with his followers with one another, love of the brethren is inseparable from love of God. Resentment toward any human being cannot exist in the same heart with love to God. The personal relationship with Christ can only be realized when one has 'come to himself' as a member of His Body, the Chirstian fellowship."
William T. Ham

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people."
G.K. Chesterton

"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drive toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated."
D.A. Carson

"Holiness is the end of redemption, for Christ gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works."
Charles Hodge

"If your religion does not make you holy, it will damn you. It is simply painted pageantry to go to hell in."
Charles Spurgeon

"Happy the man who sees a God employed in all the good and ill that checkers life."
William Cowper

"We serve a gracious Master who knows how to overrule even our mistakes to His glory and our own advantage."
John Newton

"God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart."
Charles Spurgeon

"Not until we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God's holiness and sovereignty...acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts, and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours."
J.I. Packer

"If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble; for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, so it is beloved of none but itself."
Francis Quarles

"The love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses. There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of His person, an adoration that distrubs and disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart."
A.W. Tozer

therefore.

"Therefore since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverance and awe, for our 'God is a consuming fire.'"
-Hebrews 12:28

"Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done."
-1 Chronicles 16:8

"I had the leaders of Judah go up on top of the wall. I also assigned two large choirs to give thanks."
-Nehemiah 12:31

"Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song."
-Psalm 95:2

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name."
-Psalm 100:4

"But thanks be to God! He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
-1 Corinthians 15:57

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him."
-2 Corininthans 2:14

"And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has giving you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!"
-2 Corinthians 9:14-15

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."
-Philippians 4:6

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
-1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

verdad.

this whole thing called honesty--it puts people all in a tizzy. we can't handle it; we don't want to "be the bearer of bad news", nor do we want to be on the receiving end. we constantly beat around the bush to save our skin, hoping that we can drench a hard truth in sugar, but if not, we just won't say anything. i'm not trying to get into politics, but i will say one thing. we've all seen an interview with a political figure, or we've seen a debate of some kind, and we all know that there seems to be a chronic disease or something that's standard for all politicians: they simply can't tell the truth. i'm not saying that all politicians are this way, but i think we can all agree that, comparatively, there's much more of an avoidance of questions than direct responses to them. that's just one example of the lack of honesty in the world today. but that chronic disease that i mentioned is called sin, and dishonesty is one of many forms of it. jesus addressed this problem time and time again, especially when dealing with the pharisees. furthermore, in john 8:31-32, we read, "To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, 'If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'" you can see right here from these two verses that truth is essential in a person's salvation. the thing that is oftentimes hard to swallow, is that when we deal we truth, we must be confronted with the brutally honest truth of our sinfulness. that's the hard part. the natural inclination to shrink away from that is manifested even in the smallest things in our lives, like the lack of confrontation in so many relationships. we hate to bring the dirty stuff to the surface so that it can be dealt with. the fact is, without honesty, relationships will fail to thrive like they would granted the truth was told. more importantly, we must spend time "cleaning out our own closets" persay before we start the spring cleaning in outer areas of our lives. so, i think it's about time we all get our hands a little dirty and get honest with ourselves, with God, and with each other. and as said in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

that silly little thing called love.

why do they call it a break-up anyways? if something is broken the implication is that the broken object was once perfect, whole, copmlete. obviously, we humans came up with the brilliant idea to refer to a nonexistant relationship between two people as a break-up. but the truth is, human relationships cannot and will never be perfect, whole, or complete--atleast not in the divine sense of those words. if we want to talk about a true break-up, we can discuss the fall of man in Genesis 3 and Romans 1. the Almighty God, Maker of the universe, and Lover of our souls gave us life and made us breathe. it's kind of like a broken watch. as soon as a watch's battery dies, the hands stop their circular motion and the ticking noise that so subtly penetrated the silence disappears. what use is the watch now? it can no longer do what it was designed to do. now, it merely takes up space and collects dust. how worthless we are when our sin barracades our lungs from being filled with the Breath of Life! if we want to give a break-up justice, let's use it in the proper context. although human "break-ups" can be incredibly painful, they're similar to that black text on the bottom of your cereal box. (now entering the witty part of this little segment). you've finally finished off every last cinnamon square after eight days of diligent breakfasting, only to find that you were not the tenth winner of the seven-day cruise to the Bahamas. yeah, it sucks. but hey, it's what you bargained for.

heart of darkness.

can't you see this biology is so wrong?
can't you hear my whispers that pierce like shouting sounds of winter?
cause you're falling deeper
you're falling deeper
you're falling deeper into your heart of darkness

i'm trying to see inside of me to find what you're after
i'm straining to hear the voices so clear behind the cry of the murderer
and you're falling deeper
you're falling deeper
you're falling deeper into your heart of darkness

you need something marvelous
something marvelous
marvelous light
won't you shine on this heart
won't you shine into this darkness

fragmentation.

you and i, we just sit on the silver lining of the clouds waiting for a miracle,
with our eyes closed and fingers crossed, saying,
"Lord, I hope someone does something sometime soon."
'cause we're falling apart. yeah we're falling apart.
falling apart.

fragments of my life, they just don't wanna go.
and fragments of my heart, they really just don't wanna show
that fragments of your body flying through the air and landing in the snow
make me feel kinda guilty sometimes for just staying home.

you and i, we just turn up the volume on our radios and keep our blinds closed.
you and i, we just tint our windows in hope that when we're driving down the street we won't see a thing.
'cause we're falling apart. yeah we're falling apart.
falling apart.

fragments of my life, they just don't wanna go.
and fragments of my heart, they really just don't wanna show
that fragments of your body flying through the air and landing in the snow
make me feel kinda guilty sometimes for just staying home.

we think that ignorance is bliss and a sloppy, wet kiss will make it all right.
we'll just paint it over well with a big, hard shell of sunshine hue.

inhaleexhale.

The storm is coming but I don't mind
People are dying, I close my blinds
All that i know is I'm breathing now
I want to change the world...instead I sleep
I want to believe in more than you and me
But all that I know is I'm breathing

Ingrid Michaelson.