Scriptspot: 7/1/12

Monday, July 2, 2012

The Corruption of a Concept – of Perseverance and Saints

Last week I signed off before I got to the end of my discussion of the Calvinist acronym, TULIP. I saved the best for last ---

The West is burning in forest fire hell. A large part of the eastern half of the country is being steamed like dumplings. Even the Constitution has taken a gut punch. This last week has been enough to remind us that human beings have a serious security deficit. We’ve trudged through all of history sadly lacking in that commodity. Ever since Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden and death became a reality, we’ve struggled; something innate in us wants to live and live forever, happily, comfortably, surrounded by love and beauty, and we know that won’t happen here.

Instinctively we know there’s something better – some place that doesn’t involve car crashes and cannibalism, tornadoes and terrorists, adultery and atrocities. We know that. We also know that Christ looked at the criminal beside him on the cross and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Hmm… how does that work? The guy was a thief; he wasn’t a good guy, he didn’t have time to become a good guy, and yet Christ didn’t say that to the man on His other side. So, what did Thief 1 have going for him?

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Bible Quotes

Genesis 2

2 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. ²And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. ³Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

⁴This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, ⁵before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; ⁶but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.

⁷And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Conversation with a Poem

Come out from under the bed!

I need you out here immediately.

but I’m shy

Shy, schmy. Suck it up and slither forth. Pronto.

sniffle

I’m tapping my foot. Counting to 3 – 1, 2 –

but I’m not dressed

Oh, for pity sake – no one cares what you’re wearing. Just crawl out, brush off the dust-bunnies, and shake a few hands.

they’ll make fun of me

Why would they do that?

because I’m shy

If you come out they’ll never know.

Cool Quotes

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, he is trash.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

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Monday, July 2, 2012

The Corruption of a Concept – of Perseverance and Saints

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