Over the last two months, I’ve read some books and some passages of scripture and some social media posts from friends that have stood out to me as worth remembering, if not memorizing. I just wanted to use this as an opportunity to share those with you.
“It’s the stuff that masquerades as the real thing but it’s not. The perplexing thing is, instead of putting the fake stuff down, our reaction is to usually put more fake stuff on or decide that the fake stuff, while not that good, is good enough.” -Bob Goff, Love Does
“‘God forgive me for my sin.’ I could pray this hourly and it would still be just as applicable as the hour before. But so would the cross.” -Renee Shofner
“These days, the view of God I hold onto isn’t Him being mad because I’ve missed the mark. It’s the one of Him seen through a bloody eye, scooping me into his arms, getting blood all over His shirt, and carrying me away to get healed.” -Bob Goff, Love Does
“You need people who will step up and step in to call out your foolishness. Don’t despise their rebuke–what they’re doing is they’re watching you set yourself on fire, and they’re offering to be an extinguisher.” -Timothy Ateek, Breakaway
“I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.” -Jesus, in John 14:18
“I think satan exists, but I don’t give him a lot of thought. Neither does the Bible, honestly. We talk about satan way more than the Bible talks about satan…Jesus spoke with him for just a few seconds and then sent him away.” -Bob Goff, Love Does
“There is not a single degree of difference between the strength of God’s love for Christ and Christ’s love for us. Not even a hint.” -Russ Ramsey, He Reads Truth
“Love precedes obedience. If you reverse that order, you lose the gospel. Obedience is not how we obtain Christ’s love–it is a response to it.” -Russ Ramsey, He Reads Truth
“[Speaking of his Jeep that leaked and pulled hard to the left while driving as results of an accident in which an elderly woman t-boned his Jeep and sent him flying through its roof] I want to leak from having been hit by Jesus. From having something crazy happen to me, something that flipped my life upside-down. I’ve met people like that–people who leak Jesus. Whenever you’re around them, Jesus just keeps coming up with words and actions. I don’t suppose everybody gets hit by Jesus, but those of us who have talk about Him differently. We start steering funny; we start leaking where we stand. And it’s because we got thrown from our lives in a terrific collision.” -Bob Goff, Love Does
“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by Whom we cry out ‘Abba, Father!'” -Paul, in Romans 8:15
“If you are in Christ, you have overcome the world because He overcame the world. Nothing shall separate you from Him–from His love or His power.” -J.A. Medders, He Reads Truth
“You don’t need to know everything when you’re with someone you trust. That’s probably why Jesus’s disciples never said they were on a mission trip. I think they knew love already had a name and they didn’t need a program or anything else to define it. We don’t either. The kind of adventure Jesus has invited us on doesn’t require an application or prerequisites. It’s just about deciding to take up the offer made by a Father who wants us to come.” -Bob Goff, Love Does
“All of these [scriptures] are good signposts, and they should be enough. Besides, we shouldn’t speak with an assurance we don’t really have like we’re God’s P.R. agent and risk misquoting the God of the universe, Who could turn us into a pile of salt. This all helps me be a little more respectful and humble when I’m attributing something to God.” -Bob Goff, Love Does
“Discipline is choosing what you want most over what you want now.” -Abraham Lincoln
“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing–to reach the mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from–my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing? All the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.” -C.S. Lewis
“Jesus modeled that we don’t need to talk about everything we’ve done. It’s like He was saying, ‘What if we were to just do awesome incredible stuff together while we’re here on earth,’ and the fact that only He knew would be enough? If we did that, we wouldn’t get confused about Who was really making things happen.” -Bob Goff, Love Does
“[Jesus’s resurrection] is such an incredible claim that it should have been easy to disprove if it were false. But this is not what has happened.” -Russ Ramsey, He Reads Truth
“The Bible argues. It isn’t a string of pearls but a chain of linked thoughts. A unit of thought has a main point; everything else supports it. Trying to figure out how these supports work is what understanding is.” -John Piper
“John concludes his gospel account with these words: ‘Now there were many other things that Jesus did,” (21:25). I tend to think of those ‘many other things’ as grand displays of power, staggering miracles, and earth-shaking utterances. But I’m beginning to wonder if John is speaking of something else. How many words of love and kindness did Christ utter? How many meals humble prepared? How many quiet stoopings? How many washings of feet? How many wipings of tears from the eyes? How many ordinary, plain, and small glories did He display?” -Caleb Faires, He Reads Truth
“Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the Law.” -Romans 13:10
“A good neighbor makes himself available to those around him. This is who our neighbor is–anyone in our path. Compassion for a person who is suffering injustice or disadvantage breaks the heart of a good neighbor and moves him to act on that neighbor’s behalf. Jesus did this all the time. Do we? Unlike God, we all put up fences in an attempt to segment our responsibilities to love and care for others. Often we build walls around our hearts that prevent us from serving the broken, the victim, the offender, the poor, and the culturally unacceptable. The gospel calls for us to get rid of the fenced-off compounds we live in today, and engage one another in love. Loving this way will cost us resources, time, emotions, and comfort. But this is the way we were loved.” -Jevon Washington
“I am.” -G.K. Chesterton, when asked what is wrong with the world?
“Knowing what something is is not the same as knowing how something feels.” -Lois Lowry, The Giver
“Better is a moment that I spend with You than a million other days away.” -Phil Wickham, The Secret Place
“Nobody took Jesus’s life–He laid it down. And He said, ‘To prove it, I’m gonna pick it back up again.” -Todd Wagner, The Porch
“You can’t carry a cross without suffering.” -Kyle Idleman, Not a Fan
“Every morning, we crawl back on the altar and die to ourselves.” -Kyle Idleman, Not a Fan
“I don’t really know what Peter was thinking when he confessed that Jesus was ‘the Christ.’ Sometimes I read this story straight, like I did as a kid, and think that Peter and the rest of the disciples on this side of the empty tomb can see. But there are times when I read this story and all the unbelief surrounding his confession makes me wonder if he said it with a question mark in his mind. ‘We hope You’re the Messiah. Please be the Messiah.'” -Matthew B. Redmond, He Reads Truth
“The gospel message of grace and acceptance apart from works would turn Paul’s religious achievements into a pile of rubbish, and be the end of all his boasting.” -John Piper
“Sometimes Jesus intentionally frustrates us.” -Russ Ramsey, He Reads Truth
“Jesus is asking [the rich young ruler] to lay down his entire approach to security.” -Russ Ramsey
“God’s breath is the essential characteristic of the human soul. Any time we speak of the human soul, we are speaking of God’s breath. The two are inextricably connected. There was no human soul until God breathed, so God’s breath defines the human soul.” -Judah Smith, How’s Your Soul
Ty Hirsch 