Soren Kierkegaard- won't you be my neighbor?

sometimes i flip through books that i have already read to re-read the pages i have underlined, dogeared, or otherwise mutilated.

today soren was a favorite:

"To love one's neighbor, therefore, means essentially to will to exist equally for every human being without exception. If then you meet the king, gladly and respectfully give him his due. You should see in him his inner glory, the equality of glory, the neighbor that his human magnificence only conceals. If you meet a beggar - perhaps suffering in sorrow over him more than he himself -you should nevertheless also see in him his inner glory, the equality of glory, the neighbor which his wretched outer garments conceal. Yes then, you shall see, wherever you turn your eye, your neighbor. In being king, beggar, scholar, rich man, poor man, friend, enemy, we do not resemble each other - in these ways we are all different. But in being a neighbor we are all unconditionally alike..."
"[and on how to love your neighbors]...to help another human being to love God is to love another person. "

pray...without ceasing?

we are going through 1 Thessalonians at church and last night Lloyd preached on the passage of "Be joyful always; pray without ceasing; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." (1 Thes 5:16-18)

he brought up that if we want to know God's will for our lives, we have three pretty plain commands right here. but, most people will eventually figure out that these things are impossible for anyone to do....except in Christ Jesus. most people forget the dependent clause on the end of that section and instead just focus on the holy "to do" list at the beginning of the passage. The point is Jesus. He was the only person who actually did all these things and we can only even attempt them with His help.

"Our thinking about prayer, whether right or wrong, is based on our own mental conception of it. The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts. Our blood flows and our breathing continues 'without ceasing'; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops. And we are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect oneness with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an excercise, it is the life of a saint." -O. Chambers

redeeming us from the system

"But our inclination to replace the King with a thing does not die easily. It rears its ugly head even when we search for answers in Scripture. We approach the Bible with a "where can I find a verse on blank " mentality. We forget that the only hope the principles offer rests on the person, Jesus Christ. And we forget that the Bible is not an encyclopedia, but a story of God's plan to rescue hopeless and helpless humanity. It's a story about people who are rescued from their own self-sufficiency and wisdom and transported to a kingdom where Jesus is central and true hope is alive.
We cannot treat the Bible as a collection of therapeutic insights. To do so distorts the message and will not lead to lasting change. If a system could give us what we need, Jesus never would have come. But he came because what was wrong with us could not be fixed any other way. He is the only answer, so we must never offer a message that is less than the good news. We don't offer people a system; we point them to a Redeemer."

- Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands


Great great book. Looks like a counseling book at first (and is in a lot of ways), but turns out its extremely helpful if you have any sort of relationship with any other human being. Meaning... its pretty applicable for everyone.