Wait on the Lord

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Have you not known? Have you not heard? 
The LORD is the everlasting God,

   the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

   his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint,

   and to him who has no might he increases strength.

Even youths shall faint and be weary,

   and young men shall fall exhausted;

but they who wait for the LORD 

shall renew their strength;

   they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

   they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31 ESV

Dug Down Deep ~ Joshua Harris

Okay. I found yet another book everyone should read.

Dug Down Deep is Joshua Harris' brand-new book. He basically talks about his journey from not really taking hold of his parents' beliefs about the Christian faith, etc, to claiming them as his own. 

Something he emphasizes in the book is something he calls "humble orthodoxy", which is basically learning doctrine so that you can know more about Jesus Christ. As opposed to getting all knowledgeable about theology so that you can one-up other people. 

We should be learning more about God 

because we love him and we want to be like him.

Makes sense, huh? 

This is another one of those books that I want to just cram into everyones' brain.

So go read it, if you please. ;-)

Mark Driscoll on Twilight... among other things. ;-)

So I'm not a fan of the Twilight franchise... and this was a really good Mark Driscoll sermon that covers a lot of topics... including the new genre of vampire and occult fiction. I thought it was excellent. :-)

C.S. Lewis on Love

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."


~C.S. Lewis, in The Four Loves


I read this book this summer... it was so good, I wanted to just memorize everything in it. It is definitely one I will go back to and read again. C.S. Lewis has such a gift of explaining complicated things in a surprisingly uncomplicated way.

Beauty

Our pastor preached a sermon on "Beauty in the Bible" on Sunday, which was excellent, and got me thinking about all kinds of stuff. I encourage you to listen to this sermon. 

Download or just listen here.

I have read and heard many thoughts on beauty, but this sermon was just so clear and spot-on. Yesterday I also listened to a sermon by John Piper on why God delights in His creation, which really applied to a lot of what I have been thinking about. 

Let me know your thoughts if you listen to the sermon. 

There will be another post (probably several) on this subject, as my thoughts on the whole thing coagulate. :-)

His Rules

This was also on my "20 Books This Summer" list, and I read it a couple weeks ago.

It was different than I was expecting... it wasn't about courtship, really, but more about preparing for marriage--and not in the learn-how-to-sew-and-make bread kind of preparing. 

It is written to both young men and young women, which seems like it would be hard, but they do a really good job...partly because it is written by a guy and a girl.

They had a lot of good things to say about the fact that your relationship with God is the most important thing in preparation for marriage. If Jesus isn't your all-in-all, then you'll try to make your spouse that, which is a recipe for disaster.

I highly recommend the book!

Mark Driscoll on Tolerance