The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing. If you want your life to count . . . you don’t need to have a high IQ. You don’t have to have good looks or riches or come from a fine family or a fine school. Instead you have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things — or one great all-embracing thing — and be set on fire by them.
Category: Random
Radical Since 1984
Victory Christian Fellowship is currently celebrating its 30th anniversary of ministry here in the Philippines with the theme “Radical Since 1984.” As I preached the first and third installments of the five-week preaching series here in Victory Tacloban, the theme really got me thinking. Why do we call it radical in the first place?
Following Jesus is radical because it goes against the expectations of the world. For the world, the road to fame and glory is by forging your way up; in Christianity, Jesus’ way to glory was by sacrificing and dying.
The world thinks this is radical, unusual, and crazy. The Bible teaches this is the way to live. And the idea of radicalism is displayed more prominently in the area of discipleship where Jesus taught his disciples that the way to follow him is by dying. Luke 9:23-26 minces no words about Jesus’ expectations of his disciples.
What We Really Look For
All your life, you’ve been on a treasure hunt. You’ve been searching for a perfect person and a perfect place. Jesus is that person; heaven is that place. So if you’re a Christian, you’ve already met that person, and you’re already headed to that place.
–Randy Alcorn
Discipleship and Dying
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
Nabeel Qureshi: I had to give up my life in order to receive His life. This was not some platitude or cliché. The gospel was calling me to die.
Doctrine
Doctrine isn’t dry and boring. It isn’t for arguing. It’s for knowing God and living life to the fullest.
Grumpiness
Maybe you are not grumpy; you just stew. You feel like you have the right to be moody– you’ve earned it. It is a way of exacting emotional payment from a disappointing life. Grumpiness provides momentary relief, but it always involves a splitting of the self. You go through the motions of love, but anger smolders just below the surface like a simmering rant. Like Judas in his betrayal of Jesus, outwardly you are kissing, but inwardly you are betraying. The result? You’re split.
Jojo Agot 