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“It doesn’t take as much faith to believe that everything happens for a reason as it does to embrace the belief that I am who and where I am now, today, for a reason—even if I don’t know what that reason is and even if I don’t particularly like who or where I am today,” a friend said to me. “When I can take that in, my dissatisfaction and negativity disappear, and I can proceed calmly and gratefully with my life. To me,” he said, “that’s what spirituality is all about.”
Faith and hope aren’t just for the future. Try using them on today.
Could it be that you’re who you are and where you are now for a reason? Thank God for your life, exactly as it is, right now.
God, give me enough faith to believe in today.
via January 28: be Grateful for Where You are Now | Language of Letting Go.
Tag Archives: Christ
A Comforting Message for the New Year
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Charles Spurgeon said:
But here is the joy, here is the peace of Christians, that our salvation is a finished one! We have not a farthing to pay to complete the ransom of our souls. We have not a stitch to set to finish the robe of our salvation. We have not an act to perform, a prayer to offer, a tear to weep, a thought to think in order to finish the work of our redemption! I know that all these things shall be worked in us and, that by the Spirit of God we shall be made to do them — but all that shall not be with any view to the completion of our salvation — that was finished in the Person of the bleeding Lamb of Calvary! . . .
Either Christ completed all that was necessary for your salvation, or he did not! If he did finish it, then rest in him and be glad, and say, “I am secure forever because my salvation is finished. I have nothing to do but to live to the honor of him who has completely saved me by his Grace, his blood, his righteousness.
Download the entire sermon, “A Comforting Message for the Closing Year” (PDF).
Source: A Comforting Message for the Closing Year – Desiring God
Protected: Laying the foundation
Edwards’s Resolutions in Seven Categories
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Jonathan Parnell shares this:
Back in 1723 Jonathan Edwards chartered a list of resolutions for his life. 70 of them. And he read them once a week.
Matt Perman writes:
[Edwards] shows us that a well lived life doesn’t just happen; it requires intentionality. And intentionality manifests itself in certain “mechanisms” that help us maintain our intentionality. Edwards’ resolutions are one example of such a “mechanism.”
So Edwards is a good example not just of a life that is lived well, but also of the “practical side” of how to actually build that intentionality into our lives, rather than just letting it remain a vague wish that never takes deep root and makes a real difference.
Refusing to be vague, Matt has organizedJonathan Edwards’s resolutions into seven specific categories. This approach is a fresh way to help us apply their wisdom where we live. The categories include:
- Overall Life Mission
- Good Works
- Time Management
- Relationships
- Suffering
- Character
- Spiritual Life
The New Year is upon us. Read through Edwards’s resolutions. Print them out. Consider adopting them as your own for a Christ-exalting, God-entranced vision of all things.
Source: Edwards’s Resolutions in Seven Categories – Desiring God
How will you guide your thinking as you prepare for a new year? Better days don’t just come from singing a song…
Related articles
- 2011 Books of the Year (spurgeon.wordpress.com)
- The descendants of an atheist and a christian. (treasuredinhisheart.wordpress.com)
- How Jonathan Edwards Processed Theology (spurgeon.wordpress.com)
