Sad but Happy?

Our friend, Jeff, is dying.  He is at a hospice house right now.  But I am strangely at peace because Jeff is a believer.  His family is suffering and will miss him terribly, and I feel so sad for them.  But Jeff is the lucky one, the one who is about to meet Jesus in person.  That makes it a glorious day even though it’s a sad day. 

Jeff, Tracey and two of their three children during one of his brain tumor treatments at Stanford Hospital.

I would like to share a few more quotes from Of First Importance:

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“Christians don’t think God will love us because we’re good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”

--C.S. Lewis, Daily Quote on Twitter

______________________________________      “You must indeed, O believer, grapple with death, and shall get the first fall – but you shall rise again, and come off victorious at last. You must go down to the grave; but, though it be your long home, it will not be your everlasting home.

You will not hear the voice of your friends there; but you shall hear the voice of Christ there. You may be carried there with mourning, but you shall come up from it rejoicing. Your friends, indeed, will leave you there, but your God will not. What God said to Jacob, concerning his going down to Egypt (Gen. 46:3, 4), he says to you, on your going down to the grave, ‘Fear not to go down – I will go down with you – and I will also surely bring you up again.’

O solid comfort! O glorious hopes! ‘Therefore comfort’ yourselves, and ‘one another with these words’ (1 Thess. 4:18).”

—Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State

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“… the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.”

- Kevin DeYoung, DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed

God’s Gifts

Oregon Coast at Yaquina Head Natural Area north of Newport.Sometimes I am amazed by God’s creation.  I truly take it for granted most of the time.  Then I see a setting like the one above and just can’t absorb it all.   God’s gift of creation got me thinking about God’s most precious gift to us, His Son, Jesus Christ.

Today I am going to share some quotes from Of First Importance. 

The first quote is from Timothy Keller, one of my favorite authors.  His latest book is Counterfeit Gods, a book well worth your time and attention:

“You don’t realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.”

--Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods (New York, NY: Dutton, 2009), 19.

“The Lord Jesus came into this world not primarily to say something, not even to be something, but to do something; He came not merely to lead men through His example out into a ‘larger life,’ but to give life, through His death and resurrection, to those who were dead in trespasses and sins.”

—J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith? (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991), 113

“‘Come unto me,’ he says, ‘and I will give you.’  You say, ‘Lord, I cannot give you anything.’  He does not want anything.  Come to Jesus, and he says, ‘I will give you.’  Not what you give to God, but what he gives to you, will be your salvation.  ‘I will give you‘ — that is the gospel in four words.

Will you come and have it?  It lies open before you.”

--C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1950), I:175.  (HT: Ray Ortlund)

And finally…

“Will you trust the grace of the Gospel and quit frantically seeking what you have already been given in Christ?”

--Paul David Tripp, Twitter post

Words of Inspiration

Today there is no traveling to write about.  No trips to a national park.  No RV news at all.  Not even any more oddities to tell about.  I met with my friends for our usual Tuesday afternoon chat and it was great to reconnect with them after our travels.  I will leave you with a short but sweet inspiration from St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430):

"For grace is given not because we have done good works, but in order that we may be able to do them.”

Wildflowers at Capitol Reef National Park

                           

He is Risen!

He is risen, indeed!  Happy Easter!  Happy Resurrection Day!

From Of First Importance:

“Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy; — but the Father, for love!”

- Octavius Winslow, quoted by John Stott in The Message of Romans (Downers Grove, Ill.; Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 255.


From Gene Veith's blog Cranach:

Why Holy Week is Holy

“For we call this Holy Week not just because of the holy things that happened, or because of the Holy One they happened to--but because this is the week that makes you holy.”

"Besides, no matter how powerless you are, no matter how low, no matter how tired and weak and piled upon, you will never be at the bottom of the pecking order.

That spot is reserved for one person: Jesus."

Both quotes by Rev. James Douthwaite

More Quotes from Of First Importance

More good quotes from Of First Importance: Living each day in the good of the gospel:

“Everything that a man leans upon but God—will be a dart which will certainly pierce his heart through and through. He who leans only upon Christ—lives the highest, choicest, safest and sweetest life.”

- Thomas Brooks

“When we are trusting Christ most authentically, we are not thinking about trusting, but about Christ. When we step out of the moment to examine it, we cease what we were doing, and therefore cannot see it. My counsel for strugglers therefore is relentlessly: Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus in his word. And pray for eyes to see.”


- John Piper, Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul

The Father cannot resist fellowship with His own dear children when they embrace Christ in all His offices as prophet, priest, and king.”


- C. John Miller, Repentance and 21st Century Man (Fort Washington, Pa.: CLC publications, 2003), 51.

“In order for the Christian gospel to be good news it must provide an all-satisfying and eternal gift that undeserving sinners can receive and enjoy. For that to be true, the gift must be three things. First, the gift must be purchased by the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Our sins must be covered, and the wrath of God against us must be removed, and Christ’s righteousness must be imputed to us. Second, the gift must be free and not earned. There would be no good news if we had to merit the gift of the gospel. Third, the gift must be God himself, above all his other gifts.”


- John Piper, God is the Gospel (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2005), 14.

Law and Gospel

From Of First Importance:

“The difference between the law and gospel does not at all consist in this, that the one requires perfect doing, the other only sincere doing, but in this, that the one requires doing, the other not doing but believing for life and salvation. Their terms are different, not only in degree, but in their whole nature."

Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification (Welwyn, 1981), 76.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)