This Sunday’s readings: John 20:19-23

Reflections

Love is courageously setting aside our personal agenda to move humbly into the world of others with their well-being in view, willing to risk further pain in our souls, in order to be an aroma of life to some and an aroma of death to others.
~ Dan Allender, Psychologist/Author

God doesn’t need our good works, but our neighbor does.
~ Gustaf Wingren, 1910-2000, Swedish Theologian

God isn’t looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him.
~ Hudson Taylor, 1832-1905, Missionary to China

Thus, for followers of Christ, calling neutralizes the fundamental position of choice in modern life. “I have chosen you,” Jesus said, “you have not chosen me.” We are not our own; we have been bought with a price. We have no rights, only responsibilities. Following Christ is not our initiative, merely our response, in obedience. Nothing works better to debunk the pretensions of choice than a conviction of calling. Once we have been called, we literally “have no choice.”
~ Os Guinness, 1941- , Author/Social Critic

We were not called to make converts. Our job is the task of disciple-making. I mean, if we are not making disciples, why are we here? … You are either making disciples or making excuses. Which one are you?
~ Jonathan Hayashi, Ordinary Radicals: A Return to Christ-Centered Discipleship

Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavors, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavour, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever.
~ Tim Keller on “Why Calling Matters”

This Sunday’s readings: John 21:15-25

Reflections

There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me.
~ J.I. Packer, 1926-2020, English-born theologian, Author

I liked myself better when I wasn’t me.
~ Carol Burnett

We’re in the presence of a good story when the flaw that shatters shalom is also the doorway to redemption… Whether it be our own flaw or the sin of others, God uses the raw material of sin to create the edifice of his redeemed glory … The point cannot be overemphasized: your plight is also your redemption. The Bible assumes that its stories are also our story… We are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their stories are a paradigm of our own. Each of us is called, redeemed, and exiled – again and again.
~ Dan B. Allender, To Be Told: God Invites You to Coauthor Your Future

I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing.
~ Katherine Anne Porter, 1890-1980, Author, from short story “Theft”

After conversion we need bruising so that we might remember that we are reeds and not oaks. Even reeds need bruising because of the remaining pride in our nature and to show us that we live by mercy. Such bruising may help weaker Christians not to be too much discouraged when they see stronger ones shaken and bruised. Thus Peter was bruised when he wept bitterly (Matt. 26:75). This reed, until he met with this bruise, had more wind in him than heart when he said, ‘Though all forsake you, I will not’ (Matt. 26:33). The people of God cannot be without these examples. The heroic deeds of great saints do not comfort the church as much as their falls and bruises do.
~ Richard Sibbes, 1577-1635, Anglican, The Bruised Reed