_{The gospel to me is simply irresistible.
~ Blaise Pascal}

Reflect, Resonate, Reevaluate, Respond

The heart clings to collected treasure. Stored-up possessions get between me and God. Where my treasure is, there is my trust, my security, my comfort, my God. Treasure means idolatry.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945, theologian, author

~~~~~~~~~ Matthew 13:44-46 ~~~~~~~~~

Screwtape writes his nephew and says, “I have some ideas on how you can destroy your human’s budding spiritual interest.” This is what he says.
“Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. […] Provided that any of those neighbors sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous.”
~ C.S. Lewis, 1898-1963. British writer

The secret is that God loves us exactly the way we are… and that he loves us too much to let us stay like this.
~ Anne Lamott, 1954- , American writer

Does the Gospel I preach and teach have a natural tendency to cause people who hear it to become full-time students of Jesus? Would those who believe it become his apprentices as a natural “next step”? What can we responsibly expect would result from people actually believing the substance of my message?
~ Dallas Willard, 1935-2013, American philosopher

But the rub of revelation is that it’s a transformation you’re not in charge of.
~ Scott Erickson, performance storyteller

The transformation from water to wine is of course meant by John to signify the effect that Jesus can have, can still have today, on people’s lives.  He came, as he says later, that we might have life in all its fullness.  You might want to pray through this story with your own failures and disappointments in mind – remembering that transformation only came when someone took Mary’s words seriously: Do whatever he tells you.
~ N.T. Wright, 1948- , former Bishop of Durham