Quote of the Day

What are you out for?  Believe me, you will get it whatever it is, if you are determined to do so.  Are you out for the rewards of this world?  They can be obtained with very little effort.  They satisfy for a while, but when one begins to think seriously about them they are not even worth that little effort.  But still we go on trying to get the best our of both worlds.  Let us realize once and for all that the things of the Spirit can only be appreciated by the spirit.  The reward for a spiritual way of life is a spiritual reward.  Why do we expect to get the rewards of this world as well?  Why do we so often complain that the ungodly seem to succeed while we fail?  We are not out for the same thing.  We must learn to judge spiritual results by spiritual  standards.  Whatever a man soweth that also shall he reap.  If we have sown to the spirit why expect to get a worldly and bodily harvest?  The man who sows for worldly results gets them, and everyone can see these and know them and appreciate them.  The Christian, on the other hand, has very little that the world can appreciate.  That is why the Way of Life is a difficult way - it is a life of faith.  When you enter upon it, you give up everything that the world treasures most, and it is inevitable that at times we shall experience a sense of loss.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Quote of the Day

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." This saying, which is found in a broad variety of lands, does not arise from the brash worldly wisdom of an incorrigible. It instead reveals deep Christian insight. At the beginning of a new year, many people have nothing better to do than to make a list of bad deeds and resolve from now on - how many such 'from-now-ons' have there already been! - to begin with better intentions, but they are still stuck in the middle of their paganism. They believe that a good intention already means a new beginning; they believe that on their own they can make a new start whenever they want. But that is an evil illusion: only God can make a new beginning with people whenever God pleases, but not people with God. Therefore, people cannot make a new beginning at all; they can only pray for one. Where people are on their own and live by their own devices, there is only the old, the past. Only where God is can there be a new beginning. We cannot command God to grant it: we can only pray to God for it. And we can pray only when we realize that we cannot do anything, that we have reached our limit, that someone else must make that new beginning……People who want to live solely by their good intentions have no idea where those intentions actually come from. It's worth a closer look. Our so-called good intentions are nothing but anxious byproducts of a weak heart that fears all kinds of evils and sins and now arms itself with very human weapons in order to go against those powers. But whoever is afraid of sin is already in the middle of it. Fear is the net that evil throws over us, so that we become entangled and soon fall. Those who are afraid have already fallen. If we are on a difficult mountain climb and are suddenly consumed with fear, we will surely stumble. Hence, such anxious good intentions do us no good. We can certainly never make a new beginning with them. How can we make a fresh start? 'No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back…' (Luke 9:62). One who guides a plow does not look back - or into the immense distance - but to the next step that must be taken. Backward glances are not a Christian thing to do. Leave fear, anxiety, and guilt behind. And look to the One who gives you a new beginning.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer