big white Bible

"What matters is not how many words we memorize, but what happens to our minds as we immerse them in Scripture."

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"One of my earliest memories of church involves a contest to see who could memorize the most Bible verses. We each had a poster on the wall with our name on it. The poster had a picture of a mansion, and every verse memorized meant a sticker--a little room to add on to our mansion. Whoever got the most rooms in his or her mansion won a prize: A white Bible, with our name printed on the cover...in gold.

Eventually the contest narrowed down to me and another kid--a freckle-faced, dark-haired little girl with great big glasses, who was named Louise. For weeks it was nip and tuck, until the last month, when Louise began to pull away. In the last week it was clear she would win.

I began to wonder: What could I do about Louise?

So...I killed her.

At least, in my mind I did. I did not like her. I would have done almost anything to hear my name called as the winner and get that Bible. Church was becoming a place where I could shine and prove how good and smart I was. So I did not rejoice when Louise's name was called.

That wasn't the only time I have turned church into a contest. Sometimes I still act as if I'm trying to earn a big white Bible.

To memorize Scripture--to 'hide it in our hearts'--can be a great help, but only if it serves the Divine purpose: 'that I might not sin against Thee.'"  ~John Ortberg from The Life You've Always Wanted

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"Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee." ~Psalm 119: 11 [KJV]

the discipline of service

"More than any other single way the grace of humility is worked into our lives is through the Discipline of service...Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service, It strains and pulls for honor and recognition." ~Richard Foster

Your attitudes should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who-precisely because He was in very nature God--did not consider equality with God to be grounds for grasping, but poured Himself out, taking the very nature of a servant.

"...Jesus did not take on the 'outward form' of a servant. The apostle Paul who penned this, used the same term, morphe, to describe both Jesus' servanthood and His Godhood. When Jesus came in the form of a servant, He was not temporarily putting on servanthood. He was revealing the very heart...the nature of God.

I remember hearing a Christian speaker say once that pride is forbidden to human beings, but is okay in God because, after all, He is God. This is wrong. God is the Infinite Servant. God is the most humble being in all the universe. Jesus did not come as a servant in spite of the fact that He is God; He came as a servant because being a servant IS the essence of God's character."

~John Ortberg from The Life You've Always Wanted

hurry

"People nowadays take time far more seriously than eternity."

~Thomas Kelly

Excerpt from The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg

Not long after moving to Chicago, I called a wise friend to ask for some spiritual direction. I described the pace at which things tend to move in my current setting. I told him about the rhythms of our family life and about the present condition of my heart, as best I could discern it. What did I need to do, I asked him, to be spiritually healthy?

Long pause.

'You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life,' he said at last.

Another long pause.


'Okay, I've written that one down,' I told him, a little impatiently. 'That's a good one. Now what else is there?' I had many things to do, and this was a long-distance conversation, so I was anxious to cram as many units of spiritual wisdom into the least amount of time possible.

Another long pause.

'There is nothing else,' he said.

He is the wisest spiritual mentor I have known. And while he doesn't know every detail about every grain of sin in my life, he knows quite a bit. And from an immense quiver of spiritual sagacity, he drew only one arrow. 'There is nothing else,' he said. 'You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.'

...Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. Hurry can destroy our souls. Hurry can keep us from living well. As Carl Jung wrote, 'Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.'

Again and again, as we pursue spiritual life, we must do battle with hurry. For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith, It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.

joy to the world

"...the joy of the Lord is my strength."

"Joy is strength. Its absence will create weakness. Dallas Willard wrote,

'failure to attain a deeply satisfying life always has the effect of making sinful actions seem good. Here lies the strength of temptation...Normally, our success in overcoming temptation will be easier if we are basically happy in our lives. To cut off the joys and pleasures associated with our bodily lives and social existence as 'unspiritual,' then, can actually have the effect of weakening us in our efforts to do what is right.'

One of the key tasks for spiritual vitality then is: We must arrange life so that sin no longer looks good to us...Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that his meals in prison made an opportunity to exercise the discipline of joy.

'God cannot endure that unfestive, mirthless attitude of ours in which we eat our bread in sorrow, with pretentious, busy haste, or even with shame. Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working.'

Devote a specific day to acts of celebration so that eventually joy will infuse your entire life. One day a week, eat foods you love to eat, listen to music that moves your soul, play a sport that stretches and challenges you, read books that refresh your spirit, wear clothes that make you happy, surround yourself with beauty--and as you do these things, give thanks to God for His wonderful goodness. Reflect on what a gracious God He is to have thought of these gifts. Take the time to experience and savor joy, then direct your heart toward God so that you come to know He is the giver of 'every good and perfect gift.' Nothing is too small if it produces true joy in us and causes us to turn toward God in gratitude and delight."

~Excerpt from The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg

we shall morph indeed

Excerpts from The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg

"A few years ago, the dominant interest of six-year-olds in the United States was a group of teenage superheroes called the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers...The key to the show's appeal was the characters' ability to 'morph'...Their rallying cry in moments of crisis was 'It's morphing time!' and they would be transformed with the ability to do extraordinary things...Of course, it is not just six-year-olds who want to morph. The desire for transformation lies deep in every human heart. This is why people enter therapy, join health clubs, get into recovery groups, read self-help books, attend motivational seminars, and make New Year's resolutions. The possibility of transformation is the essence of hope...

This little word 'morph' is actually one of the richest Greek words in the Bible. Morphoo means 'the inward and real formation of the essential nature of a person.' It was the term used to describe the formation and growth of an embryo in a mother's body...In his letter to the Galatian believers, the apostle Paul said that they, like us, are in a kind of spiritual gestation process. We are pregnant with possibilities of spiritual growth and moral beauty so great that they cannot be adequately described as anything less than the formation of Christ in our very lives.

Paul used another word, summorphizo, in his letter to the Roman Christians when he said that God had predestined them to be 'conformed to the image of his Son.' This word means to have the same form as another, to shape a thing into a durable likeness...We are to be to Christ as an image is to the original.

Still another form of the word, metamorphoo, is used when Paul says we are not to be conformed to the world around us but 'transformed by the renewing of our minds.' The English word metamorphosis comes from this word...a creeping caterpillar is transformed into a soaring butterfly...

When morphing happens, I don't just do the things Jesus would have done; I find myself wanting to do them. They appeal to me. They make sense. I don't just go around trying to do right things; I become the right sort of person.

These are audacious statements. Ordinary people can receive power for extraordinary change...The primary goal of spiritual life is human transformation...the reclamation of the human race. It's morphing time."

cs lewis

"C.S. Lewis one surmised that each person is created to see a different facet of God's beauty--something no one else can see in quite the same way--and then to bless all worshippers through all eternity with an aspect of God they could not otherwise see."

~John Ortberg from The Life You've Always Wanted