Speak the truth in love with the power of God’s grace
What if, however, you began your marriage understanding its purpose as spiritual friendship for the journey to the new creation? What if you expected marriage to be about helping each other grow out of your sins and flaws into the new self God is creating? Then you will actually be expecting the “stranger” seasons, and when you come to one you will roll up your sleeves and get to work.
What are the “tools” for this work? How can we engage one another in spiritual friendship to help us on our journey toward our future selves? How do we love each other so that our marriage goes on from strength to strength rather than stalling out in repetitive arguments that end in fruitless silence? The basic answer is that you must speak the truth in love with the power of God’s grace.
Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 128). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Do not number your fishes before they are broiled; nor count your converts before you have tested and tried them. This process may make your work somewhat slow; but then, brethren, it will be sure. Do your work steadily and well, so that those who come after you may not have to say that it was far more trouble to them to clear the church of those who ought never to have been admitted than it was to you to admit them.
C.H. Spurgeon, “What Is It to Win a Soul?” The Soul-Winner.
via Mark Dever, “False Conversions: The Suicide of the Church”, T4G 2012.
Source: thegospelcoalition.org
The Deep Limitations of Digital Church @AlbertMohler
John Mark Reynolds of Biola University addresses the danger inherent in digital technologies & its replacement of church: “How can the Christian Church utilize the tools media has given us without being subsumed by them? You don’t want delivery to become everything.”
Albert Mohler helpfully comments:
Research indicates that a significant number of Christians are tempted to allow these technologies to serve as a substitute for participation in a local church. This is deadly and dangerous for believers.
Christ clearly intends for his people to be gathered together into congregations. The fellowship of the saints is a vital means of grace for the disciple of Christ. We can be enriched by means of listening to sermons online and by delving deeply into the ocean of knowledge found within Christian websites, but these cannot replace the authenticity that comes only by means of the local church and its ministry.
Believers need the accountability found only within the local church. We need to hear sermons preached by flesh-and-blood preachers in the real-time experience of Christian worship. We need to confess the faith together through the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We need to confess our sins and declare forgiveness by the blood of Christ together. We need to be deployed for service in Christ’s name together.
Read Dr. Mohler’s entire article.
Source: twitter.com
If you understand what holiness is, you come to see that real happiness is on the far side of holiness, not the near side. Holiness gives us new desires and brings old desires into line with one another. So if we want to be happy in marriage, we will accept that marriage is designed to make us holy.
@Google Launches Google Drive, An Online File Storage Service!
Google has begun rolling out Google Drive, an online file storage service that will allow users to store up to 5 GB for free.
- It is available for use on PC and Mac computers, Android devices, and soon for iPhone and iPads.
- Upgrades are available for increased storage:
25GB for $2.49/month,
100GB for $4.99/month
or 1TB for $49.99/month. - Upgrades also increase Gmail account storage to 25GB.
**My Google Drive page says, “Your Google Drive is not ready yet”—but I clicked, to be notified when it is ready!
Google’s blog post reads,
Today, we’re introducing Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive. You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond.
Source: Laughing Squid
*@TechCrunch: Frustration, Disappointment And Apathy: My Years At Microsoft
This written by Max Zachariades, who spent the last five years at Microsoft in various roles. He blogs under the name Max Zografos.
Salvation involves history; it involves the doctrine of creation; it involves the whole doctrine of man. Therefore it is vitally important that we take the whole of the Scripture, and do not pick and choose and say, because of our new knowledge, certain passages no longer apply.
That is to deny Scripture, the very basis and foundation of our faith, and we know from history that churches, movements, and individuals which have gone astray and become heretical have generally done so because they have started with that fatal distinction; they have ceased to believe, and to accept, the whole of Scripture.
Source: facebook.com
*@Google Drive release is imminent, as @Dropbox & @Skydrive get updates
parislemon: Look To The Sky!
Can’t imagine why both Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive have big updates today. You’d think the entry something else into their airspace was imminent…
Source: parislemon
Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it. But how did he fulfil it? Not by laboriously obeying all the biblical commands, one by one, ticking them off on a mental list. Rather, by doing and being all that Israel was called to do and be. He became the defining point, the blueprint and yardstick, for the people of God. In his death on the cross he offered God the full love, obedience and devotion of heart, mind and soul to which Israel had been called. And in that same death he reached out in love to neighbours far and near, to the whole world for whom he was dying. He became not just the teacher of a new, fulfilled Torah. He was the fulfilled Torah in person.
Source: goo.gl
