#ian

The logic of the Bible says: Act according to God's "will of command," not according to his "will of decree." God's "will of decree" is whatever comes to pass. "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that" (James 4:15). God's "will of decree" ordained that his Son be betrayed (Luke 22:22), ridiculed (Isaiah 53:3), mocked (Luke 18:32), flogged (Matthew 20:19), forsaken (Matthew 26:31), pierced (John 19:37), and killed (Mark 9:31). But the Bible teaches us plainly that we should not betray, ridicule, mock, flog, forsake, pierce, or kill innocent people. That is God's "will of command." We do not look at the death of Jesus, clearly willed by God, and conclude that killing Jesus is good and that we should join the mockers. ↗

— John Piper

#christian-living #god #sovereignty #death

The difference between shallow happiness and a deep, sustaining joy is sorrow. Happiness lives where sorrow is not. When sorrow arrives, happiness dies. It can't stand pain. Joy, on the other hand, rises from sorrow and therefore can withstand all grief. Joy, by the grace of God, is the transfiguration of suffering into endurance, and of endurance into character, and of character into hope--and the hope that has become our joy does not (as happiness must for those who depend up on it) disappoint us. ↗

— Walter Wangerin Jr.

#grief #death

Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#change

If your life is Christ, then your death will be only more of Christ, forever. If your life is only Christlessness, then your death will be only more Christlessness, forever. That's not fundamentalism, that's the law of non-contradiction. ↗

— Peter Kreeft

#christ #christianity #christlessness #christology #fundamentalism

Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God. ↗

— Bob Pierce

#religion #religion

For the first time in my life I tasted death, and death tasted bitter, for death is birth, is fear and dread of some terrible renewal. ↗

— Hermann Hesse

#death #demian #hermann-hesse #death

The New Testament is a brutal destroyer of human illusions. If you follow Jesus and don't end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do. The stark signifier of the human condition is one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains. The traumatic truth of human history is a mutilated body. ↗

— Terry Eagleton

#death

Without the fear of God, men do not even observe justice and charity among themselves. ↗

— John Calvin

#men

I am accountable. I am correctable. I am transformable. Presenting myself a living sacrifice to God. By the love of God. By the word of God. Completely supplied in Christ Jesus. Unto all good works. ↗

— Carlton T. Brown

#church #inspirational #religion #death

And we neglect the glorious gospel when we fail to recognize his preeminence. How frequently we forget that everything is for him and about him. We forget that he is to be first, in our honor and in our worship. Whenever the gospel slips from our conscious thought, our religion becomes all about our performance, and then we think everything that happens or will ever happen isa bout us. When I forget the incarnation, sinless life, death, resurrection, and ascension, I quickly believe that I'm supposed to be the unrivaled supreme, and matchless one. It's at this point that I'm particularly in need of an intravenous dose of gospel truth. He is preeminent. ↗

— Elyse Fitzpatrick

#gospel #death