Taking Joy in the Joy of Others

What happens when you leave a $200 tip?  Watch below.  Giving is way more fun than being selfish.

Tim Keller on Why Relationships Are a Big Deal

“Ultimate reality is a community of persons who know and love one another. That is what the universe, God, history, and life is all about. If you favor money, power, and accomplishment over human relationships, you will dash yourself on the rocks of reality […] 

[it is] impossible […] to stay fully human if you refuse the cost of forgiveness, the substitutional exchange of love, and the confinements of community. 

[…] We believe the world was made by a God who is a community of persons who have loved each other for all eternity. You were made for mutually self-giving, other directed love.  Self-centeredness destroys the fabric of what God has made.”

- Tim Keller, The Reason for God 

The Secret To Freedom in Life

Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making.  Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original:  whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before), you will, nine times out of ten, become original without having noticed it.  The principle runs through life from top to bottom.  Give up yourself, and you will find your real self.  Lose your life and you will save it...  Nothing that you have not given will be really yours...

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 190

Humility and Confidence All in One

The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to died for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.

— Tim Keller, The Reason For God,181

(HT:  OFI)

Thanksgiving of the Damned

Kind of sounds like a Spinal Tap song, right? But it's the title of a great post by Bob Bixby on the true nature of Thanksgiving. Check it out:

I love Thanksgiving. And I can’t wait for the festive time with family and friends. The food. Tons of food. Lots and lots of good stuff. Yes, the cornucopia of blessing is overflowing. But I don’t want to thank God like the damned. I don’t want to celebrate the good things of life like the unjustified Pharisee.

This Thanksgiving millions of Americans will indulge in self-righteousness. And they’ll do it by thanking God. It’s because the notion that prosperity, particularly in health and wealth, are the key tokens of Divine blessing. This is an American ideology even though many do not formally subscribe to the Prosperity Theology that dominates huge swaths of contemporary evangelicalism.

In Luke 18:9-14 Jesus tells about a Pharisee, prosperous in the stuff that mattered to him, went to the temple to pray. There was also in that same place a publican, spiritually broken and alone, praying at the same time. The Pharisee could not help but contemplate on all the advantages that he had over that poor, broken, despised publican and so he thanked God.

Yes, he thanked God!

Read the rest.

"You Offended Me!"

The foolishness of our "I feel offended!" culture summed up perfectly here. I'm sure we have always been this way, but now we just get a front row seat due to the internet.

This video is perfect.

Entitlement and the Local Church

Thom Rainer:

If there is one place where entitlement should be anathema, it is the local church. Remember the reason Jesus came to earth? “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life – a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45, HCSB). And how are we followers of Christ to live? We are to “make (our) own attitude that of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).

Servanthood should dominate the lives of church members. Putting others first should be our first priority. Entitlement has no place in our churches.

How do we know when entitlement becomes pervasive in our churches? We can be sure it’s present when we hear comments similar to these:

• “I have been a member of this church for 20 years, so I deserve things my way.”
• “Someone was sitting in the pew where my family sits.”
• “I tithe to this church, so you work for me.”
• “If I don’t get my way, I’ll withhold my money from the church.”
• “Some people will be in trouble if they mess with the worship the way I like it.”
• “We’ll just visit another church until he changes things back to the way they were.”
• “Why didn’t you visit me? That’s what we pay you to do.”

Read the rest.


Books by Thom Rainer:

• Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them
• The Millennials
• Breakout Churches: Discover How to Make the Leap
• Essential Church?: Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts
• Simple Church