BIBLICAL AND RELEVANT

I have long been convinced that it's not too difficult to be Biblical if you don't care about being relevant, and it's not too difficult to be relevant if you don't care about being Biblical. But to be Biblical and relevant is really the assignment confronting the seminary today. If we're going to impact a generation we cannot afford to become disengaged from the society to which God has called us to minister.

-- Dr. Howard Hendricks, Dallas Theological Seminary


#2494

THE FULL MEASURE OF GOD'S SALVATION

The deepest longing in a person's heart is to have a relationship with God. When we open the Scriptures, we are surprised to discover how much God desires for His people to have a love relationship with Him. In fact, the more we study the Scriptures, the more we are overwhelmed at the greatness of God's salvation and the love relationship that He seeks to develop with us. God's salvation set in motion everything He intended to accomplish in us. If we do not understand the extent of God's accomplished work on our behalf, we will never experience abundant life, nor will we fulfill God's purpose for our lives. God is not primarily interested in making us successful; instead, His heart desires for us to experience the full measure of His great salvation.

-- Henry Blackaby and Melvin D. Blackaby in Experiencing God Together: God's Plan to Touch Your World


#2493

THREE-DIMENSIONAL OBEDIENCE

The quest for the lost soul of Christianity always leads us back to the Bible. But discovering the wonders of Scripture requires more than reading. That's where the quest begins, but that's not where it ends. Not if you want to get it into your soul. You have to meditate on it. Then you have to live it out. Meditating on it turns one-dimensional knowledge into two-dimensional understanding. Living it out turns two-dimensional understanding into three-dimensional obedience.

-- Mark Batterson in Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity


#2492

TRUE REPENTANCE

Repentance is not necessarily the gloomy and self-loathing practice it is sometimes made out to be. To repent is not to be confirmed in what that little voice within keeps whispering: that you are no good, that everything bad that happens to you is your own fault, that if only others knew what you were really like, they would cease to care for or be interested in you. No.

True repentance begins with the felt knowledge that we are loved by God… Repentance consists not so much in flagellating ourselves over our "failures" as in courageously and painstakingly reorienting our priorities, unlearning old patterns, turning our faces, like the sunflower, toward the dawning of the light of God.

-- Wendy M. Wright in The Vigil: Keeping Watch in the Season of Christ's Coming (Nashville, Tenn.: Upper Room Books, 1992, used with permission)


#2491

GOD CONSCIOUSNESS

"Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God." (1 Peter 1:18, The Message)

God consciousness is the most primal form of consciousness. And the longer we journey, the more aware of His presence we become, until we see Him everywhere all the time. Spiritual maturity has nothing to do with circumstances. It has everything to do with consciousness. A relationship with Christ doesn’t always change our circumstances, but it does change the way we see ourselves, see others, and see God. Why? Because we see with our souls. We become less self-conscious and more God-conscious. It's almost like a second childhood. As we capture a childlike sense of wonder, we perceive everyone and everything for what it really is: a miracle.

-- Mark Batterson in Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity


#2490