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Knowledge of the Holy

“We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God’s holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God’s power and admire His wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even imagine. Only the Spirit of the Holy One can impart to the human spirit the knowledge of the holy.”

(A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy , 104)

Spurgeon on 'would-be' eloquence

"The art of saying commonplace things elegantly, pompously, grandiloquently, bombastically, is not lost among us, although its utter extinction were 'a consummation devoutly to be wished.'"

(Lectures to My Students, 84)

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Creating the Church Around...

Living as we do after the Fall but before the Heavenly City, we are in a time when faith is central, and so the Word must be central-- because God's Holy Spirit creates His people by His Word! We can create a people by other means, and this is the great temptation of churches.  We can create a people around a certain ethnicity. We can create a people around a fully-graded choir program. We can find people who will get excited about a building project or a denominational identity. We can create a people around social opportunities for young mothers or Caribbean cruises for singles. We can create a people around men's groups. We can even create a people around the personality of a preacher. And God can surely use all of these things. But in the final analysis the people of God, the church of God, can only be created around the Word of God (Mark Dever, 9 marks of a healthy church, 50).

MIke Doughty | "The Way I See It"

I grabbed a coffee at DFW on our way home last night and was excited to see a thought-provoking quote on a Starbucks cup by an artist I thoroughly enjoy:

The Way I See It #158
"It's tragic the way extremists co-opt the notion of God, and that hipsters and artists reject spirituality out of hand. I don't have a fixed idea of God. But I feel that it's us--the messed-up, the half-crazy, the burning, the questing--that need God, a lot more than the goody-two-shoes do."--Mike Doughty, Musician

RELATED

Mike Doughty @ Myspace
Mike Doughty's Blog
Looking At The World From the Bottom of a Well | youtube video
Doughty Live @ The Fox Theatre (emusic)
Haughty Melodic
Skittish/Rockity Roll

Technorati Tags: God, MikeDoughty, Starbucks, The Way I See It

Quote of the Day

Nothing confirms the immediacy and the immaturity of the blogosphere than seeing an undergraduate publicly rebuke John Piper for his critique of N.T. Wright on justification--before seeing the manuscript!

Justin Taylor, in reference to the comments on this post. Made my day and it's not even 6:00am!

(Welcome back from vacation JT!)

Cormac McCarthy

"In an ideal world the gossip of the idle would be of no consequence. But I have seen the consequences in the real world and they can be very grave indeed" (Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, 136).

Piper on Spiritual Leadership

Spiritual Leadership is: "Knowing where God wants people to be and taking the initiative to get them there by God's means in reliance upon God's power"

(Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry, 11)

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Barth on Youthful Critique of the Church

A helpful caution & reminder for me this afternoon as I read Eberhard Busch's, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts:

There are a great many attractive young men in the church today, who tell us that almost everything must be changed. But they will only be able to indicate a credible new direction for the church when God speaks to them, they give Him a hearing, and can go on to tell others what should replace the present scene (465).

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway:
"Never confuse movement with action."

On Resurrection & Obesity...

"Nor does it necessarily follow that there shall be differences of stature among those who rise again, because they were of different statures during life; nor is it certain that the lean shall rise again in their former leanness, and the fat in their former fatness...The bodies of the saints, then, shall rise again free from every defect, from every blemish, as from all corruption, weight, and impediment. For their ease of movement shall be as complete as their happiness" (St. Augustine, The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, XC-XCI).