Their joy Christ visited

“It’s Cana of Galilee, the first miracle. Ah, that miracle! Ah, that sweet miracle! It was not men’s grief, but their joy Christ visited. He worked his first miracle to help men’s gladness.” Father Paissy in The Brothers Karamazov

Philippians 2:5-6

“He was pre-eminent in such attributes as are particularly proper to the form of God. Yet he was not haughty in that form; he did not please himself [Rom. 15:3]; nor did he disdain and despise those who were enslaved and subjected to various evils….

He relinquished that form to God the Father and emptied himself, unwilling to use his rank against us, unwilling to be different from us. Moreover, for our sakes he became one of us and took the form of a servant, that is, he subjected himself to all evils. And although he was free, as the Apostle says of himself also [I Cor. 9:19], he made himself servant of all [Mark 9:35], living as if all the evils which were ours were actually his own….

When each person has forgotten himself and emptied himself of God’s gifts, he should conduct himself as if his neighbor’s weakness, sin, and foolishness were his very own. He should not boast or get puffed up….

Through the figure of the members of the body Paul teaches in Rom. 12 [:4-5] and I Cor. 12 [:12-27] how the strong, honorable, healthy members do not glory over those that are weak, less honorable, and sick as if they were their masters and gods; but on the contrary they serve them the more, forgetting their own honor, health, and power….

You are powerful, not that you make the weak weaker by oppression, but that you may make them powerful by raising them up and defending them. You are wise, not in order to laugh at the foolish and thereby make them more foolish, but that you may undertake to teach them as you yourself would wish to be taught. You are righteous that you may vindicate and pardon the unrighteous, not that you may condemn, disparage, judge, and punish….

But the carnal nature of man violently rebels, for it greatly delights in punishment, in boasting of its own righteousness, and its neighbor’s shame and embarrassment at his unrighteousness. Therefore, it pleads its own case, and it rejoices that this is better than its neighbor’s. But it opposes the case of its neighbor and wants it to appear mean….

It ought to be distressed that the condition of its neighbor is not better than its own. It ought to wish that its neighbor’s condition were better than its own, and if its neighbor’s condition is the better, it ought to rejoice no less than it rejoices when its own is the better. ”

Martin Luther on Philippians 2:5-6

A Christmas thought.....

“I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.” David Livingstone

Artists

‘Artists initiate things… An artist deals with such existential questions that there is a hunger for spiritual questions again.’ Christian Nowatzky

The Bible's purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life...

"The Bible's purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible's purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome... religion is 'if you obey, then you will be accepted'. But the Gospel is, 'if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey'. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference." Tim Keller

Three Kinds of Men

"There are three kinds of people in the world. The first class is of those who live simply for their own sake and pleasure, regarding Man and Nature as so much raw material to be cut up into whatever shape may serve them. In the second class are those who acknowledge some other claim upon them – the will of God, the categorical imperative, or the good of society – and honestly try to pursue their own interests no further than this claim will allow. They try to surrender to the higher claim as much as it demands, like men paying a tax, but hope, like other taxpayers, that what is left over will be enough for them to live on. Their life is divided, like a soldier's or a schoolboy’s life, into time 'on parade' and 'off parade', 'in school' and 'out of school'. But the third class is of those who can say like St. Paul that for them 'to live is Christ'. These people have got rid of the tiresome business of adjusting the rival claims of Self and God by the simple expedient of rejecting the claims of Self altogether. The old egoistic will has been turned round, reconditioned, and made into a new thing. The will of Christ no longer limits theirs; it is theirs. All their time, in belonging to Him, belongs also to them, for they are His.

And because there are three classes, any merely twofold division of the world into good and bad is disastrous. It overlooks the fact that the members of the second class (to which most of us belong) are always and necessarily unhappy. The tax which moral conscience levies on our desires does not in fact leave us enough to live on. As long as we are in this class we must either feel guilt because we have not paid the tax or penury because we have. The Christian doctrine that there is no 'salvation' by works done according to the moral law is a fact of daily experience. Back or on we must go. But there is no going on simply by our own efforts. If the new Self, the new Will, does not come at His own good pleasure to be born in us, we cannot produce Him synthetically.

The price of Christ is something, in a way, much easier than moral effort – it is to want Him. It is true that the wanting itself would be beyond our power but for one fact. The world is so built that, to help us desert our own satisfactions, they desert us. War and trouble and finally old age take from us one by one all those things that the natural Self hoped for at its setting out. Begging is our only wisdom, and want in the end makes it easier for us to be beggars. Even on those terms the Mercy will receive us."

From the collection of C.S. Lewis essays, Present Concerns.

For a perspective on Three Kinds of Men, view The Gospel, Moralism and Irreligion by Pastor Tim Keller.

Where is your salvation, your righteousness?

‘If somebody asks [a Christian], Where is your salvation, your righteousness? he can never point to himself. He points to the Word of God in Jesus Christ, which assures him of salvation and righteousness. He is as alert as possible to this Word. Because he daily hungers and thirsts for righteousness, he daily desires the redeeming Word.’ Dietrich Bonhoeffer