I like Greg Dutcher’s definition of idolatry:

“An idol is a lousy substitute for God.” (from You are the Treasure That I Seek (but there’s a lot of cool stuff out there, Lord, p. 31)

Related post: No Idols (sermon on the Second Commandment)

“Spiritual discipline means simply this: Do what you don’t want to do, and you will become what you want to be.”

    – Patrick Morley (Seven Seasons of the Man in the Mirror, p. 234)

From the Christian Post:

“I have a theory why so many pastors burn out: They start out walking with Jesus but they end up working for Jesus.”

(Pete Briscoe of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrolton, Texas, recalled hearing from someone at a time when he was depressed)

Update: I found a similar saying in Oswald Chambers’ devotional My Utmost for His Highest:

“From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66 ). They turned back from walking with Jesus; not into sin, but away from Him. Many people today are pouring their lives out and working for Jesus Christ, but are not really walking with Him. (Chambers; Devotional for March 9)

“Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say that I am not what I once was — a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.'” (Reference: John Newton, commenting on 1 Corinthians 15:10)

“I think the Discovery Channel should be on a different channel every day.”  -Comic Craig Sharf

Here are two great quotes from R. C. Sproul on Christians and science:

Christians Need Not Fear Scientific Inquiry
“There is a sense in which the Christian should be the most passionate scientist of all because he should be rigorously open to truth wherever it is found. He should not be afraid that a new discovery of something that is true will destroy his foundation for truth. If our foundation for truth is true, all other truth can only support it and enhance it. It can’t destroy it. Therefore, Christians ought not to be afraid of scientific inquiry. This does not mean that we should uncritically accept all pronouncements and pontifications of scientists. Scientists are fallible and may occasionally make arrogant statements that go far beyond the realm of their own expertise.”

Our Age Cries for Talented Christian Scientists!
“Our age cries for talented scientists who see the scientific inquiry as a true vocation and as a response to the mandate of God Himself. Rather than flee from the scientific enterprise or embrace intellectual schizophrenia which only destroys, Christians are needed by the thousands to venture into the realm of nature, armed with the knowledge of grace. We can show that a God who exists on the other side of the wall is concerned with life on this side of that wall.”

Related posts:

• The Bible is to Theology as Creation is to Science
• God’s Providence and Scientific Investigation

“If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen — nothing else matters.”

–Among the last words of historian Jaroslav Pelikan (1923-2006)

Happy Easter!

HT: Of First Importance

The New York Times quotation of the day:

“I knew what I was doing was wrong, indeed criminal,” he said. “When I began the Ponzi scheme, I believed it would end shortly and I would be able to extricate myself and my clients.”

But finding an exit “proved difficult, and ultimately impossible,” he continued, stumbling slightly in his prepared remarks. “As the years went by I realized this day, and my arrest, would inevitably come.” (Bernie Madoff, pleading guilty to a Ponzi scheme involving billions of dollars)

This quote is a sad reminder of how yielding to sin seems like a small thing in the beginning but eventually can take over and ruin a life. It also brings to mind Proverbs 21:6: “A fortune made by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare,” and 1 Timothy 6:9: “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.”

Those are some hard verses to come to terms with. My prayer is that Madoff would also come to experience the truth of these precious verses from the Psalms:

“Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD’ — and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” (Psalm 32:1-5)

As a pastor there are many reasons why I don’t want anyone to put me on a pedestal. William Mounce offers another reason that I hadn’t thought about before:

People want to place their pastors on a pedestal (sometimes so they can get a better shot at them).

HT: Koinonia

“Missions are the test of our faith that the gospel is true.”
    – Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 127

HT: Of First Importance

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
‘Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

(from Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism)

I thought this was a pretty good quote for the New Year.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
    – Gen. Eric Shinseki, former U.S. Army chief of staff