“In our presentation of the Gospel we often focus on what Jesus can do for us.  Now don’t get me wrong.  Jesus does a lot for us.  He forgives us, reconciles us with God, gives us meaning and eternal life.  But the most important thing about Jesus is He gives us Himself.  We have so emphasized the rewards of following Christ that we have forgotten that following Him, being with Him, knowing Him, and calling Him ‘Friend’ and ‘Elder Brother’ are far more wonderful and important than anything else.”        –Steve Brown

I’m interested to read the article, if not the book. Tim Stafford had an article Listening to Chinese Christians in the March/April issue of Books and Culture on a book by Liao Yiwu, God Is Red.

“Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed, to consider well [that] the maine end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, Jn.17:3, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning.” –Found in Engaging God’s World, by Cornelius Plantinga

Struck me because Hab 2:14 and 3:2 have His people longing for the expansion of His fame—and this means to all people and all spheres of life. (Wish I’d have found this quote yesterday.)

“Beware of watching these Dispatches if you don’t like being moved and inspired and shaken out of the ruts of your life. My wife and I were riveted in watching the frontline reports of God’s work recorded in the Dispatches from the Front. This is the sort of information that builds faith in the present providence of God over his mission, and stirs up action for the sake of lost and hurting people near and far. I would love to see thousands of people mobilized as senders and goers for the sake of the glory of Christ and the relief of suffering on the frontiers, especially eternal suffering.”
—John Piper, author of Desiring God; Pastor for Preaching and Vision, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis

In the November 2002 issue of Perspectives, Nicholas Wolterstorff gave his definition for a “Reformed lifestyle.”

“It’s a style of life that gives prominence to the conviction that God is creator; hence it is that we give thanks to God for the goodness that surrounds us. Secondly, it incorporates a deep and powerful sense of the fallenness of all things, understood in such a way that there is a strong impulse to resist all attempts to draw lines in the sand, with the explanation that human fallenness occurs on this side of the line and not on that side of the line. Fallenness runs throughout our entire existence–indeed, through the cosmos. Corresponding to this comprehensive view of sin is then an equally comprehensive view of faith and salvation… In short, I think that at the heart of the Reformed tradition is a passion for totality, for wholeness, for integrity, for not allowing life to fall into bits and pieces but to constantly ask, ‘What does my faith–what does the gospel of Jesus Christ–have do with this and what does it have to do with that?’ And then never being content with the answer, ‘Nothing!’”