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Elegance, for the Christian, is simply a thousand actions washed in the blood and carrying the sweet savor of Jesus’ love. It is, above all, the seamless garment of worship and witness.  - Harold M. Best “Unceasing Worship” 

This song captures why heaven will be such bliss. Christ our Sovereign King and Treasure is there. And we will worship Him there forever and ever. 

““Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!””

(Revelation 5:12 ESV)

Great advice from Rick Hogaboam on “Ten Reasons Why Calvinists Should Show More Humility”. I especially loved his insight in item number 6, “It’s His beauty that attracted us, not our intellect.”

As a Calvinist one of my goals in loving my Arminian brothers and sisters is breaking the stereotypes that all Reformed types are intellectual snobs who would rather argue doctrine than worship Jesus. Doctrine is very important, but the point of doctrine is the worship of Christ.  

So for my Reformed brothers and sisters give Rick’s post some thought in regards to our humility, and for my Arminian brothers and sisters just know some Calvinists (By God’s Grace!) are working hard towards not being jerks. :~)

A direct link to the post.

http://endued.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/top-10-reasons-why-calvinists-should-show-more-humility/

 

 

I recently heard this great quote while listening on-line to a sermon from Matt Chandler at the Village Church. He said something along these lines. “We don’t follow Jesus because he makes things better, We follow Jesus because He is Better” and “We don’t follow Jesus because he makes life better, We follow Jesus because he is better than life”. Here in a couple of sentences you have the heart of what all true lovers of Christ profess. It crosses all denominations and cultures and is the only sure sign of a redeemed soul. We can talk all day about how much we are thankful and desirous of God’s blessings, we can shout and dance till our voices and bodies give out in praise for what he has done for us, and we should!. But it must go much deeper than that. We must move beyond thankfulness for His gifts, into worship for who He is! Until we can say “Jesus is better than life” we have not yet seen him nor worshipped Him as God. we have seen Him only as a means to a treasure but not “The Treasure”. My desire for my life and for the church as a whole is that we so speak, think and act that it is crystal clear why we follow Jesus. “He is better than all His gifts and blessings. He is better than safety comfort and shelter, He is better than family, friends and Church, He is better than life.”

Faith is the evidence that we have been born of God. We do not make ourselves born again by deciding to believe. God makes us willing to believe by causing us to be born again. - John Piper “Future Grace”