Wherewithal To Wonder

“Grace is not opposed to effort, it’s opposed to earning.”

This is huge.

The way that leads to life—to the kingdom—leads through a wartime lifestyle that aims not at the security and ease and prestige of accumulation, but at saving the lost and sending missionaries and feeding the hungry and healing the sick and teaching the simple and dignifying the poor with work and care. And when that lifestyle happens, it is a miraculous gift of God.

-John Piper

In other words, my life should not be—shall not be—about stuff, and getting more, and being comfortable. It should be, and it shall be (through the grace of God [the gift]) about Jesus. What Jesus cared about.

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

I think I may have to choose Hebrews 1 and 2 right now. “Therefore, He (Jesus) had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” And, “For it was fitting for HIm, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.”

Thats just ‘melt your face’ kind of awesomeness right there.