Ah...

Yet another reason why I like Homestarrunner.com

Ah, Mac humor

Found this somewhere...

Awesome quote

I read this the other day, and just found myself praising God that He is more childlike than we are...

[Children] have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough... It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again," to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again," to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
-- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

(No, I'm not reading Orthodoxy. This was found in When I Don't Desire God by John Piper.)

God's Approval

I found this on desiringgod.org, and God really encouraged me by it. Just sharing it in case anyone else would benefit from it, too.

People don’t earn God’s approval or receive life and salvation because of anything they’ve done. Rather, the only reason they receive life and salvation is because of God’s kindness through Christ. There is no other way.

Many Christians are tired of hearing this teaching over and over. They think that they learned it all long ago. However, they barely understand how important it really is. If it continues to be taught as truth, the Christian church will remain united and pure – free from decay. This truth alone makes and sustains Christianity. You might hear an immature Christian brag about how well he knows that we receive God’s approval through God’s kindness and not because of anything we do to earn it. But if he goes on to say that this is easy to put into practice, then have no doubt he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and he probably never will. We can never learn this truth completely or brag that we understand it fully. Learning this truth is an art. We will always remain students of it, and it will always be our teacher.

The people who truly understand that they receive God’s approval by faith and put this into practice don’t brag that they have fully mastered it. Rather, they think of it as a pleasant taste or aroma that they are always pursuing. These people are astonished that they can’t comprehend it as fully as they would like. They hunger and thirst for it. They yearn for it more and more. They never get tired of hearing about this truth.

-Martin Luther, Quoted in Faith Alone

Quick thoughts on the Woman at the Well

Some evangelists talk about Jesus's evangelistic "approach" to the woman at the well as being a way to show her how she's broken God's law and how she needs a Savior -- Him. While it's true that we've broken God's Law and we need a Savior -- Jesus -- the more I read and think of this passage, the more I don't see that as His primary focus. I'd like others input on this to see if I'm not seeing something correctly, too.

He asks her for a drink. She's bewildered that someone from outside her social class would dare ask that. Personally, I normally focus on how He said He would have given her living water if she had known who He was and if she would have asked. But the very first part of His response is, "If you knew the gift of God." His first response to her is about the gift of God -- which is Himself. It was not about, "Here's how you've broken God's Law." She knew that. She knew the Law. She was a Samaritan who regarded the first five books of the Bible. He simply keeps talking to her about this living water, not about her sin first, which I've heard evangelists say is "the model" -- in so many words. When she isn't understanding, then He asks her to get her husband. Looking at the whole conversation, it doesn't seem that His point is that she's broken God's Law, but that she is going to other things that don't satisfy. This is the definition of sin -- going to anything other than God, which won't satisfy, and therefore is insulting to God.

People say that at this point, she attributes at least a prophet status to Jesus, but after that, she "changes the subject" to places of worship. For the first time, I saw God's sovereign hand at work in this conversation: From her viewpoint, she may have been trying to change the subject, or she may not have. However, it's kind of ironic (sarcasm) that the subject she changes it to is about worship -- the very thing that Jesus has been talking about; that is, finding satisfaction in Him, which IS worshiping Him.

After Jesus explains to her (and us) about what true worship is, she says she believes that Messiah will explain everything about it to her. The thing is, He just did explain it to her throughout their conversation -- another example of God's sovereign hand at work again. :) Jesus then revealed that He is the Messiah. What's so amazing is how John records that "left her waterpot." I remember reading somewhere that this is a metaphor of how she has now left her old life of sin (trying to find satisfaction in anything other that God) and wanting the living water.

So, it seems to me that Jesus's main point in His encounter with the woman at the well is about worship and not just the fact that we need a Savior from the wrath of God.