Journey of Worship

Posts Tagged ‘QOTW’

“We are to seek to demonstrate in our lives the perfect love that has existed between the Father and the Son through all eternity. It is the reality of love in our lives which will be one of the most powerful means of people in the world seeing the beauty of the message of Christ. By our love people will know that the Father sent the Son into the world. By our love for one another, people will know that we are loved by God.”

- Jerram Barrs, Learning Evangelism from Jesus (Wheaton, Ill.; Crossway Books, 2009), 12.

I once assumed the gospel was simply what non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, while afterward we advance to deeper theological waters. But I’ve come to realize that the gospel isn’t the first step in a stairway of truths, but more like the hub in a wheel of truth. As Tim Keller explains it, the gospel isn’t simply the ABCs of Christianity, but the A-through-Z. In other words, once God rescues sinners, his plan isn’t to steer them beyond the gospel, but to move them more deeply into it.

- Tullian Tchividjian

“Brethren, there is an abiding fullness of truth in Christ; after you have heard it for fifty years, you see more of its fullness than you did at first. Other truths weary the ear. I will defy any man to hold together a large congregation, year after year, with any other subject but Christ Jesus. He might do it for a time; he might charm the ear with the discoveries of science, or with the beauties of poetry, and his oratory might be of so high an order that he might attract the multitudes who have itching ears, but they would in time turn away and say, “This is no longer to be endured. We know it all.”

“All music becomes wearisome but that of heaven; but oh! if the minstrel doth but strike this celestial harp, though he keepeth his fingers always among its golden strings, and be but poor and unskilled upon an instrument so divine, yet the melody of Jesus’ name, and the sweet harmony of all his acts and attributes, will hold his listeners by the ears and thrill their hearts as nought beside can do. The theme of Jesus’ love is inexhaustible, though preachers may have dwelt upon it century after century, a freshness and fullness still remain.

Charles Spurgeon via worshipmatters.com

“… the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.”

- Kevin DeYoung, DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed

“On the Cross we see God doing at the cosmic level what we all have to do when we forgive. There God absorbed the punishment and debt for sin himself. He paid it so we did not have to.”

• Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods (New York, NY: Dutton, 2009), 92.

Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.

- Charles Wesley
http://blog.worshiptogether.com/worshiptogether/2010/03/wesley-on-worship.html

We are defined by our relationship with [God]! In a world that beckons people to define themselves by false and fading identities based on looks, intelligence, wealth, power, or success, this is good news! Unlike worldly definitions of identity, our identity and inheritance in Christ never fades (1 Peter 1:3-4).

- Michael R. Emlet, CrossTalk (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2009), 75.

“God is near at hand when you do approach Him in prayer. Oh, comforting truth! A God at hand to hear the softest breath of prayer–to listen to every confession of sin–to every cry of need–to every utterance of sorrow–to every wail of woe–to every appeal for counsel, strength, and support. Arise, O my soul! and give yourself to prayer; for God is near at hand to hear and answer you.”

- Octavius Winslow

“God saw Abraham’s sacrifice and said, ‘Now I know that you love me, because you did not withhold your only son from me’ [Gen. 22:12]. But how much more can we look at his sacrifice on the Cross, and say to God, ‘Now, we know that you love us. For you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love, from us.’ When the magnitude of what he did dawns on us, it makes it possible finally to rest our hearts in him rather than in anything else.”

• Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods (New York, NY: Dutton, 2009), 18.

“… the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.”

- Kevin DeYoung, DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed

Profound.