Following are two passages from the first two chapters of a book I have just started reading. "So you don't want to go to church anymore - an unexpected journey", is a book by Jake Colsen which is a pseudonym for the combined work of friends, Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman. So far....I am liking it.
"This is no distant God who sent his Son with a list of rules to follow or rituals to practice. His mission was to invite us into his love - into a relationship with his Father that he described as friendship. But what do we do? We are so quickly captured by a work-driven religious culture that thrives on guilt, conformity and manipulation that it devours the very love it seeks to sustain." (pg. 34)
"Won't it be a joy again to wake up confident about being loved by God every day, without having to earn it by any act of righteousness on your part? That is the secret to first love. Don't try to earn it. Know that you are accepted and loved, not for what you can do for God, or somehow hoping that you will be worthy of his acceptance, but because his greatest desire is to have you as one of his children. Jesus came to remove any obstacle that would prevent that from happening." (pg. 36)
3 comments:
A very good book! Since it's fiction... LOL... or at least told in story form, I have to admit that I haven't read the complete book, but I downloaded it many months ago and I've read various parts of it and I really like it.
The title intrigued me, and as I began reading it the storyline intrigued me as well, but again I have to admit that I have a hard time with long stories (I really love short stories) so I skipped ahead to see what it was all about. :) As I said, I really like what I have read and I've recommended the book to several people.
Parts such as what you quoted, those are the parts I love the most. But that's just me. :>)
You guys really need to get past your fiction phobias - deal with your 'stuff' about that. :)
Do you not know...the Holy Spirit can speak through nature, through music, through unbelievers....yes and even through fiction novels.
If you consider this a long story, Joel....don't even attempt to read "The Gate Seldom Found". It definitely is in the saga category.
Don't know what you're missing, if you don't try it though. Truth is found in the strangest of places so I have heard. :)
In Him
When I'm cooking certain foods, such as my Zesty Chicken and Sausage Gumbo soup, my kids run out of the kitchen with their noses plugged and I tell them, "You don't know what you're missing!" :-D
In a lot of ways I think this all has to do with tastes and the various ways we're all wired by God. When I was a boy I had the book Watership Down, and I started reading it many times. I loved the story and I wanted to finish it all the way through, but I could just never do it. Even on our long 2 or 3 week vacations when I was as bored as could be, I just couldn't sit and read and I would lose interest quickly. By the time I picked it up again, I had to go back to the beginning to reestablish the 'plot' again. So yes, I would never make it through books like The Gate Seldom Found... which is why I rely on your blog and all the wonderful quotes you post!
Truth is found in all kinds of ways, that's for sure. I've found lots of truth through Divine Nobodies, through Metallica songs, through mountain and valley views, through worship music, through a street sign, through my family and dog, and the list goes on of course. God's definitely not hidden in a box somewhere.
One thing that was impressed upon me as I interacted with people in the past week is something that I already knew - but was a great reminder that sunk into my system a little more - is that I should really enjoy and celebrate the variety of ways that the Holy Spirit speaks to people. It's been a great week!
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