Motivation: Now Shapes Forever

In contemplating the rewards that the Lord has for believers in heaven, I was reminded of God telling Abraham "I am your shield, your very great reward."

Sam Storms says this in his book One Thing: "To think that everyone in heaven is equally knowledgeable, equally holy, equally capable of enjoying God, is to argue that the progress we make now on earth is irrelevant to our heavenly state. But we are often exhorted to do things now precisely because it will build up and increase for us treasure in heaven. Not everyone responds to these commands in the same way or to the same degree or with the same measure of faithfulness. Thus people will enter heaven at differing degrees of holiness, love and joy. All will be subject to increase and expansion based on the depth and measure of our development here on earth. What we do and know and achieve now, by God's grace, will have eternal consequences.
"Your capacity for happiness in heaven is shaped by the development and refinement and depth of your capacity on earth. ... What we experience in joy and understanding and insight now ... is the foundation on which all our eternal experience and growth is based."

That is a reward that truly excites me. God Himself, and more of Him. Forever.

Nancy Wilson on The War on Woman

This may be stating the obvious, but for each abortion, there is a woman. Our streets and offices and homes and schools and churches and malls are full of women, and millions of them have an abortion (or two or more) on their conscience. These women do not have marks on their foreheads so we can identify them. Nevertheless, they carry an unseen burden. Abortion doesn’t just maim and kill babies. It maims and kills women. It kills their femininity; it kills their desire to be womanly; and it certainly kills their capacity to be maternal . . . or to rejoice in others being maternal. The womb is not just the place where physical abortions occur. The womb itself can be spiritually aborted, and that is what is happening around us.

 

Woman is made in the image of God. She is created to be fruitful and created to nurture and nourish that fruit. When she willingly destroys the fruit, she is at war with her very nature and purpose. She is deforming and defacing the essence of her feminine gifts and calling, and this has a hardening and deadening effect on her person and soul. These consequences are as real as the baby is dead.

 

This collateral damage affects our culture at large. Massive, large-scale blood guilt is not inconsequential. It weighs on the individual women (not to mention the husbands, fathers, doctors, judges, and politicians who enable and support abortion). It changes the way women view themselves, their purpose, and their relationships. Everything is expendable. Throw it away. Even the most precious thing in this world is simply trash if we “choose” it to be.

 

Woman’s God-given feminine instinct to protect her young is at the heart of any healthy society. It restrains much lawlessness. Children, being utterly dependent, need safety and security and care. When mothers fiercely protect their own children, all of society learns to back off. But when this barrier of love is broken down, men are free to do awful things. Cruel things. Destructive things.

Abortion makes women hard and heartless. It leaves them estranged from their very nature and estranged from other women who embrace their feminine calling. Society urges them to ignore this and invent themselves all over again, which explains the constant striving and chasing the wind, looking for fulfillment and meaning in a meaningless world. But a creature cannot find meaning and purpose while simultaneously denying the Creator.

 

Finally, we have not been left without an answer. Our Maker has provided a way of forgiveness and restoration. He makes all things new, no matter how defiled they may have become. The Gospel is the Good News. Jesus Christ died for sinners. And it turns out, we are, all of us, a race of sinners. That makes for a perfect fit.

Charity

Some seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge:
That is curiosity;
Others seek knowledge so that they themselves may be known:
That is vanity;
But there are still others who seek knowledge in order to serve and edify others;
And that is charity.
               -- St. Bernard of Clairveaux

Piper: On the Language of the Sense

      "The mighty world of the eye and ear" is always there for us. It is very sad when anyone passes through life oblivious to the joys this world can quicken—like that joyful motion in your chest when from atop Mount Wilson you can see the sun boil its way into the Pacific; or like the quiet gladness of rising before the sun and smog to join the happy birds in welcoming the day.

     There is an intimate relationship, however, between our power to enjoy a sensuous experience and our capacity to describe it with words. In "Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey" Wordsworth is not taken up nearly so much with the joy of revisiting the banks of the Wye as he is with the pleasure this moment will bring him in the coming years "recollected in tranquility."

      To put it simply, without a full and rich language of the sense, we will lose the enduring quality of our sensuous joys, and, what's worse, with the atrophy of our descriptive capacities the power of all our enjoyment languishes. When you cease to use the word "tree" in your vocabulary, you have probably ceased to look at trees.
   
                         

    

 

Excerpt from The Perfect Game by Terrence O. Moore

     At one point, Lanny complained that Rocky would have been the best movie ever except for there being too much "lovey-dovey crap" in it.  Joey, in his innocent way, reflected a minute and then said, "That's funny.  I thought the point was that Rocky couldn't be a great fighter until he had something to fight for."