Here's a quote I found the other day. I like it a lot..
fast from criticism, and feast on praise;
fast from self-pity and feast on joy;
fast from ill-temper and feast on peace;
fast from resentment and feast on contentment;
fast from jealousy and feast on love;
fast from pride and feast on humility;
fast from selfishness and feast on service;
fast from fear, and feast on faith.
-Arthur Lichlenburger
Showing posts with label Quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quotes. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
The Vision
This is a poem by Pete Greig that I first heard at my Perspectives class. It's our prayer, and hope, to be part of this movement. It is starting, there's no denying. It's been growing since the beginning of the church. Sometimes she, the church, is off track. She's still the church though, and in truth, aren't we all a little off? This is the heart of the church, I hope. This is what I, and many others, see stirring in our society, in these times.
The Vision - By Pete Greig
So this guy comes up to me and says:
“what’s the vision? What’s the big idea?”
I open my mouth and words come out like this:
The vision?
The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army.
And they are FREE from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn’t even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to loose,
that they might one day win
the great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don’t need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”
And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground
And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners. Martyrs.
Who can stop them ?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them ?
And the generation prays
like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive
Inside.
On the outside? They hardly care.
They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don’t you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo’s! Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.
They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be.
It will come to pass;
it will come easily;
it will come soon.
How do I know?
Because this is the longing of creation itself,
the groaning of the Spirit,
the very dream of God.
My tomorrow is his today.
My distant hope is his 3D.
And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from hero’s of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.
The Vision - By Pete Greig
So this guy comes up to me and says:
“what’s the vision? What’s the big idea?”
I open my mouth and words come out like this:
The vision?
The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army.
And they are FREE from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn’t even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to loose,
that they might one day win
the great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don’t need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”
And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground
And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners. Martyrs.
Who can stop them ?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them ?
And the generation prays
like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive
Inside.
On the outside? They hardly care.
They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don’t you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo’s! Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.
They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be.
It will come to pass;
it will come easily;
it will come soon.
How do I know?
Because this is the longing of creation itself,
the groaning of the Spirit,
the very dream of God.
My tomorrow is his today.
My distant hope is his 3D.
And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from hero’s of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Pride
Ever feel like you want to start over? Let's erase the slate, start a new day, you know the lingo.
I like to sound smart. I like to know what I'm talking about (or at least soundlike I do). Just when I think I'm starting to get things figured out, God decides, meh you need to chill out. And then He wipes the slate clean for me, in a manner of speaking.
I like it this way too though. I mean, I'd like to think I'm smart and can figure things out but really, everything I think I know is only a shadow of what really is. Like life on earth is a shadow of eternity, my thoughts are a breath in comparison to real Truth.
Maybe this is confession week. My last blog was something of a confession as well. It's good to be humbled. Actually, I think that real humility is not so much a 'thinking less of oneself' sort of thing but more of a 'thinking more of others' sort of thing. If I am thinking less of myself, I'm really not. Just sounds like I am. I'm still thinking of myself, it's what I do most of, and it is a form of pride. If I were truly being humble, I wouldn't be talking about me at all.
In that book by Rick Joyner (it's at home, I'll have to give you the name of the book later... something about a Quest...) his vision stresses the hurtful effects of pride. It's incredible (and not in a good way) how affected I am by pride. The only way to avoid it, in my opinion, is to think about other people more than I think about myself. That, would be a miracle. There's not other way it could happen, only by divine intervention. In essence, then, Love is the cure for pride.
It's all about love. Now I have a song from RENT running through my head. Tangent.... Here are some verses I borrowed from another blog....
don't make a show of your religion in order to attract attention to yourself. -matt 6:1
whenever you do someone a favour, don't tell the world about it. - matt 6:2
always treat other people as you would like them to treat you. - matt 7:12
do not treat children with contempt. - matt 18:10
treat older people with respect. - luke 18:20
just love your neighbour as yourself. - luke 10:27
how sad it is for you who neglect to do justice. - luke 11:42
stop judging people by mere appearances. - john 7:24
whoever want to be a leader should be a servant of all. - matt 20:26
All of these are about love and true humility. A true reflection of Christ. Oh that the reflection would not be mirrored by words alone!
I like to sound smart. I like to know what I'm talking about (or at least soundlike I do). Just when I think I'm starting to get things figured out, God decides, meh you need to chill out. And then He wipes the slate clean for me, in a manner of speaking.
I like it this way too though. I mean, I'd like to think I'm smart and can figure things out but really, everything I think I know is only a shadow of what really is. Like life on earth is a shadow of eternity, my thoughts are a breath in comparison to real Truth.
Maybe this is confession week. My last blog was something of a confession as well. It's good to be humbled. Actually, I think that real humility is not so much a 'thinking less of oneself' sort of thing but more of a 'thinking more of others' sort of thing. If I am thinking less of myself, I'm really not. Just sounds like I am. I'm still thinking of myself, it's what I do most of, and it is a form of pride. If I were truly being humble, I wouldn't be talking about me at all.
In that book by Rick Joyner (it's at home, I'll have to give you the name of the book later... something about a Quest...) his vision stresses the hurtful effects of pride. It's incredible (and not in a good way) how affected I am by pride. The only way to avoid it, in my opinion, is to think about other people more than I think about myself. That, would be a miracle. There's not other way it could happen, only by divine intervention. In essence, then, Love is the cure for pride.
It's all about love. Now I have a song from RENT running through my head. Tangent.... Here are some verses I borrowed from another blog....
don't make a show of your religion in order to attract attention to yourself. -matt 6:1
whenever you do someone a favour, don't tell the world about it. - matt 6:2
always treat other people as you would like them to treat you. - matt 7:12
do not treat children with contempt. - matt 18:10
treat older people with respect. - luke 18:20
just love your neighbour as yourself. - luke 10:27
how sad it is for you who neglect to do justice. - luke 11:42
stop judging people by mere appearances. - john 7:24
whoever want to be a leader should be a servant of all. - matt 20:26
All of these are about love and true humility. A true reflection of Christ. Oh that the reflection would not be mirrored by words alone!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
