.. The incarnation is the complete refutation of every human system and institution that claims to control, possess, and distribute God. Whatever any church or religious leader may claim in regard to their particular access to God or control over your experience of God, the incarnation is the last word: God loves the world. God came into the world in the form of the people he created, the human race (including you and me), who bear his image. God's creation of humanity in his image gives hints of who he is, since we all are marked by his fingerprints. But as flawed humans, we give only a vague hint of God. Our broken reflection of God's image is easily drowned out by our broken humanity. Then, two thousand years ago, God came in his fullness. He came to all of us in Jesus. The incarnation is not owned, trademarked, or controlled by any church. It belongs to every human being. The incarnation is not something that requires a distributor or middleman. It is a gracious gift to every person everywhere, religious or not. God gave himself to us in Jesus.
spirituality jesus incarnation
I see the Christian world like this: we've inherited a divided map of the truth, and each of us has a piece. Our traditions teach us that no one else has a valid map and that our own church's piece shows us all the terrain and roads that exist. In fact, there is much more terrain, more roads, and more truth for us to see if we can accept and read one another's maps, fitting them together to give us a clearer picture of the larger Christian tradition.
truth spirituality jesus
You can't get too far into the Gospels without noticing that Jesus made a pretty lousy apologist.
spirituality jesus
The human experience of weakness is God's blueprint for calling attention to the supremacy of his Son. When miserably failing people continue to belong to, believe in, and worship Jesus, God is happy.
weakness spirituality jesus
At the foundation of the Christian life, there is a kind of sacred individuality, a sort of holy aloneness that cries out to be left alone with God. This isn't all of the Christian life. It doesn't erase those parts of a Christian's experience that happen in the context of relationships, but this sacred solitude needs to be discovered, respected, and protected. It is that place where we most irrefutably hear God tell us that he loves us, and we come to know that, no matter what other people may say about us or do to us, God will not abandon us. That holy solitude is the place where we find God's Spirit changing our affections and redirecting our identities. It is, for Jesus-followers, holy ground.
solitude spirituality jesus
Jesus never asked me to give to an organization the kind of exclusive devotion he demands from his disciples. Over and over, Jesus calls people to himself - out of the church, the culture, the economy, and the family.
Jesus is compelling in the way the discovery of the stars or the experience of a one-of-a-kind romance is compelling. His presence draws you in to the deep.
People settle for so much less because they find their identities in the world's fickle and untrue opinions. God made you royal with His blood. Live.
christianity inspirational self-esteem spirituality encouragement jesus flyleaf mosley nicole
He came to put a harlot above a Pharisee, a penitent robber above a High Priest, and a prodigal son above his exemplary brother. To all the phonies and fakers who would say that they could not join the Church because His Church was not holy enough, He would ask, 'How holy must the Church be before you will enter into it?' If the Church were as holy as they wanted it to be, they would never be allowed into it! In every other religion under the sun, in every Eastern religion from Buddhism to Confucianism, there must always be some purification before one can commune with God. But Our Blessed Lord brought a religion where the admission of sin is the condition of coming to Him. 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are ill.
christianity religion spirituality sin christ jesus the-church
At the same time, we may not as a culture be fond of old-fashioned supernaturalism, but we certainly like spirituality in whatever form we can get it. I suspect that if anyone other than Jesus (Krishna, say, or Buddha) were suddenly put forward as being due for a second coming, millions in our postsecular society would embrace such a thing uncritically, leaving Enlightenment rationalism huffing and puffing in the rear. We are a puzzled and confused generation, embracing any and every kind of nonrationalism that may offer us a spiritual shot in the arm while lapsing back into rationalism (in particular, the old modernist critiques) whenever we want to keep traditional or orthodox Christianity at bay.
spirituality new-age jesus enlightenment
When we look down on each other and when we look down on ourselves, we look at ourselves and don't like what we see or other people and make fun of that, we're not maing fun of them or ourselves. We're talking about God and his art and his child, his creation. That was his idea to make you the way you are and he didn't make a mistake. And even though everything comes against us and tries to get us to believe lies about who we are and about the love of God that we can still decide to believe. Sometimes it is a decision. Sometimes it's just a decision. I don't care what I feel like, I don't care what it looks like I'm going to believe that you love me.
christianity inspirational self-esteem spirituality jesus flyleaf mosley nicole
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
people christianity religion depression spirituality joy easter
Self-talk reflects your innermost feelings.
kindness peace humanity psychology self-esteem self-worth spirituality joy spiritual-life psychological self-talk
As spiritual searchers we need to become freer and freer of the attachment to our own smallness in which we get occupied with me-me-me. Pondering on large ideas or standing in front of things which remind us of a vast scale can free us from acquisitiveness and competitiveness and from our likes and dislikes. If we sit with an increasing stillness of the body, and attune our mind to the sky or to the ocean or to the myriad stars at night, or any other indicators of vastness, the mind gradually stills and the heart is filled with quiet joy. Also recalling our own experiences in which we acted generously or with compassion for the simple delight of it without expectation of any gain can give us more confidence in the existence of a deeper goodness from which we may deviate. (39)
generosity confidence meditation stillness spirituality compassion goodness joy attachment expectations quiet
Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.
spirituality joy
Joy is thankfulness, and when we are joyful, that is the best expression of thanks we can offer the Lord, Who delivers us from sorrow and sin.
christianity spirituality joy eastern-orthodoxy thankfulness
Peace and supreme joy may seem like end-states to practitioners on more difficult spiritual paths, but the path of devotion should be filled with peace and joy from the very beginning. Their absence is an indication that something is amiss. (125)
peace spirituality devotion joy
It is when our inner male and female sides meets within ourselves that a new spark of love, joy, and wholeness arises within ourselves.
meditation spirituality joy awareness wholeness inner-man-and-woman female male
When both our inner man and woman takes responsibility for themselves and lives their own truth, a joy and love begins to flow naturally between them. Healing means to develop the inner man and woman so that love can flow between them. Healing is to learn to love both our inner man and woman. It is to learn to live the truth of both the inner man and woman.
truth meditation spirituality relationships healing responsibility joy awareness inner-man-and-woman female male
When we stop judging others and ourselves, our heart begins to open.
meditation spirituality heart joy acceptance judgement
Fear and hate create separation, love and joy creates belongingness and wholeness.
meditation spirituality fear hate joy separation
The human heart is a healer, which heals both others and ourselves.
meditation spirituality heart healing joy
Meditation is the way to be with ourselves and to learn to accept our own aloneness. In aloneness, I experiment with being consciously alone as a door to be egoless. In conscious aloneness, the ego can not function. In aloneness, you are not. I have always been comfortable with my own aloneness as an inner source of love, joy, truth, silence and wholeness. When we depend on other people, it becomes a bondage - instead of a freedom. I took this sunday as a meditation to be consciously alone, and to accept all feelings of pain, of not being loved and the fear of being nobody that would come up during the meditation. This meditation goes up and down during the day: at certain moments, I can totally accept my aloneness. It feels fine to accept that I am alone and that I am nobody. At other moments, I feel the pain of not being loved, when the meditation brings up how dependence on other people is a barrier to totally accept my aloneness. I take a coffee at a restaurant. I am the only person that sits alone in the restaurant, while the other guests are couples and families eating sunday dinner. It brings up painful feelings of not being loved and wanting to be needed by other people, when I see how much people cling to each other in the couples and the families. Escaping your aloneness through relationships and needing other people's attention through being a teacher, a politician or by being rich or famous, are ways of escaping the pain of aloneness. But then the relationships are not really love. Only when you are capable of being alone, you can really love. When we can be alone, we discover the inner source of love, which is our true nature. When we can be alone, it open the door to be one with the Whole.
silence fame pain truth spirituality relationships fear joy dependence awareness whole aloneness politician
Intuition is a trust that if we follow our heart, if we follow our love, joy and truth, the Whole becomes enriched.
life meditation spirituality joy awareness intuition
It's not the law of religion nor the principles of morality that define our highways and pathways to God; only by the Grace of God are we led and drawn, to God. It is His grace that conquers a multitude of flaws and in that grace, there is only favor. Favor is not achieved; favor is received.
grace life religion inspirational spirituality inspirational-life inspirational-quotes life-and-living spirit law favor grace-of-god
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