Some quotes from Paul Tripp

     Let's start off with a long quote from Paul Tripp's book "What Did You Expect?".


"Where will you find the reasons to continue working on your marriage in those disappointing moments when those reasons are most needed?  Well, you won't find them in your spouse.  He or she shares your condition; your spouse is still a flawed person in need of God's transforming grace.  You won't find them in the ease of your circumstances.  You still live in a world that is groaning and broken.  You won't find them in surface strategies and techniques; your struggles are deeper than that.  You will only find your reasons to continue by looking up."

"As long as He is Creator, as long as He is sovereign, and as long as He is the Savior, you have reason to get up in the morning and love one another, even though you aren't yet what He created you to be."

     I also got to watch a sermon by Matt Chandler that I was hoping to repost here.  Matt is the pastor of a church in the Dallas, Texas area called The Village.  He is the one who had a brain tumor that had to be removed and he used his blog to keep his family and church family up to date on his progress.  That was the inspiration for Stephanie and I to do the same.  As I said, I was hoping to repost it here but for some reason it was removed.  I am thankful that I took some notes.  Here is one nugget.  "There should be no swagger in the Christian but also no limp."  When we have pride or false humility riding in our lives, the shift has gone from the focus on God to the focus on us.  

     Another great point was God's involvement in our salvation.  Ephesian 2:13 says,

"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ."

     "...have been brought near..." what a point made over and over again in this chapter of what God was doing before you even took a step.  Keeping focus that it is about God and not about us helps us see that we were infinitely guilty but by the grace of God and His outstretched hand we have experienced salvation.  It's not about me, it is about Him.

Adam
A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

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