Present Joys

Never wear a hat that has more character than you.

Utah Phillips

The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar of 1500-year-old, 200 proof grace—a bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel—after all these centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your own bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home-free before they started. Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale.

Robert Farrar Capon

I know nothing harder than making good people believable.

Flannery O’Connor (via dailyflanneryoc)

John Murray’s book Redemption: Accomplished and Applied is pretty freaking great:

It is frequently objected that this doctrine [particular redemption] is inconsistent with the full and free offer of Christ in the gospel. This is grave misunderstanding and misinterpretation. The truth really is that it is only on the basis of such a doctrine that we can have a free and full offer of Christ to lost men. What is offered to men in the gospel? It is not the opportunity of salvation. What is offered is salvation.

Resolve that today you will press the Bible app three times during the day. No five times. Ten times! Maybe you will lose control and become addicted to Bible! Again and again get a two-minute dose of life-giving Food. Man shall not live by Facebook alone.

John Piper (I love the way this man talks about social media.)