Our God dies to conquer death. Can yours do that?

No human experience is closed to God. We cannot put a sign outside any area of human life that says “God has no business here,” “God may not enter.” We [may] set up obstacles and roadblocks, but the Lord bursts in regardless...
                                                                                                  ...Jesus’ death does not contradict His sovereignty. It is a revelation of His sovereign Lordship. Jesus’ life and death reveals that God is Lord not only over all things He is Lord in all things.

Read more of that here

Best response to food fadists

This is nicked from an edition of The Spectator:

A certain Lord X, in his RSVP to a posh dinner writes:

Lord X thanks Bentley Entertainments greatly for the kind invitation and accepts with pleasure. Regarding his dietary requirements, Lord X does not eat, mushrooms, gravy, aubergine, capers, artificial sugar (or natural sugar for that matter) & wine that is not from the Burgundy region. He is technically glutten-free, wheat intolerant, diary-free and also cannot eat fruit, however he will forgo this for apples. He does like peas and steak.

 

The reply to Lord X goes as follows:

Dear Lord X, we are delighted you can attend the dinner but, having noted your complex dietary requirements, suggest you eat before you come.

What a eulogy! (have some kleenex nearby)

I'd never heard of Monty Williams before, but earlier this month, his wife of 20 years and mother of his 5 children was killed in a head on car accident. What Monty Williams said at her funeral is at once stirring and startling (especially if you're not a Christian!). As a husband of nearly 6 years, I watched what he said with both heartache and tremendous admiration. I commend it to you below but I warn you, have some kleenex nearby...

Mission agencies are you listening?

From Mark Jones at Reformation 21

In my opinion, Africa doesn't need missionaries from other continents in the same way they may have in past generations. Africa needs Africans, whatever colour, to be trained to minister to their own people. 

A salutary word to many of the mission agencies among whom it has been all the rage to talk about (and prioritise) reaching the unreached. Whilst I understand this zeal for evangelization, I have become convinced that for most of sub Saharan Africa what is most needed is not so much the reaching of the lost, as it is to disciple of the nations. This in fact is what Jesus calls the Church to do and something that is often overlooked in the Great Commission.

Knowing the Bible is not enough

This is a point well made by Jesus (and by his brother James) and cleverly illustrated by the brilliant Adam4d:

Abolishing marriage destroys the Church

Make marriage in any serious degree unstable, dissoluble, destroy the permanency of marriage, and the Church falls. Witness the enormous decline of the Church of England.

— D H Lawrence (1885-1930); staggering to think how prophetic such a twisted and messed up man was. Kyrie Eleison.

European men are soft and irresponsible...

...says the Danish journalist below, following the tepid response that German men had to the recent sexual abuse many of their women received at the hands of Muslim men. The sad thing is the interviewer doesn't really want to consider this painful reality and instead pretends there isn't any problem. When is Europe going to wake up?