5 reasons why singing the praises of JESUS is not stupid, boring or ‘old school’

 

In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom we made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.

Hebrews 1:1-4 [NIV]

  1. Jesus is the final and definitive revelation of God and all reality to us.
  2. When we sing to Jesus, we are singing to the Creator of all things.
  3. When God wanted to reveal what he was like, Jesus was the answer – we see Jesus, we see God, as God wanted us to see him and know him.
  4. He is the one who continues to keep all things going right now, this very instant, including the breath in my lungs to utter a phrase or the movement in my fingertips to type these words.
  5. He did the work of sacrifice to overcome the train-wreck that I made and continue to make of honouring God, when he died for my sins on the cross and rose again from the dead.

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view over Manly (bay)

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What was going on with the people who received ‘Hebrews’?

3 things, according to O’Brien:

1. Passive dangers

Continually throughout the letter, there are  signs that the recipients have developed ‘a certain weariness in pursuing the  Christian goal, or making progress along the road of Christian discipleship’.

2. Active dangers

The author warns many times about the seriousness of rebellion and ‘falling away’.

3. External and Outward Pressures

People giving them a hard time for being Christians, bringing suffering through persecution.

[P.T.O’Brien, The Letter to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010: 9-13.] (citing Ellingworth)

Keller, in some sermons I have listned to, reckons the people who received Hebrews are those who are asking the question: if God is for us, committed to our God, and has redeemed us for all eternity, then why is it so hard living for him right now?

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Hello world!

Welcome to 2012, and a new blog.

With all the bits of the old blog thrown in for free.

 

I’ve decided to switch homes to WordPress, and see how we go.

I’ve also decided to blog something (anything!) at least once a week from here on in, and see how we go.

There will be a mixture of stuff that I’m reading, and maybe even the odd rant now and again. Who knows? Not even me at this stage.

So here we go, into a brave new, heavily charted territory.

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Puppets + Christmas + Bohemian Rhapsody = brilliant!

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Let Me Introduce You: Panel Discussion #4 – With Stuff…Why?

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Let Me Introduce You: Panel Discussion #3 – With a Body…Why?

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Let Me Introduce You: Panel Discussion #2 – Totalled…Really?

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Rescuing Ambition

“God makes our forward momentum his business. That’s why so much of Scripture is dedicated to getting us walking, keeping us moving, and ensuring that we finish our course. But if God truly desires our forward momentum, why does it sometimes feel like I’m banging my glass head against a stone wall? My longings for impact are confusing and fragile; I just don’t know what I should do. Or maybe I’m not the ambitious type. I hunger for nothing more than a good magazine and a peaceful place to read it.God has an agenda: it’s to change us into the image of his Son. And one way he brings about this change is through our dreams and ambitions. God works in us through that to which we aspire.Sometimes God brings our dreams to life; sometimes he doesn’t. But how we respond to his work becomes an important intersection for change in our lives. As we cooperate with him, we discover that it’s not ultimately about nailing the promotion,or raising well‐behaved kids, or wining the Daytona 500 – as good as all those things may be. It’s about something much bigger: how I become like Christ while I pursue those dreams.Do you understand your relationship with God that way? He doesn’t need us to get things done, but he delights to use us, so he must shape us for his service. That’s exactly what creates godly ambition – the activity of God in us and around us to ultimately work through us.”Dave Harvey, Rescuing Ambition (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 90‐1.

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On the Resurrection Body

Body, therefore, affirms the biblical tradition of a positive attitude toward physicality as a condition for experiencing life in its fullness, but also assimilates, subsumes, and transcends the role of the physical in the public domain of earthly life
Hence it would be appropriate to conceive of the raised body as a form or mode of existence of the whole person including every level of intersubjective communicative experience that guarantees both the continuity of personal identity and an enhanced experience of community which facilitates intimate union with God in Christ and with differentiated “others” who also share this union. 
If the marriage bond, e.g., ceases at death, this is also not because the the resurrection body offers any “less,” but because interpersonal union is assimilated and subsumed into a “more” that absorbs exclusivity but “adds” a hitherto unimagined death. 
Such mutuality of union and respect for difference, however, presupposes a “pattern of existence controlled and directed by the Holy Spirit“, and a mode of existence designed by God for the new environment of the eschatological new creation. 
(emphasis his, paragraph spacing mine)
Anthony Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 2000), 1279.

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