"What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that's about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that's shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that's about to be dug up for a building site. You are--strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself--accomplishing something that will be come in due course part of God's new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art of music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read of to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one's fellow human beings and for that matter one's fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God. God's recreation of his wonderful world, which began with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously as God's people live in the risen Christ and in the power of his Spirit, means that what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted. It will last all the way into God's new world. In fact, it will be enhanced there." N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, pp. 219-220 . Your work is not in vain -- because of resurrection.
9/10/2018
What to Do with Your Pain - ABCDE
Pain Makes You a Philosopher (Sermon at West Loop on Sep 9, 2018).
- Accept it, not avoid it.
- Bear with it, behold it, not blur it or bury it.
- Confront it, not complain about it.
- Deal with it, not deny it.
- Embrace it, not erase it.
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