FROMRJ

Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night;

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth and followed Thee.

—Charles Wesley

As this year ends, the question I am asking is: Where was God when so many good things happened this past year?

How can God be a God of justice,
yet allow so much good to happen to people who dishonor him
by disbelieving in him,
or giving lip service to his existence, or paying no more attention to him than the carpet in their den,
or rejecting the kingship of his Son, or scorning his word,
or preferring a hundred pleasures before him?

How can God be righteous
and do so much good to us
who are so unrighteous?

—John Piper, Where was God in all the Goodness of 2012?

For even if the Word in his immeasurable essence united with the nature of man into one person, we do not imagine that he was confined therein.

Here is something marvelous:

the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to be borne in the virgin’s womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet he continuously filled the world even as he had done from the beginning!

—John Calvin

No light so bright

or pine so high

has brought this joy untamed.

This seasons jolly

turns to folly

without two words—

God came.

12.24.12

Infinite and yet an infant.
Eternal and yet born of a woman.
Almighty, and yet nursing at a woman’s breast.
Supporting a universe, and yet needing to be carried in a mother’s arms.
Heir of all things, and yet the carpenter’s despised son.

—Charles Haddon Spurgeon

That man should be made in God’s image is a wonder,
but that God should be made in man’s image is a greater wonder.
That the Ancient of Days would be born.
That He who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle?

—Thomas Watson

Man’s Maker was made man
that the Bread might be hungry,
the Fountain thirst,
the Light sleep,
the Way be tired from the journey;
that Strength might be made weak,
that Life might die.

—Augustine

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we have seen his glory,
glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
(John 1:14)

Dear Lord, if indeed I am Thine,
If Thou art my sun and my song;
Say, why do I languish and pine,
And why are my winters so long?

O drive these dark clouds from my sky,
Thy soul-cheering presence restore;
Or take me unto Thee on high,
Where winter and clouds are no more.

—John Newton

Though these frames sweet

Defeats foreseen

Thine sole repose

This Cornerstone

This wretchedness of mine

is covered by the Christ

whose blood has cleansed my sin

and made me new within.

A broken world we dwell in

much pain and sorrow flow

yet God will surely make things new

yes this much I know.

Taken from Kevin DeYoung’s blog:

Before you set out on a semester of sensuality, before you go lower to feel higher, before you trade in godly character for a hip caricature, consider these wise words from an unlikely source:

“The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease… .Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in search for new sensation. The paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion.

I grew careless of the lives of others.

I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on.

I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber, one has some day to cry aloud from the house-top.

I ceased to be lord over myself.

I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it.

I allowed pleasure to dominate me.

I ended in horrible disgrace.”

(Oscar Wilde, quoted by Gordon MacDonald in Ordering Your Private World)