60 Things to Think About

Dane Ortlund: Listened to some music and thought about Jesus this week. Here’s what I jotted down. 

1. His forgiveness gets down underneath not just our conscious, willful sins, but everything that is broken within us.
 

2. He ate lunch with hookers and crooked businessmen, not the conservative seminary professors.
 

3. Discipleship to him does not involve attaining a minimum level of competency. No resume is needed. Discipleship to him involves humbling ourselves, putting ourselves low, not high, and anyone can do that, if they will simply let Self die and be swallowed up by light and beauty and joy.
 

4. Those in union with him are promised that all the haunted brokenness that infects everything—every relationship, every conversation, every family, every email, every wakening to consciousness in the morning, every job, every vacation—everything—will one day be rewound and reversed.
 

5. Those in union with him are promised that the more darkness and hell we experience in this life, to that degree we will enjoy resplendence and radiance in the next (Rom. 8:17–18).
 

6. He never, ever asks his friends to walk through a trial that he, as the Pioneer-Author-Founder-Trailblazer (archegos: Heb 2:10; 12:2) has not himself, in an even more profound way, gone through himself.
 

7. His sinlessness does not encourage him to be aloof from us, holding us at arms length, but a substitute for us.
 

8. Unlike the laws of ritual cleanliness in Leviticus, Jesus’ touch of messy humans like me does not contaminate him. It cleanses me. In the OT, clean + unclean = unclean. With Jesus, clean + unclean = clean (Mark 1:41).   Continue at Dane Ortlund

Do Not Think On These Things

Since hanging this visual of Philippians 4:8 on my office wall, opposite the door, I have been forced to look at it every time I enter the room. As a result, I’ve been thinking about some of the things that I should not be thinking about. That is, the truth and positive perspective exalted by the Scriptures on this poster, which we must put on, have reminded me of how false and negative some of our thought patterns can be, which must be put off. Therefore, I’ve come up with my own list of opposites, sinful thought patterns we each must put out of our mind while at the same time filling it with truth: “Don’t Think On these Things.”

• Whatever Is False (plane): ideas that are erroneous, wandering, and deceitful. For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit (1 Thess 2:3).
• Whatever Is Dishonorable (atimia): a lifestyle that is degrading and shameful. Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor (2 Tim 2:20).
• Whatever Is Unjust (adikos): actions that are unjust, unrighteous, and wicked. He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much (Luke 16:10, NKJ).
• Whatever Is Impure (akatharsia): any form of impurity and uncleanness. But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints (Eph 5:3). 
• Whatever Is Unbecoming (aschemoneo): behavior that is unseemly, improper, and unsuitable. [Love] does not act unbecomingly (1 Cor 13:5).
• Whatever Is Offensive (proskope): a cause for stumbling. [G]iving no cause for offense in anything, so that the ministry will not be discredited (2 Cor 6:30). 
• Whatever Is Evil (poneros): bad, malignant, wicked, and worthless. [A]bstain from every form of evil (1 Thess 5:22).  Continue at  Paul Tautges