But if you know you’re a sinner saved by sheer grace, you can take it or leave it. You’re free. If money or power comes, there’s a lot you can do with it. But if it starts to go, you know that’s one of the ways the power of God’s Kingdom is going to work in your life. The sword is exiting from your life. The compulsion is dissipating. You work but

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Aren’t we kind of like Peter? We say we’re on the side of justice, of peace, of fairness; but when a challenge arises, we feel for the sword hilt. We merge the kingdom of this world—sword on top, then money, power, success, and recognition—into our philosophy, whether it’s Christianity or something else. We settle for the kiss of death. We’re

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Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you.... (Luke 6:20-22) But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh

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The Passover meal had to be prepared in a certain way and had a distinct form. It included four points at which the presider, holding a glass of wine, got up and explained the feast’s meaning. The four cups of wine represented the four promises made by God in Exodus 6:6-7. These promises were for rescue from Egypt, for freedom from slavery, for

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you really understand the cross, you are blasted out into the world in joyful humility. Now you do not need to help people, but you want to help them, to resemble the One who did so much for you, to bring him delight. Whether you think they are worthy of your service doesn’t come into it. Only the gospel gives you a motivation for unselfish living

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you don’t believe the gospel of grace, says Edwards, if you believe you’re saved by your works, then you’ve never done anything for the love of others or for the sheer beauty of it; you’ve done it for yourself. You haven’t helped the proverbial little old lady across the street just for her sake—or in the end, for God’s sake. You’ve done it because

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Naturally, if you love people, you’re going to worry about them. But do you know where constant worry comes from? It’s rooted in an arrogance that assumes, I know the way my life has to go, and God’s not getting it right. Real humility means to relax. Real humility means to laugh at yourself. Real humility means to be self-critical. The cross

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Richard Hays, a New Testament scholar, has the following observation about this section of the Gospel of Mark: Mark’s vision of the moral life is profoundly ironic. Because God’s manner of revelation is characterized by hiddenness, reversal, and surprise, those who follow Jesus find themselves repeatedly failing to understand the will of God . . .

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Dumbledore replies that “Your mother died to save you. . . . love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign.... [but] to have been loved so deeply ... will give us some protection forever.”51 Why is Dumbledore’s statement so moving? Because we know from experience, from the mundane to the dramatic, that

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