Gospel

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place...

God uses the traits we dislike as well as our weaknesses to create something great, beyond our abilities and imagination. This is the message that pervades the pages of "The Woman with the Book", the biography of the missionary Gladys Aylward.

For centuries, the sacrifice of God the Son and the divine plan for man’s salvation have generated several dilemmas and raised more questions than we could imagine. And the answers that have been found have revealed more implications of the cross than we used to believe, whether we are Christians or non-Christians, believers or skeptics.

Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive. – C.S. Lewis

God is never the one to leave. He is the one who is abandoned. Even when Scripture describes Him as turning His face away, we understand that this is in fact the reluctant and painful recognition of man's decision to go beyond the point of no return in his relationship with God.

Pray! If not to God, then to a god. Admit that we are defeated, because this is the first step towards victory.

Why personalising Christianity could threaten your salvation.

I notice people, and passionately collect their stories. My favourite stories include those small cracks that allow one to peek inside another soul, those moments when their voice is almost imperceptibly altered, the eyes light up for a reason I do not know, and their gestures are unexpected.

Un hombre pasa con un pan al hombro.../Otro busca en el fango huesos, cáscaras/¿Cómo escribir después del infinito?

We have trouble understanding and accepting the image of a loving God, as we have grown too familiar with the type of love that offers itself only when it finds in a person the qualities that make them easy to love.

Contrary to one's initial impression, vigilance is not the main theme of Jesus' parables of "absence and expectation." Absence is central to these stories, because it is absence which enriches them, rather than impoverishing them. Absence is not a shortage, a gap, or a sign of non-existence—it is a catalyst.

What if there was no good news to give us confidence that we could get through the troubles facing us now? What if there was no good news to assure us that we are cherished, loved and supported, that we are not alone?

Why couldn’t God simply have forgiven sinners? Precisely because sinners cannot be forgiven until they completely understand sin, with all its far reaching consequences, or before the wages of sin are paid.

A cold flash, like the strange, icy feeling after a burn, runs through his body with every breath. He feels his heart racing. It feels like it is counting down to the moment when it will explode—or, mercifully, to the moment when he will turn his pillow to the cooler side, and finally fall asleep.

“God's viewpoint is sometimes different from ours—so different that we could not even guess at it unless He had given us a Book which tells us such things.”[1](Corrie ten Boom)