“I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations.
“The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, vol. 3, Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy,”
It is not serious provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience etc doesn’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are airing in the cupboard.
The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of His presence.”
Reconstruction
“We tend to think we are put on this earth to make a name for ourselves. The Bible dismantles that notion and replaces it with the knowledge that we are put here to spread God’s reputation and honor. We tend to think God will accept us if we meet a minimum bar of personal goodness. The Bible dismantles that and insists that God accepts us when we lay down the attempt to offer God anything of our own and instead receive his favor based on the work of his own Son.”
Excerpt From
Deeper
Dane C. Ortlund
Let Your Soul Breathe
“You wouldn’t try to go through life holding your breath. So don’t go through life without Bible reading and praying. Let your soul breathe. Oxygenate with the Bible; and breathe out the CO2 of prayer as you speak back to God your wonder, your worry, and your waiting. He is not a force, not an ideal, not a machine. He is a person. Keep open the channel between your little life and heaven itself through the Bible and prayer.
Excerpt From
As you do, you will grow. You won’t feel it day to day. But you’ll come to the end of your life a radiant, solid man or woman. And you will have left in your wake the aroma of heaven. You will have blessed the world. Your life will have mattered.”
Deeper
Dane C. Ortlund
Real Change
“We’re talking about real change. And we’re talking about real change for real sinners. If you confess the doctrine of original sin but at the same time feel yourself to be doing pretty well as a Christian, you can put this book back on the shelf. This book is for the frustrated. The exhausted. Those on the brink. Those on the verge of giving up any real progress in their Christian growth.”
Excerpt From
Deeper
Dane C. Ortlund
Solved: WordPress Not Mobile-Responsive in Safari
My WordPress site stopped returning mobile-friendly web pages to Safari on my iPhone. (Firefox continued to be fine.)
The answer turned out to be clearing the cache of cookies and web data in Safari.
Take a Twig, Leave a Twig
Desert Island with Rhinestones
Be Astonished at Jesus’ Gracious Heart
“This is a book with one point: Be astonished at the gracious heart of Jesus Christ, proven in his atoning work in the past and his endless intercession in the present. Receive his unutterable love for sinners and sufferers. Stop resisting. Let him draw near to you. Gaze upon him.
Excerpt From
As you do so, transformation will come in the back door. If you try to change simply for change’s sake, you can only change your behavior. You can’t change your heart. But mere behavioral change isn’t change at all. Peel your eyes away from yourself—even your change or lack thereof—and ponder Christ.”
Deeper
Dane C. Ortlund
Book Review: Ortlund’s “Deeper”
Look to Christ
“My goal in this book has simply been to coach you into that single, simple, all-determining impulse of the heart: looking to Jesus. If you look to him, everything else is footnotes. All else will fall into place. If you do not look to Jesus, no amount of techniques or strategies will finally help you; all will be for nothing. Peel back every layer of distraction and look to Christ. Simplify your heart and all its cares. Look to Christ and his overflowing heart.”
Excerpt From
Deeper
Dane C. Ortlund