Suffering is actually at the heart of the Christian story.
Interpretation
Suffering is an intrinsic part of the Christian narrative, emphasizing its significance in understanding faith.
Timothy Keller's quote highlights that suffering is a central theme in Christianity, suggesting that it is through suffering that deeper truths and meanings about faith, redemption, and the human experience are revealed. The message indicates that rather than being something to avoid, suffering is essential to the complete understanding of life and spiritual growth within Christian belief.
In practice
In a sermon about faith and resilience, this quote can be used to illustrate how challenges lead to spiritual growth.
Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It's going to be hard but I want to get there.
Only in Jesus Christ do we see how the untamable, infinite God can become a baby and a loving Savior. On the cross we see how both the love and the holiness of God can be fulfilled at once.
All human problems are ultimately symptoms, and our separation from God is the cause.
While your character flaws may have created mild problems for other people, they will create major problems for your spouse and your marriage.
To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.
God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (expecting all change now). In this stage, we embrace the reality that while we're not yet what we will be, we're also no longer what we used to be.
It seems to me, then, that vulnerability and and self-disclosure are at the heart of what we understand about the nature of God. And the reason I believe gay and lesbian people are spiritual people is that we too have participated in vulnerability and self-disclosure, especially in the process of coming-out. When someone shares with you who they really, really are, it is a special offering. To do so when it risks rejection is a profound, holy gift.
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
All things are cause for either laughter or weeping.
Christ exposed Himself not only to the unbridled hostility of angry men, but, more significantly, to the unmitigated wrath of God.
The human condition comprehends more than the condition under which life has been given to man. Men are conditioned beings because everything they come in contact with turns immediately into a condition of their existence. The world in which the vita activa spends itself consists of things produced by human activities; but the things that owe their existence exclusively to men nevertheless constantly condition their human makers.
We talk about heaven being so far away. It is within speaking distance to those who belong there. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people.
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