Michael Horton
Michael Horton
garden church stage
God's church is not a stage for us to perform on but a garden for us to grow in.
temptation doubt able
Faith in Christ is able to endure doubts-it's able to endure temptations-bec ause it faces them, not because it pretends they're not there.
spiritual opportunity weakness
Our weaknesses are an opportunity for God to show his strength.
focus changed testimony
If the focus of our testimony is our changed life, we as well as our hearers are bound to be disappointed.
bible christian expectations
Once we truly grasp the message of the New Testament, it is impossible to read the Old Testament again without seeing Christ on every page, in every story, foreshadowed or anticipated in every event and narrative. The Bible must be read as a whole, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelation, letting promise and fulfillment guide or expectations for what we will find there.
religious teaching names
The object is evident in the name of the discipline. Similarly, theology (theologia) is the study of God. The object of theology is not the church's teaching or the experience of pious souls. It is not a subset of ethics, religious studies, cultural anthropology, or psychology. God is the object of this discipline.
attachment leader excellence
Excellence is being thwarted not only by laziness but by reckless attachment to causes, programs, and - in some cases, leaders.
christian light giving
Christians must return to the great story that has its fulfillment in life after death, so we may live and die well in the light of our extraordinary hope that enables us to embrace the ordinary lives God gives us here and now.
running mean ordinary
As we are brought into God's extraordinary kingdom through ordinary means, we are remade, no longer fashioned as competitors for commodities in a world of scarce resources, but as co-sharers with Christ in the circulation of gifts that flows outward from its source without running out.
jesus spirituality helping
Jesus and spirituality can easily become therapies that merely help us cope with life. They can serve us if we chose Him over other service providers. We even talk about "making Jesus my personal Lord and Savior," as if we could make Him anything!
taken ambition son
Eternal joy can never be taken from God's people. Therefore ambition, restlessness, and avarice can be put away for the first time as we rest more and more in the work of the Son of God.
brother thinking giving
At the end of the day, we need to stop thinking about what we can make of ourselves and start thinking more about who God is, what he has done and is doing in Christ for us and for our neighbors, and how he can use us and our fellow brothers and sisters to be instruments of his gift-giving.
focus holiness world
The proper focus of holiness is not on being set apart from something (i.e., the world), but on being set apart for something.
thinking evil age
If we think the main mission of the church is to improve life in Adam and add a little moral strength to this fading evil age, we have not yet understood the radical condition for which Christ is such a radical solution.