The Bible is ferociously about God… Anytime you see someone open the Bible and begin to talk about you outside of your relationship with God or the nature and character of God, they are more often than not prooftexting and outside of the metanarrative. -Matt Chandler

In Adam we were at peace with sin and at war with God, a war that cannot be won. In Christ we are at peace with God and at war with sin, a war that cannot be lost. – Dane Ortlund at The Gospel Coalition blog

While topical teaching can be helpful at certain times, a steady and unbalanced diet of it undermines [congregants'] understanding of God’s Word. God’s Word does not come to us in one-sentence blurbs, laid out under various topical headings, like an extended concordance. God’s Word comes to us in stories, parables, poetry, prophecy, and song. - Jon Nielson (at The Gospel Coalition blog)

Faith without “works” is not faith (James 2:14-26). It is not faith just like fire without heat and light is not fire. Heat and light are not just the possible result of fire, something fire sometimes does. They are fire. Inseparable from flame itself. – Shaun Groves (here)

Do you believe the Bible is basically about you, or basically about [Christ]? Is David and Goliath basically about you, and how you can be like David, or is it about Christ, who took on the only Goliath who could really kill us… and now His victory is imputed to us? - Tim Keller, here

All divine power and strength against sin flows from the soul’s union and communion with Christ (Rom. 8. I0; 1 John 1. 6, 7). While you keep off from Christ, you keep off from that strength and power which is alone able to make you trample down strength, lead captivity captive, and slay the Goliaths that bid defiance to Christ. - Thomas Brooks

We are justified by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone, and God sanctifies us by constantly bringing us back to the reality of our justification. - Tullian Tchividjan

Dear record companies, stop signing 10 year old, prepubescent little boys and whiny girls so we can all enjoy good music again. – Holly Renner

…angry. So very angry. At my father. How dare you climb those stairs? How dare you? How dare you take the glow of life and snuff it out with a rope and a bottle of pills? I loved you so much. And mom. And now I don’t even want to look out the window. I don’t even want to look at your photo. You know what I did? I threw the answering machine last night. I picked it up and just threw it. It broke apart. Like you did to me an mom. Your voice was on that machine, and for some reason it felt so good to destroy it. And now I’m angry at me for being angry at you.
But I am I am so angry and so tired and so sad and so twisted and so cold and so wet. and i don’t know what to do and i can’t even breath anymore and I just don’t understand it at all. I don’t get any of it. I don’t know why. And I miss you so much and it’s all your fault and I just mis you miss you miss you miss you miss you.

After I read those words, I sat in my chair and wept. Why?

Because this daughter offered me a glimpse.

This daughter offered me a glimpse of what my mom would feel like…
of what my sister would feel like…
of what my grandparents would feel like…
of what my children (in the future, of course) would feel like…
if I gave in.

I haven’t given in. I’ve come close–so, so terribly close–but I’ve not given in.

How long?

I ask myself.

How long can I resist? How long can I fight? How long can I fend off the depression that lurks around the corner? How long? How long can I bear to be lonely; to have no one who understands; to have these feelings inside of me? How long until what in the light seems unthinkable not only becomes thinkable again, but actually… happens?

This glimpse gave me my answer.

As long as I have something in this world to attach me–
something to keep me choosing life over death:
fear of causing my loved ones greater sorrow than I now suffer–
I will inevitably endure.