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a515fff
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To make it really clear and simple, let's call this movement across history we see in passages like the ones we just looked at from Exodus and Deuteronomy clicks. What we see is God meeting people at the click they're at, and then drawing them forward. When they're at F, God calls them to G. When we're at L, God calls us to M. And if we're way back there at A, God meets us way back there at A and does what God always does: invites us forwar..
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Rob Bell |
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62a8541
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When you are bored, restless, longing for something more, unfulfilled, feeling like you've settled, haunted by the sense of being trapped in your own life, these are the deep waters of your soul speaking to you, telling you something is wrong, something is missing, something needs to change.
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change
restlessness
trapped
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Rob Bell |
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273b1a9
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If you feel stuck in your life, like it's passing you by, like there's something way better for you somewhere out there and you're missing it, try this--try throwing yourself into the small things and repeating to yourself: This is where I start.
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Rob Bell |
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e21c6b4
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If anybody didn't have a messiah complex, it was Jesus
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god
religon
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Rob Bell |
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4d16284
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Find your rituals, develop your routines, create those practices that ground and center you. Stick to them, don't apologize for them, treat them, even the small things, like they're big things.
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Rob Bell |
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bce3e43
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Once again, God has a purpose. A desire. A goal. And God never stops pursuing it. Jesus tells a series of parables in Luke 15 about a woman who loses a coin, a shepherd who loses a sheep, and a father who loses a son. The stories aren't ultimately about things and people being lost; the stories are about things and people being found. The God that Jesus teaches us about doesn't give up until everything that was lost is found. This God simpl..
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Rob Bell |
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452321f
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It's the voices in your head that speak doubt and insecurity and fear and anxiety. Like a tape that's jammed on "repeat," these destructive messages will drain an extraordinary amount of your energies if you aren't clear and focused and grounded."
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Rob Bell |
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ea7b520
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Whatever we say about God always rests within the larger reality of what we can't say; meaning always resides within a larger mystery; knowing always takes place within unknowing; whatever has been revealed to us surrounded by that which hasn't been revealed to us.
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Rob Bell |
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f4951f8
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Churches and religious communities and organizations can claim to speak for God while at the same time actually being behind the movement of God that is continuing forward in the culture around them . . . without their participation.
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Rob Bell |
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90914e0
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In one of the accounts of Jesus's death we read that the curtain in the temple of God--the one that kept people out of the holiest place of God's presence-- ripped. One New Testament writer said that this ripping was a picture of how, because of Jesus, we can have new, direct access to God. A beautiful idea. But the curtain ripping also means that God comes out, that God is no longer confined to the temple as God was previously.
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Rob Bell |
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b694f63
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What we see in these passages is God meeting people, tribes, and cultures right where they are and drawing and inviting and calling them forward, into greater and greater shalom and respect and rights and peace and dignity and equality. It's as if human history were progressing along a trajectory, an arc, a continuum; and sacred history is the capturing and recording of those moments when people became aware that they were being called and ..
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Rob Bell |
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00da4ce
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Jesus is supracultural. He is present within all cultures, and yet outside of all cultures. He is for all people, and yet he refuses to be co-opted or owned by any one culture. That includes any Christian culture. Any denomination. Any church. Any theological system. We can point to him, name him, follow him, discuss him, honor him, and believe in him--but we cannot claim him to be ours any more than he's anyone else's.
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Rob Bell |
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ec059fd
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It's important to embrace several truths about yourself and those around you, beginning with this one: who you AREN'T isn't interesting.
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Rob Bell |
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543aa61
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There is a difference between details and clutter. Clutter is the books on your shelf that you're never going to read, the stacked-up papers that have been untouched for months, the endless flotsam and jetsam in your car, your closet, your garage, your kitchen, your bedroom, and your office. Clutter is all those clothes that you haven't worn in years filling all those shelves and drawers. Clutter is all those possessions you've got piled in..
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Rob Bell |
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e8af040
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When the gospel is understood primarily in terms of entrance rather than joyous participation, it can actually serve to cut people off from the explosive, liberating experience of the God who is an endless giving circle of joy and creativity.
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Rob Bell |
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946800a
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Jesus doesn't divide the world up into the common and the sacred; he gives us eyes to see the sacred in the common.
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Rob Bell |
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f13436d
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Far too often, we don't start because we can't get our minds around the entire thing. We don't take the first step because we can't figure out the seventeenth step. But you don't have to know the seventeenth step. You only have to know the first step. Because the first number is always 1. Start with 1.
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Rob Bell |
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d62d182
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That's why the Bible is not a book about going to heaven. The action is here. The life is here. The point is here. It's a library of books about the healing and restoring and reconciling and renewing of this world. Our home.
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Rob Bell |
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f3ea693
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This is because conviction and humility, like faith and doubt, are not opposites; they're dance partners. It's possible to hold your faith with open hands, living with great conviction and yet at the same time humbly admitting that your knowledge and perspective will always be limited.
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Rob Bell |
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6c13479
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When someone wrongs us, we rarely (if ever) want to do the same thing back. Why? Because we want to do something more harmful. Likewise, when someone insults us, our instinct is to search for words that will be more insulting. Revenge always escalates.
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Rob Bell |
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7c137ad
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God doesn't wait for us to get ourselves polished, shined, proper, and without blemish--God comes to us and meets us and blesses us while we are still in the middle of the mess we created.
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Rob Bell |
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962d736
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The failure to understand the infinite depth of the human soul is often why people who are married have affairs. They stop exploring the person they married. They find somebody who appears more interesting.
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Rob Bell |
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0286498
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Jesus did not use hell to try and compel "heathens" and "pagans" to believe in God, so they wouldn't burn when they die. He talked about hell to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God's love."
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jesus
religion
love
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Rob Bell |
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1777c49
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Some things that are labeled Christian aren't true, and some things that aren't labeled Christian are true. Some atheists say lots of things that are true, and some Christians are full of shit.
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Rob Bell |
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353e934
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Decide now that you will not spend your precious energy speculating about someone else's life and how it compares with yours.
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Rob Bell |
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264706e
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When we don't throw ourselves completely into it and we hold back our best efforts because of what happened in the past, we are letting the past decide the future.
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Rob Bell |
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5fe5c71
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Be patient. Don't force your experiences on others. The moving of spirit is a great mystery, and how or why or when certain people wake up is beyond us. Let people have their own experiences.
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Rob Bell |
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264c9c6
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The Bible tells a story. A story that isn't over. A story that is still being told. A story that we have a part to play in.
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Rob Bell |
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d334f59
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The Bible is not an argument. It is a record of human experience. The point is not to prove that it's the word of God or it's inspired or it's whatever the current word is that people are using. The point is to enter into its stories with such intention and vitality that you find what it is that inspired people to write these books.
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Rob Bell |
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2c86a45
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If there is a divine being who made everything, including us, what would our experiences with this being look like? The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up. And if we made him up, then we are in control. And so in passage after passage, we find God reminding people that he is beyond and bigger and more.
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Rob Bell |
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82cdefe
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It is possible for music to be labeled "Christian" and be terrible music. It could lack creativity and inspiration. The lyrics could be recycled cliches. That "Christian" band could actually be giving Jesus a bad name because they aren't a great band. It is possible for a movie to be a "Christian" movie and to be a terrible movie. It may actually desecrate the art form in its quality and storytelling and craft."
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music
inspirational
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Rob Bell |
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83990d9
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For Jesus, the question wasn't, "How do I get into heaven?" but "How do I bring heaven here?"
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Rob Bell |
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dcd7186
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Nerves are God's gift to you, reminding you that your life is not passing you by, Make friend with the butterflies. Welcome them when they come, revel in them, enjoy them, and if they go away,
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Rob Bell |
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59b5c1a
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Pain has a way of making us more honest.
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Rob Bell |
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3ef0aea
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It's in that place that we're reminded that true life comes when we're willing to admit that we've reached the end of ourselves, we've given up, we've let go, we're willing to die to all of our desires to figure it out and be in control. We lose our life, only to find it.
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Rob Bell |
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4197432
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If your faith is threatened by something that's true, then it wasn't much of a faith to begin with, was it?
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Rob Bell |
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f07c15a
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It's all--let's use a very specific word here--miraculous. You, me, love, quarks, sex, chocolate, the speed of light--it's all miraculous, and it always has been.
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religion
love
miracles
quarks
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Rob Bell |
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4a569a5
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when people debate faith vs. science they've already missed the point. Faith is about embracing truth wherever it's found, and that of course includes science.) He's
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Rob Bell |
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677280e
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Why would we ever be surprised when truth turns up in strange places?
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Rob Bell |
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43455f2
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One of the great "theologians" of our time, Sean Penn, put it this way: "When everything gets answered, it's fake. The mystery is the truth."21"
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Rob Bell |
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c1b0cfa
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People wrote these stories down because they found in them something that helped restore their dignity; the stories gave them a sense of identity; they helped give voice to their pain.
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Rob Bell |
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860908f
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Whatever those things are that make you feel fully alive and like the universe is ultimately a good place and you are not alone, I need a faith that doesn't deny these moments but embraces them.
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Rob Bell |
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c077dca
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Confession is like really, really healthy vomit. It may smell and get all over the front of your shirt, but you feel better--you feel cleansed--when you're done.
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Rob Bell |
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ff2b711
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I can't find one place in the teachings of Jesus, or the Bible for that matter, where we are to identity ourselves first and foremost as sinners.
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Rob Bell |