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3363abd
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We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change. For marriage, being [the enormous thing it is] means we are not the same person after we have entered it. The primary problem is... learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.
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love
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Timothy J. Keller |
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fbb030e
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Is the purpose of marriage to deny your interests for the good of the family, or is it rather to assert your interests for the fulfilment of yourself? The Christian teaching does not offer a choice between fulfilment and sacrifice but rather mutual fulfilment through mutual sacrifice.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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e7be954
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Then the Bible says that human beings were made in God's image. That means, among other things, that we were created to worship and live for God's glory, not our own. We were made to serve God and others. That means paradoxically that if we try to put our own happiness ahead of obedience to God, we violate our own nature and become, ultimately, miserable. Jesus restates the principle when he says, "Whoever wants to save his life shall lose ..
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Timothy J. Keller |
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0160c46
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To be part of a whole, to become part of a greater unity, you have to surrender your independence. You must give up the right to make decisions unilaterally.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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7eef6bc
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The Christian principle that needs to be at work is Spirit-generated selflessness - not thinking less of yourself or more of yourself but thinking of yourself less. It means taking your mind off yourself and realizing that in Christ your needs are going to be met and are, in fact, being met so that you don't look at your spouse as your savior.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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4017027
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Obviously, to be in the fear of the Lord is not to be scared of the Lord, even though the Hebrew word has overtones of respect and awe. "Fear" in the Bible means to be overwhelmed, to be controlled by something. To fear the Lord is to be overwhelmed with wonder before the greatness of God and his love. It means that, because of his bright holiness and magnificent love, you find him "fearfully beautiful."
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Timothy J. Keller |
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3ccf74e
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Indeed, it is the covenantal commitment that enables married people to become people who love each other. Only with time do we really learn who the other person is and come to love the person for him - or herself and not just for the feelings and experiences they give us. Only with time do we learn the particular needs of our spouse and how to meet them.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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e5671ee
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He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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b2ac39e
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What, then, is marriage for? It is for helping each other to become our future glory-selves, the new creations that God will eventually make us.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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Within this Christian vision for marriage, here's what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating, and to say, "I see who god is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, 'I always knew you could be like this. I got glim..
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Timothy J. Keller |
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324399e
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We have too much faith in our technology and our democratic institutions, and we are conditioned by our secular, materialistic culture to seek most of our happiness in fragile things like good looks, wealth, and pleasure.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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b3a0fe4
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Marriage does not so much bring you into confrontation with your spouse as confront you with yourself. Marriage shows you a realistic, unflattering picture of who you are and then takes you by the scruff of the neck and forces you to pay attention to it.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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a5de98c
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Give each other the right to hold one another accountable.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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93e0c7c
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Truth without love ruins the oneness, and love without truth gives the illusion of unity but actually stops the journey and the growth. The solution is grace. The experience of Jesus's grace makes it possible to practice the two most important skills in marriage: forgiveness and repentance. Only if we are very good at forgiving and very good at repenting can truth and love be kept together.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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97b97f5
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The kingdom of God - God's power to renew the whole of creation - has broken into the old world through Christ's first coming, but it is not fully here.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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77b2e98
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Consider, then, that the "single calling" Paul speaks of is neither a condition without any struggle nor on the other hand an experience of misery. It is fruitfulness in life and ministry through the single state. When you have this gift, there may indeed be struggles, but the main thing is that God is helping you to grow spiritually and be fruitful in the lives of others despite them."
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Timothy J. Keller |
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e15498d
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But, she says, if she could break them when they appear inconvenient to her, of what would be their worth? If you only obey God's word when it seems reasonable or profitable to you - well, that isn't really obedience at all. Obedience means you cede someone an authority over you that is there even when you don't agree with him.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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871e15a
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Yes, we should pray regardless of feelings, and yet we should do everything we can to engage and warm our hearts, because prayer is a lifting of the heart to God (Lam 3:41).
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Timothy J. Keller |
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46ec4a9
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I divide each [biblical] command into four parts, thereby fashioning a garland of four strands. That is I think of each commandment as first, instruction, which is really what it is intended to be, and consider what the Lord God demands of me so earnestly. Second, I turn it into a thanksgiving; third, a confession; and fourth, a prayer.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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a2da600
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Once we have drawn out the "instruction"--put the teaching of the text in a nutshell--then we ask how this teaching particularly leads us to praise and thank God, how it leads us to repent and confess sin, and how it prompts us to appeal to God in petition and supplication."
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Timothy J. Keller |
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e8dfa05
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Jesus's sacrificial service to us has brought us into deep union with him and he with us. And that, Paul says, is the key not only to understanding marriage but to living it.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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c3ba9d5
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For example, if we ponder the very beginning of the Lord's Prayer--"Our Father"--it could work like this: As instruction, it shows us that we cannot know God only on our own but must do so in community with others. Jesus did not teach us to pray "my father" but "our father." We may go on to praise God for all the friends who have helped us in our spiritual journey and for being a God who creates community and bonds of love. We may go on to ..
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Timothy J. Keller |
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0d5e833
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Luther suggests that after meditating on the Scripture, you should pray through each petition of the Lord's Prayer, paraphrasing and personalizing each one using your own needs and concerns.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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d49a8d8
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To summarize this point--Luther says we should start with meditation on a text we have previously studied, then after praising and confessing in accordance with our meditation, we should paraphrase the Lord's Prayer to God. Finally, we should just pray from the heart. This full exercise, he adds, should be done twice a day.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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cbb31a1
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Your joyful admiration has a fearful aspect to it. You are in awe, and therefore you don't want to mess up. That is something we experience even in the presence of an admirable human being. How much more is this a proper response to God.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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245d553
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Because of unutterable love and joy in God, we tremble with the privilege of being in his presence and with an intense longing to honor him when we are there. We are deeply afraid of grieving him.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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1720f22
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Prayer both requires and empowers the abandonment of self-justification, blame shifting, self-pity, and spiritual pride.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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f60fd72
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On the one hand, we know that we "have not because we ask not" (James 4:2). There are many goods that God will not give us unless we honor him and make our hearts safe to receive them through prayer. But on the other hand--what thoughtful persons, knowing the limits of their own wisdom, would dare to pray if they thought God would invariably give them their wishes? Endless stories of genies, lamps, and wishes illustrate the almost cliched t..
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Timothy J. Keller |
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64ef474
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Ask and you shall receive" (Matt 7:7-8)--Ask with confidence and hope. Don't be afraid that you will ask for the wrong thing. Of course you will! God "tempers the outcome" with his incomprehensible wisdom. Cry, ask, and appeal--you will get many answers. Finally, where you do not get an answer, or where the answer is not what you want, use prayer to enable you to rest in his will."
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Timothy J. Keller |
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60f3e70
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Ward observes that the passage does not say that first God spoke and then he proceeded to do what he said he would do. No, his word itself brought the light about. When God names someone, his very word also constitutes the person.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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78c7fea
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God's words, however, cannot fail their purposes because, for God, speaking and acting are the same thing. The God of the Bible is a God who "by his very nature, acts through speaking."
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Timothy J. Keller |
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a167e71
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If God's words are his personal, active presence, then to put your trust in God's words is to put your trust in God.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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05dad1e
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The principle: God speaks to us in his Word, and we respond in prayer, entering into the divine conversation, into communion with God.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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9ff9fca
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The Proverbs 30 prayer is different. It is to ask, "Lord, meet my material needs, and give me wealth, yes, but only as much as I can handle without it harming my ability to put you first in life. Because ultimately I don't need status and comfort--I need you as my Lord."
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Timothy J. Keller |
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a84a33a
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Are you withholding your full trust in God until you get an explanation for some bad thing that happened to you? In light of Jesus' undeserved suffering for you, are you willing to let go of that demand and commit your way to him?
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Timothy J. Keller |
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4c6a564
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Once you have learned to pray in full awareness of the disorderedness of your heart and where true joys are found, he says, you can be guided in the specifics of how to pray by studying the Lord's Prayer. Look at all the kinds of prayer in it--adoration, petition, thanksgiving, confession.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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bb2fa12
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Augustine concludes, pour out your heart's desire, but remember the wisdom and goodness of God as you do so.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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60f50d5
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Why was God sending a deluge of disappointments? "Tis in this way," the Lord replied, in essence: "I am ANSWERING your prayers for grace and faith. I am only trying to liberate you from the things that enslave you, drive you, and control you. Do you not see that if you loved me supremely, more than anything else, you'd be truly free? Find your all in me." --
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gods-grace
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Timothy J. Keller |
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1a53d2b
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The Greeks saw death as a friend, because it liberated us from the prison of physical life. The Bible sees death not as a friend, but as an enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26), because the created world is a brilliant and beautiful good (Genesis 1:31), destined to exist forever (Revelation 22:1-5).
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Timothy J. Keller |
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9475b33
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No other religion envisions matter and spirit living together in integrity forever.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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950e4c0
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This, too, is part of God's plan for what our work should be about, and what it would still be about if we had not experienced the fall, which marred everything including our labor.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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1c311d5
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It is rearranging the raw material of God's creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people in particular, thrive and flourish.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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4283ee0
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When you indulge yourself in bitter thought, it feels so satisfying to fantasize about payback. But slowly and surely it will enlarge your capacity for self-pity, erode your ability to trust and enjoy relationships, and generally drain the happiness out of your daily life. Sin always the conscience, locks you in the prison of your own defensiveness and rationalizations, and eats you up slowly from the inside.
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Timothy J. Keller |
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2e0617b
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What must we do, then, to be saved? To find God we must repent of the things we have done wrong, but if that is all you do, you may remain just an elder brother. To truly become Christians we must also repent of the reasons we ever did anything right. Pharisees only repent of their sins, but Christians repent for the very roots of their righteousness, too. We must learn how to repent of the sin under all our other sins and under all our rig..
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Timothy J. Keller |