Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The Evil Midnight Bomber Revisited

An object at rest cannot be stopped!

Source: This is another quote from the Evil Midnight Bomber from the Tick cartoon series. (sound byte here)


Any bad guy who walks into the Superhero club with a bag labeled "Bombs" is cool in my book. Here's Arthur confronting him in the club.

Here are some more quotes:

And he says to me, he says to me, you got Style, baby! but if you're gonna to be a real villain you gotta get a gimmick…and so I go I says Yeah Baby! A gimmick, that's it! High Explosives! (sound byte here)

And so he says, I don't like the cut of your jib, and I go, I says it's the only jib I got, baby! (sound byte here)

You'll never prove a thing, copper, I'm just a part time electrician…bad is good, baby! Down with government! (sound byte here)

Monday, April 27, 2009

The Heart of a Servant Leader

Let me urge upon you the importance of cultivating faith if you are to be able to walk in love and spiritual power. Without faith it is impossible to please God, but those who believe are given more grace than they can handle. Believing is to expect God to be with you and change you and to change others...When the work is dull and routine or people are slipping away, go forth with new boldness and preach Christ until you are filled with faith yourselves and God works faith in others.

Think of it this way. All the powers of hell and earth are ranged against the gospel and your ministry. They will not compromise. Therefore don't expect it from them. Don't expect the enemy to coddle you. He will continue to attack from every quarter. At night. On the streets. In your meetings. Wherever. This is a take-no-prisoners kind of war, and we must not compromise with the uglies and with evil in any form.

Therefore resist, fight with all your heart against evil in yourself and others, seek holiness through faith in the blood of Christ, and live boldly out of your union with Christ. You are in Him and He is in you. Don't doubt it. On that basis keep at it. - C. John Miller's The Heart of a Servant Leader

Forgiveness


Hope
Originally uploaded by standintherainx3
“We do not have to make ourselves suffer in order to merit forgiveness. We simply receive the forgiveness earned by Christ. 1 John 1:8 says that God forgives us because He is ‘just.’ That is a remarkable statement. It would be unjust of God to ever deny us forgiveness, because Jesus earned our acceptance! In religion we earn our forgiveness with our repentance, but in the gospel we just receive it.” - Timothy Keller

Allergy Season Gets Worse

Warning: Sneeze With Caution

Explanation: Now that it's late April here in New Jersey, spring is in the air, and by "spring" I mean "pollen." Allergy season is in full swing, I'm taking heavy doses of Zyrtec, and yet I'm still single-handedly keeping the tissue industry afloat in these difficult times. I did a lot of yard work this weekend, which means I inhaled lots of allergens, which means my body is reacting to them, which means I'm sneezing a lot.

In general, sneezing is not a bad thing. In general. Unfortunately, my daughter seems to startle pretty easily, and my sneezes are generally a little too loud for her taste. As a result, most of my sneezes are now greeted with shrieks of terror, followed by several minutes of sobbing.

I didn't think it was possible, but this officially makes my seasonal allergies even worse than they already were. I hate scaring her. My sneezing episodes now include a combination of sprints to a different room and the horrible implosion feeling that accompanies trying to hold one in. Not fun.

If you visit us with allergies, beware! And if you see me in the near future, now you know why I look guilty every time I sneeze.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

The Law and the Cross


The Way of Cross
Originally uploaded by ManonManon
“Our deliverance from the law is a rescue from its curse and its bondage, and so relates to the two particular functions of justification and sanctification. In both areas we are under grace, not law. For justification we look to the cross, not the law, and for sanctification to the Spirit, not the law. It is only by the Spirit that the law can be fulfilled in us.”

—John Stott, The Message of Romans

Reclaiming the Church

...All the calls to "reclaim America for Christ" leave me cold. Our real need is to reclaim the church for Christ. When Christ is exalted in His church, when He is loved and revered and cherished with passion by those who bear His Name--in other words, when the church starts living like the church--then His body cannot help but make an impact on culture.

-- Tom Ascol

Praying the Psalms

“From ancient times in the Church a special significance has been attached to the common [in the sense of ‘corporate’] use of the psalms. … The custom has been largely lost and we must find our way back to its prayers.”

“the prayer of the psalms belongs in a peculiar way to the fellowship. Even if a verse or a psalm is not one’s own prayer, it is nevertheless the prayer of another member of the fellowship.”

By praying the Psalms one “learns to pray the prayer of the Body of Christ. And that lifts him above his personal concerns and allows him to pray selflessly.”

“The more deeply we grow into the psalms and the more often we pray them as our own, the more simple and rich will our prayer become. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer