Thursday Thoughts Newsletter is your weekly dose of 3 brief ideas from me, 2 quotes I’ve recently enjoyed from others, and 1 question for you as you go about your week.
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3 Brief Ideas
Idea #1: The Bible conveys that nothing will expand our souls more than living for the good of others, and nothing will shrink our souls more than living for the good of ourselves. This truth about our spiritual design lies behind the reason for why social causes resonate so deeply within us, why generosity is so disarming to us, and why serving is so life-giving. And conversely, it’s also the reason why greed is so disgusting, why narcissism is so nauseating, and why self-indulgence is so sickening. Non-Christians can affirm *that* it is this way, and maybe they’d say it’s a function of a certain culture’s sensibilities. But Christians, however, have a firmer framework for these otherwise, highly subjective sentiments and *why* it’s this way—*why* our souls expand at selflessness and shrink at selfishness.
Namely, it is because we are made in the image of God, whose nature and character is the very essence of all goodness, selflessness, and overflowing life. And when we live in line with our design, our souls flourish and expand; when we don’t, our souls shrivel and die. After all, our very salvation mirrors this truth in Jesus Christ: He is God in the flesh, possessing the most expansive soul and abundant life, precisely because he lived and died wholeheartedly for us, so that through faith in him, our dead, shriveled souls could be revived and expanded with new life.
Idea #2: When a culture adheres to moral relativism (the notion that there are no objective truths or absolute morals), there is only one group who gets to determine what’s ‘true’ and ‘right’ for everyone else: the strong. In a culture of moral relativism, only power matters. The strong will exploit the weak and the weak will always be at their mercy. But in a world of objective truths and absolute morals, power can finally be held in check and the weak can finally be protected.
Idea #3: Time spent reading the Bible does not have to be a wildly spiritual and emotional experience. It can be, of course, but most of the time it probably won’t be. And that’s alright. There is no biblical concept that a personal devotional time is only legitimate if it measures up to some kind of emotional and spiritual criteria. The most important thing is not that we feel a type of way before we read, or while we read, or after having done it. The most important thing is that we do it, regardless of how we feel—before, during, or after. If we are poor of eyesight, we put in our contact lenses because it helps us see, regardless of how we feel at the moment. If we are hungry, we eat food because it nourishes us, regardless of our emotional state. Likewise, we read the Bible not because of the way it makes us feel, but because of the way it helps us see and nourishes us.
2 Quotes From Others
“Most Christians neglect their Bibles not out of conscious disloyalty to Jesus, but out of failure to plan a time and place and method to read it.” —John Piper
“The only ceiling on your intimacy with God and your impact on the world is daily spiritual discipline.” —Mark Batterson
1 Question For You
What can you do today to nourish and expand your soul? In what ways can you make Bible reading a priority—like eating or putting in your contact lenses—and less about the pressure of having a supernatural or emotional experience? How might that drive you into more consistent and more fruitful spiritual disciplines instead of less of it?
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Thanks again for following along, see you again next week!
AG
