Zondervan Inspire

Let Your Light Shine

From the Editor: Let us let our light shine before others this holiday season.

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:14-16). Listen to Blair Underwood as Jesus (Matthew 5:14–22) and Watch the Inspiring Video.

 

From Inspired By ... The Bible Experience™: The Complete Bible

 

Fly Beyond the Stars

From the Editor: I don’t know who produced this photographic art, but it’s a tasteful and beautiful expression of creation. Any other thoughts on this subject?

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

How does a Christian create art that reflects God's beauty? Is the artist limited to representing only what we observe in God's creation? Francis Schaeffer finds God's design for the Jewish priest's garments to be instructive: "Make pomegranates of blue, purple and scarlet yarn around the hem of the robe, with gold bells between them" (Exodus 28:33). "In nature," he wrote, "pomegranates are red, but these pomegranates were to be blue, purple and scarlet. Purple and scarlet could be natural changes in the growth of a pomegranate. But blue isn't. The implication is that there is freedom to make something which gets its impetus from nature that can be different from it, and it too can be brought into the presence of God."

Schaeffer concludes, "What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life. Art is not to be solely a vehicle for some sort of self-conscious evangelism.... Christians ought not to be threatened by fantasy and imagination.... The Christian is the really free man — he is free to have imagination. This is our heritage. The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars."

From A Faith and Culture Devotional: Daily Readings on Art, Science, and Life

by Kelly Monroe Kullberg and Lael Arrington

Reckless Self-Giving

Jesus gave moral teachings that encouraged his followers to become the type of people who naturally care for the good of others because he wanted them to be united as a family. The life of heaven focuses on the good of others. It picks up the spoon not to fill its own belly but to offer a bite to the other starving stomachs in the room. This is the best life possible because it is the very type of life that is going on within God. The Father gives us his Son. The Son gives us his life. The Spirit gives us understanding of all that is true and praiseworthy. This reckless self-giving is the activity of heaven. Jesus said that all God wishes for you and me — all he encourages us to do and be, the entirety of our moral obligation — is summed up in this kind of reckless self-giving toward God and others.

From Seven: The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes

by Jeff Cook

Any comments or testimonies today?

God Is Womb-Like

Throughout the Bible, God is described as compassionate. In Hebrew, the original language of the Scriptures, it's the word "raham." It's also the word for "womb." So, "God is compassionate" is "God is womb-like." This is a feminine image for God.

God is in essence beyond male and female ... God Transcends and yet includes what we know as male and female (see Genesis 1:27). So a man is created in the image of God and a woman is created in the image of God. There is a masculine dimension to God and there is a feminine dimension to God.

From NOOMA® She—021 Rob Bell

by Flannel

Any comments or testimonies today?

countercultural

One of the most exciting of the Sabbath laws was applied every seven years. Just like the Hebrew people were suppose to refrain from working every seventh day so that their land, animals, and servants could rest, every seventh year, the Hebrew people had a celebration called the jubilee, during which they would take the whole year off from work. During this one-year break, all the food that continued to grow in their fields was free for the taking for families who were struggling to get by (Exodus 23:10-11). And any debt that folks had incurred during the past six years was erased.

These laws ensured that those in society who were intent on getting ahead had to take a break so that the gap between the rich and the poor would be kept to a minimum. It is almost impossible for us to grasp how wildly countercultural (and difficult) this economic practice really was. God's idea for this peculiar people was that there be "no poor people among you" (Deuteronomy 15:4-5).

From Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals

by Shane Claiborne

Any comments or testimonies today?