Tags
Augustine, Christ, Christianity, CS Lewis, Good day, NT Wright, Pope John Paul II, quotes, resurrection, Timothy Keller
Not up to par? Feeling not-so-great? Feeling lousy? Feel like this photo? Perhaps a few quotes will give perspective?
“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.” – Timothy Keller
That cut to the bone, but what of it? Words from Pope John Paul II might encourage you:
“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”
No? You say you don’t feel like it’s Easter. Ok. Dennis Hopper (allegedly) said more prosaically:
“In a world where the dead have returned to life, the word ‘trouble’ loses much of its meaning.”
Yep, the difference it makes to the world starts from within us, as it has to do with the Holy Spirit energized.
But only if we ask: He’s not the “FORCE”, after all.
“And he [Christ] departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and behold, He is here.”- St. Augustine
and, the world about us is better because of Him according to N.T. Wright:
“…the effects of Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.”
As a Christian you can take heart in one great thing: your ancient brothers and sisters, the first Christians who saw Christ risen, saw “the first movement of a great wheel beginning to turn in the direction opposite to that which all men hitherto had observed.” – CS Lewis