"Christ Lives in Me"

A few thoughts + notes from one of Elisabeth Elliot's sermons:

Love, Redefined
-Love: To desire the good of the object

-If I cling to the modern message of "loving myself," I will only desire my own good. Love is always self-giving.
-Ex.: Just as a parent will not leave their child undisciplined, God desires not to leave us to our own devices, undisciplined, essentially enabling us to be enslaved to our sin. 

The Vitality of the Crucified Life

-"Not I, but Christ."
-A restored relationship with Christ means a restored relationship with everybody else.
-In your hardship as discipline, God is treating you as sons. 

-Death has to work in me, in order that life may be manifest. If death does not have its way with my sinful nature, then the world will never see the life of Christ. 

-Death is the key to life, there is no life without death.
-"He gives me beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and he gives me a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness, but he doesn't just drop it in my lap. I have to give him the ashes, I have to give him my mourning, I have to surrender the spirit of heaviness; then the exchange happens." 

-My consciousness to my claim of weakness is my strength in God (boast in your weakness!)

-My knowledge of a refuge comes from having the need of a refuge. 

-Are you willing to show your weakness? To admit that you have failed?

---

"All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’"

Francis Thompson , "The Hound of Heaven"




|| wow, I've learned so much today and my heart has definitely been refreshed. Thank you, Lord!