I’ve not read a lot of Frederick Buechner, but I’ve fallen in love with a number of his quotes over the years.

This is one of my favorites…

The child born in the night among beasts. The sweet breath and steaming dung of beasts. And nothing is ever the same again.

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of humankind.

If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in his least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant’s child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too.

And this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart, because it is just where he seems most helpless that he is most strong, and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully.

beuchner In “Secrets in the Dark”

May your Advent – your Christmas Eve – be marked by an awareness that God is ever pursuing you to make you his own, to make you the person you are meant to be.

I hope you’ll join us for our Candlelight Christmas Eve service tonight at 7:00 p.m.

I am not asking whether or not you have rival gods. I assume that we all do; they are hidden in every one of us

– Tim Keller in Counterfeit Gods: When the Empty Promises of Love, Money and Power Let You Down (emphasis mine)

The Saturday Morning Men’s Group has been reading books for years.

Guys who once said, “Pastor Steve, I don’t read. I can’t,” have read dozens – and they have discussed them with one another.

A couple of the have commented that our present book, Counterfeit Gods, from Tim Keller, has been the best they’ve read so far. I wouldn’t argue with that.

Here’s a part of the book that stands out to me as I read tonight preparing for Saturday morning’s discussion at The Dutch Pantry:

I encourage you to read the book. It’s changed my life – both times I’ve read it.

This paragraph, from E. McManus stood out to me this morning.

Many choose battles that are anything but noble. And the outrage of today becomes trivial in just a few years – if not months. Haven’t seen that? Keep watching.

There is one battle that I find worthy of the warrior – the battle for the cause of Christ.

It’s not political. It’s not economic. It’s not tribal. It is the battle, in a world marked by the darkness of sin, to shine the brilliance of Christ.

• To show his love to those who struggle to believe him.
• To bring his healing heart to those who have been injured.
• To show compassion to those whose life is marked by shame.
• To share his forgiveness with those who carry great guilt.
• To bring his redemption with those whose lives are damaged.

History shows that this battle is difficult – mostly because it’s not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12).

But warriors embrace this battle – because it is THE noble battle.