The gospel is never about everybody else; it is always about you, about me. The gospel is never truth in general; it's always a truth in specific. The gospel is never a commentary on ideas or cultures or conditions; it's always about actual persons, actual pains, actual troubles, actual sin; you, me; who you are and what you've done; who I am and what I've done.

Eugene H. Peterson

Categorized in : Ideas Who I Am Pain

Feelings are great liars. If Christians worshipped only when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship. We think that if we don’t feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship.

Eugene H. Peterson

christian liars thinking

The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at the ...moment.

Eugene H. Peterson

opportunity weather jobs

The word 'christian' means different things to different people. To one person it means a stiff, upright, inflexible way of life, colorless and unbending. To another it means a risky, surprised-filled adventure, lived tiptoe at the edge of expectation...If we get our information from the biblical material, there is no doubt that the Christian life is a dancing, leaping, daring life.

Eugene H. Peterson

christian adventure mean

When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn't go off and leave us- he enters into our trouble and saves us.

Eugene H. Peterson

leaving religious god

The life of faith isn't meant for tourists. It's meant for pilgrims.

Eugene H. Peterson

pilgrim tourists

Sabbath is that uncluttered time and space in which we can distance ourselves from our own activities enough to see what God is doing.

Eugene H. Peterson

distance space enough

O God, when my faith gets overladen with dust, blow it clean with the wind of your Spirit. When my habits of obedience get stiff and rusty, anoint them with the oil of your Spirit. Restore the enthusiasm of my first love for you.

Eugene H. Peterson

first-love dust blow

All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.

Eugene H. Peterson

performers doubters persons

Prayer is the disciplined refusal to act before God acts.

Eugene H. Peterson

refusal prayer

The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped — it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory, in circumstances that become clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections where we engage in prayerful conversation with one another and with him.

Eugene H. Peterson

godly reflection jesus

One way to define spiritual life is getting so tired and fed up with yourself you go on to something better, which is following Jesus.

Eugene H. Peterson

tired spiritual jesus

This kingdom of God life is not a matter of waking up each morning with a list of chores or an agenda to be tended to, left on our bedside table by the Holy Spirit for us while we slept. We wake up already immersed in a large story of creation and covenant, of Israel and Jesus, the story of Jesus and the stories that Jesus told. We let ourselves be formed by these formative stories, and especially as we listen to the stories that Jesus tells, get a feel for the way he does it, the way he talks, the way he treats people, the Jesus way.

Eugene H. Peterson

israel morning jesus

Wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves.

Eugene H. Peterson

art-of-living conditions art

If you don't take a Sabbath, something is wrong. You're doing too much, you're being too much in charge. You've got to quit, one day a week, and just watch what God is doing when you're not doing anything.

Eugene H. Peterson

one-day too-much watches

Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God.

Eugene H. Peterson

glimpse air people

Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship.

Eugene H. Peterson

expression christian god

My job is not to solve people's problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.

Eugene H. Peterson

grace jobs people

I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God's business.

Eugene H. Peterson

god inspirational life

Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.

Eugene H. Peterson

christian father jesus

There are no experts in the company of Jesus. We are all beginners, necessarily followers, because we don’t know where we are going.

Eugene H. Peterson

beginners experts jesus