To think more often and deeply about the Person of Jesus, I am currently slowly reading through Tim Keller's new book entitled King's Cross. Click here to order it from Amazon.
In it Keller walks his readers through the Gospel of Mark, offering superb thoughts, insight, and commentary.
A quote I read this morning from a thought he had on Mark 1:14-15:
"Jesus says, 'The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!' What is the good news of the kingdom of God? In the book of Genesis chapters 1-2, we see that we were created to live in a world in which all relationships were whole - psychologically and socially perfect - because God was the King. But Genesis chapter 3 tells the next part of our story: that we have each chosen to be our own king. We have gone the way of self-centeredness. And self-centeredness destroys relationships. There's nothing that makes you more miserable (or less interesting) than self-absorption: How am I feeling, how am I doing, how are people treating me, am I proving myself, am I succeeding , am I failing, am I being treated justly? Self-absorption leaves us static; there's nothing more disintegrating. Why do we have wars? Class struggle? Family breakdown? Why are our relationships constantly exploding? It's the darkness of self-centeredness. When we decide to be our own center, our own king, everything falls apart: physically, socially, spiritually, and psychologically. We have left the dance. But we all long to be brought back in. This longing is embedded in the legends of many cultures, and though the stories are all different they all have a similar theme: A true king will come back, slay the dragon, kiss us and wake us out of our sleep of death, rescue us from imprisonment in the tower, lead us back into the dance. A true king will come back to put everything right and renew the entire world. The good news of the kingdom of God is this: Jesus is that true King."
1 comment:
Wow... what an awesome and powerful quote!
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