Quotes about Reality

if you don't keep the eyes of your heart focused on the paradise that is to come, you will try to turn this poor fallen world into the paradise it will never

Mourning means you recognize the most important reality in the human existence, sin. Mourning means you have been hit by the weight of what it has done to you and to everyone you know.

Live in hope because paradise is surely coming, and stop asking this fallen world to be the paradise it will never be.

biblical faith—that is, true faith in the existence, presence, promises, and provisions of God—never requires you to deny reality in any way. It is not biblical faith to try to convince yourself that things are better than they actually are. It is not biblical faith to work to make yourself feel good about what is not good. Biblical faith looks reality in the face and does not flinch.

This season, in the midst of all the celebrations and gift-giving, be careful to remember that at the center of what we celebrate is one game-changing, life-altering, hope-giving reality: grace is a person, and his name is Jesus.

Here's the real-life, street-level issue: if you don't keep the eyes of your heart focused on the paradise that is to come, you will try to turn this poor fallen world into the paradise it will never be.

If complaint has the power to focus your vision, it can also twist and bend your perception of reality and the God who rules it.

Paul says it well: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). I don't think that we talk about this enough. I don't think that we celebrate this reality enough. I don't think we let our hearts consider the wonder of this identity enough. By grace, we are the temple of the Most High God. By grace, he lives in us. By grace, his power is at our disposal.

Prayer calls me to abandon the present as my only lens on life and commit to look at life from the perspective of reality.

death is literally all around us. We cannot run and we cannot hide and we have no ability to defeat it. Death lives at our address, and there is no escaping.

Not only does sin blind, but as sinners, we participate in our own blindness. We all swindle ourselves into thinking that we are better than we are, that what we're doing is okay when, in fact, it's not okay in the eyes of God. The spiritual reality is that we're like naked homeless people, but we see ourselves as affluent and well-dressed.

Suffering, sadness, and death are not yet no more. It is hard to live in the middle, but that is exactly where we live. We live in a world that is still sadly and terribly broken.