“No matter what your present circumstances, your painful memories, your emotional hurts, your moral failures, your internal struggles, joy is available. Your new disposition to worship and serve God cannot be destroyed, no matter how severe your background. As the Spirit of God empowers you to yield to your supernaturally implanted appetites, you will know joy. If you surrender yourself to God, if you face yourself in the safety of a small community of friends, if you develop a sensitivity to the work of God’s Spirit beneath your pain and sin, and if you commit yourself to resisting what’s bad and releasing what’s good, you will experience joy.”
Larry Crabb, Inside Out, Page 251
Questions for Reflection:
Have you ever experienced this type of “joy”?
How can you encourage others to “know joy”?
To Bring Heaven’s Way of Doing Things to Earth
“…church was designed by God to be the dance studio. A gathering becomes a church when a group of Christians together hear the music of heaven’s party and the laughter of God enjoying Himself and begin awkwardly dancing with the Trinity into the relationships and circumstances of life in order to bring heaven’s way of doing things to earth.”
Larry Crabb, Real Church, Page 15
Questions for Reflection:
What do you think hinders your ability to dance with the Trinity? Why?
When you hear “heaven’s way of doing things,” what would that look like for you and your relationships?
When Words Cannot Encourage
“Christians must learn how to encourage one another with their words. Words cannot encourage when people are shielding themselves from hurt by wrapping themselves in protective layers. Words motivated by a need to protect are self-serving and therefore nonencouraging. Only words of love can encourage.”
Larry Crabb, Encouragement, Page 145
Questions for Reflection:
What does it look like for you to self-protect?
Think of a time when you were encouraged in love versus a need to protect–how did that feel? How can you do that for others?
Recipe Theology
“Recipes are useful in a well-lighted kitchen. Recipe theology, that collection of practical biblical principles that tell us what to do in every situation, treats confusion as something to be solved rather than entered. It reduces the mysteries of life to things we can manage.”
Larry Crabb, The Silence of Adam, Page 66
Question for Reflection:
How have you engaged in “recipe theology”?
This is a video (audio only also available) you don’t want to miss. Larry spoke at Moody Church, Chicago, IL, March 11, 2012 on this important subject. You can view this video (or listen to the audio) on the Moody web site.
There is only one Life on the Narrow Road Conference happening in 2012. It’s scheduled for April 21, 2012, and will be held this year in Peoria, IL.
This one-day conference will be an opportunity to discover the narrow road to real life that not many find. Explore the SEVEN QUESTIONS that God has chosen to answer in order to help us find and walk that road. Learn how real change from the inside out develops as we discern whether we’re on the road to life.
There is always a road to God
From where ever you are, you can take a broad road that promises joy and delivers misery OR you can take the narrow road that is rough but delivers LIFE! The broad road looks appealing and Christian; BUT don’t take it!
- Listen to the Spirit whisper: “Come, take the narrow road. It’s Life, REAL LIFE.”
- It’s counter-cultural!
- It’s not for the self-centered! It’s the road of hope, the road to joy!
Join us as we discover how to:
- Unmask the deception that makes the broad road look good.
- Understand how real men and real women walk the narrow road.
- See how Life on the Narrow Road, with neither shortcuts nor formulas, lets us experience God and live like Jesus in every circumstances of life.
For more information about the Life on the Narrow Road Conference, go to this link on the NewWay Ministries web site. Hope to see you there!
