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Showing posts with the label The End of Me

“The presumption of emptiness is the fuel that runs a consumer-based economy.”

A thought by Kyle Idleman, (2015-10-01) from his book, The End of Me: Where Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins (Kindle Location 1284). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Think about when you are hungry and you sit down and you eat and you consume and after about 30 minutes you lose your appetite but if you wait for about 4 hours you feel empty, you will be hungry again.   Take that over into stuff.   Kyle says, “In consumerism, we (of course) buy into the concept that our personal sense of fulfillment is directly related to our ever-increasing consumption of goods. A simpler way of saying it: if I feel a little down, I need to consume a little more. Late at night, when I lie in bed and feel emptiness, that’s just life telling me that someone somewhere has this new thing that I don’t yet have. Life is a cycle of ceaseless upgrading of inventory.”   Kyle quotes Mother Teresa who said this, “T

“Talk is simple communication, and it doesn’t need to be dressed up.”

A thought by Kyle Idleman, (2015-10-01) from his book, The End of Me: Where Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins (Kindle Locations 1097-1098). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) What Kyle is talking about here is prayer and his whole thought is, “God simply wants us to talk with him. Talk is simple communication, and it doesn’t need to be dressed up.” Earlier he said, “Jesus saw things differently. He said that when we talk to God, we simply need to be who we are— to be authentic and to talk to him as we would talk to someone we love.” But that can be so difficult for us.   Kyle says, “Many of us have struck spiritual poses in our prayers. We have a hard time being ourselves. Praying before others, we have a tendency to talk more to the people in the room than to God. Even in private prayer, sincerity doesn’t come easily. We talk to God as if he requires formal language, as we would talk to so

“Performance is too easy to fake.”

A thought by Kyle Idleman, (2015-10-01) from his book, The End of Me: Where Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins (Kindle Location 752). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That is why we work so hard at it.   That is how all of us on the outside are judged.   But Kyle says, “God looks on the heart, the true measure of who we are.” He goes on, “Here’s the great danger of performance-based faith. Once we begin to receive those rounds of public applause for all our wonderful accomplishments, we start to believe the charade. We replace the heart with the hands.” He continues, “Bible-time Pharisees were so good with rules and pious acts that they became legends in their own minds. Yet it wasn’t real. The Messiah stood before them, invisible to their eyes. The needs of the hungry and the sick, all around them, didn’t register. The things they cared about didn’t intersect with the things God cares abo