The Gospel, the good news about who God is, confounds and contradicts the false conceptions of dead religion.
The Gospel is the Good News originating from the infinite, eternal, interpenetrating, self-giving, joyful Triune God inviting all humanity, in Jesus Christ, to "Come Dance with Us!"
Theology, the study of God, is not merely the accumulate of facts about God or developing systems of thinking about God. Unless God is engaged in a personal, dynamic relationship, the gathering of facts will lead, most certainly, to Phariseeism.
Theology is always tied to orthodoxy, right praise, and unless the study of theology leads to a life of worshipful service, it will be the most perilous activity anyone can do.
The Divine Life, growth in the knowledge of the Triune God, increases in you in the measure that you give it away.
The attempt to know God aright while ignoring the ministry of the Holy Spirit generates dead orthodoxy.
"The spiritual vitality so evident in Scripture is unfortunately rare and thin in many religious circles that are devoted to the study of theology! Why? The atmosphere of this study is often restrained and the style highly cognitive; expectations are rather low regarding the presence of the kingdom in power."
When we pronounce the word "God" we must see to it that our minds are flooded with a wondrous sense of the interpenetrating, self-giving love between the eternal Three in One and One in Three - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of the infinitude of this love, the majesty of this love, the ineffable exaltation of this love, the beauty and flame, the perfect holiness of this love, the rightness of this love, and the affluent and extravagant goodness of this love.
This is the Lord God Almighty, of whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, to which the earth, although less than a small bit of dust on a balance beam and its nations a mere drop in a bucket, is the object of the purpose of His benevolent design.
Although He has no need of anything, nor can His unsullied blessedness be in any way affected, whether by way of increase or decrease, by any act of the creatures of His hands, He has chosen, in His good pleasure, to draw us into the circle of His delight and into the concern of His passion.
The ages past are but as yesterday in His sight.
The vast, seemingly infinite outreaches of space, to which the lenses of the Hubble Space telescope ingather only the tip of the iceberg, are but a speck on the horizon of His contemplation.
His ways and thoughts are above our diminutive, insignificant perceptions as the highest point in the heavens is above the earth.
Regal in the unapproachable light of His glory, we have been graced to see the reflection of His goodness in the face of His Son.
His covenant love is the resistless law of all His created works.
The Sun, Moon, planets, and the innumerable stars harmonize their every motion to His eternal dance.
Appareled in majesty and girded with strength, righteousness and judgment are the foundation of His throne.
He sits in the heavens and what has pleased Him, He has done.
It is this God, a God of whom to say, in the light of the above, that He is Lord of all the earth is to say so little that it is to say nothing at all; it is this God who has, according to the kind intention of His will, set His redeeming love upon us, having predestined us to the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ, to include us in the circle of His fellowship, according to the good pleasure of His gracious disposition.
It is this God who so loved the world, a world resolved in consummate rebellion against Him, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but experience life eternal, to know the Father, the one, true God through the redeemer Jesus Christ.
It is this God through whom His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, justice and mercy have kissed on Calvary's Cross.
And it is to this God that His Holy Spirit bids us to come; we come knowing that we are dead, lost, least, and last; in all our imperfections, we come; we come resting confidently and contritely on Jesus Christ, the One who redeemed us has brought us into the loving embrace of His Father.
It is to this Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that we come in humble and joyful adoration.
It is to this Triune God, the God who is love, that we bow the knee.