Pursuing Joy

“The God of biblical revelation has a character.  Divine action flows from that character.  God is love and He is light.  Moreover, He is righteous in all His ways… it is only as we grasp the righteous holy loving character of the God who has made us that we can begin to grasp in some measure the depths of the human plight outside Eden.  And it is only against that dark backstory that the glory of the cross of Christ is revealed as the centre of God’s plan to bring shalom.”

~ Graham Cole, God the Peacemaker, p. 52

“Oh! Rejoice in the richness of our salvation! When the Lord pardoned our sins, he did not pardon half of them, and leave some of them on the book— but with one stroke of the pen he gave a full receipt for all our debts.

When we went down into the fountain filled with blood, and washed, we did not come up half-clean, but there was no spot nor wrinkle upon us—we were white as snow.”

~ Charles Spurgeon, “The Joy of Salvation”