Tag: love

Your Gaze and Intentions

“Is it possible to alter the subtle tendencies that pattern how you look at people? Yes. The Holy Spirit is about this business. It takes a while: a lot of walking on the paths of light, a lot of needing God and loving God, a lot of receiving his mercies, a lot of learning to genuinely love people. But you can grow wiser even at this subtlest of levels. You can increasingly view each human being as a sister or brother, a mother or father, a daughter or son—as someone to care for, not a sexual object. Your gaze and intentions can become more and more about caring and protecting.”

—David Powlison, Making All Things New: Restoring Joy to the Sexually Broken (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 100

God Wishes To Embrace Us As His Children

“God’s love, we learn, was shown not only when Christ came into the world and took human flesh, but also when the gospel was preached, so that wretched unbelievers might share in this priceless gift. Today God’s love is revealed when he gathers us into his flock and rescues us from our dire distress, to the end that, as members of his house and church, we might be certain of the inheritance prepared for us in heaven. Having heard, then, of God’s free goodness and of the fatherly love which comes from it, we may be sure that he shows the same to us today. For when the gospel is preached to us, it is like a lamp that gives us light, allowing us to perceive what before was hidden. Until we come to know God’s goodwill we are more or less entombed in darkness. Yet God is kind and gracious, assuring us that he is near to us and wishes to embrace us as his children. Now that he has sent us his word and made us certain of his truth, we cannot doubt that he has secured salvation for us.”

—John Calvin, trans. Robert White, Sermons on Titus (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2015), 248-249. Calvin said this while preaching on Titus 3:3-5.