THE MEANING OF LIFE

'The creation of the world seems to have been especially for this end, that the eternal Son of God might obtain a spouse, towards whom he might fully exercise the infinite benevolence of his nature, and to whom he might, as it were, open and pour forth all that immense fountain of condescension , love, and grace that was in his heart, and this in this way God might be glorified.'

Jonathan Edwards in Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly, p.206.

WHY HAVE WE BEEN CREATED IN GOD'S IMAGE?

'If you are very great and you fill the earth with seven billion images of yourself, what is your aim? Your aim is to be well known and admired for your greatness.' 

John Piper, Reading the Bible Supernaturally, p.47. 

JONATHAN EDWARDS & CREATION

'As an heir of John Locke, Edwards put a twist on the way that people in the eighteenth century ordinarily spoke of knowing God in comparison to how they knew the world around them. Most were accustomed to distinguishing between their knowledge of the physical world (by sensation) and their knowledge of an ethereal, non-sensory God (by faith and reason). Edwards argued, however, that God in the mystery of God's own being is far more "sensuous" - more full of infinite delights, more prone to endless expansion of relationships, more astonishingly beautiful - than anything that you can imagine in this stunningly sensuous world around us. In effect, he said, if you think this world is sensuous and beautiful you haven't seen anything yet!All this is but a dim, quasi-sensual reflection of God's still greater glory, overflowing spontaneously from the mystery of God's inner-Trinitarian life. That's when all desire and all connectedness find their birth.' 

Belden C Lane, Ravished by Beauty, p.179. 

THE GLORY OF GOD

'The glory of God is a human being fully alive.'
Irenaeus in James KA Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, p.169. 

CHRISTIANITY

'The uniqueness at the heart of Christainity is the glory of God manifest in the freedom of grace.'

John Piper, Let The Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of Goid in missions, p.55.  

GOD'S GLORY

‘God has a disposition to communicate himself, to spread abroad his own fullness. His purpose was for his goodness to over-spill his own Being, as it were. He chose to create the heavens and the earth so that his glory could come pouring out from himself in abundance. He brought a physical reality into existence in order that it might experience his glory and be filled with it and reflect it – every atom, every second, every part and moment of creation. He made human beings in his own image to reflect his glory, and he placed them in a perfect environment which also reflected it.’

Jonathan Edwards in Randy Alcorn, Heaven, p.226.

GRACE

'For anyone who says yes to Jesus

For anyone who believes what Jesus said

For anyone who will just reach out and take it

Then God will give them this wonderful gift:

To be born into

A whole new Life

To be who they really are

Who God always made them to be -

Their own true selves -

God's dear

Child.'

Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible, p.351.

GOD'S GLORY

'Spiritual blindness not only blinds me to the reality of my sin, but it also blinds me to the glory of God that is everywhere around me. God has created his world to be a constant sight-and-sound display of his power, glory, faithfulness, and love. Yet, the eyes of my heart can be so clouded by the duties of the day, by the busyness of the schedule, and by the problems of life that I don't see the God of grace whose glory is evident everywhere I look.'

Paul David Tripp, A shelter in the time of storm, p.36.