Cool Bible Quotes

What if we take away the cool music and the cushioned chairs? What if the screens are gone and the stage is no longer decorated? What if the air conditioning is off and the comforts are removed? Would his Word still be enough for his people to come together? At Brook Hills we decided to try to answer this question. We actually stripped away the entertainment value and invited people to come together simply to study God’s Word for hours at a time. We called it Secret Church. We set a date—one Friday night—when we would gather from six o’clock in the evening until midnight, and for six hours we would do nothing but study the Word and pray. We would interrupt the six-hour Bible study periodically to pray for our brothers and sisters around the world who are forced to gather secretly. We would also pray for ourselves, that we would learn to love the Word as they do.

When besieged, I’m calm as a baby. When all hell breaks loose, I’m collected and cool.

I picked up scallop shells in diverse colors and sizes — warm reds and yellows; cool, stippled grays — and reflected on the diversity of God’s creation, and what might be the use and meaning of his making so many varieties of a single thing. If he created scallops simply for our nourishment, why paint each shell with delicate and particular colors? And why, indeed, trouble making so many different things to nourish us, when in the Bible we read that a simple manna fed the Hebrews day following day? It came to me then that God must desire us to use each of our senses, to take delight in the varied tastes and sights and textures of his world.

Look through the Bible and nowhere does Jesus say, “Worship me.” His call to us was “follow me.” There’s a big difference. By making Jesus out to be a hero, we miss the whole point. Jesus wasn’t saying, “I’m cool. Make statues of me; turn my birthday into a huge commercial holiday.” He was saying, “Here, look what is possible. Look what we humans are capable of.” Jesus is our brother, our legacy, the guy we’re supposed to emulate.

Whoever restrains his words has knowledge,         and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.

I think I'm the fucking man. I think I'm cool as fuck, and I'm happy with that. And I'm happy to live my life this way because I find it a source of motivation.

For stored in heaven for each soldier is a medal of honour; a crown of righteousness that we will one day receive from the father. (2 Timothy 2:4)

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Every few weeks I get a letter from Léopoldville, which holds me on track. My heart races when I see the long blue envelope in a sister's hand, delivered to me under her sleeve as if a man himself were inside. And, oh, he is! Still sweet and bitter and wise and, best of all, still alive. I squeal, I can't help it, and run outside to the courtyard to taste him in private like a cat with a stolen pullet. I lean my face against the cool wall and kiss its old stones in praise of captivity, because it's only my being here and his being in prison that saves us both for another chance at each other.

For now, the Simple Daily Practice means doing ONE thing every day. Try any one of these things each day: A) Sleep eight hours. B) Eat two meals instead of three. C) No TV. D) No junk food. E) No complaining for one whole day. F) No gossip. G) Return an e-mail from five years ago. H) Express thanks to a friend. I) Watch a funny movie or a stand-up comic. J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything. K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te Ching, anything you want. L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out for that life you can save. M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something that takes you out of your current rhythm. N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item and don’t do that anymore. O) Surprise someone. P) Think of ten people you are grateful for. Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them in person. R) Take the stairs instead of the elevator. S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!” Again? Whisper, “No!” Again, say it. Louder. Yell it. Louder. And so on. T) Tell someone every day that you love them. U) Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love. V) Shower. Scrub. Clean the toxins off your body. W) Read a chapter in a biography about someone who is an inspiration to you. X) Make plans to spend time with a friend. Y) If you think, “Everything would be better off if I were dead,” then think, “That’s really cool. Now I can do anything I want and I can postpone this thought for a while, maybe even a few months.” Because what does it matter now? The planet might not even be around in a few months. Who knows what could happen with all these solar flares. You know the ones I’m talking about. Z) Deep breathing. When the vagus nerve is inflamed, your breathing becomes shallower. Your breath becomes quick. It’s fight-or-flight time! You are panicking. Stop it! Breathe deep. Let me tell you something: most people think “yoga” is all those exercises where people are standing upside down and doing weird things. In the Yoga Sutras, written in 300 B.C., there are 196 lines divided into four chapters. In all those lines, ONLY THREE OF THEM refer to physical exercise. It basically reads, “Be able to sit up straight.” That’s it. That’s the only reference in the Yoga Sutras to physical exercise. Claudia always tells me that yogis measure their lives in breaths, not years. Deep breathing is what keeps those breaths going.

Did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden?" "Oh, no! We can eat from any tree but the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." Woman explained. "But if we eat from that tree or even touch it, God will kill us!" That bastard! thought the snake and he spat, "Bullshit! This fruit will not kill you! God knows that if you eat from that tree you will open your eyes and become like gods and know the difference between good and evil!" Become like gods! Well, isn't that interesting... "Fuck God, eat all you want, learn all you can, write a goddamn encyclopedia, for Chrissake!" "Well," Woman thought, "It's a beautiful tree and the fruit looks delicious and who better to trust than a talking snake?" Abandoning all caution, she picked some forbidden fruit and shared it with Man. They each took a bite... Flash! Man, suddenly felt the cool breeze on his balls and looked frantically at Woman... She looked frantically at him... Holy Shit! We're buck fucking naked!

Sin and death and suffering and war and poverty are not natural—they are the devastating results of our rebellion against God. We long for a return to Paradise—a perfect world, without the corruption of sin, where God walks with us and talks with us in the cool of the day.

Given the choice between building a thriving, profitable business with a niche and a really boring product and putting your life savings into an intensely competitive business where youʼre likely to fail but the product is cool, the experienced bootstrapper will pick the former every time. If you find an industry filled with wannabe entrepreneurs with a dollar and a dream, run away and look for something else!

The central fact of biblical history, the birth of the Messiah, more than any other, presupposes the design of Providence in the selecting and uniting of successive producers, and the real, paramount interest of the biblical narratives is concentrated on the various and wondrous fates, by which are arranged the births and combinations of the 'fathers of God.' But in all this complicated system of means, having determined in the order of historical phenomena the birth of the Messiah, there was no room for love in the proper meaning of the word. Love is, of course, encountered in the Bible, but only as an independent fact and not as an instrument in the process of the genealogy of Christ. The sacred book does not say that Abram took Sarai to wife by force of an ardent love, and in any case Providence must have waited until this love had grown completely cool for the centenarian progenitors to produce a child of faith, not of love. Isaac married Rebekah not for love but in accordance with an earlier formed resolution and the design of his father. Jacob loved Rachel, but this love turned out to be unnecessary for the origin of the Messiah. He was indeed to be born of a son of Jacob - Judah - but the latter was the offspring, not of Rachel but of the unloved wife, Leah. For the production in the given generation of the ancestor of the Messiah, what was necessary was the union of Jacob precisely with Leah; but to attain this union Providence did not awaken in Jacob any powerful passion of love for the future mother of the 'father of God' - Judah. Not infringing the liberty of Jacob's heartfelt feeling, the higher power permitted him to love Rachel, but for his necessary union with Leah it made use of means of quite a different kind: the mercenary cunning of a third person - devoted to his own domestic and economic interests - Laban. Judah himself, for the production of the remote ancestors of the Messiah, besides his legitimate posterity, had in his old age to marry his daughter-in-law Tamar. Seeing that such a union was not at all in the natural order of things, and indeed could not take place under ordinary conditions, that end was attained by means of an extremely strange occurrence very seductive to superficial readers of the Bible. Nor in such an occurrence could there be any talk of love. It was not love which combined the priestly harlot Rahab with the Hebrew stranger; she yielded herself to him at first in the course of her profession, and afterwards the casual bond was strengthened by her faith in the power of the new God and in the desire for his patronage for herself and her family. It was not love which united David's great-grandfather, the aged Boaz, with the youthful Moabitess Ruth, and Solomon was begotten not from genuine, profound love, but only from the casual, sinful caprice of a sovereign who was growing old.

Women are shamed for this kind of curiosity, cursed for its devastating, world-ruining effects. Much more than men, I think, as I feel the cool metal of the doorknob in my fist. Where are the Bible stories and myths about men screwing everything up? Why are women always compared to cats, curious and relentless, happily wreaking havoc because they just. Want. To. Know the goddamned answer? Why all this, and never a thought to the fact that more men have torn up the world than women?

192,000 years, my gallant Conseil, which significantly extends the biblical Days of Creation. What’s more, the formation of coal—in other words, the petrification of forests swallowed by floods—and the cooling of basaltic rocks likewise call for a much longer period of time. I might add that those ‘days’ in the Bible must represent whole epochs and not literally the lapse of time between two sunrises, because according to the Bible itself, the sun doesn’t date from the first day of Creation.

Since we’re all here in hell-on-earth, where the devil and his children run everything that is organized, it makes sense that the children of the devil would trick us into worshiping their asshole god. But before the God of love makes the scene, it will be important somehow to help His children—the children of love—have their eyes opened to who this cool fucker is who will be coming to befriend them on the day known in the Bible as the ‘Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord’ (great for His children; dreadful for the assholes)—which is also known in the parable of the wheat and tares as ‘the harvest.

by have a home in the first place? Good question! When I have a tea party for my grandchildren, I'm passing on to them the things my mama passed on to me-the value of manners and the joy of spending quiet time together. When Bob reads a Bible story to those little ones, he's passing along his deep faith. When we watch videos together, play games, work on projects-we're building a chain of memories for the future. These aren't lessons that can be taught in lecture form. They're taught through the way we live. What we teach our children-or any child who shares our lives-they will teach to their children. What we share with our children, they will share with generations to come. friend of mine loves the water, the out doors, and the California sunshine. She says they're a constant reminder of God's incredible creativity. Do you may have a patio or a deck or a small balcony? Bob and I have never regretted the time and expense of creating outdoor areas to spend time in. And when we sit outside, we enhance our experience with a cool salad of homegrown tomatoes and lettuce, a tall glass of lemonade, and beautiful flowers in a basket. Use this wonderful time to contemplate all God is doing in your life. ecome an answer to prayer! • Call and encourage someone today.

Hear that again: Flesh and blood, skin and bones—those aren’t the places where your real struggles lie. The identity of your real enemy, once the Bible has weighed in, is clear as day. It’s him. It’s all him. It’s always been him. But in the rough-and-tumble of life’s exhausting pace, we can quickly lose touch with a passage like Ephesians 6. Even in knowing the truth, we can lose sight of where these attacks are originating from . . . from back there, behind the curtain. And by failing to take notice and remember, it’s not hard then to lose our cool, our temper, and most of our self-control before we ever find our way back to ultimate reality.

The Rough Beast snorted. “You don’t get it at all, buddy. It’s not about wrestling. It’s about stories. We’re storytellers.” Caperton studied him. “Somebody at my job just said that.” “It’s true! You have to be able to tell the story to get people on board for anything. A soft drink, a suck sesh, elective surgery, gardening, even your thing--public space? I prefer private space, but that’s cool. Anyway, nobody cares about anything if there isn’t a story attached. Ask the team that wrote the Bible. Ask Vincent Allan Poe.” “But doesn’t it seem kind of creepy?” Caperton said. “All of us just going around calling ourselves storytellers?” The Rough Beast shrugged. “Well, you can be negative. That’s the easy way out.

I had a friend who would take me to church in South Los Angeles. She knew when the best touring gospel bands were coming through, and though I had absolutely zero interest in the concept of god and an open disdain for religion, I went for the music. The bands were on fire, the singing made me shiver with emotion, and the crowd was crazy into it. More intense than any punk rock concert; elderly women jerking their bodies around like wild, people yelling stuff out, the band thumping away like mad, and everyone in the room just absolutely focused, gone into it, believing. I loved it. On one of those Jesus Sundays I got to talking to one of the parishioners, and when I told him I didn’t believe in the Bible, that I was just there for the music, he was totally cool and welcomed me back the following week, even though I was shabbily dressed and the only white person in the place. That’s the first time I considered that church could possibly be a good thing.

She opened her Bible to the poetry of the Song of Solomon, forbidden to her virgin mind. The verses alternated between the bride's and the groom's lines, packed with words of desire of both spirit and body. And then there were the Daughters of Jerusalem, the maidens surrounding the bride, who tempted her to indulge in love before marriage, until she pleaded with them to wait. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem... that you stir not up nor awaken love until it pleases. What did that mean? Set me as a seal on your heart, a seal on your arm. For love is strong as death, passion fierce as Sheol. What exactly were love and passion to be this ardent? Ruthi had no passion for Yossel and his painful yi'chud, so unlike these fervent verses. A cool breeze stroked the needle-fingered leaves of the cypress outside the yard, and Esther's skin prickled with whatever it was that wasn't supposed to be stirred in her yet. May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth- for your love is better than wine. Your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is sweet-smelling oil. So the maidens love you.

English Gingerbread Cake Serves: 12 to 16 Baking Time: 50 to 60 minutes Kyle Cathie, editor for the British version of The Cake Bible (and now a publisher), informed me in no uncertain terms that a book could not be called a cake "bible" in England if it did not contain the beloved gingerbread cake. When I went to England to retest all the cakes using British flour and ingredients, I developed this gingerbread recipe. Now that I have tasted it, I quite agree with Kyle. It is a moist spicy cake with an intriguing blend of buttery, lemony, wheaty, and treacly flavors. Cut into squares and decorated with pumpkin faces, it makes a delightful "treat" for Halloween. Batter Volume Ounce Gram unsalted butter (65° to 75°F/19° to 23°C) 8 tablespoons (1 stick) 4 113 golden syrup or light corn syrup 1¼ cups (10 fluid ounces) 15 425 dark brown sugar, preferably Muscovado ¼ cup, firmly packed 2 60 orange marmalade 1 heaping tablespoon 1.5 40 2 large eggs, at room temperature ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons (3 fluid ounces) 3.5 100 milk 2/3 cup (5.3 fluid ounces) 5.6 160 cake flour (or bleached all-purpose flour) 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (or 1 cup), sifted into the cup and leveled off 4 115 whole wheat flour 1 cup minus 1 tablespoon (lightly spooned into the cup) 4 115 baking powder 1½ teaspoons . . cinnamon 1 teaspoon . . ground ginger 1 teaspoon . . baking soda ½ teaspoon . . salt pinch . . Special Equipment One 8 by 2-inch square cake pan or 9 by 2-inch round pan (see Note), wrapped with a cake strip, bottom coated with shortening, topped with a parchment square (or round), then coated with baking spray with flour Preheat the Oven Twenty minutes or more before baking, set an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C. Mix the Liquid Ingredients In a small heavy saucepan, stir together the butter, golden syrup, sugar, and marmalade over medium-low heat until melted and uniform in color. Set aside uncovered until just barely warm, about 10 minutes. Whisk in the eggs and milk. Make the Batter In a large bowl, whisk together the cake flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, and salt. Add the butter mixture, stirring with a large silicone spatula or spoon just until smooth and the consistency of thick soup. Using the silicone spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the Cake Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a wire cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the center. The cake should start to shrink from the sides of the pan only after removal from the oven. Cool the Cake Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. While the cake is cooling, make the syrup.

Apricot and chocolate muffins Muffins are a great way to introduce new fruits to your child’s diet. Once they have enjoyed apricots in a muffin, you can serve the ‘real thing’, saying it’s what they have for breakfast. Or you can put some fresh versions of the fruit on the same plate. Other fruits to try in muffins include blueberries and raspberries. A word of warning: the muffins don’t taste massively sweet so may seem a bit underwhelming to the adult palette. We tend to have them with a glass of milk-based, homemade fruit smoothie, spreading them with ricotta cheese to make them more substantial. 250g plain wholemeal flour 2 tsp baking powder 30g granulated fruit sugar 1 egg 30ml vegetable oil 150ml whole milk 180g ripe apricots, de-stoned and chopped 20g milk chocolate, cut into chips Put muffin cases into a muffin tray (this makes about 8–10 small muffins). Heat the oven to 180°C/gas 4. Put the flour and baking powder in a bowl and mix well. Next add the sugar and mix again. Make a ‘well’ in the middle of the mixture. Crack the egg into another bowl and add the oil and milk. Whisk well, then pour into the ‘well’ in the mixture in the other bowl. Stir it briskly and, once well mixed, stir in the apricot and the chocolate chips. Spoon equal amounts into the muffin cases and bake. Check after 25 minutes. If ready, a sharp knife will go in and out with no mixture attached. If you need another 5 minutes, return to the oven until done. Cool and serve. Makes 10 mini- or 4 regular-sized muffins. Great because:  The chocolate is only present in a tiny amount but is enough to make the muffins feel a bit special while the apricots provide a little fruit. If you have them with a milk-based smoothie and ricotta it means that you boost the protein content of the meal to make it more filling.

Try any one of these things each day: A) Sleep eight hours. B) Eat two meals instead of three. C) No TV. D) No junk food. E) No complaining for one whole day. F) No gossip. G) Return an e-mail from five years ago. H) Express thanks to a friend. I) Watch a funny movie or a stand-up comic. J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything. K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te Ching, anything you want. L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out for that life you can save. M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something that takes you out of your current rhythm. N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item and don’t do that anymore. O) Surprise someone. P) Think of ten people you are grateful for. Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them in person. R) Take the stairs instead of the elevator. S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!” Again? Whisper, “No!” Again, say it. Louder. Yell it. Louder. And so on. T) Tell someone every day that you love them. U) Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love. V) Shower. Scrub. Clean the toxins off your body. W) Read a chapter in a biography about someone who is an inspiration to you. X) Make plans to spend time with a friend. Y) If you think, “Everything would be better off if I were dead,” then think, “That’s really cool. Now I can do anything I want and I can postpone this thought for a while, maybe even a few months.” Because what does it matter now? The planet might not even be around in a few months. Who knows what could happen with all these solar flares. You know the ones I’m talking about. Z) Deep breathing. When the vagus nerve is inflamed, your breathing becomes shallower. Your breath becomes quick. It’s fight-or-flight time! You are panicking. Stop it! Breathe deep. Let me tell you something: most people think “yoga” is all those exercises where people are standing upside down and doing weird things. In the Yoga Sutras, written in 300 B.C., there are 196 lines divided into four chapters. In all those lines, ONLY THREE OF THEM refer to physical exercise. It basically reads, “Be able to sit up straight.” That’s it. That’s the only reference in the Yoga Sutras to physical exercise. Claudia always tells me that yogis measure their lives in breaths, not years. Deep breathing is what keeps those breaths going.

You have been a stronghold for the poor, a stronghold for the needy  person in his distress, a refuge from the rain, a shade from the heat.  When the breath of the violent is like rain against a wall, 5 like heat in a dry land, You subdue the uproar of barbarians. As the shade of a cloud cools the heat of the day, so He silences the song of the violent.

16So Ehud made for himself a two-edged dagger, a gomed in length, which he girded on his right side under his cloak. 17He presented the tribute to King Eglon of Moab. Now Eglon was a very stout man. 18When [Ehud] had finished presenting the tribute, he dismissed the people who had conveyed the tribute. 19But he himself returned from Pesilim, near Gilgal, and said, “Your Majesty, I have a secret message for you.” [Eglon] thereupon commanded, “Silence!” So all those in attendance left his presence; 20and when Ehud approached him, he was sitting alone in his cool upper chamber. Ehud said, “I have a message for you from God”; whereupon he rose from his seat. 21Reaching with his left hand, Ehud drew the dagger from his right side and drove it into [Eglon’s]* belly. 22The fat closed over the blade and the hilt went in after the blade—for he did not pull the dagger out of his belly—and the filth* came out.

That brings us to the nub of the issue. The second reason for drawing lines even when drawing lines is not “cool” (as my daughter and son would say) is that the New Testament documents model the distinction between orthodoxy and heresy, even if these terms are not deployed exactly in their English sense. Despite the faddish popularity of religious pluralism, despite the erroneous historical reconstructions of Walter Bauer and others, despite the common practice of treating other religions with more deference than a Christianity that tries to conform to the Bible, the fact remains that there is something disturbingly unfaithful about forms of expression that attempt to be more “broadminded” than the New Testament documents themselves. True, most who read these pages will want to avoid the kind of obscurantist “fundamentalism” that is less concerned with fundamentals than with fences. But most who read these pages will not be tempted down that path, and so they scarcely need to be warned against it. It is a cheap zeal that reserves its passions to combat only the sins and temptations of others. We are more likely to squirm when we read words like these: Do you agree with those who say that a spirit of love is incompatible with the negative and critical denunciation of blatant error, and that we must always be positive? The simple answer to such an attitude is that the Lord Jesus Christ denounced evil and denounced false teachers. I repeat that He denounced them as “ravening wolves” and “whited sepulchres,” and as “blind guides.” The Apostle Paul said of some of them, “whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame”. That is the language of the Scriptures. There can be little doubt but that the Church is as she is today because we do not follow New Testament teaching and its exhortations, and confine ourselves to the positive and the so-called “simple Gospel”, and fail to stress the negatives and the criticism. The result is that people do not reconize error when they meet it. It is not pleasant to be negative; it is not enjoyable to have to denounce and to expose error. But any pastor who feels in a little measure, and with humility, the responsibility which the Apostle Paul knew in an infinitely greater degree for the souls and the well-being spiritually of his people is compelled to utter these warnings. It is not liked and appreciated in this modern flabby generation.29

Isaac was born on the forty-third Jubilee from Adam!” Thinking about it, he realized the symbolism was pretty cool. It was Isaac YHWH first used to test Abraham’s faith by seeing if he would sacrifice his firstborn son. Zane turned the old pages in the Bible in front of him to Genesis 22. “What faith!” he muttered as he read Abraham’s explanation to Isaac.   And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. (Genesis 22:7–8)

But just as suddenly the darkness receded, the pool of light seemed to take me in, as I thought how anything we do-any job, act, gesture-becomes meaningful if done with a heart for God. Was this the diurnal paradox looming up again-nothing matters and everything does? I stared at the candle flickering before me, deciphering the seeming coolness of blue and green dancing, so improbably, within the bright orange and red. Which was hotter? Which was purer? I had to admit, to my growing concern, reading the Bible was becoming rather addictive. There did indeed seem to be something for everyone, including me.

On January 3, 1950, everybody got up early and came on deck to see the Land, as we approached. The day was cool and clear and soon the mountains were visible - Mount Carmel, of the Bible and of song was clear to see. The Bay of Haifa, instead of an expanse of blue water, was filled with boats of all descriptions. The variety of vessels with immigrants was staggering the imagination. We thought that our big ship would have to wait for ever for an opening at the pier. Everybody was impatient but could do nothing about it.

We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me. Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God’s messenger. Accepting someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing.

I think of this girl, this bright light coming from such a dark place. I know that the things she believes about God and the Bible and hope and all that are very real to her. They're not nice sayings on Twitter just to fill a box. They're the things she truly believes. I'm not sure I'm ready to rejoice, and I'm not quite ready to pray. The cool thing is that Marvel knows this. She knows this and doesn't seem to mind.

IDOLATRY IS ANYTHING THAT COOLS YOUR DESIRE FOR CHRIST.

Reliable friends who do what they say are like cool drinks in sweltering heat—refreshing!

Bridle your anger, trash your wrath, cool your pipes—it only makes things worse.

If you were offered a handful of $1,000 bills or a glass of cool water, which would you choose? The $1,000 bills, of course—anyone in his right mind would. However, if you were crawling through a desert, dying of thirst, and you were offered a glass of water or a handful of $1,000 bills, which would you take? The water, of course—anyone in his right mind would. That’s called “circumstantial priorities.” Your priorities change according to your circumstances. If there was a way to find everlasting life, would you want to know about it? The answer is “yes,” of course—anyone in his right mind would. What the Bible contains may surprise you. The Scriptures speak of riches beyond our wildest dreams—the “riches” of everlasting life—and they are offered in the form of cool, clear water: “Let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17). At the moment, you may not be interested in the offer, but on Judgment Day your circumstances will radically change. Then it will be too late.

When we attack sin, we are either attacking idols outside the church and calling sinners to repentance, or attacking idols inside the church and calling sinners to repentance. While there is a crucial difference between talking to a corpse and talking to a resurrected corpse, the sin is still sin. And the sin is always a crutch or a cover: an attempt at finding safety, security, comfort, peace, meaning in something or someone other than Christ. And almost always, those crutches were snatched up from family, friends, television, celebrities, etc., grasping for what looks safe or what looks cool.

I’m a fool,” Will said suddenly, dropping his left hand from his earlobe. He looked up at Tom, who leaned in silent contemplation against the casement, frosting cool glass with his breath. “A fool and twice a fool.” Ben closed Kit’s Greek bible carefully over the ribbon and set it aside. “How a fool, Will?” “Because here we sit, invoking our brains on how to save Kit and thwart Salisbury, the Catholics, and the Prometheans, and the answer is in our very hands.

Learn to perform everything you do in such a way that it warms the heart instead of cooling it. Whether reading or praying, working or talking with others, you should hold fast to this one aim—not to let your heart grow cool. Keep your inner stove always hot by reciting a short prayer, and watch over your feelings in case they dissipate this warmth.

God in the Hebrew Bible, as it emerged from its editing process, is almighty; he creates heaven and earth with a word, and he is above all other gods-but he creates a serpent who undoes all his creative work. Often he acts like a large and powerful and somewhat bad-tempered human being. Like any landlord, he walks in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day. He gets angry. He bargains with his people. He changes his mind. He falls into vindictive rages, as in the case of Noah's flood or the Tower of Babel or the unfortunate cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he plays atrocious games, as in the case of his command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. He has a somewhat bizarre preoccupation with the length of Samson's hair. He performs prodigious wonders, such as slaughtering the first-born sons of Egypt and leading the Israelites to safety through the parted waters of the Red Sea-only to discover that those who have witnessed those stupendous miracles quickly forget them and turn to complaint and the worship of other gods. Like all of us, the God of the Hebrew Bible is a mess of contradictions.

Look through the Bible and nowhere does Jesus say, “Worship me.” His call to us was “follow me.” There’s a big difference. By making Jesus out to be a hero, we miss the whole point. Jesus wasn’t saying, “I’m cool. Make statues of me; turn my birthday into a huge commercial holiday.” He was saying, “Here, look what is possible. Look what we humans are capable of.” Jesus is our brother, our legacy, the guy we’re supposed to emulate. What Jesus was trying to tell us is that the churches, the religious leaders, and all their blaring rhetoric has drowned out God’s truth. They’ve pulled the wool over our eyes by failing to mention the fact that the FP is not an object of worship, but a very real presence and a principle by which we should live.

God has always sought to dwell among his people. Think back to the opening chapters of Genesis. Adam and Eve are in the garden. And in the cool of the evening God walks there, seeking face-to-face fellowship with them. In today’s reading, God’s glory takes up residence in the Tabernacle to accompany the Israelites on their journey to Canaan. Later in Israel’s history, God’s presence will reside in Solomon’s Temple. And today, his Holy Spirit indwells every believer (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). God wants to identify himself with those who are truly his. More specifically, God wants to identify himself with you, fellowship with you, and spend time with you. How do you go about building a relationship like that? Jot down the first five things that come to mind. Now use your list to help you organize your day and assign priorities to your activities. Place “Time with God” at the top of the list. He greatly desires to walk and talk with you. HOW MANY FRIENDS WOULD YOU HAVE LEFT IF YOU STARTED SPENDING AS MUCH TIME WITH THEM AS YOU DO WITH GOD?

if you hustle to master one world religion per week, you'll be able to study all of them in a cool 192 years or so.

Eternal One: I am in control—calm and serene. I am watching quietly from where I dwell Just as surely as the heat shimmers in the blazing sun and the dewy mists cool the warmth of a harvest day.

or then-Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty’s brief 2012 presidential campaign, when he shed his Midwestern prosodies for something that sounded like Captain from Cool Hand Luke having a stroke. However,

The monks explain that they have been sent by “the one who on the earth is the greater speaker of divine things,” the pope, to bring the “venerable word / of the One Sole True God” to New Spain. By worshipping at false altars, the friars say, “you cause Him an injured heart, / by which you live in His anger, His ire.” So infuriated was the Christian God by the Indians’ worship of idols and demons that he sent out “the Spaniards, / … those who afflicted you with tormenting sorrow, / by which you were punished / so that you ceased / these not few injuries to His precious heart.” The Triple Alliance was subjugated, in other words, because its people had failed to recognize the One True God. By accepting the Bible, the priests explain, the Mexica “will be able to cool the heart / of He by Whom All Live, / so He will not completely destroy you.

A truly evangelical sermon must be like offering a child a fine red apple or offering a thirsty man a cool glass of water and then saying: Do you want it?” At Finkenwalde he effectively said the same thing: “We must be able to speak about our faith so that hands will be stretched out toward us faster than we can fill them. . . . Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic. . . . Do not defend God’s Word, but testify to it. . . . Trust to the Word. It is a ship loaded to the very limits of its capacity!

As Believers we are not to be moved by our circumstances but we are to regulate our lives by the Word of God. I like the word regulate. It reminds me of a thermostat. When things get too hot, a thermostat kicks into action and goes to work cooling down the house to a comfortable temperature. When things get too cold, the thermostat kicks into gear and warms things up. That is how our faith is designed to operate. We have been created to believe the things God has promised in His Word, regardless of how things “look.” When we use our faith, based on the promises of the Bible, we can regulate or change our circumstances through believing, declaring, and standing on His Word.

Being a Christian, for some other people, is not cool-praying, reading bible, lifting your hands while singing Christian songs, listening to a boring sermon? But would it still be cool if you're already in hell? Think about that.

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. ~Proverbs 15:1 I have a confession to make—I’m not always very good at giving soft answers. In fact sometimes I really stink at it. When I’m tire, feeling pulled in too many directions at once, or when I’m not getting things done that I need or want to get done, I get snarky. It’s not usually what I say, but how I say it…and then sometimes it’s both. I know—not cool, right? My snappy, snarky remarks have caused arguments between me and my husband and me and my kids. They have also caused me to hurt their feelings as well as the feelings of my grandkids and my friends. Again, not cool! So why do I do it? Why do I say things I shouldn’t say or say things the wrong way? Because I don’t think before I speak and because I choose to let my frustration and fatigue take over. I choose to be harsh and hurtful instead of taking the initiative to make the situation helpful and happy. Shame on me, and LORD, please help me do better. Help my words to the people I love reflect the true nature of that love. ~Momma D (used with permission) What about you? Do you need to sand the rough edges off of your replies and responses?

The man who keeps calm when the other fellow gets angry has infinitely the best of the matter. Let the other fellow fret and stew and get red in the face, but you keep calm and you will win the fight every time. Control yourself, change the subject, and absent yourself when anger shows. Cultivate poise, refrain from lowering yourself to the methods of the ignorant, which is anger. By keeping your temper when your adversary gets angry you thereby show your superiority, and your adversary instinctively feels you are a bigger man than he is. A cool head is wonderful capital for an employer or an employee.

COCONUT OIL LIP BALM   1T coconut oil 1T honey 1T olive oil or red palm oil (for a tint of lip color)   Procedure:   -Mix and eat the oils together in low heat until they melt and are blended together well. -Start pouring the mixture onto a container. -Let cool.  

A Little Plant and a Great City “Jonah, get up and go to Nineveh,” God said. “Speak the message I give you.” This time, Jonah went. He walked all day into the city. There he cried out, “In forty days, Nineveh will be torn down.” The people of Nineveh believed God and turned from their sins. Nineveh’s king declared, “No one may eat or drink. All must pray to God. Who knows? God may change his mind so we don’t die.” When God saw this, he did change his mind. He didn’t slaughter Nineveh. Jonah was angry. “This is why I ran away in the first place,” he prayed. “I knew you’re a God of love. You’re always ready to change your mind about punishing people. Take my life, it’s better that I die.” East of the city, Jonah built a hut. There he sat watching. What would happen to Nineveh? God made a plant grow there to give cool shade. This made Jonah happy. Then the plant died, and Jonah suffered in the heat. He was sorry the plant died. “You were sorry a little plant died,” God said. “What about this great city? Shouldn’t I have pity on its little children?

My money’s on the smart brother,” Popeye said. “Fuck you!” Max shouted down. “I was talking about you!” Popeye yelled back. “Oh, cool. Thanks!” Max smiled as he looked at his brother. “You’re the dumb one.” “That’s

POWDER LAUNDRY DETERGENT Makes 72 loads 4 cups baking soda 3 cups washing soda 2 cups castile soap flakes (if solid, grated into a large glass or metal bowl) 3 to 4 drops lavender, lemon, or your favorite essential oil 1. In a large glass or metal bowl, stir together the baking soda, washing soda, castile soap, and lavender essential oil. 2. Store the powder in a large glass jar with a tight-fitting lid in a cool place out of direct sunlight. 3. Use 2 tablespoons per load of laundry for bright clothes with no artificial chemicals.

In 1932 Bonhoeffer told Hildebrandt: “A truly evangelical sermon must be like offering a child a fine red apple or offering a thirsty man a cool glass of water and then saying: Do you want it?” At Finkenwalde he effectively said the same thing: “We must be able to speak about our faith so that hands will be stretched out toward us faster than we can fill them. . . . Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic. . . . Do not defend God’s Word, but testify to it. . . . Trust to the Word. It is a ship loaded to the very limits of its capacity!

When Galileo later declared that Copernicus was right (and that the Bible was therefore wrong) in the seventeenth century, he was eventually arrested by the Inquisition and forced to recant—but not before the Catholic Church told him (and I'm paraphrasing here): "Hey, man. We all know you're probably correct about this. We concede that you're a wizard, and what you're saying makes sense. But you gotta let us explain this stuff to the rest of the world very, very slowly. We can't suddenly tell every pasta-gorged plebeian in rural Italy that we live in a heliocentric universe. It will blow their minds and fuck up our game. Just be cool for a while.