The World

Excerpts from Ed Stetzer post:  Calling for Contextualization Part 6:  Loving and Hating the World

What do you think of when you hear the phrase "the world?" Does it elicit a positive or negative response?


The Scripture has a lot to say on the subject of "the world" that, on a cursory reading, can seem contradictory. Consider, for example, what the Apostle John says. In John 3:16 he wrote: "For God so loved the world..." But then in 1 John 2:15 he wrote: "Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in Him." He records Jesus' words in John 12:47, "For I did not come to judge the world but to save the world," but relates Jesus' admonition in 15:19, "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."

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Perhaps a change of terms will help clarify the issue for us. For a moment, let's use "the people of earth" for "the world" (where we live) and the phrase "the attitude that rejects God's love, law and leading" for "the world" (its fallen system). Now, let's paraphrase: "Be among the people of earth (in the world), but not of the attitude that rejects God's love, law and leading (of the world)." This simple contrast should bring a great deal of clarity to a potentially confusing line of thought. Now read John 3:16 to say, "For God so loved the people of earth..." and 1 John 2, "Love not the attitude that rejects God's love, law and leading, nor the things that take priority over God's love, law and leading. If anyone loves the attitude that rejects God's love, law and leading, the love of the Father is not in him." It becomes apparent that John and other New Testament writers are dealing with two separate matters: a place of residence and the people God loves, and a condition of the heart that opposes God.

The Bible specifically tells us to live with "worldly" people. That's exactly what always got Jesus in trouble - hanging out with drunkards, sinners, prostitutes ... you know, the "bad" people. Paul emphasized the same point to the church at Corinth. The church had become confused about some things the apostle had taught earlier. In reaction, they began to disassociate with the world (people) around them. But Paul wanted them to understand that the solution to their problems - and they had lots of them - was not withdrawal from the people around them:

I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people - by no means referring to this world's immoral people, or to the greedy and swindlers, or to idolaters; otherwise you would have to leave the world. But I am writing you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother who is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a reviler, a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person 1 Corinthians 5:9-11

Paul's words make two things very clear. First, he has absolutely no intention to separate Christians from non-Christians. To him, the concept was laughable because it would negate the whole reason Christians live in the world. Second, someone who claims the name of Christ must be held to an incredibly high standard. If such a person forgets where his or her loyalty lies and adopts an attitude contrary to God's love, law, and leadership, faithful followers of Christ are to disassociate themselves from that person. They must choose. (This, incidentally, is the forgotten part of the biblical doctrine of separation. We are not instructed to separate from the lost, but from church members who live out and indulge in their deep depravity, until such time they give evidence of repentance.)

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As the sent church of God, we must love the people who live on this earth with the love of Christ, expressed in words and deeds, while hating the broken and sinful systems of the world that war against the Kingdom of God.

This becomes an important distinction in regards to contextualization, the focus of this series (see parts one, owo, three, and four and five). Contextualization reminds us that we genuinely need to be IN the world while not being OF the world.

I express it as being: biblically faithful, culturally relevant, counter-culture communities for the Kingdom. Or, for this conversation, we are:

-biblically faithful (driven by scripture)
-culturally relevant (living in and among the world with people in cultures)
-counter-culture communities (not being of the world's system, values, or morality)
-for the Kingdom.

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Youth Misery

Kevin DeYoung post: A Lost Letter to Wormwood (conclusion)

We pick up the letter with Screwtape’s instructions on how to keep his nephew’s college-aged subject away from church and perfectly wretched…

At the risk of insulting your diabolical intelligence, allow me to remind me of your course in Youth Misery. Recall the Three S’s of Satan, our Sinister Snake (I know, he sometimes gets carried away with alliteration, but it does help jog the old memory). The Three S’s of youth misery: Keep them separate. Keep them selfish. Keep them searching. Allow me to expound.

The First S: Keep them separate. Our Bureau of Statistics (remember there are lies, damned lies, and statistics) has documented evidence proving that the best way to keep young people from growing into devoted followers of the Enemy is to keep them far away from any of his grown-up, devoted followers. Church attendance allows for too much interaction between old and young. With this interaction come manifold dangers: modeling, mentoring, service, and hospitality.

Listen closely. Groups of students meeting together for prayer and study is, it’s true, a pernicious influence, but gladly, the influence is often short-lived. Soon, your subject will graduate and he will find that the rest of the planet is not like his university. He will not be surrounded by peers all his age with his same interests. It is to our advantage that he be unable to relate to anyone above the age of 25. This not only makes for misery, but it makes church involvement, and therefore the Christian life, much less likely.

This, of course, goes hand in hand with the Second S: Keep them selfish. It’s really quite simple.  All of our human subjects are selfish, but the young especially. It’s hardly their fault. They have no spouse or children to think of, only themselves. They have food handed to them on plastic platters. And they live in a country that believes for some strange reason, pleasant enough to us, that history doesn’t matter, that the old are useless, and that youth culture should be prized above all else. And yet, I must hasten to add, don’t underestimate your subject. Human youths are capable of extraordinary acts of courage and bravery and accomplishment, as the Annals of the Enemy record. Keep your youth far away from such examples. See to it that no visions of nobility or self-sacrifice or inspiration enter his head.

Which again, if I may repeat myself, is why church must be foresworn at all costs. It is at church that he will see examples of lived-out bravery and sacrifice. And, more importantly, it is at church that he will have to face his own selfishness. He will encounter music he doesn’t like and old people who do strange things and babies who smell and cry. (Incidentally, I only mention babies because your subject is male, as is mine. The female youth I am told must not, under any circumstances, be surrounded by small children, those children enticing the females to re-visit church rather than repulsing them away as with most male subjects). My point is that so long as the spiritual experiences of our youthful subjects can be catered to the whims and fancies of 18-22 year olds, the students will not likely stick with a church when they discover that churches must also deal with the whims and fancies of 8 year olds and grandmothers.

One more thing, students today love the idea of community. Do everything in your power to keep them loving the idea of community rather than loving their community. As long as they love their vision of community instead of loving the actual fleshly people around them, they will never have real community and they will stay far away from church.

The Third S, and I here I draw to a close, is to keep them searching. Use the native restlessness of this time to your advantage. Students think it is their inalienable right to be irresponsible and uncommitted. Feed this conviction. Do not, in any way, allow for your subject to consider commitment or service or what they call “accountability.” If he must be interested in God, keep it peripheral. Let him come and go and flit in and out of whatever spiritual venue suits him for the day. But see to it that he makes no promises, no commitments, no investment. And in the unlikely event that you cannot prevent such blunders, make sure there is no one in his life to hold him to his promises and commitments, especially those who are older and wiser. This goal is best served by keeping our patients away from church. Remember the cross-stitch (pardon my use of the foul word “cross”) above auntie’s fridge: “Keep them searching for the soul; never finding and never whole.”

All that’s left is for me to thank you for your patience in reading what has turned out to be a rather lengthy correspondence. Please do not hear my harsh words as anything but familial concern for your welfare and the good of our Infernal Kingdom.

Would you be so kind as to write me back as soon as possible? These are weighty matters and we truly live in troubled times. Might I suggest you use the post instead of email–what with your past internet struggles and dalliance with sermonography?

Say hello to your father for me. Best wishes in your malfeasance, malevolence, and malediction.

Unscrupulously yours,

Uncle Screwtape

A Lost Letter to  Wormwood

Called, Equipped, Sustained

Perry Noble post:  What Is Holding You Back?

I don’t think people fall short of what God has for them because He isn’t revealing Himself…I think many do so because He does reveal Himself, but in Him doing so we are forced to face several things that MUST be overcame if we are going to achieve what He has for us…such as…

#1 – Fear

If you don’t say “oh crap” when God reveals what He wants for your life…then you probably didn’t hear from God!

We will never become who God has called us to be and do what He has called us to do if we do not face our fears.

• David faced his fear and stepped out to face Goliath.
• Moses faced his fear of not being able to speak and went before Pharoah.
• Noah faced his fear of not knowing how to build a boat

People that accomplish great things for God MUST fight through their fears because reality is than God has never asked anyone to do anything that was easy (other than receiving Christ!)

#2 – People

When you want to do something great for God there will always be LOTS of people who try to tell you why you can’t do what HE said you can do!  My advice…never listen to anyone who is not doing anything tell you that you cannot do anything.  OR…in other words, NEVER take dance instructions from a person who just stands against the wall and does nothing but criticize those who are trying to stay in rhythm.

#3 – The Procrastination Lie

I know so many people who swear that “one day” they are going to do what they “know” God has called them to do…but…”one day” for most people NEVER comes…because in their minds “one day” is when everything is in place and doing what God has called them to do does not require any step of faith at all.

“I will do it one day” is a lie that we tell ourselves in order to justify our disobedience.  God doesn’t speak to hear Himself talk…His word is not to be considered but to be obeyed.

#4 – Underestimation of Him Working Through You! 

If God has called you then He has also equipped you and will sustain you.  Of course the task at hand is large and seems “impossible,” that is why Zechariah 4:6 says it is by HIS Spirit and II Corinthians 12:9 says that HIS power is made perfect in our weakness!!!  He didn’t call us because we are “able,” we are nothing more than common jars of clay (see II Corinthians 4:7) that He wants to use for HIS glory…and He has a history of taking ordinary people (Acts 4:13) and doing extraordinary things through them!

See Less of God

Excerpt from Tullian Tchividjian post: This Is The Way It Ought To Be

Paul kept affirming a foundational reality that always accompanies true gospel belief: when God makes us one with Christ, he also makes us one with each other, removing the barriers of separation erected by our society. In contrast to the tribal-mindedness of the world around us, the church is to bring together people who would remain separated in any other sector of society. The divisive and fundamentally worldly notions of class, race, economics, and age prove to be painful sources of loneliness, fragmentation, and alienation in the modern world—things the church should strive against in establishing a new community.

The primary reason, though, that stylistic segregation in worship shrinks our souls is because it prevents us from knowing God deeply. The only way to know him deeply is to have many different types of Christian people in your life, since each person will help to reveal a part of God that you can’t see by yourself. This means the great tragedy of segregation isn’t so much that we see less of each other but that in separating from each other we see less of God. All of us need other lights than our own to see more of his myriad facets.

So, we miss out on some great things God intends for us to enjoy when we separate in worship according to musical tastes. The idea to do this comes, not from the Bible, but from American consumerism and we adopt this practice to our own peril.

As my friend Steven Phillips rightly says, we ought to use the best music, prayers, and traditions of our Christian past, so that our worship is guided and enriched by our fathers in the faith. In doing this we demonstrate that our Christian faith reaches back thousands of years. And we ought also to use the best new songs and styles – to “sing a new song to the Lord” as the Psalms say – so that we can demonstrate that the grace of God is ever new. God’s saving power is available now, in the present day, to all who call on Him in faith.

By musically blending things in this way we  exercise love toward those who resonate with different musical tastes than us. We recognize that our worship service is a shared time and a shared space, so that if a particular song or style doesn’t inspire us, we can still look across the sanctuary and give thanks from our hearts for the diversity of people who are here. The gospel of Jesus Christ invites us to look across the aisle and say, “Though this song or style may not appeal to me, I see that God is using it to move you. I love you in Christ and I’m glad you’re here.”

Finished

LifeToday Devotional

Radical Salvation
by David Platt

I remember sitting outside a Buddhist temple in Indonesia. Men and women filled the elaborate, colorful temple grounds, where they daily performed their religious rituals. Meanwhile, I was engaged in a conversation with a Buddhist leader and a Muslim leader in this particular community. They were discussing how all religions are fundamentally the same and only superficially different. "We may have different views about small issues," one of them said, "but when it comes down to essential issues, each of our religions is the same."

I listened for a while, and then they asked me what I thought. I said, "It sounds as though you both pictured God (or whatever you call God) at the top of a mountain. It seems as if you believe that we are all at the of the mountain, and I may take one route up the mountain, you may take another, and in the end we will all end up in the same place."

They smiled as I spoke. Happily they replied, "Exactly! You understand!"

Then I leaned in and said, "Now let me ask you a question. What would you think if I told you that the God at the top of the mountain actually came down to where we are? What would you think if I told you that God doesn't wait for people to find their way to him, but instead he comes to us"

They thought for a moment and then responded, "That would be great."

I replied, "Let me introduce you to Jesus."

This is the gospel. As long as you and I understand salvation as checking a box to get to God, we will find ourselves in the meaningless sea of world religions that actually condemn the human race by exalting our supposed ability to get to God. On the other hand, when you and I realize that we are morally evil, dead in sin, and deserving of God's wrath with no way out on our own, we begin to discover our desperate need for Christ.

Our understanding of who God is and who we are drastically affects our understanding of who Christ is and why we need him. For example, if God is only a loving father who wants to help his people, then we will see Christ as a mere example of that love. We will view the cross as just a demonstration of God's love in which he allowed Roman soldiers to crucify his son so that sinful man would know how much he loves us.

But this picture of Christ and the cross is woefully inadequate, missing the entire point of the gospel. We are not saved from our sins because Jesus was falsely tried by Jewish and Roman officials and sentence by Pilate to die. Neither are we saved because Roman persecutors thrust nails into the hands and feet of Christ and hung him on the cross.

Do we really think that the false judgment of men heaped upon Christ to pay for the debt for all of humankind's sin? Do we really think that a crown of thorns and whips and nails and a wooden cross and all the other facets of the crucifixion that we glamorize are powerful enough to save us?

Picture Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. As he kneels before his father, drops of sweat and blood fall together from his head. Why is he in such agony and pain? The answer is not because he is afraid of crucifixion. He is not trembling because of what the Roman soldiers are about to do to him.

Since that day countless men and women in the history of Christianity have died for their faith. Some of them were not just on crosses; they were burned there. Many of them went to their crosses singing.

One Christian in India, while being skinned alive, look at his persecutors and said, "I thank you for this. Tear off my old garment, for I will soon put on Christ's garment of righteousness."

As he prepared to head to his execution, Christopher Love wrote a note to his wife, saying, "today they will sever me from my physical head, but they cannot sever me from my spiritual head, Christ." As he walked to his death, his wife applauded while he sang of glory.

Did these men and women in Christian history have more courage than Christ himself? Why was he trembling in that garden, weeping and full of anguish? We can rest assured that he was not a coward about to face Roman soldiers. Instead he was a Savior about to endure divine wrath.

Listen to his words: "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me." The "cup" is not a reference to a wooden cross; it is a reference to divine judgment. It is the cup of God's wrath.

This is what Jesus is recoiling from in the garden. All God's holy wrath and hatred toward sin and sinners, stored up since the beginning of the world, is about to be poured out on him, and he is sweating blood at the thought of it.

What happened at the cross was not primarily about nails being thrust into Jesus hands and feet, but about the wrath due your sin and my sin being thrust upon his soul. In that holy moment, all the righteous wrath and justice of God due us came rushing down like a torrent on Christ himself. Some say, "God looked down and could not bear to see the suffering that the soldiers were inflicting on Jesus, so he turned away." But this is not true. God turned away because he could not bear to see your sin and my sin on his Son.

One preacher described it as if you and I were standing a short hundred yards away from a dam of water 10,000 miles high and 10,000 miles wide. All of a sudden that dam was breached, and a torrential flood of water came crashing toward us. Right before it reached our feet, the ground in front of us opened up and swallowed it all. At the cross, Christ drank the full cup of the wrath of God, and when he had downed the last drop, he turned the cup over and cried out, "It is finished."

This is the gospel. The just and loving Creator of the universe has looked upon hopelessly sinful people and sent his son, God in the flesh, to bear his wrath against sin on the cross and to show his power over sin in the resurrection so that all who trust in him will be reconciled to God forever.


From the book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt. Published by Multnomah. Used with permission.

Safety vs. Bravery

Mark Batterson post:  Fearless

Such a privilege to have Gary Haugen @ NCC this weekend. Great way to cap off our Fearless series. Gary is the founder and CEO of International Justice Mission.

Gary said we need to do less and reflect more. One way they put that into practice at IJM is by starting every day with thirty minutes of silence! And they pay people for that half hour! It creates an atmosphere where you don't just do things, you think about what you're doing! Love that. I think any business or ministry would benefit from a creative implementation of that idea.

He shared about one of his colleagues who he called a mad scientist. He read Jesus' statement that those who lose their life will find it and decided to experiment on himself. Love that idea when it comes to God's promises. We need to test them on ourselves like mad scientists!

Gary said we all want adventure, faith, miracles, and a deep knowledge of Christ, but you can't have those things without letting go of safety, security, comfort, and control." You have to choose between safety and bravery. The bottom line is this: God's will in a fallen world is dangerous.

So true. So challenging.

Praying

Ray Ortlund post:  Priorities in prayer

“If we look through the whole Bible and observe all the examples of prayer that we find there recorded, we shall not find so many prayers for any other mercy as for the deliverance, restoration and prosperity of the church and the advancement of God’s glory and kingdom of grace in the world. . . . The Scripture does not only abundantly manifest it to be the duty of God’s people to be much in prayer for this great mercy, but it also abounds with manifold considerations to encourage them in it and animate them with hopes of success.  There is perhaps no one thing that the Bible so much promises, in order the encourage the faith, hope and prayers of the saints, as this . . . . For undoubtedly that which God abundantly makes the subject of his promises, God’s people should abundantly make the subject of their prayers.  It also affords them the strongest assurances that their prayers shall be successful.”

Jonathan Edwards, Works (Edinburgh, 1979), II:291.

Gratitude

Steven Furtick post:  The sabotage of entitlement

One of the things I try to emphasize regularly with my staff is the importance of us not taking the incredible things we’re experiencing for granted. We have been blessed to get to see God do things in four years that most churches don’t see in forty. And the danger for us is that we could normalize the abnormal. Or even worse, come to see what we’re experiencing as something we’re entitled to.

But this isn’t just a danger for us. Or for people or organizations that are doing or seeing things that are considered extraordinary.

It’s a danger for all of us.

Whenever you have something that is essentially a privilege for too long you can begin to feel it’s something you’re entitled to. Something that’s yours by right.

When in fact everything you have is by the grace of God. Everything.

You are not entitled to have a spouse. You are blessed with one.
You are not entitled to have a job. You are provided one.
You are not entitled to healing, forgiveness, or salvation. You are given them.

We sabotage our story when we begin to see the benefits and blessings of God as things we’re entitled to. And that’s because entitlement is the enemy of genuine thankfulness and appreciation. Both to God for what He has given us and for what He has given us.

I think that’s why throughout the Bible God repeatedly tells His people to recount His deeds on their behalf and the blessings that He had given them. It wasn’t because He needed to be reminded of how good He was. It was because they needed to be reminded of how good they had it. And how much they did not deserve it.

We need to be reminded too. None of us deserve anything we have. None of us are entitled to anything. But that’s what makes God’s benefits and blessings so extraordinary. God’s grace is the grounds for our gratitude.

Always Faithful

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional:

PARALYZING INERTIA
 
"Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass."  I Thess. 5:24

    I used to live frozen in inertia.  I reviewed my failures and all the self-proclaimed reasons I believed I was inadequate and decided to stand still in order to avoid the humiliation of failing.  I lived in perpetual self-condemnation.  My energy was depleted.  I remember entertaining thoughts that something was physically wrong with me, when all the time, self-hatred and the sinful thought patterns that accompanied it sapped the life out of me.

    I did not know Jesus intimately.  Though He was a faithful Savior, I had not opened my heart to experience Him.  I was completely self-focused.  The Word of God was nearby but I didn't know how to live in it to find life.  In 1997, all that changed and I was re-born.  I looked at Jesus and saw His glory.  I was stunned by Him.  The love and healing I experienced as He unveiled the power of His Word confronted my self-hatred.  The darkness of condemning self-talk began to melt away under His penetrating Light.

    The circumstances under which Paul wrote these words is pretty amazing.  He was being persecuted severely for preaching.  Could this not have looked like failure to Him?  He could have fed himself the wrong message about God's faithfulness.  It appeared he had no thriving ministry, no audience, no altar full of people wanting to commit their lives to Christ.  It could have appeared that everything he was called to do was being thwarted.  

Instead, He remembered the life of Jesus.  What often looks like failure is the dark threads of redemption's story.  God was faithful to Jesus even though He hung on a cross.  But when it's me, I struggle to see it.  In hindsight, it's usually clear but in the throes of the trial, I can question His faithfulness.

God calls each of us to recognize any internal lies which could bring us to a standstill.  We are to renounce them, one by one, and get up by faith.  He is faithful amidst the backdrop of these dark times.

I do not have the advantage of hindsight today but I do review our history. You have always been faithful.  I declare You the same today.  Amen

Being Shaped

LifeToday Devotional

Forgiveness and Freedom
by James Robison

In the spiritual realm there are two kingdoms in conflict: the kingdoms of light and darkness, life and death, truth and deception. Those influences are calling out to you, not only for your attention, but your devotion. They seek to control every aspect of your life. Sadly, most people tune in the wrong signals. Eventually, rather than you merely having thoughts, those thoughts take hold of you.

From the time man was created and placed in a garden, God fully intended to fellowship with us. He wanted to bless all the earth through the stewardship and oversight of those who knew Him as father, walked in His will according to His ways and fulfilled His purpose. But in that garden there was a deceiver, more subtle and crafty than any beast of the field. You know what happened – they bought the lie. From that moment on, a tragic cycle of defeat began.

God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. That commandment expresses His will for those created in His image. The effect of the fruitfulness of our life will be multiplied. We are continually sowing seeds with our words, deeds and influence. God designed us to have a positive and profound impact on everyone we encounter. But instead, many of us live a life of continuous defeat.

Psalm 78 chronicles the Israelites’ cycles of defeat. These events illustrate a spiritual truth – a life lesson that speaks to us today. Throughout history, the people of God have cycled through blessings of God – forgiveness, fruitfulness and restoration – and the curses of sin – arrogance, self-centeredness and bondage. The Old Testament repeatedly recounts how God made His people to walk in his will, but the enemy took them captive, then He set them free. Sadly, the cycles of defeat were foolishly repeated.

Jesus, the promised Messiah, walked in and announced, "What the prophet said is fulfilled. I have come to set the captives free, to restore sight to the blind, to set at liberty those that are oppressed." The Jewish people looked at him and said, "We have never been in bondage to anyone. We're descendants of Abraham!" If you read Psalm 78, as well as the minor and major prophets, you will find these people continually lived as slaves. Yet they said to Jesus, "We're not in defeat. We're not in bondage."

We are all born in this world as the children of wrath because of mankind’s fall. We must be born again to become the children of God. But from the moment you're born again, the kingdom of deception and destruction seeks to take you captive. When we turn away from the spiritual battle between these two kingdoms and do not walk the path of victory that the Lord has laid out for us, we fall back into bondage. Consider this account of God’s chosen people:

The men of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned back on the day of battle; they did not keep God's covenant and refused to live by his law. They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them.

He did miracles in the sight of their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan. He divided the sea and led them through; he made the water stand firm like a wall. He guided them with the cloud by day and with light from the fire all night. He split the rocks in the desert and gave them water as abundant as the seas; he brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers.

But they continued to sin against him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High. They willfully put God to the test by demanding the food they craved. They spoke against God, saying, "Can God spread a table in the desert? When he struck the rock, water gushed out, and streams flowed abundantly. But can he also give us food? Can he supply meat for his people?"

When the Lord heard them, he was very angry; his fire broke out against Jacob, and his wrath rose against Israel, for they did not believe in God or trust in his deliverance. Yet he gave a command to the skies above and opened the doors of the heavens; he rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven.

(Psalm 78:9-24)

Do you see the similarity today? God does great things in our lives, but we wander from His ways, His truth, His life and His love. We pay the price for our rebellion, yet God remains faithful, pouring out “the grain of heaven.” We deserve His wrath, yet He opens the doors of heaven.

God wants to break every bondage in our lives. He longs for us to live in fellowship with Him, hearing His voice and responding to His love. Only through intimacy with God can we receive freedom, fullness and fruitfulness that He wants for us.

We spend our time going to church, but God desires us to become the church. It is not a place; it is a people. We are to live to pierce the darkness, to bring about a transformation of everything we come in contact with because we have been undeniably set free.

Say to the Lord, “God, I'm in your hand. What's your purpose for me?” He wants to shape Christ-likeness in you. All things work together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. That’s you. He wants to shape Christ in you.

The starting point for this process is His word. The word is alive! And I make you this promise – it’s really God's promise – if you will get His word out of that leather binder and bind it up in your heart, it will be like a fire in your bones. It will be like honey, gold and silver tried in a fire, reflecting the beauty of the purified work He has accomplished in your life. When you look at your life, you will see Jesus. And when God looks at you, He will see Himself in you, refined like silver.

God’s word is true. He is faithful to forgive and restore you to His freedom. So make the choice today and every day to live according to His ways, so that you can receive His life and impact those around you for His kingdom.

Adapted from the series “Living Free” with James Robison and Robert Morris.

Above All Things

Ray Ortlund post:  A Prayer

O God, who hast prepared for them that love thee such good things as pass man’s understanding, pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The Collect, Sixth Sunday after Trinity, The Book of Common Prayer.

God's Consolations

When the cares of my heart are many,
   your consolations cheer my soul.

Psalm 94:19

Hope

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.


Romans 15: 4, 13

Faithful, RiskTaking Plodders

Kevin DeYoung post:  The Glory of Plodding

It’s sexy among young people — my generation — to talk about ditching institutional religion and starting a revolution of real Christ-followers living in real community without the confines of church. Besides being unbiblical, such notions of churchless Christianity are unrealistic. It’s immaturity actually, like the newly engaged couple who think romance preserves the marriage, when the couple celebrating their golden anniversary know it’s the institution of marriage that preserves the romance. Without the God-given habit of corporate worship and the God-given mandate of corporate accountability, we will not prove faithful over the long haul.

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That’s my dream for the church — a multitude of faithful, risktaking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God’s glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often unnoticed, plodding consistency.

My generation in particular is prone to radicalism without followthrough. We have dreams of changing the world, and the world should take notice accordingly. But we’ve not proved faithful in much of anything yet. We haven’t held a steady job or raised godly kids or done our time in VBS or, in some cases, even moved off the parental dole. We want global change and expect a few more dollars to the ONE campaign or Habitat for Humanity chapter to just about wrap things up. What the church and the world needs, we imagine, is for us to be another Bono — Christian, but more spiritual than religious and more into social justice than the church. As great as it is that Bono is using his fame for some noble purpose, I just don’t believe that the happy future of the church, or the world for that matter, rests on our ability to raise up a million more Bonos (as at least one author suggests). With all due respect, what’s harder: to be an idolized rock star who travels around the world touting good causes and chiding governments for their lack of foreign aid, or to be a line worker at GM with four kids and a mortgage, who tithes to his church, sings in the choir every week, serves on the school board, and supports a Christian relief agency and a few missionaries from his disposable income?

Until we are content with being one of the million nameless, faceless church members and not the next globe-trotting rock star, we aren’t ready to be a part of the church. In the grand scheme of things, most of us are going to be more of an Ampliatus (Rom. 16:8) or Phlegon (v. 14) than an apostle Paul. And maybe that’s why so many Christians are getting tired of the church. We haven’t learned how to be part of the crowd. We haven’t learned to be ordinary. Our jobs are often mundane. Our devotional times often seem like a waste. Church services are often forgettable. That’s life. We drive to the same places, go through the same routines with the kids, buy the same groceries at the store, and share a bed with the same person every night. Church is often the same too — same doctrines, same basic order of worship, same preacher, same people. But in all the smallness and sameness, God works — like the smallest seed in the garden growing to unbelievable heights, like beloved Tychicus, that faithful minister, delivering the mail and apostolic greetings (Eph. 6:21). Life is usually pretty ordinary, just like following Jesus most days. Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.

It’s possible the church needs to change. Certainly in some areas it does. But it’s also possible we’ve changed — and not for the better. It’s possible we no longer find joy in so great a salvation. It’s possible that our boredom has less to do with the church, its doctrines, or its poor leadership and more to do with our unwillingness to tolerate imperfection in others and our own coldness to the same old message about Christ’s death and resurrection. It’s possible we talk a lot about authentic community but we aren’t willing to live in it.

The church is not an incidental part of God’s plan. Jesus didn’t invite people to join an anti-religion, anti-doctrine, anti-institutional bandwagon of love, harmony, and re-integration. He showed people how to live, to be sure. But He also called them to repent, called them to faith, called them out of the world, and called them into the church. The Lord “didn’t add them to the church without saving them, and he didn’t save them without adding them to the church” (John Stott).

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). If we truly love the church, we will bear with her in her failings, endure her struggles, believe her to be the beloved bride of Christ, and hope for her final glorification. The church is the hope of the world — not because she gets it all right, but because she is a body with Christ for her Head.

Don’t give up on the church. The New Testament knows nothing of churchless Christianity. The invisible church is for invisible Christians. The visible church is for you and me. Put away the Che Guevara t-shirts, stop the revolution, and join the rest of the plodders. Fifty years from now you’ll be glad you did.

Rejoicing, Praying, Gratitude

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional:

THE THREE GO TOGETHER

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks.  I Thess 5:16-18

    When I get what I've always wanted, I rejoice.  When I'm hurting, I pray without ceasing.  When I'm delivered from something painful, I give thanks.  Three different experiences on the emotional continuum.  Will I do all three when I'm happy?  Will I do all three when I'm under the weight of something heavy?  Not usually.  I relegate rejoicing and thankfulness as a response to good news and praying without ceasing as something I do under difficult circumstances.  Paul is saying that all three should go together no matter what is happening in my life.

    Let's face it.  Rejoicing, praying, and gratitude can grind to a halt when nothing is going right and I'm at the end of my rope.  So, as one who is driven to take Christian clichés out of the abstract, let me take a stab at it. Here are four life-scenarios, and in each, there is a prayerful response to rejoice, pray without ceasing, and express thanks.

1. An elderly man wakes up with chronic back trouble, unable to bend to tie his shoes without crying out in pain.  "Lord, I rejoice that I don't have to face today without You.  I'm so grateful You are here to help me.  I praise you for being so faithful that I can rely on you for strength every moment of today."
2. A mother aches over her wayward son.  As she thinks of him, her heart is heavy and her insides churn.  "I rejoice in the knowledge that You love my son even more than I do.  I pray for him continually, knowing You are answering my prayers whether I see it or not.  Surround him with your angels.  Give him a heart to choose righteousness. Thank you for being my refuge in prayer."
3. A husband and father, unemployed and at the end of hope, is turned down again by several potential employers.  "I'm so grateful You're listening, Father.  Oh, I depend on Your promise of provision for me and my family.  I rejoice that these rejection letters are not a surprise to You.  You have my future in Your hands and I breathe out prayers all day long for your supernatural strength."
4. A woman buries her husband of forty five years and is overwhelmed with the loss.  "I don't know how in the world I'll live without my husband but You have already made a way for me.  I rejoice in Your companionship.  I could be frightened of living alone but that would be wasted.  We are connected all day long, my Lord.  I know You have my hand, even while I grieve."

    It's humbling to realize that out of the several thousand of you who read this, many are you are facing the exact circumstances I'm describing.  Every one of us must know that no one can steal our ability to pray.  No circumstances can erase the character of a God I am grateful for.  No set of crushing circumstances annihilate the promises I rejoice in.  If joy, prayer, and gratitude are out of reach, I can know that my mind has fallen prey to the deception that my well-being is connected to my environment and not my Savior.  He is the one who, no matter what, has plans in place to prosper me, not harm me, to give me a future and a hope.  That provides deep joy in momentary despair.

Trouble often rolls over my head.  I abide you in the quiet of still waters, far beneath the crash of the waves. Amen

Whets Our Appetite

The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what's ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less.  2 Cor 5:5 [The Message]

Looking Moment by Moment to Christ

Ray Ortlund post:  Only by a power from beyond ourselves

“If we stress the love of God without the holiness of God, it turns out only to be compromise.  But if we stress the holiness of God without the love of God, we practice something that is hard and lacks beauty.  And it is important to show forth beauty before a lost world and a lost generation.  All too often young people have not been wrong in saying that the church is ugly.  In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we are called upon to show to a watching world and to our own young people that the church is something beautiful.

Several years ago I wrestled with the question of what was wrong with much of the church that stood for purity.  I came to the conclusion that in the flesh we can stress purity without love or we can stress the love of God without purity, but that in the flesh we cannot stress both simultaneously.  In order to exhibit both simultaneously, we must look moment by moment to the work of Christ, to the work of the Holy Spirit.  Spirituality begins to have real meaning in our moment-by-moment lives as we begin to exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God.”

Francis A. Schaeffer, The Church before the Watching World (Downers Grove, 1971), page 63.

Live More Deeply and Constructively

Excerpts from Peggy Noonan:  Information Overload is Nothing New (WSJ)

Seneca thought the great job of philosophy was to offer people practical advice on how to live more deeply and constructively. He came of age in a time of tumult; the Rome he lived in was being transformed by a new connectedness. An empire that stretched over millions of square miles was being connected by new roads, a civil service, an extensive postal system. And there was the rise of written communication. Writing, says Mr. Powers, was a huge part of the everyday lives of literate Romans: "Postal deliveries were important events, as urgently monitored as e-mail is today." Seneca himself wrote of his neighbors hurrying "from all directions" to meet the latest mail boats from Egypt.

As written language began to drive things, Mr. Powers says, "the busy Roman was constantly navigating crowds—not just the physical ones that filled the streets and amphitheaters but the virtual crowd of the larger empire and the torrents of information it produced."

Seneca, at the center of it all, struggled with the information glut, and with something else. He became acutely conscious of "the danger of allowing others—not just friends and colleagues but the masses—to exert too much influence on one's thinking." The more connected a society becomes, the greater the chance an individual can become a creature, or even slave, of that connectedness.

"You ask me what you should consider it particularly important to avoid," one of Seneca's letters begins. "My answer is this: a mass crowd. It is something to which you cannot entrust yourself without risk. . . . I never come back home with quite the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace."

Seneca's advice: Cultivate self-sufficiency and autonomy. Trust your own instincts and ideas. You can thrive in the crowd if you are not dependent on it.

But this is not easy.

...

And there was the way people consumed information. The empire was awash in texts. "Elite, literate Romans were discovering the great paradox of information: the more of it that's available, the harder it is to be truly knowledgeable. It was impossible to process it all in a thoughtful way." People, Seneca observed, grazed and skimmed, absorbing information "in the mere passing." But it is better to know one great thinker deeply than dozens superficially.

Seneca, Mr. Powers observes, could have been writing in this century, "when it's hard to think of anything that isn't done in 'mere passing,' and much of life is beginning to resemble a plant that never puts down roots."

There are two paths. One is to surrender, to allow the crowd to lead you around by the nose and your experience to become ever more shallow. The other is to step back and pare down. "Measure your life," advises Seneca, "it just does not have room for so much." 

Making Much of Christ

Excerpts from John Piper:  Present Your Bodies As a Living Sacrifice

Romans 12:1-2

I appeal to you therefore, brothers,by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world,but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God . . .” I appeal to you therefore . . .” That is, I appeal to you on the basis of what has gone before in the first 11 chapters of this letter. I will now call you in chapters 12-16 to a kind of life that is built on something. It doesn't come out of nowhere. It has roots. This new Christian life is built on chapters 1-11. Build your Christian life on Romans 1-11. Sink your roots here. And your fruit will be Christian fruit.

...

Build your lives on this mercy. Sink your roots in this mercy. And your new life will flow out with mercy. That is, Romans 12 will become a reality in your own life. Romans 12 oozes with mercy. “Show mercy with cheerfulness. . . . Let love be genuine. . . . Give to the saints. . . . Bless those who persecute you. . . . Weep with those who weep. . . . Associate with the lowly. . . . Repay no one evil for evil. . . . Never avenge yourselves. . . . If your enemy is hungry feed him.” Build your lives on mercy and become merciful. ^[1]

But today we notice something very significant in verse 1: before Paul describes our new life in Christ as merciful he describes it as worshipful. Before you think that the Christian life has everything to do with being merciful to people, realize that it has everything to do with being worshipful toward God. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers,by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Before we give ourselves away in mercy to man, we give ourselves away in worship to God.

This is crucial to see. We must never let the Christian life drift into a mere social agenda. I use the word “mere” carefully, because if God is left out, our mercy will be mere social agenda. We do no one good in the end if we are not worshipping and leading them to worship in the acts of mercy that we do. If our good deeds are not expressing the worth of God, then our deeds are not worship, and in the end will not be merciful. Making people comfortable or helping them feel good on the way to everlasting punishment, without the hope and the design that they see Christ in your good deeds, is not mercy. Mercy must aim to make much of Christ. For no one is saved who doesn't meet and make much of Christ. And not to care about saving is not merciful.

Therefore, it is absolutely essential that Paul put worship before mercy and that he define the Christian life as worshipful before he defines it as merciful. Or to put it more carefully, Paul defines the Christian life as worship so that it can be merciful. If we are not worshipping in our behavior—that is, if we are not making much of God's mercy in Christ in and along side our behavior—we are not giving people what they need most. And that is not merciful. A merciful lifestyle depends on a worshipful lifestyle. So before Paul defines Christian living as merciful, he defines it as worshipful.

Seek Good For One Another

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional:

TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES
 
See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all men.  I Thessalonians 5:15

   When I invest in a close relationship, I have hopes of reciprocity.  I anticipate that the other person will have a heart for me, that they will listen well, love well, and value me.  When that happens, it's easy for my heart to stay open in their presence.  But let them fail me and my carnal nature rises to the surface.  It's fairly easy to forgive them for the first few offenses but after that, I'm churning to plot a new course.  How painful when any relationship deteriorates but I often contribute to its demise by carrying out small acts of revenge.

    I guess it's human nature to read a verse like today's verse and only think of it in severe terms, like 'an eye for an eye.'  By framing it in these contexts, I feel excused from examining my seemingly small behaviors.  How might I repay evil for evil without being conscious that I'm committing a sin?

• Punish another with my silence.
• Withhold love and praise.
• Do something that's important to them just halfway; being passive aggressive.
• Break a promise and feel that doing it is justified because of how they acted toward me.

    I wonder how many people I've punished when I was ignorant of what might have caused them to fail me in the first place.  Perhaps they didn't listen well because they were preoccupied with a private pain.  Perhaps I failed to get something I wanted, when in fact, the person who made the decision was led by God to promote someone else.  My time for advancement had not yet come.

    It is not my place to punish, yet at the same time, it is right to allow a relationship to suffer the consequences of painful choices.  The first is fueled by revenge.  The second, the laws of sowing and reaping, covering the outcome in prayer.

I lift all offenses to You.  I want to forgive as Jesus did but I also don't want to gloss over what needs exposure.  I release those I love into Your hands for only You understand their actions.  Make me harmless as a dove while wise as a serpent.  Amen

Feasting

Tullian Tchividjian post:  Worship Is A Big Deal: Part 6

(This is the final part of a 6 part series I’ve done on corporate worship. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.)

When we gather together for worship, we ought to come reaching up, starved for God, ready to feast together on the good news that, in the person of Jesus Christ, God has descended to us because we could never ascend to him. Feasting on God’s gospel together through prayer and preaching, sacrament and singing, provides us with the faith, hope, and love we need to be good news people in a bad news world.

We should not, however, only look back to what Christ has done, we should also look ahead to what Christ will do. We remember the past, but also rehearse the future. For, when Christ comes again, the process of reversing the curse of sin and recreating all things will be complete (1 Cor. 15:51-58). The peace on earth that the angels announced the night Christ was born will become a universal actuality. God’s cosmic rescue mission will be complete. The fraying fabric of our fallen world will be fully and perfectly rewoven. Everything and everyone “in Christ” will live in perfect harmony. Shalom will rule.

Isaiah 11:6-9 pictures it this way:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

For those who’ve found forgiveness of sins in Christ, there will one day be no more sickness, no more death, no more tears, no more division, no more tension. The pardoned children of God will work and worship in a perfectly renewed earth without the interference of sin. We who believe the gospel will enjoy sinless hearts and minds along with disease-free bodies. All that causes us pain and discomfort will be destroyed, and we will live forever.

Until that day comes, we gather for worship not to escape the world’s present reality, but to be reminded by God that this world isn’t all there is. The Bible makes it clear that even though we enjoy one day in seven to “rest” from our earthly activities, there is still a rest that remains to be fulfilled (Heb. 4:9). It is the final rest when every day will be a holy day and a heavenly day.

Until the glory of the Lord fills the earth as the waters fill the sea, until the Kingdom of this world becomes the Kingdom of our Lord and His Christ, every day is not holy. This is why we need Sunday’s—to give us a one-day taste of our future destiny so we can persevere through the rest of the week.

When we worship together we enjoy and experience an intrusion of “heaven in the real world”—the end time in time. It’s the future being brought into the present. In our worship together, we enter into the very suburbs of heaven and get a weekly taste of what will eventually be permanent and eternal.

I look forward to corporate worship more than any other time of the week because when I am worshipping together with other sinner-saints, my anticipation for the Great Gathering on the last day intensifies. What we do together in worship is nothing less than a glorious rehearsal of what we will experience when the “ultimate assembly” is fully and finally brought together by Christ. Our weekly worship is a foretaste of that day when our feasting will be permanent and our fasting will be over—when we will finally be able “to enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbounded energy and passion forever.”

Nothing In My Hands

Ray Ortlund post:  No adjective

“The gate of Mercy is opened, and over the door it is written, ‘This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.‘  Between that word ‘save’ and the next word ‘sinners,’ there is no adjective.  It does not say, ‘penitent sinners,’ ‘awakened sinners,’ ‘sensible sinners,’ ‘grieving sinners’ or ‘alarmed sinners.’  No, it only says, ‘sinners.’  And I know this, that when I come, I come to Christ today, for I feel it is as much a necessity of my life to come to the cross of Christ today as it was to come ten years ago—when I come to him, I dare not come as a conscious sinner or an awakened sinner, but I have to come still as a sinner with nothing in my hands.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, preaching on John 3:18, 17 February 1861.

An Invitation

Excerpt from Ed Stetzer post:  Back to Church Sunday:  Reaching the UnChurched and the DeChurched

Today, I have my friend and co-worker Philip Nation dropping by as a guest blogger.


As a pastor, I have always tried to focus on reaching the unchurched rather than trying to swap sheep from neighboring congregations. But, the fact is, many of the unchurched are actually the formerly churched. In other words, they perhaps grew up in church and later dropped out.

When I was in Buffalo and Erie, most of the people we reached were actually formerly Roman Catholic. They were generally out of church, but they had a religious memory. Here in middle Tennessee where I live now, it is primarily made up of former low-church Protestants. But, they perceive themselves as having "grown up" in church, and often "going back" is part of their spiritual journey.

Now, going "back to church" is not the same thing as redemption. But, for many people, it can be a bridge where they can then be presented with the truth claims of the gospel. That's what "Back to Church Sunday" is about.

Philip is the National Spokesman for Back to Church Sunday so I will let him explain:

Recently, much was made in the news and social media about Anne Rice's departure from church. Anne's return and quick departure from the Roman Catholic Church is its own distinct story because it is about one individual.

Nevertheless, such a high-profile departure from church affiliation left many Evangelicals wondering what effect it would have on church attendance. Will she--and the people like her--ever return?

Over the last few years, LifeWay Research (as well as other research groups) has intently studied the outreach methods and evangelistic works of churches in America. Much to the surprise of the "Chicken Little" crowd, people are still going to church. And, more people would attend if given one simple thing--an invitation.

LifeWay Research discovered this in a study (done in conjunction with the North American Mission Board) about outreach by churches in America. The survey included more than 15,000 adults in December of 2008. We found that the effectiveness of the invitation was often tied to its form: the more personal, the more effective.

The study revealed that 63 percent are willing to receive information about a local congregation or faith community from a family member, and 56 percent are willing to receive such information from a friend or neighbor.

In the same study, out of the 13 approaches, the one that comes out on top is the approach of personal invitations. The question we are left with is simple: Are Christians inviting their friends to church? We need to spread the positive discovery that we will not face the push-back that many have previously thought.

When asked "If you wanted to find out more about God, what would be your first response?" 33 percent chose "Read a Bible" as their option. It's a high percentage. But of those surveyed, 19 percent said they would attend a church service, 10 percent indicated they would talk to a Christian friend, and 9 percent said they would talk to a Christian family member.

The study leads us to the understanding that issues of faith and church are on the minds of those in our community. It is a time to move forward with engaging neighbors rather than waiting to see what will happen next.

...  

No Ordinary People

Excerpt from Perry Noble post:  A Final Thought on Evangelism From This Week

One final thought…in the seminar I spoke about II Corinthians 5:16, how we are to not look at people from a worldly point of view…in regards to that Scripture I wanted to share this quote from “The Weight of Glory” by C.S. Lewis…

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

Unique

Words of Life from LifeToday

Chucking the Comparisons
by Melinda Doolittle

One of the most important things you can ever learn is to appreciate who you are. Other people may try to pigeonhole you or force you into their preconceived notions of who or what you should be, but God created you to be unique.

Sometimes in the media I get compared to other singers. Of course, at times it is extremely flattering to see my name in the same sentence with Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin or Tina Turner. Certainly, I'm beyond honored to be compared to these great female artists. Yet if I were to take those press reports seriously, those statements could produce enormous, unnecessary pressure and take my focus away from who I'm really supposed to be.

I can’t step onto a stage thinking, The audience is expecting Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight to walk out there – with a side of Tina Turner thrown in for good measure. They’re going to get Melinda. When I perform, I can only be myself. Of course I respect every one of those amazing singers and have learned so much from each of them, but I can only be Melinda.

Obviously, we live in a world of constant comparisons, and many of us work in extremely competitive environments. It is always tempting to allow comparisons to other people to dictate how we will look, act, speak, or even think. We can’t escape comparisons – American Idol is comparison to the max – but we don’t have to let those comparisons change our core values.

It’s easy for people to base their worth on what others say about them; they use the opinions of other people as a barometer to gauge how well they are doing. But that gauge is unreliable and sometimes even dangerous. When I find myself falling into that trap, I love to look at one of my favorite Scripture passages, from Psalm 139:

For you created my inmost being;
  you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

  your works are wonderful,

  I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

  when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

  your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me

  were written in your book

  before one of them came to be.

  (Psalm 139:13-16, NIV)

To me, that passage says that we matter to God: He made us, and even before we were born, He established a plan for our lives. We cannot base our estimation of ourselves on the fickle opinions of other people.

That’s why I believe I am only in competition with myself. Certainly, I want to be the best “me” possible, so I work at my craft. I try to take good care of my body, mind, and spirit. But I don’t base my self esteem on someone else’s idea of who I should be. Funny, many images of celebrities or models in magazines nowadays are “computer enhanced,” altered to look better by someone who is handy with a mouse. The images themselves are not even real, much less valid comparisons.

So rather than comparing yourself to anyone else, simply relax and enjoy being the person God made you to be. You are your own competition. In fact, you are your only competition.


Adapted from Beyond Me: Finding Your Way to Life’s Next Level by Melinda Doolittle, © 2010 Melinda Doolittle, Zondervan.

Not A Day Without His Unfolding Grace

So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace.   
2 Corinthians 4:16 [The Message]

Integrity of Motive

Excerpt from D.A. Carson post:  1 Samuel 7-8; Romans 6; Jeremiah 44; Psalms 20-21

WHY PEOPLE ASK FOR SOMETHING is at least as important as what they ask for.

This is true in many domains of life. ...

We need not look so far. How many of our own requests—in the home, in church, at work, in our prayers—mask motives that are decidedly self-serving?

That was the problem with Israel’s request for a king (1 Sam. 8). The problem was not the request itself. After all, God would eventually give them the Davidic dynasty. Moses had anticipated the time when there would be a king (Deut. 17). The problem was the motive. They looked at their recent ups and downs with the local Canaanites and perceived few of their own faults, their own infidelities. They did not want to rely on the word of God mediated through prophets and judges and truly learn to obey that word. They figured that there would be political stability if only they could have a king. They wanted to be like the other nations (!), with a king to lead them in their military skirmishes (1 Sam. 8:19–20).

God not only understands their requests, but he perceives and evaluates their motives. In this instance he knows that the people are not simply loosening their ties to a prophet like Samuel, they are turning away from God himself (1 Sam. 8:7–8). The result is horrific: they get what they want, along with a desperate range of new evils they had not foreseen.

That is the fatal flaw in Machiavellian schemes, of course. They may win short-term advantages. But God is on his throne. Not only will the truth eventually come out, whether in this life or the next, but we may pay a horrible price, within our families and in our culture, in unforeseen correlatives, administered by a God who loves integrity of motive.

Continually Rediscover the Gospel

Tullian Tchividjian post:  Worship Is A Big Deal:  Part 5

A gospel-fueled worship service is a service where God serves the gospel to sinners in need of rescue—and that includes both Christians and non-Christians. Churches for years have struggled over whether their worship services ought to be geared toward Christians (to encourage and strengthen them) or non-Christians (to appeal to and win them). But that debate and the struggle over it are misguided. We’re asking the wrong questions and making the wrong assumptions.

Like many others, I once assumed the gospel was simply what non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, but after they believe it, they advance to deeper theological waters. But, as Tim Keller explains it, the gospel isn’t simply the ABCs of Christianity, but the A-through-Z. The gospel doesn’t just ignite the Christian life; it’s the fuel that keeps Christians going and growing every day. Once God rescues sinners, his plan isn’t to steer them beyond the gospel but to move them more deeply into it. After all, the only antidote to sin is the gospel—and since Christians remain sinners even after they’re converted, the gospel must be the medicine a Christian takes every day. Since we never leave off sinning, we can never leave the gospel.

To describe his condition as a Christian, Martin Luther employed the phrase simul justus et peccator—simultaneously justified and sinful. Luther understood that while he’d already been saved from sin’s penalty, he was in daily need of salvation from sin’s power.

Paul calls the gospel “the power of God for salvation” (Romans 1:16) and contrary to what some have concluded, he didn’t simply mean the “power of God for conversion.” The gospel remains the power of God unto salvation until we are glorified because we’re all “partly unbelievers until we die”, as Calvin put it. We need God’s rescue every day and in every way.

In his book The Gospel for Real Life, Jerry Bridges picks up on this theme—that Christians need the gospel just as much as non-Christians—by explaining how the spiritual poverty in so much of our Christian experience is the result of an inadequate understanding of the gospel’s depths. The answer isn’t to try harder in the Christian life but to comprehend more fully and clearly Christ’s incredible work on behalf of sinners and then to live in a more vital awareness of that grace day by day. Our main problem in the Christian life, in other words, is not that we don’t try hard enough to be good, but that we haven’t thought out the deep implications of the gospel and applied its powerful reality to all parts of our life. Real spiritual growth happens as we continually rediscover the gospel.

The same dynamic explains the primary purpose of corporate worship: to rediscover the mighty acts of God in Christ coming to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. We gather in worship to celebrate God’s grip on us, not our grip on God.

A gospel fueled worship service is a service where God’s rescue in Christ is unveiled and unpacked through song, sermon, and sacrament in such a way that it results in the exposure of both the idols of our culture and the idols of our hearts. The faithful exposition of our true Savior in every element of worship will painfully, but liberatingly, reveal the subtle ways in which we as individuals and as a culture depend on lesser things than Jesus to provide the security, acceptance, protection, affection, meaning, and satisfaction that only Christ can supply.

The praising, praying, and preaching in such a service should constantly show just how relevant and necessary Jesus is. They must serve the gospel to sinners by telling and retelling the story that while we are all great sinners, Christ is a great Savior.

(To be continued…)

Simplicity

The central point for the Discipline of Simplicity is to seek the kingdom of God and the righteousness of his kingdom first and then everything necessary will come in its proper order. ...

...

Focus upon the kingdom produces the inward reality, and without the inward reality we will degenerate into legalistic trivia.  Nothing else can be central.  The desire to get out of the rat race cannot be central, the redistribution of the world's wealth cannot be central, the concern for ecology cannot be central.  Seeking first God's kingdom and his righteousness, both personal and social, of that kingdom is the only thing that can be central in the Spiritual Discipline of simplicity.

Pages 86-87, Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster

Tend to the One

Excerpt from Ed Stetzer post:  Thursday is for Thinkers:  Kelly Minter on The Gospel versus Religious Mission

Today's post comes from Kelly Minter. Kelly is a musician and writer, most recently releasing Ruth: Loss, Life, & Legacy, a project made up of both a musical release and a Bible study. I am excited to have her at the blog today.

The Gospel Versus Religious Mission

A few mornings ago I opened my Bible to the story of the blind beggar in Luke 18:35-42, as part of my study through the gospels. I was perfectly prepared to skim through the end of the chapter, seeing as I had heard about Blind Bartimaeus since a small child perched nicely in my Sunday School chair. What I wasn't expecting to find was a surprising lesson on the heart of Christ versus religious mission.

As Jesus approached Jerusalem with a large crowd, a blind beggar cried out for help: "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" What struck me next was a tiny phrase that's only included in Luke's Gospel: "Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet..." For the first time I noticed that the condemning voices had come from the leaders of the crowd (some translations say, "those in front"). They viewed the ailing man, with no sight and no coins in his pockets, as an embarrassing nuisance worthy only of their dismissal. After all, he was getting in the way of their "mission with Jesus."

Those who led the way. It's startling to think that the very ones in the front of this crowd, barreling toward Jericho like storm clouds rolling across the sky, felt perfectly justified in condemning the vulnerable and needy, all because they were on, what they thought was, a mission with Jesus.

I couldn't miss the correlation between this harried crowd and our often fast-paced, program-heavy Christian environments. How easy it is for us to get swept up in the rhythm of our productivity, marching to the beat of religious mission, while ironically forgetting that our call is about people! Our ministry busyness can often create the illusion that we are keeping in step with Jesus - even leading the way, much like those in the crowd. When in reality, Jesus may be asking us to stop. Perhaps for just the one.

As one who makes my living in what would be considered "full-time ministry," I find this passage especially challenging. Sadly, there have been many instances where I have practically tripped over the proverbial blind beggar because I had a certain mission to accomplish, a Bible study to prepare, a devotional to write. They are the good things that sometimes get in the way of Christ's heart for me to live out His compassion on, what appears to be, a smaller scale.

It is so easy - even as leaders - to miss the individual person for the corporate task at hand. Sermons and meetings and events sometimes overtake God's call for us to minister to an individual or a smaller group, sans the smoke and spotlight. He has put in our path people that may cause us to slow down, or even come to a dead stop as Jesus did (Luke 18:40). Yes, Jesus dealt corporately, but He also followed His Father's leading to stop and tend to the one. Even in the midst of a crowd that was more intent on its destination than on the heart and healing of a blind man.

          ...

I started pursuing what was right in front of me, as opposed to seeking a bigger "ministry." I pressed into my local church and community more intently. I taught the Bible to a small group of women who had just gotten out of prison, as I was desperate to see the gospel transform ravaged lives. I became more available for leisurely coffees with those who simply needed to talk. I threw more dinner parties so I could commune with the church and non-churched alike. I took a couple of international missions trips. And though this may sound like I simply added more to my "to-do" list, this has not been the case. I have simply been more mindful about what God is calling me to, not always saying "yes" to the bigger opportunity, not always keeping step with the crowd. Ultimately, I needed to remember why I was doing ministry in the first place, and tending to the one became not just a reminder, but the fuel for everything else.

Though Jesus never needed any reminder, I can't miss the irony of Him stopping to heal Blind Bartimaeus on the way to His crucifixion and resurrection (Luke 18:31-33), showing us that He never lost His heart for the one, even on the way to give His life for the many.

Take the Offensive

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional

SPIRITUAL ADRENALIN

God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.  I Thess. 5:9

    When ancient armies entered into battle, they sought to secure evidence that the gods favored them and would give them victory.  Military leaders offered sacrifices, even consulted the flight of birds and the entrails of animals for clues that might point to a coming success.  Armies brought soothsayers with them onto the battlefield so that they could interpret these signs.  Imagine how the hope of victory would energize a soldier.  When he was assured of success, he dared become bold with his sword.  He was not afraid to take the offensive.  

    God was gracious to reveal that the ultimate outcome for every believer is victory, not defeat.  It is for salvation, not wrath.  Does this not build confidence into my steps?  The gates of hell shall not prevail against me when I carry out His orders, armed with the sword of the Word and with prayer.  I may suffer, appear to lose a skirmish or two, but victory is written into the storyline of every child of God.

    Some of us will bring the message of salvation today to someone who resists it.  Their eyes are blind, their ears are slow to hear, and their hearts fail to understand.  Yet, we should persist.  God has a heart that is for them, not against them.  He is not willing for any to perish.  Knowing this, I can not give up on anyone.

    The heart of God which longs to birth more children into His kingdom constrains me to carry the message of the Gospel.  I perceive my Father's tears over those who still shake their fist in the face of Love.  With the shield of faith, I combat the lies of the enemy that try to convince me that my loved one is a lost cause.  With His Word on my tongue, I proclaim His power to save.

    My father in law, the evangelist, Jack Wyrtzen, signed every letter "On the Victory Side."  He believed it and traveled to Eastern block countries with the Gospel by  smuggling bibles behind their iron curtain.  He was willing to lose his life if discovered.  Death wouldn't have been a defeat.  Because he knew that that, he enjoyed spiritual adrenaline.  He lived in the hope of the final chapter and would tell any of us today to be stand up and be counted.  This is the time for the boldest advances for the kingdom.

I often live crippled by fear, like I don't know who wins this present battle.  Forgive me.  I know better.  Amen.

For the Sake of Others

Miscellanies post:  The Church as Contrast-Society

“The idea of church as contrast-society does not mean contradiction to the rest of society for the sake of contradiction. Still less does the church as contrast-society mean despising the rest of society due to elitist thought. The only thing meant is contrast on behalf of others and for the sake of others, the contrast function that is unsurpassably expressed in the images of ‘salt of the earth,’ ‘light of the world,’ and ‘city on a hill’ (Mt 5:13-14).

Precisely because the church does not exist for itself but completely and exclusively for the world, it is necessary that the church not become the world, that it retain its own countenance. If the church loses its own contours, if it lets its light be extinguished and its salt become tasteless, then it can no longer transform the rest of society. Neither missionary activity nor social engagement, no matter how strenuous, helps anymore. …

What makes the church the divine contrast-society is not self-acquired holiness, not cramped efforts and moral achievements, but the saving deed of God, who justifies the godless, accepts failures and reconciles himself with the guilty. Only in this gift of reconciliation, in the miracle of life newly won against all expectation, does what is here termed contrast-society flourish.”

—Gerhard Lohfink, Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith (SPCK, 1985) as quoted in Eckhard J. Schnabel, Early Christian Mission: Paul and the Early Church (IVP, 2004), 1577-1578.

Urgent Immediacy of God in All Things

Excerpt from Ian Morgan Cron post:  Are You a Christian Mystic?

Drop the phrase word ‘Christian mysticism’ into a conversation among a group of Jesus followers, especially among our more conservative brothers and sisters, and you will get a wide array of reactions. Some correlate it with New Age spirituality; others associate it with creepy psychic phenomena that have little to do with “normal” Christian life; others, however, will speak reverently about a transcendent experience of God that occurred in their past that made them wonder if for only one brief and beautiful moment they themselves were mystics.

So, what really makes someone a mystic? In the simplest sense, a mystic is someone who has a lived experience of Jesus in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. They have experienced Jesus, and through contemplative prayer and meditation, continue to encounter Jesus in such a way that they gain a new perceptive appreciation for the urgent immediacy of God in all things. (This is but one of several thousand definitions of this term. Trust me, I will hear about it’s shortcomings!)

Contrary to what many think, however, these God-encounters are not always seismic events, like those experienced by St Francis or St Teresa of Avila. Catholic theologian Karl Rahner (a theologian we desperately need to revisit), would argue that these unmediated encounters with God are often so delicate and subtle that most people do not even know that what they have experienced is mystical in content.

His Power

Perry Noble post:  Why We Fall Short of Ephesians 3:20

If Ephesians 3:20 is true then why do we fall short of it so many times, here are a few thoughts…

#1 – We believe that God has great plans for other people but not for us.  (Believe it or not…He has Ephesians 3:20 plans for YOU!!!!)

#2 – We want a detailed explanation from God, expecting a complete/detailed outline that lets us know what is going to happen.  (Uh…this never happens, that is why it requires faith to follow Him!)

#3 – We desire to “take up our mattress” rather than taking up our cross, believing that God would NEVER ask us to do anything that might be uncomfortable!  (Truth…the resurrection came AFTER the crucifixion!)

#4 – The fear of man…when we embrace God’s plan for our lives and refuse to be normal people don’t like it…so we allow what others say and think about us lead us to the place where they are rather than the place that God desires for us to be.

#5 – We don’t fully understand Matthew 7:9-11, that HE is THE PERFECT FATHER and desires to give us things that will BLOW our minds!

#6 – We think God blesses us for our glory and not His.

#7 – We have a season of regret in our lives and allow the pain of our past to dominate us rather than the potential of our future!  Romans 8:1 is TRUE about YOU if you are in Christ…and if you don’t let your past die then it won’t let you live!  Get over it…HE has!

#8 – We try to accomplish things in our own strength rather than being desperate for His!  (Zechariah 4:6)

#9 – We refuse to dream big with OTHERS, thinking that, for some reason, God has asked us to do life alone!  (When the church and the people in the church work together and do not care who gets the credit as long as God gets the glory then HIS CHURCH becomes UNSTOPPABLE!)

#10 – We always say “one day” when it comes to taking the step of faith we know we need to take…but we don’t say it because we intend to do it…but rather to make us feel better about ourselves.  Why would you put off until tomorrow what God has clearly called you to do today?  Delayed obedience is immediate disobedience!

For Others

Ray Ortlund post:  For the sake of the liberation of others

“We are not often called to great sacrifice, but daily we are presented with the chance to make small ones — a chance to make someone cheerful, a chance to do some small thing to make someone comfortable or contented, a chance to lay down our petty preferences or cherished plans.  This probably requires us to relinquish something — our own convenience or comfort, our own free evening, our warm fireside, or even our habitual shyness or reserve or pride.  My liberty must be curtailed, bound down, ignored (oh, how the world hates this sort of thing! how our own sinful natures hate it!) — for the sake of the liberation of others.”

Elisabeth Elliot, A Path Through Suffering (Ventura, 1990), pages 67-68.