Thursday, September 30, 2010

Too Short?

Steven Furtick post:  You're not the first


But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short?
Numbers 11:21-23

The Israelites wanted meat. God said he would provide it. But Moses doubted it because he didn’t see how it was possible. 600,000 men. Not enough corresponding animals.

It seems simple enough, but that’s because Moses’ conclusion is based upon an estimation made from logic. And logic, while God-given is not a reliable companion when it comes to calculating God’s infinitely great power.

In fact, it can be offensive. When we calculate God’s capabilities and limit God according to our logic, it insults His ability. It confines an unlimited God to the realm of possibility that has been constructed by our limited imaginations. It allows His ability to only stretch as far as our minds and our faith allow it to. And that’s infinitesimally small compared to an infinitely great God.

Unfortunately a lot of people still feel that their situation is the first to finally break the limits of God’s abilities. It seems like there’s a natural tendency in us to feel that our present predicament is the one just beyond the reach of God’s arm.

Your financial situation is such that even God can’t provide for it.
Your illness is too strong even for even God’s power to heal it.
Your marriage is too irreparably damaged for even God to restore it.
Your addiction is so overwhelming that even God can’t break it.
Your friends and family are so far from God that even His arm can’t reach them.

But each of these estimations is just like Moses’. Limited by our own conception of what’s logically possible. We have to get used to the fact that God and His abilities don’t make sense. And that’s a good thing.

Because then He can pour out provision that doesn’t make sense.
He can heal in ways that don’t make sense.
He can restore marriages in ways that don’t make sense.
He can break the power of a sin in your life in a way that doesn’t make sense.
He can save the lives of the people who seem the furthest away from Him in ways that don’t make sense.

Whatever situation you’re facing right now, you’re not out of the reach of God’s arm. You are not and never will be the first to break the limits of God’s abilities. It might not seem logically possible to you. But never forget that what seems impossible to us isn’t even remotely difficult for God. 

Proactive

Matt Perman post at DG:  Christians Are to Be Proactive


As I prepare for my seminar Friday at our National Conference on “Rethinking Productivity in Light of Justification by Faith Alone,” I'm realizing that a lot of things in my preparation probably won't make it into the actual seminar. Here's one such segment which, although it might not make it in to the seminar, is absolutely critical to the way we should be as Christians and why things like learning to be more productive matter:

Christians are to be eager and enthusiastic in dreaming up ways to do good for others. We are to not just to do good when the opportunity comes to us—although we are to do it then, also—but we are to think hard about ways we can be proactive in serving people. And we are to do this because we are excited about it and because we love to, rather than begrudgingly.

Jonathan Edwards makes this case very well in his book Charity and Its Fruits and his sermon “The Duty of Christian Charity to the Poor.” Charity and Its Fruits, in fact, is just as comprehensive in pulling together the Scripture’s teaching on love and good works as Edward’s other works are on God’s sovereignty and glory and other such doctrines. Edwards is a model for keeping teaching on both theology and practical deeds of love together, rather than focusing on one at the expense of the other.

Anyway, one of Edward’s arguments on how we should be eager in doing good comes from Paul’s discussion of giving in 2 Corinthians 8-9. In his discussion on giving, Paul speaks of how good it is that the Corinthians not only started to be engaged in the work of giving, but that they desired to do it (8:10). He encourages them to excel in the grace of giving (8:7). He speaks approvingly of how Titus was very earnest in his care for the Corinthians (8:16-17). Paul exhorts them to sow bountifully (9:6) and to give not reluctantly but cheerfully (9:7).

What Edwards brings to light is that what Paul is saying here about giving applies to good works in general. That is, we are to be earnest and eager and cheerful and bountiful and thoughtful and sacrificial in regard to all of our good works, not just giving.

In other words, Christians are to be thoughtful people who are eager to do good and proactive in it. 

And, as an aside: if you can make it to the seminar, it's at 1:00 and also 3:00. It would be great to see you there!

A Few Themes

Mark Batterson post:  What are your themes?

C.S. Lewis said, "Every life is comprised of a few themes." I always quote that when I talk to writers and preachers. You need to know your themes! I think this is a huge part of self-discovery. And it's a big part of finding your voice.

For me, my themes find expression in my writing. I think In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day captures a big part of my personality and theology. We're called play offense for the kingdom. One of our values says it this way: playing it safe is risky. Or to put it in metaphorical terms: chase the lion.

I think Primal captures another theme: we've got to be great at the Great Commandment. Let's not be great at unimportant things! Let's be great at what matters most. And that is a drum I'll beat till the day I die.

Not only will identifying themes help you find your voice as a preacher or writer. It'll also help you identity imbalances in your preaching! Vision may be one of your themes, but you can't teach on it every week. You've got to preach the whole counsel of God. It will also help you identify the battlefields you're called to fight on. There are some battlefields you aren't called to die on. And that's ok. But your God-ordained themes are things you'll throw down the gauntlet for.

What are you themes?

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

I'm Sticking With God

I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
   the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
   the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there's one other thing I remember,
   and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
   his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
   How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
   He's all I've got left.

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
   to the woman who diligently seeks.
It's a good thing to quietly hope,
   quietly hope for help from God.
It's a good thing when you're young
   to stick it out through the hard times.

When life is heavy and hard to take,
   go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions:
   Wait for hope to appear.
Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face.
   The "worst" is never the worst. 


Lamentations 3:19-30 [Message]

Nothing

I never get tired of hearing these lyrics from "Fail Us Not" by 1000 GENERATIONS

There is nothing above you.
There is nothing beyond you.
There is nothing that you can't do.
There is no one beside you.
There is no one that's like you.
There is nothing that you can't do.
Whatever will come, we'll rise above.
You fail us not, You fail us not.
No matter the war, our hope is secure.
You fail us not, You fail us not.
You fail us not.

Way of Wisdom

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional:

THE FOUNDATION OF A FOOL

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Romans 1:21

            A fool, in scripture, is described as one who denies the existence of God.  "A fool hath said in his heart there is no God."  Void of the ability to know and speak truth, he sets out to become a philosopher; one who reasons things out in a way that makes sense to him.  But according to Truth, defined by an all-knowing God, it makes no sense at all.  According to James Boice, he has simply 'rearranged error.'  Now, that is futility.
            I can so easily act like a fool when I take the matters of my life into my own hands and figure out solutions by myself.  Even though I may have pretty good common sense and average problem solving skills, my strategies are foolish.  Given enough time, I will discover that I have traveled in circles or taken a wrong path, even though the path seemed so right at the time I made the choices.  Only God knows everything.  Like Adam and Eve, I am to live by revelation in relationship, not assuming I can eat of the tree of good and evil and figure things out on my own.
            Honoring God means that I seek His wisdom about every single issue in my life.  I start with the scriptures and see if they address, in specifics, the scenario I'm facing.  Sometimes it will, other times it won't.  At that point, I seek God in prayer, wait for Him to lead me to the answers.  It may be scriptural principles that I can apply to my situation.  I may never before have considered them in that context but the Spirit of God, ever my teacher, customized them for me to fashion a strategy.
            My point is this.  I don't have to be an unbeliever to dishonor God and have darkened thinking.  Going off lone-ranger on any issue facing me is to disrespect and dishonor God.  I should live asking, "What should I do about this?  What is your plan for me?"  Then, I dig in to find the answers in meditation and prayer.  This is the way of wisdom; the way of the prosperous man and woman.  Believe me, I've learned this the hard way.

I honor You with my dependence. Lead me as Your little child; kindly, deliberately, and with concepts You help me understand.  Amen

Thinking About Thinking

Kevin DeYoung post:  Reasons for Reason


Christianity is no friend of rationalism, but it is rational. That is to say, although divine truth comes by revelation not by unaided reason, that revealed truth is nevertheless reasonable.

I was speaking recently about the emergent church (yes, some people are still interested) when someone asked me why I was so down on mystery. I tried to explain that if mystery means God’s essence is incomprehensible, then I’m all for mystery. But too often mystery is a cover for anti-propositional bias, a suspicion of truth claims, or just plain intellectual laziness. There are things we can’t know about God, but then there are some things we can know if we are simply willing to think (cf. Deut. 29:29).

But American culture does not encourage careful thinking. Cogito ergo sum has become emotio ergo credo. A couple weeks ago I was on a plane to California talking with a nice middle-aged woman. I wasn’t in my seat more than two seconds before she started talking to me–and talking to me a lot. This lady from SoCal was your classic “spiritual not religious” believer. She believed in God, wanted people to be compassionate, and tried to notice the many beautiful things in our world. She didn’t know the gospel from a granola bar. I admit I’m not the world’s best personal evangelist, but I tried my best to make the good news clear.

And yet my arguments bounced off her like Tigger on Red Bull, chiefly because she seemed completely disinterested in arguments. She talked about how much she loved the Bible, but later she said she also loved the Bhagavad Gita (she tried the Koran but found it too “intense”). When I explained that those two books are pretty different and irreconcilable in many parts, she was unconcerned. She called herself a Christian, but on takeoff claimed the sunset in front of us was God. I tried to explain how the Creator-creature distinction is essential to Christianity and how the entire the story of the Bible depends on it. She seemed mildly interested, but still preferred to think of God as everything. When we talked about the “lost” gospels, my historical reasons for rejecting those books meant little to her. It’s quite possible I was inept, or maybe she just didn’t know what to say in response. But I think in large part this amiable woman just didn’t want to be bothered with facts.

At one point she told me about how she used to attend the Church of Higher Consciousness (or some such thing). Being bothered by God’s wrath she asked her pastor how to make sense of Lot’s wife turning to a pillar of salt. He told her this was a lesson in not getting stuck in your past. You know, you got to keep looking forward and not look back. She really liked this interpretation and then asked me what I thought. “Well,” I said, “that’s not really the point. The story is really about God’s judgment. Even Jesus used Lot’s wife as warning that we must be ready for the coming judgment” (see Luke 17:32). She told me she liked the first interpretation better.

How do you give a reason for the hope that you have when the people asking you aren’t interested in reason? It seems to me one of the first tasks of evangelism today is to reintroduce the law of non-contradiction. More and more we can’t just drop the bridge diagram on people, we need to go back and tell the larger story of creation, curse, covenant, Christ, commitment, and consummation. And even before that we may have to help people simply think; help people not just find the truth, but believe that it exists, that it is inconsistent with error, and that it does not automatically correspond to what we wish it to be.

Want to think more about thinking? Check out the Desiring God National Conference this weekend. I’m sure John Piper’s new book Think: the Life of the Mind and the Love of God will be worth reading as well.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Gifts of God's Grace

Miscellanies post:  Theological Reflections On Sigur Ros


From James Davidson Hunter, To Change the World, pages 231–232:
Even in the context of late modernity, suffused as it is by failed ideologies, false idolatries, and distorted ideas of community, joy, and love, one can still find much good. Life still has significance and worth. What is more, people of every creed and no creed have talents and abilities, possess knowledge, wisdom, and inventiveness, and hold standards of goodness, truth, justice, morality, and beauty that are, in relative degree, in harmony with God’s will and purposes. These are all gifts of grace that are lavished on people whether Christian or not. To be sure, there is a paradox here that perplexes many Christians. On the one hand, nonbelievers oftentimes possess more of these gifts than believers. On the other hand, because of the universality of the fall, believers often prove to be unwise, unloving, ungracious, ignorant, foolish, and craven. Indeed, more than any Christian would like to admit, believers themselves are often found indifferent to and even derisive of expressions of truth, demonstrations of justice, acts of nobility, and manifestations of beauty outside of the church. Thus, even where wisdom and morality, justice and beauty exist in fragments or in corrupted form, the believer should recognize these as qualities that, in Christ, find their complete and perfect expression. The qualities nonbelievers possess as well as the accomplishments they achieve may not be righteous in an eschatological sense, but they should be celebrated all the same because they are gifts of God’s grace.

Missionary Mentality

Excerpts from Ed Stetzer - Monday Is for Missiology: The Missionary Mentality of the Local Church


The New Testament teaches us that all churches exist, at least ostensibly, to participate in fulfilling the Great Commission. However, churches that desire to be effectively involved in God's kingdom work should regularly ask themselves, "Why do we exist?" We will find that only churches with a missionary mentality will be able to rightfully answer that all important question.

The missionary pioneer of the early church, the Apostle Paul, viewed his responsibility to those outside God's kingdom in this way, "To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by all means save some. Now I do all this because of the gospel, that I may become a partners in its benefits" (1 Cor. 9:22-23; HCSB). Paul understood that to be inwardly focused was to be outwardly blind. To be a missionary means meeting, learning and embracing those outside the family of God. Paul even likens it to becoming them; this was not a dry interpretation of an even dustier research project. This was a living, personal change based on wanting to see people become followers of Christ.

Churches that have developed a mindset of being outwardly focused, what we call a "missionary mentality," live out the essence of disciple-making in their activities through worship, community, and mission. This they do in the context of their own local culture with an understanding of that context. This is one part of what we mean when we refer to "Transformational Churches." A common factor in these churches is that their values are expressed in the light of their own locale. Ministry values are not imported across town or through a conference DVD pack. Their leaders demonstrate a heart for the culture, the churches build relationships intentionally and everyone prays for the community. To put it simply, Transformational Churches know, understand, and are deeply in love with their cities, communities, and people.

LifeWay Research results found that Transformational Churches have specific attitudes toward those outside the family of faith. They responded with "strongly agree" or "moderately agree" to the following statements: "Our pastor(s) often refers to aspects of the local city or community in messages" (67%); "Our church believes that God has strategically place us in our cultural context (in our location to serve those around us" (81%); "Our church believes that as the cultural context around us changes, new opportunities to engage people outside must be considered" (71%). Rather than being taken for granted or blitzkrieged as the enemy, those outside of Christ are viewed as victims of the enemy who need to be rescued and redeemed.

 ...

There are three important ideas churches can learn from the life of Paul relating to where he went and to whom he ministered. First, Paul considered the available time. Much is made of the "Macedonian call" when pastors talk about following God. What is sometimes overlooked is saying "yes" to Macedonia meant saying "no" to Phrygia. Yet, it was the Holy Spirit who halted Paul's travel plans while giving him another assignment. Transformational Churches learn to say "no" to the places and times where God says "no." Every good thing is not the right thing for a church to pursue at a given time.

Second, Transformational Churches remember that God is already at work where He is sending His people to minister. The vision Paul experienced of the pleading man from Macedonia was significant in that God was at work preparing the people of Philippi for a new church. He was at work in a wealthy businesswoman named Lydia. He was even working in the life of the jailor where Paul and Silas were imprisoned. In Cincinnati, the burden that God placed on Chris Beard drew the pastor and the church into the flow of God's work in the city. The result was a significant impact on the community, with many coming to know Christ in a church that now reflects the racial makeup of its host culture.

Thirdly, churches who say "yes" to God's leading can expect to find God working in ways previously unknown. It is in moving into these unknown areas that they uncover what God is already doing in advance of the onset of ministry. Transformational Churches see this working over and over, whereas churches that do not engage their communities with the gospel of Jesus miss these supernatural interactions and often mistake sameness for spirituality.

Did Nothing

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional:

FAITH PLUS NOTHING
 
The just shall live by faith.  Romans 1:17b

            I write today with fear and trembling.  Prayerfully, I seek God for the concepts and language to write about this critical and most important issue in all of Christianity.  This is the verse Martin Luther stood on and why his life was on the line.  Protestantism was born on the foundation of this theological truth.
             If ever someone had the moral credentials to earn his salvation, it was Paul.  He listed them elsewhere in Philippians.  The humbling discovery he made on the road to Damascus was that his 'credentials' had actually kept him from saving faith.  The very things he worked so hard to attain, that he thought were winning him eternal favor with God, were his own stumbling blocks.  He came to understand that his attempts to act righteous were like presenting an offering of filthy rags.
            The law was not given so that we could mimic it and please God.  There is no brown-nosing the Teacher.  Righteousness, through the Law, was revealed so that we would understand that we are completely incapable of attaining it, needing to reach out our arms to Christ for that divine exchange ~ He takes my sin, I take His righteousness.
            Without Christ's atonement, I am utterly lost and condemned.  There is no balance sheet keeping track of my good works and bad deeds.  That is not the basis by which God accepts or condemns me.  The question has always been, "What will Christine do with Jesus and His death on Calvary?" I can bring nothing to the table to contribute to my salvation.
            Some would argue.  "But I bring my faith to the table.  I choose to believe."  Even that isn't true.  If I have the faith to believe, it is only because God opens my eyes.  By His grace, He extends the faith to me so that I can see the treasure of Jesus and believe.    
            I offer some closing questions as we often wrestle with our insecurity as God's children.
If I did nothing to earn my salvation, then why do I work so hard to try to keep it?
  • Do I believe that I must perform righteously to keep God happy with me?
  • Do I really know how to rest in the finished work of the cross?
  • Do I really believe that I received Christ's righteousness?  Where is my joy?
             Children of God are adopted by faith alone.  We come empty handed; orphaned, filthy, emaciated and deeply scarred.  God does not despise us for that.  His compassion reaches out in the person of Jesus to do what we can't do for ourselves.  We cry, "Abba, Father!" and are invited to embrace Him without any hint of reservation.  How?  By understanding that we are dressed in the robes of His Son, the One who took our sins, paid the debt we owed because of them, and then removed them from His sight forever.  In that we rest.  In that we heal.  In that we worship.

          You did it all. I did nothing. You loved me that much. Amen

Monday, September 27, 2010

Lead Me

God, listen to me shout, bend an ear to my prayer.
   When I'm far from anywhere,
      down to my last gasp,
   I call out, "Guide me
      up High Rock Mountain!" 


Psalm 61:1-2 [Message]

 
Lead me to the rock
   that is higher than I


Psalm 61:2 [ESV]

Deepest Need

Grace Has Called My Name (Kathryn Scott)


Peace as elusive as a shadow dancing on the wall
life swallowed by the pain of yesterday;
Left broken by the shame of things that I had done,
No freedom from the choices that I’d made;

But with one touch You made me clean;
You met me in my deepest need. 

Grace has called my name,
when all that I had left were just filthy stains;
Grace has called my name;
when hope had all but faded far away,
Grace called my name.

Wounded by words that left their mark upon my soul,
dreams overturned by empty promises;
Well intentioned things I’d heard a million times before
just left my heart to grieve alone again;

But with one touch You set me free;
You met me in my deepest need.

Conscious Experience

Ray Ortlund post: Every moment of every day


“Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to enter the Holy of Holies.  God wills that we should push on into His Presence and live our whole life there.  This is to be known to us in conscious experience.  It is more than a doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.”

A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (London, 1967), pages 36-37.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Faithful

He leads me in paths of righteousness
   for his name’s sake
.  [ESV]

True to your word,
      you let me catch my breath
      and send me in the right direction.
  [Message]

Psalm 23:3

Plan A

Thabiti Anyabwile post:  The Key to Radical Living for Jesus

From David Platt’s Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream:
John Paton, Jim Elliot, and C.T. Studd all illustrate one fundamental truth: your life is free to be radical when you see death as reward.  This is the essence of what Jesus taught in Matthew 10, and I believe it is the key to taking back your faith from the American dream.
The key is realizing–and believing–that this world is not your home.  If you and I ever hope to free our lives from worldly desires, worldly thinking, worldly pleasures, worldly dreams, worldly ideals, worldly values, worldly ambitions, and worldly acclaim, then we must focus our lives on another world.  Though you and I live in the United States of America now, we must fix our attention on “a better country–a heavenly one.”  though you and I find ourselves surrounded by the lure of temporary pleasure, we must fasten our affections on the one who promises eternal treasure that will never spoil or fade.  If your life or my life is going to count on earth, we must start by concentrating on heaven.  For then, and only then, will you and I be free to take radical risks, knowing that what awaits us is radical reward.
Seems to me this is not only the key to taking our faith back from the American dream, but also the Caymanian dream, the British dream, the Canadian dream, the French dream, and every other dream that keeps us asleep in the comforts of this life.  Thanks, David, for giving us all a rough shake to wake us from this world’s dreams.




Thursday, September 23, 2010

Perfect Peace

Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?
The blood of Jesus whispers peace within.

Peace, perfect peace, by thronging duties pressed?
To do the will of Jesus, this is rest.

Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows surging round?
On Jesus' bosom naught but calm is found.

Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away?
In Jesus' keeping we are safe, and they.

Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown?
Jesus we know, and he is on the throne.

Peace, perfect peace, death shadowing us and ours?
Jesus has vanquished death and all its powers.

It is enough: earth's struggles soon shall cease,
and Jesus call us to heaven's perfect peace. 


Words: Edward Henry Bickersteth, 1875  
 

Priorities

Ray Ortlund post: The cathedral within


“God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son.”  Romans 1:9

There was, for Paul, a deeper dimension to his gospel ministry, beyond his public preaching and writing.  Only God could see and witness this inner world.  It was Paul’s communion with God, his very personal interiority.  Whatever else might have been happening in Paul’s life, there was a cathedral within, where God was worshiped and served in Paul’s enjoyment of the gospel.

It is always a temptation to neglect the private inward service for the sake of the public outward service.  Jesus called this inversion of priorities hypocrisy (Matthew 6:1-18).  Our Father sees and rewards in the secret place.  It is our love of appearances, our need to make an impression, which neglects that secret place.

In The City of God, Augustine tries to comfort the Christian women who had been abused in the sack of Rome.  He does it in a strange way.  He says, “Do not marvel that you have lost that by which you can win men’s praise, but you retain that which cannot be exhibited to men.”  Being a Christian virgin, set apart to the service of Christ, was esteemed a high honor.  Human judgment was aware of the physical honor lost.  Human judgment could not be aware of the interior humility and nearness to Christ gained.  As I said, I consider that line of counseling strange.  I have to wonder if it helped anyone back then.  But it helps me now.  It might help you too.  Here’s how:

If we suffer loss of honor as we are publicly perceived, and especially if it frees us from that itch for “man’s empty praise,” while also retaining and deepening our communion with God, and we discover more of the vastness of that cathedral in the heart and experience more of the services offered there, which no one but God can see — if that is where outward loss takes us, then we have gained.

And we are positioned for more fruitful outward service than ever before.

Friend

Excerpt from Ed Stetzer post:  Field Notes from Not Like Me

...


Here are a few ideas to help us retain humility as we engage those who believe differently than us or even have no belief at all.

Be willing to acknowledge truth where it is found. In our day, many conservative Christians have bought the political ruminations of talk radio and believe that "incrementalism" is the worst enemy. As a result, many such people brush aside anything spoken or written by one with whom they disagree, lest that political or theological opponent appear to gain an upper hand. Jesus did not do this. In fact, He was quick to affirm when and where His opponents were right, even as He spoke to their errors. When we approach an unbeliever as a person to correct it usually seems to come across as we have all the answers. If we really want to impact people's lives, we should be willing to learn from them what we can while openly admitting that our own knowledge is limited. The Scriptures are inerrant, but we aren't.

Learn to recognize unbelievers first as people loved by God. Does "For God so loved the world" only apply to people who are like us or people whom we like? We must remember that all people who choose to reject Christ are still loved by God. Who are we to pick and choose persons we will love? When we recognize unbelievers first as people God loves, it will be easier for our love to follow.

Learn to recognize unbelievers as victims of the enemy. The Scriptures say that all unbelievers are under the deception of the wicked one. They are not the enemy; their souls are enslaved to sin and held captive by the enemy. They have the same need to be rescued as we had before our own salvation through Jesus Christ.

Intentionally befriend an unbeliever who is "out there." People are not projects; they retain a marred version of the image of God and desperately need to be restored to wholeness of the life of Christ. When Jesus saw Zacchaeus in the tree, he did not say, "Well, well, well. What have we here? A rebellious, God-hating tax collector!" On the contrary, he invited himself to Zacchaeus's house for dinner and a conversation. With Zacchaeus, Jesus was willing to push beyond the surface of obvious differences to his actual point of need. It is a place that Zacchaeus might have ignored or not even known existed, but it is a place that can be uncovered by a friend.

Commit to befriend and genuinely love people even when they do not come to faith in Christ. This is not to say we stop sharing the gospel but that we remain faithful friends even if others are resistant to it. If we predicate our friendships simply on "an opportunity to lead them to Christ" without a passionate commitment to the relationship itself, we will come across as disingenous and may even turn them away from the faith we declare.

It is not without reason that Jesus said, "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him" (John 3:17). It lends power to the description of Jesus as "a friend of sinners."

...

Restoration

Excerpt from DIDN'T SEE THIS COMING .... post by Kathryn:  Rain, Rain, So Glad You Came!

God works in very mysterious ways. I am more often than not, questioning Him. Where he is and what he is doing and is that "enough". I have a hunch reading through the Old and New Testament, many people had those same questions. I know they did. I'm presently reading and listening to Job. This same god is one of power beyond our capability to grasp and his compassion and tenderness still grabs me by the heart. Job hung in there, never cursing or denouncing God. Job's losses are almost beyond comprehension. God's restoration brings tears to my eyes. God is the God of restoration - in bringing rain to a dry part of the country, in redeeming out time, healing out bodies and deep hurts and restoring relationships with one another. 

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Knows What He Is Doing

I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.  Jer 29:11 [Message]

Everywhere I Go

Excerpt from Ed Stetzer post:  Ldrshp Book Interview: Eric Bryant on Not Like Me



Ed Stetzer: What is the message of Not Like Me?  

Eric Bryant: Not Like Me advocates for the rights of those who do not yet follow Jesus. My goal was to help people of faith learn how to develop meaningful relationships with people with whom they disagree, differ, or even dislike. Too often as Christians we hide away from the world rather than engage in it. As a result, we alienate those who do not follow Jesus at a distance. They deserve better than that. 

ES: Why do you think our churches seem to drift towards more of a "shelter from the world" mentality?

EB: Sometimes we confuse the ideas of being "set apart" and being "sent out." We are supposed to be "set apart" in our behavior but "sent out" into our relationships. Sometimes we do the opposite. We become "set apart" from the very people God has brought into our lives to love, serve, and influence. It's human nature to spend time with the people who are most like us because of our self-centered tendencies. Another big part of the problem would be our more consumeristic view of the church. At Mosaic, we strive to go against that. Our lead pastor Erwin McManus says: "The church is not here to meet our needs. We are the church here to meet the needs of the world." If our relationship with God was all about me and Jesus, then my pastor should have just drowned me during my baptism so I could go straight into His presence. Instead, he brought me out of the water because there is much more for me to do. I now represent Jesus everywhere I go.

Blood and Word

Kevin DeYoung post:  Precious Remedies Against Satan


And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” (Revelation 12:10-11).

Satan is an accuser and a deceiver. In both cases his weapons are words, which is why we must overcome him with the word of our testimony.

In other words, it is through our belief in the gospel and our confidence in the power of Jesus Christ that we can stand secure in the face of Satan’s lies and accusations.  And it is by the truth of the word of God–believed on and hoped in even unto death–that we can expose and destroy the deceptions of the Deceiver.  This is how we do battle, with the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.

So when Satan whispers, “Can God really forgive you?  Can your sins be washed away?” you can answer confidently: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:1-2).

When the Devil says your situation is hopeless, when he calls you an addict and says you can’t change, you can reply: “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” (Rom. 8:8-9).

And when Satan suggests that it must not matter then how we live, that grace and freedom are an excuse for license, we must answer: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13).

And when our Enemy points to our suffering and says, “Look, God cannot be trusted. Surely, there is no use in serving this Master” we will inform him that we “consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18).

And if Satan should tempt us to believe that God is singling us out for pain, we will remind him that “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Rom. 8:22).

If he spreads the lie that our trials will be the end of us, that God can no longer help us, we will declare, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28).

And when he shows us our weakness, when he points to the failures of the church, when he accuses us of having let God down and makes us doubt the power of the gospel and the ultimate triumph of the saints, when he comes at us with words and all the weapons of the world, we will stand our ground with a defiant shout: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:37-39).

Satan is hell bent on destroying the church.  He breathes fiery accusations like a dragon and hisses deception like a serpent.  He is in pursuit of the woman and her children.  But the salvation and the power and the kingdom belong to God and to Christ our King.  And we shall overcome the devil, by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Change

Ray Ortlund post:  Terribly uncomfortable


CT:  What is the East African revival, and why has it lasted over forty years?

Bishop Festo Kivengere:  Can I explain?  This is a question I have been asked repeatedly for over twenty-five years, and all I have ever been able to do is to share what I have seen.  The only explanation I can give is that it is God’s work.  It is not a technique.  It is a movement that cannot be contained.  It is renewal within renewal.  It is an attitude toward the Lord, toward the Bible, toward the fellowship, and toward the Spirit.  It has always been open to a fresh touch.

CT:  What does this revival mean to the people involved in it?

FK:  It is when Christ becomes a living, risen Lord in the life of a believer.  For the non-believer, it is when he is brought into a confrontation with Christ and accepts him as Savior, thus completely changing his life morally and socially.  In other words, revival is when Christ becomes alive in a life, changing that life.  The person is born again, and if he has previously had that experience, then his life is changed in such a way that it affects all his relationships.

CT:  Is it visible to an outsider?

FK:  Absolutely!  Go back to a village a week after a man comes to the Lord in a meeting in the market.  The whole village knows something about it.  He has paid the debts he owes.  He has gone to people he hated and said, “I’m sorry. I’m a changed man.”  He has apologized or asked for forgiveness.  He’s now telling them what Christ means to him.  He has carried his new belief into his business practices.  In other words, it isn’t something he sits on as a comfortable experience.  If anything, it is terribly uncomfortable.

CT:  How has this differed from other revivals in history?

FK:  It may be the continued willingness of those who have been revived to be renewed by the Spirit of God.  At the Kabale convention last year, celebrating the fortieth year of the revival in that area, we heard up-to-date testimonies from people who were brought to Christ as early as 1930.  They had tremendous freshness; yet they had been winning souls for thirty-five or forty years.  They have remained open to what the Spirit may want to say to them in the present situation.  They learned that when they got into a rut God had to turn them out of it so that they could breathe again.  The tendency to get into certain patterns can stifle the work of the Spirit and create pockets of hardness.  Continued breaking and bringing new streams of life have been the means God has used.

“The Revival that was and is: an interview with Festo Kivengere,” Christianity Today, 21 May 1976, pages 10-11.

Bishop Kivengere was, after my own dad, the most beautiful Christian man I have ever known.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Death Valley

I'm not afraid
      when you walk at my side. 


Psalm 23:4 [Message]

Incalculably Diffusive

Her full nature, like that river which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth.  But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive:  for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

George Eliot, MIDDLEMARCH (speaking of Dorothea)

What I Am

Miscellanies post:  By the grace of God I am what I am


As quoted in Christian Witness and Church Members Magazine (1858), page 459:
Two or three years before the death of that eminent servant of Christ, John Newton of London, when his sight was become so dim, that he was no longer able to read, an aged friend and brother in the ministry called on him to breakfast. Family prayer followed, and the portion of Scripture for the day was read to him. In it occurred the verse, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am’ [1 Cor 15:10]. It was the pious man’s custom on these occasions to make a short familiar exposition on the passage read. After the reading of this text he paused for some moments, and then uttered this affecting soliloquy:
I am not what I ought to be. Ah, how imperfect and deficient!
I am not what I wish to be. I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good!
I am not what I hope to be. Soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection.
Yet, though I am not what I ought to be,
nor what I wish to be,
nor what I hope to be,
I can truly say, I am not what I once was;
a slave to sin and Satan;
and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge,
‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’


Keep Asking

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional: 

UNANSWERED PRAYER
 
I want you to know, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I might reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.  Romans 1:13
 
            Paul was prevented from going to Rome, the thing he repeatedly asked of God.  We are not told all the possible reasons God said 'no' but the list of 'whys' could be numerous.
            Paul asked for a good thing, didn't he?  It was noble.  Visit Rome.  Teach and encourage Christians.  This is the prayer God loves to answer with a yes, right?
            These are the mysteries of prayer that are hardest for God's children like me to understand.  It takes so much spiritual growth to pray consistently for things that are kingdom centered.  Then when I do, when my prayers are God-honoring, why wouldn't God answer them all with a yes?  Like ~

·        Praying for God to reach a prodigal child.
·        Praying for an unsaved loved one to come to faith.
·        Praying for ministry expansion for the sake of the Gospel.
·        Praying for the healing of a disease for God's glory.

            It is my experience that God says 'no', or 'wait', for many reasons.  Perhaps I need to be changed as I wait on God for that long-awaited answer.  I will learn endurance and the security of a child who asks without ceasing.  Jesus was clear about the nature of persistent prayer when he told the parable of the widow who kept asking and asking for what she wanted.  The point of the story in His own words (in Luke 18) was this ~ "Ask and don't give up."  This kind of childlike trust that God's heart is bent 'for' me while I keep asking is only something learned in the school of prayer.
            There are things I pray for this morning, ongoing requests that are deeply heartfelt, concerns that easily keep me up at night.  I pray for His deliverance and while there are glimmers of it now and then, the mighty hand of God has not moved yet.  I keep asking, tearfully, while checking my heart and the status of my relationship with God.  Am I angry He hasn't answered yet?  Do I feel entitled, by my 'performance', to a quicker answer?  Do I begin to question what kind of Father withholds the answer when the pain threshold is high?  Being honest on my knees and working out my feeble faith with prayer and the Word is a necessity or my faith can deteriorate under my limited perspective.
            Paul finally did get to Rome.  He kept asking but it took a while.  In the meantime, God took him to geographical areas that needed the Gospel more, Asia for one.  I keep asking too.  If it's warfare, I fight on my knees.  If it is God directly preventing it because there is something better for me, I stretch out my faith as I wait.
            If you feel stuck where you are and the answer you're looking for in prayer has not come, don't assume it won't.  Ask God to show you what you can do to be effective in the kingdom today, in small ways, right where you are.  That starts and ends with persistent prayer.

I wait.  I trust without sharp words on my tongue.  Your grace makes it possible.  Amen

Friday, September 17, 2010

Perfect

3 You keep him in perfect peace
   whose mind is stayed on you,
   because he trusts in you.
4Trust in the LORD forever,
   for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.


Isaiah 26

Jesus As Person

Excerpt from Ed Stetzer:  Thursday Is For Thinkers:  Rick Howerton


Jesus as Concept or Jesus as Person... It Makes All the Difference


We have watched as the church has continued to decline. If we are honest, some have actually begun to grieve the loss of the church as they have known her. Those of us who are desperate to work alongside Christ to reinvigorate churches choosing the path of grief continue to ask the why question. "Why is the church declining?" The why question is haunting and daunting as it demands an evaluation which then requires a response. That response may come in the form of doing something unlike we have done before, the necessity of a different paradigm, or a re-engagement of something the church has set aside.

...

There is one consistent over-riding essential in any church. Whether you're an attractional model, a traditional model, or a seeker church, no matter if you're a house church, a cell church, or an urban mega-church, no matter if you're the guy who truly believes he's creating a whole new way to do church, there is one essential that must trump all others... Jesus. That's right, Jesus. But not just Jesus ... Jesus as a Person, not just Jesus as a concept.


Many churches have embraced Jesus as a concept. The Encarta Dictionary defines a concept as "a broad principle affecting perception and behavior." But Jesus as concept confuses the transformed heart. We were transformed by the person of Christ, not the concept of Christ. We long for someone relational but our church advances something conceptual.

We create a Jesus as concept environment then wonder why our people aren't telling their friends about Christ. Keep this in mind... people talk about the heroes they know and love, not the concepts they are learning about.

How do you know if you're promoting Jesus as concept environment rather than Jesus as a personal hero environment?
  • Most of your musical offerings are songs sung about Jesus, not to Him
  • When the church gathers, you don't anticipate Jesus will accomplish those things He has the power to do and will do because of His presence there. You host services without expectation of Christ to heal the broken-hearted and set captives free. (Isaiah 61: 1 - 2)
  • When teaching your parishioners to bring people into a relationship with Christ you guide them to invite people to church gatherings rather than suggesting they tell others what Jesus has and is doing for them.
  • Your church members brag about the church's band, the pastor's sermons, and/or the church's programs but are embarrassed to speak of Jesus to those in their circle of relationship.
  • When teaching and preaching you have no current stories to tell of your own interactions with Christ.
  • New converts, in their excitement, tell their friends and family members about the church, rather than telling what Jesus has done for them.
  • When the church prays, they don't cry out for Christ to do something outrageous, they pray easily forgotten requests without anticipating anything from Him.
  • You and almost everyone in your congregation have no reason to believe and aren't anticipating that someone will choose to become a follower of Christ at every large group gathering.
Over the last ten years of consulting churches I've seen churches with little or no strategy, churches with music that would make you beg for earplugs, churches whose small group approach was accomplishing nearly nothing, churches whose pastor's preaching would be considered a grade F in almost any seminary, but all were experiencing the work of Christ because Christ was the primary personality they promoted and allowed to be at work. They truly had a Jesus as Person environment. And I've seen very large, growing churches excited about numeric growth who were experiencing little of Christ at work. If they had looked deeply into their own hearts, they would have known they were promoting the church, not Christ, and because of that they were simply welcoming the already convinced to join them, the already convinced, to do church together. They had created a Jesus as Concept environment and were experiencing what that offers... a silent Jesus.

...

False Ideas

Perry Noble post:    Four False Ideas That Destroy Leaders

#1 – “I Cannot…” 

One of the things that seems to be appearing over and over again to me as I read the Scriptures is this thought…

At the end of the day…I am a servant of the Most High God!  AND…a servant can do EXACTLY what his master has commanded him to do because he is operating under the power and authority of the One who called, equipped and empowered him to serve in the first place.

You can do EXACTLY what God called you to do!!!  Don’t back down!

#2 – “I Am Not As Good As…” 


Comparing yourself to other ministers and/or ministries is one of the quickest ways to go insane and completely lose your focus on who God is and what He has called you to do.

We should learn from “them” but focus on “HIM!”

There will always be someone who does something better than you!  Your call isn’t to imitate people but to focus on Christ!!!

#3 – “I Failed Before”

Of course you did!!!

All great leaders have failed at something significant!

However, what makes them great is that they do not allow their failures to define them.  They pick up the pieces and move forward.  They learn lessons from their failure…if there was a sin issue involved they repent and submit to Jesus and the leadership of others…and then they get on with life!!!

Peter failed!  Remember when he tried to cut off the servants ear and had to be rebuked by Jesus!!!  YET when it came to Acts 2 and the day of Pentecost he was the guy who Jesus anointed to preach the Gospel and see over 3k new believers!

#4 – “All Hope Is Gone” 

Uh…the only problem with that thought is THE TOMB IS EMPTY…and as long as that is a reality then there is always hope…ALWAYS!

I know some reading this feel like you are just about at the end of your rope…but from my personal experience I’ve discovered when I do get to the end of my rope Jesus is always there saying, “what took you so long?”

Losing hope can bring about times of intense desperation…but quite often intense desperation leads to undeniable revelation!!!  When we lose hope and believe that things are just about over…well…that’s always a time for God to remind us of WHO HE IS and what He is capable of!

Not Holding Out on You

Mark Batterson post:  The Original Lie

I asked our entire congregation to memorize Psalm 84:11 this past weekend. "No good thing will the Lord withhold from those who walk uprightly before Him." That is the heart of God. That is the will of God. God wants to bless you more than you want to be blessed. And while many of us believe that in our mind. I'm not sure we believe it in our gut. And you've got to get it into your gut.

We talk a lot about original sin, but have you ever stopped to consider the original lie? Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But how did the serpent tempt them? He suggested that God may be holding out on them. Maybe He didn't want them to eat that fruit because then they'd be like him. In other words, the serpent tries to get us to doubt the omni-goodness of God. He plants a seed of doubt. Maybe God is withholding something. And when we doubt God's desire to bless us we believe a lie, the original lie.

Obviously there is a condition. We've got to walk uprightly. But if we do, then we need to rebuke the doubt and believe God for a blessing. No good thing will God withhold. No withholdings!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Both Yours and Mine

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional:

MUTUAL ENCOURAGEMENT
 
For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you ~ that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.  Romans 1:11-12

I have found that mutual encouragement is a rare thing.  Encouragement alone is hard enough to find, but it does usually exist in one-sided relationships.  One person is spiritually strong; the other weak.  The strong one gives of himself, speaks words of faith, and the weaker one takes it in like a thirsty sponge.  The weak person has little to give in return except gratitude. 

Mutual encouragement happens when both people live by the strength of their faith in Christ.  Each has tasted self-sufficiency and forsaken it.  Each has leaned with all their might on the resources of Christ and found Him, daily, to be enough.  Their faith may be tenuous but by the mutual sharing of their journeys, they are strengthened to remain steadfast.

Perhaps you know what it is to be dragging, to be so low that you wonder if Jesus can, and will, sustain you.  Yet, you pour your heart out in prayer, find a Word to stand on, and walk amidst great resistance.  Think about this.  There is another soul like you; one who knows what it is to press in for the spiritual grit necessary to endure suffering.  The two of you could benefit from time together.  As you both share your story, resolve will be doubled.

There was a time when Paul needed little encouragement.  He was the law and wielded great power.  He was cruel and unbending.  What a transformation Christ wrought.  Paul was laid to the ground on the Damascus road and learned humility.  He became acquainted with physical and emotional limits.  Softened, he reached out to the church for strength and a kind of fellowship that was rooted in vulnerability and mutuality.  It became him.  For each of us who are prone to be lone rangers, invulnerable to the expression of need for another, let us think twice about what we're missing.

Whom do I need today?  Who needs me?  Send me where it's mutual.  Amen

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Will Not Forget You

13 Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
   break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people
   and will have compassion on his afflicted.

 14But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me;
   my Lord has forgotten me."

 15 "Can a woman forget her nursing child,
   that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
   yet I will not forget you.
16
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
   your walls are continually before me.


Isaiah 49

Christ Keeps His Covenant Forever

Excerpt from John Piper:  Staying Married Is Not About Staying in Love, Part 1

...


The most ultimate thing to see in the Bible about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. Most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God. Most ultimately, marriage is the display of God. It is designed by God to display his glory in a way that no other event or institution is.

The way to see this most clearly is to connect Genesis 2:24 with its use in Ephesians 5:31-32. In Genesis 2:24, God says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” What kind of relationship is this? How are these two people held together? Can they walk away from this relationship? Can they go from spouse to spouse? Is this relationship rooted in romance? Sexual desire? Need for companionship? Cultural convenience? What is this? What holds it together?
The words “hold fast to his wife” and the words “they shall become one flesh” point to something far deeper and more permanent than serial marriages and occasional adultery. What these words point to is marriage as a sacred covenant rooted in covenant commitments that stand against every storm of “as long as we both shall live.” But that is only implicit here. It becomes explicit when the mystery of marriage is more fully revealed in Ephesians 5:31-32.

Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 in verse 31, “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’” And then he gives it this all-important interpretation in verse 32: “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” In other words, marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant commitment to his church. Christ thought of himself as the bridegroom coming for his bride, the true people of God (Matthew 9:15; 25:1ff; John 3:29). Paul knew his ministry was to gather the bride—the true people of God who would trust Christ—and betroth us to him. He says in 2 Corinthians 11:2, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.”

Christ knew he would have to pay the dowry of his own blood for his redeemed bride. He called this relationship the new covenant—“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). This is what Paul is referring to when he says that marriage is a great mystery: “I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Christ obtained the church by his blood and formed a new covenant with her, an unbreakable “marriage.”

The most ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. That is, it exists to display God. Now we see how: Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to the church. And therefore the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married.
Staying married, therefore, is not about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant. “Till death do us part,” or, “As long as we both shall live” is sacred covenant promise—the same kind Jesus made with his bride when he died for her. Therefore, what makes divorce and remarriage so horrific in God’s eyes is not merely that it involves covenant breaking to the spouse, but that it involves misrepresenting Christ and his covenant. Christ will never leave his wife. Ever. There may be times of painful distance and tragic backsliding on our part. But Christ keeps his covenant forever. Marriage is a display of that! That is the most ultimate thing we can say about it.

 ...

Faithful Presence

Excerpt from CT article  Culture in an Age of Consumption by Anna Littauer Carrington



Is evangelical culture weak? It certainly doesn't seem so. The volume of books, music albums, and lively blogs indicates a thriving industry of decidedly Christian products. But should strong sub-cultural production and consumption be equated with a vibrant impact on the broader culture?


James Davison Hunter doesn't think so. He raised these and other questions in his latest book, To Change the World, and spoke about them in a panel at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. last month. I was a respondent on the panel, alongside Mere Orthodoxy blogger Matthew Lee Anderson, and we discussed how young evangelicals are looking for a script or a framework for engaging the broader culture. 

In his book and recent interview with Christianity Today, Hunter paints a disparaging picture of evangelical efforts to transform American culture. The University of Virginia sociologist challenges the notion that transforming millions of "hearts and minds" actually effects cultural change. He critiques the politicized efforts of the Christian Right, the Christian Left, and the neo-Anabaptists, and concludes that Christians need to engage culture through "faithful presence" in their different spheres and communities.

To Change the World has prompted some lively discussions—including responses from Chuck Colson and Andy Crouch on CT's website—about what "faithful presence" actually looks like. How should Christians live in the world?

...
Excerpt from Chuck Colson's response:

...

Where I do take issue with Hunter is with his juxtaposition of what he calls "faithful presence" and efforts at cultural change. Obviously, I'm not against "faithful presence." Christians must bring their faith to bear in all aspects of life—as I have attempted to do and preached that others do. And I know first-hand the difficulties of public witness in an increasingly pluralistic culture.

My question is: What is the alternative? I ask this knowing that what Hunter is describing has been conscientiously advanced over the years by many Christians, most notably the Anabaptist traditions.

Yet the kind of disengagement he is describing seems to me like an abdication of responsibility. When I was first converted, I began reading the works of Francis Schaeffer and was deeply impressed by his arguments about the relationship of Christianity and culture, and the obligation for us to fulfill our cultural commission to defend the truth in the marketplace of ideas. In fact I went to L'Abri to spend time with Schaeffer, and he was clearly a very formative influence in my life.

Then one day in 1980, I was challenged by a good friend to meet with Dr. James Kennedy, which I did. Kennedy asked me to read Abraham Kuyper's "Stone Lectures at Princeton," given in 1898. I read Kuyper, and was deeply affected. I began to read everything I could get my hands on about Kuyper, that great Dutch theologian who became president of his own country and led the formation of a political party in Holland.

My interest in Kuyper led to a trip to Calvin College, accompanied by a then-young Michael Cromartie. The meeting with the likes of Paul Henry, Rich Mouw, Nick Wolterstorff (later a professor at Yale), and the Democratic state legislator Steve Monsma only reinforced my interest.

Since then, I have been advancing the proposition that Christianity is a worldview, that all of us are called to carry out our Christian responsibility, and that we're to do so in every area of life, whether it is the home, the school, the legislature, the arts, or, yes, politics.

It was this early training that led me to expand my prison ministry to include work on criminal justice. While I was and remain committed to working with individual prisoners, I am just as committed to reforming our criminal justice system, helping to heal the injuries created by crime, and ending barbaric practices which have gone on in prisons—practices I had often witnessed firsthand.

My greatest inspiration in this carrying out of Christian responsibility is, of course, William Wilberforce. Three decades ago, I read Garth Lean's biography of Wilberforce, God's Politician. I fell in love with Wilberforce, and he has become the singular hero of my life. I marveled at how he cared passionately about deep Christian discipleship and how that discipleship led to his campaign to end first the slave trade and then slavery itself. If you want to know why I do what I do, read Wilberforce's life.

The inspiration of Wilberforce is why we have worked to focus federal attention on the epidemic of prison rape. It's why we became deeply involved in the issue of slavery in Sudan. It's why we've gotten deeply involved in religious liberty questions and religious persecution around the world, whether it was in the Sudan, where Christians were being sold into slavery, or North Korea, where Christians are brutally beaten and die in wretched prison camps. It's why we worked with the Bush administration, especially Mike Gerson, to help AIDS victims in Africa.

Of course, these efforts have only scratched the surface: there is still slavery in the world; there are still terrible abuses; plagues are still spreading; human rights are being trampled upon. But we press on. That brings me to my biggest concern about Hunter's argument: The "faithful presence" he advocates most likely will result in Christians remaining silent in the face of injustice and suffering. Instead of seeking the welfare of the city in which God has placed us, we are indifferent to its decay and that decay's impact on the life of our neighbors.

This isn't a logical necessity: Faithful presence doesn't per se require silence and indifference. But I'm hard-pressed to come up with an historical example of quietism and commitment to fighting injustice going together. And it is insensitive to the social and cultural context in which Christians are called to live out their faithfulness.

In his Christianity Today interview, Hunter said, "When Christians turn to law, public policy, and politics as the last resort, they have essentially given up on a desire to persuade their opponents. They want the patronage of the state and its coercive power to rule the day." I doubt he would have said that to Dr. Martin Luther King or to William Wilberforce when they waged long and heroic battles against injustice.

...


Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Touched Powerfully

Christine Wyrtzen  Devotional:

HOW A CHURCH GOT STARTED
 
To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.  Romans 1:7

Have you ever been on a life changing trip?  Perhaps it was a mission trip and what you saw and experienced changed you to the core.  You returned back home with pictures and stories and couldn't wait to share your experiences with others.  Your undying passion was evidence of the cataclysmic events that occurred while you spent time away.

After the resurrection, a group of believers gathered to worship and pray.  Acts 2 describes them as being of 'one accord'.  That means that what they shared in common was a passionate love for Jesus, the One who had loved them, changed them, and now had ascended from them into heaven.  Their fellowship was electric as they worshipped.
 
Among that group were a few believers from Rome.  They were, I suspect, warmly included in that prayer meeting because believers are one in Christ regardless of nationality.  As this group met, the Spirit of God came upon them all.  They heard the sound of a rushing wind and God's power fell.  They were all changed. Forever. These Roman guests went back home to Rome and it is suspected that the Roman church was born by these few who had been transformed on their trip to Jerusalem. 

Great works of God, whether churches or ministries, are started by those who have been touched powerfully by the Spirit of God.  Leaders who are called by men take the stage and put people to sleep.  Their mission is academic and half-hearted.  They lack the fire of a God-call.
 
Oh, but those who see the glory of God, who feel the hand of God on their shoulders, who are changed by time in His presence, who experience the power of God as they hear their call into ministry, bring a combustible power to whatever they do.  Churches that are birthed in the sparks of a "Pentecost" may start in a godless, pagan place like Rome but they eventually change Rome and then the world.  Though Paul had never been to Rome, he knew of their faith and he was vested to write his most important work to build doctrine into their foundation of their church.  Education plus experience serves to make churches that can withstand the fires of Roman persecution. 

I do not know the future.  Will I be like my brothers and sisters in the Roman church who were strong enough to stand under fire?  Only if I strengthen my foundation with sound teaching.  Plant "Romans" in my spirit, Lord.  Amen

Monday, September 13, 2010

So Faint and Feeble

Ray Ortlund post:  Amazing grace, amazing difference


“Dear Sir,

To be enabled to form a clear, consistent and comprehensive judgment of the truths revealed in the Scripture is a great privilege.  But they who possess it are exposed to the temptation to think too highly of themselves and too meanly of others, especially of those who not only refuse to adopt their sentiments but venture to oppose them.  We see few controversial writings, however excellent in other respects, but are tinctured with this spirit of self-superiority. . . . I know nothing as a means more likely to correct this evil than a serious consideration of the amazing difference between our acquired judgment and our actual experience, or in other words how little influence our knowledge and judgment have upon our own conduct. . . . If we estimate our knowledge by its effects and value it no farther than it is experiential and operative (which is the proper standard whereby to try it), we shall find it so faint and feeble as hardly to deserve the name.”

John Newton, Works (Edinburgh, 1988), I:245-246. Style updated.

God-Created Identity

"In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you." 

Matthew 5:48 [MSG]

Changes Everything

LifeToday Devotional

Looking Unto Jesus
by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola


Let’s go back to the first century and take another look at our Lord. “Come and behold Him.” We bless and are blessed as we simply “behold Him,” not as we boast of talents or do great things, but as “we look full in His wonderful face.” Everyday “beholding” releases Jesus, especially when that beholding is done by a community.

Watch Him at a wedding in Cana. According to the custom of that day, the bridegroom was responsible for supplying the food and wine. You know the story. The wine ran out. This represented a social disgrace – a grave oversight on the part of the bridegroom.

Behold your Lord’s first miracle. He turns water into wine – but no ordinary wine. He creates a wine that is finer than the wine that had run out. In one brilliant stroke, Jesus Christ removes the bridegroom’s shame. He supplies the lack. He covers the mistake. He removes the disgrace. He reverses the failure. And He makes the bridegroom look like a champion.

What a Christ.

Watch Him as He encounters a battered, abused, shamed, and forgotten woman. She’s a Samaritan of ill repute – a five-time divorcée. Your Lord breaks all social conventions by talking to her in public. But that’s not all. He shares with her one of the greatest truths that a human being can know. In addition, He breaks Jewish custom by using her utensils and eating with her friends in a Samaritan village (something Jews were forbidden to do). Here is a Lord who embraces a dejected woman and woos her and her friends to Himself.

What a Christ.

Watch Him as He allows a prostitute to love Him in the house of a Pharisee. She pours expensive perfume on His feet, unbinds her hair and uses it as a towel to anoint his feet. Such an act is scandalous (for a woman to unbind her hair in that day was akin to publically removing her bra in our day). The Pharisees move into high-octane-judgment mode toward Jesus and the woman. And what does the Lord do? He accepts this woman’s extravagant act of love and adoration and rebukes the finger-pointing Pharisee for his self-righteousness, saying, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” To the woman He said, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” [1]

What a Christ.

Watch Him as He sits before a woman caught in the act of adultery. See her with bleeding cuts on her body, dragged like a rag doll before a hungry mob of judgmental men, waiting for the first stone to crush her head and bring her to a death that she justly deserves. Behold your glorious Lord. He asks one question, a question that pierces the heart of every man who is ready to send this woman to her grave. Mesmerized by the Lord’s words, each man drops his stone and walks away. Christ’s parting words to the guilty woman? “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” [2]

What a Christ.

As we read the Gospel accounts, we cannot help but be awestruck by the wonderful person they present. Yet the startling reality is that this same Radiance that we marvel at in the pages of our New Testaments has come to continue His life in and through us.

Genuine Christianity is learning to live by an indwelling Christ. Consequently, the Christian life should be reframed as God’s life come to earth and displayed visibly through human beings. The Christian life is the outflow of “Christ in you,” the breaking forth of God’s uncreated, indwelling life – the radiating of God’s own energy in fallen, human vessels.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not us. [3]

Seeing Christianity from this perspective changes everything.



Excerpted from Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola, © 2010 Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola (Thomas Nelson).

1 Luke 7:47,50
2 John 8:11
3 2 Cor. 4:7

Friday, September 10, 2010

Calling: Everything, Everywhere

Tullian Tchividjian post:  Our Calling, Our Spheres


(Below is my latest back page column for Leadership Journal.)

Martin Luther was once approached by a working man who wanted to know how he could serve the Lord. Luther asked him, “What is your work now?” The man replied, “I’m a shoemaker.”

Much to the cobbler’s surprise, Luther replied, “Then make a good shoe and sell it at a fair price.”He didn’t tell the man to make “Christian shoes.” He didn’t tell him to leave his shoes and become a monk.

As Christians, we can serve God in a variety of vocations. And we don’t need to justify that work, whatever it is, in terms of its “spiritual” value or evangelistic usefulness. We simply exercise whatever our calling is with new God-glorifying motives, goals, and standards.

Outwardly there may be no discernible difference between a non-Christian’s work and that of a Christian. A transformational approach to culture doesn’t mean every human activity practiced by a Christian (designing computers, repairing cars, selling insurance, or driving a bus) must be obviously and externally different from the same activities practiced by non-Christians.

Rather, the difference is found in the motive, goal, and standard. John Frame writes, “The Christian seeks to change his tires to the glory of God and the non-Christian does not. But that’s a difference that couldn’t be captured in a photograph.”

So, while Christians are to separate from the self-glorifying motives and God-ignoring goals of the world (our spiritual separation), we’re not to separate from the peoples, places, and things in the world (a spatial separation). We’re to be morally and spiritually distinct without being culturally segregated.

In the famous words of Abraham Kuyper, “There is not one square inch in the entire domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’”

For church leaders, this means that we make a huge mistake when we define a person’s “call” in terms of participation inside the church—nursery work, Sunday school teacher, youth worker, music leader, and so on. We need to help our people see that their calling is much bigger than how much time they put into church matters. By reducing the notion of calling to the exercise of spiritual gifts inside the church, we fail to help our people see that calling involves everything we are and everything we do—both inside and, more importantly, outside the church.

I once heard Os Guinness address a question about why the church in the late 20th century was not having a larger impact in our world when there were more people going to church than ever before. He said the main reason was not that Christians weren’t where they should be. There are plenty of artists, lawyers, doctors, and business owners that are Christians. Rather, the main reason is that Christians aren’t who they should be right where they are.

“Calling”, he said, “is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction.” When we reduce the notion of “calling” to work inside the church, we fail to equip our people to apply their Christian faith to everything they do, everywhere they are.

As has often been said, “If Christ is not Lord of all, he’s not Lord at all.”

Because God created peoples, places, and things, and because sin has corrupted peoples, places, and things, God intends to redeem people and their cultural sphere. In Christ, God intends to redeem not only environmentalists but also the environment; not just lawyers but also law; not simply government officials but also government itself (Isa. 9:6-7).

The most startling aspect of God’s mission is that he has presently enlisted his imperfect people (the church) to carry out his work of revitalization—right where they are!

As Paul says, “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called …. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God” (1 Cor. 7:20, 24, ESV). As we do this, we fulfill our God-given mandate to reform, to beautify, our part of the world for God’s glory.

Therefore, God calls preachers and church leaders to disciple and direct people inside the church to understand just how effective they can be outside the church when they understand their calling in terms of everyone, in everything, and everywhere.

That is our calling.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Needed A Savior First

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional: 

A SAVIOR OR A KING?
 
..And was declared to be the Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Romans 1:3-4

Jesus had always been God and He had always been powerful.  But when He came as a babe, flesh veiled that power.  It wasn't until the resurrection that the earth was reminded again of the power of the One who had lived for three decades and then died a criminal's death on a cross. Through the empty tomb, the 'Son of God in power' was again on full display.

What I have to remember is this; life in the flesh just veiled His power; it didn't erase it.  He held it in check, by choice, through His obedience to His Father's greater plan.  Jesus didn't come to earth to set up His kingdom; He came to take care of our sin problem.  We needed a Savior first, then a King.

The Jews who were being crushed under the Roman government were so wanting a King to deliver them from their oppressors that they couldn't appreciate the gift this Savior was giving them. Pain obscures my vision too.  What I often need the most is not what I think I need.  That which crushes my heart today can so fill my field of vision that deliverance from it is all that I pray for.  When God doesn't cooperate by removing my version of the 'Roman boot of oppression', I can easily become disillusioned, just like the people of Jesus' day.

One day, Jesus will set up His kingdom.  He won't wear a crown of thorns but a royal crown.  His robe won't be torn to pieces and sold as souvenirs.  The trail of His robe will fill the temple.  In the meantime, I must trust my Savior and King to give me what I need most, even when my own vision is obscured by my flesh.  When I'm frustrated, my eyes filled with the tears of misunderstanding, Jesus knows.  He experienced the limitations and temptations of the flesh and knows the difficult path of faith and trust inside these mortal bodies.

You are my Savior and my King.  I reaffirm my trust in the places where it is weak.  Amen