Satisfaction

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

SATISFACTION IN LIFE

2 Timothy 4:7
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith

Satisfaction in life comes from living righteously and seeking to raise the level of quality in the relationships, services and products you are involved with. Matthew 5:6 says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." Do you really believe that? If you did, what would you be doing? You would spend more time feeding your spirit than trying to satisfy your fleshly desires. Have you ever tried to satisfy the flesh? It can't be done. The more you feed it, the more it wants.

What causes you to become dissatisfied? It's usually because the quality of the relationship, service or product has diminished. I often ask people when they became dissatisfied. Inevitably they identify the time when the quality of a relationship, the service rendered, or the product produced diminished.

Satisfaction is a quality issue, not a quantity issue. You will achieve greater satisfaction from doing a few things well than from doing many things in a haphazard or hasty manner. The key to personal satisfaction is not in broadening your involvements, but in deepening them through a commitment to quality.

The same is true in relationships. If you are dissatisfied in your relationships, perhaps you have spread yourself too thin. Solomon wrote: "A man of many friends comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother" (Proverbs 18:24). It may be nice to know a lot of people on the surface, but you need a few good friends who are committed to a quality relationship with each other. We all need the satisfaction which quality relationships bring.

Paul accomplished what he was called to do. He left a lot undone, but he fought the good fight, finished his course, and kept the faith. Jesus also left a lot undone, but He did His Father's will and was able to say, "It is finished." You may not be able to do all you want to do for Christ in your lifetime, but you can live obediently and faithfully day by day.

Prayer:

Lord, I desire the satisfaction that comes from righteousness and quality in my relationships and activities.

Culture

Interesting video:

Prayer

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

THREE LEVELS OF PRAYER

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus

I have observed three approaches to prayer which progress from level to level. The first level is petition. We are encouraged to let our requests be made known to God (Philippians 4:6). If it helps us to keep a list of daily prayer reminders, we should do so. However, most people weary of this, and their devotional life disappears over time. Often they don't see immediate results from their prayers, so they conclude that more can be accomplished if they just get busy for the Lord.

We've progressed to the second level when prayer becomes personal. We have discovered a new dimension when we are comfortable in His presence and don't feel obligated to talk. It's much like a marriage relationship. A mature couple can ride together in the car for hours, enjoying each other's company, without having to say a word. I can just be with God and I'm learning to listen.

Realizing that I need not feel obligated to keep the conversation going when I'm with God has changed my prayer life dramatically. This kind of prayer makes my relationship with God a 24-hour-a-day experience. Setting aside special times for prayer is still important. But when we leave our quiet time, the sense of God's presence should remain with us throughout the day.

I call the third dimension of prayer true intercession. True intercessors hear from God. They know how to pray and what to pray for. In my observation, there are very few true intercessory prayer warriors. The ones I know of are usually older than 50 and most are women. They pray privately in their homes and often at night. Every church has at least one or two of them. Share your family needs with them. When these people pray, things happen because they don't just talk to God, they listen to Him.

Prayer:

Father, I want to grow in all dimensions of prayer to the point that I sense Your presence and hear Your voice.

Grace

Quote from Jonathan Edwards from Miscellanies:

"It was during this summer in NYC that he penned his sermon “Glorious Grace,” a wonderful sermon centered based upon Zechariah 4:7. Edwards closes the message with these words of application:

Let those who have been made partakers of this free and glorious grace of God, spend their lives much in praises and hallelujahs to God, for the wonders of his mercy in their redemption. To you, O redeemed of the Lord, doth this doctrine most directly apply itself; you are those who have been made partakers of all this glorious grace of which you have now heard.

Tis you that God entertained thoughts of restoring after your miserable fall into dreadful depravity and corruption, and into danger of the dreadful misery that unavoidably follows upon it; ’tis for you in particular that God gave his Son, yea, his only Son, and sent him into the world; ’tis for you that the Son of God so freely gave himself; ’tis for you that he was born, died, rose again and ascended, and intercedes; ’tis to you that there the free application of the fruit of these things is made: all this is done perfectly and altogether freely, without any of your desert, without any of your righteousness or strength; wherefore, let your life be spent in praises to God.

When you praise him in prayer, let it not be with coldness and indifferency; when you praise him in your closet, let your whole soul be active therein; when you praise him in singing, don’t barely make a noise, without any stirring of affection in the heart, without any internal melody. … Surely, if the angels are so astonished at God’s mercy to you, and do even shout with joy and admiration at the sight of God’s grace to you, you yourself, on whom this grace is bestowed, have much more reason to shout.

Consider that great part of your happiness in heaven, to all eternity, will consist in this: in praising of God, for his free and glorious grace in redeeming you; and if you would spend more time about it on earth, you would find this world would be much more of a heaven to you than it is. Wherefore, do nothing while you are alive, but speak and think and live God’s praises.[2]"

[2] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 10, Sermons and Discourses 1720-1723 (Yale, 1992) p. 399.

Recalibrate

"Worship is forgetting about what's wrong with you and remembering what's right with God. It is like hitting the refresh key on your computer. It restores the joy of your salvation. It recalibrates your spirit. It renews your mind. And it enables you to find something good to praise God about even when everything seems to be going wrong.

Is it easy? Absolutely not. Nothing is more difficult than praising God when nothing seems to be going right. But one of the purest forms of worship is praising God even when you don't feel like it, because it proves that your worship isn't circumstantial."

Mark Batterson, In a Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day

Choice

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

THE POWER TO CHOOSE

Joshua 24:15
Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve. . . . As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD

Adam and Eve's sin also affected the area of their will. Do you realize that in the Garden of Eden they could only make one wrong choice? Everything they wanted to do was okay except eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16, 17). They had the possibility of making a myriad of good choices and only one bad choice-- only one !

Eventually, however, they made that one bad choice. As a result, you and I are confronted every day with a myriad of good and bad choices. You can choose to pray or not pray, read your Bible or not read your Bible, go to church or not go to church. You can choose to walk according to the flesh or according to the Spirit. You and I face countless choices like that every day, and we eventually make some bad ones.

Other than the Holy Spirit in your life, the greatest power you possess is the power to choose. Someone has said that pure Christianity lies in the exercise of the will. The animal kingdom operates out of divine instinct. But we are created in the image of God, which means we have a self-operated, independent will. The essence of temptation is to function independently of God. The basis for temptation is legitimate needs.

Sinful behavior is often a wrong attempt at meeting your basic needs. The real issue here is are you going to get your needs met by the world, the flesh and the devil, or are you going to allow God to meet your needs "according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19)? It's an issue of identity and maturity. The more you understand your identity in Christ, the more you will grow in maturity. And the more mature you become, the easier it will be for you to choose to live your life in dependence on your heavenly Father.

Prayer:

Lord, I determine to exercise my great power of choice to live in moment-by-moment dependence on You today.

Glorify God Together

Excerpts from Welcome One Another to the Glory of God by John Piper

[Romans 15:1-7]

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Now how does he help us get there? This is not a question of church programs or relational mechanics or external technique. Paul’s question is: How do we become the kind of people who are of one mind in denying ourselves, sacrificing legitimate freedoms to please others, and being able with one voice (in spite of all the differences between weak and strong) to glorify God together? The root issue is how we become that kind of people.

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There are at least five things Paul does here to help us become the kind of people who can joyfully not please ourselves for the sake of building up others and making God look glorious. I’ll just mention them briefly and then close by focusing on the last one. Any of them could be a whole book. So take them and go deeper.

First, Paul draws our attention to Christ. He mentions his example, but the very example he chooses to mention is more than an example: it is the act by which he saves us from the wrath of God. Verse 3: “For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.’” In other words, to become the kind of person who joyfully serves others rather than using them, consider Christ. Look at Christ. Especially look at his sin-bearing, substitutionary work on the cross. This is how we change: “Beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Look to Christ.

Second, Paul reminds us how essential the Scriptures are in becoming self-denying servants of love. Verse 3 quoted Psalm 69:9, and so Paul says in verse 4: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction.” The picture of Christ that he just gave us came from the Scriptures. Now the gospels and the portraits of Christ we have available are powerful to change us. If we would only give ourselves to the Scriptures.

Third, Paul pinpoints what it is about the Scriptures that is so helpful in making us into self-denying servants of other people’s upbuilding. It’s their power to produce endurance and encouragement. Verse 4: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures . . .” God has designed the Bible so that when you follow the meaning from story to story and book to book the effect is “endurance and encouragement”—if that’s not happening, you’re not reading it right. This is what it will take if are going to be the kind of self-denying people who give glory to God with one unified voice in spite of all our differences.

Fourth, Paul reminds us that we will never survive in the path of self-denying, sacrificial love if we don’t have hope. Verse 4 again: “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”—hope that all will work together for our good and we will inherit eternal life with God. How did Jesus endure through Gethsemane and Golgotha? Hebrews 12:2 says it was the power of hope: “. . . who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.” That is the only way we will endure in love. Paul said it plainly in Colossians 1:4-5, “We heard . . . the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” Christ-exalting hope is the great power to endure in self-denying, sacrificial love that pleases others for their good.

There is one final way that Paul shows us how to become this kind of persons. He shows by example that we must pray for all this to happen, because it is all God’s work in us. Verses 5-6 Paul shifts from teaching and exhorting to praying, “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He is still speaking to them. But not mainly to them. Paul has reached the end of his ability to persuade. His longings for this church are beyond the reach of man. God must do it, or it won’t be done.

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Proverbs

The Christian Working Woman Transcript

Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - Proverbs for Business and Management

Look at these verses from Proverbs 6:

Go to the ant, you sluggard: consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provision in summer and gathers its food at harvest.

In the margin of my Bible by this verse I have written "self-motivated." The ant is a self-motivated creature. Without anyone standing over all those ants and telling them what to do, they perform their jobs diligently and are prepared for what lies ahead.

Self-motivation is a key factor in our business world today. Very few people have it. Too many people are just trying to get by with as little as possible. They don't look beyond their noses to see what else could be done, they take no initiative, are not willing to go any extra miles.

A Christian in the workplace should be like the ant: self-motivated, willing to dig in and get the work done without prompting, without constant supervision. Does your manager trust you? Can she or he be assured that you will diligently do your job whether anyone's watching or not? Certainly a Christian should produce that kind of reputation.

You know, our witness in the world can never be effective if our lives aren't different. If we have the "It's not my job" attitude that is prevalent today, if we drag our feet and do only what we're told to do, if we gripe and complain about doing anything above and beyond our job description, how will our coworkers and management know that Christ makes a difference in our lives? They won't, and our verbal witness, if there is one, will fall on deaf ears.

Christians have a power far beyond self to help motivate us. We have God's Holy Spirit dwelling within us to give us the strength we need to be self-motivated. And we should have an outstanding testimony on our jobs that we do our work, we do it whether anyone's watching or not, we do it to the best of our ability, and we're willing to go the extra mile.

Go to the ant and consider its ways. We can learn wisdom and self-motivation from those tiny ants.

Deeper Intimacy

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP

John 1:14
The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth

What effect did the Fall produce in Adam's mind? He and Eve lost their true perception of reality. We read in Genesis 3:7, 8, that they tried to hide from God. Doesn't that reveal a faulty understanding of who God is? How can you hide from God? After the Fall, Adam and Eve weren't thinking straight.

In essence, when Adam and Eve sinned, their minds were robbed of the true knowledge of God. In God's original design, knowledge was relational. Knowing someone implied an intimate personal relationship. You can see it in Genesis 4:1: "Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived" (KJV). Yet we don't generally equate a knowledge of someone with personal intimacy.

Before the Fall, Adam and Eve knew God, not sexually of course, but in the intimacy of a close, personal relationship which we associate with marriage. They knew God by being with God. When they sinned and were banished from the garden, Adam and Eve lost their relationship with God and the knowledge of God which was intrinsic to that relationship. And you and I inherited Adam and Eve's darkened mind. Before Christ, we knew something about God, but we didn't know God because we had no relationship with Him.

The necessity of being in relationship to God in order to know God comes into sharp focus in John's announcement: "The Word"-- logos in the Greek--"became flesh" (John 1:14). The word logos represented the highest form of philosophical knowledge. For the Greeks, saying that the logos became flesh was the same as saying that ultimate knowledge became personal and relational. God was announcing to the world through John: The true knowledge of God, which can only be discovered in an intimate relationship with God, is now available to the world through God in the flesh--Jesus Christ. In Christ we are able to know God personally, not just know about Him.

Prayer:

Lord, I thirst for deeper intimacy in my relationship with You. I want to know You more personally today.

Spiritual Practices

Excerpts from New Wineskins Joshua Graves interview with Brian McLaren

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New Wineskins: What are some of the spiritual disciplines that surprise people?

Brian McLaren: I think a really big one for a lot of people is the discipline of fixed-hour prayer. This was such a strong discipline in Judaism and in Christianity up until recent centuries. This idea that the church prays certain prayers, common prayers throughout the day (morning during the day, dinner time), there’s a rhythm to our day. We make habitual our connection to God so that eventually we have an ongoing openness and connection to the Holy Spirit. My book introduces the general idea of spiritual practices and tries to help us see Christian faith as a way and suggests why we should pay attention to ancient practices. There are going to seven books in the series. The next one is going to focus on constant prayer. I’m reading it right now and it’s very good. I feel I got to write the introduction to this series.

New Wineskins: What do you mean when you talk about faith as a set of beliefs versus a way of life at the onset of this book?

Brian McLaren: I was interviewing Dr. Peter Senge, who does not portray himself as a Christian. . . . I was interviewing him by satellite. “Dr Senge, what would you like to say to Christian pastors to a group of Christian pastors?”

“Well, I was in a bookstore the other day and I asked the bookstore manager what the most popular books were. He said the most popular books right now were books on eastern religions. So, I want to know why that is the case in America?”

I (McLaren) turned the question back on him and said, “Dr. Senge, why do you think this is the case?”

“I think it’s because Christianity currently presents itself as a system of beliefs and Buddhism presents itself as a way of life.” Now, that one sentence was the one sentence we’d all come to hear. It was a powerful moment. For many of us, we can’t imagine Christianity as anything other than a system of beliefs. We use phrases like a “Christian worldview”—we’ve never questioned what we mean. And what we mean is a kind of intellectual system that has an answer to every question and a solution to every issue. Well, if you believe that is what the Christian faith is, then it shouldn’t surprise you when Christians are viewed as arrogant, narrow-minded and judgmental. We’ve set up the whole system to give us the ability to give quick answers. But this idea of a “way of life” has to do with how we are formed as human beings and how we live our daily lives, and how we see our very being transformed and changed. That, to me, is what Dr. Senge was doing, in a Restorationist sense, was calling us back to Jesus because Jesus, that’s what his followers were first called, followers of “The Way.” This to me is a very important rethinking of the way we need to be engaged in.


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Action Word

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

DEMONSTRATING WHAT WE BELIEVE

James 2:17
Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself

Faith is an action word. We cannot passively respond to God. You may have heard the story of the circus performer who strung a wire over a river and proceeded to ride across it on a unicycle. When he returned, everyone applauded. Then he asked, "Who believes I can do that with a man on my shoulders?" Everyone responded in affirmation. He said, "All right, who will hop on?" The person who hops on is the person who really believes. Faith is not just giving credence to something or someone. Faith is demonstrated reliance upon something or someone.

Faith has the same operating dynamic as agape love. When we refer to love as a noun, we're talking about character: patience, kindness, etc. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). When we say that God is love, we are describing His character. Paul says the goal of our instruction is love (1 Timothy 1:5); therefore, the goal of Christian education is character transformation.

When love is used as a verb, it is expressed by action: "For God so loved the world that He gave . . ." (John 3:16). If we say we love someone and do nothing on their behalf, it's only sentimentality and not agape love. True love is expressed by meeting the needs of others.

Faith has a similar dynamic. When using faith as a noun, we're talking about what we believe. But if we're talking about faith as a verb, then it is expressed in the way we live. James says it like this: "Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, 'You have faith, and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.' You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder" (James 2:17-19).

The devil believes in the existence of Jesus and knows that God's Word is true. But he doesn't seek to glorify Jesus or to obey Him. He seeks his own glory, being a rebel at heart (Romans 1:25).

We demonstrate what we believe by how we live our lives. If we believe it, we will do it. If we don't, then what we believe is just wishful thinking.

Prayer:

Lord, help me put feet to my faith every day and not rely on past accomplishments.

Not How to Die, How to Live

Excerpts from Cancer's Unexpected Blessings by Tony Snow at Christianity Today (7/20/2007)

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Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.

I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. "I'm going to try to beat [this cancer]," he told me several months before he died. "But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side."

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity—filled with life and love we cannot comprehend—and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

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What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God's hand.

Overrated?

"I love the church. It's God's vehicle for transformation. But I don't want the church to become so centralized that it can't reproduce, can't adopt multiple forms. And that works better when you're small, when you're on the verge, on the edge. Small is the new big. Big isn't bad, but it's overrated."

-Dave Gibbons is pastor of NewSong Church in Irvine, California. Taken from "On the Verge" in the Summer 2008 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. Quote found at Out of Ur website.

Missional

Excerpt from the middle of The Missional Summary by Joe Thorn at Sub-Text

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As I see it, a missional church must therefore be at least 3 things:

1. Sent.
The church must live as a sent people, not a only sending people. While we will always be sending others into the farther reaches of the world to take the Gospel of grace, we must also live as a sent people to the communities God has planted our churches in. We should stop allegorizing Acts 1:8 so that (in my case) Elburn, IL is my “Jerusalem,” the Chicago suburbs is my “Judea,” the state is my “Samaria,” and other countries are my “uttermost parts of the earth.” From Jesus’ perspective, Elburn, IL is in the uttermost parts of the earth. He has sent us, his people, to this culture/context to preach, demonstrate and invite people to enter the kingdom of God. To simply think of ourselves as established, and being the senders of others, robs us of the missional imperative to join God in his mission to the people who live and work in our neighborhoods. This means more than being evangelistic, and knowing our theology.

2. Engaged.
We must live, work, play and minister redemptively in our culture. The well-intentioned tendency of Christians in America to withdraw from culture has only weakened our effectiveness in communicating Jesus to the people we want to reach out to. Culture is not bad, but merely the combination of customs, values, rituals, beliefs, art, food and institutions among a specific people. Much of our culture and sub-cultures is good, but needs to find its full meaning in God. And of course much of it is corrupt and needs to be transformed by the power of the Gospel as demonstrated in the community of faith. Either way, the Gospel is seen as something authentic and life changing only in the context of a particular culture. It must be seen, experienced, and understood in comparison or contrast to what they know. This requires involvement in people’s lives and the culture we are a part of whenever possible. We cannot strip the kingdom of God down to a few principles that are merely applied to an individual’s private life. It is much larger than that.

3. Incarnated.
We and the Gospel must be incarnated where we are. What I mean is that churches will, and should, look different in each cultural context. A church in the inner-city will look different from those in the rural counties. In some cases they will address the same issues with the Gospel, but in many others the Gospel will bring about redemption in different ways to different issues. Instead of relying on one-size-fits-all programs and church models, it is necessary to allow the kingdom of God to present itself to the community through the church in ways needed by that culture. This is not an abandonment of truth, doctrinal standards, or biblical ecclesiology. It is the church moving forward with all of that to become what God intends us to be in each new place.

The “missional church” is almost a redundant expression. The people of God are inherently a sent people. It is who we are, and that gives birth to what we do. We just tend to forget this.

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The question every church ought to be asking itself is, “What work needs to be done in our community to announce the kingdom has come?” Answering that question and responding to it appropriately prove to be the hardest part of this dialogue.

The Goal

Excerpts from Welcome One Another to the Glory of God by John Piper

[Romans 15: 1-7]

Verse divisions and chapter divisions in the New Testament were added centuries after the Bible was written. So be careful that you don’t assume they divide the books in the best places. The chapter break at the beginning of chapter 15 was not put in the best place, most commentators agree. It would go much more naturally after Romans 15:13. The issue of weak and strong Christians—those free to eat and drink without qualms of conscience—continues from chapter 14 right on into chapter 15.

Verses 1-2 make a familiar point: “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” This is not new. We have seen it before. Romans 14:15, “If your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.” Romans 14:19, “Let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” Romans 14:21, “It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.” So the point throughout has been: be willing to forego your freedom in matters of meat and drink and days if you can avoid destroying a weak brother and instead build his faith.

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Paul’s goal is never merely good human relations—unless, of course, we define “good human relations” as God-glorifying, Christ-exalting human relationships, which we should do. But the ultimate aim of Christ and his apostle is to display the glory of God—the beauty of God, the greatness of God, the many-sided perfections of God. All of creation, all of redemption, all of church, all of society and culture exist to display God. Nothing and no one is an end itself, but only God. All things are “from him and through him and to him” (Romans 11:36). Church worship services, church Sunday School classes, church nurseries, church committee meetings, church small groups, church evangelism, church missions—all of them exist for this one ultimate thing—to make much of the greatness of God. That is why we say we exist to “spread a passion for the supremacy of God.”

Would you join me and pray with me that God make this the atmosphere at Bethlehem? We will not have succeeded if we are known as a friendly place. And we will not have succeeded if we are known as an unfriendly place. We will be on our way to true success if we are known as a people besotted with the glory of God. If our children speak of the glory of God. If our young people love the glory of God more than the glory of sport or music or fashion. If our career people pursue the glory of God more than the glory of financial success. If our older people rejoice in the hope of the glory of God just over the horizon.

Almost everything in American culture threatens this radically serious, God-centered passion to see and savor and show the glory—the greatness and beauty and worth of the full range of his perfections, his eternal being and unchanging character, his independence and self-sufficiency and holiness, his infinite power and wisdom and goodness and justice and wrath and mercy and patience and grace and love. Almost everything in American culture threatens to make our devotion and our services and our mind and our heart shallow and casual and chatty and—our most favorite blessing of choice—fun.

I plead with you to pray with me that God stagger us with a proper sense of his greatness, and to that end that he would give us what Paul calls a “spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him” (Ephesians 1:17). Oh, how we need to know God and to feel something of the wonder of his glory. Pray with Moses in Exodus 33:18, “Show me your glory.”

So we know where Paul is going in this text—the same place he is always going: “That together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 6).

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Summer School

Excerpt from Summer School of Theology at Vintage Faith

Last night we started our 6 week summer School of Theology classes at Vintage Faith Church. I don't know of the total number of people but the place was quite a buzz and the classes seemed all full. Kristin and I are teaching the "Church and Mission" class which is our church membership class. I love the School of Theology as it shows the eagerness and desire that people have in learning more.

I am convinced in our culture we need to be teaching more theology and having more learning opportunities and opportunities for discussion. We intentionally call this "School of Theology" to keep emphasizing how everyone can strive to become "theologians" (in the non-academic sense) as the word simply means someone who takes the study of God seriously.

The first week of the "Church and Mission" class was primarily what the history of our church is and then was a lesson on "ecclesiology" for the most part. ...

Needs

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

UNMET SPIRITUAL NEEDS

1 John 2:17
The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever

Over the last three decades, people in the West have begun to sense that there is more to life than science has revealed and their senses have experienced--and, of course, they're right. On the surface this new hunger may sound encouraging to those of us with a Christian worldview, but in fact the same people who are disillusioned with the materialistic world are also disillusioned with established religion. Instead of turning to Christ and His church, they are filling their spiritual void with old-fashioned occultism dressed in the modern garb of parapsychology, holistic health, Eastern mysticism and numerous cults marching under the banner of the New Age Movement.

Attempting to meet spiritual needs apart from God is nothing new. Christ encountered a secularized form of Judaism during His earthly ministry which was bound to its traditions instead of to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The religious leaders of the day didn't recognize the Messiah as their spiritual deliverer. They perceived the oppressor to be Rome, not Satan, the god of this world. But Jesus came to undo the works of Satan (1 John 3:8), not Caesar.

Satan's ultimate lie is that you are capable of being the god of your own life, and his ultimate bondage is getting you to live as though his lie is true. Satan is out to usurp God's place in your life. And whenever you live independently of God, focusing on yourself instead of the cross, preferring material and temporal values to spiritual and eternal values, he has succeeded. The world's solution to this conflict of identity is to inflate the ego while denying God the opportunity to take His rightful place as Lord. Satan couldn't be more pleased--that was his plan from the beginning.

Prayer:

Mighty God, I renounce any inclination within me that I am capable of being the god of my life. You alone are Lord and King.

Statements

Excerpts from It's Not Broke, So Fix It by Collin Hansen at Christianity Today

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By and large, the EFCA has been insulated from the evangelical world's recent debates over open theism, the Atonement, justification, and inerrancy. That's not to say the EFCA has avoided the debates. Faculty at the EFCA seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), have actively engaged each of these controversial topics. But the newer interpretations have not gained traction among the denomination's 1,300 churches. Still, it's clear EFCA leaders had these debates in mind when they adopted a new statement of faith on June 26.

The first article says God has "limitless knowledge and sovereign power." Thus, the EFCA takes a stand against open theism, which claims that God granted humans complete free will, so he can't know the future precisely. This first article was shifted ahead of an article on the Bible, which led off the last statement of faith, adopted in 1950, when the EFCA was formed by merger. The move should not be interpreted as de-emphasizing inerrancy. Indeed, the 2008 revision strengthens the EFCA's commitment to inerrancy by taking a cue from the 1978 Chicago Statement. The Bible, "without error in the original writings," is to be "believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises." The EFCA statement also says the Bible is the "ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged."

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Like other doctrinal statements of the era, the EFCA's 1950 draft did not elaborate much on any point. For example, it says the "shed blood of Jesus Christ and his resurrection provide the only ground for justification." But with the definition of justification now up for grabs, the new statement says, "The true church comprises all who have been justified by God's grace through faith alone in Christ alone." Regarding the Atonement, the 1950 statement says that Jesus "died on the cross, a sacrifice for our sins according to the Scriptures." Someone who rejects substitutionary Atonement, who sees Jesus primarily as a model of sacrificial service, could sign the earlier statement. Not so with the 2008 version. It reads, "We believe that Jesus Christ, as our representative and substitute, shed his blood on the cross as the perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins."

EFCA leaders often cite as their unofficial motto, "In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, charity. In all things, Jesus Christ." If that's the case, they must see substitutionary Atonement and justification by faith alone as gospel essentials.

But the document may be equally notable for what it does not say. There is an article about the Holy Spirit, but it says nothing about certain gifts of the Spirit, such as prophecy or speaking in tongues. It says the Lord Jesus mandated baptism as one of two ordinances, along with the Lord's Supper. But it does not specify the mode or timing of baptism. Very few EFCA pastors baptize infants, but the denomination allows this option, said Greg Strand, the EFCA's director of biblical theology and credentialing. He said the EFCA historically accommodated refugee Methodists and Presbyterians who still wanted to baptize their infants.

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Concerns about promoting a social gospel were raised about the article on Christian living, Strand said. But the surviving article reminds Christians that "God's justifying grace must not be separated from his sanctifying power and purpose." It goes on to say that God commands Christians to live out their faith with "compassion toward the poor and justice for the oppressed."

"One of the big issues the evangelical church needs to address today is the both/and of orthodoxy and orthopraxy," Strand said. "That is why we've been intentional about including both in a statement of faith."

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Restoration

Excerpt from Felt-Needs and Messianic Marketing by Skye Jethani at Out of Ur

Conventional ministry wisdom goes something like this: When launching a new church, first analyze the felt-needs within the target area or population. Then construct ministries to address those felt-needs. Felt-needs based ministries will draw people to your church, and simultaneously positively predispose seekers to the gospel message. In this scenario, caring for peoples’ felt-needs plays a supporting role in the mission.

What if this conventional wisdom is wrong?

The idea outlined above is what I was taught in seminary, it’s what I read frequently in ministry books, and it’s what I see practiced virtually everywhere I go. But I increasingly suspect that the theological foundation for felt-needs based ministry may be sand rather than stone.

The biblical rationale comes primarily from the gospels. Jesus, it is thought, performed miracles in order to confirm the content of his preaching. His “acts of power” (the word “miracle” is rarely used in the Greek-language gospels) function as validation for his verbal proclamation. In other words, you should believe what Jesus says because look at what he can do.

Translating this principle into contemporary ministry, we are told that identifying and satisfying felt-needs will confirm and validate the gospel we preach—and hopefully draw a crowd the way Jesus’ miracles did. But there are a few problems with this understanding.

1. If his miracles play the supporting role of validating his message, one would expect to see Jesus performing miracles in conjunction with teaching. But this is rarely the case. There are some exceptions, but for the most part the gospel accounts of Jesus’ miracles do not include teaching. Most of the gospel writers separate sections of dialogue and teaching from stories of miracles.

2. If the miracles were to validate his message, why does Jesus frequently command people not to report the miracles he has performed? Some argue Jesus was trying to postpone the discovery of his identity until the appointed time. That may be true, but the secrecy undermines the notion that his acts of power are to confirm his proclamations.

Theologian N.T. Wright, among others, has suggested a different way of understanding Jesus’ miracles. Rather than supporting his preaching, Jesus’ acts of power should be seen as accomplishing the same thing as his preaching—namely, restoring exiled sinners to God. Wright:

Most if not all of the works of healing, which form the bulk of Jesus' mighty works, could be seen as the restoration of membership in Israel of those who, through sickness or whatever, had been excluded as ritually unclean. The healings thus function in exact parallel with the welcome of sinners (Jesus and the Victory of God, p. 191).

If theologians like Wright are correct, and Jesus didn’t address felt-needs to win a hearing or confirm his message, then how and why we address felt-needs in our present ministries needs to be reconsidered. For example, if Jesus’ healed blind Bartimaeus and the bleeding woman not to win their approval or validate his teaching, but rather to restore them to full communion with God and his people (something their handicaps prevented), then our good works need to be more than smart PR or marketing. They too must have some intrinsic gospel validity—a worthiness beyond validating our verbal proclamation.

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Pain

Excerpt from Why God Doesn't Fully Explain Pain by John Piper

One of the reasons God rarely gives micro reasons for his painful providences, but regularly gives magnificent macro reasons, is that there are too many micro reasons for us to manage, namely, millions and millions and millions and millions and millions.

God says things like:

• These bad things happened to you because I intend to work it together for your good (Romans 8).
• These happened to that you would rely more on God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1).
• This happened so that the gold and silver of your faith would be refined (1 Peter 1).
• This thorn is so that the power of Christ would be magnified in your weakness (2 Corinthians 12).

But we can always object that there are other easier ways for God to accomplish those things. We want to know more specifics: Why now? Why this much? Why this often? Why this way? Why these people?

The problem is, we would have to be God to grasp all that God is doing in our problems. In fact, pushing too hard for more detailed explanations from God is a kind of demand that we be God.

Think of this, you are a blacksmith making horseshoes. ... [follow link to read the rest of the analogy]