Read Proactively

Mark Batterson post:  Sanctified Expectations

The Bible is a prayerbook.

You don't read it statically. You read it proactively. As you read, the same Holy Spirit who inspired the writers illuminates the readers. How awesome is that? The Holy Spirit quickens the Word and something gets in our spirits.
I'm convinced that the Bible is the means to just about ever spiritual end. I promise you this: if you are reading the Bible, God will convict you of sin that you need to confess. So in that regard, the Bible is the key to purity. You will also find plenty of promises to claim. The Bible sanctifies our expectations so we have more confidence after we read the Word. In that regard, the Bible is the key to faith. And, of course, it's the key to so many other things. What I'm getting at is this: prayer is a byproduct of Scripture. It is the way God talks to us. Then prayer turns the monologue into a dialogue.

My point? I'm not worried about your prayer life if you're reading the Bible. I think the quality of your prayer life will be directly proportional to the quality and quantity of Scripture you're reading.

My Strength, Portion, Deliverer

A part of the lyrics to "Made Me Glad" by Hillsong that were mentioned yesterday:

I will bless the Lord forever
I will trust Him at all times
He has delivered me from all fear
He has set my feet upon a rock
I will not be moved
And I'll say of the Lord

You are my shield, my strength
My portion, deliverer
My shelter, strong tower
My very present help in time of need

 

Be Glad - Exult

I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart;
   I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you;
   I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

Psalm 9:1-2

He'll Get the Credit

Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer. Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless—cheerfully. Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it: if words, let it be God's words; if help, let it be God's hearty help. That way, God's bright presence will be evident in everything through Jesus, and he'll get all the credit as the One mighty in everything—encores to the end of time. Oh, yes! 

1 Peter 4:7-11 [The Message]

Contest with Sin

Neil Anderson Daily in Christ

A STRUGGLING SAINT
Romans 7:15
I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate

Perhaps the most vivid description of the contest with sin which goes on in the life of the believer is found in Romans 7:15-25. In verses 15 and 16, Paul describes the problem: "For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good."

Notice that there is only one player in these two verses--the "I," mentioned nine times. Notice also that this person has a good heart; he agrees with the law of God. But this good-hearted Christian has a behavior problem. He knows what he should be doing but, for some reason, he can't do it. He agrees with God but ends up doing the very things he hates.

Verses 17-21 uncover the reason for this behavior problem: "So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me. . . . If I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me." How many players are involved now? Two: sin and me. But sin is clearly not me; it's only dwelling in me. Sin is preventing me from doing what I want to do.

Do these verses say that I am no good, that I am evil, or that I am sin? Absolutely not. They say that I have something dwelling in me which is no good, evil, and sinful, but it's not me. If I have a sliver in my finger, I could say that I have something in me which is no good. But it's not me who's no good. I'm not the sliver. The sliver which is stuck in my finger is no good. I am not sin and I am not a sinner. I am a saint struggling with sin which causes me to do what I don't want to do.

Romans 6:12 informs us that it is our responsibility not to allow sin to reign in our lives. Sin will reign if we use our bodies as instruments of unrighteousness (Romans 6:13). We must renounce every such use and submit our bodies to God as instruments of righteousness.

Prayer:

Thank You, Lord, that I don't have to sin. You made it possible for me to control sin's power over me. You delivered me from the wages of sin and blessed me with the gift of eternal life in Christ.

Heart Reformation

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional: CONQUERING MY AVERSION

I have inclined my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end.  Psalm 119:112

    Tell a child, "Don't do that!" and they'll set out to do it.  Tell a child "Do this!" and they'll want to do anything but that.  Being told what to do is distasteful.  Rebellion is bound up in the heart of every newborn.  If not conquered, rebellion will remain a spiritual disease for the breadth of their lifetime.  Though they are God's child, they will strain under His commandments.  They will obey from time to time, but down deep, they will resent being told what to do.

    David is tough on himself.  He knows that without some hard work in prayer, his heart will not be engaged to obey with gladness.  David tells God how he deals with his heart's desire to be autonomous.  He does whatever it takes to bend his heart toward loving God's ways.

    Are there any ways in me that are still childish?  Do I obey God only when I feel like it?  Do I obey only the things which don't require sacrifice?  If so, I am no better than a pouting three year old.  To grow up, I enter into the conflict of my flesh and my spirit.  I recognize and own that my flesh wants one thing; my spirit quite another.  I take my own flesh to God in prayer and admit that it's bent in the wrong direction.  I cry out for mercy, for a heart change.  I don't want to grind out a life of obedience that is rooted in behavior modification; all the while my heart privately dreams of doing my own thing.  I will resent God and truly believe He is the one keeping me from joy.

    When I teach, I often face a church full of sullen faces.  They are 'technically' in the kingdom but their hearts have not discovered that Jesus is their treasure and that His burden is light.  Heart reformation has never been taught.  Doing the Christian thing has been the focus of their environment.  Satan keeps them in chains, a bondage built on the lie that they know best and God is One who steals their joy by asking them to live in the prison of rules.  They have no idea that the way of the disciple is freedom and exhilaration.  They do not know that the supposed autonomy is the tomb and obedience is walking out into the spacious place of the resurrection.
   
If my heart is not inclined toward you and what you ask of me, change me.  Amen

Think Globally

Dan Kimball post:  Things I Learned in S. Korea

Got back from S. Korea and straight into prepping sermon for yesterday's gatherings at Vintage Faith Church. But while my memory is fresh, a few things I learned while in Korea are:

1) God is active and moving in S. Korea. He is active all over the world, but it is always thrilling to stop and see another part of the world and what is happening. I was amazed at how many churches there were 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 people. At the church I spoke at, which is over 20,000 people - I got to see rooms packed with children (hundreds and hundreds) and seeing them learn and worship was quite incredible.


2) The church in S. Korea is facing some of the same things we did in the USA. At least from what I understand from talking to those at the youth conference, there is a shrinking amount of teenagers and young adults in churches. So there is a lot of thinking about how the church must change for future generations, much like we had discussion 10 years ago about this very thing. They had all my books translated into Korean, which I didn't know until I got there. So it was funny seeing different covers for the books and how they were portrayed.

3) There are incredible younger leaders doing innovative things and church planting. I met a church planter who planted a church 3 months ago. They opened a coffeehouse when they planted this church where their offices are and they have smaller meetings there and rent a school for the Sunday meetings. They already have over 200 people in the church and over 50 of them have become Christians over the past 3 months.

4) Prayer is a major part of Korean churches. Even in the younger churches, I learned that they have prayer meetings almost every day of the week. I specifically asked and it is about 20% of the church who goes to the prayer meetings. But still an amazing thing. Every day at 6:30 AM. I also saw in the worship meetings that there would be times when things would stop and give people time to pray and everyone would start praying outloud intensely in this beautiful way.

5) At least in one church, they had this blessing song as a guest speaker starts. When I was being introduced and then walked up a strange thing happened. Everyone there stood up and outstretched their arms towards me and began singing. It was quite uncomfortable as I had no idea what was happening. The translator next to me then told me to put my arms up, so I did. But I found out it was a prayer blessing song that they sing right at you before you speak. It was a beautiful little song, but very different to be up there and suddenly that happens as they all are looking right at you as they sing.


6) The Korean Christians were incredibly kind and overly gracious. I don't think I ever have had as gracious, serving, kind, caring group of people who were looking after the speakers and taking care of everything. Charles Kim and the team who put on the event did a great job finding volunteers from S.Korea who helped out. Even when my laptop had water spilled on it by someone accidentally, they whisked that thing away, had tech people opening it up and blow-drying it within minutes.

7) Although globalization is happening, there are also strong cultural differences. It is weird that in a place like S. Korea music from the USA, movies etc. abounds everywhere. So you walk into a store and Lady Gaga is playing and Avatar is at the movie theaters. So much of the clothing also was from American companies that we wear here. But also I learned that there is no higher suicide rate amongst teens than in S. Korea. There is intense pressure for education and success. In churches I also learned that they barely talk about sex/dating as that isn't seen as something the church should discuss or teach about. And when I mentioned homosexuality in one session, not a single leader said that is ever discussed in their churches. I assume some do, but at least the session I was in no one said they did. Which is another topic of the need to be discussing things so teenagers don't feel they don't feel isolated or alone. But these were some cultural differences I learned about.

7) I learned so much from the other speakers.It was great getting to hang out with Chap Clark, Ralph Winter and Marv Penner. Chap and Marv are veterans of youth ministry. Ralph was fascinating to talk with and I am so glad I got to meet him. We talked a bunch about the hero story in films and some of what "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell is about with films. So as always, even though you go somewhere to speak, you come back having learned so much from others.

8) We do need to think globally more and more. I lived out of the USA for almost 2 years when I was in my 20's. And over the past several years I have got to travel to New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, Mexico and El Salvador on mission or speaking trips. But it is so easy to come back home and only think locally as in USA and I was reminded how we do need to be thinking globally.

9) Don't plan to speak at your church a day after you come back from a trip overseas. I never got to plan my sermon while there, so I stayed up until 5 AM prepping the sermon for Sunday. Why I thought I would have time there to do it, I don't know.

Thank you Charles Kim for setting this up and inviting me. It was a joy to be there with you and you were an incredible host and I came away with so much more than I ever expected.

Breathe Life

Ray Ortlund post:  Husband and wife

“Let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”  Ephesians 5:33

God made Adam first and put him in the Garden with a job to do, a mission to fulfill.  In the heart of every fallen man is the self-doubt that wonders, “Am I man enough to climb this mountain God has called me to?  Can I fulfill my destiny?”  A wise wife will understand that question at the center of her husband’s heart.  And she will spend her life answering it, communicating to him in various ways, “Honey, I believe in your call.  I know you can do this, by God’s power.  Go for it.”  In this way, she will breathe life into her man.

God made Eve from Adam, for Adam, to help him follow the call.  In the heart of every fallen woman is the self-doubt that wonders, “Do I please you?  Am I what you wanted?”  A wise husband will understand that question at the center of his wife’s heart.  And he will spend his life answering it, communicating to her in various ways, “Darling, you are the one I need.  I cherish you.  Let me hold you close.”  In this way, he will breathe life into his wife.

Eternal Gain

Mark Batterson post:  Temporal Pain for Eternal Gain

John 21:17 says: "Peter was hurt."

Sometimes the Lord has to hurt us to heal us. Last weekend one of our campus pastors, Dave Schmidgall, broke his nose in our NCC snowbowl. This week he had to go back to the doctor to get it refractured. Seems like cruel and unusual punishment to break what is broken, but that is the only way to make sure it heals the right way.

In John 21, Jesus asks Peter the same question three times: do you love me? Peter was hurt that the Lord asked him three times, but I think it was His way of dealing with Peter's three denials. He didn't want to gloss over the issue. He wanted to deal with the denial. So in a brilliant fashion, Jesus healed Peter by hurting Peter.

If you want to be used by God, you better be willing to endure some temporal pain for eternal gain. The healing may be in the hurt.

Oneness

Words of Life Weekly Devotional: Lonely in Love

Love & War part 2: She Said
by Stasi Eldredge

“And the two shall become one…” (Genesis 2:24)


This week's devotional is from Love & War by John and Stasi Eldredge, available with any gift toward Mission: Water for LIFE.

In the heart of every human being lies the desire to belong. It is primordial, primeval, linked somewhere in our deep memory to our need for survival. To be outcast is to be sentenced to death. To be shamed is the worst form of punishment. In our modern world, when we are deemed unworthy, physical gates do not bar us from the safety of our community but the gates are closed nonetheless.

All of us have known the cruelty of school cliques, social cliques and perhaps ministry cliques. Some have experienced the terrifying power of psychological bullying – mean girls, ruthless boys. Did you make the team, the squad, the court? Do you fit in? How many friends are on your Facebook page? Did you get accepted, asked, invited? Are you in or are you out?

Life is meant to be shared; we are supposed to feel “in.” We are meant to live in community, in relationship with others. People may drive us crazy sometimes, but still we need each other. Some of us are born introverts – we replenish our spirits and souls best in the company of just ourselves and God. In fact, everyone needs time alone – regularly. But in the same way, everyone needs to be in the company of others as well – regularly.

After turning his back on society and finding his way into the Alaskan wilderness with only himself as a companion, Christopher McCandless discovered that he missed people.  He missed, in fact, the very people he was trying to escape. He became profoundly lonely. He realized that life was not meant to be lived alone and that, “Happiness is only real when shared.”

Isn’t it true? When something really good happens, we can’t wait to share it.  My mother passed away seven years ago, but in a moment of victory or happiness, I still think of her and want to give her a call and share the news. The same holds true with tragedy. When a crisis occurs – when the doctor calls with scary news or when our world is shaken – we need the companionship of others. We need someone who loves us, who truly cares, to come alongside of us and share in our experience. As a woman, one of the best things about being married is this: The question, “Who will I go with?” is forever answered.  I belong to someone; I have a mate. We are a pair, a couple, a set. We are no longer single, we are double.  We have a tennis partner, a dance partner, someone to sit next to at the table, and a date for the rest of our Friday nights. We are a couple; we belong to each other. Two really are better than one, in a host of ways.

John and I have walked through some very hard times together: the death of dear friends; the loss of long-term relationships; many hospital visits; moving cross-country three times. We have also shared some really wonderful times: travelling in Scotland and Ireland; speaking together at conferences; snorkeling in Mexico; realizing a life-long dream of buying a ranch. And then there are the “in-between” times: making the boys’ lunches in the evening; texting each other when we are out and about; saying our bedtime prayers together for 25 years.

But we have also seen some really lonely years in our marriage. And to be lonely in your marriage is the loneliest feeling of all.

When John and I moved to Colorado, Luke had not yet been born. Sam was just over two years old and Blaine was only nine months old.  I worked part time a couple of evenings a week, but John was the primary breadwinner. I spent my days at home raising, nurturing, playing with and caring for our boys. As a man, John was finding his place in the work force – challenging himself, desiring to grow personally and professionally, as well as wanting to provide for his family. He worked hard and wanted to prove himself. After Luke came along, John went back to school to earn his Master’s Degree in counseling. It was a great program and I was 100 percent behind him.

But he was really busy. He still worked full time, traveling the country doing conferences many weekends a year. He was given Mondays and Tuesdays off to make up for the weekends he worked. And Mondays and Tuesdays were spent at the university. On a rare day off, in much need of rest and refreshment, John would take our one car and go fishing. Spending the day on the water brought life to him; God was meeting him there. More than half his days off were spent on the river by himself or with a friend. Not with me. Not with our sons.

It was common for him to be gone every day of the week for three or four weeks at a time. The longest stretch we went was seven weeks in a row of John being away from home every single day. The pattern went on for two years.

Somehow in my heart I knew God was moving in my husband. I understood I had to let him go and not demand he stay home. When he was home, John was completely present. But those were hard years. For both of us.

John has a circle of things he loves to do. It includes fly-fishing, rock climbing, working on cars, hunting, reading, and just about anything with adventure in it. I have a circle of things I love to do. It encompasses going to movies, working in my garden, talking, taking walks, worshipping and reading novels.

I am also the mother of three sons. I live in a household of men. I love them passionately, but it can be lonely at times being the only woman around.  I long for real relationship with them and have been praying for ways to connect.

John just gave me a ping-pong table for Christmas. My family had a ping-pong table while I was growing up and I spent hours playing with my brother and dad. Those are sweet memories for me, times of real connection with my family.  Now I am playing with my sons and my husband. We are spending time together doing something we all enjoy. Big sigh. Yay!

There is an ebb and flow to the companionship of a marriage. During hunting season, I don’t expect to see John much. But afterwards, I do expect him to come home and re-engage with me. There are seasons when the two of us are “connecting” well and seasons when we aren’t. I don’t like it when we aren’t, but that is all part of life.

What you want to do is create an environment where, over time and with intentionality, you nurture companionship. You really have no idea what depths of companionship are available until you venture into those waters, and hang in there for many years.  Who knows all that God has in store for both of you?

The goal of marriage being oneness doesn’t mean the two become one person.  It means the two separately become better people. That’s what John and I have learned to do. Together.

This Week
Ask God to show you if there are any issues in your marriage that are getting in the way of you and your spouse enjoying true companionship. Ask Him to help you create an environment where companionship and oneness are nurtured.

Prayer
“Lord, please open the eyes of my understanding to see what issues may be hindering me and my spouse from enjoying the companionship with each other you intend for us.  Thank you for giving us the inspiration and grace needed to create a nurturing environment.  In Jesus’ name, amen.”


Adapted from Love & War by John and Stasi Eldredge.

Winner - Whiner

"A winner does what is right and feels good.  A whiner wants to feel good before doing what is right."
                            - John Maxwell

Words Poured Out

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional:  STINGY WITH WORDS

Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O Lord.  Psalm 119:108

          
People who withhold words can do so to maintain a sense of power over others.  They refuse to affirm, to praise, and one never knows where you stand with them.  When those people are your parents, it's very unsettling for a child.  You grow up unsure of yourself.

            Am I stingy with words when I approach God?

When someone loves me, I want to hear all about their love.  Why they love, what they like best, when they first loved, how deep their love is.  God is no different.  May I never just croak out a stingy form of expressed love by joining the crowd in singing, "I Love You, Lord."  That doesn't do.
When someone has really hurt me and attempts to offer an apology, I don't want a token "Sorry!"  It's important to hear them express what they did, how they feel about the fact that they hurt me.  Feelings of remorse should be present if the apology is real. When I go to the altar to deal with my own sin, am I offering a token "Sorry!", or am I willing to tell God what I did and how I feel about offending Him?  Am I one who feels brokenhearted over breaking His heart and will I tell Him so?
          
            Hosea is one who encouraged plentiful words.  "Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to Him, "Take away all iniquity; accept what is good and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips."  Hosea 14:2  If my words are few, I don't have a speech problem but a heart problem.  It is the heart which dictates what lips say.  If my heart is full, speech flows uninhibited.

            I have been in awkward situations.  So have you.  Words have been stuck in my throat.  My heart was in conflict.  If I find myself ambivalent about God, feeling loving one moment but untrusting the next, the most important thing I can do is admit it.  Pour out words in prayer that speak of my conflict.  If I'm just stingy because my heart has grown cold, then I must take myself to the Word and deal quickly with my spiritual condition.  The Spirit will show me when my heart died, and why.

            Having been someone who lived for long periods of time in wordless places, I know the exhilaration of having a language which bubbles over.  My passion for Jesus spills out in words.  Teaching, storytelling, pleading, encouraging, praying.  God has brought me out of a silent well to a spacious place.  The first thing I heard was my own voice.

Whether I weep or sing, my words are poured out toward your gracious heart for me.   Amen

Talk

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Ephesians 4:29

Words

Ray Ortlund post:  WLC on the Ninth Commandment

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”  Exodus 20:16

Q.  What are the duties required in the ninth commandment?

A.  The duties required in the ninth commandment are the preserving and promoting of truth between man and man and the good name of our neighbor, as well as our own; . . . a charitable esteem of our neighbors; loving, desiring and rejoicing in their good name . . . .

Q.  What are the sins forbidden in the ninth commandment?

A.  The sins forbidden in the ninth commandment are all prejudicing the truth and the good name of our neighbor, as well as our own; . . . speaking untruth, lying, slandering, backbiting, detracting, tale-bearing, whispering, scoffing, reviling, rash, harsh and partial censuring; . . . raising false rumors, receiving and countenancing evil reports and stopping our ears against just defense; evil suspicion; envying or grieving at the deserved credit of any, endeavoring or desiring to impair it, rejoicing in their disgrace and infamy . . . .

“At every word, a reputation dies.”  Alexander Whyte, An Exposition of the Shorter Catechism (Fearn, 2004), page 202.

You, O Lord

But you, O LORD, are a shield about me,
   my glory, and the lifter of my head.

Psalm 3:3

No More Shock and Awe

Excerpt from Ed Stetzer post:  Guerilla Lovers

Vince Antonucci is the founder and lead pastor of Verve, an innovative new church for the unchurched on the Las Vegas strip. Vince's passion is creatively communicating biblical truth to help people find God. He is also the author of I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt.


Vince is also part of The Verve Foundation, which does community service to meet needs on and around the Vegas Strip.

His new book, Guerrilla Lovers, is another encouragement to the church to love in "deed and truth." I was happy to have the chance to ask Vince a few questions about the book. He'll be on the blog today answering your questions in the comments.

The name of your book is "Guerrilla Lovers." What does that mean?I think there are two types of war - "shock and awe" and "guerrilla warfare." Shock and Awe is employed when you're bigger and stronger than your opponent, so you stay at a distance, hoping to bomb your enemy into quick submission. Guerrilla warfare happens when you're under-manned, under-resourced. It requires intelligence and creativity. You have to get close so you can pull off ambush attacks. It's a patient strategy where you realize you'll have to hit your opponent repeatedly before they finally decide it's not worth it to continue fighting. In this book I'm advocating that we start relying on guerrilla tactics.

So what does "shock and awe" look like in a church context?
Trying to impress people into the Kingdom - with the size of our buildings, the quality of our coffee bar, and assuming that we can "win the victory" in a single encounter - with one church service, or in one conversation with a stranger on an airplane, or with a big church event.

And "guerrilla tactics"? What do those look like in a church context?
It would be a patient, relational, servant-hearted approach. We love people. Creatively. Audaciously. Consistently and persistently. We love people till they finally have to ask why.

You do this in the book, but can you give our readers a couple examples of Jesus, and/or the Apostles, modeling this approach?
Absolutely. Jesus was the original guerrilla lover. His m.o. was to lead with love. I think immediately of Mark 1 where the leper approaches Jesus, hoping to be healed. And not only does Jesus heal him, he touches him. We see Jesus heal people without touching them, so this isn't necessary. I think it's that Jesus wanted this untouchable man to feel the love of God. And there's Jesus inviting himself over to Zacchaeus' house, when Zacchaeus was probably the most hated man in town. And after Jesus heals the woman who had been bleeding all those years, he calls her daughter. The reason we see the "tax collectors and sinners" always wanting to be around Jesus wasn't because he judged them and pointed out their sins, but because He loved them.

So are you saying no more big church buildings or coffee bars or church events?
No, but I am saying that churches in America have never done that better than they have in the last 20 years, and yet there are experts who estimate that there are 8 million less people going to church in America today than 20 years ago. And there's not a single county in the continental United States where more people are going to church. Shock and awe has not proven effective. And so I think it's time to go back to the strategy I think Jesus authored, and that was so effective in the first century, and more lately in China - guerrilla love.

          ...

Just Because

Excerpt from Miscellanies post:  Why does God love me?

At some point every Christian has frankly evaluated their own sin and has stood amazed by the grace of God. This leads us to ask the question: Why would God send his pure and eternal Son to be smudged and murdered at the hands of vile sinners—for me? Or said more directly: Why does God love me?

The answer to this question is simple and profound.
In a sermon on John 3:16, Puritan Thomas Manton (1620–1677) answers the question this way—

Love is at the bottom of all. We may give a reason of other things, but we cannot give a reason of his love … Why did he make so much ado about a worthless creature, raised out of the dust of the ground at first, and has now disordered himself, and could be of no use to him? We have an answer at hand: Because he loved us. If you continue to ask, But why did he love us? We have no other answer but because he loved us, for beyond the first rise of things we cannot go. And the same reason is given by Moses, Deuteronomy 7:7–8: “The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people, for ye were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you…” That is, in short, he loved you because he loved you. All came from his free and undeserved mercy; higher we cannot go in seeking after the causes of what is done for our salvation.*

...

God loves you because he loves you.
This is the simple—and profound—answer.
————

* Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (Solid Ground, 2008), 2:340-341

Subtracting the Idols

Ray Ortlund post:  What does it mean to "accept Jesus"?

“You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.” 1 Thessalonians 1:9

You and I are not integrated, unified, whole persons. Our hearts are multi-divided. There is a board room in every heart. Big table. Leather chairs. Coffee. Bottled water. Whiteboard. A committee sits around the table. There is the social self, the private self, the work self, the sexual self, the recreational self, the religious self, and others. The committee is arguing and debating and voting. Constantly agitated and upset. Rarely can they come to a unanimous, wholehearted decision. We tell ourselves we’re this way because we’re so busy with so many responsibilities. The truth is, we’re just divided, unfocused, hesitant, unfree.

That kind of person can “accept Jesus” in either of two ways. One way is to invite him onto the committee. Give him a vote too. But then he becomes just one more complication. The other way to “accept Jesus” is to say to him, “My life isn’t working. Please come in and fire my committee, every last one of them. I hand myself over to you. Please run my whole life for me.”  That is not complication; that is salvation.

“Accepting Jesus” is not just adding Jesus. It is also subtracting the idols.

Re-Affirm

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional:  CONFIRMING AN OATH

I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep your righteous rules.  Psalm 119:106

When promises are made in the context of love, they are not usually uttered just one time.  When time and trials test them, reassurance is welcomed.  It comforts and it strengthens love and respect. 

An elderly husband says to a wife with serious health concerns, "I told you that I would be here in sickness and health.  I'm not going anywhere."  He promised it once many years ago but the memory of it is dim.  His confirmation is timely and sinks deeply into her frightened spirit.

God confirms His many promises to me with the whispers of His Spirit in scripture, with circumstantial breakthroughs, and through the encouragement of others in His family.  But it never occurred to me until this morning that it is probably meaningful for Him to hear me confirm the vows I have made to Him.  When time and testing could threaten my resolve, I take stock, review my oaths, and declare once again my love and commitment to love and serve Him.

Perhaps as I do, He stops what He's doing, closes His eyes and sighs with pleasure.  Some might say this humanizes Him to the point of over-sentimentality, but the heart of God is a longing One.  His eyes search from one end of the world to the other to find one whose heart is completely His.  His delight in the search and in the finding seems to me to be implied.

To love, to serve, to obey, to treasure you above all others is my solemn vow.  I re-affirm it this day.  Amen

My Prayer -- Your Love May Abound

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 1:9-11

Enjoyment

DesiringGod post:  Easily Pleased






The script comes straight from C. S. Lewis:

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (The Weight of Glory, 26)

More Joy

You have put more joy in my heart
   than they have when their grain and wine abound.

Psalm 4:7

In Him Alone

Life Today Devotional


I Hate Valentine’s Day
Love & War part 1: He Said
by John Eldredge

“My soul finds rest in God alone…”
(Psalm 62:1)

I hate Valentine’s Day. There, I said it.

Most of the guys reading this just thought, “Yes! I can’t believe he said that.”

Most of the women just thought, “What a jerk! I can’t believe he said that.”

But it’s true. I hate Valentine’s Day. Stasi loves it; it’s one of her favorite holidays. (God, what are you thinking?!) I hate being told, “Today, you will be romantic. Today, you will be amazing. Today, you will ‘Get It All Right.’ And tonight, you will arrange for one of the most romantic evenings you two will have this year. Tonight, sex will be on a level with the Hallelujah chorus. Hollywood will have wished they had filmed this day.

Who wants to live under that kind of pressure?

The rule of human nature seems to be this: The harder you push, the more the heart flees. The more we demand the heart show up, the more it disappears. We may try to Get It All Right, out of fear or guilt (like most guys on Valentine’s Day), or maybe even out of a desire to be good. But that is not the same as loving.

So I find myself dreading the approach of Valentine’s Day. Can I pull it off? Will she be happy? And now we’ve got a culture crazed with the upgrade of everything. Dinner and a card used to be a home run. That sounds so blasé these days, like you barely even gave it a thought. Now you have got to make it an all day. We have blown this day way out of proportion. It has taken all the fun out of it.

And the truth is, women feel the pressure, too – the pressure to be beautiful, the pressure to have just the right earrings to go with the right dress, the pressure to have the perfect hair – to achieve “sexy” without tipping over into “skanky.” A woman feels the pressure to make all the right conversation, not to order too much at dinner, and certainly don’t eat it all. And a woman feels the sexual pressure coming – either to offer sex “because it’s Valentine’s Day” or because she wants to win her man.

Real romance doesn’t work like that.

Romance seems to happen not because you have turned your google-eyed attention to romance, but because the two of you are focused on other things – a beautiful fall day leads to a spontaneous walk in the woods. An evening out “just because” becomes lovely after the two of you stumble on a great little restaurant.

Romance requires free hearts.

Pressure, on the other hand, kills everything it touches.

I don’t think most of us have any idea how much pressure we bring to our marriages.

There is the pressure one of you feels from the other “to be happy.” Usually because somebody’s childhood wasn’t all that happy and they can’t bear the threat of unhappiness in the marriage, or because we deeply believe that If you’re not happy it’s because of me. The message comes across loud and clear: “Do not be unhappy.” The spouse feels the unnamed pressure and comes to resent it.

Christian couples feel the added pressure to have a model marriage, to be a “witness” to our families and neighbors. Therefore nothing can ever be wrong. We’ve got to present a good face to the world. We feel the pressure to pray together, to have family devotions, and to love going to church. We feel the pressure to be “Christ-like” in our marriages – and since none of us are even close to that level of sainthood, we feel a lot of guilt and shame. But we feel compelled to hide all that because, after all, we are Christians.

There is the pressure – and how bizarre is this, really – that someone love you. Of course we want to be loved. Of course it hurts when we feel we are not loved, especially by the closest person in our life. But insisting that someone love you is like telling a fawn you have just seen slip into the woods to “Come Back Out,” or commanding a hummingbird to land on your finger and “Stay There.”

And then there is the Biggest Pressure Of All – the pressure we feel to make each other happy. After all, this marriage is supposed to make me happy. Right?

The human heart has an infinite capacity for happiness and an unending need for love, because it was created for an infinite God who is unending love. The desperate turn is when we bring the aching abyss of our hearts to one another with the hope, the plea, “Make me happy. Fill this ache.” And often out of love we do try to make one another happy, and then wonder why it never lasts.

It can’t be done. You will kill yourself trying.

We are broken people, with a famished craving in our hearts. We are fallen, all of us. It happened so early in our story, back in the Garden of Eden, that most of us don’t even realize it happened. But the effects of the Fall are something we live with every day.

Every woman now has an insatiable need for relationship, one that can never be filled. It is an ache in her soul designed to drive her to God. She aches for intimacy, to be known, loved, and chosen. It also explains her deepest fear – abandonment.

Men face a different sort of emptiness. We are forever frustrated in our ability to conquer life (Genesis 3:17-18). A man aches for affirmation, for validation, to know that he has come through. This also explains his deepest fear – failure.

Now, take these fears, brokenness, and this famished craving, throw them together into the same house and lock the door. What ensues is the pain, disappointment, and confusion most people describe as their marriage. But what did you expect?

Of course you are disappointed; your spouse is disappointed, too. How can we possibly be enough for one another? Two broken cups cannot possibly fill one another. Happiness flows through us like water through a volleyball net.

Your unhappiness – and your spouse’s – means you both have a famished craving that only God can meet.

You have to have some place you can turn. For comfort. For understanding. For the healing of your brokenness. For love. To offer life, you must have life. And you can only get this from God.

Trying to sort your way through marriage without God in your life is like trying to be gracious when you are utterly sleep-deprived. At some point, you lose your ability to be kind; you lose all perspective.

We live in a great love story, set in the midst of war. The great and terrible clash between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness continues. They are fighting for the human heart.

Jesus is the hero of this love story and we are His Beloved. So the greatest gift you can give to your marriage is for you to develop a real relationship with Jesus Christ, where you are finding in God the life and love your soul so desperately needs.

This Week
 Ask the Lord to show where you have put pressure on yourself and your spouse to be enough to satisfy the craving in your soul, then ask Him to meet you there so that you can know the rest that is found in Him alone.

Prayer
“Lord, help me to have such a powerful relationship with you that I can give and receive love freely, without the pressure to be or need to demand from others that which only You can provide.”  

Help Them See

Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute! 

Philippians 4:4-5 [The Message]

Dryness

“He [God] leaves the creature [believer] to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot ‘tempt’ to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.” (p. 40)

C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters

Simple

A two minute explanation of missional:

To Him

Mark Batterson post:  For God or To God?

I read a verse that stopped me in my tracks this morning. The Holy Spirit arrested me. If I were completely honest, I'd have to admit that most of "my ministry" has been for God not to God. I don't think that is just semantics. It's a whole different paradigm. So many of us are so busy ministering for God that we rarely minister to God.

Ezekiel 44:16 wrecked me today: "They shall enter my sanctuary, and they shall approach my table, to minister to me, and they shall keep my charge." Makes me think of the original commission in Matthew 10. Before Jesus "sent them out" he called them "to him." I think one of the greatest dangers leaders face is this: we get focused on what God wants to do THROUGH us instead of what God wants to do IN us.

Are you ministering for God or to God?

I think it's both/and, but you better prioritize ministry to God.

I Will Sing

But I will sing of your strength;
   I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.
For you have been to me a fortress
   and a refuge in the day of my distress.
O my Strength, I will sing praises to you,
   for you, O God, are my fortress,
    the God who shows me steadfast love.

Psalm 59:16-17

To Him Glory Forever

Excerpt from notes taken during Sam Storms:  The Practical Sin-Killing Power of Christian Hedonism

Here are five ways to work for your own joy and the joy of your people:

1. Weave into the spiritual and intellectual fabric of your people the awareness that God's designs in the moral commandments of Scripture are to expand their capacity to enjoy him and not to inhibit it. (See Jonathan Edwards' sermon "Christian Happiness.")
   
   
2. Preach often on the bigness and the beauty of God.
   
   
3. Labor to turn their eyes from the pathetic, little, transient pleasures of what can be seen and felt and tasted to the grand and eternal pleasures of the glory that is to come.
   
   
4. Build into the mental, emotional, and theological framework of your people an understanding of how suffering serves joy. (For a good resource, direct your people to Matt Chandler's videos about the brain cancer he is facing.)
   
   
5. Be an example to them of joy in your own life and relationship with God.

My greatest desire for you is that you and I would be utterly captivated and consumed by the same spiritual energy that led the apostle Paul to cry out, "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?' 'Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?' For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen" (Romans 11:33-36).

What your people need most is for you to immerse yourself in the fountainn of this joy-generating revelation of God and to be saturated to the bone with what caused Paul to explode with this declaration. People are in bondage to sin today because they are bored stiff with God, and that's our fault. If your people don't hear you speak the same truths that Paul did and if they don't sense the enthusiasm in you that was in him, they will just go home and turn on whatever anesthetizes their pain. 

Telling the Mystery

And don't forget to pray for me. Pray that I'll know what to say and have the courage to say it at the right time, telling the mystery to one and all, the Message that I, jailbird preacher that I am, am responsible for getting out. 

Ephesians 6:19-20 [The Message]

Made for Another World

Excerpt from John Piper:  Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul

Here’s the closest thing that Lewis gives to a definition of this Joy: It is the experience “of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” ¹⁴ This is why he chose the word Joy rather than “desire” or “longing” or “Sehnsucht” when writing his autobiography—because those words failed to convey the desirability of the longing itself.

I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that any one who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is the kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is. ¹⁵

Or again he says, “Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing.” ¹⁶ So on the one hand, Joy has this dimension of “inconsolable longing,” aching, yearning for something you don’t have. But on the other hand, the longing and aching and yearning is itself pleasurable. It is in itself not just a wanting to have but a having.

True, it was desire, not possession. But then what I had felt on the walk had also been desire, and only possession in so far as that kind of desire is itself desirable, is the fullest possession we can know on earth; or rather, because the very nature of Joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting. There, to have is to want to want is to have. Thus, the very moment when I longed to be stabbed again, was itself again such a stabbing. ¹⁷

Alan Jacobs is right to say, “Nothing was closer to the core of his being than this experience.” ¹⁸ And perhaps what sealed its significance for Lewis is that it brought him to Christ. He was an atheist in his twenties, but relentlessly God was pursuing him through the experience of “inconsolable longing.” And he was finding that the writers who awakened it most often were Christian writers.


One decisive influence was J. R. R. Tolkein, author of The Lord of the Rings. He argued like this, as Lewis did for the rest of his life: When this Joy—this stab of inconsolable longing—is awakened by certain powerful “myths” or “stories,” it is evidence that behind these myths there is a true Myth, a true Story that really exists, and that the reason the Joy is desirable and inconsolable is that it’s not the real thing. The True Myth, the Real Joy is the original shout, so to speak, and the stories and myths of human making are only echoes.

Tolkein pressed the analogous truth for Christianity. And Lewis did the same years later: “A man’s physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread: he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating, and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist.” ¹⁹ In other words, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world.” ²⁰

 

Thank You

Some of the lyrics from Thank You by 33Miles

What if in the morning when I wake up
Even before I fill my coffee cup
I said Thank You
Thank You
Thank You

What if I looked at the day and the hours ahead
And before I moved forward I bowed my head
And said Thank You
Oh I said Thank You

What if I looked at my life in a different way
Took a little more time to stop and pray
I know it would change all the moments in between
So here I go

--------------------------------------------------------------
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Act Courageously

Words of Life Weekly Devotional

Courage and Cowardice
by Traylor Lovvorn

“But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable,
as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters,
and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with
fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8)


I was introduced to HBO’s “Band of Brothers” a few months ago by one of the guys in my small group. He and a number of other guys in the group often referred to the show, so I figured I should check it out. I was immediately moved by the genuine brotherhood among these men that had been literally forged in foxholes all over Europe.

After watching two gripping episodes, I was struck by the incredible courage that these men displayed over and over again in combat. In scene after scene these men jumped out of the safety of their foxholes with mortars, bullets, and shrapnel flying all around them. In the middle of total chaos, with life and death literally hanging in the balance, they acted courageously.

I will most likely never see combat like that first-hand. I will never really know how I would have responded had I been a part of Easy Company. Would I have courageously stepped out of my foxhole, or would I have found myself on the ground in the fetal position, frozen by fear?

Each of us, however, does have situations that summon courage in us everyday, just like the men in Easy Company. While live ammo might not be whizzing by our heads and the situation might not be life and death, courage is called for nonetheless. In the verse in Revelation, it is interesting that “cowardly” made this list of what most would consider “big” sins. No one would argue that murderers, the sexually immoral, idolaters, and the detestable fit into this category, but when is the last time you heard a sermon on cowardice?

The root of the word used for cowardice in Revelation 21:8 means “to fear or dread.” How often have we failed to step into difficult situations with courage because we feared and tried to avoid potential conflict? Often we even sanctify our cowardice and feel good about ourselves simply because conflict was averted.

Conflict avoidance is not the goal of the Christian life and does not equate to righteous living. Most often, trying to avoid conflict is rooted in cowardice and fear. Jesus, the only perfect individual to ever live, did not walk around trying to keep peace with everyone around Him. On the contrary, He often created conflict with the Pharisees, even going so far as to call them some pretty strong names at times.

Many men in the Church today are trying to follow “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” and honestly don’t know what it looks like to assertively stand up with godly courage. Due to the fear of stepping out-of-bounds with their behavior, they have opted to sit passively on the sidelines and fold their hands nicely in their laps and simply stay out of trouble.

In light of this, it is no wonder that the use of internet pornography is reaching epidemic proportions, even among Christians. In my life and ministry, this is a growing issue. (More of my testimony is at my blog site.) Pornography is the ultimate act of cowardice in that there is no risk, it is always on our terms, and can be easily hidden. Intimacy with our spouse, on the other hand, requires the courage to pursue and the possibility of rejection.

The answer is not found with more accountability or more discipline, although those aren’t bad things at all. We must be honest about our fear of the unknown and how much we want to be in control and abandon ourselves to the big story that God wants to tell with our lives. He is calling us to a loving, intimate relationship and wants us to join Him in this great adventure. As Romans 8:15 says:

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Because we are beloved sons and daughters of a Daddy who is good, we can live boldly and courageously as the assertive, passionate, loving men and women we were created to be. Even in areas unrelated to pornography, courage is a critical component of the Christian walk. We must be bold in our faith, uncompromising in our values and a light in a dark world.

This Week
Identify the fear and cowardice that has kept you living safely in your foxhole. Write down ways you have been passive and unassertive with your spouse, children, and work. What would you be doing with your life if you knew you couldn’t fail?

Prayer
“God, many times I have failed to act courageously when given the chance. Please forgive me and expose the fear in my life. Help me to boldly live the life You have for me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Give Thanks

Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever!
Who can utter the mighty deeds of the LORD,
   or declare all his praise?
Blessed are they who observe justice,
   who do righteousness at all times!

Psalm 106:1-3

Uncertainty

I was thinking about how quickly things can change.  Here are two examples:

 ²⁴Afterward Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria. ²⁵And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver.

¹But Elisha said, "Hear the word of the LORD: thus says the LORD, Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria." ²Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, "If the LORD himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?" But he said, "You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it."

¹⁶Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD. ¹⁷Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. And the people trampled him in the gate, so that he died, as the man of God had said when the king came down to him. ¹⁸For when the man of God had said to the king, "Two seahs of barley shall be sold for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour for a shekel, about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria," ¹⁹ the captain had answered the man of God, "If the LORD himself should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?" And he had said, "You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it." ²⁰And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate and he died.

2 Kings 6 & 7


¹³Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, ¹⁴and there came a messenger to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, ¹⁵and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you." ¹⁶While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you." ¹⁷While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you." ¹⁸While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, ¹⁹and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you."

          Job 1

For me the lessons from both stories come from Job:

²¹And he said, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." [Job 1]

¹Then Job answered the LORD and said:
 ²"I know that you can do all things,
   and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.  [Job 42]

Trusting All the Way

Remember those early days after you first saw the light? Those were the hard times! Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse—some days it was you, other days your friends. If some friends went to prison, you stuck by them. If some enemies broke in and seized your goods, you let them go with a smile, knowing they couldn't touch your real treasure. Nothing they did bothered you, nothing set you back. So don't throw it all away now. You were sure of yourselves then. It's still a sure thing! But you need to stick it out, staying with God's plan so you'll be there for the promised completion.

   It won't be long now, he's on the way;
      he'll show up most any minute.
   But anyone who is right with me thrives on loyal trust;
      if he cuts and runs, I won't be very happy.
But we're not quitters who lose out. Oh, no! We'll stay with it and survive, trusting all the way. 

 Hebrews 10:32-39 [The Message]

Utterly Preoccupied

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional: THE HARD LESSONS OF COMPLIANCE

Oh, how I love your law!  It is my meditation all the day.  Psalm 119:97

I will value something more if I've suffered from the want of it.  If I lived much of my life without the daily revelation that comes through a relationship with God and His Word, then I will embrace it now with intense passion.  The contrast between how desperate I was without the words of Jesus compared to what it's like to live now with His presence and guidance will be stark.  I'm not speaking hypothetically here.  I'm speaking from experience.

But some who know me say, "Wait!  You've been a Christian since you were seven years old.  What do you mean you didn't know the joy of following God's ways?"  I will tell you that it might have appeared I did.  But I took the paths other Christians prescribed for me.  I was a compliant person and when you put me in the company of strong willed visionaries, I caved to fit in.  I wanted acceptance more than I wanted to know the joy of pioneering my way with God.

For the first 40+ years of my life, I lived by other people's rudder.  When faced with any challenge, I asked those around me, "What would you do?"  It seemed there was always a plethora of answers to follow.  Most were given with good intentions, with firm conviction.  Not knowing how to really hear God's Spirit speak to me, I felt I needed their direction and chose to trust it.  While some advice was solid, much of it was not.  Over time, I harbored bad feelings toward those whose advice led me astray or I punished myself for being so weak as to listen to them.  There was no winning, no peace.

Do I echo David's words and proclaim my love for His personalized instruction in scripture and in prayer?  Oh yes!  Have I turned into a lone ranger who never asks others for counsel?  No.  It's just that now I have a place to go to weigh their words.  God will confirm the validity of their input or direct me a different way.  His law is life and throughout my day, I have the absolute joy of being utterly preoccupied with it.

I am only compliant to Your Spirit, the place where my independence melts away.  Amen

Deliver Us

Post from Miscellanies:  Deliver Us From Morality

C.S. Lewis:

“…In reality [William] Tyndale is trying to express an obstinate fact which meets us long before we venture into the realm of theology; the fact that morality or duty (what he calls ‘the Law’) never yet made a man happy in himself or dear to others. It is shocking, but it is undeniable. We do not wish either to be, or to live among, people who are clean or honest or kind as a matter of duty: we want to be, and associate with, people who like being clean and honest and kind. The mere suspicion that what seemed an act of spontaneous friendliness or generosity was really done as a duty subtly poisons it. In philosophical language, the ethical category is self-destructive; morality is healthy only when it is trying to abolish itself. In theological language, no man can be saved by works. The whole purpose of the ‘gospel,’ for Tyndale, is to deliver us from morality. Thus, paradoxically, the ‘puritan’ of modern imagination—the cold, gloomy heart, doing as duty what happier and richer souls do without thinking of it—is precisely the enemy which historical Protestantism arose and smote.”

Source: English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1944), 187.

Ultimate Healing

Excerpts from John Piper:  Born Blind for the Glory of God

Let’s turn to John 9:1. Jesus had just said perhaps the most outlandish thing he ever said. He said in John 8:58, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” This was doubly outrageous. “Before Abraham was, I was,” would have been outrageous—a man claiming preexistence thousands of years ago. But what he said was, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He used the sacred name of God in Exodus 3:14, “I am who I am.” So he claimed to be God in the fullest sense.

They take up stones to stone him, but he goes out of the temple, and the next thing that happens is the encounter of a disabled man—a man who had been born disabled, blind. There is a connection between this man’s blindness and the reality that Jesus is God Almighty and the purpose of God in this man’s disability. Verses 1-3:

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

...

What is that work? Be careful with your answer. Jesus is always doing more than you think. In verses 4-5, Jesus continues,

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

This signals that something more is going on here than merely healing the man’s physical eyes so that he can see natural light. Jesus calls attention to the fact that he is the light this man needs to see. “I am the light of the world.” Which many blind people see, and many seeing people are blind to. Verses 6-7:
Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

Yes, he came back seeing natural light. Is that enough? Is that what Jesus cares about most? Do you recall back in chapter 5 when Jesus healed the man who had been crippled for 38 years? The man stood up and walked. Was that the point—mere physical healing? Yes, I say “mere” in view the infinitely more important spiritual change needed.

So John 5:14 says, “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.’” In other words, I healed you, yes. But I have tracked you down to make sure you know holiness is the main point. That’s the real healing. Go, sin no more.
Now here in chapter 9, Jesus does the same thing. Verses 35-­38:

Jesus heard that they had cast him out [the man born blind], and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.”

Now we see all the connections between, “Before Abraham was, I am,” and blindness and healing and Jesus as the light of the world. Seeing the glory of Jesus as God and worshiping him was the main point. Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus is the “I am” who was here before Abraham. The most important thing is that the man see the glory of Jesus and worship him. That is what he did. This was the ultimate healing.

Treasure

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional:  WHEN THE GLITTER IS REMOVED

I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad.  Psalm 119:96

            Consider David's many disillusionments.  He saw Goliath, the strongest man around, overcome by a small stone.  He saw his nephew, Asahel, one described as 'swift as a gazelle', killed on the battlefield.  He saw his fairest son, Absalom, deform in character and turn on him.  He watched the seeming perfection of everyone around him take on their true limits.  Their glitter was removed.  The only thing that grew taller and wider with time was the Word of God.

            It was a painful thing to have that which beguiled me take on its true form.  The disillusionment unraveled my world.

            I just finished teaching this weekend at The Cove in Asheville, NC.  I talked with a woman whose daughter was dating someone that was not good for her.  Yet, her daughter was absolutely taken with him.  "What can I do," she lamented.  I suggested that she pray and ask that his true colors be exposed, that the glitter that her daughter sees be removed by a God who wants her daughter to know truth.

            Jesus is to be my treasure.  Any other person or thing that my heart covets in place of Him has had a bonified paint job by the enemy.  Satan allures me to the counterfeits, making each one seem as if it will fill my soul where it aches.  It's a mirage.  Though it may seem for a time that it's the thing I was looking for all along, eventually its glitter is removed.  The downward spiral into the mire of disappointment can cripple me permanently if I don't turn to the only One who expands with time.

            The more I attempt to see the glory of Jesus, the more glory there is to discover.  The more I attempt to understand a stunning Bible truth, the larger and more expansive it becomes.  The things of the kingdom are broad, never disappointing the true seeker.

I've known so many disappointments and, for a while, they crippled me.  It took me a while to find you as my treasure.  Now that I have, my joy of discovering your limitless love and power only abounds.  Thank you for drawing me to you, the source of all pleasure.  Amen

Meaningful

"The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, it won't make a life meaningful either." 

Author Note, Donald Miller, A Millions Miles in a Thousand Years

Not Incidental Additions -- Foundational Words

"These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock. 

"But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards." 

Matthew 7:24-27 [The Message]

Undone

Words of Life Devotional

Know His Comfort
by Ruth Graham

“For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will
shower us with his comfort through Christ.” (2 Cor. 1:5)


Ruth Graham explores God's comfort in her book Fear Not Tomorrow, God Is Already There

One day, my daughter, Noelle, called asking if I could keep my then-two-year-old granddaughter for part of the afternoon. My desk was stacked high with mail and my email inbox was full, but Noelle assured me that Virginia Ruth would probably nap the whole time. I quickly agreed. I would just put my granddaughter down for a nap and go back to what I needed to do.

When Noelle arrived, she broke the news that she had left both “bear” and “blanket” at home. I knew this would pose some difficulty, but I didn’t realize the seriousness of our situation until I tried putting Virginia Ruth down for her nap. She wanted “bear” and “blanket.” Trying to be innovative, I showed her the monkey that was left over from my son Graham’s childhood, thinking it would substitute for “bear.” She looked horrified when she saw it. Then I offered her a baby blanket that belonged to Noelle. Her big, blue eyes filled with tears and she moaned, “Nooo…” I reached for an old doll, hoping that would comfort her. Her wail grew more intense. I felt helpless. Finally, I scooped my granddaughter up and held her close. I sat down with her as she snuggled and nestled her little blond head on my shoulder. Soon she was breathing heavily and sleeping sweetly.

My granddaughter would take no substitute for her bear and blanket, but so often we try to substitute something else for God’s comfort. God certainly uses relationships and the things of this life to comfort us. The problem comes when we look to our comforts to stop the pain. True comfort doesn’t stop the pain. It makes the situation bearable. It gets us through. We are human – we want the pain to stop. And yet, sometimes, pain is what opens the door to experiencing God’s comfort. It is when we are desperate that He steps in and touches us in unusual ways. He wants to cradle us, rock us, and soothe us.

We need comfort in a host of situations, experiences and emotional states, but there is a difference between needing comfort and what I call “coming undone.” We can come undone in our greatest moments of loss, failure, betrayal or fear. We are unable to find relief. When you are undone, you have exhausted your ability to get comfort from anything around you. People can’t comfort you. None of the familiar comforts work anymore. There’s nowhere to turn. No letup. You’re just undone.

When you are undone, it is as if you have been thrown out of the boat. You can’t touch the bottom, see the shore, or even get a hold of the boat itself. You feel alone and desperate. You can’t see what is ahead, nor can you reach back for what is behind you. You are at a complete loss. You are exhausted physically, emotionally and spiritually. And yet the waves keep hitting you, one after another. You are tired. You can’t battle it anymore. You have none of your own resources left. The problem has taken over, and you can’t focus on the Lord. He is out of focus; everything is out of focus. All you know is the problem. And it is overwhelming.

“Undone” is not a place God wants us to stay. His goal is to comfort us in our brokenness and then lead us out of it. But you do have an enemy committed to keeping you undone. He will use whatever means necessary to shut you down and convince you that you will never function and never be whole again. The enemy wants you to believe that undone is the new normal.

Jesus enlightens Peter about the enemy’s plan against him as they are sitting at the Passover meal. To his headstrong, passionate, willful disciple, Jesus says, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.” (Luke 22:31) That’s what the enemy wants to do – sift us, fragment us, take us apart. When Peter is older, long after Jesus has been crucified and resurrected, the seasoned disciple-turned-leader advises the early church with a similar warning: “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)

Satan knows our failures and weaknesses. He knows our fears and the areas in which we find ourselves insufficient. The Bible calls him “the accuser” (Revelation 12:10) Some of his diabolical words will sound familiar to you:

“Nothing will ever change.”
“No one will ever love you.”
“You can’t possibly do that.”
“You’re inadequate for this – you’ll never pull it off.”
“You’ve blown it again.”
“You’ll always be a failure.”
“You’re destined for mediocrity.”
“Your hopes and dreams will never come to pass.”
“God can’t use you anymore. You’ve made too many mistakes.”

These are the kinds of words the enemy sows into our minds and hearts, but Jesus calls Satan “a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44) We don’t have to believe what the enemy says about us. We have the Word of God, which tells us what God says about us. Someone far greater than the enemy is living in our hearts and fighting on our side. (1 John 4:4)

God does not create our ruins. The Bible says, “The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins.” (Isaiah 51:3, emphasis added) God sees us floundering in that water. And He is looking at us with compassion. The verse from Isaiah goes on to say, “He will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.”

Undone is never the final chapter with God. He promises comfort. He promises restoration. He promises joy and gladness. Thanksgiving. The sound of singing. No matter what the enemy says or does, we can know God’s comfort in our ruins. God will make our ruins opportunities to woo us with His love.

This Week
Where are you in need of comfort? Write down the areas in which you feel “undone.” Draw near to God and ask Him to meet you in the place of your pain.

Prayer
“God, I hurt, but I believe Your promise to comfort and restore me. I give you my pain and invite you to heal my heart. Please help me to know Your deep comfort. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Prince of Peace

Our soul waits for the LORD;
   he is our help and our shield.
For our heart is glad in him,
   because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
   even as we hope in you.

Psalm 33:20-22

In reading these verses I was reminded of the Rich Mullin lyrics from Hold Me Jesus:

Well, sometimes my life
Just don't make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace 

Terminus

Excerpt from "The Missing Motive" by Eric J. Alexander, TableTalk February 2010

Now in recent years I have been troubled by the tendency in the evangelical church to be more taken up with methods rather than motives.  So I frequently hear of conferences where brethren meet to share insights into new and better methods by which we may fulfill our ministry.  I'm sure they are very valuable and I hope I am not so naive as to think that methods are unimportant in God's work.  But I have almost never heard of a conference where brethren have met together before God to ask each other:  "In all honesty, what are the compelling motives that determine the direction of my ministry?"

Yet Jesus laid great stress on motives:  "I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me" (John 5:30).  Looking back over His ministry He says, "I have glorified you by finishing the work you gave me to  do" (John 17:4).  The glory of the  Father was the terminus of everything for Jesus.  There was nothing beyond this.  And he means it to be so for us.

Be Amazed by God

And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, "We have seen extraordinary things today."

Luke 5:26

Resurrection

Excerpts from Ed Stetzer interview posted as Adrian Warnock and the Resurrection

If you're online and read blogs then you probably know Adrian Warnock. Adrian is a Christian writer, preacher and part of the Jubilee Church, London, UK leadership team for more than ten years. His new book, Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything, addresses the great hope of the Christian faith; that Jesus died-- and rose from the dead! ...

...

Do you think we need to mention the resurrection to effectively preach the gospel?
To be honest, I would go so far as to say that the resurrection is the gospel. Gospel means good news, it would hardly be good news if Jesus was rotting in a tomb somewhere in Israel! Without the resurrection we would still be dead in our sins. If we only preach the cross and not the resurrection we have failed in our duty to declare the full gospel. We will not know power in our preaching unless we do a whole lot more than just mention the resurrection. Perhaps this failure is precisely why so few people become Christians in the average evangelical church today. Maybe the people never rejected the gospel of Christ's victory over death but instead they never heard it.

Are you saying that the cross is overemphasized?
Not at all. In fact, we do probably need to emphasize the cross more than we do. It's just that if we want to be truly cross-centered we must also learn to be empty-grave-centered.

Why do you think Christians tend to neglect the resurrection?
There seems little doubt to me that preaching in the average church today tends to stress the cross and assume the resurrection. The exact opposite is true of the preaching of the Apostles in the book of Acts--they stressed the resurrection and assumed that their hearers already knew about Jesus' death. This has to be part of the reason for our neglect. But then, we must ask why preachers do this. I believe this is largely because there has been so much controversy surrounding the cross.

Do you want us to emphasize the resurrection rather than arguing about theories of atonement?
In the last few years we have seen a renewed attack on penal substitution. This same attack has been repeated many times over hundreds of years. I am certainly someone who has been very firm and clear in my defense of this doctrine. It is absolutely vital.

But we must never forget that without the resurrection Paul tells us we would still be dead in our sins. Without the empty grave, Jesus' death would have been just another pointless waste. I am not aware of any group today who are arguing about the doctrinal implications of the resurrection. But that does not mean we should neglect to build that part of our doctrinal wall. We cannot afford to let the enemies of the gospel define our agenda entirely. We must fully explore and preach the implications of both the cross and the resurrection. It need not be either/or--rather it must be both/and!

What are the implications of neglecting the resurrection?
First of all, we will not be as confident of our salvation, for it is only to the extent that we are sure that Christ rose that we will be sure that we are saved.

Secondly, we can miss out on the joy of our salvation. For the gospel to be good news it has to include the triumphant resurrection of Jesus! If we constantly talk about his death for us, but never mention that he rose again, we could almost find ourselves feeling sorry for Jesus! The gospel is the announcement of the enthronement of the risen King with all its implications for us today. In particular, this gives us a hope that goes beyond the grave.

Thirdly, we will never understand the gospel fully if we don't understand the resurrection's role in justification.

Finally, we may miss out on fully experiencing the benefits of the life-transforming power that the resurrection releases inside each of us.

Why is the resurrection so important for understanding our justification?
Paul tells us that Jesus died for our sins, but it was his resurrection that obtained our justification (Romans 4:25). If you have been raised on the average preaching that statement will be as shocking to me as it was to me when I first began to unpack it. I spend a whole chapter on this crucial idea.

...