Confidence

Mark Batterson post:  Holy Confidence

Self-confidence is two inches deep. I don't care about it. I don't want it. It typically undermines my raw dependence upon God anyway. It's unhealthy. It's unholy. There is a higher, deeper and truer confidence that comes from God. Think of it as God-confidence. And it's the byproduct of two things.

First, God-confidence is a byproduct of humility. The more your humble yourself before God the more favor you expect. It sanctifies your expectations and it builds a holy confidence that God is in control. Humility is the way we stay out of the way of what God is doing. Holy Confidence is confidence that finds it's locus in Christ alone. The confidence for salvation. The confidence of favor. The confidence for miracles. The confidence for grace.

Second, God confidence is the byproduct of authority. We grossly underestimate the authority that is ours by virtue of the fact that we are "in Christ." He has given us "all authority." As long as we are functioning in the will of God, all things are possible. If that doesn't give you confidence nothing will.

Humility + Authority = Holy Confidence. 

Everything from God

The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It's written,

   I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
   I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn't God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation. 

While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's "weakness."


Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God." 

1 Corinthians 1:18-31 [The Message]

Peculiar Doctrines and True Affections

Excerpt from Peculiar Doctrines, Public Morals and the Political Welfare by John Piper, Reflections on the Life and Labor of William Wilberforce 2002 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors

...


What made Wilberforce tick was a profound Biblical allegiance to what he called the "peculiar doctrines" of Christianity. These, he said, give rise, in turn, to true affections - what we might call "passion" or "emotions" - for spiritual things, which, in turn, break the power of pride and greed and fear, and then lead to transformed morals which, in turn, lead to the political welfare of the nation. He said, "If . . . a principle of true Religion [i.e., true Christianity] should . . . gain ground, there is no estimating the effects on public morals, and the consequent influence on our political welfare." [1]


But he was no ordinary pragmatist or political utilitarian, even though he was one of the most practical men of his day. He was a doer. One of his biographers said, "He lacked time for half the good works in his mind." [2] James Stephen, who knew him well, remarked, "Factories did not spring up more rapidly in Leeds and Manchester than schemes of benevolence beneath his roof." [3] "No man," Wilberforce wrote, "has a right to be idle." "Where is it," he asked, "that in such a world as this, [that] health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate?" [4] In other words, he lived to do good - or as Jesus said, to let his light shine before men that they might see his good deeds and give glory to his Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

But he was practical with a difference. He believed with all his heart that new affections for God were the key to new morals (or manners, as they were sometimes called) and lasting political reformation. And these new affections and this reformation did not come from mere ethical systems. They came from what he called the "peculiar doctrines" of Christianity. For Wilberforce, practical deeds were born in "peculiar doctrines." By that term he simply meant the central distinguishing doctrines of human depravity, divine judgment, the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross, justification by faith alone, regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and the practical necessity of fruit in a life devoted to good deeds. [5]

...

Progress and Joy in the Faith

... I will ... continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.

 Philippians 1:25-26 [selected]

Sweeten Our Zeal

Ray Ortlund post:  Zeal

“They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Romans 10:2).

Zeal is good.  It’s the pure heart of God, moving all of history toward final redemption (Isaiah 9:7).  But our zeal is mixed.

Our zeal can be of the Spirit or of the flesh.  We shouldn’t assume, just because we’re considering a virtue (zeal) and not a vice (complacency), that our zeal must be okay.  To quote Jonathan Edwards, “There is nothing that belongs to Christian experience more liable to a corrupt mixture than zeal.”

What was wrong with the zeal of the Jews?  It was “not according to knowledge.”  Verses 3-4 explain that.  The Jews were zealous for their own righteousness.  Paul is saying, “You have to hand it to them.  They’re not complacent.  They’re passionate.  But their zeal doesn’t understand justification by faith alone.”

That helps me.  It gets me asking myself, What’s going on inside my own zeal?  If it’s really about my own righteousness, to show how radical I am, how rigorous I am, how I am not a slacker, then my zeal is self-justification.  It’s of the flesh, by the law.

How does the zeal of the flesh reveal itself?  Because it’s driven by law, it treats people with law.  It does not rejoice over them but finds fault, jumps to conclusions, accuses, is argumentative, doesn’t listen, gloats when a brother is down, and loves to come out on top.  This zeal isn’t for God.  It’s for Self.  And it’s powerful.  It diminishes the future of the church by robbing everyone of beautiful things that might have been.

How does the zeal of the Spirit reveal itself?  In many ways.  But its intensity is never at variance with this: “My yoke is easy” (Matthew 11:30).  We tend to think, “With Jesus, harder = better.”  Not always.  That word “easy” is also translated “kind” in Ephesians 4:32: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”  True zeal is kind.  It melts in your mouth.  It goes down easy.  Yes, it may have to drive moneychangers from the temple now and then.  But the zeal of Jesus always asks, “In kindness, how can I make this as easy on everyone as possible, even at cost to myself?”

This Holy Week is a good time to sweeten our zeal for God with kindness toward one another.

God Knows

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.  And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.  God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

Exodus 2:23-25

An Offense

Mark Batterson post:  The Point of Offense

Have you ever noticed when Judas betrayed Jesus?

I think the timing is significant. It's right after a woman anoints Jesus with the alabaster flask of ointment. It was worth 300 denarii. That is almost a year's salary! Everyone considered it a waste of money. And I think Judas, as the money keeper, was more offended than anyone else. So offended he was willing to betray Jesus. I think this offense is the final straw. The very next verse says "then" Judas went to the chief priest to betray him.
Judas makes the mistake many of us make: we use some offense as an excuse for our own disobedience. Someone else's offense becomes justification for our own mistakes. Don't go there! Proverbs 19:11 says "it is to our glory of overlook an offense." I think it is "offenses" that make us or break us. Either we use them to justify our mistakes or we overlook them and become more like Jesus.

Judas used the offense to justify the biggest mistake of his life. Jesus overlooked the offense and gave his life to justify us from the biggest mistakes of our lives! Two very different reactions to offense!

The Heart of Jesus' Mission

Excerpts from Ed Stetzer post:  missionSHIFT:  Introducing Jeff Vanderstelt

Jeff Vanderstelt is a pastor and an equipper of church leaders. He served in Youth Ministry for 14 years and as a pastor for over 7 years. Presently, he is one of the pastors of Soma Communities, a multi-expression church and one of the founders and leaders of the GCM Collective. Jeff is married to his wife of 17 years, Jayne, with whom he loves and shepherds their three children in Gospel life and mission.

...


Ed: Obviously, the word "missional" is spoken of, used by, and claimed by many groups. Instead of giving another definition for the word, can you tell the readers an example of where you and your wife are seeking to live missionally?

The best expression of mission for my wife, three children and I is our own neighborhood and our children's elementary school. We have called a group Christians to join us in the mission of making disciples who will make disciples in these two fields. These people have reoriented their lives along with us toward this mission.

This looks like meals together with believers and unbelievers 2-4 times a week; cleaning up the yard of our widowed neighbor next store; serving at the elementary's auctions, community events and after school programs; going through "The Story of God" 1-2 times a year with unbelievers to introduce them to the Gospel; sharing our house for others to live with us and join us on the mission; having an "open door" policy to our neighbors and friends; throwing parties regularly to meet more people who we hope will also come to faith in Jesus; etc... We focus on demonstrating the change the Gospel makes in our lives through tangible expressions of serving and declaring the reason why we live this way by sharing the Gospel.

In this past year, our group grew from 9 to 27, with 6 people coming to faith in Jesus and 5 people trained to lead new MCs. We recently sent out some leaders to start more groups to reach more people. Now my family is leading mostly new believers and unbelievers in living this Gospel-centered, missionally focused life together (all the others were sent out to start new works).

Ed: In terms of missionSHIFT and the Missional Manifesto, what would be a great end-game in your mind for this event and process?

I would love for the church to have a better understanding of the mandate of The Great Commission and better clarity on the term "missional"--that it isn't just a new form of social justice in action, but it is getting back to the heart of Jesus' mission to make disciples who make disciples leading to every member in the Body of Christ being a minister and missionary of the Gospel all day long, all week long, all life long. And, I would hope that we would be able to move from theory and talk to belief and action in very tangible ways so that North America might experience in this century the most pervasive missionary movement of Gospel centered and sent people it's ever experienced.

All Came to Pass

Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.

Joshua 21:45

He Showed Himself

Jonathan Parnell post:  Worse Than 450 Bleeding Prophets of Baal

And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention. (1 Kings 18:28-29)

Imagine that scene: 450 prophets of Baal, weeping and pleading, wounds all over their bodies with blood gushing out, exhausted and limping around an altar, hoping for Baal to show himself. Could it ever get any more gruesome that this? Imagine it. Could there ever be a scene more horrible than this?
 
Yes.


The only scene more gruesome than a crowd of people limping around an altar, wounded all over their body with blood gushing out , begging to see a god who doesn’t exist is the true God of the universe hanging on a cross, wounded all over his body with blood gushing out, showing his love to a people who don’t care.

The prophets of Baal begged their god,  “Answer us!” “Say something!” “Give some gesture!” “Please, do something!”

And the true God showed his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. We didn’t ask him for that. We were sinners who didn’t care anything about God, we worshipped ourselves, we were dead in our sins. And it was precisely then that God showed himself. It was while we were still weak, at the right time, that Christ died for the ungodly. 

Praise him. 

Promptings

Mark Batterson post:  Woolly Socks

Is anything more exciting or more scary than the prompting of the Holy Spirit?

Got to tour the Birmingham Dream Center this afternoon and met one of the staff. Amazing lady! She shared one of the most amazing Holy Spirit prompting stories I've ever heard. One morning she felt like the Holy Spirit was prompting her to take her woolly socks to work. She thought she was losing her mind. She got to the Dream Center and one of the prostitutes that they minister to literally collapsed inside the door. She held her, fed her, and then asked her: if you could have anything what would it be? She said her feet were freezing and all she wanted was a pair of woolly socks. Not only did she give her the woolly socks. They matched her outfit.

Don't tell me God doesn't care about the little things! A sparrow doesn't fall without Him seeing it. Nothing is too big for God. Nothing is too small for God. Praise God.

If you want to live a more adventurous life, obey those Holy Spirit prompting. You'll feel crazy at times. You'll feel foolish at times. But there is nothing like it.

He Will Surely Finish It

Miscellanies post:  A foretaste of the new creation

Sam Allberry in Lifted: Experiencing the Resurrected Life (IVP, 2010), pages 111–112:

“‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’ [1 Pet 1:3]. In the resurrection of Jesus this hope has begun to be realized. Its scope includes not just our bodies, but the whole of this world. Jesus anticipated this in his miracles, both in healing the sick and in putting nature around him right. The one who raised the dead also calmed the storm. These are miracles that point ahead, a foretaste of what the new creation and redeemed humanity will be like. In his teaching, so with the events of his life: we look back to Jesus to look forward to our destiny. In his resurrection we are reborn into a new hope, and it lives and breathes with this unshakable certainty: God began the resurrection project, and he will surely finish it.”

Church Life

Ray Ortlund post:  Your church so matters

“It is church life like this [Philippians 2:16-30] that really conquers the world, as it did the ancient world.  Men and women saw something in the Christian society that they had never seen anywhere else.”

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Life of Joy and Peace (Grand Rapids, 1989), page 225.

On the Hunt for God

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional: PANTING

I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commandments.  Psalm 119:131

When an animal is chasing something, he pants.  The hunt is all-consuming.  I have no trouble, when describing someone in the animal kingdom, as one who pants.  But in the distinguished world of human beings, to admit to panting seems extreme and inappropriate to admit.  David wasn't so provincial.  His spiritual hunger was edgy.

I look inside this morning and consider the longings of my heart.  Am I alive enough to pant for God?  Is my appetite that consuming?  Am I on the hunt for more experiences of Christ, more revelations of His love, more understanding of His truth?  Is my heart yearning for Him, leaning into Him for life itself?  May it be.

Some days it is so.  Today is one of them.  I feel wonderfully alive, very passionate, wholly in touch with the Christ in my Spirit.  Some days, though,  are dull.  My appetite seems dormant.  Such is the experience of any of us who live in mortal bodies.  A bad night's sleep can numb out feelings, even spiritual ones.  Long term stress can tax my endocrine system, making positive emotional experience inaccessible.  It is all so delicate, isn't it?  I'm glad to say that these are the exception.

Panting should be the norm.  My capacity to enjoy the kingdom should be limitless.  My taste of the things of God should be so exhilarating that I run to Him at fast speed for more of it.  I just can't get enough.  Until I pant as David pants, until my language reflects a languished tone, I am not fully alive.

Trials shake up indifference.  I praise you for the fruits of them.  Amen

Healed and Set Free

LifeToday Weekly Devotional

Escaping the Corruption
by Jeanne Rogers

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life
and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called
us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has
given us his very great and precious promises, so that through
them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the
corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” (2 Peter 1:3-4)

When Anita finished telling the emotional details of her captivity, we asked if she wanted us to change her name to protect her from human traffickers. She knew the dangers, but didn’t hesitate to expose the system and people who capture and corrupt innocent young lives.

“Use my name,” she insisted. “There are so many women and children in human trafficking who will die of disease without ever hearing about Jesus.”

Anita grew up in a poor farming village in Nepal. When she was 19, a woman befriended her and convinced her parents that their daughter could earn money in India, cooking and cleaning for foreigners in the city. A long train ride carried them to Mumbai, where Anita was immediately taken to a dingy brothel, sold to its owner and locked inside a tiny, windowless room.

Three days later, they ordered her to accompany a man to a private room. Anita was terrified. As an innocent, Nepali girl, she had never been alone with a man. When she resisted, six women beat her and tied her hands and feet. Then a group of men mercilessly raped her. When the abuse ended, they returned her to the small, dark room that became her torture chamber for three years. During that time, she never even saw daylight.

When she realized there was no escape, she became violent. Her captors calmed her with alcohol and she learned to welcome its numbing effect in order to survive. Most of the men frequenting the brothels preferred Nepali girls, so Anita was forced to service an average of 25 men every day. By age 29, Anita had given birth to two children and needed more money to provide for them. The owner helped Anita open her own brothel and she became a madam.

Anita’s girls trusted her. Though she occasionally hit them in anger, she never locked them up. She even told them they could leave if they wanted, but none left. “The girls knew that they were ruined,” she said. “They had to pay money to their owners, so they stayed.”

During the morning hours, a preacher visited the brothels in the red light district. He was the first to tell Anita that Jesus loved her, but she struggled with the idea, asking, “How can someone I do not see love me, when men, that I do see, do not love me?”

Eventually, the girls came to trust the preacher, calling him “Uncle,” and God used this man’s ministry to change their lives. Anita closed her brothel for a few hours every Saturday so her girls could attend Uncle’s church in the red light district. During this time, one of the girls became pregnant and asked Anita for an abortion. “This child belongs to God,” Anita told her. The young girl gave birth, but a few months later discovered that the baby boy was blind. Anita wept, fasted and prayed for God to heal him. She asked Uncle to pray, so he did. As he closed his prayer, the infant reached out and grabbed his finger. Uncle moved his hand. Again, the child grabbed at his finger. His sight was miraculously restored!

Uncle had often urged Anita to leave. As her faith in the Lord grew stronger, she finally gained the courage to walk away with nothing. She made Jesus her Lord and started a new life in the mission’s rescue center. As Anita adjusted to life outside of the sex industry, her greatest challenge was forgiving the woman who deceived her family and sold her into a life of captivity and abuse. During a Bible study, she heard how Jesus forgave and prayed for the men who beat Him and nailed Him to the cross.

“That night,” Anita told me, “I asked Jesus to teach me to forgive as He had done. Luke 6:27-28 told me to love my enemies, do good to people who hate me, bless those who curse me, and pray for those who hurt me. Finally, I was able to pray for the lady who sold me. I blessed her and suddenly the forgiveness came.”

Later, God called her to rescue the women of the red light district. “I knew there were people like me, broken and captive,” she explained. “If God could do so much for me, then I knew it could happen for them.”

The morning after we interviewed Anita, we met 10 other former madams. Now they teach the Bible to the women they once managed. Anita’s team has greatly expanded the ministry Uncle began. It is dangerous, but they are passionate and fearless. God has given them supernatural favor and protection to share their stories of captivity and deliverance.

They led us through filthy streets to a small brothel. Young women who had been forced to work most of the night packed into a tiny room to hear God’s word. Like Anita, they were captured and brought to Mumbai – a foreign place to them where the difference in language and culture added to their isolation. They quickly learned to depend only on each other. At first, the girls seemed uneasy in our presence, but as Anita knelt on the dirt floor and prayed, the atmosphere changed. They wept, and we wept with them as the Holy Spirit filled the room.

Anita’s story is a glimpse into the overall outreach of Rescue LIFE. God continues to work in great power through the sacrificial ministry of these former madams. They could have returned to their villages or started over in new place, but they have chosen to live among the desperation and pain, pointing the way to Jesus Christ. As we support them, we are partnering in this amazing ministry. If ever there was a place of evil desires, as described in 2 Peter, this is it. Yet the divine nature of Christ is being revealed as those whose lives have been transformed by his love reach out to those still trapped, helping them to escape the corruption.

This Week
In what areas of your life has God worked redemption and healing? Share your story with someone else and pray for the Lord to transform him or her as well.

Prayer
“Lord, thank you for your love and mercy. You set me free, healed me and gave me new life.  Help me to share my story in such a way that helps others find you.  Amen.”

Humiliation

Miscellanies post:  Humbled -> Exalted

Bavinck writes a good summary on how the Savior’s humiliation and exaltation are inseparable. In Reformed Dogmatics (3:433-434) he writes that the Reformers believed “the entire state of exaltation from the resurrection to his coming again for judgment is a reward for the work that he accomplished as the Servant of the Lord in the days of his humiliation. And, given the teaching of Scripture, no other answer is possible. For over and over it presents the state of humiliation as the way and the means by which alone Christ can attain his exaltation (Isa. 53:12-13; Matt. 23:12; Luke 24:26; John 10:17; 17:4-5; Phil. 2:9; Heb. 2:10; 12:2). … Because Christ humbled himself so deeply, therefore God has so highly exalted him.”

Feeling Uncomfortable

Mark Batterson post:  Awkward

I think awkwardness is one key to spiritual growth. Are you willing to do things that feel awkward like kneel at an altar or obey a spirit-prompting or have a hard conversation? If you are, then God can use you! Those things involve a degree of awkwardness but they often lead to spiritual breakthroughs. I'm at a place in life and ministry where I crave awkwardness. I want to look awkward. I want to feel awkward.

On Friday I met with a group of students and something came over me as I prayed for them. I'd never even met any of them before but I cried as I prayed. It was a little awkward. But sometimes that is the difference between generic prayers and prophetic prayers. At our Saturday night service, I didn't feel like God was done with us so we went into overtime. I felt like there were things that people needed to submit to the Lordship of Christ. It was a little awkward. But one of our prayer leaders told me that she prayed with someone who gave her life to Christ during that time.

Let's not avoid awkwardness. Let's create it, cultivate it, and celebrate it.

All Things Once Thought

Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant--dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ

Philippians 3:8 [The Message]

Stand Firm .. Be Faithful .. Stay on Track

Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.  [ESV]

Dear friends, I love you and long to see you. Please keep on being faithful to the Lord. You are my pride and joy.  [CEV]

My dear, dear friends! I love you so much. I do want the very best for you. You make me feel such joy, fill me with such pride. Don't waver. Stay on track, steady in God.  [The Message]

Philippians 4:1

Fanatics

Ray Ortlund post:  Quiet Fanatics

“It is a growing conviction of mine that no parish can fulfill its true function unless there is at the very center of its leadership life a small community of quietly fanatic, changed and truly converted Christians.  The trouble with most parishes is that nobody, including the pastor, is really greatly changed. . . .

We do not want ordinary men.  Ordinary men cannot win the brutally pagan life of a city like New York for Christ.  We want quiet fanatics.”

John Heuss, Our Christian Vocation (Greenwish, 1955), pages 15-16.