Have a look at this clip as we prepare our hearts for Sunday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7pT-7dBVhc
And a couple of sites to check out as well
www.partnersinternational.ca
www.joshuaproject.net
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Our Competency Comes From Christ Alone
2Co 2:14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. 15 For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?
Or as the KJV says, “who is sufficient for these things?”
Who, in and of themselves, or even with a team of coaches and cheerleaders behind them, is sufficient to represent Christ to elect and non-elect in such a way that they actually experience the presence and the essence of the living Christ so that they feel either encouraged or condemned?
I am not sufficient. The elders are not sufficient. And we are not deluded by some mirage of hierarchy that would suggest that anyone living on this planet is sufficient, hence we are driven to look to Christ and his sufficiency in order to think we might accomplish anything for him in ministry.
Jesus said, “…apart from ME you can do nothing.” John 15:5
Jesus is our sufficiency in ministry, not a more energetic elder’s team, a more functional building, a better ministry plan, more compatible ministry partners or a thousand other excuses we might make to justify stepping back from ministry when feeling our insufficiency rather than simply throwing ourselves on the mercy of Christ and begging, “Use me! Fill me! Provide for me! Give me the words and use them to change and comfort your people and to warn those who do not seem to care.”
The church, you, do ministry not because we are sufficient, but because He is. Any other reason would be vanity.
2Co 3:5 It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. 6 He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant.
Or as the KJV says, “who is sufficient for these things?”
Who, in and of themselves, or even with a team of coaches and cheerleaders behind them, is sufficient to represent Christ to elect and non-elect in such a way that they actually experience the presence and the essence of the living Christ so that they feel either encouraged or condemned?
I am not sufficient. The elders are not sufficient. And we are not deluded by some mirage of hierarchy that would suggest that anyone living on this planet is sufficient, hence we are driven to look to Christ and his sufficiency in order to think we might accomplish anything for him in ministry.
Jesus said, “…apart from ME you can do nothing.” John 15:5
Jesus is our sufficiency in ministry, not a more energetic elder’s team, a more functional building, a better ministry plan, more compatible ministry partners or a thousand other excuses we might make to justify stepping back from ministry when feeling our insufficiency rather than simply throwing ourselves on the mercy of Christ and begging, “Use me! Fill me! Provide for me! Give me the words and use them to change and comfort your people and to warn those who do not seem to care.”
The church, you, do ministry not because we are sufficient, but because He is. Any other reason would be vanity.
2Co 3:5 It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. 6 He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
"Gutsy Guilt"
Part of our Christian confidence is that even when we fall into sin and experience God's Fatherly discipline, we will rise again. John Piper calls this "gutsy guilt":
To the fallen saint, who knows the darkness is self-inflicted and feels the futility of looking for hope from a frowning Judge, the Bible gives a shocking example of gutsy guilt. It pictures God’s failed prophet beneath a righteous frown, bearing his chastisement with broken-hearted boldness—
"Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light." (Micah 7:8-9)
This is courageous contrition. Gutsy guilt. The saint has fallen. The darkness of God’s indignation is on him. He does not blow it off, but waits. And he throws in the face of his accuser the confidence that his indignant Judge will plead his cause and execute justice for (not against) him. This is the application of justification to the fallen saint. Broken-hearted, gutsy guilt.
For further thought, see John Piper's 2002 article "Justification by Faith."
To the fallen saint, who knows the darkness is self-inflicted and feels the futility of looking for hope from a frowning Judge, the Bible gives a shocking example of gutsy guilt. It pictures God’s failed prophet beneath a righteous frown, bearing his chastisement with broken-hearted boldness—
"Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light." (Micah 7:8-9)
This is courageous contrition. Gutsy guilt. The saint has fallen. The darkness of God’s indignation is on him. He does not blow it off, but waits. And he throws in the face of his accuser the confidence that his indignant Judge will plead his cause and execute justice for (not against) him. This is the application of justification to the fallen saint. Broken-hearted, gutsy guilt.
For further thought, see John Piper's 2002 article "Justification by Faith."
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Sovereign, Wise, Loving and Good
Thanks to all who commented on the previous blog. I find this very cathartic and have come to the place where I truly value, as I think Paul did, being joined in “suffering for the gospel.”
2Ti 1:8 So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God,
I think our joy in him, especially in suffering, glorifies him and displays his worth.
Of course, like others, when feeling the pain, I begin to ask the big eternal and universal questions about suffering and why God has planned such an economy of suffering in his story.
The question is asked, “Why would God allow human free-will, knowing that great suffering would result?” The answer is given, “God desires to be freely loved, just as anyone would and so the choice to love him, or to refuse to love him, had to be granted.”
The second question that should be asked is, “But were not we, who love him, chosen to do so, before the foundation of the world?”
Eph 1:4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
Does not our chosen-ness negate our free-will and therefore nullify the previous argument for its necessity?
No. God’s sovereign choice never diminishes the value of our choice to love him or our responsibility when we refuse to trust him, regardless of our inability to comprehend this fact.
I will always have chosen to trust and love God and it will always matter that I did. It matters even now, perhaps most of all when he has allowed circumstances necessary for his plan, his glory, necessary for my eternal good, that can only be seen as negative in and of themselves.
I still have free will. He will not accomplish his will in me apart from mine.
Php 1:6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
He will do this through – in conjunction with - my willingness to see it completed.
Php 2:13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
Choosing to trust and love him because I want to, because he proves himself sovereign, wise, loving and good has always mattered and it always will.
2Ti 1:8 So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God,
I think our joy in him, especially in suffering, glorifies him and displays his worth.
Of course, like others, when feeling the pain, I begin to ask the big eternal and universal questions about suffering and why God has planned such an economy of suffering in his story.
The question is asked, “Why would God allow human free-will, knowing that great suffering would result?” The answer is given, “God desires to be freely loved, just as anyone would and so the choice to love him, or to refuse to love him, had to be granted.”
The second question that should be asked is, “But were not we, who love him, chosen to do so, before the foundation of the world?”
Eph 1:4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
Does not our chosen-ness negate our free-will and therefore nullify the previous argument for its necessity?
No. God’s sovereign choice never diminishes the value of our choice to love him or our responsibility when we refuse to trust him, regardless of our inability to comprehend this fact.
I will always have chosen to trust and love God and it will always matter that I did. It matters even now, perhaps most of all when he has allowed circumstances necessary for his plan, his glory, necessary for my eternal good, that can only be seen as negative in and of themselves.
I still have free will. He will not accomplish his will in me apart from mine.
Php 1:6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
He will do this through – in conjunction with - my willingness to see it completed.
Php 2:13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
Choosing to trust and love him because I want to, because he proves himself sovereign, wise, loving and good has always mattered and it always will.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Complaining Up
I have seen the rock face of scripture bleed life-giving water until I could not help but overflow with what God was speaking through it. There is no better “high” than being thrilled with all that God is saying, especially for one who begged him to speak as a teen.
It has been weeks since I felt overflowing. I sip trickles here and there. I cling to that rock face and beg for water, but nothing fills my soul to overflowing. I cannot get enough of Him. At least not right now. I said that I would not blog for any other reason than that.
This is depression. Perhaps it is the appropriate emotional response to loss. It is accompanied with doubts concerning the goodness of God, the love of God and the trustworthiness for God, things I could never “preach” from the pulpit, but deep waters we all go through.
We’re tempted to pity the depressed. This of course is poison. Pity is feeling sorry for someone and relating to them on that basis which only feeds the illness rather than raising the expectation that it will pass and it will. No one can live here, at least not for long. No sane person would want to.
For now, I have questions without answers, pain without resolve and a hope that is so hard to maintain it takes all my strength. The one thing I need is faith. Faith to believe the promises and the future that God has in store for his children. Faith that he gives and enables me to live, but in reality, what other choice is there but to believe and to live it despite how we may feel. Feelings are not our God. God is.
Job felt it.
Job 30:21 You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me.
Jeremiah felt it.
Lam 3:7 He has walled me in so that I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains. 8 Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.
David felt it.
Ps 69:2 Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire; I can’t find a foothold. I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm me.
Paul felt it
2Co 1:8 We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it.
Perhaps depression is just an avenue for faith, a time in which the expression of faith sounds different.
Ps 142:2 I pour out my complaints before him and tell him all my troubles.
I think this is where to go with it. Not to everyone, perhaps a little with a few, but mostly we ought to “complain up” as Tom Hanks said in Saving Private Ryan
This is still prayer, still faith, just the faith and the prayers of the hurting who hope that One will do something about it, show his compassion, express his care by a means that will actually comfort and restore faith, make it easier to believe in a good, loving, trustworthy God until Our faith is sight. And He will.
1Thes 5:23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
It has been weeks since I felt overflowing. I sip trickles here and there. I cling to that rock face and beg for water, but nothing fills my soul to overflowing. I cannot get enough of Him. At least not right now. I said that I would not blog for any other reason than that.
This is depression. Perhaps it is the appropriate emotional response to loss. It is accompanied with doubts concerning the goodness of God, the love of God and the trustworthiness for God, things I could never “preach” from the pulpit, but deep waters we all go through.
We’re tempted to pity the depressed. This of course is poison. Pity is feeling sorry for someone and relating to them on that basis which only feeds the illness rather than raising the expectation that it will pass and it will. No one can live here, at least not for long. No sane person would want to.
For now, I have questions without answers, pain without resolve and a hope that is so hard to maintain it takes all my strength. The one thing I need is faith. Faith to believe the promises and the future that God has in store for his children. Faith that he gives and enables me to live, but in reality, what other choice is there but to believe and to live it despite how we may feel. Feelings are not our God. God is.
Job felt it.
Job 30:21 You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me.
Jeremiah felt it.
Lam 3:7 He has walled me in so that I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains. 8 Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.
David felt it.
Ps 69:2 Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire; I can’t find a foothold. I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm me.
Paul felt it
2Co 1:8 We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it.
Perhaps depression is just an avenue for faith, a time in which the expression of faith sounds different.
Ps 142:2 I pour out my complaints before him and tell him all my troubles.
I think this is where to go with it. Not to everyone, perhaps a little with a few, but mostly we ought to “complain up” as Tom Hanks said in Saving Private Ryan
This is still prayer, still faith, just the faith and the prayers of the hurting who hope that One will do something about it, show his compassion, express his care by a means that will actually comfort and restore faith, make it easier to believe in a good, loving, trustworthy God until Our faith is sight. And He will.
1Thes 5:23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Leadership is Influence.
Regardless of structures and restrictions, regardless of culture or perceived or real gender differences, regardless of how our faith and understanding of Scripture limits us, God uses whom he desires, how he desires, to lead, influence, persuade and transform others. So do we all.
Acts 13:50 Then the Jews stirred up the influential religious women and the leaders of the city, and they incited a mob against Paul and Barnabas and ran them out of town.
No godly person desires to exalt himself or herself to position or title, but all the godly wish to be used by God to glorify God, even if it means letting go of the demand to be perceived in all things as equal.
Philippians 2:6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
Like Jesus, our chief agenda is not that all equality be perceived and immediately honoured, but rather that God be exalted even at the expense of our humility.
How will God use you to lead others, influence others, persuade others, to a place where they recognize his glory and give him praise? By means of your humble, joyful, resourceful, responsible, risk-taking service to God.
1 Peter 3:1 Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of their wives,
Are we all equal? Absolutely! Is proving that and proclaiming that the Christian agenda? No. Does God challenge our pride in a gender-distinct fashion? Why wouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he meet us at our point of weakness, exactly where Satan attacks. Why wouldn’t he challenge a weakness until it became a strength? He wants to use you. Excuses won’t do. We are equal in our ability to be used to influence others, even if we differ in our suitability to a particular, gender-specific office.
Acts 13:50 Then the Jews stirred up the influential religious women and the leaders of the city, and they incited a mob against Paul and Barnabas and ran them out of town.
No godly person desires to exalt himself or herself to position or title, but all the godly wish to be used by God to glorify God, even if it means letting go of the demand to be perceived in all things as equal.
Philippians 2:6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
Like Jesus, our chief agenda is not that all equality be perceived and immediately honoured, but rather that God be exalted even at the expense of our humility.
How will God use you to lead others, influence others, persuade others, to a place where they recognize his glory and give him praise? By means of your humble, joyful, resourceful, responsible, risk-taking service to God.
1 Peter 3:1 Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of their wives,
Are we all equal? Absolutely! Is proving that and proclaiming that the Christian agenda? No. Does God challenge our pride in a gender-distinct fashion? Why wouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he meet us at our point of weakness, exactly where Satan attacks. Why wouldn’t he challenge a weakness until it became a strength? He wants to use you. Excuses won’t do. We are equal in our ability to be used to influence others, even if we differ in our suitability to a particular, gender-specific office.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Hebrews 12:7a Into Discipline... Endure
In preparation for this Sunday, I am recommending that you read through Hebrews 11 and 12 and consider the following outline. We always get more out of something when we have put more into it.
See you Sunday :)
Holding On to Holy Ground II
Interpreting suffering as schooling employs it as a means to holiness
1. View Difficult Circumstances As God’s Correction and Training in the Fight For Holiness
Hebrews 12:7a Endure hardship as discipline
2. Recognize That The Alternative is to Gaining Discipline is to Suffer Defeat
Hebrews 12:5 Do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart
3. Know that God is Grooming You for Eternal Sonship
Hebrews 12:7b God is treating you as sons
"The authority of parents has been so eroded that discipline rarely if ever comes into play. It has generally ceased to be a part of sonship. It is small wonder that those brought up in such an atmosphere find genuine difficulty in understanding the discipline of God."
Donald Guthrie
See you Sunday :)
Holding On to Holy Ground II
Interpreting suffering as schooling employs it as a means to holiness
1. View Difficult Circumstances As God’s Correction and Training in the Fight For Holiness
Hebrews 12:7a Endure hardship as discipline
2. Recognize That The Alternative is to Gaining Discipline is to Suffer Defeat
Hebrews 12:5 Do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart
3. Know that God is Grooming You for Eternal Sonship
Hebrews 12:7b God is treating you as sons
"The authority of parents has been so eroded that discipline rarely if ever comes into play. It has generally ceased to be a part of sonship. It is small wonder that those brought up in such an atmosphere find genuine difficulty in understanding the discipline of God."
Donald Guthrie
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