“Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to say to us, ‘I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.’ Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.”
—John Stott, The Message of Galatians (London: IVP, 1968), 179
"..... here are some very real concerns I have about Facebook. First, has it become a god to us? When God commands that we have no other god’s before Him He doesn’t mean ranked higher than Him, but rather He means in His presence. If Facebook is too needful for you, you may need to stop. Second, has it become a graven image? Have you confused its reality with real reality? Do you really think you have 200 friends? Third, have you taken the Lord’s name in vain? That is, have you, in weaker moments, put a bad face publicly on your Christian witness? Are you laughing at your old sins with that old buddy from college or high school?...."He concludes:
"Please don’t misunderstand this little thought experiment. I suspect we could walk through the Ten Commandments in light of our church, and find many of the same temptations. That doesn’t mean you should stay away from church. It does mean we ought to be deliberate enough to know what we are doing, and why we are doing it. And deliberate begins by affirming that our own hearts are not just desperately wicked, but deceitful as well. We don’t need to protect our privacy. We need instead to expose our sins to the light, the light of Scripture that we might repent and believe, that His face might shine upon us."
“For grace is given not because we have done good works, but in order that we may be able to do them.”
Pride…From: Take Your Vitamin Z...
-It’s why you’re not satisfied with the house you live in"Pride is a spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment or even common sense." - C.S. Lewis
-It’s why you feel entitled to that job or that promotion
-It’s why you won’t say you’re sorry
-It’s why you talk to your wife like she’s a dog
-It’s why you pretend to be closer to God than you really are
-It’s why you spend money you don’t have to impress people you don’t even like
-It’s why you won’t forgive
-It’s why you don’t respect your husband
-It’s why you refuse to admit you’re wrong
Link from The Blazing Center
- Spirituality invites you to explore your inner self. Jesus invites you to explore his glory and forget yourself.
- Spirituality invites you to find yourself. Jesus invites you to lose yourself.
- Spirituality is a journey that ultimately results in you “saving” yourself. Following Jesus is a journey that begins when you stop trying to save yourself.
- Spirituality leads to self-expression which results in self-fulfillment. Jesus calls you to die to yourself and find your fulfillment in him.
- Spirituality begins when you resolve to “try harder”. Following Jesus begins when you give up.
- Spirituality says you’re worth it. Jesus says that he’s worth it.
- Spirituality allows you to take charge of your life. Jesus commands you to acknowledge him as King of your life.
- Spiritual gurus dispense “wisdom”. Jesus saves sinners.
“The gospel cannot be preached and heard enough, for it cannot be grasped well enough.” - Martin Luther
What Luther Says: An Anthology, compiled by Edwald M. Plass (St. Louis: Concordia, 1963), vol. 2, pp. 563–564.
"Have you ever said the phrase, “All I can do is pray,”? I’ve said it. And I think it’s one of the stupidest sentences to ever leave my mouth.
Think about it for a minute. When I say, “All I can do is pray,” this is what I’m really saying:
- All I can do is ask the omnipotent, almighty God, who holds the universe in His hands to work on my behalf.
- All I can do is ask for grace from the God who gave up His son for me and adopted me into His family.
- All I can do is stop trying to run the world and ask God to do something.
- I can run most of my life on my own, but when it comes to this situation, all I can do is pray.
- I’ve run out of things that I can do, and now I guess I’ll resort to asking God for his help.
What a ridiculous statement. It shows my lack of dependence on God, my lack of faith in His power, my lack of trust in Him, and a serious overestimation of my own competence. Prayer is like my spiritual fire extinguisher, only to be used in times of emergency, when things get really bad.
- For a while I had this situation under control, but now I’ve got to ask God to lend a hand.
In reality, prayer should be the first thing I do. Rather than trying to wade my way through a tough circumstance, I should immediately confess my dependence on God.
Prayer shouldn’t be my last resort, it should be my first resort. Not because my prayers are particularly mighty, but because God is on my side, and He is particularly mighty."
“… the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.”
- Kevin DeYoung, DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed
Jesus was baptized as Man— but He remitted sins as God…- Gregory of Nazianzus (329-89), On the Son
He was tempted as Man, but He conquered as God…
He hungered— but He fed thousands…
He thirsted— but He cried, If anyone thirst, let him come unto Me and drink…
He was wearied, but He is the Rest of them that are weary and heavy laden…
He was heavy with sleep, but He walked lightly over the sea…
He prays, but He hears prayer…
He weeps, but He causes tears to cease…
He asks where Lazarus was laid, for He was Man; but He raises Lazarus, for He was God…
He is sold for a cheap thirty pieces of silver; but He redeems the world at the great price of His own blood.
As a sheep He is led to the slaughter, but He is the Shepherd of Israel, and now of the whole world.
As a Lamb He is silent, yet He is the Word…
He is bruised and wounded, but He heals every disease and every infirmity.
He is lifted up and nailed to the Tree, but by the Tree of Life He restores us;
He dies, but He gives life, and by His death destroys death.
He is buried, but He rises again…
The conservative shift in Americans' views on abortion that Gallup first recorded a year ago has carried over into 2010. Slightly more Americans call themselves "pro-life" than "pro-choice," 47% vs. 45%, according to a May 3-6 Gallup poll. This is nearly identical to the 47% to 46% division found last July following a more strongly pro-life advantage of 51% to 42% last May.
“How dare you approach the mercy-seat of God on the basis of what kind of day you had, as if that were the basis for our entrance into the presence of the sovereign and holy God? No wonder we cannot beat the Devil. This is works theology. It has nothing to do with grace and the exclusive sufficiency of Christ. Nothing.
Hat Tip: Of First ImportanceDo you not understand that we overcome the accuser on the ground of the blood of Christ? Nothing more, nothing less. That is how we win. It is the only way we win. This is the only ground of our acceptance before God. If you drift far from the cross, you are done. You are defeated.
We overcome the accuser of our brothers and sisters, we overcome our consciences, we overcome our bad tempers, we overcome our defeats, we overcome our lusts, we overcome our fears, we overcome our pettiness on the basis of the blood of the Lamb.”
—D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 103
"Some analysts say the mainline charismatic renewal fizzled. It is more accurate to describe it the way Jesus pictured the kingdom of God: like yeast that spreads through bread dough. You can hardly identify it as a movement anymore, but it has changed the way most churches worship. Repetitive choruses and raised hands are now common. Except in pockets of hardcore resistance, the fact that a fellow Christian may praise God in a private prayer language hardly elevates an eyebrow.
Pentecostalism and the charismatic renewal have jointly given believers what historian Chris Armstrong calls Pentecostalism's chief contribution to Christianity: an awareness of "a deep well of living water from which everything else flow[s] … the personal, relational presence of the living God."
I copied this poem from Dr. Francis Schaeffer in the front of my Bible 20 years ago. Still love it!
To eat, to breatheFrancis Schaeffer, Christianity Today, 20 June 1960, page 6
to beget
Is this all there is
Chance configuration of atom against atom
of god against god
I cannot believe it.
Come, Christian Triune God who lives,
Here am I
Shake the world again.
"I once assumed the gospel was simply what non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, but after they believe it, they advance to deeper theological waters.
Jonah helped me realize that the gospel isn’t the first step in a stairway of truths but more like the hub in a wheel of truth.
As Tim Keller explains it, the gospel isn’t simply the ABCs of Christianity, but the A-through-Z. The gospel doesn’t just ignite the Christian life; it’s the fuel that keeps Christians going every day.
Once God rescues sinners, his plan isn’t to steer them beyond the gospel but to move them more deeply into it.
After all, the only antidote to sin is the gospel—and since Christians remain sinners even after they’re converted, the gospel must be the medicine a Christian takes every day. Since we never leave off sinning, we can never leave the gospel."Quoted From Tullian Tchividjian’s Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels (p. 16):
I am neither of advanced age nor a young man, but I know why Simeon could not imagine taking things “more easily.” It was because the praising, the hoping, and the resting becomes better and better if you are willing to give it daily attention for years and years. The one hundredth time through the Psalms or the Proverbs will yield astonishingly sweet, comforting, and convicting insights, because the more you know the Bible as a whole the more sense its particular parts make. And the more you know your own heart the more you know how to work on it, how to move past your discouragement, your peevishness, and your self-pity. But it takes years of relentless discipline. It is similar to how it takes years of practice to enjoy the power of playing the piano beautifully, but what we are talking about goes beyond even that in complexity and depth.
Here are two frameworks that may help talk about the gospel in the context of ordinary conversations.
Four points of intersection
Everyone has their own version of the ‘gospel’ story:
creation – who I am or who I should beWhat do you think?
fall – what’s wrong with me and the world
redemption – what’s the solution
consummation – what I hope for
When we hear people expressing their version of creation, fall, redemption or consummation, we can talk about the gospel story. Talking about Jesus begins with listening to other people’s stories and sharing our own story of Jesus.
Four liberating truths
Everyone’s behaviour is shaped by what they believe. We can listen out for the beliefs that shape people’s behaviour and shape their hurts and hopes. This then allows us to speak of the liberating truth of God which counters the lies upon which people build their lives and which eventually fail them in some way:
God is great – so we don’t have to be in control
God is glorious – so we don’t have to fear others
God is good – so we don’t have to look elsewhere
God is gracious – so we don’t have to prove ourselves
It is usually less confrontational to present the truth in the form of a personal story. For example, ‘When I was ill last year I found it a great comfort to know that God was in control.’
The dominant mode of evangelical preaching on sanctification, the main way to motivate for godly living, sounds something like this:Only when we know who we are in Christ (to Be) can we then Do, i.e. follow the imperatives, out of gratitude and from a position of acceptance and grace. Biblical spirituality is always response to who He is and what He has done. He initiates, we respond. Any attempt to initiate on our part is mere religious works, not Christian spirituality. If you know who you are in Christ, then you begin to live out of what He has done and whom He has made you. Indicatives precede imperatives. To be precedes doing.
You are not _____;Fill in the blank with anything good and biblical (holy; salt and light; feed the poor; walk humbly; give generously; etc.).
You should be _________;
Therefore, do or be ________!
This is not how Paul and the other New Testament writers motivated the church in light of the resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit. They did give imperatives (=what you should do), but they do so only based on indicatives (=what God has done).
The problem with the typical evangelical motivation toward radical or sacrificial living is that “imperatives divorced from indicatives become impossibilities” (to quote Tullian Tchividjian). Or another way that Tullian puts it: “gospel obligations must be based on gospel declarations.”
This “become what you are” way of speaking is strange for many us us. It seems precisely backward. But we must adjust our mental compass in order to walk this biblical path and recalibrate in order to speak this biblical language.
"With a new album and the Back To The Rock worldwide tour set to launch this Autumn, the official website of the reunited classic line-up of Petra has now gone live.
Bringing together Bob Hartman (guitars), Louie Weaver (drums), John Lawry (Keys), Mark Kelly (Bass) and Greg X Volz (vocals), the reunion of the classic Petra line-up is certain to the music event of 2010-2011, as the band returns to perform legendary tracks like ‘Bema Seat’, ‘Judas Kiss’, ‘Second Wind’, ‘More Power To Ya’ and many, many more.
The band will also head to the studio this summer for a new album in conjuction with the Back To The Rock tour.
As multi-platinum pioneers of CCM, Petra has released 24 albums, picking up numerous GRAMMY and Dove Awards and induction into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
dPulse Recordings/2DOT2 Music and Ovrtone Music Group are proud to count Petra frontman Greg X Volz among of family of artists. A complete catalog of Greg’s solo albums and singles, including The River Is Rising, God Only Knows and many others are available at iTunes and all other major digital music retailers.For more info, keep it here or visit the Classic Petra Official Site."
1. Feelings can be misleading.Details and explanations are at the linked website.
2. We have trouble seeing incremental growth.
3. Spiritual growth is relative but real.
4. Our church family doesn’t encourage one another enough.
5. God is using trial and temptation to grow us.
"So you finally learned to play the guitar and now you’re wondering, “How do I write a truly awful worship song?”There's more at the link.
You’ve come to the right place my friend. Here are some sure fire ways to write a truly horrible worship song.
Recycle A Love Song.
Write a song for your girlfriend. When she breaks up with you, convert it into a worship song. Be sure to change all uses of “girl” or “baby”.
Use Time Tested Rhymes.
Make sure that you rhyme “love” and “above” at least twice. The song becomes doubly awful if you can also incorporate the word “dove”. Example: “You sent your love from above, makes my heart feel like a pure white dove.” You get the point.
Be Vague About Your Theology
Make sure to avoid any theology at all costs. Don’t talk about atonement, wrath, or any other biblical concepts. You want your song to be all about feeling. Don’t let the mind get in the way. Repeat after me: “Worship is a warm feeling, sort of like heartburn, only better.”"
Two popular charismatic speakers stood on a stage two years ago and decided they should demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit. One guy pretended to throw an imaginary "fireball" at his friend, who promptly fell over as if he had been zapped by the divine power. Then, feeling equally playful, the guy on the floor stood to his feet and threw the "fireball" back at his friend—who fell after the "blob" of God hit him.
Everybody laughed and had a hilarious time at this outrageous party. There was just one problem. The Holy Spirit is not a blob, a fireball or any other form of divine energy that can be thrown, manipulated, maneuvered or controlled.
This scenario happened in a charismatic church—a place where the ministry of the Holy Spirit is presumably honored and understood. It's incredibly sad that many of us who wear the charismatic label have forgotten what the Scriptures teach about the third person of the Trinity.
For many men of a certain age, the mid-life crisis is just that: a mid-life crisis, a time for despairing that youth, good looks and perhaps hair have gone, never to return....From: An Unmessianic Sense of Non-Destiny - Reformation21
....Mid-life crises are dreaded by many men, but my advice is: gents, seize with both hands the opportunity to truly grasp that, whatever you thought at age eighteen, you are not actually the messiah and you have no special destiny which sets you apart from everybody else. The former is Christ alone; the latter is primarily reserved for his church. We all need to cultivate that certain unmessianic sense of non-destiny which will make us better citizens of the kingdom.
