One Place Only

HT: @DailyKeller

Grace, Always Grace

I enjoyed reading this post by Matt at Human Like You this week:

For many, it is often thought that grace is for salvation alone. However, the longer one lives the Christian life, the more he or she realizes that grace was not only the entry way to salvation, but grace is also the vehicle that carries us our entire life.

Romans 3:23 (NLT) says, For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

I often thought this verse only applied to those who needed to get saved. After all, this verse is one of the hinge scriptures in the Romans Road. 

Like I mentioned above, the longer I live this life following Christ, the more I realize Romans 3:23 is about me. Why? Falling short of God’s glorious standard seems to be my primary issue. 

My failings is the reason I am saturated in the reality of grace. 

Let me say it like this:Every time I look at someone and judge them based on their demographic, I need grace.Every time I listen to or partake in gossip, I need grace.Every time I act as thought I am holy, I need grace.Every time I feel superior to my family, I need grace.Every time I give with begrudging hands, I need grace.Every time I walk past someone hurting that I can help, I need grace.Every time I complain about complainers, I need grace.Every time I look at another woman and lust, I need grace.Every time I talk badly to my wife, I need grace.Every time I lose my temper with my son, I need grace.Every time I give in to overeating, I need grace.Every time I choose to be lazy, I need grace.Every time I find and excuse to not love someone, I need grace.Every time I use Bible knowledge to make someone feel less than smart, I need grace.Every time I try to prove myself to others, I need grace.Every time I get defensive when confronted about my character, I need grace.Every time I use the pronoun “I” to build myself up, I need grace.Every time I am deceitful, I need grace.Every time I am anything but broken before others, I need grace.Every time I use social media to tear another, I need grace.Every time I think I am better that someone else because of my religion, I need grace.Every time I read Matthew 23:23-28, I realize I am no different than THESE GUYS, and I need grace.

My question to us all? What sentence could you write about your life concerning your need for grace?

By the way, we can’t even write a sentence about grace, lest we have experienced how badly we need grace.

Don’t fight grace, its the one consistent attribute of God in your life, whether you realize it or not.

One of Us

HT: Radio Free Babylon

Click image to enlarge

Out With the Old, In With the New

"One of our fundamental spiritual problems is this: we want God to do something new while we keep doing the same old thing. We want God to change our circumstances without us having to change at all. But if we are asking God for new wine, we will need a new wineskin.

Change is a two-sided coin

Out with the old is one side.

In with the new is the other side.

Most of us get stuck spiritually because we keep doing the same thing while expecting different results...."

-Mark Batterson, All In: You Are One Decision Away From A Totally Different Life, page 55 (italics in the original)

Be A Rebel

HT:@DailyKeller

Burn the Ships

"There are moments in life when we need to burn the ships to or past.We do so by making a defining decision that will eliminate the possibility of sailing back to the old world we left behind. You burn the ships named Past Failure and Past Success. You burn the ship named Bad Habit. You burn the ship named Regret. You burn the ship named Guilt. You burn the ship named My Old Way of Life."

 -Mark Batterson, All In: You Are One Decision Away From A Totally Different Life, page 52 (italics in the original)

Cleanliness is Next to.....

HT: Ed Stezer

Coffee Heresies

This made me laugh: Ben Witherington posted a list comparing type of coffee drinks to historical heresies in Christian Theology.  From Orthodoxy on Coffee:

Your local coffeehouse may be a hotbed of heresy. Check the following list and see how yours measures up.

Decaf is Docetic because it only appears to be coffee.
Instant is Apollinarian because it’s had its soul removed and replaced.
Frappuccinos are essentially a form of Monophysitism, having their coffee nature swallowed up in milkshake.
Chicory is Arian, not truly coffee at all but a separate creation.
Irish coffee is Nestorian, being two natures conjoined solely by good will.
Nitro coffee (coffee + Red Bull) is Montanist, having a form of godliness but denying its power.
Affogato is Adoptionist, being merely topped with espresso.
The Café Bombón is Sabellian, appearing at some points to be foam, at others coffee and at others sweetened condensed milk.
The Caffè Americano is a form of Unitarian Universalism, being so watered down so as not even to qualify as coffee.
The Café miel violates Canon 57 of the Council in Trullo, “for it is not right to offer honey and milk” in one’s coffee.
The Cafe Mocha (espresso + steamed milk + chocolate) is syncretic and polytheist, for it presumes to adulterate coffee with another nation’s gods.
The Doppio (espresso + espresso) is Monothelite, permitting only one will to dominate.
WHAT IS AN EGGNOG LATTE I DON’T EVEN.
Half-Caf is another form of Adoptionism, being a hybrid of disparate natures.
The Pharisäer (drip coffee + 2 shots rum + whipped cream) is nothing but sheer Antinomianism.
The Red Eye (drip coffee + 1 shot espresso) is Ebionite, for it would swallow up pure faith in the Law.
A rigorist exclusivism for Fair Trade Coffee is a form of Donatism, insisting that only sinless hands may produce a true beverage.
“Coffee is bad for you”: The watchwords of the Iconoclast.
The fellow who just keeps adding sugar to his over-roasted Pike’s Peak is surely a Pelagian.

Here endeth the caffeination. Ite, caffe est.

If you don't recognize most of the heresies go study some historical theology. If you don't recognize the names of the drinks, go study your coffees!

Pray for Your Church

Erik Raymond at Ligonier posted a good list of 5 ways to pray for your church family:

1. Pray for Hunger for the Bible
2. Pray for Thankfulness
3. Pray for Gospel Growth
4. Pray for Holiness
5. Pray for Unity

Read it all at the link. I'm going to do this - How about you?

Evidences You Are Living in Gospel Community

From Tim Brister - Evidences your church family is a gospel community: You know you're living in a gospel community when:

• believers practice confession instead of trying to make an impression

• people are defined by a lifestyle of repenting rather than pretending

• you embrace truth at all costs, not agreeing for each others approval

• light exposes & wounds and love covers & heals – both/and not either/or

• people are happy to be holy not content to be comfortable

• you own your mess because of His mercy instead of hiding them because of your shame

• functional saviors & heart idolatry are lovingly confronted & challenged by Christ’s reign & rule

• unbelieving sinners & believing sinners together look away from themselves & look to Jesus

• the pleasure of God in Christ to save you liberates you to passionately serve others

• hospitality is given to those on the margins & those not like you are welcome in your world

• individual preferences take a back seat to community purposes of loving God and neighbor

How do you (we) measure up?

Christian Living Defined

HT: Challies.com

Empowered

From www.NotAFan.com

Inside is Better

Hot!

All of us have times when our spiritual flame dies down, sometimes to barely hot embers. We all need new outpourings of the fire of heaven. Check our J. Lee Grady's list of 9 Ways to Raise Your Spiritual Temperature.  I hope his counsel helps you all to "fan into flames the gift that is in you" (2 Timothy 1:6):

But how do you stay “on fire” for the Lord? How can you raise your spiritual temperature at a time when many people’s faith has gone from lukewarm to freezing? Here are some steps you can take to reach the boiling point:

1. Get back in the Word. Spiritual zeal is kindled in your heart when you hear God speak through the pages of the Bible. I’m not talking about remotely reading daily devotionals with your eyes halfway open. When you desperately dig in the Scriptures to find truth, you will say, like the disciples who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was ... explaining the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). The Word will set your heart ablaze.

2. Stoke the furnace of private prayer. Fires don’t last long if you don’t regularly pile wood on the flames. You should guard your quiet time with God as if your life depended on it. You cannot survive spiritually without regular communion with the Lord. Oswald Chambers put it bluntly: “Prayer is the vital breath of the Christian; not the thing that makes him alive, but the evidence that he is alive.”

3. Praise God with abandon. Sometimes discouragement, fear and anxiety can form icicles in our souls. The only way to melt them is to rejoice in the Lord. Are you going through an extended period of heaviness or disappointment? You need to sing and shout! When you praise God with exuberance, new strength will arise. Make a decision that you will praise God in a more vocal, uninhibited way this year than ever before. If you need help praising God, play a recording by one of your favorite Christian artists and sing along.

4. Break free from bad habits. Paul told the Thessalonians, “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19). Are you doing anything that is extinguishing the Spirit’s flames in your life? Many Christians remain perpetually immature, unable to grow spiritually, because they won’t let go of lustful habits or addictions. If you choose to live in bondage, you will never be hot for God.

5. Get rid of your resentments. Jesus said in the last days “most people’s love will grow cold” (Matt. 24:12). Don’t be a part of that cooling trend. Nothing puts out the flame of God’s love faster than bitterness. Don’t allow unforgiveness to freeze your soul. Guard your heart and deal with offenses quickly.

6. Get in close fellowship. Fires go out when the embers are far apart. But when you pull the coals close together, the flames return. This is why we should never live the Christian life in seclusion. God called us to be in community. But make sure you are in a church that is on fire for God—because a dead church could put out what is left of your fire. If your church compromises God’s Word or ignores the Great Commission, you should find a new church home.

7. Start using your spiritual gifts. Real spiritual passion is ignited when you serve others. Every Christian has a spiritual gift—and you are no exception. You must face your fears and stretch your faith as you begin to step out, but soon you will find there is no greater joy than being an instrument of the Holy Spirit to bless people. And when the oil of His anointing flows through you, your spiritual temperature will go up.

8. Find a mentor. I love to hang around zealous, passionate Christians because their heat directly affects mine. I sometimes ask these firebrands to lay hands on me and pray. Sometimes I make appointments with them so I can glean from their wisdom and experience. You can be sure that when Elisha saw Elijah go to heaven in a fiery chariot, he was affected by the heat. Get as close as possible to those who are burning for God, and you will be ignited.

9. Share your faith. There is nothing more exciting, in my opinion, than leading a person to faith in Christ. Yet statistics show that 95 percent of Christians have never led one soul to salvation. I guarantee if you step out of your timidity and share the gospel with a neighbor, a co-worker, a server at a restaurant or a stranger on the subway, your spiritual temperature will instantly rise 30 degrees—and you will want to share with someone else.

In this new year, I encourage you to take your flame out from under a basket and let it blaze before men. This cold, dark world needs fervent Christians who have reached the boiling point of spiritual passion.

Gracious Generousity

Dissected

"..the biblical stories that cause the most cognitive dissonance to our logical minds often contain the greatest revelations. Instead of dissecting Scripture, we need to let Scripture dissect us - our thoughts and attitudes, our dreams and desires, our fears and hopes. To often we approach stories like this one as if God is on trial, but it's not His character that is in question. It's our character that is on the stand...."

-Mark Batterson, All In: You Are One Decision Away From A Totally Different Life, page 41
(reference is to Genesis 22, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac)

Terms of Engagement

"We want God on our terms, but we don't get God that way. That's how we get false religion. It's pick and choose. It's cut and paste. The end result is a false god we've created in our image.

You only get a relationship with God on His terms. You can take it or leave it, but you cannot change the rules of engagement. and you don't want to!"

  -Mark Batterson, All In: You Are One Decision Away From A Totally Different Life, page 25

One or the Other

I've been a fan of YWAM (Youth With A Mission) for 40 years- Wonderful mission group and I've know several YWAM missionaries.

That Simple...and That Difficult

"The longer I follow Jesus, the more convinced I am of this simple truth. God doesn't do what God does because of us. God does what God does in spite of us. All you have to do is stay out of the way.

It's that simple. It's that difficult.

Stay humble. Stay hungry.

If you aren't hungry for God, you are full of yourself. That's why God cannot fill you with His Spirit. But if you will empty yourself, if you will die to self, you'll be a different person by the time you reach the last page of this book...."

-Mark Batterson, All In: You Are One Decision Away From A Totally Different Life, page 21, (Italics in the original)

Always New

"There is no end to this glorious message of the cross, for there is always something new and fresh and entrancing and moving and uplifting that one has never seen before.”

            — Martyn Lloyd-Jones   The Cross

HT: Of First Importance

Who's Following Who

"Most people in most churches think they are following Jesus, but I'm not so sure. they may think they are following Jesus, but the reality is this: they have invited Jesus to follow them. They call Him Savior, but they have never surrendered to Him as Lord. And I was one of them. trust me, I didn't want to go anywhere without Jesus right there behind me. But I wanted Jesus to follow me, to serve my purposes, to do my will."

-Mark Batterson, All In: You Are One Decision Away From A Totally Different Life, page 16 (Italics in the original)

The Wind In My Sails

The chief service I owe you, O God,
is that every thought and word of mine should speak of You.
The power of speech which You have bestowed on me
can give me no greater pleasure
than to serve You by preaching Your gospel.

But in saying this,
I am merely expressing what I want to do.
If I am actually to use this gift,
I must ask You for Your help -
ask You to fill the sails I have hoisted for You
with the wind of Your Holy Spirit,
inspiring my mind and my voice.
I know that I am often heavy with stupor,
so that I am too lazy to speak of You.
And I do not spend sufficient time studying Your Scriptures,
to ensure that my words conform to Your Word.
Give me the energy and the courage to share the spirit of the apostles,
that like them I may truly be an ambassador of Your grace.

- Hilary of Poitiers, 310-367

HT:  Trevin Wax

Continual Re-Discovery

“All of us to some degree live around the truth of the gospel but do not ‘get’ it. So the key to continual and deeper spiritual renewal and revival is the continual re-discovery of the gospel. A stage of renewal is always the discovery of a new implication or application of the gospel — seeing more of its truth.”

              — Tim Keller  “The Centrality of the Gospel”

HT: Of First Importance

Dismantled

“Grace dismantles your confidence in you, while it gives you more hope and courage than you have ever had.”

            — Paul David Tripp @PaulTripp

HT: Of First Importance

All In and All Out

"The word consecrate means to set yourself apart. By definition, consecration demands full devotion. It's dethroning yourself and enthroning Jesus Christ. It's the complete divestiture of all self interest. It's giving God veto power. It's surrendering all of you to all of Him. It's a simple recognition that every second of time, every ounce of energy, and every penny of money is a gift from God and for God. Consecration is an ever-deepening love for Jesus, a childlike trust in the heavenly Father, and a blind obedience to the Holy Spirit. Consecration is all that and a thousand things more. But for the sake of simplicity, let me give you my personal definition of consecration.

Consecration is going all in and all out for the All in All."

-Mark Batterson, All In: You Are One Decision Away From A Totally Different Life, page 19 (Italics in the original)

Always Holding On

"...the more smitten I become by the fact that God's love for me, His approval and commitment to me, does not ride on my transformation but on Jesus' substitution. Jesus is infallibly devoted to us in spite of our inconsistent devotion to Him.  The Gospel is not a command to hang on to Jesus. It's a promise that no matter how weak your faith or how unsuccessful your efforts may be, God is always holding on to you. In this light, life is simply a chronicle of God's successes perfectly meeting our failures."

 -Tullian Tchividjian, One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace For An Exhausted World, Page 211

Priorities

Forever Fixed

Amen, amen, amen and amen!

"Many Christians have assumed (and have been taught) that Bible reading, prayer, etc., is the way to keep God happy with us - that the more we pray and read our Bibles, the more He will love us . Consciously or not, we often do these things to maintain God's favor. Such reasoning, whether explicitly taught or implicitly caught, could not be more mistaken or toxic. We read the Bible and pray and go to church and partake of the sacraments because it is in those places that God reminds us that things between Him and us are forever fixed. They are the rendezvous points where God declares to us concretely that the debt has bee paid, the ledger put away, and everything we need, in Christ, we already possess."

  -Tullian Tchividjian, One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace For An Exhausted World, Page 201

Again Amen, amen, amen and amen!

I Believe

I''ve always loved this faith confession from Beth Moore's book Believing God. It's worth repeating daily.

His Goodness

"...Charles Spurgeon once wrote. 'When I thought that God was hard, I found it easy to sin. But when I found God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion, I smote upon my breast to think that I could have rebelled against One who loved me so and sought my God.'"

    -Tullian Tchividjian, One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace For An Exhausted World, Page 194

Finish the Race

Cross Shaped Living

From "10 Things We Would Stop Doing If We Adopted Paul’s Cross-Shaped Resolution" by David Burnette (referring to 1 Corinthians 2:2 - “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” )

1)   We would stop judging people, circumstances, and events based on outward appearances. Things aren't always as they appear. The God who brought about salvation through the death of His Son turns the world’s expectations upside down. (1 Cor 1:18-20) 

2)  We would stop trying to win God's approval through our obedience. Christ's death dealt decisively with our sins, and God now views us as righteous in Him. You cannot add to a perfect sacrifice. (Gal 2:21) 

3)   We would stop trusting in our own resources to bring about spiritual transformation. It took the crucifixion of Christ to save us, and it will take the power of the gospel to make us more like Jesus. The cross and resurrection are essential to the daily pursuit of holiness. (Rom 6:10-11) 

4)   We would stop worrying about being clever in our presentation of the gospel. Power belongs to God and His message, not the messenger. There is no smooth way to talk about a bloody cross. (1 Cor 1:17) 

5)  We would stop considering some people to be beyond God's reach. There is no one whose sin can outmatch the grace of God in the gospel. Christ's death is more than sufficient for the vilest offender. (1 Tim 1:16) 

6)  We would stop being surprised that our witness isn’t received warmly. At the heart of the gospel is the emphatic rejection of King Jesus. Why would his servants expect to be treated differently? (Jn 15:20) 

7)   We would stop expecting ease and comfort in this life to be the norm. Suffering, hardship, and opposition only make sense when you follow in the footsteps of the Man of Sorrows. (Lk 9:57-62) 

8)   We would stop worrying so much about the details our lives. God was willing to give His own Son for us. Why would he be unwilling to take care of everything else? (Rom 8:32) 

9)   We would stop thinking highly of ourselves and looking down on others. If the death of Christ was necessary for our rescue, what do we have to boast about? The cross levels the playing field, for all of us are debtors to God's infinite mercy. 

10)  We would stop fearing death. The crucifixion put death to death, so those in Christ now have the sure hope of the resurrection and eternal life. (Heb 2:14-15)

HT: Vitamin Z

Invitation to the Table

Love this communion invitation! From @BrianZahnd who got it from @RenovatusPastor

Four Connections

Saw this by Steve McCoy - Keller on Church: Four Fronts & Three Goals - summarizing some points from Keller's book Center Church. 

In Tim Keller's book, Center Church, he discusses four ministry fronts...

1. Connecting People to God (through evangelism and worship)
2. Connecting People to One Another (through community and discipleship)
3. Connecting People to the City (through mercy and justice)
4. Connecting People to the Culture (through the integration of faith and work)

Center Church, pg 293

In the same section Keller explains three goals of ministry and their comprehensive scope as taught by Edmund Clowney...

"In his biblical-theological work on the church, Clowney speaks of the biblical "goals of ministry" as threefold: (1) we are called to minister and serve God through worship (Rom 15:8-16; 1 Pet 2:9); (2) we are to minister and serve one another through Christian nurture (Eph 4:12-26); and (3) we are to minister and serve the world through witness (Matt 28:18-20; Luke 24:28; Acts 5:32)."

Center Church, pg 294

Interesting stuff to think about.

A Gift That Keeps On Giving

“God did not give us His gospel just so we could embrace it and be converted. Actually, He offers it to us every day as a gift that keeps on giving to us everything we need for life and godliness.

The wise believer learns this truth early and becomes proficient in extracting available benefits from the gospel each day. We extract these benefits by being absorbed in the gospel, speaking it to ourselves when necessary, and by daring to reckon it true in all we do.”

— Milton Vincent    A Gospel Primer7

HT: Of First Importance

Hijacked by Jesus

From Hijacked by the Gospel by Jared Wilson at The Gospel Coalition site- Good stuff!

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.– Philippians 3:12 (ESV)

“Christ Jesus took hold of me” (NIV)

“Christ Jesus first possessed me” (NLT)

“I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus” (NASB)

“I am apprehended of Christ Jesus” (KJV)

Looking for the umpteenth time over Galatians 1:11-24 I am struck again with how utterly supreme God’s loving plans are for us in Christ. Paul, captured always by the vision of the original capturing vision of Jesus Christ on the Damascus road, appeals again to singular transforming power of the gospel by appealing to the way it powerfully transformed him. He was headed one direction, resting in his own sovereignty over his life, but the One who had set Paul apart before his life story even began also called him in grace and was pleased to reveal the Son to him (Gal. 1:15-16), and life was never the same. Paul was writing his own life story, but Jesus stole his pen.

He got hijacked by the gospel.

F.F. Bruce writes this about Paul’s amazing about face:

"It is plain that what happened on the Damascus road was no isolated mystical experience, no mere “flash” of insight or intellectual conviction, but a personal encounter, the beginning of a personal relationship which became the dominating passion of his life." 

Paul’s conversion was so abrupt, enlightening, and illuminating, such a surprise and such a reversal, everything he says and does thereafter is bathed in the same blinding light. Gospel wakefulness is so powerful, its effect is sustained. It forever changes the game, flips the script.

Like C.S. Lewis getting into the sidecar of his brother Warnie’s motorbike for that fateful trip to the zoo: “When we set out I did not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.”

I have been laid hold of. I’ve been apprehended. I was writing my own life story, and it was a tragedy despite my own best efforts. But my life story got hijacked by the good news.

Have you been hijacked?

Taking God Seriously

J.I. Packer: Taking God Seriously from Crossway on Vimeo.

In Taking God Seriously: Vital Things We Need to Know, J. I. Packer writes:

As the years go by, I am increasingly burdened by the sense that the more conservative church people in the West, Protestant and Roman Catholic alike, are, if not starving, at least grievously undernourished for lack of a particular pastoral ministry that was a staple item in the church life of the first Christian centuries and also of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation era in Western Europe, but has largely fallen out of use in recent days. That ministry is called catechesis. It consists of intentional, orderly instruction in the truths that Christians are called to live by, linked with equally intentional and orderly instruction on how they are to do this.

In the video above, Packer reflects on this “undernourishment” that many Christians suffer from, challenging us to take our faith and God’s Word seriously.

From Crossway Books

Reading the Bible Like Jesus Did

How did Jesus read the Bible (the Old Testament)? Does this question have implications for how we should read it? I agree with these comments on Luke 24:44-47 from an article by Thabiti Anyabwile at the Gospel Coalition:

How does Jesus read the Scriptures?

First, the Lord read the Scriptures autobiographically (v. 44). He makes a stunning claim 400 years after the close of the Old Testament: The Scriptures contained things “written about” Him. In fact, by citing “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms,” Jesus claims that there’s something about him in the whole of the Old Testament. There’s no part of Scripture where His story does not emerge. There’s no part of our Bible’s, then, that can be adequately read without coming to see Jesus in some form.

Second, the Lord read the Scriptures teleologically (v. 44). Okay, that’s my fancy word for the day. It means Jesus read His Bible with fulfillment in view. He taught the  disciples to consider “everything written about me… must be fulfilled.” The prophecies, patterns, types and history have an end point in mind, namely, Jesus. They point to Him; He fulfills them. The unique thing about this “autobiography” is that God wrote it beforethe life was lived. We write our autobiographies during our lives and after we’ve lived a while. God wrote the account of His Son over centuries and centuries before His Incarnation and earthly ministry. All of history was moving to Jesus’ climactic fulfillment. Proper reading of the Bible requires an instinct for getting to Christ and His fulfillment of God’s promises and plans. He is the end to which all history heads.

Third, the Lord read the Scriptures in a Gospel-Centered Way (v. 46). I know, “Gospel-centered” is all the craze these days. But it’s actually a lot older than faddish marketers make it sound. Being gospel-centered dates back to Jesus–and even further back since Jesus sees the gospel in the Old Testament Scriptures He read. Reading the Bible well means not only looking for Jesus but looking specifically for the redemptive purpose and work of Jesus. The Old Testament contains the prediction of Christ’s suffering and resurrection, and the hope of redemption   through repentance and forgiveness of sins. The Bible contains a missionary impulse and plot. Notice that this redemption is “proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” When we read our Bibles we ought to gather a sense of God’s salvation through Christ, of atonement, of victory over death and sin, of the centrality of missions and preaching the gospel, and the privilege of playing our part in the salvation history of God. Like those early disciples, we “are witnesses of these things” (v. 48).

All of this has implications for how we are to read our Bibles. Three obvious ones come to mind.

1. If Jesus read the Bible autobiographically, then we must read it biographically. In other words, the Bible is not about us. Not in the most immediate and important sense. The Bible is about Jesus and to read the Bible well means delaying questions like “What does this have to do with me?” or “How can I apply this to my life?” until we first thoroughly know what the Bible has to do with Jesus and how it applies to Him. If we read the Bible autobiographically we’ll actually remove Jesus from the story or relegate Him to a lesser role. What a tragedy that would be! We should read our Bibles the way John the Baptist “read” his forerunner role: “He [Jesus] must increase; we [the reader] must decrease.”

2. If Jesus read the Bible teleologically, then we must read it with visions bigger than our lives in mind. There’s a place–an important place!–for applying the Scriptures to our lives. We are to “live… by every word that comes from the  mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). Yet, our smaller stories nestle in a larger over-arching story. The larger story focuses on the glory of God in Jesus Christ in the redemption and damnation of sinners. The larger story calls us outside of our smaller selves to live beyond ourselves and there truly become ourselves. It calls us to lose our lives so that we might find them. Any reading of the Bible that makes us more focused on ourselves and teaches us to shrink back or hold our lives dear is actually a misreading of the Bible. It is to read the Bible with our goals in mind rather than God’s. We’re made for bigger things, grander visions.

3. If Jesus read the Bible in a gospel-centered way, then we need to read the Bible in a gospel-centered way. The Lord taught His disciples to read their Scriptures in a way that revealed His suffering, death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins. They were to read their Bibles in such a way that they would be repentant, constantly turning into this good news that redemption had come in Christ. We need to find that message on every page of the Bible so that we can treasure that message every day of our lives. We need to read our Bibles this way so that we may be the witnesses we’re called to be and proclaim the message entrusted to us. How wonderful it would be to be able to share the gospel with family, friends and the nations from every type of biblical literature in ways natural to the text! That’s our goal and that’s our privilege if we learn to read the Bible the way our Master did.

So, do you read your Bible the way Jesus read His?

Above and Below

From Tim Challies

10 Commandments for Social Media

Kevin DeYoung posted these "Ten Commandments for Twitter."  I'd say they apply to blogs and Facebook also. Enjoy!

And the Lord of Twitter spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God, who gave thee computers and tablets and smartphones, the Holy One of all social media who foreknew the internet before the foundation of the earth, yea even before Al Gore was born:

Thou shalt worship others gods before Twitter. Take heed lest ye waste your life 140 characters at a time. What shall it profit a man if he has 100,000 followers and forgets what it means to follow me?

Thou shalt not assume the worst about the tweets of others. Careful qualifications and robust explanations are not to be expected in two sentences. Cuttest thine enemies some slack.Kevin DeYoung posted these 10 Commandments for Twitter. I'd say they apply to blogs and Faceboo

Thou shalt not take the name of thine own person too seriously. If thou art prone to feeling offended at every turn and to feeling sorry for thyself publically before others, I beseech thee to gettest thou over it. To tweet like an eight-year-old is an abomination before me.

Remember thine hyperlinks, to keep them holy. Three things are a nuisance to others, four things are always to be avoided: broken links, trashy videos, rickrolling, and linking to thine own article 17 times in the same day.

Honor thy father and thy mother and all others to whom honor is due. Let thy tweets be full of encouragement and praise. Find what is commendable and commend it before others. Forgettest not that athletes and politicians are real people too. And rememberest thou that thy parents and pastors can read thy tweets.

Thou shalt not humblebrag. Better to be humble and say nothing or to brag and say everything, than to fool no one but thine own conscience.

Thou shalt not disguise self-congratulation in the form of lamentation. If thou shouldst mention before a multitude, and with conspicuous disappointment, that thou wast the only one white person who entered a float for Nelson Mandela Appreciation Day or that it breakest thine heart to think about the church’s responsibility for the Crusades, small shall be thy reward in heaven.

Thou shalt not make public demands of complete strangers. Calling upon others to respond to thy blog or denounce the evil thou refusest to put to rest is like unto social media terrorism. It is a constant dripping on a day of steady rain.

Thou shalt not retweet thine own awesomeness. The decree to “Let another praise you, and not thine own mouth” shall not be loosed all thy days. It is a perpetual statute, even unto the age of Twitter. Let it be a light unto thy path, to guard thy head from swelling and thy friends from cringing.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s klout; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s retweets, or his followers, or his hip Instagram photos, or his travel complaints, or his mentions, or anything belonging to thy neighbor.

Turned Outward

"...the biggest difference between the practical effects of sin and the practical effect of the Gospel is that sin turns us inward while the Gospel turns us outward.....Any version of 'the Gospel' or 'grace,' therefore, that encourages you to think about yourself and your performance will inevitably be co-opted by what Martin Luther called our curved-in nature (incurvatus in se) - whether it's your failures or your successes; your good works or your bad works; your strengths or your weaknesses; your obedience or your disobedience."

    -Tullian Tchividjian, One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace For An Exhausted World, Page 135

An Important Reminder

Not The Good Guy

 "One surefire way to know you're starting to grasp the message of grace is when you're finally able to admit that you're not the good guy - that yo never were and apart from grace never will be. In other words, when you finally find yourself being honest about who you are. The freedom of the gospel is the freedom to stop pretending you are anything but a fellow Zacchaeus, a sinner in need of a savior."

 -Tullian Tchividjian, One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace For An Exhausted World, Page 133
   

Between Extremes of Solitude and Community

Wisdom from Bonhoeffer on Solitude and community:

Let him who cannot be alone beware of community.

He will only do harm to himself and to the community. Alone you stood before God when he called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and given an account to God. You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refused to be alone you are rejecting God’s call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called. “The challenge of death comes to us all, and no one can die for another. Everyone must fight his own battle with death by himself, alone. . . . I will not be with you then, nor you with me” (Luther).

But the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.

Into the community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone, even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ, and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you. “If I die, then I am not alone in death; if I suffer, they [the fellowship] suffer with me” (Luther).

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together   (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), 77 [italics and ellipses original].

HT: Justin Taylor

No Strings Attached

"Thankfully, when it comes to God's Grace, there is not even a hint of exchange. No suggestion of payback or pay-it-forward. There are no strings attached  While only grace can change a heart and produce Law-fulfilling works of mercy, grace is not dependent on a changed heart or Law-fulfilling works of mercy. Grace alone produces the conditions that induce change, but grace is not conditional on change. It is a pure gift - independent of outcomes."

   -Tullian Tchividjian, One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace For An Exhausted World, Page 123

What I'm Reading

Just Finished: One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World by Tullian Tchvidjian

As are all of Tullian's books, this is very good. His writing on grace is powerful, enlightening, and balanced. I've quoted it a lot on this blog so far, and will be posting more.Highly recommend it!

Reading Now: All In: You Are One Decision Away From a Totally Different Life by Mark Batterson

After reading The Circle Maker and following Batterson on Twitter, I've really come to appreciate him as a writer and leader. This book is as good as Circle Maker- maybe even better.

Also Reading Now: George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution by Brian Kilmeade

Yes, I'm the kind of guy that reads multiple books at the same time! Heard about this a lot on TV, since author is one of the hosts of Fox and Friends, and was interested in reading it since I am an American history buff and love reading about the Revolution in general and Washington in particular. . Received it as a Christmas gift, and was glad to get it.  Good read so far.

Up next: Risky Gospel: Abandon Fear and Build Something Awesome by Owen Strachan

Also a Christmas gift. Looking forward to it.

Nothing Cheap

"...The one-way love of God is restorative and reconciling because in the mystery of His cross, God has neutralized the effects of sin, forgiven its offense, blotted out its stain, expiated its guilt, and created a new beginning. 'As far as the eat is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.' (Ps. 103:12) Thanks to Jesus's sacrifice on my behalf, the sins I cannot forgive, God cannot remember....There is nothing cheap about the grace he offers repeat offenders. On the contrary - it cost him everything."

    -Tullian Tchividjian, One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace For An Exhausted World, Page 116

Never Beyond the Reach or the Need

"Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace, nor are your best days ever so good that you are beyond the need of it. "

   — Jerry Bridges, Discipline of Grace , page 18

The First and Last Precept

“A saying of Chrysostom’s has always pleased me very much, that the foundation of our philosophy is humility. But that of Augustine pleases me even more: ‘. . . so if you ask me concerning the precepts of the Christian religion, first, second and third, and always I would answer ‘Humility.’”

            - John Calvin, Institutes, 2.2.11.

HT:Ray Ortlund,  Rick Ianniello

Proof Texting

Guaranteed Predictions for 2014

I agree with my friend Jim Wright's concise and amazing prophetic predictions for 2014. He says:

My Stunning Prophetic Predictions for 2014

Some good stuff is gonna happen.

Some bad stuff is gonna happen.

We'll have to revisit this in 12 months to see if he was right!

And I'll add my own prediction: The Lord's grace and presence will be there in both your good and bad times, and He is enough!

Enjoy Grace in 2014

I loved this post from Justin Buzzard - "The #1 Thing To Do in the New Year":

You may or may not have a list of resolutions for the New Year. Whatever goals you’re chasing and whatever you’re facing this next year, I want to make a suggestion: simplify things this year.

Instead of trying to do a lot, what if you focused your full attention on just one exciting objective?

Here it is: Enjoy grace.

Grace is the undeserved love of God. This undeserved love is extended most climactically in the substitutionary life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, a historical reality that changes everything about your reality. And, this undeserved love comes at you every single day of your life. Everything you will enjoy in 2014 is grace, pure gift from God: the oxygen you breathe, the relationships you enjoy, the food you eat, the shelter over your head, the laughter of your children, those amazing sunsets, etc.

“What do you have that you did not receive?” -1 Corinthians 4:7. Everything you have you have received. All is gift. All is grace. The screen you’re reading this on is a gift, as are the fingers you’re using to scroll through this post. Enjoy this grace, this great gift of having fingers, exploring screens, and learning.

Enjoy grace! Focus your full attention and energies here, and everything else will follow: love for God, gratitude, joy, love for others, and good stewardship of the life, talents, resources, time, and opportunities God has given you. Nothing sucks the life out of things like entitlement, thinking you deserve a certain kind of life. And nothing gives life like grace, recognizing that your life and everything about your life is pure gift.

Though it feels like you’re sitting still right now, you’re sitting on a planet that’s hurling through space at roughly 2.7 million miles per hour. This wild orbit and the wild adventure of your life is sustained and empowered by the grace of God, undeserved love that holds the galaxies in place, feeds you breakfast, and puts a fresh fire in your heart.

Happy New Year!

Enjoy grace!

The Swimming Pool

'The gospel is not just the diving board off of which we jump into the pool of Christianity...... it is the pool that we swim in each and every day."

- J. D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power That Made Christianity Revolutionary, page 22