Please Stop!

If You Are A Christian, Please Stop Doing These Five Things by Jarrid Wilson (at ChurchLeaders.com)

Here is some stuff Christians should stop doing.

1. Telling people “I’ll pray for you” without actually praying for them.

Guilty as charged. I can’t think of anybody who hasn’t done this at one time or another. And while most of us don’t actually mean to forget, it’s probably best that we just set aside time on the spot to pray for people. Are we really so busy that we can’t stop and pray for someone’s needs? We need to make sure we are fulfilling our duties as Christians and actually follow through with them. One prayer could be the tipping point to someone coming to know the love of God. Don’t miss the opportunity to speak life into someone because you don’t think you have time.

2. Attending Church on Sunday, but ignoring God’s voice the rest of the week.

Ouch! This one stings a little. Many of us get in the habit of making God just another addition to our weekly check-list, but the reality is that our entire lives should revolve around him. God deserves #1 priority in each of our lives, and to treat him any differently would go against the foundations of the Christian faith. Evaluate the way you are spending your time, money and energy. If you want to see a change in your life then you need to begin giving God the place of honor he deserves. Stop treating God like the last kid picked in doge-ball.

3. Praying for God’s provision when we have yet to use what he has already provided.

Way too many of us tend to treat God like a personal genie. Prayer was given to us as an open line of communication between us and God, but the harsh reality is that way too many of try to use it like a drive-thru at a fast-food restaurant. You don’t get to pick and choose the way God provides, but you do get the opportunity to trust his plan and have faith in his promises. I can’t begin to explain how many times I’ve ignored God’s provision because it wasn’t wrapped the way I intended it to be. Every time we purposely ignore God’s provision, we are indirectly telling him, “I don’t trust your plan.”

4. Trying to be so relevant that we actually hurt the message of Jesus.

There is nothing wrong with trying to be relevant, but we need to understand that there is a BOLD line between being trendy, and then completely disfiguring the message of Jesus. We can’t expect to bring any change to the world when we don’t look any different from it. I’m a firm believer that Jesus came to reclaim culture and not abolish it, but this doesn’t mean we need to water down His message so that it’s easier to swallow.

5. Telling people that “God will never give you anything you can’t handle.”
Why should we stop saying this? Because it’s a lie. … We’ve completely twisted 1 Corinthians 10:13, as this verse is pointing toward temptation, and even then it states God will be there if things get too tough. The reality is that God just might give us things we can’t handle so that we will gaze toward him for the extra help. Mind blowing right? Realize that not everything is going to go the way you plan, think or hope. Sometimes stuff is going to hit the fan, and in order for you to get through it, you are going to NEED to rely on God’s comfort, peace and understanding. We weren’t meant to do life alone.

Countercultural Relevance

HT: The Gospel Coalition @TGC

A Prayer for Communicators

A prayer by John Stott, which I can heartily join into, from his  book Your Mind Matters

I pray earnestly that God will raise up today a new generation of Christian apologists or Christian communicators, who will combine an absolute loyalty to the biblical gospel and an unwavering confidence in the power of the Spirit with a deep and sensitive understanding of the contemporary alternatives to the gospel; who will relate the one to the other with freshness, authority, and relevance; and who will use their minds to reach other minds for Christ.

Amen and Amen!

HT: Darryl Dash

Delayed Reaction

From Challies.com

A Ministry Dictionary for the Avant-Garde Crowd

HT: Out of Ur

The Relevance of the Timeless Truths

"To be truly relevant, you have to say things that are unfashionably eternal, not trendy.  It's the 'timeless' things that are most relevant to most people and we dare not forget this fact in our pursuit of relevance,"

    -  Tullian Tchividjian, Unfashionable, page 17

Relevant and Accurate

Is it possible for a preacher to be both relevant and accurate? J. D. Greear wonders and comments at www.jdgreear.com:

I enjoy listening to the guy who is creative in how he packages and presents his messages. I also enjoy the guy who really knows how to do "exegesis," i.e., can get into a passage, walk me through it, unpack it carefully, and make me feel, when he's done, like I really understand that passage much better than I did before.

Unfortunately those two guys are rarely the same person.

Some preachers astound me with their creative ability to perceive spiritual questions people are really interested in, apply biblical principles to their lives, and package their teaching in ways that capture the attention. Often, however, I feel like they are not letting the Bible drive their content--their messages are more driven by their experiences and creative genius. I also feel like if I sat under their preaching for a while that I would not really be getting the full scope of what God has left for me to know in the Bible. And rarely do I feel like I understand passages of Scripture much better as a result of their preaching.

Other guys astound me with their ability to perceive what a text is saying and unpack it. However, quite often they bore me, and fail to make me see how a particular passage is absolutely essential for my life. They are usually only decent in application; they almost always suck in introduction and approach; they don't package in a way that captures my attention. Quite often they ramble on way too long in too many scattered directions (usually, they excuse this by saying they are just going wherever the text itself goes).

I think both elements, careful exegesis and creativity, are absolutely necessary. ...

After some further comments he concludes:

Weighting yourself too heavily toward exegesis or creativity are both lazy approaches. The first fails to connect; the second fails to be faithful to God's calling. As a teacher of God's word, I am called to do both: to be faithful and connect. I am not called to simply expound a book; I am called to expound it to people.

Sure, if I had to choose one or the other, I'd much rather choose to be faithful to the text... but I do not have to choose.