To Understand the Times

Lord, Help Us Understand The Times 

High King of heaven,Lord of the years and sovereign over time and history,grant to us such an overpowering knowledge of who You arethat our trust in You may be unshakable.

Grant to us too a sufficient understandingof the signs of the times in which we livethat we may know howto serve Your purposes in our generationand more truly be Your people in our world today.

To that end, O Lord, revive us againand draw us closer to Yourself and to each other.

Where there is false contentment with our present condition,sow in us a holy restlessness.

Where there is discouragement,grant us fresh hearts.

Where there is despair,be our hope again.

For Your sakeempower us to be Your salt and light in the world,and thus Your force for the true human flourishing of Your shalom.In the name of Jesus, Amen.

- Os Guinness, Renaissance: The Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times

HT: Trevin Wax

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.

Starting Wtth "You Are Accepted"

“Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. . . . In their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification. . . . Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.

In order for a pure and lasting work of spiritual renewal to take place within the church, multitudes within it must be led to build their lives on this foundation. This means that they must be conducted into the light of a full conscious awareness of God’s holiness, the depth of their sin and the sufficiency of the atoning work of Christ for their acceptance with God, not just at the outset of their Christian lives but in every succeeding day.”

Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life (Downers Grove, 1979), pages 101-102, italics his.

Hat Tip: Ray Ortlund and Already Not Yet

Can You Create a Revival?

This is a brief selection from Tim Keller, writing on Revival: Ways and Means at The Gospel Coalition Blog:

How do seasons of revival come? One set of answers comes from Charles Finney, who turned revivals into a “science.” Finney insisted that any group could have a revival any time or place, as long as they applied the right methods in the right way. Finney’s distortions, I think, led to much of the weakness in modern evangelicalism today, as has been well argued by Michael Horton over the years. Especially under Finney’s influence, revivalism undermined the more traditional way of doing Christian formation. That traditional way of Christian growth was gradual—whole family catechetical instruction—and church-centric. Revivalism under Finney, however, shifted the emphasis to seasons of crisis. Preaching became less oriented to long-term teaching and more directed to stirring up the affections of the heart toward decision. Not surprisingly, these emphases demoted the importance of the church in general and of careful, sound doctrine and put all the weight on an individual’s personal, subjective experience. And this is one of the reasons (though not the only reason) that we have the highly individualistic, consumerist evangelicalism of today.

There has been a withering critique of revivalism going on now for 20 years within evangelical circles. Most of it is fair, but it often goes beyond the criticism of the technique-driven revivalism of Finney to insist that even Jonathan Edwards and the Puritans were badly mistaken about how people should embrace and grow in Christ. In this limited space I can’t respond to that here other than to say I think that goes way too far. However, this critique trend explains why there is so much less enthusiasm for revival than when I was a young minister. It also explains why someone like D.M. Lloyd-Jones was so loathe to say that there was anything that we can do to bring about revivals (other than pray). He knew that Finney-esque revivalism led to many spiritual pathologies.

Nevertheless, I think we can carefully talk about some factors that, when present, often become associated with revival by God’s blessing.

Keller lists five factors associated with Revivals:

1. Extraordinary Prayer
2. Recovery of the Grace Gospel
3. Renewed Individuals
4. Use of the Gospel on the Heart in Counseling
5. Ordinary Instituted Means of Grace

More great discussion on this at the link.

Trends in the Vineyard Movement

For my Vineyard friends- Jason Clark at Deep Church has been saying some interesting things about our movement and current trends within the Vineyard family. He speaks from within the movement (with a UK perspective).

10 Vineyard Church distinctives to theologically re-imagine? at Deep Church

Vineyard Churches Re-imagined

Is there any "move" left in the vineyard church movement?

Vineyard Churches: 4 factors we need to face?

Society of Vineyard Scholars

4 things the Society of Vineyard Scholars is not

Do We Really Know the Gospel?

Do we really know the Gospel. Here's what one pastor (Joe Coffey) said- a pastor who thought he certainly knew the Gospel after years of successful ministry.

"I suddenly realized that I had undervalued the Gospel by treating it as merely the starting point of the Christian life, instead of as the all-encompassing source of truth and grace that empowers all of the Christian life."

Read the whole story at Themelios - Issue 33-1 - How a Mega-Church is Rediscovering the Gospel

(and yeah, there is a Tim Keller connection. I thank God for his ministry!)

The Charismatic Movement: Death and Resurrection

J. Lee Grady at Charisma Magazine has concluded that The Charismatic Movement is Dead. I agree with him.

"I am not a coroner. But I do believe the historic period we call the American charismatic movement ended a while ago. By making that pronouncement I was NOT saying that (1) the Holy Spirit isn't moving today; (2) the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit aren't available to us any more; or (3) people who are associated with this movement are all washed up.

On the contrary, we could be on the cusp of one of the most dynamic spiritual awakenings in history, and it will most certainly be accompanied by the supernatural work of the Spirit. Yet if we want to shift with Him into the next season we must lay aside old mindsets and worn-out religious paradigms that we picked up during the past 40 years. When God comes to do "a new thing," as Isaiah promised He would (Isa. 43:19, NASB), we must embrace new priorities, recalibrate our spiritual values and set aside the baggage of the past.

New wine requires new wineskins. New growth only comes after pruning. Change is often painful."

The Holy Spirit is always active. The gifts of the Spirit continue; God's Kingdom is breaking through all over the place. However, the ministry models and styles of the movement of the 60's and 70's are passe and DEAD. No more "one man ministry," big hair, white suits. No theme parks, limousines and private jets. No more worship of mammon. No more exaltation of ministers above the people. No more "don't touch God's anointed" immunization from criticism or correction. No more misuse of prophetic ministry or chasing after more exciting prophecies. And no more exalting gifting over character.

What we need today are true openness to the Spirit balanced by sound scholarship - both/and not either/or. What we need is decentralized supernatural ministry models where leaders equip all believers to pray for the sick and hurting. We need ministers who serve rather than seek to be served. We need leaders who follow Jesus with towels and wash basins rather than acting like dukes or kings. We need ministries that serve the poor and renounce materialism rather than fleece the flock for big offerings.

The Charismatic Movement must die- had to die - in order that the Spirit movement can be resurrected. Death and resurrection is God's way, not triumphalism and splendor.

That is what I believe God is doing. That is what I believe God is creating. And I am grateful and hopeful.

Update: Comments at Charismatica comparing the Charismatic Movement to the Reformation - worth reading.

Prayer for Rain

Yesterday afternoon it rained at my house for about 15 minutes, after three weeks of temperatures in the high 90's without a drop of rain. It is amazing what just a little rain can do to a yard; our grass seemed to visibly perk up.

Lord, send your rain on the dry souls where the ground is hard and cracked. I include myself in that request. Let it rain, dear Lord, let it rain.

“Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit; let the earth cause them both to sprout; I the Lord have created it." (Is. 45:8 ESV)

New Year and New Beginnings

I used to find people who spouted what I considered to be trite phrases like "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" to be very irritating - on the same level with those who plastered smiley faces on everything they owned. However, I have since had to repent of that opinion and attitude, because: (a) I realized I was sinfully proud, and (b) I realized that they were right.

For Christians, every day is New Years Day.

How else can you explain the Scripture in Lamentations 3:22-23: "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning;great is your faithfulness." If God's mercies to us are new each morning, then every day is the first day of the rest of my life; every day is new years day. Christ is the God of new creations, new births and new beginnings.

Here's how songwriter Carolyn Arends once put it.

New Year's Day
by Carolyn Arends

I buy a lot of diaries
Fill them full of good intentions
Each and every New Year's Eve
I make myself a list
All the things I'm gonna change
Until January 2nd
So this time I'm making one promise

Chorus:
This will be my resolution
Every day is New Year's Day
This will be my resolution
Every day is New Year's Day

I believe it's possible
I believe in new beginnings
'Cause I believe in Christmas Day
And Easter morning too
And I'm convinced it's doable
'Cause I believe in second chances
Just the way that I believe in you

Last week I wrote that for Christians it is always Christmas. Now I am writing that it is always New Years Day. I'm sorry if this seems trite - but sometimes trite sayings really are true.

Happy New Year to you all- and may each day in it be filled with new beginnings, new possibilities, new joys and new mercies.