Luther's Advice to Preachers

"In truth you cannot read too much in Scriptures; and what you read you cannot read too carefully, and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well,and what you understand well you cannot teach too well,and what you teach well you cannot live too well."

--Martin Luther, WA 53, 218; emphasis mine.

HT: Joshua Harris and Between Two Worlds

He is Risen!

He is Risen Indeed!

A Blessed Easter to all of my readers!

What Happened to the Twelve Apostles?

Cool artticle by C. Michael Patton at Parchment and Pen on "What Happened to the Twelve Apostles? How Their Deaths Evidence Easter"

Eternal Wounds

"In a meditation on the cross this morning, my good friend, Pastor Roydon Hearne, shared a thought that blew me away. He remarked on the fact that the only man-made thing on Earth that can be seen from space is the great Wall of China. He then said, “and the only man-made thing that can be seen in heaven, are the wounds of Christ.” "

Hallelujah! What a Saviour!

From: “Those wounds, yet visible above” « Already Not Yet

Fortastes & Downpayments- Part 2

This is a continuation of yesterday's post about foretastes and down payments now of what the Kingdom Age will be like as described in Revelation 21 and 22.

21:6 Quenching our thirst. Thirst in the Bible is usually a metaphor for strong desire. We think we thirst for money, power, sex, significance. But none of those satisfy, because what they are but shadows of is the need for God. Jeremiah said that the two great errors (Jer. 2:13) are to reject God who is the fountain of living water only to dig cisterns that are broken and can hold no water. That is a description of what all idolatry is.

In the Kingdom Age all that is over. We drink directly from the river of life. When we learn to do that spiritually now, we are getting a foretaste of the true refreshing water. When we pray for others to so drink, we are handing out bottle water, so to speak, from the fountains of heaven!

21:23 Everlasting light. There will be no need for sun or moon, because the Lamb will be our light. That light is manifest now when we see Him clearly, and when we see ourselves as He sees us and see others as He sees them. Learning to see with heaven's eyes is a foretaste of eternity

22:2 Healing. In the Kingdom we will be fully healed by the possession of resurrection bodies without blemish or decay. Now, every healing is but a down payment on our future bodies, a quickening of mortal flesh in anticipation of the immortal to come.

22:3 See His Face. Now we see as through a glass darkly; then face to face. But what is often overlooked is that we do see now. We get inner glimpses of who Jesus is, and every glimpse changes us.

22:5 Reigning with Him. In the fullness of the Kingdom we will reign over the new earth with Him. The promise that Adam lost through disobedience is restored through the obedience of the Second Adam. Now, we get foretastes of this as we learn to reign over our earthly lives, conquering sinful habits and destructive behaviors and bring God's order to our bodies, lives, families and spheres of influence.

The Mystery of the Greatness…

“The mystery of the greatness of God is seen precisely in the fact that he can be small…Only when power is changed from the inside, and we accept Jesus and his way of life, whose whole self is there in the action of foot-washing, only then can the world be healed and the people be able to live at peace with one another.”
— Pope Benedict XVI

Hat Tip: The Anchoress

Foretastes & Down Payments

I was thinking this week about the concept of down payment on our future Kingdom inheritance: how healing is a down payment on resurrection bodies and the Holy Spirit is our deposit money on eternity.

If this is so, we should be able to see how down payments can be ours from each of the blessings of the new age of God's kingdom as described at the end of the Book of Revelation (Chpters 21 -22). I led a discussion on this topic at our Men's Bible Study Tuesday Night. Here are some of the ideas we discussed.

21:3 God dwelling with us. When the Kingdom is fully come we will experience God direct presence. Yet now, and increasingly as the birth pangs of the Kingdom increase, we experience breakthroughs of His felt and experienced presence into our lives and our worship times. Every sense of His presence is but a down payment on the ultimate tabernacling of God with us.

When we pray for someone to experience a breakthrough of the Kingdom, we are praying for God's presence to become exponentially real and immediate for them, not only for comfort but so that they will be changed to be like Jesus (1 John 3:1-3).

21:4 God wiping away our tears. In this age pain, sorrow and grief continue. We suffer, loved ones die, friends disappoint and betray, some are not healed. Yet in the midst of suffering God's comfort is ours in Christ. When we pray for someone to receive Kingdom comfort, - and every time we share the comfort we have received with someone else - every time we comfort as we have been comforted - we distribute a down payment on the day when all tears will be wiped away by the nailed scared hands of Jesus.

21:5 All things made new. The Bible is full of things being made new- new days, new songs, new springs of water, new hearts and new creations. In the seventies there was a phrase that was worn out to cliche status: Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Yet as trite as those words sound, for Christians they are really true. His mercies are new every morning, and new day is always dawning, and God is always doing a new thing.

When we pray for someone to receive a Kingdom breakthrough, we are therefore praying that they have a fresh start, a new beginning, a breaking of bondage to the past and release into God's future for them.

More on this tomorrow.

Embracing Our Weakness

The "IMonk," Michael Spencer, was especially good in his post yesterday about When I Am Weak: Why we must embrace our brokenness and never be good Christians.

I highly encourage everyone to read the whole thing. I certainly couldn't say it better. Even if you do not agree with parts of what he writes, you (and I) still need a good dose of humility and reality as conveyed in this article. If you think he is off base, please read it all the way to the end before you reject it. The Martin Luther quote at the end is especially good. Luther was right - simul justus et peccator.

Go ahead, read it.

Profound Thoughts

For a while now my wife, my kids, and some of my closest friends have been pushing me to change the character of my blog to include more original writing as opposed to just harvesting quotes and links to books and other blogs that I am reading. I have been trying to move in that direction, and will continue to do so.

You know something – it is hard to write something profound and worth reading on a consistent basis. My admiration for the bloggers who do so – as well as for preachers who do so every Sunday in their sermons – is increasing daily.

Here’s my profound thoughts for the day:

1. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. How awesome (in the full meaning of that overused word) is that!
2. BTW, He loves you too!
3. God is on His throne and He is not upset, worried or nervous about what is happening in the economy, the government, the war, or anything else. The end is known and the future is secure.
4. God is active all around us, and in us, all the time, if we will just open our eyes. God is speaking all the time, if we will just open and tune our ears to His voice.

How’s that for profound?

A Center Driven Life

I was walking along a beautiful beach last month, thinking and praying, when three words kept repeating in my mind. "Focused - Centered - Integrated." Here is what I think they mean, what I think the Lord was trying to say to me.

Focused: My focus should be Jesus and His Kingdom. I must know David's "one thing" (to behold the beauty of the Lord-Psalm 27:4) and Paul's "one thing" (to press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus - Phil 3:13-14). Together these two goals are really only one thing; a life focused on knowing and loving God
.
Centered: All of my life (inner and outer, private and public) should be directed from the center, from my one focus. It is all to easy to be influenced and directed by surrounding stimuli and distractions rather than from the inner direction from my core values and the Spirit of God. I do not believe that life can be lived alone and withdrawn; the outer world must be engaged, challenged, confronted and penetrated. But it must be done from and out of a strong center with one Focus. A strong journey inward must direct the journey outward.

A centered person is also someone who is a peace, not fearful in the storms. Jesus slept in the boat during the storm because He was centered in the Father.

Integrated: All of my life should be integrated with my center and focus. My heart can be so divided; fragmented like a multi-colored kaleidoscope. If a double minded man is unstable in all his ways (James 1:8), how much more so a man of many conflicted and divergent parts. I find that my life sometimes seem divided into separate parts - home, church, work, private time - that are not integrated as one consistent life. My constant prayer is and must be from Psalm 86:11 - " unite my heart to fear your name."

Father, I pray for a renewed God-ward focus, a centered personality, and an integrated life to glorify Christ always and in everything.

Amen.