Pray for Your Pastor

October is Pastor Appreciation Month.

Here's a link to a great article on How to Pray for Your Pastor.
 

Jesus Starts Meddling

From Radio Free Babylon - Click on image to see larger

Journeyman on Facebook

You can also follow this blog on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/TheJourneymansFiles?ref=hl

Would love to see you there also!

Twitter Gleanings

Gleanings from my Twitter feed:

If you live for the approval of others, you'll die with their rejection.@RickWarren

RT @LifeVerse: If you give beyond your ability, God will bless you beyond your ability. Mark Batterson

RT @bcloritts  "Holiness hardly ever becomes a reality until we care more about Jesus than about holiness"- Steve Brown, A Scandalous Freedom

RT @jeffredding: Primary goal of spiritual leadership: Take people from where try are now to where God wants them to be.

RT @LifeVerse: Divine detours often get us where God wants us to go. Mark Batterson

RT @StephenMiller: We are all always worshiping something or someone. And we will become like what we worship.

RT @PastorTullian: God is in the business of replacing our ladders with his cross.

RT @TimTebow "Happy moments, praise God. Difficult moments, seek God. Quiet moments, worship God. Painful moments, trust God. Every moment, THANK GOD."

RT @parkerwindle: "The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity." Mike Stachura

RT @rayortlund: Gospel doctrine + gospel culture = a church marked by human beauty. Makes the truth believable, accessible.

RT @BryanPickering: The cross is the best and quickest summary of what God says to unworthy people. - Ed Welch @ccef

Approval Addiction

Quotes on "Approval Addiction " from Empty Promises by Pete Wilson:

"...approval addiction is the process of looking to people or relationships to provide the love, acceptance, and validation that should come from God.

And that , of course, is idolatry." - Page 51

"Approval addicts are destined for a life of mediocrity because they always have to follow the herd - and that's the very opposite of what Christ calls us to do....

....If you depend on other people approving or supporting everything you say or do, you will end up doing and saying nothing. You will be handcuffed to mediocrity." - pages 56-57

Approval addiction is essentially an act of self-abandonment. Instead of finding your value and worth from your Creator, you have given your heart up for adoption. You have given it away to others for love and approval, making them responsible for your feelings...Depending on anyone other than God for fundamental validation is just asking for heartbreak." - page 58

"Your worth and value aren't determined by anyone's love and acceptance except for God's. And God's love and acceptance is already guaranteed. If you look to him for love and approval, you sill never be rejected." - page 61

Have I mentioned that I like this book?

Empty Promises

Video Trailer for Pete Wilsons book Empty Promises: The Truth About You, Your Desires, and the Lies You're Believing

Unshakable Position

I'm enjoying Pete Wilson's newest book. Here's some good stuff!

""..my goal these days...is to transition from a success-based identity to a position-based identity.

What is a position-based identity? It means that instead of gathering self-worth externally - from achievement - we try to receive it internally. We begin to understand that self-worth comes from who we are in Christ, not what we accomplish in this world...

...Positional-based identity doesn't come from your performance or from anyone else's evaluation of your performance. Rather, positional-based identity comes from how you feel about your position in Christ...

...Is the root of your identity in the truth that right now you are loved?
 
Do you believe that right now you are accepted, that right now you are enough because you are the beloved child of the King?

Basing your identity on that reality is the only way to treat an achievement addiction. It's the only way to tear down the ladder and destroy the treadmill of achievement and success. Because if you do that, your life will be rooted in something that cannot be shaken."

 - Pete Wilson, Empty Promises: The Truth About You, Your Desires, and the Lies You're Believing, pages 42-45

In Christ and the Neighbor

The Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and the neighbor. He lives in Christ through faith and in his neighbor through love.

           –Martin Luther, Freedom of the Christian 1520.

Hat Tip: Liberate

Why Does God Allow Evil?

Wisdom from Tim Keller:

God only allows Satan to accomplish the very opposite of what he wants to accomplish. He only gives Satan enough rope to hang himself…God hates evil. He’s against it. He didn’t create a world in which evil existed. But He permits it. Why? He permits Satan only to bring evil into Job’s life in such a way, in such an amount, that actually completely defeats Satan’s real intention. Satan is only allowed by God to actually defeat himself and achieve the very opposite of what he wanted.
…He permits evil and suffering to come into your life only to the degree that it defeats the actual intention of Satan for you. Only to the degree that it makes you a great person. Only to the degree that it actually defeats itself.

From Tim Keller Quotes

Internship for the Eschaton

I collected the following quotes from Twitter highlights of Dr. Russell Moore's message at this years Desiring God National Conference. Wonderful stuff!

"Preaching is expository exorcism."

"When we gather together to hear God's word preached we are hearing a plea sent down from Jesus himself."

"In our little congregational meetings we are seeing the kingdom of God uprooting another kingdom."

"The King of the kingdom is the one who defines those who are received into the kingdom."

"Your vote on receiving a new member into your congregation is more significant than your vote for a US president."

"Your life in the local church is just an internship for the eschaton."

I don't know if I've gotten these quotes in the order of the original message. Sure sounds like it was a good one - filled with an understanding of the Gospel of the Kingdom!