no further

"Men will trust in God no further than they know Him." (Religious Affections, Edwards, 104)

humble broken-hearted

From an Edwards-chomping friend abroad:

"All gracious affections that are a sweet odour to Christ, and that fill the soul of a Christian with a heavenly sweetness and fragrancy, are broken-hearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble broken-hearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble broken-hearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behavior." (266)

At FBC we've been meditating on the story of the Samaritan Woman at the well. How could we read that story, or interact with people like that, that is, everyone, in church and out of it, without feeling a gravitas breaking our hearts and humbling our joys?

HT: dh

more secret and gradual

"It is true, that for any to expect to receive the saving influences of the appointed means of grace, is unreasonable presumption...It is also undoubtedly true that the Spirit of God is very various in the manner and circumstances of His operations, and that sometimes He operates in a way more secret and gradual, and from smaller beginnings, than at others." (The Religious Affections, Jonathan Edwards, 65)

prngrphy

Pornography is evil in so many ways.
There's the people involved, often there against their will or for lack of better options.
There's the people who spend money on it, who worship worthlessness.
There's the marriages it wrecks.
There's the single people who cannot form normal relationships with the opposite sex because their understanding of gender and sexuality has been misshapen by pornography.
There's the believer who's walk with the Lord and effectiveness in ministry is governed by guilt and shame.

Must Read: Porn-Again Christian, by Mark Driscoll
Get Help: Covenant Eyes
Get Friends: xxxChurch
Other Readings: John Piper material, CCEF material, Gospel Coalition material on Temptation and Sexuality.

Serving the Future You

Great article by Jason Jaggard in this months Next Wave e-zine: "Serving the Future You."
The thoughts correspond to a long-view perspective on Discipleship that the Lord's been reminding me of lately. In a nutshell:
Sure, you suck now. You do. You suck. But in five or ten or twenty years...how much less could you suck? A lot less.
Take this idea from a variety of angles:
What books do you want to read? Projects finished? Not by next year, but by 10 years out. whoa.
Or think of yourself in thirty years, alone, divorced, estranged, embittered, in poor health. What would you give to be standing beside your beautiful best-friend in front of an orphanage that you helped build with your grown children taking your picture and your grandchildren, named after you, playing happily behind them? Millions? A kidney?
Do now what your then-self would have you do. Read A Christmas Carol. Life is vapor and is far too short to waste it on ourselves. Love and give and fight sin. The long-view gives you context and courage by which you can more calmly and forcefully implement the Divine-will over and against your own.

Root of Bitterness?

Hebrews 12:15, "See to it ...that no "root of bitterness" springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled."
Who are the “many” who will be defiled? We are. Our Church is the "many."
What will defile us? A root of bitterness.
What is this thing, this root? It could be almost anything: personal, theological, situational. Anything in your craw that sticks there and makes you testy and sour and snappy. Could be something about God or the Bible. Could be something about me. Could be something about my son. Or the chairs. Or the president. Or...or...or... Any of the various serious to silly things that tick people off, make them mad, and poison God's people.
"See to it," friends.

desperado

Satan is desperate. He is a defeated foe. The time of his judgment is coming.

Revelation 12:12 But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!"

What do you think satan's doing with his short time?

Regrets

I just read this from an interview done with Billy Graham in Christianity Today: (HT: JT)

Do you have any regrets as you look back on your life?

I regret that I didn't spend more time with my family; I'm sure Ruth and the children paid a heavy price for all the times I was absent. I always tell younger evangelists not to feel like they have to accept every invitation they get, or be absent from home so much. We can do so much today through modern communications.

And then I also wish I had studied more, and spent more time in prayer.

I just read The Last Lecture and Leaving Church. I started to read another one of these "Now-I'm-Older/About-To-Die-And-Full-Of-Regrets" books and just returned it to the library.

Here's how they all go: 1) Phase One: I pushed hard and became a recognized expert in my field and/or rich and famous, 2) Phase Two: I had a crisis of some kind, such as sickness, accident or loss, 3) Phase Three: I discover that what really matters is family, helping others, and, if Christian, digging deeper into the basics of the faith.

And this is how it goes for us, twenty-something, thirty-something, family guys: 1) Phase One: Read book, 2) Phase Two: Get convicted and make all sorts of Edwardian vows and resolutions, 3) Phase Three: Fail to be both an upwardly mobile career-person and a dedicated husband and father, 4) Phase Four: Focus on the career...Arrive at the top...Write book. See paragraph above.

Guys, let's stop it. If the oldest and wisest of us repeatedly advise us to prioritize our families, our prayer lives, our time in the word...guess what we should be doing? So, let's do it. And they don't count as real priorities if you don't prioritize them in your schedule.

Whatever your career, you are first called to God in Christ. That's calling Number One. Then, if you're married, you are called to your spouse. That's calling Number Two. Then, if you have children, you are called to raise your children. That's calling Number Three. THEN, whatever your career, you are called to that next. That's calling Number Four. And this order especially holds true if your career is vocational ministry.

Jesus says something like this, right? The guy...he gains the whole world...he loses... We don't want to be the book writer who's plowed through wives and kids and sits alone atop his accolades and accomplishments, or even just his cabin and ATV.

People everywhere are dying to learn what it means to be a Human, to be a Friend, to follow Jesus. Men and Ministers, we don't show them by copying them. Let's copy Jesus.

Prioritize Priorities.

pairs of satans

Here's something unusual about the way satan likes to divide churches. He seems to prefer Pairs: For example, Hymenaeus and Alexander, Phylegus and Hermogenes, Jannes and Jambres, Hymenaeus and Philetus. If a team approach is strategic for ministry, it's also strategic for destroying ministry.
Now, we don't have quite this problem today because so few people have friends, but we have a similar problem. Instead of two people in the congregation causing trouble, it's usually one person in the congregation and one Christian or religious or at least conservative Celebrity: a scientist, a politician, a TV or radio personality, a preacher, a writer. More often than an actual tag-team dividing the church, it seems to be a person and a Personality.

person + PERSONALITY = trouble

So, in previous years I might have encouraged you to be careful of what you and your friends talk about, whether it accords with sound doctrine or is merely controversial. (And that warning is still good to think of: a conversation is helpful if it creates humility and love in you. Otherwise...meh.) While that encouragement still holds, be careful about what celebrity religious figures you let into your heart.
I read not long ago about a celebrity preacher, who pastors tens of thousands of people, attacking another celebrity preacher, who pastors tens of thousands of people. What do you think the issue was? The Gospel? Of course not. The one preacher didn't like how the other preacher preached a book of the Old Testament. The other preacher thought he didn't do it right.
Now, it doesn't matter who's right. Remember: there is a difference between being right, that is, saying true things, and speaking The TRUTH. It wasn't that the one preacher was saying wrong things about the gospel, or even that he was interpreting the bible wrongly; he just wasn't preaching correctly.
And what's the result? Tens of thousands of people now have another issue over which to fight. And guess who's happy?
Be careful of you're theological buddies. Be careful that you don't become tools of satan to destroy the church.
(Ironically enough, the seed idea for this meditation came from Mark Driscoll during his Gospel Coalition address.)

at least: O, Praise Him!

Well, it's been a long time, and I go back and forth about "blogging." I've basically decided that the internet doesn't exist. So, if it exists on the internet, then it doesn't really exist. Online is just another way of saying, "not real."
That being said, my thoughts might as well not matter online as not matter offline. So, to that illustrious end, I'm going to be posting again, maybe regularly, no promises. At any rate, it will force me to do a little editing and give me a reason to write a little more. Some place to put all that doesn't fit in my sermons, at any rate.
Again, if you're wondering, you can listen to my preaching at FBC Palmyra dot com. Also, if you don't have enough book reviews and interesting but useless quotes from books clogging your feed reader (Google Reader), feel free to subscribe to mine.
Finally, below, or somewhere in this post, there's a great video. If you need a little pick me up,...you're welcome.