Tuesday, December 29, 2009

10 Questions To Ask In The New Year...

I'm a big proponent of reexamining, rechecking, reflecting...just all the "re's" I guess...at the end of one year and the beginning of another.

It's a perfect time to really look back and assess our spiritual strengths and spiritual weaknesses (the good, the bad and the ugly). It's a perfect time b/c it seems that our culture/our world still moves a little slower than normal coming off the Christmas holidays and it allows us a chance to take a spiritual breath and to spiritually think.

So here's some help to that end...

Don Whitney:

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God.

1.What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

2.What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?

3.What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?

4.In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?

5.What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?

6.What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?

7.For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?

8.What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?

9.What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?

10.What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?


Please pray through these by yourself and then make "yourself available" to sit down with your wife/husband and talk and pray through these together. It would make for great table talk during date night. As a matter of fact Stephanie and I will be doing just that this Friday, so we will be talking through these together.

Whitney writes:

The value of many of these questions is not in their profundity, but in the simple fact that they bring an issue or commitment into focus. For example, just by articulating which person you most want to encourage this year is more likely to help you remember to encourage that person than if you hadn’t considered the question.

You can read the full (31 Questions) list here.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Monday, December 21, 2009

Check This Freak Out!



This is bold and beautiful to watch! It all goes down about 3:33 into the video. Is He this holy in Eads?

Sunday, December 20, 2009

The Mind Of A Missionary

Young missionaries, when warned they could die in this hostile place, said: "We died before we came here." Colossians 3:3

(HT:John Piper/Twitter)

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Love It...Bringin' It From Dockers!

Talking about 'manning up'.

Someone has had enough of the Political Correctness in this country at Dockers, and it's about time!

Check out this man-ifesto from Dockers on their store website.....I'm lovin' it!

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

What is the most effective way for parents to influence their children?

Gary Thomas gives a great answer to a great question. As parents we should be asking similar questions like this often.

You can click Here to watch Gary's answer in under 2 minutes.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Gospel Centered Leadership

Here is a good reminder from Tullian Tchividjian of what should be the aim of my life as a Christian/pastor/shepherd/leader. I hope this is true of my life now and will always be true.

I hope it reminds you of your own repentance and faith.


In the June issue of Tabletalk my friend Scotty Smith wrote an article to young Christian leaders exhorting them to be gospel-centered in their various roles (for whatever reason I just saw it and read it today). Reflecting on mistakes he’s made and lessons he’s learned over a 30 year span of fruitful ministry, he outlines his exhortation under three headings:

1.Gospel astonishment versus theological cockiness
2.Chief repenter versus former sinner
3.Preaching Christ to yourself versus preaching yourself


Scotty’s timely cry for “an emerging generation of leaders who will live and lead as genuinely as [the apostle]Paul” is painfully helpful, not only for young Christian leaders but for all Christian’s everywhere.

You can read the whole thing here. Please do!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!

Over the last couple of months I've been extremely busy. I have wanted to blog, but literally haven't had the time to think through things enough to make a coherent thought. I've missed it greatly.

Due to the Thanksgiving holidays I have taken this week off and will be enjoying some time with family down in Alabama. I'm anticipating my schedule opening up a bit over the next several weeks, so Lord willing I will put some much needed time back into blogging.

Please pray for our family as we will be traveling and for us to enjoy one another's fellowship!

I would love to hear how you are spending your Thanksgiving and any sweet family traditions that you like to celebrate.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

You Cannot Gather Together...

Pray for our brothers and sisters in Vietnam. This video was taken while one little church was gathering together to worship Christ. They are being raided by the authorities of the town while meeting.

What would you do NLC? How would you respond?




(HT: John Piper)

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Glorify God By Working Out Your Salvation In Christ

“We glorify God by working out our own salvation. God has twisted together his glory and our good. What an encouragement is this to the service of God, to think, while I am hearing and praying, I am glorifying God; while I am furthering my own glory in heaven, I am increasing God’s glory.

Would it not be an encouragement to a subject, to hear his prince say to him, You will honour and please me very much, if you will go to yonder mine of gold, and dig as much gold for yourself as you can carry away? So, for God to say, Go to the ordinances, get as much grace as you can, dig out as much salvation as you can; and the more happiness you have, the more I shall count myself glorified.”

—Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity

(HT: OfFirstImportance)

Thursday, November 5, 2009

My Father's Daughter

I encourage each of you to take a moment and read up on my wife Stephanie's new blog. She has called it My Father's Daughter.

It is her spiritual effort to encourage, minister, and lead others to lean on Christ, who are facing the realization that they have been Donor Conceived.

I love my wife and I knew that it was just a matter of time before she picked up this crisis in her own life and turned it into a way to help people see the beauty and worth of Jesus Christ through it all.

Please pray for her b/c she longs for her blog to be a means of God's grace to so many people. Something that is very encouraging is....within the first few hours of her blog going public she already had a good number of hits from all over the world.

These precious people are hurting and they need to turn to Jesus. If you happen to know anyone who is wrestling with this in their lives, please encourage them to contact Stephanie.

Praise God for His comfort to comfort others!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Next Time You Fulfill A Conditional Promise In Scripture...

Below is a pretty good article from John Piper on reading the scriptures. It addresses a God-centered thinking when reading the Bible and applying the Bible. I was encouraged as Piper reminded me that even when fulfilling the conditional promises in Scripture, it is the power of God working in me to fulfill them.

_____________________________

One of the Most Important Principles in Reading the Bible

Sometimes readers of the Bible see the conditions that God lays down for his blessing and they conclude from these conditions that our action is first and decisive, then God responds to bless us.

That is not right.

There are indeed real conditions that God often commands. We must meet them for the promised blessing to come. But that does not mean that we are left to ourselves to meet the conditions or that our action is first and decisive.

Here is one example to show what I mean.

In Jeremiah 29:13 God says to the exiles in Babylon, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” So there is a condition: When you seek me with all your heart, then you will find me. So we must seek the Lord. That is the condition of finding him.

True.

But does that mean that we are left to ourselves to seek the Lord? Does it mean that our action of seeking him is first and decisive? Does it mean that God only acts after our seeking?

No.

Listen to what God says in Jeremiah 24:7 to those same exiles in Babylon: “I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.”

So the people will meet the condition of returning to God with their whole heart. God will respond by being their God in the fullest blessing. But the reason they returned with their whole heart is that God gave them a heart to know him. His action was first and decisive.

So now connect that with Jeremiah 29:13. The condition there was that they seek the Lord with their whole heart. Then God will be found by them. But now we see that the promise in Jeremiah 24:7 is that God himself will give them such a heart so that they will return to him with their whole heart.

This is one of the most basic things people need to see about the Bible. It is full of conditions we must meet for God’s blessings. But God does not leave us to meet them on our own. The first and decisive work before and in our willing is God’s prior grace. Without this insight, hundreds of conditional statements in the Bible will lead us astray.

Let this be the key to all Biblical conditions and commands: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13). Yes, we work. But our work is not first or decisive. God’s is. “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

(HT: Desiring God)

Saturday, October 24, 2009

In & Out Grace

“God’s grace is the driving force of all change. . . . God’s grace has both an inward and an outward movement that mirror each other.

Internally, the grace of God moves me to see my sin, respond in repentance and faith, and then experience the joy of transformation.

Externally, the grace of God moves me to see opportunities for love and service, respond in repentance and faith, and experience joy as I see God work through me.”

~ Bob Thune and Will Walker, The Gospel Centered-Life

(HT: Of First Importance)

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Satisfied?

“Whoever is not satisfied with Christ alone, strives after something beyond absolute perfection.”

~ John Calvin

(HT: Of First Importance)

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

God's Mercy On Par With My Hope?

Let Thy lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us, According as we have hoped in Thee. ~ Psalm 33.22

I've never prayed like this before....and I've never sung a song like this before.

I've never prayed that God's mercy would be shown to me on the same level as I hope in Him. It seems at first that this would be a frightening prayer to pray. The reason for this is because I don't see myself hoping in God on the same level that I need His mercy/His lovingkindness.

So I believe this verse of scripture should pierce anyone who reads it with a meditative mind and with a heart that desires sanctification.

Albert Barnes expounds on the verse when he writes,

"The true principle, therefore, upon which God is willing to bestow His favors, and which will be the rule that He will observe, is, that if people desire much, they will obtain much; that if they have big expectations, they will not be disappointed; and that God is willing to bestow His mercies upon His people and upon the world to the utmost of their desires and hopes. Compare Psalm 81:10, "Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." Psalm 37:4, "delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart."

So how intense and fervent, then, should be the prayers and the petitions of the people of God! How earnest the supplications of sinners that God would have mercy on them!"

One Of The Best Quotes That I've Read Recently

I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only that I see it, but by it I see everything else.

~ CS Lewis

(HT: Piper on Twitter)

Monday, October 12, 2009

Christ Had No Limits

Christ turned his back, voluntarily, deliberately, and decisively, upon all that belonged to personal glory, and all that conduced to personal gain.

He recognized no limit to the extent to which His obedience to God in self-humbling must go. Whatever he found in himself to be expendable, he spent. While anything was left which could be poured forth, he poured it forth. Nothing was too small to give, or too great.

This is the mind and the life which is commended to us by the example of Christ and approved by signal acts of God.

- Alec Motyer, The Message of Philippians

(HT: Of First Importance)

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

What Is Your Only Comfort In Life And Death?

What is your only comfort in life and death? (Question 1)

“That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.”

~ The Heidelberg Catechism

Monday, October 5, 2009

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Faith And Repentance At Work From The Preaching Of God's Word

How does faith and repentance take place since the natural man is incapable of creating a right thought, generating a right affection, or originating a right volition (Rom. 3:11, 8:7; John 3:3, 6)?

When spoken in the power of the Holy Spirit, the word of God has the power to graciously open people's eyes, unplug their uncircumcised ears, change the disposition of their hearts, draw them to faith, and save them (James 1:18, 1 Peter 1:23, 25).

The word of God does not work "ex opere operato," rather, it is the work of the Holy Spirit sovereignly dispensing grace (John 3:8), quickening the heart through the word to bring forth life. So the written word is not the material of the spiritual new birth, but rather its means or medium.

"The word is not the begetting principle itself, but only that by which it works: the vehicle of the mysterious germinating power" [ALFORD]. It is because the Spirit of God accompanies it that the word carries in it the germ of life. The life is in God, yet it is communicated to us through the word.

~ Monergism Distinctives

Who May Ascend & Who May Stand Before The Lord?

Psalm 24.4 says,

One Who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity - Unto that which is "vain," or which is "false."

This expression might refer to one who had not devoted himself to the worship of an idol - regarded as vain, or as nothing 1Corinthians 8:6; Isaiah 41:24; Psalm 115:4-8; or to one who had not embraced that which is false and vain in opinion; or to one who had not sworn falsely, or taken the name of God in vain, Exodus 20:7.

The probable meaning is, that he has not set his heart on vain things, or that which is false. He has sought after substantial truth, alike in the object of worship, in that which he professes to believe, and in the statements and promises which he makes to others. He aims to secure that which is true and real. He is in no sense "carried away" with that which is unreal and false.

~ Albert Barnes

My prayer is that God will protect our faith in Him, so that we will not get swept away by anything that is vain and false in our devotion to Him. I'm praying that we will not be too easily satisfied, but maintain a long, deep, and abiding desire for Christ.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Mission To El Higo, Mexico

God gave us a wonderful time visiting the children's home ministry in El Higo, Mexico. The name of the home is Casa Hogar De La Montana (which means home of the homeless in the mountains). It is located about 3 hours south of Laredo, Texas (which is a border town).

We learned that it is more of a foster home than an orphanage and all the children will remain there until they are 18. They currently have two houses. They are divided between the younger children (10 kids) and preteen and teenagers (14 kids). So they currently have 24 children, but some of them are from the two sets of indigenous parents that run the two houses. Their goal is to have 12 houses one day. It is truly a beautiful place that is snuggled in the Mexican mountains. I was told that the elevation is compared to Denver, Colorado.

We spent three days actually interacting with the leader of the ministry, Al Gatty and the family that oversees the ministry, Phillip and Rebbecca Askee and their two teenage daughters. The Askees are Americans who are from a town right outside of Dallas and they are a very sweet Christian family who have a desire not only to minister to the children, but an amazing desire to reach the village that is located next to their children's home.

The village next to the children's home is very poor. It probably has about 75-100 people who live in this village. Spiritually it is a very dark village and they are in desperate need of a true gospel presence. There is a lot of drunkenness and other kinds of sins that I would prefer not to mention.

Our purpose in going was to assess the possibility of starting a new church on the land of the children's home, but in order to reach the village of El Higo and other villages within the area.

Our mother church, Lakewood Baptist and Pastor Brent Wells are leading this effort and as a church planter asked me to go along to assess this possibility.

As the Lord would lead you please pray that God will give each of us wisdom and discernment as we continue the process of discussing with Al, Phillip, and Rebbecca about planting a church in El Higo, Mexico.

Thank you!

Why Are You Called A Christian?

Why are you called a Christian?

“Because I am a member of Christ by faith and thus share in His anointing, so that I may as prophet confess His Name, as priest present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to Him, and as king fight with a free and good conscience against sin and the devil in this life, and hereafter reign with Him eternally over all creatures.”

- The Heidelberg Catechism

(HT: Of First Importance)

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Just Returned From Mission To Mexico

Just returned from our mission trip to Mexico yesterday (Saturday) evening.

Now it's Sunday morning....I'm feeling a little under the weather and wanted to let everyone know that I will post soon on our trip to Mexico.

Please pray for our family!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Moralism or The Gospel?

Here is an excellent article from Al Mohler that every pastor, parent and I'm trying to think of another 'P' word but I can't, needs to read.

Take 3-5 minutes to read this article on whether or not your preaching moralism and/or 'raising your kids right', but in the end all your doing is teaching people/children how to be moral.

This is NOT the gospel!

This is a really good article and worth the few minutes to read it.

Let me hear your thoughts on it!

http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=4388

Friday, August 21, 2009

The Gospel-Centered Church

Here is a pretty good post from Tullian Tchividjian on how a gospel-centered church functions.

The gospel is the story of God in Christ reaching down to a sinful world and our tri-fold response to the gospel (or, the gospel-centered life) is a life lived reaching up, reaching in, and reaching out. God intends the reality and power of the gospel to mold and shape us at every point and in every way–defining the way we think, feel, and live as a local church.

Churches often obscure the glory of the gospel by reducing it to something less than it is. Some understand the gospel only as doctrinal content to be believed. Others diminish it to a personal, subjective experience of God’s presence. Still others see it as a social cause to be championed. The gospel is none of these, and yet it is all of these. A truly gospel-centered church understands and embraces the fullness of the gospel as content, community, and cause.”

GOSPEL CONTENT The Gospel is a message that is to be preached or proclaimed (Mark 1:14; Acts 14:21; Rom 1:15; 1 Peter 1:12). It is the story of God’s redemption of his fallen creation. It is the good news that God has acted in history to conquer evil and reconcile sinners to himself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor 15:1-12). A gospel-centered church is one where the gospel is proclaimed clearly, consistently, and compellingly (1 Cor 9:16-23).

GOSPEL COMMUNITY The gospel is not just a message to be believed, but a power to be experienced (Rom 1:16). The gospel shapes a new community as those who were formerly God’s enemies are reconciled to Him (Rom 5:10) and adopted into his family (Gal 4:4-7). The church is not a place, but a people – a community that is continually being reformed and renewed by the transforming power of the gospel (Col. 1:6).

GOSPEL CAUSE The gospel is a call to action – a declaration that “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). God is not just interested in the salvation of humans, but in the restoration of all of creation to its original “good” (Gen 1:31; Rom 8:19-22). A gospel-centered church will be active in the work of mercy, justice, and cultural renewal, praying and working against the effects of sin so that God’s will might be done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).

(HT: Tullian Tchividjian)

Four Great Quotes On Idolatry

“It is the normal state of the human heart to try to build its identity around something besides God.” Soren Kierkegaard

“Spiritual pride is the illusion that you are competent to run your own life, achieve your own sense of self worth, and find a purpose big enough to give you meaning in life without God.”
Tim Keller

“Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that is meant to be worshipped.” St. Augustine

“An idol is anything we trust in for deliverance in the place of Jesus and his grace.” Scotty Smith

"By the way, idolatry is not just a problem for non-Christians; it’s a problem for Christians too (read 1 John 5:21). We Christians are also guilty of trusting in something–or someone–smaller than God to give our lives meaning and significance. We look to our achievements, our reputation, our relationships, our strengths, our place in society, our stuff, our smarts, our good looks, and on and on it goes.

So, let’s not make the mistake of thinking the above quotes don’t apply to Christians. They do. What are your idols? What are you trusting in other than Jesus to gain acceptance and approval–to give your life meaning and to make life worth living?"

(HT: Tullian Tchividjian)

Ahhh, The Legacy Of Socialism

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."

~ Thomas Sowell

(HT: Tim Challies...tweet)

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Psalm 118.24

"This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it."

This is a very common Psalm. And I really enjoyed Barnes' Notes this morning on this Psalm. I have copied them below and I hope it encourages your soul today!

Psalm 118:24
This is the day which the Lord hath made - As if it were a new day, made for this very occasion; a day which the writer of the psalm did not expect to see, and which seemed therefore to have been created out of the ordinary course, and added to the other days.

He was in danger of death; his days were likely to be cut off and ended, so that he should see no more. But God had spared him, and added this joyous day to his life; and it was meet that for this he should be praised. It was so full of joy, so unexpected, so bright, so cheerful, that it appeared to be a new day coming fresh from the hand of the Almighty, unlike the other days of the year.

So the Sabbath - the day that commemorates the resurrection of the Redeemer - is God’s day. He claims it. He seems to have made it anew for man. Amidst the other days of the week - in a world where the ordinary days are filled up with so much of earth, so much toil, trouble, care, vexation, vanity, wickedness - it seems like one of the days that God made when he first made the world; before sin and sorrow entered; when all was calm, serene, happy.

The Sabbath is so calm, so bright, so cheerful, so benign in its influence; it is so full of pleasant and holy associations and reminiscences, that it seems to be a day fresh from the hand of God, unlike the other days of the week, and made especially, as if by a new act of creation, for the good of mankind. So when a man is raised up from sickness - from the borders of the grave - it seems to be a new life given to him. Each day, week, month, year that he may live, is so much added to his life, as if it were created anew for this very purpose. He should, therefore, regard it not as his own, but as so much given to him by the special mercy and providence of God - as if added on to his life.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it. The psalmist, and all who united with him in his thanksgivings. So the Christian Sabbath. It is a day of joy - all joy, and no sorrow. It is a day to be happy in; a day of rest; a day, when the cares and toils of life are suspended; a day, when we are no longer harassed with those things which vex us in the worldliness of the week; a day, when we think of God, of redemption, of hope, of heaven. The Sabbath should be a day of joy, and not of gloom; it would be the happiest of all days to weary and jaded people everywhere, if they observed it aright. In a world of toil and sorrow, it is among the richest of God’s blessings to people; it strengthens, refreshes, and cheers the heart of burdened and sorrowful man here; it lifts the soul to joyous contemplation of that eternal Sabbath where wearisome toll and sorrow shall be no more.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Two Kingdom Theology and Neo-Kuyperians

When you have 7 minutes to read a blog post and you want to stretch your thinking about the Kingdom of God, the church and her ministry for today, then check out Kevin DeYoung's post by clicking here.

It is well worth the time to read and think through the implications of not only what you believe, but more importantly how you live out what you believe concerning the Kingdom of God.

Enjoy and discuss it!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Every Church Is Dying

This is a pretty interesting take on churches today from Tullian Tchividjian's blog.

"My friend Darryl Dash notes that every church is a dying church in one of three ways:

Some churches are literally dying. They are slowly losing people and will likely shut down.

Some churches are glitzy and successful. They look vibrant and alive, but they’re really only alive to themselves and their institution. They look alive, but they’re dying and they don’t know it.

Then there’s the church that could be big or small, glitzy or drab, that dies to itself daily – that has taken up the cross and is more concerned with following Christ, no matter what it costs, than its survival.

All churches are dying. Only the third type of church, however, will experience a resurrection. What kind of church are we?"

Saturday, August 8, 2009

What's Jesus' Strength To Do God's Will?

Jesus' strength to do God's will is....to do God's will. “My food is to do the will of him who sent me” (Jo 4:34).

~ John Piper (twitter)

It's 4 AM. Do You Know Where Your Kids Are?

Well it's about 4.15 am. I just finished my sermon for this Sunday and I'm exhausted. The reason for the late night is, my three oldest children are coming home tomorrow or today actually! Seth, Micah and Abby should be on their way to Memphis right now from spending time with my folks in Louisiana. My dad likes to leave early!

I finished up my sermon, so that I could spend the rest of the day with them. I usually polish up my sermon on Saturdays, but I really wanted to be unhindered so I can hang out with my kids for the first time in over a month.

God I pray that you keep them safe today as they travel. Help them to enjoy You and Your creation as they travel the countryside. May they think much about Your handy work. Keep those around them safe as well. Amen!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

How George Whitefield Studied The Bible

"There he is at five in the morning . . . . on his knees with his English Bible, his Greek New Testament and Henry's Commentary spread out before him. He reads a portion in the English, gains a fuller insight into it as he studies words and tenses in the Greek and then considers Matthew Henry's explanation of it all.

Finally, there comes the unique practice that he has developed: that of 'praying over every line and word' of both the English and the Greek till the passage, in its essential message, has veritably become part of his own soul."

Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield, I:82-83.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)

Saturday, August 1, 2009

I'm Now A Bi-Vocational Pastor!

Well about 4 weeks ago I became a bi-vocational pastor. God provided a sweet job to help us meet some financial needs. A church just outside of Memphis was needing someone to work as their maintenance guy and so I pursued it and it was a good fit.

It has been a blessing for our family, but has taken me away from blogging, which I really enjoy doing.

Anyway, we are thankful to God for providing for our needs. Please pray that I will be able to juggle this new schedule.

Also, I start back at school in a couple of weeks. My classes will be every Monday evening. I am attending Union University and pursuing a degree in Organizational Leadership. Hopefully over the next few weeks I'll have a pretty good routine down, so I would appreciate you praying for me!

Would You Pray This Prayer?




(HT: Josh Harris)

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Do You Often Remember The Gospel's Effectual Work In Your Life?



Colossians 2.13-14

"And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,

having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."

Friday, July 24, 2009

Don't Be Ashamed....Go Ahead And Tell Others!

“When we preach Christ crucified, we have no reason to stammer, or stutter, or hesitate, or apologize; there is nothing in the gospel of which we have any cause to be ashamed.”

~ Charles H. Spurgeon, "Spurgeon Quotes on the Gospel"

(HT: Of First Importance)

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Can You Get De-Baptized?

I picked up this post from Denny Burk. Thought you all might like to read about a new 'trend'.

It would seem that atheists would be among the most dispassionate people on earth vis a vis religion. But that is not the case. In too many instances, they are not content to disbelieve. Their unbelief (far from giving them objectivity) compels them to berate those who do not hold their view. They are like the fool of Proverbs 19:3, “The foolishness of man ruins his way, And his heart rages against the LORD.”

Here’s an article from USA Today explaining the new trend among atheists, ‘de-baptism.’

‘Up until last summer, Jennifer Gray of Columbus, Ohio, considered herself “a weak Christian” whose baptism at age 11 in a Kentucky church came to mean less and less to her as she gradually lost faith in God.

‘Then the 32-year-old medical transcriptionist took a decisive step, one that previously hadn’t been available. She got “de-baptized.

In a type of mock ceremony that’s now been performed in at least four states, a robed “priest” used a hairdryer marked “reason” in an apparent bid to blow away the waters of baptism once and for all. Several dozen participants then fed on a “de-sacrament” (crackers with peanut butter) and received certificates assuring they had “freely renounced a previous mistake, and accepted Reason over Superstition.”

Whatever you do....don't shake your head and think "this girl is absolutely pitiful"! This ought to break your heart for those who are so blind and calloused to the Truth of Christ. This girl apparently grew up in the church. If it were not for God's sustaining grace, we too would reject everything that we have been taught about the gloriousness of God in Christ. Pray for her! Pray that God will open the eyes of her heart that she may see Christ for who He is. Pray that she would seek God while He still may be found!

Friday, July 17, 2009

Be Careful To Reserve The Word Heresy!

I have longed believe that the word heresy should only be used when orthodoxy has been broken when specifically concerning the doctrine of the person and work of Christ and the Trinity. This morning Al Mohler takes up the issue when he discusses the current state of the Episcopal Church.

Dr. Katherine Jefferts Schori is the presiding Bishop and she addresses their national convention by declaring that all who profess that Jesus Christ can save them and put them in a right relationship with God are caught up into the web of a Western heresy. Of course, she is flip flopping the issue. She claims that those who actually embrace an individualistic approach to the saving work of Christ are heretics. The irony!

But I wanted to highlight Mohler's paragraph that deals with what heresy should specifically concern.....it is below.

"In the history of Christian theology, the word heresy has been most properly applied to what the church has recognized as false and unbiblical teachings concerning the doctrines most closely related to Christ and the Trinity. The word heresy should properly be reserved for teachings that directly reject what the Bible reveals and the Church has confessed concerning the person and work of Christ and the reality and integrity of the Trinity. There are any number of false teachings and erroneous doctrines, but the term heresy should be restricted to those most central to the Gospel itself."

You can read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

How Does The Wrath Of Man Praise God?

Psalm 76.10 "For the wrath of man shall praise Thee; With a remnant of wrath Thou shalt gird Thyself."

Please read Albert Barnes' commentary below on this verse.

"The "wrath" of the invading host had given occasion for this manifestation of the divine perfections; or, in other words, his character would not have been displayed in this manner if it had not been for these wicked purposes of people. It is not that there was anything in the wrath itself, or in their plans or intentions, that was in itself "adapted" to honor God; but that it was overruled by him, so that he took "occasion" from it to display his own character.

The wicked conduct of a child is an "occasion" for the display of the just character and the wise administration of a parent; the act of a pirate, a rebel, a murderer, furnishes an "occasion" for the display of the just principles of law, and the stability and power of a government. In like manner, the sins of the wicked are made an occasion for the display of the divine perfections in maintaining law; in the administering of justice; in preserving order.

But there is another sense, also, in which the wrath of man is made the occasion for glorifying God. It is, that since there is such wrath, or since there are such wicked purposes, God makes use of that wrath, or of those wicked purposes, as he does of the powers of nature - of pestilence, disease, and storms, as instruments to accomplish his own designs, or to bring about great results. Thus he made use of the treasonable purpose of Judas, and the mad passions and the angry feelings of the Jews, in bringing about the work of redemption by the death of his Son...."

Even in the wrath of man, the glory of God is brilliantly seen in His divine character to uphold law, justice and order in the world. The wrath of man also displays the divine perfections for providing One who has taken upon Himself the punishment for our breaking His law, thus we clearly see His justice for our sin and to establish a spiritual order that is tethered to His gospel.

"And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach" ~ Colossians 1.21-22

Charles Spurgeon On The Bridge Of Grace

“The bridge of grace will bear your weight, brother. Thousands of big sinners have gone across that bridge, yea, tens of thousands have gone over it. I can hear their trampings now as they traverse the great arches of the bridge of salvation. They come by the thousands, by their myriads, e’er since that day when Christ first entered His glory.

They come and yet never a stone has sprung in that mighty bridge. Some have been the chief of sinners and some have come at the very last of their days but the arch has never yielded beneath their weight. I will go with them, trusting to the same support. It will bear me over as it has for them.”

~ Charles Spurgeon

(HT: Of First Importance)

Monday, July 13, 2009

Are You Holy? It May Not Be What You're Thinking!

“The holiest Christians are not those most concerned about holiness as such, but whose minds and hearts and goals and purposes and love and hope are most fully focused on our Lord Jesus Christ.”

~ J.I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit

(HT: Of First Importance)

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Are You Paying Attention To The Way The Enemy Wants To Destroy Your Faith In Christ?

Today I preached on Colossians 2.8-10.

Here in these verses the Apostle Paul is engaging himself in spiritual battle over the souls of those who were being lured away from their faith in the Deity of Christ and the sufficiency of Christ to save.

The choice weapon of the enemy was: philosophy!

For the Colossian Christians it was a particular hybrid of philosophies of the day. But nevertheless, it was the very weapon that the enemy used to try and destroy the faith of Christians. Belief in anything that seeks to diminish the Deity of Christ and the sufficiency of Christ to save is empty deception and a false system of belief.

We are bombarded by this kind of philosophy all day long in our own culture. The enemies sole desire is to rob, kill and destroy our faith and Christianity. Therefore we must stay tethered to the true gospel. We must stay tethered to the truth about Jesus Christ, that He is the fullness of God manifest in the flesh and because of His deity, He has the power to save and sustain anyone for Himself.

My aim: That we would take seriously Paul's exhortation to flee any kind of man-centered teaching that goes against the truth about Jesus Christ and the sufficiency of the gospel to save and to satisfy.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

How Do You Protect Yourself From Exchanging Grace For Merit?

Last Sunday Pastor Brent Wells, from our mother church Lakewood Baptist, preached in my absence. He preached on Hebrews 12.8-25.

In this passage there is the contrast between Mt. Sinai and Mt. Zion. Both have God. Both have the people of God. And both have God's holiness all over it. But one you can physically touch while the other is physically untouchable. One you can physically pursue, while the other pursues you. One has never been intended to save, the other is intended to save. One does not have a mediator, while the other has a Mediator!

The non-believing Hebrews tried to use Mt. Sinai and the law to approach God. They simply would not put the rights, rituals, and ceremonies down. They wouldn't put the old down for the New. Thus they never understood the full purpose of the law and did not embrace God's grace over merit.

Application for the church today.....How do you protect yourself from exchanging grace for merit?

First let me say, we're not talking about falling from grace, but getting tangled and encumbered with striving to earn God's love even within the Christian life.

How can we have our quiet times without doing it for merit sake?
How can we attend church without doing it for merit sake?
How can we witness to the lost without doing it for merit sake?
How can men pastor their families without doing it for merit sake?
How can women follow their husbands and train their children in righteousness without doing it for merit sake?

In the context of Hebrews 12 we should preach the gospel to ourselves. We should constantly put God's Word before us and examine the ways that He has shown Himself to be holy, righteous, perfect and good. We should constantly see ourselves as helpless and hopeless apart from God. We should constantly make ourselves aware of the fact that we are in desperate need of a Mediator between us and God. We should constantly look to the cross to see how God has provided the way for us to be reconciled to Him through the Mediator....Jesus Christ!

This is the kind of Christian approach to protect ourselves from doing things for merit sake. One is totally from the heart that longs to see Christ glorified. While the other is stoic with no affections for God whatsoever and for a season looks good on the outside, but is nothing more than a tomb on the inside.

We simply must be intentional and aggressive with the gospel!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

A Recent "Tweet" From Piper

Here is a line from Piper on Twitter.....

"The reputation of Christianity in the wildly successful first century: “Everywhere it is spoken AGAINST.” (Acts 28:22)."

It's tough to deal with rejection, no doubt, but maybe it's time we have a wildly successful century of Christianity again and be spoken against for the right reasons.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The American Revolution....A Justified War?

After spending some time away on vacation I'm catching up a bit on what I've missed in the blog world. The 4th of July is my wedding anniversary so any time I see something about the 4th I'm all eyes.

I ran across a blog post from Denny Burk. He answered a question about the justification for the American Revolution, he quoted John MacArthur on why the American Revolution may not have been a just war according to the biblical principle in Romans 13.

Burk--I’d like to jump into this fray with a quote from John MacArthur.

MacArthur--“Over the past several centuries, people have mistakenly linked democracy and political freedom to Christianity. That’s why many contemporary evangelicals believe the American Revolution was completely justified, both politically and scripturally … But such a position is contrary to the clear teachings and commands of Romans 13:1-7. So the United States was actually born out of a violation of New Testament principles, and any blessings that God has bestowed on America have come in spite of that disobedience by the Founding Fathers. (Why Government Can’t Save You, pages 6-7)”

Burk--I’ve heard that there are some who justify the rebellion by saying that England was in violation of the Magna Carta.

Burk--As for me, it’s hard for me to believe that Paul and Peter (1 Pet 2:13-17) would have told the colonists to revolt when they told people living under governments just as evil (or more so, think: Nero) to submit.

Wow!

The Very Highest Worship Of God

"There is no other honor equal to the estimate of truthfulness and righteousness with which we honor him whom we trust. Could we ascribe to a man anything greater than truthfulness and righteousness and perfect goodness? On the other hand, there is no way we can show greater contempt for a man than to regard him as false and wicked and to be suspicious of him, as we do when we do not trust him. So when the soul firmly trusts God’s promises, it regards him as truthful and righteous. Nothing more excellent than this can be ascribed to God. The very highest worship of God is this that we ascribe to him truthfulness, righteousness, and whatever else should be ascribed to one who is trusted.”

~ Martin Luther, On Christian Liberty

(HT: Of First Importance)

What Is The Glory Of God?

This was a question asked to John Piper and in his response he basically says that that's a good question and since we use the phrase so often we should know what it means when we say it.

So, John Piper, what is the glory of God?

"What is it? I believe the glory of God is the going public of his infinite worth. I define the holiness of God as the infinite value of God, the infinite intrinsic worth of God. And when that goes public in creation, the heavens are telling the glory of God, and human beings are manifesting his glory, because we're created in his image, and we're trusting his promises so that we make him look gloriously trustworthy.

The public display of the infinite beauty and worth of God is what I mean by "glory," and I base that partly on Isaiah 6, where the seraphim say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his—" and you would expect them to say "holiness" and they say "glory." They're ascribing "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his—" and when that goes public in the earth and fills it, you call it "glory."

So God's glory is the radiance of his holiness, the radiance of his manifold, infinitely worthy and valuable perfections."

Our vision statement for New Life Church reflects this understanding from Piper:

"New Life's Vision is to fulfill God's eternal purpose for creating the church, by living our lives in such a way, that we accurately display God's wisdom and glory to all of creation."

Our prayer is that God 'will' manifest His glory in Eads, Tennessee through His Church, and that becomes a reality by living our lives in such a way that will accurately display His glory.

Pray for accuracy!

Monday, July 6, 2009

Jerry Bridges On 2 Corinthians 3.18

Here is a good perspective on gospel preaching.....preach it to yourself everyday!

I read this great quote below by Jerry Bridges from Tullian Tchividjian.

2 Corinthians 3.18
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed.

"Bridges reminded me of just how important it is to “preach the gospel to ourselves everyday” if we are going to be transformed into the likeness of Christ. He writes:

"The glory that has a transforming effect on us is the glory of Christ revealed in the gospel, the good news that Jesus died in our place as our representative to free us not only from the penalty of sin but also from its dominion. A clear understanding and appropriation of the gospel, which gives freedom from sin’s guilt and sin’s grip, is, in the hands of the Holy Spirit, a chief means of sanctification…Our specific responsibility in the pursuit of holiness as seen in 2 Corinthians 3:18, then, is to behold the glory of the Lord as it is displayed in the gospel. The gospel is the mirror through which we now behold His beauty. One day we shall see Christ, not as in a mirror, but face to face. Then, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Until then we must preach the gospel to ourselves everyday."

This is a good reminder to me about how God desires to impress the gospel deeper into my life in order to send the gospel further out of my life for the glory of Christ. I really needed this reminder in this season of my life!

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Vacation Time!

My family and I are on vacation this week, so I will be away for the most part from the blog world.

Pray that God will bless our time with family and friends as we spend some good time on the river down in Alabama!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Michael Jackson Dead At 50

Well I'm sure you've heard the news. Michael Jackson died today at 50. Press releases online are being made as I type this out and the possible cause is heart attack.

I never really was a big follower of Michael Jackson, although he was always before my eyes growing up watching MTV. He definitely was an individual that epitomized 'cool'. I remember friends wearing their Michael Jackson jacket, penny loafers, glasses and every now and then someone would even dare to wear a glove!

But even with his 'coolness' the man was disturbed mentally, emotionally and most significantly spiritually. Even though he epitomized 'cool', he also epitomized empty.

Could there be such a more well known figure that sought after everything, but Christ? Was there another that filled their lives with so many things that evidently never really satisfied? Has there been such a one that kept longing for more and more worldliness?

The truth is.....all of us have at one time or another!

Maybe not on the scale that Michael Jackson was able to afford, but we all, at one time sought after everything, but Christ! We all, at one time, filled our lives with things that never really satisfied! We all, at one time, longed for more and more of the world! We all, at one time or another have been guilty of the same.

Only by God's grace, I am what I am!

So, I echo another blogger's thoughts concerning his death....."May God use even this to increase our compassion and ministry to the lost, broken, and confused."

Because the truth is, before God's grace, we have all spent some time there as well!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

John Piper

This is classic John Piper.....only it was written about 14 hours ago on Twitter! Yep....J.P. is on Twitter.

"Don't pursue joy, pursue obedience" is like saying, "Don't pursue apples, pursue fruit."

Monday, June 22, 2009

27 - 0

I have been playing baseball and softball most of my life. And I've been playing softball in a church league for about 4 years now and love it.

Well tonight I think I suffered the biggest loss I have ever experienced in all my years of playing ball.....on any level. We were slaughtered tonight 27-0! That's right....not one run in the game of softball. Pitiful, absolutely pitiful.

The tough thing is our team is really good. We have a really good coach and this is the best we've been in four years and so it was a tough loss tonight. These kind of games, playing with a team of guys you love playing ball with, really helps in learning how to win and lose for the glory of God.

I love sports and I love team sports. Other than living life with the church (the body of Christ), there's nothing like taking the diamond with a bunch of guys who love the game as much as you do and play their hearts out.....well except for winning, because I do not like losing!

I love how the Bible is sprinkled with sports analogies. The Apostle Paul realized the significance of comparing the Christian life to a race and a fight, and after an extremely tough and embarrassing loss tonight, it makes me want to play better and win more.

God has really used the game of softball to allow me to see the similarities between the two and to desire for our church to live and pursue spiritual victories in Christ together on the field of life.

One of my good friends, Tommie Stewart, told me tonight in the dugout, "there has to be a sermon illustration in this game somewhere." Well I'm sure he's right, so I'll be looking to use it one day, but probably not this Sunday....still hurts to lose (hahaha!)!

The Gospel Scuttles Human Pride

Yet another good post from....Of First Importance!

“The gospel . . . is the wisdom of God because it doesn’t praise our intellects or advertise our strengths. It causes us to fall on our knees and acknowledge our weakness, our dependence, our terrible need. It causes us to look up to God as the great Savior. ‘It is by his doing that we are in Christ Jesus’ . . .. The gospel teaches us that our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption, and our wisdom are all gifts of God. The message of the gospel scuttles human pride because it reminds us that our life did not start with our choosing God but his choosing us. Therefore, all the glory is God’s.”

~ Thomas Schreiner, “The Foolishness of the Cross

Trinitarian Worship

“There are good reasons . . . for worshiping in one act of adoration the three in their distinct persons and relations with one another. A living relationship with God requires that each of the persons be honored and adored in the context of their revealed relations with each other. The nature of our response in worship is to be shaped by the reality of the one we worship.

We worship the Father, who chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, who planned our salvation from eternity, who sent his Son into the world and gave him up for us.

We worship the Son, in filial relation to the Father, who willingly ‘for us and our salvation’ was made flesh, who submitted himself to life in a fallen world, who trod a path of lowliness, temptation, and suffering, leading to the cruel death of the cross. We worship him for his glorious resurrection, for his ascension to the right hand of the Father, for his continual intercession for us, and for his future return to judge the living and the dead and to complete our salvation. . . .

We worship the Holy Spirit, who gives life and breath to all, who grants us the gift of faith, who sustains us through the difficulties of life as Christians in a world set in hostility to God, and who testifies to the Son.”

~ Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity

(HT: Of First Importance)

Sunday, June 21, 2009

To God Be The Glory!

Today is a glorious day in the Kingdom of God.

Today is a glorious day within the scope of redemption history.

Because on this day, God has established a new church....a tower of light that will beam the light of the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ for all to see.

Today, on this day, the true gospel of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ is now available to all people who live in the Eads community and abroad.

This is a glorious day for the glory of Christ and the good of the world.

It is our urgent prayer that the glory of Christ will always fly high over New Life Church and this community!

We ask that you pray with us to this end.

(first words from Pastor Keith for NLC's Grand Opening Celebration)

TO GOD BE THE GLORY......GREAT THINGS HE HAS DONE!

Friday, June 19, 2009

Tom Owen And New Life Church

Well today God brought us a worship leader for New Life Church. His name is Tom Owen and he brings with him a great mind for worship, filled with a heart for ministry to the body of Christ.

We are praising God for Tom and his wife Stephanie and their children. God knew what kind of leader we needed in the area of music and He sent us just the man to help us lay a foundation for worship that will serve us by starting off right from the very beginning.

Thank you Lord for Tom and his ministry to New Life Church and Eads, TN.

But it also goes without saying that we are thankful to God for Shawn & Julie Troxel as well. They have been leading our worship on Sunday mornings for over 2 months and they have blessed us tremendously by pointing our thoughts and hearts toward Christ each week.

We are praying for you both as the Lord will soon bless you with your third child!

God is so kind to the New Life Family!

'New Life' To God For Eternity

“The atoning death of Christ, and that alone, has presented sinners as righteous in God’s sight; the Lord Jesus has paid the full penalty of their sins, and clothed them with His perfect righteousness before the judgment seat of God.

But Christ has done for Christians even far more than that. He has given to them not only a new and right relation to God, but a new life in God’s presence for evermore. He has saved them from the power as well as from the guilt of sin.

The New Testament does not end with the death of Christ; it does not end with the triumphant words of Jesus on the Cross, “It is finished.” The death was followed by the resurrection, and the resurrection like the death was for our sakes.

Jesus rose from the dead into a new life of glory and power, and into that life He brings those for whom He died. The Christian, on the basis of Christ’s redeeming work, not only has died unto sin, but also lives unto God.”

~ J. Gresham Machen, Christianity & Liberalism

(HT: Of First Importance)

The Twin Pillars Of The Protestant Reformation

John Piper discusses why John Calvin's influence transcended the reformation all the way down the corridors of time to America today, while it seems that Martin Luther's influence remains tethered to that time.

"In this year of John Calvin’s 500th birthday, I don’t know of a better place to read about his impact on America than Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism given at Princeton Seminary in October 1898. Kuyper was a pastor, a journalist, the founder of the Free University of Amsterdam, and Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

John Calvin and Martin Luther were the twin pillars of the Protestant Reformation. Why do fewer people speak of Luther’s culture-shaping impact on America, but for centuries Calvin has been seen in this light? Kuyper argues,

Luther’s starting-point was the . . . principle of justifying faith; while Calvin’s . . . lay in the general cosmological principle of the sovereignty of God. . . . [Hence] Lutheranism restricted itself to an exclusively ecclesiastical and theological character, while Calvinism put its impress in and outside the Church upon every department of human life.

It is the personal pervasiveness of God’s sovereignty that makes all the difference. This means that “the whole of a man’s life is to be lived as in the Divine Presence.” This “fundamental thought of Calvinism” shaped all of life. “It is from this mother-thought that the all-embracing life system of Calvinism sprang.”

You may read the rest of this post by clicking here.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Matt Chandler On The De-Churched




This is so on the money!

Father help us to never be self-righteous and think that we can place You in our debt!

Raising My Children To Be Servants, Not Merely Helpers

I ran across this post about raising our children to be servants over at Life2gether. It was a good reminder about how Stephanie and I are striving to raise our children to be servants as well.

We learned something early on in our marriage about the difference between 'serving people' and 'helping people'. This really encompasses an attitude in both categories.

When we serve others, we should have an attitude of submission, inferior to superior. This is the biblical meaning when addressing the two categories.

When we help others, the attitude that could be present is one of equality and says, "I'm here working along side of you and I'm as equal as you are and because I'm helping you, I actually may know more about this project than you do"....hence the word helping. This is not to say that we shouldn't help others, but it's a difference in perspective and attitude.

This may not sound like much and it may actually sound like we're splitting hairs, but I really believe that most people 'help' others, not 'serve' others. When we biblically serve others, we actually die to self, we seek the spiritual advancement of others at whatever cost it may be to us. We intentionally place ourselves under the authority of others, because this is what it means to be a 'servant'. This is not easy to do at times and actually goes against our nature.

So, I want my children to serve, not just merely help people. I want them to demonstrate with their lives that others are more important than themselves. I want them to display their love for Christ by serving like Christ.

Jesus tells us, "whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant." He does not say, "shall be your helper."

Let's teach our children to be servants of the King!

Are You Easily Edified?

I really enjoyed a post by Justin Taylor today. He describes the simple joy of 'easily edifying' someone in Christ. A rather cool take on what 'should be' the common response in the Christian life, but unfortunately isn't always the case.

"A mature Christian is easily edified."

"Chip Stam cited those words by Harold Best in the first video I linked to earlier. Those words have been rolling around in my heart and mind for the past couple of days. Easily edified. Isn't that a wonderful goal--a sign of good mental health and genuine obedience of faith? I'm afraid that far too often an accurate assessment of myself would reveal:

* easily annoyed
* easily irritated
* easily impatient
* easily hurt
* easily angered
* easily distracted
* easily arrogant

But wouldn't it be great if those who knew us best could honestly say, "It is so easy to edify him. It doesn't take much. It doesn't need to be the best sermon ever preached or the most excellent song ever composed or the most powerful book ever written or the most theologically eloquent statement ever uttered. Just the simplest truth was enough to refresh his heart in Christ."

Not a bad way to pray--for ourselves and for others."

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The New Kid's CD From Sovereign Grace Music

To Be Like Jesus is set to be released later this month.

You can check out some samples of the songs online by clicking here.....no wait here (haha!).

The Gospel Is For Life!

I read today on Tullian Tchividjian's blog something that we both have in common....one of the most important 'discoveries' in our Christian lives has been that the gospel is not only for salvation, but sustaining us all throughout life as well. He writes,

"One of the most important discoveries of my life has been that the Gospel is not just for non-Christians; it’s for Christians too. I used to think the Gospel was simply what non-Christians must believe in to be saved, while afterward we advance to deeper theological waters. But what I’ve come to understand is that the Gospel is every bit as important for growing as a Christian as it is for becoming a Christian in the first place. The Gospel, in other words, is the fuel that makes Christians go.

In Colossians 1:6 the Apostle Paul writes that the Gospel is the instrument of all continual growth and spiritual progress after we are converted. He writes, “All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.” (Col. 1:6)."

This is has been my ongoing prayer for my life, my church, my community and even this blog (read 'My Life' in the left hand margin). That the gospel will bear a sweet fruit of ongoing repentance and growing faith and will increase all the more as Christ is pleased for us to remain here in this world.

Let this be our continual prayer for God to do a beautiful work of grace, a means of His grace, to love and live more like Jesus!

He Is Working On Our Behalf!

He is always working on our behalf, so think much more about Him rather than yourself!

“We are always looking inwards and pitying ourselves and being sorry for ourselves, and looking for something to help us. Get rid of that outlook, forget yourself for a moment; the battle is the Lord’s! Salvation is His. It is for the honor of His great and holy Name. But go further and realize that because it is God’s battle this almighty power is being exercised on our behalf even when we do not realize it. Things are being done in this great campaign of which we are not aware. We may perhaps be half-asleep at our post, and we do not realize that the great Captain is planning something with respect to us. We are unconscious of it. We would all be lost were it not for that. He, I say, is exercising this power on our behalf.”

~ Martin Lloyd-Jones, The Christian Soldier

(HT: Of First Importance)

Do Literary Devices Have Their Origin In Christ?

My wife, Stephanie, has posted a very good article on literary devices and how they all have their origin in Jesus.....very interesting. I've copied a teaser from the article below...

"It occurred to me that without Christ, there would be no literary devices with which to tell stories. Jesus IS the ultimate foreshadow, type, figure, simile, metaphor, etc. Every story told in every culture exists because of the ultimate story that has been told."

You can read the whole post by clicking here.

Special Invitation

We are gearing up for our public launch this Sunday, June 21st.

If you live or happen to be in the Memphis area this weekend, please feel free to come and worship with us.

Our service time on Sunday morning is 10.30 am.

We meet at 12100 Highway 64 (right across from Dan West Garden Center).

Please lift New Life Church up before our heavenly and ask His favor upon our people as we gather this Sunday to worship Him!

You can check out New Life Church's website by clicking here or you can click the link just to the left.

If you plan to visit, please shoot us an email or you can let us know by leaving a comment in the 'comment section'.

Thank You!

Monday, June 15, 2009

'UP'

Today I took my two oldest boys to see our very first movie together. Yep, you read correctly, our very first movie. As you can tell I'm not the big screen movie buff, but I tell you, it was a great time hanging out with my boys....just the guys. We don't get to do that much. But I had some brothers in Christ recommend the movie and so we went to see it.

The movie is called 'UP' and it's in 3-D, which is really cool and overall it was a pretty good movie. The movie really uplifts marriage in a big way.

But obviously the best part was hangin' out with my boys with a big jumbo tub of popcorn and of course we washed it all down with good old Diet Coke.

Well I'm about to take the boys to go play their baseball game....it's been a good day and hopefully we'll be able to get a good game of baseball in tonight....Lord willing it doesn't rain, again!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

New Life Church Is Now Online

Today we launched our website to Eads and to the world. As of right now we only have our front page online, but the rest will be coming very soon.

Please spread the word that New Life Church is online and soon we'll be an open book for everyone to read what we are all about!

Check us out at www.nlceads.org

Thanks!

Neighborhood Blitz...

Today we began inviting Eads to worship with the New Life Church family. We were able to meet many people today and invite them to our first ever public celebration service on June 21st.

Please pray with us that God will begin to use us as the light of the world. A city on a hill. To draw all kinds of people to Himself and for Himself.

Thank you for your many prayers!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

For All Our Laboring And Striving....

Colossians 1.29

"And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me."

The purpose for our labor & striving....is to see every one complete in Christ (v.28). When we have this kind of focus for our 'laboring & striving' over the next two weeks....it should be done in 'His power', which is mightily working within in us. And His power is displayed for others to see, so that it is not ourselves in which we derive strength to 'labor & strive', but the power of God Himself gives you your strength.

So therefore, go labor today in His power. Go strive today in His power. So that one day, everyone might be made complete in Christ!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Two Week Sprint....

We are in our two week sprint for launch day!

It has already been a wild and crazy two days, for me, to the beginning of this two weeks. Our folks at New Life Church are definitely gearing up for this effort and it has been exciting.

I will do my best to keep an update going on as we begin to 'knock out' all our projects.

Please continue to pray for us as we sprint, in faith, toward the goal of seeing the glory of Christ manifested in Eads, TN.

God is building His Church!

Friday, June 5, 2009

How Do I Stop 'Losing It' With My Kids?

This is a really good post from Jordan Thomas' blog on parenting.

"As parents we are desperately needy (usually more often than we're aware) for God to enable us to point our children toward Christ by being accurate reflections of Him.

Not even Mary and Joseph, the earthly parents of Jesus, set the example perfectly. We're all flawed, and we all need help. As we seek the Lord's face, He will provide!

In his tiny-but-excellent (19 pg!) pamphlet, William P. Smith quickly gets to the heart-problem for many parents:

When your agenda, your will, your desires, and your reputation become more important than God's, that's a sign you are trying to be your child's god. That's right. Whether you thought about it or not, you want your child to treat you like God.

Instead of pointing to the only true God, our parenting-by-force approach projects to our children that we want to be their god. A poor trade indeed! Duck now warning: Here comes another painfully-true ouch quote from Smith:

When you lose control with your children, you are communicating to them that their priority is to wrap themselves around you. They must give you what you want or pay the consequences. You are, in reality, demanding their worship. Instead of teaching them to live according to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, you are teaching them to live according to every word that proceeds out of your mouth.

A prayer: Lord help us to point our children to the matchless glory and worth of King Jesus through our parenting!

(I highly recommend this resource, and all of the similarly-small-but-excellent life-application and counseling booklets from the ministry of CCEF.)"

A Milestone....At Least For Me (1,000 hits!)

Wow! Will you always remember where you were when you found out that I had 1,000 hits to my blog 'Disciple the Planet'?

At 9.25 this morning, I now have a comma in the number of hits to my blog.....1,000!

Thanks to all of you who are faithful readers. I hope you have been encouraged and edified as you read through all the blog posts on this site.

It's been my aim to praise God for His faithfulness to my family and to our church as well as to minister, using the means of a blog, to talk about the gospel-centered life.

I can't wait to hit 2,000!

Praise God!

Prayer Request...

New Life Church is a little more than two weeks away from going public to Eads, Tennessee. All of our families (the Andersons, Blessings, Shearers, Troxels, and Whittens) have been working diligently over the last several months in order to prepare for this launch day on June 21st!

Would you go before our heavenly Father and ask Him to give us His wisdom and strength to persevere in faith as we labor to finish all the remaining details in order for our church to be ready for June 21st?

We will be going door-to-door on June 13th inviting people to our first public service. The building that God has provided us seats about 60. Because of our seating, we will target neighborhoods in phases over the next several months. So, on June 13th, we are targeting 60 homes near our church.

We still have a lot to accomplish, but by God's grace, we have definitely come a long way in the last four months. Once June 21st comes, this will only usher us into a new chapter into our church's ministry life, but for now we need God's people praying for us to this end.

Would you pray right now for us?

Pray for God's favor over our new church and our community of Eads.
Pray for God to go before us and breathe new life into dead souls.
Pray for God to do a sovereign work of grace in our own lives.
Pray for God to fill us with His Spirit.
Pray for God to allow us to meet a lot of people on June 13th as we invite them to church.
Pray for God to specifically work in these 60 homes that we are targeting.
Pray that our labor will be a sweet fragrant aroma of worship to God that will permeate this community for the glory of Christ and the salvation of hundreds and thousands of people!

If you would commit to praying for us, please leave us a comment, so that we can thank God for your faithfulness to His Church and Kingdom.

Thank you for praying for New Life Church!

Say To My Soul, 'I Am Your Salvation'

I was reading through Psalm 35 this morning. It is a prayer for rescue and protection from enemies. It is a psalm of David and in his prayer to God, in verse 3, he tells God to speak to his soul that God is his salvation in this time of uncertainty with his enemies. He wanted his soul to be at peace, at rest and David knew that the only way that this would be possible was for God to speak His sovereign power over his life. Only God could save him from the enemies that encompassed him and he prays for God to speak this kind of peace and assurance into his life and over his life.

I wanted to share with you Barnes' Notes on Psalm 35.3

"Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation"

"Say to "me," I will save you. That is, Give me some assurance that thou wilt interpose, and that thou wilt guard me from my enemies. Man only wants this assurance to be calm in respect to any danger. When God says to us that he will be our salvation; that he will protect us; that he will deliver us from sin, from danger, from hell, the mind may and will be perfectly calm.

To a believer he gives this assurance; to all he is willing to give it. The whole plan of salvation is arranged with a view to furnish such an assurance, and to give a pledge to the soul that God "will" save. Death loses its terrors then; the redeemed man moves on calmly - for in all the future - in all worlds - he has nothing now to fear."

Thursday, June 4, 2009

I'm Not A Computer Nerd, But I Am A Husband And This Is Hilarious!!!

This is the funniest thing I've read all day! Let me know what you think...

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance — particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0, and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I’ve tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail. What can I do?

Signed, Desperate

————————————-

Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System.

Please enter the command: ‘I Thought You Loved Me.exe’, try to download Tears 6.2 and don’t forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 It runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources. Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Food 3.0…

Good Luck, Tech Support

(HT: The Blazing Center)

To Shout or Not To Shout?

A couple of days ago I was reading Psalm 32 during my time with the Lord. While reading it I came across verse 11, which is the last verse in chapter 32. There I read a few commands. One, 'to be glad in the Lord'. Two, along with being glad we are to 'rejoice' in the Lord. And three, 'shout for joy'.

Now that jogged my memory, because a year ago I preached Psalm 100 and in that Psalm we are also commanded to 'shout joyfully to the Lord'. After doing a word study on 'shout' in Psalm 100, I learned that the Hebrew word for shout is 'ruwa' which means to 'cry out' or 'to give a war-cry of victory'.

Having never really 'shouted' in this way, and to be honest, I was feeling a little weird teaching this, but I knew I had to teach what Psalm 100 was saying. But unfortunately it still remains unpracticed in my life.

Well today I came across a post by Mark Altrogge at his blog The Blazing Center, where he describes in one of his posts, his process of obeying this one command from the Lord. I found it interesting and thought you might as well.

I wonder....do you shout for joy in this way? Is this a normal practice for you in your time alone with God? In your corporate worship with your church?

Mark writes,

"I’m not a particularly emotional person. At football games I’ve never shouted and high-fived. I never danced or moshed or sang along or held up my lighter at concerts. And I was raised in a church in which the most expressive thing we did in worship was exchange the sign of peace with our neighbor - my brother and I would give each other a sideways glance and a smirk, then give each other the peace sign.

When Jesus saved me, I became convinced from preaching and the Word that God desires expressive worship. But for me to raise my hands or shout to God or sing with gusto was like telling me to do an Irish step dance at an opera."

You can read the rest by clicking here!

A Great Reply To The Accuser

From a post by Doug Phillips....which he got from an online article by Carl Trueman

It is well-known that in his writings in table conversation Luther would often refer to visits from the Devil, how the Devil would come to him and whisper in his ear, accusing him of all manner of filthy sin: "Martin, you are a liar, greedy, lecherous, a blasphemer, a hypocrite. You cannot stand before God."

To which Luther would respond: "Well, yes, I am. And, indeed, Satan, you do not know the half of it. I have done much worse than that and if you care to give me your full list, I can no doubt add to it and help make it more complete. But you know what? My Saviour has died for all my sins - those you mention, those I could add and, indeed, those I have committed but am so wicked that I am unaware of having done so. It does not change the fact that Christ has died for all of them; his blood is sufficient; and on the Day of Judgment I shall be exonerated because he has taken all my sins on himself and clothed me in his own perfect righteousness.

Luther knew what temptation looked like; he knew his own wickedness; but he also knew the all-surpassing perfection and grace of Christ.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

God In The Wasteland

In the book Unfashionable, Tullian Tchividjian quotes David Wells and his hope for young evangelicals and the contemporary church:

"I want the evangelical church to be the church. I want it to embody a vibrant spirituality. I want the church to be an alternative to post-modern culture, not a mere echo of it. I want a church that is bold to be different and unafraid to be faithful,...a church that reflects an integral and undiminished confidence in the power of God's Word, a church that can find in the midst of our present cultural breakdown the opportunity to be God's people in a world that has abandoned God. To be the church in this way, it is also going to have to find in the coming generation, leaders who exemplify this hope for its future and who will devote themselves to seeing it realized...They will have to decline to spend themselves in the building of their own private kingdoms and refuse to be intimidated into giving the church less and other than what it needs....To succeed, they will have to be people of large vision, people of courage, people who have learned again what it means to live by the Word of God, and, most importantly, what it means to live before the Holy God of that Word."

This is a good word for us at New Life Church. We should strive to be the church that God desires His church to be and to live that out with a high view of God, regardless if it brings 'church growth'.

His Fullness For Our Emptiness

Here is a wonderful little quote from Stanley Voke on how Jesus satisfies the emptiness in different areas of our lives and by filling those areas up brings with it a revival toward God in us!

“Revival is Jesus bringing the fullness of His life into the emptiness of ours. For every lack in us there is a corresponding grace in Him. He is light for our darkness, life for our death, bread for our hunger, living water for our thirst, rest for our striving, wisdom of God for our foolishness and fellowship for our loneliness.”

~ Stanley Voke, Personal Revival

(HT: Of First Importance)