Ask Of God

(HT: Desiring God)

A Failure To Think, Is A Failure Of Faith

Tim Challies recently reprinted a quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the relationship between faith and thinking. Lloyd-Jones is commenting on Matthew 6:30 in Studies in the Sermon on the Mount:

Faith according to our Lord’s teaching in this paragraph, is primarily thinking; and the whole trouble with a man of little faith is that he does not think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him. . . .

We must spend more time in studying our Lord’s lessons in observation and deduction. The Bible is full of logic, and we must never think of faith as something purely mystical. We do not just sit down in an armchair and expect marvelous things to happen to us. That is not Christian faith. Christian faith is essentially thinking. Look at the birds, think about them, draw your deductions. Look at the grass, look at the lilies of the field, consider them. . . .

Faith, if you like, can be defined like this: It is a man insisting upon thinking when everything seems determined to bludgeon and knock him down in an intellectual sense. The trouble with the person of little faith is that, instead of controlling his own thought, his thought is being controlled by something else, and, as we put it, he goes round and round in circles. That is the essence of worry. . . . That is not thought; that is the absence of thought, a failure to think.

I read this morning a related thought from Augustine:

No one believes anything unless one first thought it believable...

Everything that is believed is believed after being preceded by thought...

Not everyone who thinks believes, since many think in order not to believe; but everyone who believes thinks, thinks in believing and believes in thinking.

—Augustine, Predestination of the Saints 5 (PL 44:962-63), cited by Wilkin.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

All Things Faith

“We become Christians by faith in Jesus, we stay Christians by faith in Jesus, and we grow as Christians by faith in Jesus.”

~ Tim Chester, You Can Change, 43.

(HT: Of First Importance)

Football Is Good...But God Is Great!

Last Friday, Kurt Warner retired from the NFL. My good friend Pastor Brent Wells lived in St. Louis for a few years and since that time he has become a big supporter of Kurt Warner.

Since hearing of his retirement I wanted to give Warner a mention on my blog, but really felt like I didn't know enough about him to do justice to his life and career. So I've asked Brent if he would write up an article to describe his ministry and life and what it meant to him, a fellow brother in Christ, watching Warner live out his faith. His article is below...

______________________________________________

I'm really going to miss seeing Kurt Warner play football in the NFL. And it's not because he helped me big time on more than one fantasy football team. It's not because he led one of my favorite teams (the Rams) to a Super bowl championship (I lived in St. Louis from 1994-1997 and began pulling for the Rams). It's not even because Kurt Warner seemed to never miss an opportunity to give praise to his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ or tote his Bible to the podium for a post-game interview. Don't get me wrong, all of these factors are part of the reason I'm going to miss him...but only a part.

After hearing his retirement speech last week, I've given some thought as to why I'm really going to miss him. I can boil it down to this: Kurt Warner brought perspective. He reminded me (and others who have ears to hear) that he is small and God is BIG. He reminded me that football is good, but God is GREAT.

You could hear it in his words, "These past 12 years (of football) have been incredible, but I'm looking just as forward to the next 12!" He went on to say that the Bible is a book about an extraordinary God doing extraordinary things through ordinary people who yield their lives to Him. He brought perspective to the game. Football is over, but Warner is eagerly anticipating the next chapter of his life and what the extraordinary God of the Bible has planned for him and his family. Football was not his life because Jesus is his life!

And yet I don't want to swing the pendulum too far that way (as if I could)! Kurt Warner DID LOVE THE GAME, and was pretty good at it! This is another helpful perspective that Warner reminded me of--true worshipers of God must live ALL of their lives as acts of worship. All of life must be lived for the glory of the God of the Bible! Kurt Warner did that (not perfectly, but it came through consistently).

In Augustine's final book, Confessions, he summed it up this way:

"He loves Thee too little who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake."

Simply put, we are to love football, family, and food FOR GOD'S SAKE! In other words, don't view football, family, and food as competitors for God's love, but love God more BECAUSE OF THESE GIFTS. I'm not saying love the GIVER more than the GIFT, I'm saying love the GIVER more BECAUSE of the GIFT.

When I watched Warner march his team down the field, or when I heard of him minister to people in the locker room and community, or when I witnessed him kneel beside an injured Tennessee Titan and pray over him in the 1999 Super bowl it was obvious that this man loved God, loved football, and I would even say, used football as a vehicle to love God more and more AND lead others to love Him and His Son Jesus Christ!

Of course I've never met Kurt Warner and what I've said might be viewed as "putting words in his mouth", but I don't think so. Though we've never met, he is my brother in Christ and what I've described is not only his fight of faith, it is mine as well, along with all others who have been rescued from God's wrath through faith in Christ and are daily seeking to FIGHT THE FIGHT OF FAITH!

Football is good, but God is great!

Brent Wells

Introducing Gene Veith

Just added a new blogger to the list...Gene Veith. I was first introduced to Veith around 1997-98 in a Faith & Culture class while at Criswell College in Dallas, Texas. It has been many years since I read his book Postmodern Times, but God really used Veith and his writings to introduce me to the way culture changes, works, and counters Christianity. Therefore giving Christians an understanding in order to counter the culture with the gospel.

I wasn't aware of his blog until this morning, so I'm looking forward to reading his intriguing thoughts on Christianity and culture each day.

Enjoy.

Election And The Gospel

I read another great quote from one of my favorite blogs....Of First Importance!

“Let no one say . . . that the doctrine of election by the sovereign will and mercy of God, mysterious as it is, makes either evangelism or faith unnecessary. The opposite is the case. It is only because of God’s gracious will to save that evangelism has any hope of success and faith becomes possible. The preaching of the gospel is the very means that God has appointed by which he delivers from blindness and bondage those whom he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, sets them free to believe in Jesus, and so causes his will to be done.”

- John R. W. Stott, The Message of Ephesians, 48.

Tears Of Godly Sorrow And The Eye Of Faith

All tears of godly sorrow drop from the eye of faith. Godly sorrow rises and falls--as faith rises and falls.

The more a man is able by faith to look upon a pierced Christ--the more his heart will mourn over all the dishonours which he has done to Christ.

The more deep and wide the wounds are, which faith shows me in the heart and sides of Christ--the more my heart will be wounded for sinning against Christ.

--Thomas Brooks, A Cabinet of Choice Jewels