Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Parents, if you can’t afford a sitter, is there a way to set up a rotation with three other families to take turns each week watching kids for date night?

Husbands, when is your date night? Your wife needs it. You do, too. Grace and I have enjoyed Friday date nights for about 20 years.

Husbands, don’t waste every date night at a movie where you can’t talk. Use the time to visit with your wife, draw her out, and study her like you do the Bible.

Husbands, plan out your date nights. Ask you wife in advance what sounds good, see what your options are, and make a plan. She’ll be thankful.

Date night killers: no plan, selfishness, laziness, letting technology keep interrupting, and doing the same old predictable thing.

Time with other couples now and then is OK, but if most date nights involve other people, there is likely an intimacy disconnect in the marriage.

Dads, moms who stay home all day with the kids need to get dressed up, taken out, and have some adult conversation with their husbuddy.

Husbands, what can you do to find some creative ways to make date night fun and endearing even on a tight budget?

Husbands, what can you start doing days or hours before date night to build the expectation of connection with your wife? Flowers, cards, calls, texts?

When life gets crazy, the kids are sick, etc. is there any way to sneak in a bit of a date night at home with say a soak in the tub together, glass of wine etc. after the kids go to sleep?

Sometimes sending the kids out to someone’s house and having a date night at home can be cheap and fun if planned right.

Men, you don’t pursue a woman to marry her and stop pursuing her. You pursue a woman to marry her and pursue her with more passion and creativity than ever. How’s it going husbands?

Men, you don’t need to understand women. You will be doing better than most men to understand just one woman. Date nights are to ask inviting questions, listen, and learn about her. It’s also a night to open up and let her do the same.

Men, if you don’t date your wife, someone else may eventually volunteer for the job.

Ladies, sometimes it’s a great gift to go into your husband’s world for a date night by doing something like putting on a jersey going to a game and eating a hot dog. His love language may just be hot dog.

Men: find a shirt with buttons, try two eyebrows instead of one, find a breath mint or 20, show up with a gift, don’t ogle other women, and go to a restaurant that does not have a spork.

HT: VitaminZ

HT: JT

And here’s some advice on preparing for Sunday…

In his book Expository Listening (read my review) Ken Ramey offers a list of ways you can “Plan Ahead, and Schedule Your Week Around the Ministry of the Word.”

“For the majority of people, even church members, church is not the priority of their week. Too often school, work, sports, and other activities take precedence over going to church. They make the mistake of letting their time be ordered by the world, which views the weekends as a time to relax, to play sports, to stay up late and sleep in. For Christians, however, Sunday should be the most important day of the week. You should try to schedule your work, activities, get-togethers, and vacations around church. You should live by the principle that Sunday morning starts Saturday night.”

He offers several practical suggestions on how to prioritize the Lord’s Day:

• Make it a habit to be home on Saturday night.
• Be careful not to do, watch, or read anything that will cause lingering distractions in your mind the next day.
• Get things ready on Saturday night to alleviate the typical Sunday morning rush (lay out clothes, set the table, write the offering check, stock the diaper bag, etc).
• Get a good night’s sleep so you can be sharp and energetic to worship and serve God. It’s hard to listen when you’re nodding off.
• Eat a simple but adequate breakfast that will hold you until lunch. It’s difficult to hear over the grumbling of your stomach.
• Work together with the other members of your family to get ready, and to establish and maintain a godly atmosphere on the way to church. Listen to music, sing, and pray together.
• Arrive at church ten minutes early instead of ten minutes late so you have enough time to find a parking spot, drop the kids off in the nursery or their Sunday school classes, get a cup of coffee, visit with your friends, and find a seat.

“When you fail to plan ahead,” he warns, “Sunday morning ends up becoming a chaotic crisis, and by the time you get to church, you are frustrated and frazzled and your heart is in no condition to receive the Word. But when you plan well and are able to arrive in a relaxed, leisurely way, you will be in a much more receptive frame of mind.”

HT: Challies

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be daily laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.  It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.  All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

Do you have this perspective?  We all need it.

We live in a world full of males who have prolonged their adolescence.  They are neither boys nor men. They live suspended between childhood and adulthood, between growing up and being a grown-up.  Let’s call this kind of male Ban, a hybrid of both man and boy…  Ban is a frightening reality in the church, but he is the best thing that ever happened to the video game and porn industries…

I have a son, Drew, and because of my keen awareness of and pastoral interaction with Bans, I know that my work is cut out for me when it comes to raising a godly man. I recently wrote a little prayer that reflects the kind of men we need. Drew and I pray this prayer together almost every night, for him and for me.

“God, make me a man with thick skin and a soft heart. Make me a man who is tough and tender. Make me tough so I can handle life. Make me tender so I can love people. God, make me a man.”

Read the rest…

I do not know of a single scripture—and I speak advisedly—which tells me to take my sin, the particular thing that gets me down, to God in prayer and ask him to deliver me from it and then trust in faith that he will.

Now that teaching is also often put like this: you must say to a man who is constantly defeated by a particular sin, “I think your only hope is to take it to Christ and Christ will take it from you.” But what does Scripture say in to the man who finds himself constantly guilty of stealing, to a man who sees something he likes and takes it? What am I to tell such a man? Am I to say, “Take that sin to Christ and ask him to deliver you?” No, what the apostle Paul tells him is this: “Let him that stole, steal no more.” Just that. Stop doing it. And if it is fornication or adultery or lustful thoughts, again: Stop doing it, says Paul. He does not say, “Go and pray to Christ to deliver you.” No. You stop doing that, he says, as becomes children of God.

I wonder if he would have liked Newhart

The NFL season starts soon.  Great.  I love football.  But if only it were that simple.  The NFL in its televised grandeur and inflated drama claims too much for itself.  It claims too much of our attention on Sundays especially.  Let’s get ready now to resist its over-reaching.  Let’s get ready to put it in its true place, under Christ.  So it’s like this, as August is soon upon us: “Hey Mr. NFL, good to see you again.  Glad you’re back.  Sure, I might be able to fit you into my iPhone calendar somewhere here.  Umm, no, that’s filled.  And that won’t work either.  Uhhh — Oh, here’s an opening.  Sure, I might have some time here . . . .”

Jesus, community, mission — I submit to these claims.  I manage all others.  Jesus alone is Lord.  Jesus alone is joy.  I will set no limits on him.  I will set proper limits on everything else …

[Lloyd-Jones said] “But what happens when people are baptized with the Holy Spirit — as you read throughout Acts — is that they want to keep together, to get together as often as they can — they continued daily, steadfastly, talking about these things, singing together, praising God together.  This was the thing that was first above everything else.  Everything else came second; even their work was something they had to do.  It was right that they should do their work, of course, but this was the thing that meant life to them, joy and salvation.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable (Wheaton, 1984), page 102

The word hospitality is actually a “love” word in the Greek.  It means literally “love for strangers, love for those distant from you, different from you”.  It’s not just a duty word, as in ‘have people into your home.’  It’s the opening of your heart, the opening of your life, and then the opening of your home to people.

Hospitality is actually one of the most important values of the Christian life.  For instance, hospitality is a value specifically required of the leaders of the church, those who teach and model Christianity to others – see 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:8.  Those who teach and model Christianity to others model it in their opening of their homes and lives to others.

Hospitality in the Bible is almost always connected directly to love.  Hebrews 13:1 says, “Let brotherly love continue; do not neglect hospitality.”  1 Peter 4:8-9 says, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins, showing hospitality to one another without grumbling.”

Alexander Strauch, in a little book called The Hospitality Command, says, “Hospitality may well be the best means we have to promote close brotherly love.”

Hasn’t that been your experience?  People have you into their home and into their lives and affection begins to grow.  You see and learn something of the Christian life from them.

The Apostle Paul tells us, “Pursue this.”  It is a positive call to action, not a begrudging duty.  It is when there are reasons in your life mitigating against it that the force of the verb “pursue” needs to be heeded.  As a church, we have lots of reasons mitigating against hospitality.  We have lots of kids.  We live very busy lives.  It’s easy to say, “It’s too much.  I’ve got to protect myself and home.”  No!  You’ve got to give yourself away!  Pursue hospitality!

If you’re intimidated by having a family over with 4 kids, get over it!  Pursue hospitality.

If you’re intimidated because you say, “I’ve got 6 mouths to feed every day, and I don’t know if I can bring someone else in” — do it anyway!  You may not want to.  But after you do it, you will find that you will be glad that you did.  And you know you’ve experienced that before.

Pursue hospitality.  After all, what is the Gospel of God’s grace but a story of God’s hospitality, his love and compassion for strangers.  Romans 15:7 says, “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”  The theme of the Bible is a theme of the hospitality of our God.  Psalm 23:5-6 says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

It’s like Paul is saying, “The only competition that should be among Christians is a competition of honoring others.”  Now that doesn’t literally mean, “Play a game of honoring others”, like a forced or faked thing.  It’s to be the genuine expression of your heart – to honor others more than yourself, think of others more than yourself.  If the Apostle Paul could say, “I am less than the least of all the saints” – that should be our attitude as well.  We should all consider others better than ourselves.  How does that make sense?  The Scripture says, You know your own sins, you know the depth of your own sins in your own heart better than you know it in anyone else’s heart.  So you should be the worst sinner you know (in a manner of speaking).  You have more acquaintance and intimacy with your own pride and sin than you do with anybody else’s.  If there are areas that you see that you have a higher maturity than others, then you also know that you’ve received more grace in certain areas, and so you have more responsibility in those areas.  Maybe you grew up in a better family situation than some others; you grew up in a home that more grace; you had certain things that God brought into your life that gave you more perspective and maturity in those areas.  That’s not something to be proud of.  It’s something to say, “What do I have that I have not received.”  So when we look at others, in shouldn’t be in comparison of pride or self-pity, it should be always looking at others and celebrating grace in them, seeing the graces that are coming out of them, and honoring them for it.

We live in a sarcastic and cynical culture.  Honoring doesn’t come naturally to us.  Honoring is not a natural part of our speech patterns.  And for that reason, I like the analogy of competition – that we need to “outdo one another in showing honor”.  We need to go overboard in appreciation and praise.

If you’ve ever done any acting (and I’m not saying that this is pretend honoring), but there is a difference between stage acting and screen acting.  Screen acting is up close, stage acting is from a distance.  So stage directors will tell stage actors to over-act, over-emphasize your movements, your expressions and gestures, and the audience will just see them as normal.

Normally it wouldn’t be wise to say that we need to go overboard and be out of balance in something.  But here’s an area I think it’s okay to be out of balance, because it’s really not out of balance.

A pastor friend of mine once told a story about his two teenage daughters.  They were both swimmers, and were often paired together in races, but the older (who was older and more mature) always beat the younger daughter.  But one race, when they were actually next to one another lane by lane, the younger daughter actually out-paced her older sister.  And when the race was over, and they both realized the results, the older immediately and with joy reached over to embrace her younger sister.  This friend commented that nothing warms the heart of a parent than to see your children from the heart honoring one another.  And the heart of our heavenly father is warmed when his people ‘outdo one another in showing honor’.

When people leave a church because they do not fit the program, it communicates a deadly message: that our commitment is to the work and not to the person, that our unity is primarily in the work and not in Christ and the gospel. The sad result is that Christians do not have the security of a community that will stay by them no matter what happens. They become shallow individuals, never having true fellowship and moving from group to group. Churches committed to programs can grow numerically, but they don’t nurture biblical Christians who understand the implications of belonging to the body of Christ.

Sticking with people is frustrating. Taking hours to listen to an angry or hurt person seems inefficient. Why should we waste time on that when professionals could do it? So people have counselors to do what friends should be doing …

Some years ago I was preparing a message on commitment while traveling in the West. Within the space of a few days, three people told me how they or someone close to them had left a group or a person because of problems. One had left an unhappy marriage; another, a church; another, an organization. Each person described his leaving as a merciful release from suffering. But I could not help asking myself whether, in each of these cases, the Christian thing to do would have been to stay and suffer.

The New Testament is clear that those who work for Christ will suffer because of their work. Tiredness, stress, and strain may be the cross God calls us to. Paul often spoke about the physical hardships his ministry brought him, including emotional strain (Gal. 4:19; 2 Cor. 11:28), anger (2 Cor. 11:29), sleepless nights and hunger (2 Cor. 6:5), affliction and perplexity (2 Cor. 4:8), and toiling—working to the point of weariness (Col. 1:29). In statements radically countercultural in today’s “body conscious” society, he said, “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16); and, “For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:11-12). I fear that many Christians approach these texts only with an academic interest, not seriously asking how the verses should apply in their lives …

The biblical model of community life is Jesus’ command to love one another as he loved us—that is, for members to die for other members (John 15:12-13). The model of Christian leadership is that of the Good Shepherd dying for his sheep, not abandoning them when the situation gets dangerous (John 10:11-15). When God calls us to serve him, he calls us to come and die for the people we serve. We don’t discard people when they have problems and cannot do their job properly. We serve them and help them come out of their problems.

The media keeps saying these medical workers weren’t proselytizing. OK, but is [it] OK to murder if they were?  Indeed, would evangelism have disqualified these Christians from honorable treatment in death? …

Even non-Christians will grant that the men and women who lost their lives for treating eyes demonstrated their love for Afghans in their good works. But love turns to imperialism when eye camp gives way to Bible school. Evangelism is perceived as arrogant disregard, even hatred, for the Afghans or anyone else who does not yet believe in Jesus Christ for salvation …

While rejecting the Taliban’s tactics, Western unbelievers have no sympathy for the gospel, either. Both cringe over efforts to explicitly proclaim the good news that Jesus Christ died for sinners and raised from the dead. Yet Christians know no greater love than this, that Jesus Christ died so we might be his friends …

We don’t expect that unbelievers will understand why we treasure this priceless inheritance even more than health and why we want others to share it. But Jesus’ example unto death on a cross and the work of the Holy Spirit empowers us to lay down even our lives so they just might come to know God, too.

Similarly, you need to read this post by Ajith Fernando on why Christianity needs suffering Christians…  The whole article is lessons learned while laboring on the mission field and is worth reading.  But consider his closing words -

In a world where physical health, appearance, and convenience have gained almost idolatrous prominence, God may be calling Christians to demonstrate the glory of the gospel by being joyful and content while enduring pain and hardship. People who are unfulfilled after pursuing things that do not satisfy may be astonished to see Christians who are joyful and content after depriving themselves for the gospel. This may be a new way to demonstrate the glory of the gospel to this hedonistic culture.

I have a great fear for the church. The West is fast becoming an unreached region. The Bible and history show that suffering is an essential ingredient in reaching unreached people. Will the loss of a theology of suffering lead the Western church to become ineffective in evangelism? The church in the East is growing, and because of that God’s servants are suffering. Significant funding and education come to the East from the West. With funding and education comes influence. Could Westerners influence Eastern Christians to abandon the Cross by communicating that they must be doing something wrong if they suffer in this way? Christians in both the East and the West need to have a firm theology of suffering if they are to be healthy and bear fruit.

Jason could explain to you what it meant to say that he had been “saved by grace,” and he knew that he was going to spend eternity with his Savior. His problem was in the here and now. Day after day, in situation after situation and relationship after relationship, Jason didn’t carry with him a vibrant and practical sense of the nowism of the grace of Jesus Christ. Yes, Jason believed in life after death, but he desperately needed to understand life before death; the kind of radical life you will live when you understand what Christ has given you for the life he has called you to right here, right now.

Tripp explains four aspects of the gospel and what grace will do to you:

1. Grace will decimate what you think of you, while it gives you a security of identity you’ve never had.
2. Grace will expose your deepest sins of heart, while it covers every failure with the blood of Jesus.
3. Grace will make you face how weak you are, while it blesses you with power beyond you ability to calculate.
4. Grace will take control out of your hands, while it blesses you with the care of One who plan is unshakable and perfect in every way.

HT: JT

The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping.

The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication.

It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman—glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. But clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens?

Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand re-discovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made.

. . . You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.

HT: JT

The great guide of the world is fashion and it’s god is respectability–two phantoms at which brave men laugh! How many of you look around on society to know what to do? You watch the general current and then float upon it! You study the popular breeze and shift your sails to suit it. True men do not so! You ask, “Is it fashionable? If it is fashionable, it must be done.” Fashion is the law of multitudes, but it is nothing more than the common consent of fools.

HT: TT

You who are older should be looking out for younger people and saying in effect, ‘Watch me.’  Come—I’ll show you how to have family devotions.  Come—I’ll show you how to do Bible study.  Come on—let me take you through some of the fundamentals of the faith.  Come—I’ll show you how to pray.  Let me show you how to be a Christian husband and father, or wife and mother.At a certain point in life, that older mentor should be saying other things, such as: Let me show you how to die. Watch me.

Watch this…

Cardboard Stories from The Austin Stone on Vimeo.

The gospel is more than just the cross. When we fail to appreciate all the other facets of the good news about His work, we’ll be tempted to use Jesus’ suffering on the cross to motivate obedience. In other words, we’ll be tempted to feel sorry for the victim Jesus and try to guilt ourselves (and others) into submission, rather than seeing the victor, Jesus, who acted purposefully throughout His existence and acts powerfully upon us to transform us.

Briefly, here’s how the whole gospel message might impact me when I’m struggling with my own unbelief, idolatry and sin: Let’s say that I’ve got company coming over for dinner and I realize that I’m running low on table salt. I calculate the time I need to get to the store, get the salt and get home so that I can be a gracious, organized hostess (idols everywhere here). I jump in my car, race up to the store, grab the salt and run to the Quick Check Out line only to find myself stuck behind another woman who obviously didn’t read the “10 Items or Less” sign. Instantly I’m angry and then, because I know that my anger is sinful, I feel guilty and then, because I remember all the times I’ve failed like this, I despair. Now, what are my options?

• Option #1: If I’m a Happy Moralist, I’ll assure myself that my anger is “righteous” because the person in front of me is not obeying the rules like I am. I’ll remain angry but feel better about it.
• Option #2: If I’m a Sad Moralist, I’ll recognize that my anger isn’t righteous because I’m not loving my neighbor and I’m angry because of my idolatry. I’ll feel both guilty and angry but now I’ll despair because it seems as though I’ll never change.
• Option #3: If I’ve been thinking about the cross without considering the rest of the gospel, I’ll despair even more because I’ll know that Jesus suffered for this sin and I’ll be sad, guilty and despairing thinking about how much pain He endured on my account. In this case the gospel doesn’t elevate my soul, it crushes me.
• Option #4: If I’m seeking to live in the light of the whole gospel, my heart will be transformed in these ways:
  • Because of the incarnation, Jesus Christ knows exactly what it is to live in a sin-cursed world with people who break the rules…like me. I am a rule-breaker but He’s loved me and he’s experienced every trial I face. He’s with me. He sympathizes with my weakness (Hebrews 4:15).This understanding of His love in the face of my sin drains my anger at my rule-breaking neighbor. I can love her because I’ve been loved and I am just like her.
  • Because of His sinless life, I now have a perfect record of loving my neighbor. He perfectly loved rule-breakers. This record of perfect love for my rule-breaking neighbor is mine now; knowing this relieves my guilt. Even though I continue to fail to love, His record is mine.
  • Because of His substitutionary death, I am completely forgiven for my sin…even the sins that I seem to fall into at the slightest provocation. God has no wrath left for me because He poured it all out on His Son. He’s not disappointed or irritated. He welcomes me as a beloved daughter.
  • Because of His resurrection (and the justification it brings), I know that the power of sin in my life has been broken. Yes, I’ve failed again, but I can have the courage to continue to fight sin because I’m no longer a slave to it. This replaces despair with faith to wage war against my selfishness and pride.
  • Because of His ascension and reign, I know that this situation isn’t a mere chance happening. He’s orchestrated it so that I will remember Him and be blessed by the gospel again. He’s ruling over my life and interceding for me right now. I’m not a slave to chaos or chance. He’s my Sovereign King and I can rest in His loving plan today and rejoice in Him.
  • And, because of His promised return, I know that all the doubt, injustice and struggle will one day come to an end. This line in this grocery store and my plans for dinner isn’t all there is. There’s the great good news of the gospel. I can go home now and share with my family and guests how Jesus met me at the grocery store and we can rejoice together in His work on our behalf.

It is the whole message of the gospel that has the power to transform impatient, guilty, selfish, despairing idolaters into free and joyful worshippers of the Living God.

Wise advice from C.J. Mahaney to a concerned dad who fears that that the way in which he insists his kids obey him in the Lord could lead them to think of God the Father apart from love and grace:

• You have the privilege of introducing them to God the Father and describing the ways in which he is different from you, different from all sinful fathers, and how in any way you are like him it’s only because of grace that you reflect him. See Luke 11:11–13.

• Your honest confession of your sin to your children will protect them from having hard thoughts about you or God.

• Communicating your affection for them—and joy when you are with them—promotes both good and accurate thoughts about God.

• Initiate time with them at both planned and spontaneous times. Don’t leave them with the impression that they get most of your attention when they disobey. Let them know you are so grateful for them and love being with them as much as possible.

• Bless your children with many gifts in many forms! See Luke 11 again. Study your children in order to discern what gifts would genuinely bless them and then purpose to surprise them as often as possible.

• Requiring appropriate obedience does not promote hard thoughts about God. This only happens when we do so in self-righteousness or anger. See point 2 again.

• Frequently preach the gospel to them (and not at them). Reveal to your children just how far God has gone to show his love for sinners like us.

See the whole post for a link to his two-part sermon on Jude where he touches on this theme.

We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all.

This is not true of us only “when we believe.”

It is just as true after we have believed.

It will continue to be true as long as we live.

Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be.

It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.

There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him.

We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace.

Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners” saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ.

There is emphasized in this attitude the believer’s continued sinfulness in fact and in act; and his continued sense of his sinfulness. And this carries with it recognition of the necessity of unbroken penitence throughout life. The Christian is conceived fundamentally in other words as a penitent sinner.

But that is not all that is to be said: it is not even the main thing that must be said.

It is therefore gravely inadequate to describe the spirit of “miserable sinner Christianity” as “the spirit of continuous but not unhopeful penitence.” It is not merely that it is too negative a description, and that we must at least say, “the spirit of continuous though hopeful penitence.” It is wholly uncomprehending description, and misplaces the emphasis altogether.

The spirit of this Christianity is a spirit of penitent indeed, but overmastering exultation.

The attitude of the “miserable sinner” is not only not one of despair; it is not even one of depression; and not even one of hesitation or doubt; hope is too weak a word to apply to it.

It is an attitude of exultant joy.

Only this joy has its ground not in ourselves but in our Savior.

We are sinners and we know ourselves to be sinners, lost and helpless in ourselves.

But we are saved sinners; and it is our salvation which gives the tone to our life, a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of our ill-desert; for it is he to whom much is forgiven who loves much, and who, loving, rejoices much.

HT: JT

“Let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”  Ephesians 5:33

God made Adam first and put him in the Garden with a job to do, a mission to fulfill.  In the heart of every fallen man is the self-doubt that wonders, “Am I man enough to climb this mountain God has called me to?  Can I fulfill my destiny?”  A wise wife will understand that question at the center of her husband’s heart.  And she will spend her life answering it, communicating to him in various ways, “Honey, I believe in your call.  I know you can do this, by God’s power.  Go for it.”  In this way, she will breathe life into her man.

God made Eve from Adam, for Adam, to help him follow the call.  In the heart of every fallen woman is the self-doubt that wonders, “Do I please you?  Am I what you wanted?”  A wise husband will understand that question at the center of his wife’s heart.  And he will spend his life answering it, communicating to her in various ways, “Darling, you are the one I need.  I cherish you.  Let me hold you close.”  In this way, he will breathe life into his wife.

I told her, in short, that she was being ridiculous.  While helping her look for the horse, I had told her several times that we understood, that it was hard to get a toy and then to lose it.  But now things had gone on so long, I wished we never would have given her the horse, if we knew it was going to cause such problems.  She had been happy before she even had the horse, but ever since she had it and lost it, she had been miserable and making everyone else miserable.  I told her that maybe there was a reason God hadn’t let her find the horse.  (You have to be careful trying to interpret God’s will like this.  Sometimes we will pray that God will help us find something that has been lost.  But I didn’t think it was appropriate to pray that way when she was acting so angry and taking it out on everyone else.  It is wrong to spend prayer on our desires when they are full of sin and prayer really needs to be spent on repentance.)  Maybe God wouldn’t let her find the horse until she repented.  She has informed us several times recently that she has been praying for God to change her heart and give her a new heart.  Maybe this was something God was doing to help her know what that meant.

So I told her that the horse had become an idol.  She was refusing to be happy until she had the horse back.  She had been happy before she even knew the horse existed, but now she couldn’t be happy without it.  Having the horse was more important to her than anything else, and she was willing to make everyone else miserable until she had it.  (As I talked with her about it, she was still glaring at me.)  We have talked about what it means to be a child of God – that when we’re trusting God, we have a peace with him in our hearts that is bigger than our circumstances, that the fruit of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control”.  I asked her if she had any of those things right now.  She said, “No.”  What do you have?  “Angry.”  What does that tell you?  “The horse is more important and real to me than God.”

I then asked, “Does the horse talk?”  She looked at me funny and said, “No…”  “Does the horse run by itself?  Does it play?  Does it hug you?  Love you?  Is it good for taking you on long journeys?  Does it listen when you tell it all your problems?”  Again, “No…”  The Bible talks about idolatry and says, a man finds a tree in the forest and cuts it down.  Half of it he burns in a fire to stay warm.  The other half he crafts into an idol and bows down and worships it.  (See Isaiah 44:9-20.)  Psalm 115:4-8 says, “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.  They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.  They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.  They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.  Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.”

I asked her, “What do you think of that?”  She said, giggling, “That’s stupid.”  I said, “Does your horse talk?”  Laughing again (obvious change of attitude), “No.”  “Does your horse play with you?”  “No”.  “Can the horse really make you happy?”  “No.”  When you find the horse, is it really going to make that much difference in your life?”  “No.”  “Well then, what is it?”  Smiling sheepishly, “An idol.”  “What do you need to do?”  “Trust God and repent.”  “You know what Jesus did?  You were his lost treasure.  And he went to the ends of the earth and to his own death to find you and win you back.  And he rejoices for eternity when you repent and are found by him.”

We ended the conversation with a very different attitude.

She found the horse the next morning.

Question 1: Do you gush over your wife? I mean, do you really pile on the compliments? No need to ration here. The more you speak them the freer they come. So why so stingy in telling your bride she’s more stunning than elegance wrapped in sweetness covered in perfection?

Yes, the bit about “hair like a flock of goats” doesn’t translate well, so skip that line. Don’t worry about sounding poetic or trying to compare her features to local topography. Just tell say something like: “Behold, you are beautiful, my love, you are beautiful” (4:1). Or try this: “Who is this who looks like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners.” Oh yeah, that’ll work.

Tell your bride she is the most gorgeous, most precious, most amazing woman you’ve ever laid eyes on. Tell her that she still turns your head and makes your heart race. Lay it on thick brothers. You should mean it, of course, but if you don’t, just keep telling her until you do. Nothing kills romance like expressions of calculated affection.

Question 2: Do you pursue your wife? Words are wonderful, but pursuit may be even more powerful. Now listen, guys, don’t get all weird and stalker-like. Remember, you should pursue her as she likes to be pursued, not as you do. So surprise her. Woo her. Take her away (without the kids for heaven’s sake).

Even after years of marriage keep using words like “Come” and “Let’s.” Be a man. Be a leader. Try to impress her. You managed to do it once, but chances are much of your impressiveness has worn off under the rough edges of career, laziness, and time. Men shouldn’t get married so they can stop pursuing women. We get married so we can perfect the pursuit with same woman over a lifetime. Don’t give up the chase gentlemen.

Believe me, brothers, I write as one who needs to learn.

From Kevin DeYoung

In all unbelief there are these two things–a good opinion of one’s self and a bad opinion of God. Man’s good opinion of himself makes him think it quite possible to win God’s favor by his own religious performances; and his bad opinion of God makes him unwilling and afraid to put his case wholly into His hands. The object of the Holy Spirit’s work (in convincing of sin) is to alter the sinner’s opinion of himself, and so to reduce his estimate of his own character that he shall think of himself as God does, and so cease to suppose it possible that he can be justified by an excellency of his own. The Spirit then alters his evil opinion of God, so as to make him see that the God with whom he has to do is really the God of all grace.

But the inquirer denies that he has a good opinion of himself and owns himself a sinner. Now a man may SAY this, but really to KNOW it is something more than SAYING. Besides, he may be willing to take the name of sinner to himself, in common with his fellow-men, and yet not at all own himself such a sinner as God says he is–such a sinner as needs the cross, and blood, and righteousness of the Son of God. It takes a great deal to destroy a man’s good opinion of himself; how difficult it is to make a man think of himself as God does! What but the almightiness of the Divine Spirit can accomplish this?

Unbelief, then, is the belief of a lie and the rejection of the truth. Accept, then, the character of God as given in the gospel; the Holy Spirit will not give you peace irrespective of your views of God’s character. It is in connection with THE TRUTH concerning the true God, “the God of all grace,” that the Spirit gives peace. That which He shows us of ourselves is only evil; that which He shows us of God is only good!

–Horatius Bonar, “God’s Way of Peace”

1. Compassion International
2. Feed My Starving Children
3. Food for the Hungry
4. World Vision
5. World Relief
6. Samaritan’s Purse
7. Love a Child
8. Northwest Haiti Christian Mission
9. Compassion Weavers
10. Mennonite Central Committee
11. Water Missions International
12. Real Hope for Haiti Rescue Center. They’re operating one of the only clinics near the epicenter that’s open right now.

9Marks mentions three more -

1. Baptist Haiti Mission  One of their people have sent an “on the ground report” on conditions.
2. Match for Haiti Campaign
3. Baptist Global Response

Several churches in our Association (ARBCA) have ties to churches in the Dominican Republic, on the other side of the island.  Those churches have many ties within Haiti.  Grace Baptist Church in Papillion, NE, is going to be coordinating efforts for ARBCA churches to contribute through the D.R. churches…

This is where the first several chapters of Acts (which we have been looking at on Sunday mornings the last month) become so important.  We see a community with vitality.

What gave them that vitality?  The presence of the Holy Spirit making the truth powerful.  I said a few weeks ago from Acts 2:3 that he re-energizes you – convincing you at the same time of two truths: that God loves and is present with each one of you specially, and that he is holy.  Holiness and Love, Transcendence and Immanence, Conviction and Comfort at the same moment.  When those are burning in your heart, he can ask anything of you and you would do anything for him.

But the Holy Spirit uses means to prepare you for his filling.  The apostles were devoting themselves to prayer and were together for prayer when the Spirit rushed upon them (Acts 1:14, 2:1).  After a case of frightening trial where they were hauled before the authorities, they were again in prayer when the Spirit filled them again with boldness (4:23-31).

In Eph.5:18, the Apostle Paul makes it a command – “Do not get drunk with wine…but be filled with the Spirit.”  He made it his prayer, praying that God “may give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened” (Eph.1:17).

Do you see what this means?  You have got to have the Spirit!  In the words of Eph.5:15-18, you’ve got to “make the best use of the time.  Don’t be foolish.  Understand what the Lord’s will is…Be filled with the Spirit!”.  And you’ve got to pursue it.  How?  “Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart…giving thanks…submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ…living it out in your daily life and relationships” (5:19ff).  In other words, using the means of grace in fellowship with your fellow believers.  Not “going through the motions of grace”, but using the means of grace from the heart.

There was a point in my life where I experienced that powerfully.  When I was in Kenya a few years ago as part of a team of mediators trying to resolve a conflict among some Christian leaders there, it was one of the most spiritually intense two weeks of my life.  It wasn’t fun; it was an excruciating situation any way you looked at it – but the fellowship, friendship and collaboration with the team I was working with was spiritually exhilarating and something I will never forget.  And the one thing that defined the difference was the prayer time.  We knew humanly speaking it was an impossible situation.  We knew we were in over our heads without God.  But we knew that this was a situation God cared about.  And it made you pray – really pray.  You were in meetings all day, every one electrified, and every spare second you could, you found yourself praying for help.  Every morning and every evening you prayed with these fellow workers.  You poured out your heart for them that God would help them, would fill them with wisdom and grace.  They poured their hearts out for you.  You loved one another in those prayers.  You loved and were broken hearted for the people you were praying for together.  And every time you prayed, God answered.  Things happened.  Verses came to mind at the right moment.  Solutions appeared that weren’t there before.  Hearts were changed sometimes dramatically.   The truths of the Gospel showed themselves to be without a doubt the true power of God.  It was awesome.  It was war-time prayer.  It’s true that the mediation didn’t end like we hoped.  But it was worth it; it was kingdom work.  God was doing something and I don’t think we’ve seen the end of it yet.

But what I remember was the vitality.  You were alive and the Spirit was alive in you.  You felt your need for God and knew that he was present with you.  I imagine the early church having that kind of intense, battlefield dependence and clarity.  They were living for a purpose, a mission.  They were in earnest with one another for the Spirit.

And that’s the kind of vitality we need.  Do you want it?

We have had an extended period of peace and blessing as a congregation over the last few years.  (Certain people have had their share of struggles, but, as a congregation, we have been blessed.)  The danger in such a situation is, of course, spiritual complacency – leading to spiritual deadness and sin.

In the letters to the 7 churches in Revelation 2-3, the repeated warning is a warning against complacency.  The churches were losing their first love, tolerating sin, being content with appearances, being lukewarm.  They were exhorted to remember, be faithful, repent, hold fast, wake up, endure patiently, seek fellowship with Jesus.

In one remarkable passage, Jesus said to the church in Sardis, “Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.  Remember, then, what you have received and heard.  Keep it, and repent.” (3:2-3).

The church in Sardis was “only mostly dead”.  It’s possible to be a Christian and yet be barely alive.  The church was failing in works to be what God intended them to be.  What I find surprisingly interesting is Jesus’ solution.  Certainly this church needed to wake up and do something if their works were incomplete.  But Jesus says they needed to wake up and remember something – “remember what you have received and heard.  Keep what you have received and then you will repent.”

The Christian life is always about thinking first, then doing.  It is about living out of the Gospel.  Why so many exhortations to “remember”, to “hold fast”, to “keep my word”?  It is because the power to obey comes from the source.

The number one thing we cannot be complacent about is our hold on the Gospel and its reality in our hearts.  You’ve heard of people who are ‘cutters’?  Sorry to borrow from such a sad term – but we need to be spiritual ‘cutters’.  As we saw in our sermon yesterday from Acts 2:37, we need to be “cut to the heart”.  We need the Word of God which is “sharper than any two-edged sword” piercing our hearts.  We need to be convicted and comforted and changed daily by the Gospel.

“The secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.” –Kevin DeYoung

I read this concise quote from Kevin DeYoung a while back and have thought since that it is a great thought for parents to ponder.  Here are my thoughts…

You can’t just discipline your children or just give them practical wisdom or just call them to obedience.  You have to winsomely speak the Gospel to them.

The temptation for parents is to just call for obedience and pound our children with God’s expectations and because we mention God think that we’re being spiritual parents – like this: “Honey, what were you thinking?  That’s completely unacceptable.  When you ‘disobey’ (…or insert whatever issue…) like that, don’t you know you’re also disobeying God.  That’s sin.  You can’t be that way.  The Bible says…”

Now none of that is wrong to say.  In fact, a lot of times, that’s the entirely appropriate thing to say.  When it comes to our daily interactions with our kids, I don’t think you can “give the Gospel” on every issue.  In fact, I don’t think it would really be wise or helpful to “give the Gospel” on every issue – there’s a danger of just saying the same formulation over and over and it losing its power to your kids.  Sometimes you just have to demand obedience of your kids.  But proportionally most parents probably need to “give the Gospel” much more than they do – because even if you can’t realistically “give the Gospel” every time, it should be such a background and undercurrent in your family that it automatically be in the background of your kid’s minds even when you’re not explicit about it.

What is “giving the Gospel”?  It’s not just – “Don’t you know you’re disobeying God; how could you!? …Oh, but if you trust Jesus, he will forgive you.”  The Gospel is not just a stop-gap.  “Giving the Gospel” is trying to get underneath the cause of their disobedience to the source of their fear or shame or selfishness or frustration.  And then connecting that heart sin to the mercy of God.  “Honey, I can understand why you’re impatient with your sister; she can be annoying, but so can you.  And isn’t it important to remember how patient our God is with us?  He is so patient, so loving.  Even when we don’t think of him, he sent Jesus.  And Jesus was patient.  He didn’t fight back.  He died because you are impatient.  If he has been so patient with you, he wants you to be amazed by that – so amazed by his patience that it makes you patient.”

As parents, you need to know how every situation connects to the Gospel – how the love of Jesus is bigger than every situation and changes your perspective in every situation.  That needs to be real to you so that you can speak it to your children.  Sometimes when you speak it to our children, it will become real again to you.  But that needs to be the undercurrent of your thought life.  And when it is, it will become the undercurrent of your family life.

Sometimes, you just have to require obedience of your kids – and give the Law.  But the secret of the Gospel is that ultimately your kids will do more when they hear less of all they need to do for God and hear more about who God is and what he has already done.

1) The Christian life is all about Jesus from beginning to end – “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach…To them he presented himself alive after his suffering by many proofs…”

• Meditate in your prayer on how your life should be based on all that Jesus “began to do and teach“, is based on his Cross and Resurrection – how the Cross should be the most important thing in your life, should be your hope, should be the event that most shapes your every day.  Pray for how it should shape you today.
• Meditate in your prayer on how your life now should be about all that Jesus “continues to do” through you – read Philippians 2:12-13, Rom.15:18, Col.1:29.  Pray that Jesus would manifest himself through you, would fill your life.

2) The Christian life is about Truth on Fire – “after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit…appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God”; read also Luke 24:44-49.

• Jesus delays sending the Spirit, instead giving the disciples an extended time of Bible training.  Then he sends the Spirit to ignite the fuel of Truth they got from the Bible.
• Pray that God would open your mind “to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).  The Spirit will be able to light a fire in your life in proportion to your knowledge of the Bible – it is the Truth of the Bible he uses to inspire, guide and direct your life.  So meditate on the Bible in your prayer (as we are doing right now).
• Then pray for the Spirit to fill your life and make the Truth come alive.

3) The Christian life is about truth becoming personal and real – “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?  This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven”.

• Pray for grace to see that Jesus has not been “taken from” us, but has been given to us – he has not “gone”; he has “gone to work” and is “with us” as never before.
• Pray for grace to see and believe that Christ has ascended, is on his throne; all his enemies are being placed under his feet.
• Pray that the reigning King of the Universe would be personal to you – the fact that you know the reigning King of the Universe personally would be personal and powerful to you.

In prayer with you,

Matt

• “Fast Advice On Fasting”
• “Fast Quotes on Fasting”
• “More Fast Quotes on Fasting” 

Also, as a bonus, here’s another Piper quote on ‘A Vision for Prayer’…

Being devoted to prayer will mean that what you say in your times of prayer will often be free and unstructured, and often be formed and structured. If you are only free in your prayers you will probably become shallow and trite. If you are only formed in your prayers, you will probably become mechanical and hollow. Both ways of praying are important. Not either-r, but both-and.

By free I mean you will regularly feel like pouring out your soul to God and you will do it. You will not want any script or guidelines or lists or books. You will have so many needs that they tumble out freely without any preset form. This is good. Without this it is doubtful that we have any true relation with Christ at all. Can you really imagine a marriage or friendship where all the communication read from lists or books, or spoken only in memorized texts. That would be artificial in the extreme.

On the other hand, I plead with you not to think you are so spiritually deep or resourceful or rich or disciplined that you can do without the help of forms. I have in mind four kinds of forms that I hope you all make use of.

Form #1. The Bible.Pray the Bible. Pray Biblical prayers. This week we are building our prayers around the prayer in Ephesians 3:14-19.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Memorize it and pray it often. Pray the Lord’s prayer and as you pray it put each phrase in your own words and apply it to the people you are burdened about. Pray the commands of the Bible: “Help me – help my wife, my children, the elders, our missionaries to love you, O God, with all my heart and all my soul and all my strength.” Pray the promises of the Bible: “O Lord, take all the authority that is yours in heaven and on earth and make our missionaries feel the sweetness of the promise that you will be with them to the end of the age.” Pray the warnings of the Bible: “Or Lord, grant me to fight against lust with the kind of urgency that you taught when you said, gouge out your eye and got to heaven rather than leave it good and go to hell.” Open the Bible in front of you and put one elbow on one side and one on the other and pray every paragraph of into contrition or praise or thanks or petition.

Form #2. Lists. Pray lists. I have in mind lists of people to pray for and lists of needs to pray about. If you can remember all the people and needs you should be praying for without a list, you are God. I must have lists, some in my head and some on paper. I have memorized about 70 people that I pray for by name every day. But that does not include the list of people who came to missions in the manse that Noel and I pray for each night from a written list. It does not include the list of our missionaries that I read from a list. And that’s just people, not to mention needs that change in my own soul and in the family and in the church and in the world week by week. So I encourage you to use lists of people and lists of needs. Keep some kind of prayer folder or notebook or files in your handheld computer. Remember I am only talking about the second half of this pair: freedom and form. Don’t forget the value of freedom. It is both-and, not either-or.

Form #3. Books.Pray through books like Operation World – a different country, and the cause of Christ in it, every day or two. What a powerful way to get a globe-sized heart and vision of God’s supremacy! Pray through a book like Extreme Devotion – a one-page glimpse into the suffering, persecuted church for every day of the year. Take my book, Let the Nations Be Glad, and turn to pages 57-62 and pray through the 36 things that the early church prayed for each other. Take The Valley of Vision, a book of Puritan prayers, and pray what great saints of the past have prayed. We are so foolish to think that left to ourselves we will see all the Bible has to say and all the needs we should pray about without the help of good books.

Form #4. Patterns.Develop patters of prayer that give you some guidance of what do first and second and third when you get down on your knees. One pattern, as I already mentioned, would be to structure your prayers around each of the petitions of the Lord’s prayer. A pattern that I use virtually every day is the pattern of concentric circles starting with my own soul – which I feel the sin and needs of most keenly – and moving out to my family, and then the pastoral staff and elders, then all the church staff, then our missionaries, and then general needs in the larger body of Christ and the cause of Christ in missions and culture. Without some form or pattern like this I tend to freeze and go nowhere.

So the first pair is free and formed. Unstructured with free flowing needs and thanks and praise; and structured with helps like the Bible, lists, books and patterns. If you are “devoted to prayer” you will pursue freedom and form in your prayer life.

“One is taken aback by the emphasis on the Cross in the book of Revelation.  Heaven never gets over the Cross nor thinks there are other or better things than the Cross.  Heaven is not only Christ centered but Cross-centered and quite blaring about it.”

The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church. He is to love her as Christ loved the church—read on—and gave his life for her (Ephesians 5:25).

This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is—in her own mere nature—least lovable. For the church has no beauty but what the bridegroom gives her; he does not find, but makes her, lovely.

The chrism [anointing, consecration] of this terrible coronation is to be seen not in the joys of any man’s marriage but in its sorrows, in the sickness and sufferings of a good wife or the faults of the bad one, in his unwearying (never paraded) care or his inexhaustible forgiveness: forgiveness, not acquiescence.

As Christ sees in the flawed, proud, fanatical or lukewarm Church on earth that bride who will one day be without spot or wrinkle, and labors to produce the latter, so the husband whose headship is Christ-like (and he is allowed no other sort) never despairs. He is a King Cophetua who after twenty years still hopes that the beggar-girl will one day learn to speak the truth and wash behind her ears. (105-106)

“When Paul says that we should put on “for a helmet the hope of salvation” he means that there are blows that come to our spiritual life that could destroy us, if we were not protected by the hope of salvation.  One of my clearest experiences of how this works was in December, 2005. The urologist said there was an irregularity in the prostate. He would like to do a biopsy. When? Right now. I’ll be back in a few minutes with the instrument. You can wait on that table.

In those ten minutes of his absence I felt a blow. He thinks I have cancer. He wants to do the biopsy instantly. As the blow descended on my head, the Lord positioned my helmet with loving firmness so that it wouldn’t fly off.

This is the “hope of salvation” that he gave me: “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10).

He brought this text to my mind as I sat on the table awaiting the biopsy. It did its work. It fixed hope on my head. It put brass between me and the blow.

I didn’t notice till later that the “for” at the beginning of the promise in 1 Thessalonians 5:9 (“For God has not destined us for wrath…”), was connected to the helmet of 1 Thessalonians 5:8: “…having put on for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation.”

In retrospect, God covered my head with the promise that this blow was not his wrath. He positioned the helmet of hope perfectly without my even thinking of helmets. I simply thought: This is not wrath; and if I live, I live with Christ, and if I die, I also live with Christ. With that he covered my head.”

On Prayer -

Now the tremendously important point of this story is seen in the words of Isaiah in Isaiah 37:21-22: “Because you have prayed to Me concerning Sennacharib, King of Assyria, this is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him.”

Because you have prayed! Because you have prayed, 185,000 enemy soldiers lie dead on the plans of Judah.

Think of it! Just think of it. Does prayer win battles?

Hezekiah, because you have prayed, the strongest king in the known world is gone—off the scene of history. Hezekiah, because you have prayed, the witness of my covenant love for David and my zeal for my name has spread throughout the nations.

Because one man prayed.

Post 1 – on Summer Evangelism

Post 2 – on Continuing Evangelism

“Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which he has forbidden…. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula…. To get a man’s soul and give him nothing in return—that’s what really gladdens Our Father’s heart.”

–( from C.S.Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, quoted in The Narnian, 189).

1. Several RB friends of mine have started a new blog.   I appreciated this post on “Risk for the Glory of God”.  Here’s a quote – “I want the kind of heart that strives for God in a way that, in the face of death, says things like “may the Lord do what seems good to him” or “if I perish, I perish”.
2. A good article from Don Whitney (via Challies) on “Delighting in the Lord’s Day”.   A quote – “Years ago I began to delight in the Lord’s Day much more intentionally.”
3. For the single girls you know (or for reference for the future) – here’s a companion booklet to a booklet I posted a few weeks ago called “The Guy’s Guide to Marrying Well” – it’s “The Girl’s Guide to Marrying Well“.
4. This is a little out of date, but I found it bluntly true – the real lesson from the Miss America – gay marriage controversy from June.  A quote – “By saying what she said about gay unions, moments after the swimsuit competition, she was basically telling the world “we do the same things, but for gay people it’s sin”…She becomes a glaring symbol of how by pointing out someone else’s sin, we can ignore the empty cheap frivolity of our own sexual lives and still feel better about ourselves.”

“Religion does not destroy [a person's] love of himself to make room for the love of others, but causes him to see and feel that their happiness is in a high degree consistent with, and contributive to his own.  Disinterested benevolence, or a benevolence without any reference immediate or ultimate to ourselves, is a chimera which cannot exist in the government of a God, who punishes crime and rewards virtue, thus governing intelligence by motive.  A man, who acts without a motive, is either a madman or a fool. The delight attending a good action is one of the strongest impelling motives to it; and he, who seems to do good without such consciousness, and without loving to do good, is not in heart a good man.  Jesus served ‘for the reward set before him’.  God himself takes delight in goodness, and devises the plan of redemption for his own glory: and so far from a well-regulated self-love being a sordid affection, it exalts us to a communion with God and the Savior.  True goodness, therefore, can only be maintained by the faith which supplies higher motives to its exercise, than the world can suggest to the withholding of it.”

Or again -

“There is no security for goodness unless in some strong principle, which lifts the heart of man above those things for which the world contends…and thus purifies the natural affection of self-love from all taint of selfishness.”

All that’s to say – Piper’s Christian Hedonism isn’t his; it’s as old as Biblical religion.

On a more practical note – one more unused quote from Jerry Bridges that encourages everyday, practical ‘kindness’ (from The Practice of Godliness) -

“Remember that most opportunities for doing good come across the ordinary path of our day.  Don’t look for the spectacular; few people ever have the opportunity to pull a victim from the wreckage of a flaming automobile.  All of us have the opportunity to administer the kind or encouraging word, to do the little, perhaps unseen, deed that makes life pleasant for someone else.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. Zach Nielsen links to a funny, yet helpful post on getting kids ready for church.
2. Mark Driscoll has made available online for free a 48-page book called “Pastor Dad: Scriptural Insights on Fatherhood.”  I’ve glanced through it and it looks helpful.  Read it online or download the pdf.
3. GirlTalk posts some helpful questions for hospitality (to help you get to know people better).
4. Justin Taylor points to a pretty disturbing article by a woman celebrating her selfishness – a quote: “Women should be allowed to care about pleasing ourselves– and only ourselves — without being judged. What is wrong with a woman being selfish? Really…Some women just want to have fun — the same fun they’ve always had. Are mothers who call other women “selfish” are just a little bitter because it’s harder for them to meet some of their “having fun” needs.”  Unbelievable.

“We are like the unmerciful servant when we lose our patience under provocation.  We ignore God’s extreme patience with us.  We discipline our children out of anger, while God disciplines us out of love.  We are eager to punish the person who provokes us, while God is eager to forgive.  We are eager to exercise our authority, while God is eager to exercise his love.”   –Jerry Bridges, ‘The Practice of Godliness’

“Patience commends us to God, and keeps us his.  Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher of humility.  Patience governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues pride, bridles the tongue, restrains the hand, tramples upon temptations, endures persecutions, consummates martyrdom.  Patience produces unity in the church, loyalty in the state, harmony in society, and peace in families.  She comforts the poor, and moderates the rich.  She makes us meek in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, and unmoved by reproach.  She teaches us to forgive those who injure us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness of those we have injured.  She adorns the woman, and approves the man; is loved in the child, praised in the youth, and admired in the old.  Her countenance is calm and serene as the cloudless face of heaven, and no wrinkle is seen upon her brow.  Her eyes are as the dove’s for meekness, yet full of cheerfulness and joy.  Her complexion is the color of innocence, and her mouth is lovely in silence… She rides not in the whirlwind and the stormy tempest of passion, but her throne is the humble and contrite heart, and her kingdom is the kingdom of peace.”   –Attributed to Tertullian

“What happy world it would be if this rule of Lord’s was more known and better obeyed!  How many of the miseries of mankind are occasioned by disputes, quarrels, lawsuits, and an obstinate tenacity about what men call ‘their rights’!  How many of these might be altogether avoided if men were more willing to forgive, and more desirous for peace!  Let us never forget that a fire cannot go on burning without fuel; just in the same way it takes two to make a quarrel.  Let us each resolve, by God’s grace, that we will never be one of these two.  Let us resolve to return good for evil, and blessing for cursing, and so to melt down enmity, and change our foes into friends (Rom.12:20).  It was a fine feature of Archbishop Cranmer’s character, that if you did him an injury he was sure to be your friend.”  –J.C. Ryle, ‘Matthew’.

Most fathers-to-be suppose that their old ego-centered lives will continue more or less unabated after the child arrives. With the exception of a few more obstacles and demands on their time, their involvement with their children is envisioned as being something manageable and marginal. Nothing like a complete transformation—an abrupt end to their former life—really enters men’s minds.

But then the onslaught begins, and a man begins to realize that these people, his wife and children, are literally and perhaps even intentionally killing his old self. All around him everything is changing, without any signs of ever reverting back to the way they used to be. Into the indefinite future, nearly every hour of his days threatens to be filled with activities that, as a single-person or even a childless husband, he never would have chosen. Due to the continual interruptions of sleep, he is always mildly fatigued; due to long-term financial concerns, he is cautious in spending, forsaking old consumer habits and personal indulgences; he finds his wife equally exhausted and preoccupied with the children; connections with former friends start to slip away; traveling with his children is like traveling third class in Bulgaria, to quote H.L. Mencken; and the changes go on and on. In short, he discovers, in a terrifying realization, what Dostoevsky proclaimed long ago: “[A]ctive love is a harsh and fearful reality compared with love in dreams.” Fatherhood is just not what he bargained for.

Yet, through the exhaustion, financial stress, screaming, and general chaos, there enters in at times, mysteriously and unexpectedly, deep contentment and gratitude. It is not the pleasure or amusement of high school or college but rather the honor and nobility of sacrifice and commitment, like that felt by a soldier. What happens to his children now happens to him; his life, though awhirl with the trivial concerns of children, is more serious than it ever was before. Everything he does, from bringing home a paycheck to painting a bedroom, has a new end and, hence, a greater significance. The joys and sorrows of his children are now his joys and sorrows; the stakes of his life have risen. And if he is faithful to his calling, he might come to find that, against nearly all prior expectations, he never wants to return to the way things used to be.

Your peace is a function of your closeness to the Gospel, is a function of faith.  A loss of peace reveals a loss of faith.  When Jesus calmed the storm, he asked his terrified disciples, “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25).  If we are to “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15) by putting to death what is earthly (crucifying the desires of the flesh that wage war) and setting our minds on things above – then a loss of peace is an alarm bell and warning sign either that your desires are set too strongly on some earthly thing or that your joy is not set firmly in Christ’s love.

The fruit of peace does not remove all emotion – you will still experience frustration and disappointment and struggle (Jesus did) – but it keeps you from being overwhelmed by them.  It clarifies and reasserts your hope in Christ and causes you again to keep in step with the Spirit and walk in Jesus, “rooted and built up in him and established in the faith..abounding in thanksgiving” (Col.2:7).

I had a conversation with someone earlier this week who was condemning the music of today’s Christian artists because it’s “loud” and “rhythmic” and “extreme.” Such music, because it may provoke a physical response, he dismissed as “sexual.” His judgment reminded me of Michal, King David’s wife, who mocked her husband for the “vulgar” way he was “leaping and dancing before the LORD.” God’s judgment against her? Barrenness.

I’m learning not to be so quick to write something off as ungodly simply because it’s not my preference. After all, the Lord’s ways are not like my ways. And where Scripture doesn’t express a clear judgment, perhaps I should be slow to express mine. At least in the realm of music.

A reflection from Justin Taylor -

 A mature Christian is easily edified…  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.

From John Piper on evangelism (read his reasoning here) -

The constant effort to spread the gospel—especially across cultures—is crucial to preserving the gospel.

Being responsible to parents -

Why is it that we heap scorn on “deadbeat” parents who fail to take care of underage children, but excuse adult children who don’t take care of their feeble parents?

Perhaps it’s because caring for children—no matter how many diapers and scrapes must be tended to—is a joyful experience, while aging involves untold sadness and indignity.

Maybe it has something to do with our unwillingness to confront death.

One of the surprises of the Christian life is that as you grow more holy in life and practice, you also grow in your awareness of your own sin and depravity.  In fact, the latter is a key to the former.  As a result, while you are in reality becoming more sanctified, your daily experience is often that of feeling less sanctified.

So J.I. Packer once noted that in I Corinthians (c. 54 AD), Paul calls himself the least of the apostles.  In Ephesians (c. 61 AD) he calls himself the least of the saints.  By I Timothy (c. 65 AD), he describes himself as the chief of all sinners.
Packer’s conclusion: Holy people glory, not in their holiness, but in Christ’s cross; for the holiest saint is never more than a justified sinner and never sees himself in any other way. (Keeping In Step With the Spirit, page 105)

There was an important job to be done, and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

–Author unknown

It’s very important for Christians to be equipped and to know the real issues involved in this debate.

For that purpose, Scott Klusendorf has recently published a book on a popular level that has been getting rave reviews as a great resource for Christians to have.  It’s called “The Case for Life”.

Read a review by Kevin DeYoung here

They have started a blog giving updates on their trip – which can be seen here -

http://twoweeksinfrance.blogspot.com/

He gave a great answer: “frenetic Western-culture busyness”.

One line that stood out -

You can’t fit God’s dream (if I can use that language) for his church inside of the American dream and have it work. It’s a radically different lifestyle. It just won’t squeeze into the available spaces of the time and energy that’s left over.

Read the whole thing (and other interview questions) here