The early disciples knew, that salvation was free but there was still a cost involved with following Christ. But that doesn’t seem very popular in a culture of plenty and the vigorous pursuit of happiness.
For more see: Dying for Jesus isn’t Very Popular These Days: Neither is Living for Him.
A perennial issue for all believers is dealing with temptation. We want our lives to reflect the holiness that Christ both purchased for us and desires in us but we all stumble in many ways. Here’s a quick three minute video that offers help and direction for how to deal with sin so that the glory of Christ is displayed in our lives so that an unbelieving world sees the glory of the gospel and our Savior.
“Oh Lord my God, when I in awed wonder consider all that You have done for me in Christ, I long for Your holiness to be reflected in my life. My trouble is that I don’t pause long enough or often enough to gaze in wonder at the beauty of the cross and the rescuing-love of Christ. Make my passion for holiness grow. Make it burn into such a flame that all my temptations to sin are consumed in the conflagration or a holy passion for You.”
Marty Schoenleber, Jr. is the founding pastor of one church, the interim pastor of another and the church planting trainer/mentor of over 200 other church planting pastors. He is adjunct professor of Church Planting at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and has taught Preaching at the International School of Theology, and Evangelism at Moody Graduate School of Theology. He is also the Director of the Saint John’s Pastoral Center, a pastoral care and retreat center located in a growing number of Bed and Breakfast houses across the mid-west. His latest book is Picking a President: Or Any Other Elected Official (CrossBooks, [late May 2012]). To enjoy a free subscription to his blog, log-on to www.chosenrebel.wordpress.com, where you can post your comments, view past blogs in our archive and read the latest reflections on church planting, Biblical Expositions and musings about church, culture and spiritual formation. Follow Pastor Marty on twitter @1Chosenrebel4JC.This coming Saturday, I will be teaching a seminar titled Marriage Skills for the 21st Century, at Trinity Church in Watseka, IL. Last I heard there were 86 people registered but there is still room for more. You can get more information at MyTrinity.TV. I feel completely overwhelmed to speak to the greatness of God’s vision on marriage. Who is capable of such a majestic and important theme? I covet your prayers.
“There never has been a generation whose general view of marriage is high enough. The chasm between the biblical vision of marriage and the common human vision is now, and has always been, gargantuan. Some cultures in history respect the importance and the permanence of marriage more than others. Some, like our own, have such low, casual, take-it-or-leave-it attitudes toward marriage as to make the biblical vision seem ludicrous to most people.”
John Piper, This Momentary Marriage,
(Crossway Books, 2009)
Too often we help others because it makes us feel good.
We need to help the poor for the poor not our self-esteem. Another way of putting it—We need to help the poor because we love Jesus and them not ourselves.
Don’t miss this Short video from the The Chalmer’s Center. (The embed code for vimeo is below but I haven’t been able to get it to work. Anyone out there who can help, send me and email)
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Help your church to think it through and begin to reconfigure what you do corporately with your missions trips and how you train and equip the saints to do it locally as individuals set a aflame with the love of Christ for the hurting among whom they live.
P.S. My computer problem has been solved by a friend. Thank you Mike and to God for sending him to help.
Pray that my laptop computer would be “healed”! I did something crazy, (I don’t know how or what) and the screen now is oriented sideways and only rights itself when it is plugged into an external monitor. Until it get fixed, I will be spending a lot more time at the office where I have an extra monitor.
Life is so unpredictable!
But God is still God, I am still his and this too will be another day in which to rejoice.
Traveling today. But here is a great quote from A.W. Tozer to challenge us today.
“One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.”
― A.W. Tozer
“Lord, so many who go to church are still dead in their sins. They have no saving faith, no real relationship with you. Draw them Lord. Cause them to be born again to a living hope, a hope that transforms both them and their neighborhoods for your glory and their joy. From under the redeeming blood of Christ, I ask this. Amen.”
On the road today, with little time. But yesterday I read Oswald Chambers, and My Utmost for His Highest and found this worthy thought to pass on. May all your thoughts and prayers lead you to the Savior, by faith.
Insight, Not Emotion
I have to lead my life in faith, without seeing Him.
2 Cor. 5:7. (Moffatt.)
For a time we are conscious of God’s attentions, then, when God begins to use us in His enterprises, we take on a pathetic look and talk of the trials and the difficulties, and all the time God is trying to make us do our duty as obscure people. None of us would be obscure spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our duty when God has shut up heaven? Some of us always want to be illuminated saints with golden haloes and the flush of inspiration, and to have the saints of God dealing with us all the time. A gilt-edged saint is no good, he is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and altogether unlike God. We are here as men and women, not as half-fledged angels, to do the work of the world, and to do it with an infinitely greater power to stand the turmoil because we have been born from above.
If we try to re-introduce the rare moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are making a fetish of the moments when God did come and speak, and insisting that He must do it again; whereas what God wants us to do is to walk by faith. How many of us have laid ourselves by, as it were, and said—‘I cannot do any more until God appears to me.’ He never will, and without any inspiration, without any sudden touch of God, we will have to get up. Then comes the surprise—‘Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!’ Never live for the rare moments, they are surprises. God will give us touches of inspiration when He sees we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never make our moments of inspiration our standard; our standard is our duty.[1]
[1]Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI : Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935, S. May 1 [Underline emphasis added.]
I was preparing a series of messages for radio broadcast on 94.1 FM WGFA in Watseka, IL and thought the outline of the series might be of some value to readers here. The title of the series was THE UNSATISFYING PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS and it was a four message exposition of the book of Haggai.
Russian icon of Haggai, 18th century (Iconostasis of Kizhi monastery, Karelia, Russia).
The series was originally recorded in 2005 at New Song Church in Bolingbrook, IL near Christmas time but the relevance of the book’s message is timeless in any season.
Here’s the outline of the series:
Haggai 1:1-15 The Unsatisfying Pursuit of Happiness
Haggai 2:1-9 Cheer Up Church; You’re Worse off Than You Think
Haggai 2:10-19 God’s Commitment to Bless
Haggai 2:20-23 Looking Toward the Manger
I recommend the book of Haggai to preachers who feel their congregation is in hot pursuit of anything other than the all-satisfying Christ. We need people who are intoxicated with Christ. People who live like Paul. “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). John Piper said it most clearly for our generation. “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him.”
Train your people to find their joy in the wonder of the Risen Christ. Nothing and no one are more worthy of pursuing in life and nothing and no one will satisfy both in this life and the next.
“Lord Jesus, help me to train my heart to find all its joy in you.
Help me to raise up men and women through my prayer, through my preaching,
through my counseling, through my life, who live passionately for and like you.”
When the things that we pray for are dominated by financial need and the restoration of health, whether ours or a family members, when the things for which we thank God are filled with the answers to such prayers and the joy we have in those answers, we are not participating in the great story of the Bible in a very soul-satisfying way.
It isn’t wrong to pray for health and happiness, for jobs and release from financial strain, or children to make good decisions or do well in school. These are all legitimate subjects to lay before the loving eyes of God and ask him to intervene on behalf of his children. Keep praying such prayers and imploring the God of all comfort (2 Cor. 1:3). In fact, do it with greater passion, greater fervency, greater anticipation that God hears and is the rewarder of those who place their faith in him (Heb. 11:6).
But the fact that such prayers almost completely dominate, almost completely encompass the totality of our prayers is surely a sign of a . . . lets put it plainly, a rottenness at the core of our spiritual life or at best a childish immaturity to our prayers.
Where are the prayers that we see and are admonished to pray in the New Testament? Look at the Lord’s prayer for instance. are we praying for the Kingdom of God to come? That would mean the destruction of every idea raised up against the knowledge of God (2 Cor. 10:5). Are we praying for his will to be done? Is there any fire to our prayers? Are we praying for boldness to speak the way we ought to speak? Are we asking God for wisdom to season our speech in such a way that it opens up opportunity for the gospel to be proclaimed (Col. 4:2-6; Eph. 6:19)?
You can tell much about an individual or a church body by examining the things for which it prays most consistently. Do our prayers revolve around the nexus of greater comfort, greater security and increased convenience for ourselves or do our prayers reflect a fisher of men’s thirst for others?
Have you heard what your prayers are saying about the status of your soul lately?
Suggestion:
A long day of travel, editing, meetings, and preparation for preaching ahead. I need the prayer of the saints.
Pray that:
Thanks.
(Lord Mhoram in the novel, Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson,
page 279 in paperback edition)
We are wise to be cautious when we find “truth” in fiction but novels, even secular fantasy novels like this one, are sometimes filled with insight that mirrors the Scripture. I am rereading this series for the third time and thought this particular line was appropriate for the counseling load that has recently forced its way into my ministry.
Young men and women making many foolish decisions that complicate their lives and the lives of everyone around them but especially the ones they say they love the most. Oh how they need to listen to those of us who have seen more of life then they and oh how they fight against it. May God give me and all those who counsel others, insight into their problems and the wisdom of his word to apply to their wounds.
Lord Jesus, I need you. I am lost without you and need your guidance and stamina. By your Holy Spirit, would you give me the wisdom I need in each of these situations where your people have compounded their problems with sin and lack of trust in you. Give me patience. Give them grace. And help us together to find our way to paths of righteousness.
Counsel to those who counsel: Probe the Scripture for wisdom related to the sin of unbelief. You will find it extremely profitable for all of needs of ministry.
I'm investing my remaining years in the young leaders of the next great worldwide church planting movement.
