Vacation and The Mission of God

This time tomorrow I’ll be on the beach relaxing and starting a week of vacation.  One book that I am looking forward to digging into is “The Mission of God,” by Christopher Wright

Here are a couple of gems that I’ve already discovered in this book:

“The Bible renders to us the story of God’s mission through God’s people in their engagement with God’s world for the sake of the whole of God’s creation.”

“Fundamentally, our mission (if it is biblically informed and validated) means our committed participation as God’s people, at God’s invitation and command, in God’s own mission within the history of God’s world for the redemption of God’s creation.”

(fyi: that means that this blog won’t be updated until at least next week).

How to celebrate Calvin’s birthday in a Christ centered way

I do not insist that the moral life of a Christian man breathe nothing but the very gospel, yet this ought to be desired, and we must strive toward it – John Calvin

Here is a great post from Desiring God on Celebrating Calvin’s birthday for Christ.

To keep it all in perspective “John Calvin is still dead (~500 years) and Jesus is still alive (~2000 years). Just sayin’” Acts 29 Ministries

Happy 500

Today is the big day when we celebrate John Calvin’s birthday!  A ton is going in twitter and the internet as well as real life actual conference to commemorate the reformer.  If you are American and don’t know  much about Calvin, be sure to read this article about how we as American owe much to him for his shaping and influence of our live: America’s Debt to John Calvin by John Piper

Fridays Are For Fathers

Although I don’t agree with everything Whitlock says here he makes a good point about how although McNair was a hero on the football field, he wasn’t a hero as a dad.

“We can quit calling Steve McNair a great leader now. Leadership starts at home.”

“Kids are game-changers. Kids require sacrifice. Kids are a daily and sometimes hourly responsibility. You don’t properly raise them in your spare time with money, fame, gifts and glowing newspaper and magazine stories about your courage to play on Sundays despite injury and pain.”

You can read the whole article here

Michael, Farrah and Air McNair in light of eternity

I was going to do a blog post on the recent celebrity deaths, but I can’t say it any better than Matt Chandler

Idol Factories

The Lord once called you ‘a green olive tree, beautiful with good fruit.’ But with the roar of a great tempest he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed. The Lord of hosts, who planted you, has decreed disaster against you, because of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done, provoking me to anger by making offerings to Baal.” – Jeremiah 11:16-17

One of the greatest sins that we can commit is that of idolatry.  The first two sins listed in the ten commandment speak out against idolatry and the rest of the sins are listings of the overflow of an idolatrous heart. Idolatry is having something else as a functional god in our lives, that something else can be other things, other people, or even ourselves.  In Jeremiah’s time the primary idol of that time was Baal and Israel’s worship of Baal provoked God to anger.  No matter what idol we have in place of God, He views all idolatry as shocking, appalling and a cause for us to be utterly dismayed (Jeremiah 2:12).

Our glory is in having the one true and living God as our God.  If we turn from him to an idol, then we have no source of glory (Jeremiah 2:11).  All of our boasting and joy will be empty without Him.  God has made us beautiful, but because of sin that beauty has been marred and we need Christ imputed righteous to restore us to the beauty that God intends.  Our purpose is to bear good fruit for God, but no one does that without God.  If we are not fruit bearers, but instead weeds then God will set fire to us and we will burn up in the eternal torment of hell.

When we commit idolatry two evils are functioning in our lives.  First, we forsake the fountain of living waters and find no satisfaction in this life.  Idolatry is a slow and steady spiritual death as our souls cannot get the water that will nourish and refresh us.  Secondly, idolatry denies God glory and seeks to brings us to the point of a relentless pursuit after nothing.  The other gods that we worship besides the one true God are nothing, they have no worth and no value.  If you seek an idol, it will only leaving you wanting more and when you get to it you will never be filled up.  Going to an idol is similar to driving a car with an oil leak, it will eventually break and leave you stranded and in despair (Jeremiah 2:13).

Knowing God

But the Lord is the true God;
he is the living God and the everlasting King.
At his wrath the earth quakes,
and the nations cannot endure his indignation. – Jeremiah 10:10

The most important question that any person can ask themselves is, “Who is God?”  In Jeremiah we find three essential claims to our understanding of who God is.  The first thing we learn about God is He is the true God, there are other gods that will try to take his place, but they are idols which will one day crumble.  Idols such as money, sex, power, fame and other tools of satan and this world which seek to entice, but they are false gods and have no power or eternal worth.  Secondly, we learn that God is living, He is active and sovereign over this world.  Everything is directed by Him and being guided to an end point predetermined by Him where every knee on earth, above the earth and below the earth will bow down and worship Him (Philippians 2:10).  Lastly, in this verse we see that God is the everlasting King.  He rules over this world and He is majestic in holiness (Exodus 15:11), He is the King from which all kings draw their kingship.

The second most important question we can ask is how we can be made right with this God.  To quote Matthew Henry, “Sinners should be afraid.  They have an angry God above thenm a guilty conscience in them, and a yawning hell below them.”  If we are honest with ourselves we are aware that we do not treat this everlasting King with the reverence and adoration He deserves.  None of us seek Him as we should, we are not good and do not do good (Romans 3:11-12).  Therefore, we are all deserving of His wrath and if the earth quakes under His wrath, imagine the effect that His wrath will have on us.  It is a terrifying thought to think of the weeping and gnashing of teeth that we will endure.  We will not be able to endure the outpouring of His wrath on us, although we will not be able to endure it, we will wish for it to end and for our pitiful existence to end, but Hell is real and eternal. Because sin is an infinite offense against God, the punishment is infinite as well.

The way we are made right with God is not through anything that we can do.  We cannot earn His favor, but it must come by grace or mercy.  If we would be able to earn it, then that means that the offense is not infinite.  Since we cannot earn it that means that it comes to us as a free and undeserved gift (Romans 6:23).  The means of this free and undeserved gift is the cross on which Jesus died to redeem sinners. His work on the cross reconciles and brings us near to God because we can’t come near on our own (Hebrews 9:11-22). If we claim His blood as ours then He gives us robes of righteousness to wear, when God sees us wearing Christ righteousness He passes over our sin and sees us as objects of His love.  His wrath was spent on Christ on the cross so that we may be adopted as children of the everlasting King, the true and living God.

Prayer for Daily Sanctification

My eyes are open to my sin
And I want to despise the work of my flesh,
But my spirit is weak and helpless.
Come in your redeeming power
To strengthen me in this battle.
Without your grace I am lost.

Give me a zeal for holiness,
So I may serve you with joy.
Make my heart long for obedience
And use me for your purposes,

So that my life may count for eternity.
Create fruit in my life
By your spirit shaping and refining me.
Loosen my grip on this world,
Help me not to care about my circumstances,
Let the only things that count be me reflecting Christ.

I can’t do this on my own,
Therefore I am reliant on you
To work in my life and coming to my aid
To the good work you started.
All my striving in meaningless
Without you carrying me.

J.C. Ryle on finding independence in Christ

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

“Liberty, most Englishmen know, is rightly esteemed one of the highest temporal blessings.  Freedom from foreign dominion, a free constitution, free trade, a free press, civil and religous liberty, what a world of meaning lies  beneath these phrases!  How many would sacrifice life and fortune to maintain the things which they represent!  Yet, after all our boasting, there are many so-called freemen who are nothing better than slaves.  There are many who are totally ignorant of the highest, purest form of liberty.  The noblest liberty is that which is the property of the true Christian.  Those only are perfectly free people whom the Son of God ‘makes free.’  All else will sooner or later be found slaves.

Wherein does the liberty of true consist?  Of what is their freedom made up? They are freed from the guilt and consequences of sin by the blood of Christ.   Justified, pardoned, forgiven, they can look forward boldly to the day of judgement and cry ‘Who shally lay anything to our charge?  Who is he that condemneth?’ They are freed from the power of sin by the grace of Christ’s Spirit.  Sin has no longer dominion over them.  Renewed, converted, sanctified, they mortify and tread down sin, and are no longer led by captive by it.  Liberty, like this, is the portion of all true Christians in the day that they flee to Christ by faith, and commit their souls to Him.  That day they become free men.  Liberty, like this, is their portion for evermore.  Death cannot stop it.  The grace cannot even hold their bodies for more than a little season.  Those whom Christ makes free are free to all eternity.

Let us never rest till we have some personal experience of this freedom ourelves.  Without it all other freedom is a worthless privilege.  Free speech, free laws, political freedom, commercial freedom, national freedom, all these cannot smooth down a dying pillow, or disarm death of his his sting, or fill our conscience with peace.  Nothing can do that but the freedom which Christ alone bestores.  He give it freely to all who seek it humbly.  Then let us never rest till it is our own.” J.C. Ryle

The Job of a Dad

There are two ministries in particular that really encourage me as a dad.  One is the very well known Focus on the Family which I have mentioned here before.  The other is lesser known, but very edifying my soul, and it is “Family Man Ministries.”

Here is an excerpt from the latest newsletter that I would highly recommend all dads to sign up for:

“It isn’t so much that I was a MJ fan as much as it is a sad ending to such a sad life. It was also a reminder that what really matters most is not what happens in this life but the next. MJ feared death and yet he could not avoid it. In fact, all his fame and fortune doesn’t matter squat now.

I mean, we can have camp outs, catch lightning bugs, celebrate kid’s day, and have tea parties and pillow fights, but if we do not prepare our sons and daughters to stand before God, we will have let them down and doomed them and us to an eternity of regrets.

Dad, it’s not your wife’s job, the church’s job, or your pastor’s job…it’s YOUR job. That’s why I plan to spend more time than usual talking to my family about the Bible, God, Sin, and how Jesus came to make a way for us to enjoy all this good family stuff FOREVER.”

There are two blogs from Focus on the Family that I read.  One of which I personally enjoy is that of John Fuller, the co-host of the Daily Broadcast.  Here is an excerpt from a recent entry about a father’s need to prioritize his job as a dad.

“I’ve made note on many occasions and to many friends that at 5:30 p.m. its time for me to leave the office and go “home to my real job.” I have a growing awareness of the fact that I am the only husband to Dena, the only dad to my kids. And so I try to mentally gear up as I make the 20 minute drive home in the afternoon. I try to think through how their day might have gone, what Dena might need from me when I walk in the door, and perhaps most importantly, I try to think through how I might be a good father. And I pray God guide me in the evening hours, so I can be the best spouse and dad.”