Thy Will Be Done

Gethsemane, garden of remembrance, the point at which our

Salvation hung as a millstone around thy neck.

Brave defender, oh blessed redeemer,

In whose hands our fate rests as yet,

How may we understand that perfect love?

Golgotha, the place of the skull, looming in the foreground,

Oh mighty sorrow as pain of love,

When looking to the heavens above,

You spoke the words that change our fate,

Father, not my will, but thy will be done.

Read more … Thy Will Be Done by M.G. Ellison.

A headline in this past Sunday’s edition of the Lancaster Sunday News reached out and grabbed my attention. It read, Time for God? Over-scheduled believers squeeze in religion with books, emails, podcasts. In the article, the reporter answers the question as to how busy believers find time for God in their hectic schedules. What struck me in the article was some of the books that are offered in bookstores and online to help God followers to be able to squeeze God into their schedules. Some of the titles of these books include, The One Minute Bible – Day by Day, 5 Minute Theologian: Maximum Truth in Minimum Time, 7 Minutes with God and The One Minute Bible.

As I reflected on these titles, the words of Psalm one (which I had just read yesterday morning in my own devotional time) came to my mind. Read what the psalmist has to say about interacting with the Word of God and the benefit of doing so.

Blessed is the man

who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked

or stand in the way of sinners

or sit in the seat of mockers.

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.

Now if followers of Jesus desire to be like this prosperous tree pictured here in Psalm 1:3 – then it won’t happen with spending one minute or five minutes or seven minutes a day interacting with the Scripture. If we are going to be ALL that God wants us to be (and there’s nothing better!!!) – then we must MAKE time for God and His Word! My guess is that most of us could watch a little less TV for starters – and then go from there. And if you don’t have a hunger for the Word of God then ask God to give you a hunger for it – and then make time for God!

View article…

Our Amusements Are Dulling Our Minds

a”– negative/not (as in “athiest”– not a theist)

“muse” — to think or consider

Therefore, the literal definition is that to be amused is to not think. [insert congregation laughing with amusement]

Let’s admit it: we are a people who love to be amused. We laugh ourselves silly over comedians like Ferrell and Carell (and we includes me!); we watch TV shows to fill our weeks; we rent movies to fill our weekends. Video games have taken over much of the leisure time in boys’ bedrooms and on college campuses around the nation. Internet usage has become a requirement for life. Even in the Christian community, we amuse ourselves ad nauseum. There are Christian comedians, Christian romance novels, Christian fiction… and on and on and on.

It would be shocking for the average American to live in the world of just 20 years ago, without the internet, e-mail, GPS, cell phones, Twitter, Facebook, (and blogs…). And I’m not suggesting that we pitch our laptops off the nearest bridge, so stay with me.

“BE CAREFUL THEN HOW YOU WALK”

But we need to examine how we use these things. We are in danger of being lulled to sleep, mentally, emotionally, culturally, and SPIRITUALLY– by our amusements. When our days and nights are filled with technology, news, and fantasy games, and our homes, garages, and storage buildings are filled with toys, electronics, appliances, decorations, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff…, our minds are in danger of being overtaken, not only by our stuff (although I would argue that most Americans are indeed fixated on stuff), and not only by our amusements (although I would argue that most Americans are indeed fixated on amusements), but also by a creeping indifference to the dying, the poor, the uneducated, the spiritually dead people around the world.

While we upgrade our video games and buy the latest software and litter our children’s rooms with educational toys (and yet, ironically, our children are less educated than any previous generation), and our teenagers drive cars the likes of which our parents would never have dreamed to have driven, even in adulthood, meanwhile, the world around us is in critical need of a Savior. In need of Bibles in their language. In need of people who will physically tell them. In need of more than the spiritually-bankrupt materialism and sexuality our culture is selling them. In need of Christ!

Oh how desperately they need Him. And though His coming hastens closer every day, our culture woos us, working to dull our minds, our hearts, and our desires (as well as the minds, hearts, and desires of every culture around the world desperately trying to be as wealthy and “happy” as America) to the things of God. Even in our Christian culture and in our churches… we are, all too often, fixating on stuff and on amusements rather than on intentional, prudent, judicious use of the resources God has given us to further HIS Kingdom.

Oh, God, have mercy on us. Save us from ourselves and our common drift into comfort and ease and that which entertains. Help us to do whatever it takes to wake up to the spiritual complacency we’ve developed in our fixation on amusement. Wake us up to the priorities of YOUR Kingdom! View article…

“I shall not try to change anything that I think or anything that you think (insofar as I can judge of it) in order to reach a reconciliation that would be agreeable to all. On the contrary, what I feel like telling you today is that the world needs real dialogue, that falsehood is just as much the opposite of dialogue as is silence, and that the only possible dialogue is the kind between people who remain what they are and speak their minds. This is tantamount to saying that the world of today needs Christians who remain Christians. The other day at the Sorbonne, speaking to a Marxist lecturer, a Catholic priest said in public that he too was anticlerical. Well, I don’t like priests who are anticlerical any more than philosophies that are ashamed of themselves.”

Albert Camus, addressing the Dominican Monastery of Latour-Maubourg in 1948, recorded in Resistance, Rebellion and Death, page 70. View article…

Lawsuit Against God Dismissed

Lee Shelton IV

You may recall that Ernie Chambers, a former Nebraska state senator, sought a permanent injunction against God back in 2007 for causing “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants.” A Douglas County District Court judge threw out the suit in 2008 on the grounds that the defendant was never served a legal notice. Chambers appealed, saying that if God was indeed omnipresent and omniscient, then he knew he was being sued, so no legal notice was needed.

As expected, the Nebraska Court of Appeals recently dismissed the lawsuit, but not because it believed it lacked the jurisdiction or the authority to enforce such an injunction against the Creator of the universe. No, the suit was dismissed because the court decided it does not rule on abstract, hypothetical, or fictitious issues.

Mr. Chambers, you will get your day in court, but it will be as the defendant. The question is, will you be left to defend yourself (which you won’t be able to do), or will you have Jesus Christ as your advocate?

(I suppose I should also add that the members of the Nebraska Court of Appeals will eventually find out just how abstract, hypothetical, or fictitious God really is.) View article…

Christian Sportsmanship

Lee Shelton IV

Anyone who wants to read the longer version of my opinion on Covenant School’s 100-0 victory over Dallas Academy can pop on over to our family blog. Here’s an excerpt:

I would have expected nothing less from the team that won. In fact, if I had been their coach, I probably would have wondered why they couldn’t win by 200 points. …

… The reason I’m having such a hard time sympathizing with Dallas Academy is that coach [Jeremy] Civello contradicted himself when he complained that the Covenant girls could have had just as much fun winning by 30. If the whole point is to have the girls playing “with all their hearts,” who cares what the final score was, be it 100-0 or 200-0?

The fact is that he was embarrassed. And who can blame him? This kind of a loss — not to mention the fact that Dallas Academy hasn’t won a game in four years — is hard to live down.

Still, we are left with the impression that Covenant coach Micah Grimes and his players are mean-spirited brutes because the team was still playing hard until the final buzzer. But isn’t that exactly what we would expect of any team? Look at it from their perspective. Coach Grimes spends the entire season trying to get his players to give 100%. Do we expect him to go against everything he’s been teaching them and suddenly try to get them not to play their best simply because the opposing team stinks?

Covenant, however, decided to apologize and forfeit their win, calling it “shameful and an embarrassment.” They said it didn’t “reflect a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition.” Coach Grimes didn’t agree with the school’s formal apology, said as much, and was promptly fired.

Needless to say, the majority of opinions I have read online overwhelmingly condemn Covenant’s coach and team. Why is that? What lesson in Christian sportsmanship could have been learned by encouraging those talented girls to not play their best?

I haven’t read a single report that the Covenant players were sore winners, that they were taunting or insulting the losing team. They simply went out on the court and gave it their all, which is exactly what was expected of them.

The chief end of man — and the chief end of all that we do — is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Is that somehow not possible in a 100-0 basketball game? Where would you draw the line between Christ-like behavior and poor sportsmanship? 80-0? 50-0? 20-0? Is there not anything parents, spectators, coaches, and players on both teams can learn from such a lopsided victory?

If there was any Christ-like compassion to be exhibited, perhaps it should have come from the Dallas Academy coach who at halftime saw his team down 59-0. Or perhaps it should have come from the ones responsible for scheduling the game in the first place. Maybe it should have come from those who originally thought that it was a good idea to have a competing girls’ basketball team in a high school with only 20 students. View article…

A Bagatelle on the Virtue of Joy

by Phil Johnson

Don’t make the mistake of equating levity and humor with the fruit of the Spirit. They aren’t the same thing. Obviously, joy can produce laughter, but laughter is a fruit of joy, not the essence of joy.

In fact, modern society is filled with jokes but almost totally devoid of real joy. Have you noticed that some of the angriest people in the world are our best-known comedians?

Laughter is often used these days to mask the utter absence of genuine gladness. Postmodern culture has made mirth and merriment cheap substitutes for authentic joy. We in the church must not make that same mistake.

I enjoy humor as much as the next person. Perhaps even a little more. But just because something is funny doesn’t mean it’s good.

Just a thought.

“You won’t find any sermons on Audiopot!” said HCJB Global-UK Director Colin Lowther. “Everything…is designed to challenge a non-Christian audience about the Christian faith. It consists of thoughts, interviews, features, drama, faith stories and Christian commercials, all of which are creative, thought-provoking, and rarely longer than three minutes.” For the full article CLICK HERE

How can you challenge someone to seriously consider their eternal state in 3 minutes or less? Would you want to?

As I read this my first thought was how will they hear without it being preached? At first glance the best that can be hoped for will be the experience of walking past a bakery and smelling lots of goodies but having no money to buy anything.

This would seem more of an opportunity for Christians to get a quick pick-me-up than for unbelievers to consider heaven and hell and the eventual outcome of their lives, to consider their personal morality and the choices and consequences they create.

Imagine saying to a friend, I want to tell you about the greatest thing that has ever happened to me and how it has totally changed how I see the world but I have to do it in 30 seconds or else you will get bored and walk away. We would think – not much of a friendship and not much of a life change.

I hope I am wrong about Audiopot, and I wish them the best of success. But, honestly I have my doubts.

What do you think? Good idea? Waste of time and money? What do you think would be the best way of reaching the lost?

What I Mean By Reformed

Kevin DeYoung

When I say am I am Reformed I mean:

I marvel at God’s holiness, that he is independent, pure, good, and utterly beyond me.

I glory in God’s goodness, that he should save a wretch like me, totally undeserving, bent toward evil in all my faculties.

I rejoice in God’s sovereignty, that he chose to save me for the praise of his glory, not owing to anything I did or would do or any potential in me.

I find my hope in the second Adam who gives me life and imputed blessing, triumphing over the first Adam’s imputed death and curse.

I am grateful for God’s power by which he caused me, without my cooperation, to be born again and enabled me to believe his promises.

I take comfort in God’s all-encompassing providence, that nothing happens to me by chance, but all things–prosperity or poverty, health or sickness, giving or taking away–are sent to me by my loving heavenly Father.

I praise God for his mercy, shown to me chiefly on the cross where his Son died, not just to make a way for me to come to him, but died effectually in my place such that my sins, my guilt, and my punishment all died in the death of Christ.

I find assurance in God’s preserving grace believing with all my might that nothing–not even myself–can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord which he began in me and will see through to completion.

I rest secure in God’s covenant love, depicted in both the Old and the New Testament, showing me the incomparable blessings of knowing that the Lord is my God and I am his beloved son, that God is a God to me and my children after me.

I stand amazed in the justifying grace of God whereby I am acquitted of all my sins and clothed with new garments in the presence of my King and Judge, not because of anything I have done but only because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in which I trust.

I delight in the glory of God and in God’s delight for his own glory which brings me, on my best days, unspeakable joy, and on all my other days, still gives purpose and order to an otherwise confusing and seemingly random world.

I cherish the word of God because it is all true, because I see Christ in it, and because its rules and precepts are for my good,

I rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to illumine my mind, convict me of sin, and make me holy as God is holy.

When I say I am Reformed I mean that God is the center of the universe and I am not. I mean that I am a worse sinner than I imagine and God is a greater Savior than I ever thought possible. I mean that the Lord is my righteousness and the Lord alone is my boast. By Reformed I mean all this, and most of all that my only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own but belong, in body and in soul, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen.

A THEOLOGY OF SUFFERING…by Joni Eareckson Tada

“God shares His joy on His terms 

and those terms call for us to in some measure 

suffer as His precious Son suffered when 

He was here on earth… and the union 

and sweetness of the Savior just can’t be beat.” 

-Joni