Here are five links for your consideration until I can post a proper article on Friday. I hope your mind is provoked to think a bit.
Thoughts to consider about abortion from D.A. Carson.
A new Study Bible to ... covet?
Get your theological shovel out and start digging.
This is the e-1689 that I use.
Another great Bookstore.
Enjoy!!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
5 Years
5 years is not long enough. I do not think that all of life will be long enough. October 8 is the anniversary of the death of my son. It has not been long enough to get over the grief. It is more infrequent now but when it comes it is still intense. It does not last as long but in the midst of the sorrow it feels like it will never end. Over the years I have found a few things to be of great help to me in the valley. I hope that you will be helped by them.
1) Consider God’s goodness. Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” God has a good intention in all that comes to pass. Ephesians 1:11-12 “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.”
2) Consider God’s providence. Jonathan’s life and death started a chain of events that continues to this day. When confronted with the prospect of our healthy happy Christian family being invaded by tragedy I began to rethink a lot of my basic presuppositions. I was taught that God does not mean for bad things to happen but He can make it work out for good after the fact. This was unacceptable to me. God is either in control of everything that comes to pass for His own glory or He is simply a responder to emergencies. Like a cosmic ambulance service arriving after the accident to fix and help. How this glorifies God I do not know. What I do know is that God works all things to His own glory. Romans 8:28 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
3) Do not make any major decisions. When I am grieving and depressed I am not in the proper frame of mind to make calculated wise decision. Proverbs 16:24-25 “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” Sometimes the way I am thinking during times of sorrow is exactly the opposite of what I ought to be thinking. So I need to be around good people who can help me. Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
4) Study Theology. This might sound odd but it is essential to my spiritual well being during times of sorrow. Grief is necessarily self-centered. We have lost someone profoundly important and we are tying to cope. This is not in and of itself a bad thing. It can turn, very quickly, into a pit of self-focus that is difficult to get out of. So during times of grief I need to get my focus back on God. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 “ So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Study! This is why I spend a lot of time reading books by men that have been dead for hundreds of years. There words still hold true and still bring my mind back to the Lord.
Well these are a few things that help me. Church, know that God is good, He is in control of all, He is our wisdom, and we need to have our thoughts focused on Him Hebrews 12:1-2 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
1) Consider God’s goodness. Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” God has a good intention in all that comes to pass. Ephesians 1:11-12 “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.”
2) Consider God’s providence. Jonathan’s life and death started a chain of events that continues to this day. When confronted with the prospect of our healthy happy Christian family being invaded by tragedy I began to rethink a lot of my basic presuppositions. I was taught that God does not mean for bad things to happen but He can make it work out for good after the fact. This was unacceptable to me. God is either in control of everything that comes to pass for His own glory or He is simply a responder to emergencies. Like a cosmic ambulance service arriving after the accident to fix and help. How this glorifies God I do not know. What I do know is that God works all things to His own glory. Romans 8:28 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
3) Do not make any major decisions. When I am grieving and depressed I am not in the proper frame of mind to make calculated wise decision. Proverbs 16:24-25 “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” Sometimes the way I am thinking during times of sorrow is exactly the opposite of what I ought to be thinking. So I need to be around good people who can help me. Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
4) Study Theology. This might sound odd but it is essential to my spiritual well being during times of sorrow. Grief is necessarily self-centered. We have lost someone profoundly important and we are tying to cope. This is not in and of itself a bad thing. It can turn, very quickly, into a pit of self-focus that is difficult to get out of. So during times of grief I need to get my focus back on God. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 “ So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Study! This is why I spend a lot of time reading books by men that have been dead for hundreds of years. There words still hold true and still bring my mind back to the Lord.
Well these are a few things that help me. Church, know that God is good, He is in control of all, He is our wisdom, and we need to have our thoughts focused on Him Hebrews 12:1-2 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Friday, October 3, 2008
Book of the Month
I began to do the Book of the Month for our church for two reasons. First, I see a lot of bad books being read and recommended by Christians these days. One church I visited had a stand set up to display the Pastor’s book picks. Of the three that that were there one was a “Christianized Psychology” book on relationships, one by Dave Hunt who is so sensational and wild-eyed that it is difficult for a thinking Christian to take him seriously, and the third a devotional that was on how you can be a better you. This saddened me because it showed me what the congregation was getting taught and where the Pastor’s heart was at. Which brings me to my second reason, I want Sovereign Joy to know what is in my mind and heart as I think and grow as your Pastor. That is why I pick the books I do. We have had two so far, Lectures to my Students by Charles Spurgeon and When Grace Comes Home by Terry Johnson. My hope is that you would read these books and get to know God better and understand me as your Pastor better. Which brings me to this months pick.
As far as daily devotionals go I have found most of them to be rather shallow and unhelpful. The last thing I think a Christian needs in their time devoted to getting closer to God is to have a self-focused blurb that is “positive and encouraging”. Don’t get me wrong. I am all for what is truly positive and encouraging, but this is not found in the man centered fluff that adorns the shelves of many a Christian Bookstore and sadly many a Christian’s bookshelves. A truly positive and encouraging thought can be one about our utter inability in all things spiritual, our sin, the coming judgment, God’s holiness, the law, all of which put our attention right back upon God and not on ourselves. Most Christians blush and recoil from these topics though. So we need massively God centered literature to counter our massively self focused culture.
So this month my Book of the Month is a devotional. It is R.C. Sproul’s In the Presence of God. It is one of the few devotionals I have read all the way through. This one (like Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening) is written to get our minds onto that which matters most, God’s Glory in all things. The Latin phrase is to live Coram Deo, which is to say, before the face of God. God’s authority extends to everything from our family life to the work place to our times of leisure to even our thought and emotional life. We ought to live every moment with the awareness of His presence and rule. Sproul accomplishes this by going directly to the attributes of God. He takes the often difficult and abstract ideas about God and makes them not only clear but also applicable to our every day lives. This is a book I can gladly recommend and be quite confident that your spiritual life will be enriched as you get know God better.
As far as daily devotionals go I have found most of them to be rather shallow and unhelpful. The last thing I think a Christian needs in their time devoted to getting closer to God is to have a self-focused blurb that is “positive and encouraging”. Don’t get me wrong. I am all for what is truly positive and encouraging, but this is not found in the man centered fluff that adorns the shelves of many a Christian Bookstore and sadly many a Christian’s bookshelves. A truly positive and encouraging thought can be one about our utter inability in all things spiritual, our sin, the coming judgment, God’s holiness, the law, all of which put our attention right back upon God and not on ourselves. Most Christians blush and recoil from these topics though. So we need massively God centered literature to counter our massively self focused culture.
So this month my Book of the Month is a devotional. It is R.C. Sproul’s In the Presence of God. It is one of the few devotionals I have read all the way through. This one (like Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening) is written to get our minds onto that which matters most, God’s Glory in all things. The Latin phrase is to live Coram Deo, which is to say, before the face of God. God’s authority extends to everything from our family life to the work place to our times of leisure to even our thought and emotional life. We ought to live every moment with the awareness of His presence and rule. Sproul accomplishes this by going directly to the attributes of God. He takes the often difficult and abstract ideas about God and makes them not only clear but also applicable to our every day lives. This is a book I can gladly recommend and be quite confident that your spiritual life will be enriched as you get know God better.
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