δύναμις

Woman Does Open-Air Preaching in Subway

2012-01-25T17:01:00.000-05:00

Desire the Sweetness of Christ?

2012-01-24T22:33:00.001-05:00

"Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet." -Thomas Watson.

Cold Night of Evangelism

2012-01-19T00:36:00.004-05:00

Just got back from a night of prayer and evangelism with a couple of brothers from church.
Outside, the temperature currently reads 24, but it says that it feels more like 14 degrees.
It was cold. We were outside. It was cold. We evangelized. It was cold.

Yet, at the end, our hearts were strangely warmed.
Could we have been some place warm? Yes.
Could we have been doing something more important? No.

Doing God's work is more important than food. Without food, we die. Without doing God's work, we might as well be dead.

Few things feed spiritual hunger like evangelism.
Freezing cold, handful of tracts, but strangely warm and full.
Heaven and Hell is what's on the line.
Jesus, please save souls!

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
(John 4:34 ESV)

From Haiti:

Merry Christmas: 2011

2011-12-25T00:38:00.002-05:00

“The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.” [Isaiah 9:2]

“When I can say: This I accept as my own, because the angel meant it for me, then, if I believe it in my heart, I shall not fail to love the mother Mary, and even more the child, and especially the Father,” Martin Luther said. “For, if it is true that the child was born of the virgin and is mine, then I have no angry God and I must know and feel that there is nothing but laughter and joy in the heart of the Father and no sadness in my heart. For, if what the angel says is true, that he is our Lord and Savior, what can sin do against us?”

We Are Surrounded By Genius!

2011-12-10T20:21:00.003-05:00

Japan operates some of the world’s fastest electric trains, which travel in excess of 200 miles per hour (322 km/h). The trains have an excellent safety record, but one problem has nagged engineers for years. Japan’s rail system has many tunnels. When a train passes through such a tunnel at high speed, it compresses the air in front of the engine. Upon leaving the tunnel, this air rushes outward, creating a loud thunderclap, or sonic boom. Nearby windows rattle, and people are awakened by the noise. Japan has strict laws on sound pollution, and design engineers sought a solution to the “tunnel boom” problem. They found the surprising answer in nature.

The kingfisher is a comical bird with a large head, extra-long beak, and stubby tail. Despite its ungainly appearance, this bird is an excellent fisherman. From its perch on a branch, it will dive straight down into water at high speed, with very little splash. It’s the envy of Olympic divers.

What interested engineers? Wind tunnel experiments verify that the kingfisher’s bill is ideally shaped for a smooth, streamlined transition from air into water. This drastic change in pressure is similar to the change a bullet train experiences when emerging from a tunnel into the open air.

As a result of such studies, the front ends of many Japanese bullet trains have been redesigned to mimic the shape of the kingfisher’s bill.¹

New train engines have long, tapered, futuristic noses. As a result, sound is greatly diminished when they exit tunnels, and overall train vibration is lessened.

As an added bonus, the streamlined design reduces total energy consumption by 15 percent. Even the recessed headlights of the train engines are modeled after the nostrils of the kingfisher.

The aerodynamic kingfisher has led the way in achieving smooth, quiet train operation. As biomimicry expert Janine Benyus concludes, “We are surrounded by genius.”²

Nature appears to be programmed with endless useful ideas that await our discovery and application. The standard evolutionary explanation is that the designs we see around us are only apparent and ultimately the product of chance accidents. In this view, the shape of the kingfisher has been fine-tuned by countless generations of trial and error, and luck.

Contrary to the expectations of the evolutionary model, the fossil record does not show evidence of the assumed stages of poor design and misfits. Instead, all creatures, living and in the past, appear exquisitely designed.

As Job 12:7–9 advises us, “Ask the beasts, and they will teach you; and the birds of the air, and they will tell you . . . that the hand of the Lord has done this.”

Above article from: www.answersingenesis.org

Footnotes

K. Kobayashi, Japan for Sustainability Newsletter #31, March 2005. Back
S. Fornoff, “Nature May Offer Vital Clues on Rebuilding New Orleans,” San Francisco Chronicle online, September 14, 2005.

(One) Proof for God's Existence.

2011-11-09T03:33:00.003-05:00

Ontological Argument:

According to 12th century thinker archbishop Anselm, "God is that Being than which a greater being cannot be conceived."

Of all the proofs for God's existence, this one probably causes the most difficulty with regards to understanding. A very common misunderstanding of Anselm's quote is conveyed by the freshman philosophy student who arrogantly says, "So what? Just because I can conceive or think of a flying pink elephant doesn't mean one exists! That quote is trash!"

What is essential to understanding Anselm's phrase is the fact that God is a necessary being (if He wasn't, He wouldn't be God). Necessary existence is one fundamental difference between God and his creatures. According to Nash, "Creatures exist contingently...their existence is dependent on something other than themselves. They do not exist in all possible worlds. God's nonexistence, however, is impossible."

Furthermore, God's existence is understood as logically necessary: the proposition "God exists" is logically true. "A logically necessary being is one that exists in every possible world." Two things flow from this:

God's existence is like the number two or the concept of a square. To question why a logically necessary being exists in the real world makes no sense.
The proposition "God does not exist" is logically false and is self-contradictory (though it may not look like a contradiction--the same way the square root of 60,616 is 244 is conceivable but is logically impossible). The statement "God does not exist" is therefore equivalent to statements such as, "Some triangles are squares."

So if I were to write a proof, it would go something like this:

A logically necessary being would exist in every possible world.
God is a logically necessary being. In a sense, this is the very definition of the word "God." (Nash: "A being who is less than a necessary being would be unfit to bear the title God.")
Therefore, God exists in every possible world (including the real world).

And so, in my mind, the ontological argument works beautifully!

Bonus: Here's the Descartes quote:
"By the name God I understand a substance that is infinite [eternal, immutable], independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself and everything else, if anything else does exist, have been created. Now all these characteristics are such that the more diligently I attend to them, the less do they appear capable of proceeding from me alone; hence from what has been already said, we must conclude that God necessarily exists."

Summary of his quote? Simply this: The only adequate cause of our idea of God must be God.

Exposing Idols

2011-10-23T21:53:00.004-04:00

When thought of, the reality is that all our sins--at their roots--are founded in some form of idolatry. Since God abhors idolatry (just look at the first two commandments), we need to be in the business of exposing and destroying our idols through the power of the Holy Spirit. These questions will help expose our idols by demonstrating where our ultimate source of trust is...no matter what or who we say we believe in.

What do I worry about most?
What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live?
What do I use to comfort myself when things go bad or get difficult?
What do I do to cope? What are my release valves? What do I do to feel better?
What preoccupies me? What do I daydream about?
What makes me feel the most self-worth? Of what am I the proudest? For what do I want to be known?
What do I lead with in conversations?
Early on what do I want to make sure that people know about me?
What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?
What do I really want and expect out of life? What would really make me happy?
What is my hope for the future?

-Questions adapted from chapter 7 of David Powlison's Seeing with New Eyes.

Justified

2011-10-16T01:41:00.001-04:00

Life Meant Nothing to Me

2011-09-29T18:05:00.003-04:00

The power of the Gospel is unto salvation, and it changes lives today.

God is with you, stay strong

2011-09-28T21:08:00.002-04:00

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.” -Hebrews 13:5

Die Hard Legalism: Putting it to Death.

2011-09-24T01:08:00.004-04:00

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
(Romans 1:16-17 ESV)

Innately, we deviate towards legalism. Our human tendency is to pick ourselves up by "our own bootstraps" and "earn" our admittance into heaven. Even a cursory study of the world's religions will reveal a singular commonality: they are all works-based. Whether you call it the five pillars, four noble truths, or circumcision, they all are bent on having individuals fulfill their need for earning a better "next life." Human pride and boasting is vaunted as people blindly aim towards an unknown standard. Righteousness is desperately sought, but it is sadly never attained.

Kids have tons of legalism. When kids get in trouble, the response is almost always, "I'll try better next time." In other words, "I'll atone for myself." Kids often ascribe their worth to their deeds: whether it be performance in school or obedience to parents. Christian parents must wean their children off of legalism and feed them on grace.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ radically shines in the midst of religions that feed off the darkness of humanity's desperate attempts at self-verification. It firmly establishes that no one is righteous. Chapter 3 of Romans goes on to show that the point of the Law is to prove and show one's sinfulness, and thereby awaken one's need for a Savior.

What will you say in a few years when you stand before a wrathful God who is about to incinerate you with His holiness? Will you parade your resume of good deeds before Him? That, after all, is the innate human tendency. The route, however, will cause you to be consumed by the holy wrath of God. All of humanity's righteousness is like a filthy rag in His sight.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith."

What does that verse mean? It means that the righteousness of God that we desperately need is revealed to us in the Gospel. Furthermore, the words "as it is written" give us the key to understanding that "the righteous shall live by faith" means that "the righteous will only be righteous by the righteousness of God, and the righteousness of God is ours through faith." Think of a fireman. He wears a fire-proof coat and the flames don't singe him. Now, think of Judgment Day. Instead of our own righteousness, we put on the righteousness of Jesus Christ which was given to us by faith. With that righteousness enveloping us, the flames of God's wrath will not singe us and we will safely pass from judgment into eternal bliss.

Hallelujah!

Veritas (truth).

2011-09-06T23:06:00.001-04:00

"Truth is not independent of mind; it is necessary that for any proposition p, p is true only if it is believed, and if and only if it is believed by God....every proposition has essentially the property of being true only if believed, and if and only if believed by God. In the same way propositions themselves, the things that are true or false, are not independent of mind. It is necessary that a proposition p exists only if it is conceived or thought of or the object of some other propositional attitude, for it is necessary that every proposition is conceived of by God; furthermore, every proposition has essentially the property of being conceived or thought of, for every proposition has essentially the property of being conceived by God." -Alvin Plantinga, "How to be an Anti-Realist."

Wasting Time on "Spiritual" Tasks

2011-09-04T23:10:00.012-04:00

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. -1 Corinthians 2:2-5

It is almost maniacal as to how easily we can fall into doing things on our own strength--even ministry. (Ministry workers are all Christians, including: missionaries, worship leaders, pastors, small group leaders, etc..) Jesus' words that, "apart from Me, you can do nothing," get lost somewhere in the deep recesses of our minds as we go about our lives. We get into a flow and we begin to rely on strategy, programs, denominational boards, dollars, and marketing. We begin to rely on our own understanding. This is deadly. Why? Because in the most subliminal manner, you will end up wasting your life. You will end up doing things of no eternal value. All the while, ironically believing that you are being "spiritual" and saving an eternal reward because you are doing ministry--God's work. Paul warns us about this in 1 Corinthians 3:15 when he describes ministry workers whose work will one day be "burned up...though he himself will be saved."

Aubrey Malphurs, in Advanced Strategic Planning, writes:

The problem is that churches all across North America are not doing well....Often what takes place in western Europe reflects what eventually will be true of North America. The philosophical and theological ideas that have aged and cured over time in the intellectual wine cellars of Europe are still imported and served in the intellectual cafes of America. Consequently, if we examine what has taken place in the churches of western Europe, we might anticipate what will happen in our churches in North America....Far too many western European churches are ornate tombstones scattered around the cemetery of European Christianity. (p.40-41)

If the Church in North America is going to avoid the same fate as its sister in western Europe, we must take the Gospel seriously. Taking the Gospel seriously means proclamation, but also praying and fasting for our churches. Prayer in most churches is just given lip-service. Furthermore, the Word is trivialized as pastors hastily put together horrifically anemic messages. Strategy and "doing" is sought over the power of God. Funds from the flock instead of feeding the flock slowly becomes the paramount concern. Good works instead of soul-winning becomes the name of the game.

Ministry must be done in the power of the Holy Spirit. (I am not talking about emotional highs and pulpit pounding here.) The Holy Spirit, chooses to work through believers who have faith in the Word of God. In other words, He works through the Bible. God's house shall be called a house of prayer.

Friends, never get caught up in trivialities--even in the ministry. The easiest way for the ministry to become a triviality is if it is done devoid of the Holy Spirit's power. Walk in the Spirit and you will avoid the work of the flesh. May we build on the foundation of Jesus Christ with gold, silver, and precious stones. (1 Cor. 3:12)

PS: Gotta love New York City: a classic New York City Subway station scene (video by Freddy T. Wyatt):

Gospel Resurgence 2011: God's New Beginning.

2011-08-20T23:05:00.019-04:00

There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind.
-An excerpt from Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, "A Divine and Supernatural Light."

I have said that I can not make any promises except for the promise that God made in Matthew 28:20. In that verse, there is a promise that follows a command. The command is to teach people the Lord's words, then there is a conjunction: the word "and." In other words, the command goes together with the promise. Simply put, "preach the gospel, and I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.

In faith, we stepped out.
And last night, God was faithful to His word.

Someone said approximately 300 people came for a Gospel Resurgence in NYC last night. With the intent and goal of making the gospel "of first importance," the night was prepped for with prayer and fasting. There were no frills. No neon lights, no smoke. Every aspect of last night was centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it was pure euphoria. I preached a sermon from the following Scripture texts:
Romans 1:16-17

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

1 Corinthians 1:18 and 21

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

Prayer time was intense and extended. Wow.
Worship after-wards, was in spirit and in truth. I glanced back at the assembly during the singing of Hosanna and I couldn't help but smile. All around me--genuine worship. God was clearly at work. In the pews, in the aisles, and even in the balcony--genuine desires for God to "heal my heart and make it clean."

A man met me after the night was over and he said that he received a "prophetic word." Exuberant with emotions of joy, he told me that, "What has been closed for 10 years, tonight, God has opened. Tonight is just the beginning of a new era. Man, this is exciting...I have longed to see this in Queens!"

Jonathan Edwards was a man familiar with revivals and workings of God. He carefully scrutinized the first Great Awakening. Religious affections are genuine when centered on, and derived from joy in the gospel. They are also always centered on the Bible (God's Word). The Holy Spirit glorifies the Son. Last night, people left not just having a rational judgment that honey is sweet; but rather, they left having tasted and seen that the LORD is good! The result? The glorification of God through their joy. Hallelujah!

God, I believe you have begun something here. May we humbly spend time in your presence and determine your next move. The battle was won, but we are at war. NYC needs the gospel. This was just the beginning.

GOSPEL RESURGENCE 2011

2011-08-17T00:22:00.010-04:00

Ever wonder what the average New Yorker thinks about the biggest questions in life? We walked around the streets of New York City last Friday night and shot this video below (special shout-out to all who participated in the video and evangelism event):
*Password to view video is: amc

Gospel Resurgence 2011 from AGAPE MISSION CHAPEL on Vimeo.

The fact that you have to believe in a Jewish man who died on the cross for your sins in order to have eternal life may sound foolish to some of you, but it's nothing new. People thought it foolish 2,000 years ago:
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
(1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV)

Join us this Friday night as we proclaim the Gospel.

Hear Dr. John Piper explain "The Gospel" below:

Re-post: Why Keep Preaching in New York City?

2011-08-11T19:49:00.002-04:00

Pastoring and preaching in New York City is not easy. The recent legislation that legalized gay marriage in this state was the mere adjudication of what was already massively overt on the streets of New York City. In light of this reality, what Harvie Conn said years ago, "Churches appear to be in the city but not really of it. City and not church occupies the periphery" is not even the case anymore. Solid churches simply don't even exist in the city anymore. The city has chewed them up and spit them out.
There is a theological famine in this region and an overwhelming need for Gospel-centered churches. My most familiar church context is the second-generation Korean American church. Pastoring a predominately culturally-Christian population group is not easy. There have been years in ministry where I have resonated with Martin Luther:

"I often become so angry and impatient with our peasants, townsfolk, and nobility that I think I never want to deliver another sermon; for they carry on so shamefully that a person is inclined to be disgusted with life. Besides this, the devil does not stop plaguing me without and within. Therefore I would almost like to say: Let someone else be preacher in my place...Thus flesh and blood rise in revolt, and human nature becomes dejected and disheartened."

The Southern Baptist Convention, though a great denomination and in the midst of a "Great Commission Resurgence," is slowly in decline (2010 marked its 4th straight year of decline). Jimmy Scroggins, pastor of First Baptist Church: West Palm Beach, acknowledged this at the SB annual convention in Phoenix. One thing the denomination could benefit from is an awareness of what is going on in the nation--particularly in our nation's cities. Immigrants and the masses (non-immigrants) are moving into our cities. We are quickly becoming an urbanized nation. And to top it all off, many experts believe that by 2050, America will no longer have an ethnic majority. All that being said, the denomination could benefit from serious racial diversification. I'm not talking about just electing a black vice president (click here to read about the election of Fred Luter Jr.)--I'm talking major ethnic diversification on every level. Stop talking it. Do it. With the approaching years, the mandate will have to be: "Preach the Gospel, win the lost, and in the process--diversify"...or die.

Why is it then, that I don't give up on New York City, the church, the SBC, or the preaching ministry? Well, for one thing, Jesus Himself said that the gates of hell will not prevail over us. He established the church and I know He'll maintain the church. With regards to the SBC, I agree with Rev. Fred Luter's hope for optimism: "In the past, the convention has talked about diversity, but they are walking it now," he said, "The door is open not just for African Americans but for other ethnicities as well."And as for New York City, the church is (I believe), its only hope. Ralph Christensen once remarked:

"The Church can never possess the King so as to monopolize the
Kingdom. The Church is communities resulting from the preaching
of the Kingdom. They serve the Kingdom as symbols which show
imperfectly what the Kingdom is like. The Church is to bring to
visibility for the world fellowship with Christ as King and obedience
to Him. The Church is to be "God's colony in man's world, God's
experimental garden on earth." She is a sign of the world to come
and at the same time a guarantee of its coming."

So even if it is hard to preach in this city, and even if discouragement and disillusion sets in at times, I will strive to keep my eyes on eternity and remember that there's a reward to be had. The church is "a sign of the world to come and at the same time a guarantee of its coming." And as Martin Luther said after getting over his cathartic self-pity rant:

"In such conditions I must find counsel in the Word of God...'How blest are you, when you suffer insults and persecution and every kind of calumny for my sake. Accept it with gladness and exultation, for you have a rich reward in heaven; in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you' (Matt. 5:11). To these words I cling."

In other words, keep shining your light in New York City, church!

Keeping it Real in NYC

2011-08-10T17:44:00.007-04:00

I was once told by another pastor: "In order to preach in New York City, you have to tone down and not preach in a prophetic voice."
Sad, because the last thing secular New York City needs is another compromising evangelical. The truth is blurred and lost as it is. Sometimes, we need to go back to the fundamentals. I think some of us have become too "smart," "suave," and "savvy" to be of any use to King Jesus.

Love God, Love People, Preach the Gospel, Preach the Truth, and do it all with Tireless Passion!

20 Reasons I Don't Take Potshots at Fundamentalists

by John Piper | June 2, 2008

1. They are humble and respectful and courteous and even funny (the ones I've met).

2. They believe in truth.

3. They believe that truth really matters.

4. They believe that the Bible is true, all of it.

5. They know that the Bible calls for some kind of separation from the world.

6. They have backbone and are not prone to compromise principle.

7. They put obedience to Jesus above the approval of man (even though they fall short, like others).

8. They believe in hell and are loving enough to warn people about it.

9. They believe in heaven and sing about how good it will be to go there.

10. Their "social action" is helping the person next door (like Jesus), which doesn't usually get written up in the newspaper.

11. They tend to raise law-abiding, chaste children, in spite of the fact that Barna says evangelical kids in general don't have any better track record than non-Christians.

12. They resist trendiness.

13. They don’t think too much is gained by sounding hip.

14. They may not be hip, but they don’t go so far as to drive buggies or insist on typewriters.

15. They still sing hymns.

16. They are not breathless about being accepted in the scholarly guild.

17. They give some contemporary plausibility to New Testament claim that the church is the “pillar and bulwark of the truth.”

18. They are good for the rest of evangelicals because of all this.

19. My dad was one. (My dad too.)

20. Everybody to my left thinks I am one. And there are a lot of people to my left. (Ditto.)

What is a preacher's main job?

2011-08-04T12:32:00.003-04:00

Good insights from Carson, Piper, and Keller in a round table discussion:

Click here.

I Could Play The Background

2011-08-02T17:24:00.004-04:00

All about Christ getting the spotlight in New York City...

What's on the line.

2011-07-27T21:01:00.002-04:00

[7] and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels [8] in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. [9] They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, [10] when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.
(2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 ESV)

Why is it that we don't live and suffer like Paul? I think it's because sometimes we forget what's on the line. Oh, God use us while there is still time!

Why Keep Preaching in New York City?

2011-07-26T01:06:00.006-04:00

Join in Parachuting Bibles over Colombia.

2011-07-09T21:58:00.003-04:00

"If you want peace in Colombia, you have to point people, even terrorists, to the true source of peace and forgiveness." -Russell S. (VOM worker and pilot).

Now you can join The Voice of the Martyrs in providing parachutes for Russell and his team to drop over the jungles of Colombia in areas controlled by anti-Christian FARC guerrillas. Each parachute is deployed with a Bible, Christian literature and/or a shortwave radio. Each radio is preset to two Christian radio stations.

Click Here To Learn How You Can Get Involved!

Remember this as you live:
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” -Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:19-20.

Independence Day, 2011

2011-07-05T18:24:00.008-04:00

I drove my family over the Williamsburg Bridge last night and traffic was at a standstill. Motorists were inching their way across the bridge in order to take in the magnificent fireworks display over Manhattan. It was probably one of the best seats I've ever had for the fireworks in all my 27 years of living in New York City. It was pretty cool. For one night, Gotham City stirred my affections. As a believer, watching the fireworks inevitably causes you to virtually weep for the city. 8 million plus people and therefore, infinite amounts of sin. Ironic how the city that has the best Independence Day celebrations is perhaps the most enslaved city in the nation. New York City needs independence. Independence from sin.

Jesus...Savior of mankind. Hope for humanity. Liberator of New Yorkers.

"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." -John 8:36.

A throwback:
Click here to watch NYC subway evangelism.

I am a worm

2011-06-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

I know he was a "saint" (Ephesians 1:1), a "new creation in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17), "precious in the sight of the Lord" (Psalm 116:15), "chosen" (Ephesians 1:4); a "royal priest" (1 Peter 2:9), "born of God" (1 John 5:1), "adopted" (Ephesians 1:5), "child of God" (1 John 3:1), "forgiven" (Ephesians 1:7); "justified" (Romans 5:1), "perfected" (Hebrews 10:14). I know that about myself too, and it is profoundly steadying and sweet.

But, my understanding of who I am until I die, also includes "wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death" (Romans 7:24). It includes "blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3). It includes "a broken and contrite heart" that God will not despise (Psalm 51:17). It includes weeping bitterly over my sinfulness (Luke 22:62). It includes being "ashamed and confounded for my ways" (Ezekiel 36:32).

-John Piper

Prodigal: An Animation

2011-06-05T02:02:00.000-04:00

You Will Die, But You Will Not Perish.

2011-06-03T02:25:00.004-04:00

These verses ever puzzle you?

[16] You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. [17] You will be hated by all for my name's sake. [18] But not a hair of your head will perish.
(Luke 21:16-18 ESV)

How in the world are we "put to death" (v.16), and yet "not a hair of your head will perish." (v.18)?

Sounds contradictory. Until, you read passages like:

[4] “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. [5] But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
(Luke 12:4-5 ESV)

Then, it all starts coalescing. In light of eternal glory, the suffering on this earth is really negligible. Wow. Breath-taking truth...but it requires FAITH. Amen! May we live this way, LORD!

"You can kill us, but cannot do us any real harm." --Justin Martyr in an appeal to the Roman emperor in A.D. 150

What does it mean to be a Christian?

2011-05-22T20:52:00.001-04:00

Where Would You Turn? A Gospel Scenario (Part 2)

May 17, 2011

In my previous post, I painted a scenario: if you had the opportunity to open up one simple Bible passage, and briefly explain to someone what it meant to be a Christian, where would you turn?

I would turn to 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 8-10:

For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

And with all the boldness, fluency and clarity that I wish I had in real life but only ever have in scenarios, I would read the passage with my new friend, and then say something like this:

"This part of the Bible is a letter written by one of the early Christian teachers (named Paul) to some people who had become Christians after he had shared the Christian message with them. And as he writes to them, he reminds them exactly what they did to become Christians. So it gives us a very neat summary of what the Bible says it means to become a Christian.

"It basically meant doing three things.

"The first thing that these people did was to turn away from their religion and culture. They used to worship idols — fake gods. But then they turned their backs on all this. Becoming a Christian requires you to turn away from your old life, from all the things that are not really god that you used to worship and live for.

"The second thing follows on from the first. They stopped serving and living for false gods, and started serving the true and living God—the one, real and true God, who made everything and who is in charge of everything. To become a Christian is to put yourself at God’s service; to acknowledge that he is the one and only God, and that you are one of his servants.

"But there’s a third aspect. Even if they turned back to God to serve him, why would he accept them? After all, they’d been worshipping the opposition, ignoring him, sinning against him. He would have every right to be angry with them. So why should he accept them back? Because of what it says there in verse 10: God’s Son Jesus died to deliver them from the anger that was to come (that’s what ‘wrath’ means).

"That’s what it means when Christians talk about Jesus ‘dying for our sins’. It means that when we stand before God at the end, and give account for our lives, we don’t have to fear God’s anger or judgement, because Jesus died to deliver us from that. So these guys were waiting confidently for the end, for when Jesus would return, knowing that he would rescue them and save them when they stood before God.

"So there you go—a quick summary of what the Bible says it means to be a Christian: turn your back on the false gods you used to worship, start serving the true and living God instead, and put your trust in Jesus who will rescue us from God’s anger."

"Now when you said to me before that you were a Christian, is that what you meant?"

-Written by Tony Payne.

Tony Payne is an ordained minister who serves as the Publishing Director at Matthias Media. He has authored or co-authored numerous books, Bible studies and resources, including The Trellis and the Vine, Two Ways to Live: The Choice We All Face and Six Steps to Reading Your Bible. Tony is also a regular contributor to The Briefing, and lives in Sydney, Australia, with his wife Alison and their five children.

Of First Importance: The Gospel.

2011-05-15T00:55:00.005-04:00

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

(1 Corinthians 15:1-4 ESV)

Glorious Morning. Resurrection Sunday, 2011.

2011-04-23T10:08:00.003-04:00

But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. -Mark 16:6.

After the darkest night in human history passed, there came a glorious morn'. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, rose again from the clutches of man's worst enemy--death.

Christianity is not a collection of moral truths. This is no mixed bag. Christianity, with all of its doctrines, is centered on the Gospel, and the Gospel is centered on the cross and resurrection of Christ. There are many truths in Scripture, but the Gospel...this is of first importance (1 Corinthians 15:3). Without the cross and the resurrection, there is no Gospel. Without the Gospel, there is no good news for sinners. No hope for you and I. It is this Gospel that we heard, received, and are saved by--if we hold fast to it. No other gospel can save--not the social gospel, not the prosperity gospel, and not the liberation gospel--only the Gospel of the cross and resurrection of Christ.

This resurrection Sunday, remember your salvation. He is risen. In this short life filled with brokenness and sin, this certainly is good news for sinners like you and I. May the grace and hope of the resurrection of Christ fill every heart, home, church, pulpit, and pew this Resurrection Sunday.

Remember the Cross. Good Friday, 2011.

2011-04-21T14:46:00.005-04:00

³³ Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. ³⁴ And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
³⁵ Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, “Look, He is calling for Elijah!” ³⁶ Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.”
³⁷ And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last.
³⁸ Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. ³⁹ So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!”
(Mark 15:33-39, New King James Version)

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. -2 Corinthians 5:21

Blessed are you if you see and believe that truth today.

An excellent blog that was very moving and sobering for me: Mohler Blog.

The 'Wack-ness' of Sin

2011-04-11T20:54:00.003-04:00

Props to Jeffrey Kim for putting this up on his blog. That's word. Sin is MAD wack. Holla if you hear me. =)

God the Father is not Allah.

2011-04-08T18:33:00.003-04:00

I had a conversation a few days ago with a Muslim co-worker. What started as a conversation about the tragedy in Japan quickly turned spiritual. I clearly presented the gospel, and engaged with her about the differences between Christianity and Islam (partly due to the fact that she kept insisting that both Christians and Muslims serve the same "Allah"--which is false). At the end, we walked away friends, but settled on the fact that we were very different. I prayed for her afterwards.

Over thirty years ago, missiologist J. Herbert Kane of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School outlined six reasons why the evangelization of the Muslim world has been so difficult. His explanation of “Why the Muslim Soil is So Barren” remains educational. It does not, however, mean that evangelism to Muslims ought to cease. It gives us a "human" perspective of why the Muslim soil is so hard, but remember: any conversion of any person is a miracle wrought only by the Holy Spirit.

1. Islam is Younger than Christianity

Having borrowed from both Judaism and Christianity, Islam “has just enough Christianity in it to inoculate it against the real thing.” As with Mormonism, Muslims claim a later revelation that corrects and supersedes the Bible. This represents a very real challenge to the Christian, who will base the argument for the Gospel on the biblical revelation.

2. Islam Denies the Deity and the Death of Christ

Islam not only denies the deity of Christ, it finds the idea abhorrent. “If a missionary but mentions the deity of Christ the fanatical Muslim is likely to spit on his shadow to show his utter contempt for such a blasphemous suggestion.” Furthermore, the Qur’an denies that Christ actually died on the cross, thus taking away the very act of our atonement. “There appears to be no way around these two obstacles,” Kane lamented. “The Christian missionary can find many points of similarity between Christianity and Islam, and certainly he will want to make full use of these; but sooner or later he must come to the central theme of the gospel — the cross. At that point he runs into a stone wall. He can remove many offending things, but he can never do away with the offense of the cross. That and the deity of Christ are hurdles that can never be removed.”

3. Islam’s Treatment of Defectors

“All religions, including the broadest of them — Hinduism — look with disfavor on the devotee who changes his religion,” Kane advised. “But it remained for Islam to devise the Law of Apostasy, which permits the community to kill the adherent who defects from the faith.”

For Islam, “conversion is a one-way street.” Even when death is not a real threat, losing the bonds of community and family are huge costs.

4. The Solidarity of Muslim Society

Muslim societies are a solidarity, with religion, politics, economics, and personal life all accountable to Islam as a total way of life. Even where Muslims are not in a majority, such as in Western nations, they often concentrate in specific areas or communities where this solidarity can be approximated.

Under such an arrangement, efforts by Christians to evangelize meet a unified resistance, and a decision to leave Islam can be construed as an unpatriotic act, tantamount to rejecting one’s nation and people.

5. The Public Practice of Religion

Often overlooked by many Christians is the fact that a faithful Muslim demonstrates that faithfulness in a public pattern of prayers and observances. A convert who ceases these observances becomes immediately evident. This system of public prayer and ritual represents a powerful support for Islam and a powerful deterrent to conversion to any other belief system.

6. The Memory of the Crusades

As Kane explains, “To Christians in the West the Crusades were a bad dream, of which we have only the faintest recollection; but to the Arabs they are the greatest proof of the Christian hatred for Islam.” Christians bear the burden of a long and intensely bitter Muslim memory. Though atrocities were common on both sides, the atrocities committed by Christians were uniquely a repudiation of central Christian teachings.

In the mind of many Muslims, the Crusades feel like a living memory. To many within the Islamic world, Christians remain Crusaders, and evangelism is just another way of continuing the crusading mission.

Richard Dawkins' Show

2011-04-06T21:24:00.004-04:00

Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, the evangelist of atheism, just came out with a new book entitled, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.

In his new book, Dawkins makes perverse comments such as:
“Evolution is a fact,” he asserts. “Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust.”

To rebut, this blog by Dr. Mohler is definitely worth the read: Mohler Blog.

Bringing the Gospel to Columbia University.

2011-04-05T19:26:00.007-04:00

Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
-Ephesians 6:19-20

I will be preaching the gospel next week (4/14/11- 8:30pm) as a guest speaker at Epic Christian Fellowship's corporate gathering of Columbia students. Please pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Columbia University. May the "King's College" know its true King. Oh, that salvation would fall upon that campus!

Side note, and worthy of consideration: our brightest and best must stand up in service to King Jesus and teach the faith to a new generation. Atheistic teachers are certainly taking their roles with subtlety and charisma. Read this article in today's New York Times.

It's all in a Name.

2011-03-29T20:04:00.005-04:00

"It is not that I want merely to be called a Christian, but actually to be one. Yes, if I prove to be one [by being faithful to the end], then I can have the name....Come fire, cross, battling with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing of my whole body, cruel tortures of the devil--only let me get to Jesus Christ!" -Ignatius (pastor from Antioch and a disciple of the apostle John).

"For some, being "Christian" is primarily cultural and traditional, a nominal title inherited from a previous generation, the net effect of which involves avoiding certain behaviors and occasionally attending church. For others, being a Christian is largely political, a quest to defend moral values in the public square or perhaps to preserve those values by withdrawing from the public square altogether. Still more define Christianity in terms of a past religious experience, a general belief in Jesus, or a desire to be a good person. Yet all of these fall woefully short of what it truly means to be a Christian from a biblical perspective....Yet, the Bible uses one metaphor more frequently than any of these. It is a word picture you might not expect, but it is absolutely critical for understanding what it means to follow Jesus. It is the image of a slave. Time and time again throughout the pages of Scripture, believers are referred to as slaves of God and slaves of Christ." -John MacArthur, Slave.

My identity: a slave of Jesus Christ.
To which I say, "Yes, Master. I'll go."

Life is Just Too Short

2011-03-26T17:01:00.004-04:00

My morning devotions the other morning was Psalm 39. I can't remember whether it was this chapter of Psalm or Psalm 90 that the Lord gave me the night I received word my grandfather passed away. Here's what it says in verses four and five:
"O LORD, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
⁵Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!

All this made me think about the famous resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. Life is short, but we usually don't realize this fact until it is realized in retrospect. The resolutions are a bit lengthy, but take a read. It will be worth your time.

The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards
The following list is from volume one of The Works of Jonathan Edwards. This two volume set can read online for free.

Being sensible that I am unable to do any thing without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.

Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

1. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

2. Resolved, To be continually endeavouring to find out some new contrivance and invention to promote the forementioned things.

3. Resolved, If ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.

4. Resolved, Never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God, nor be, nor suffer it, if I can possibly avoid it.

5. Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.

6. Resolved, To live with all my might, while I do live.

7. Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

8. Resolved, To act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings, as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. Vid. July 30.

9. Resolved, To think much, on all occasions, of my dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.

10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.

11. Resolved, When I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances do not hinder. xxi

12. Resolved, If I take delight in it as a gratification of pride, or vanity, or on any such account, immediately to throw it by.

13. Resolved, To be endeavouring to find out fit objects of liberality and charity.

14. Resolved, Never to do any thing out of revenge.

15. Resolved, Never to suffer the least motions of anger towards irrational beings.

16. Resolved, Never to speak evil of any one, so that it shall tend to his dishonour, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.

17. Resolved, That I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

18. Resolved, To live so, at all times, as I think is best in my most devout frames, and when I have the clearest notions of the things of the gospel, and another world.

19. Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour before I should hear the last trump.

20. Resolved, To maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.

21. Resolved, Never to do any thing, which if I should see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise him for, or to think any way the more meanly of him.

22. Resolved, To endeavour to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigour, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.

23. Resolved, Frequently to take some deliberate action, which seems most unlikely to be done, for the glory of God, and trace it back to the original intention, designs, and ends of it; and if I find it not to be for God’s glory, to repute it as a breach of the fourth Resolution.

24. Resolved, Whenever I do any conspicuously evil action, to trace it back, till I come to the original cause; and then, both carefully endeavour to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my might against the original of it.

25. Resolved, To examine carefully and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God; and so direct all my forces against it.

26. Resolved, To cast away such things as I find do abate my assurance.

27. Resolved, Never wilfully to omit any thing, except the omission be for the glory of God; and frequently to examine my omissions.

28. Resolved, To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

29. Resolved, Never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession which I cannot hope God will accept.

30. Resolved, To strive every week to be brought higher in religion, and to a higher exercise of grace, than I was the week before.

31. Resolved, Never to say any thing at all against any body, but when it is perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of christian honour, and of love to mankind, agreeable to the lowest humility, and sense of my own faults and failings, and agreeable to the golden rule; often, when I have said any thing against any one, to bring it to, and try it strictly by, the test of this Resolution.

32. Resolved, To be strictly and firmly faithful to my trust, that that, in Prov. xx. 6. ‘A faithful man, who can find?’ may not be partly fulfilled in me.

33. Resolved, To do always what I can towards making, maintaining, and preserving peace, when it can be done without an overbalancing detriment in other respects. Dec. 26, 1722.

34. Resolved, In narrations, never to speak any thing but the pure and simple verity.

35. Resolved, Whenever I so much question whether I have done my duty, as that my quiet and calm is thereby disturbed, to set it down, and also how the question was resolved. Dec. 18, 1722.

36. Resolved, Never to speak evil of any, except I have some particular good call to it. Dec. 19, 1722.

37. Resolved, To inquire every night, as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent,—what sin I have committed,—and wherein I have denied myself;—also, at the end of every week, month, and year. Dec. 22 and 26, 1722.

38. Resolved, Never to utter any thing that is sportive, or matter of laughter, on a Lord’s day. Sabbath evening, Dec. 23, 1722.

39. Resolved, Never to do any thing, of which I so much question the lawfulness, as that I intend, at the same time, to consider and examine afterwards, whether it be lawful or not; unless I as much question the lawfulness of the omission.

40. Resolved, To inquire every night before I go to bed, whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could, with respect to eating and drinking. Jan. 7, 1723.

41. Resolved, to ask myself, at the end of every day, week, month, and year, wherein I could possibly, in any respect, have done better. Jan. 11, 1723.

42. Resolved, Frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism, which I solemnly renewed when I was received into the communion of the church, and which I have solemnly re-made this 12th day of January, 1723.

43. Resolved, Never, henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God’s; agreeably to what is to be found in Saturday, Jan. 12th. Jan. 12, 1723.

44. Resolved, That no other end but religion shall have any influence at all on any of my actions; and that no action shall be, in the least circumstance, any otherwise than the religious end will carry it. Jan. 12, 1723.

45. Resolved, Never to allow any pleasure or grief, joy or sorrow, nor any affection at all, nor any degree of affection, nor any circumstance relating to it, but what helps religion. Jan. 12 and 13, 1723.

46. Resolved, Never to allow the least measure of any fretting or uneasiness at my father or mother. Resolved, to suffer no effects of it, so much as in the least alteration of speech, or motion of my eye; and to be especially careful of it with respect to any of our family.

47. Resolved, To endeavour, to my utmost, to deny whatever is not most agreeable to a good and universally sweet and benevolent, quiet, peaceable, contented and easy, compassionate and generous, humble and meek, submissive and obliging, diligent and industrious, charitable and even, patient, moderate, forgiving, and sincere, temper; and to do, at all times, what such a temper would xxii lead me to; and to examine strictly, at the end of every week, whether I have so done. Sabbath morning, May 5, 1723.

48. Resolved, Constantly, with the utmost niceness and diligence, and the strictest scrutiny, to be looking into the state of my soul, that I may know whether I have truly an interest in Christ or not; that when I come to die, I may not have any negligence respecting this to repent of. May 26, 1723.

49. Resolved, That this never shall be, if I can help it.

50. Resolved, That I will act so, as I think I shall judge would have been best, and most prudent, when I come into the future world. July 5, 1723.

51. Resolved, That I will act so, in every respect, as I think I shall wish I had done, if I should at last be damned. July 8, 1723.

52. I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: Resolved, That I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age. July 8, 1723.

53. Resolved, To improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer. July 8, 1723.

54. Resolved, Whenever I hear anything spoken in commendation of any person, if I think it would be praiseworthy in me, that I will endeavour to imitate it. July 8, 1723.

55. Resolved, To endeavour, to my utmost, so to act, as I can think I should do, if I had already seen the happiness of heaven and hell torments. July 8, 1723.

56. Resolved, Never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.

57. Resolved, When I fear misfortunes and adversity, to examine whether I have done my duty, and resolve to do it and let the event be just as Providence orders it. I will, as far as I can, be concerned about nothing but my duty and my sin. June 9, and July 13, 1723.

58. Resolved, Not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversation, but to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness, and benignity. May 27, and July 13, 1723.

59. Resolved, When I am most conscious of provocations to ill nature and anger, that I will strive most to feel and act good-naturedly; yea, at such times, to manifest good nature, though I think that in other respects it would be disadvantageous, and so as would be imprudent at other times. May 12, July 11, and July 13.

60. Resolved, Whenever my feelings begin to appear in the least out of order, when I am conscious of the least uneasiness within, or the least irregularity without, I will then subject myself to the strictest examination. July 4 and 13, 1723.

61. Resolved, That I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion, whatever excuse I may have for it—that what my listlessness inclines me to do, is best to be done, &c. May 21, and July 13, 1723.

62. Resolved, Never to do any thing but my duty, and then, according to Eph. vi. 6-8. to do it willingly and cheerfully, as unto the Lord, and not to man: knowing that whatever good thing any man doth, the same shall be receive of the Lord. June 25, and July 13, 1723.

63. On the supposition, that there never was to be but one individual in the world, at any one time, who was properly a complete Christian, in all respects of a right stamp, having Christianity always shining in its true lustre, and appearing excellent and lovely, from whatever part and under whatever character viewed: Resolved, To act just as I would do, if I strove with all my might to be that one, who should live in my time. Jan. 14, and July 13, 1723.

64. Resolved, When I find those ”groanings which cannot be uttered,“ of which the apostle speaks, and those ”breathings of soul for the longing it hath,” of which the psalmist speaks, Psalm cxix. 20. that I will promote them to the utmost of my power; and that I will not be weary of earnestly endeavouring to vent my desires, nor of the repetitions of such earnestness. July 23, and Aug. 10, 1723.

65. Resolved, Very much to exercise myself in this, all my life long, viz. with the greatest openness of which I am capable, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him, all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and every thing, and every circumstance, according to Dr. Manton’s Sermon on the 119th Psalm,. July 26, and Aug. 10, 1723.

66. Resolved, That I will endeavour always to keep a benign aspect, and air of acting and speaking, in all places, and in all companies, except it should so happen that duty requires otherwise.

67. Resolved, After afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them; what good I have got by them; and, what I might have got by them.

68. Resolved, To confess frankly to myself, all that which I find in myself, either infirmity or sin; and, if it be what concerns religion, also to confess the whole case to God, and implore needed help. July 23, and August 10, 1723.

69. Resolved, Always to do that, which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it. Aug. 11, 1723.

70. Let there be something of benevolence in all that I speak. Aug. 17, 1723.

Pray For Japan

2011-03-12T20:37:00.008-05:00

^{Luke 13:4-5 (NKJV):
4} Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? ⁵ I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.

With the New York Times reporting today that the Japanese news media is reporting between 1,300 to 1,700 deaths due to the 8.9 quake, the death toll is definitely on the rise in Japan. Still many more bodies are unaccounted for and one can only solemnly imagine what the death toll will finally be when all is said and done.

Please pray.

Japan is a nation that has historically rejected the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Less than 10 percent of the nation acknowledge the existence of any form of a personal deity. Less than 2% of the nation follow Christ. Furthermore, historically, the Japanese were notorious persecutors of Christians (including belittling Christians by crucifying them like their Master). For the large part, the nation is Christ-less and thereby, God-less.

On Friday, March 11th, the most powerful earthquake in the history of Japan occurred. 8,000 times more stronger than the one that just occurred in New Zealand, this quake triggered a monster tsunami that crashed on to Japan's shores.

Within minutes, hundreds...if not thousands, of souls were carried off into eternity. And, if the stats are true, most of them were carried off into a Christ-less eternity in hell.

Friend, if you truly believe in the Gospel of Christ, then that fact should rivet you to pray for this spiritually blind nation.

May the Son of God rise with healing in the 'land of the rising sun.'

Money, money, money...or God?

2011-02-28T20:14:00.007-05:00

Hebrews 13:5-6:
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you."

So we say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?”

I read the verses above with keen interest. It is an apt word for our materialistic society. Talk with college students on campuses across the nation and you will find that the vast majority of them have no other reason for pursuing higher education other than for the accumulation of money. Even those in pursuit of humanitarian professions (such as medicine) have a hunger for cash underneath their pious facade.

What a wasted life.

The verses above are of interest because instead of saying: be free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because "money is the root of all evil" or "you can't take it with you when you die" or "life is short, invest in relationships;" the writer basically says, "don't love money because God will always be with you." In other words, there are two rivals for the throne of your affections: money versus God. Both make promises. Both promise happiness. Both promise security. Both demand pursuit. Essentially, both demand worship. It is no wonder Jesus said, "You cannot serve God and money." The two are rivals. To pursue one is to ditch the other. To love one is to hate the other.

The problem is that only one of them is telling the truth. The other is lying. Money's promises are deceitful. They end in death. Money might buy you a car, but it cannot provide lasting joy. It might buy you a bed, but it cannot provide sleep. It might buy you sex, but it cannot provide true love. And one only needs to look at the stock market crash of 2008 to see that money cannot provide true security--even on a superficial level. "The deceitfulness of riches," said Jesus.

Where is the love of money seen? The love of money is seen in the work-a-holic father who sacrifices family time for more income. It is seen in the church goer who doesn't tithe because he would rather rob God than part with his idol (money). It is seen in the constant checking of the stock market. It is seen in the obsession over retirement and financial security. It is seen in the newly purchased BMW that flaunts wealth and demands admiration.

Beloved, be free from the love of money. Why? Because money will clutter your life with worthless pursuits. Why? It will shrivel your hunger for God. Why? Because you will miss out on a full, robust, life of eternally abiding endeavors.

Focus on God. Strive to do His work. He will provide the money to meet your needs and for you to do His work.

Instead of loving money, love God. Hunger for God. Only He can fully satisfy. The heavens and the earth are His and by the blood of Jesus, He has promised to never leave you nor forsake you. THAT, my friends, is true security!

Sweeter Than Honey

2011-02-20T15:37:00.001-05:00

Bible Study

2011-02-15T17:13:00.002-05:00

Reminder:
There will be a bible study at our home this Sunday at 6pm.

See you there.

Boarding Passes Printed

2011-02-12T21:52:00.013-05:00

After taking 6 years to complete my Master of Divinity degree, I am (by God's grace) ready to fly down to Kentucky tomorrow and embark on my doctorate degree. By God's unspeakable and continual grace, I have been accepted by the admissions committee of the seminary for the Doctor of Ministry program (I was one of perhaps two students granted permission to begin the program without having the nationally required 3 years, post-M.Div., full time ministry experience--and therefore I say "God's grace"). This will be my first doctorate seminar, and it is entitled "Community Development and Urban Ministry." I recollect telling a friend once that the Master of Divinity forced me to work harder than I had ever worked in my entire life. I now realize just how "subjective" difficulty is. The workload in preparation for this one doctorate level seminar equates to about 3 M.Div. classes put together (my own rough conversion calculation). For the past semester, in between work and changing diapers, I have been constantly reading and writing during virtually every free moment I received.

But why do this? Simply put, because God's kingdom deserves our best. Personally, I'd rather not do it. There are no guaranteed jobs or payoffs for this degree. I could use the tuition money. I value the family time. My brain could use the rest after a full day of work in a NYC public high school. Yet, God gave me an opportunity. I prayed about it and felt that doing it would be (though difficult) worth it. I felt it to be a stewardship issue..."a good and faithful servant" issue. In the context of our urban cities, that are suffering from theological famine, our people need the DEEP, RICH, Word of God. This means pastors ought to study hard, for our admonition is to "feed His sheep." Even if it means sweat, loss of sleep, loss of money, and toil. God's people are hungry for the meal of God's word--not trifling snacks that do more harm than good long term.

May God give me grace to finish this degree. For His glory alone. 1 Peter 4:11.

Boarding Passes. Mine will get me on my flight tomorrow. Stamped on my pass are my departure time and destination. For those of you who've been on flights, you know what the routine will look like. You mull around the terminal until your flight is called, and then, it's time to board. If you look around at the people waiting in the terminal, you'll see two types of people: those who look like they're looking forward to arriving at their destinations, and those who would rather not be be there. Printing out my passes today, I realized that we all sort of have boarding passes. We're waiting briefly in this terminal called "life," and one day our flight will be called. It will be our time to go. Heaven or Hell--for all of eternity.

We may not know when our "flight" will be called, but we can be sure of our destination. Jesus Christ died and paid for our sins. He resurrected in victory from the grave. If you put your faith in Him, you can confidently wait for your "flight," for your destination will be glorious. In fact, it will not matter how rotten this terminal called "life" may be for you right now--for WHO CARES ABOUT THE TERMINAL??? It's the destination that matters! Don't spend your life spending money on and be anxious for the decor of your airport terminal! In eternity, you will look at that as madness!

So if you're a follower of Jesus today, pour out your life for Jesus. Go to the hard places. Live holy. Stop living for yourself. Take risks for his kingdom. Be a missionary. Prepare for your "flight." The waiting period is short, and soon--very soon--your flight will board. Prepare for take-off.

The Life of the Witness

2011-02-01T22:53:00.004-05:00

R.A. Torrey: "Power is lost through self-indulgence. The one who would have God's power must lead a life of self-denial."

Spurgeon: "Whatever 'call' a man may pretend to have, if he has not been called to holiness, he certainly has not been called to the ministry."

D.L. Moody: "Character is what you are in the dark."

William Carey: "Prayer--secret, fervent, believing prayer--lies at the root of all personal godliness."

Trading in the American Dream.

2011-01-31T21:21:00.006-05:00

The above video needed to be more gospel-centered (in other words, we trade in the American Dream to primarily take the gospel to those who need salvation in Christ...but not neglecting to help the needy just like the good Samaritan), but nonetheless, a good video.

Credit: Jeff who posted the video on his blog first.

The Pursuit of Holiness--Fueled by the Fear of God.

2011-01-28T21:56:00.000-05:00

John Brown (1851):

Nothing is so well fitted to put the fear of God—which will preserve men from offending him—into the heart, as an enlightened view of the cross of Christ.

There shines

spotless holiness,
inflexible justice,
incomprehensible wisdom,
omnipotent power,
holy love.

None of these excellencies darken or eclipse the other, but every one of them rather gives a lustre to the rest.

They mingle their beams, and shine with united eternal splendor:

the just Judge,
the merciful Father,
the wise Governor.

Nowhere does

justice appear so awful,
mercy so amiable, or
wisdom so profound.

God Is Too Big For Just One Religion.

2011-01-27T17:59:00.005-05:00

"God Is Too Big For Just One Religion."

I read that on a bumper sticker in Queens (NYC) the other day.

Life's Ultimate Question: "Is there only one way to God?" Click the link below and listen in:
THE EXCLUSIVITY OF JESUS' GOSPEL.

(The above recorded message was given at The Gallery Church of Manhattan: www.gallerychurch.com)

Contemplating on how the grandeur of the thing created always brings glory to its creator.

2011-01-08T14:58:00.011-05:00

*Caveat: The writing of this blog does not mean I condone the making or purchasing of this vehicle. As Christians, we are called to be faithful stewards of the finances that God has graciously bestowed upon us. These finances ought to be used for the thoughtful/prayerful advance of God's kingdom. The price tag of this vehicle would make the act of purchase by any Christian an abominable one.

Not too long ago, I happened to view a commercial by Lexus about the above pictured car. Some time early this year, Lexus will begin selling its brand new LFA Supercar. Set as a Ferrari-killer, this car brings 552 horses and can hit 60 mph in 3.6 seconds. Upon doing some research, I discovered that Lexus only intends to make and sell 500 of these vehicles at the price of $375,000 each.

Apparently, even at that price, Lexus will be taking a loss for each vehicle sold. What then, is the rationale for making and selling vehicles that will put your company at a financial loss?

The answer is glory.

Lexus is not really after money or profit with these 500 cars. Both the commercial I viewed and the car itself are statement makers for the Lexus brand. The workmanship is nearly flawless. The mechanics are intelligent. The aesthetics are beautiful. You see, the idea is to put in the minds of people that if Lexus is capable of making this type of car, just imagine what they can do for your common ES 350 in your garage. This fast and beautiful car brings glory to its maker.

Watches, cars, and clothes. It is common knowledge that the grandeur and excellence of the thing made brings glory to its maker. So often however, we forget that we too, are made. We were created.

Brothers and sisters, by the enabling of the Holy Spirit, live your lives in such a way that brings glory to your Maker. You are a new creation. You were saved by God for good works. Therefore, be fruitful! This glorifies your Father...your Maker.

"By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples."-Jesus Christ (John 15:8).

How pitiful it is when the thing created does not know its purpose.

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
¹⁵ You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
¹⁶ You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.
-Psalm 139:13-16 (NLT).

Last Day, New Year

2010-12-31T22:28:00.002-05:00

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God.

What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?
What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity? -Don Whitney.

Don Whitney:

Whitney writes:

The value of many of these questions is not in their profundity, but in the simple fact that they bring an issue or commitment into focus. For example, just by articulating which person you most want to encourage this year is more likely to help you remember to encourage that person than if you hadn’t considered the question.

Whitney also offers an additional 21 questions to help us “consider our ways.”

Merry Christmas, 2010.

2010-12-25T20:02:00.009-05:00

(Photo: Taken today in front of the Rockefeller Tree.)

And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
-1 John 5:11

Merry Christmas, NYC! Believe, or keep believing in, Jesus. He is eternal life.

Christmas Sermon on Love: Love, Defined.

Who Is Christmas For?

2010-12-24T00:47:00.000-05:00

Matt B. Redmond:

Jesus came for those who look in the mirror and see ugliness.

Jesus came for daughters whose fathers never told them they were beautiful.

Christmas is for those who go to “wing night” alone.

Christmas is for those whose lives have been wrecked by cancer, and the thought of another Christmas seems like an impossible dream.

Christmas is for those who would be nothing but lonely if not for social media.

Christmas is for those whose marriages have careened against the retaining wall and are threatening to flip over the edge.

Christmas is for the son whose father keeps giving him hunting gear when he wants art materials.

Christmas is for smokers who cannot quit even in the face of a death sentence.

Christmas is for prostitutes, adulterers, and porn stars who long for love in every wrong place.

Christmas is for college students who are sitting in the midst of the family and already cannot wait to get out for another drink.

Christmas is for those who traffic in failed dreams.

Christmas is for those who have squandered the family name and fortune—they want “home” but cannot imagine a gracious reception.

Christmas is for parents watching their children’s marriage fall into disarray.

You can read the whole thing here.

Adult Kids, Their Dads, and Church Attendance.

2010-12-17T22:48:00.003-05:00

Robbie Low, writing in Touchstone (June 2003), points to an interesting 1994 study in Switzerland about the connection between the churchgoing habits of fathers and mothers and the effect on their children when they are grown.

Here’s a summary:

In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). If a father goes but irregularly to church, regardless of his wife’s devotion, between a half and two-thirds of their offspring will find themselves coming to church regularly or occasionally.

A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children never darken the church door. If his wife is similarly negligent that figure rises to 80 percent!

The results are shocking, but they should not be surprising. They are about as politically incorrect as it is possible to be; but they simply confirm what psychologists, criminologists, educationalists, and traditional Christians know. You cannot buck the biology of the created order. Father’s influence, from the determination of a child’s sex by the implantation of his seed to the funerary rites surrounding his passing, is out of all proportion to his allotted, and severely diminished role, in Western liberal society.

A mother’s role will always remain primary in terms of intimacy, care, and nurture. (The toughest man may well sport a tattoo dedicated to the love of his mother, without the slightest embarrassment or sentimentality). No father can replace that relationship. But it is equally true that when a child begins to move into that period of differentiation from home and engagement with the world “out there,” he (and she) looks increasingly to the father for his role model. Where the father is indifferent, inadequate, or just plain absent, that task of differentiation and engagement is much harder. When children see that church is a “women and children” thing, they will respond accordingly—by not going to church, or going much less.

Curiously, both adult women as well as men will conclude subconsciously that Dad’s absence indicates that going to church is not really a “grown-up” activity. In terms of commitment, a mother’s role may be to encourage and confirm, but it is not primary to her adult offspring’s decision. Mothers’ choices have dramatically less effect upon children than their fathers’, and without him she has little effect on the primary lifestyle choices her offspring make in their religious observances.

Her major influence is not on regular attendance at all but on keeping her irregular children from lapsing altogether. This is, needless to say, a vital work, but even then, without the input of the father (regular or irregular), the proportion of regulars to lapsed goes from 60/40 to 40/60.

You can read the whole essay here.

Credit: Justin Taylor for this essay.

Christmas at The Gallery Church

2010-12-15T22:46:00.004-05:00

For Christmas at The Gallery Church, check out this link:
Advent at The Gallery Church.

We welcome you all to celebrate with us the birth of our Savior!

Death Glorifies God.

2010-12-03T22:21:00.002-05:00

Believers who die for Jesus, glorify God through their deaths by displaying unequivocally that Jesus is a greater treasure than life itself.

Where do I get that?

Philippians 1:20-23
I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. ²¹For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ²²If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. ²³ I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

Death Glorifies God?

2010-11-27T10:41:00.004-05:00

Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep. Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.” This He spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me.”
-John21:17-19. An excerpt from Jesus' conversation with Simon Peter.

Masochist? Sadist? Ego-maniac?

Jesus' words cannot be taken superficially. Imagine being commanded "Follow Me." Americans do not do well with such imperatives. But probe deeper...it might trouble you further. How does the death of a loved one "glorify God?" Within that same strain of thought, how does God use the suffering of His own children to glorify Himself? Is that ethical? Is that even mentally healthy?

Meditate on it. It will shake your paradigm. Re-examine your Christianity. The ramifications are profound and breathtaking.

Jesus, You are Lord of Heaven and earth.

NYC Needs the Holy Spirit.

2010-11-12T21:30:00.007-05:00

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it,to the praise of his glory.

-Ephesians 1:13

The verse above comforted me today during my devotionals. The Holy Spirit...God Almighty Himself...the third person of the Holy Trinity, sealed me the moment I heard the gospel and believed in Christ. No flames, no foreign tongues, no bodily chills...just hearing and believing. Furthermore, there is no chance of me ever losing my salvation. The Holy Spirit Himself is my "guarantee" of my inheritance. God never bankrupts on his guarantees. Simply put, a guarantee is a guarantee.

After evangelizing on the streets of Queens last night, I had an opportunity to have a time of prayer and Bible study with two brothers--Kevin and John Paul. What a great time of crying out to the Lord it was! We were far more supplicant than introspective. I was touched.

One thing became glaringly evident to me last night. Only the Holy Spirit can save this city. It will not be through slick marketing. It will not be through programs and shows. It will only be through the power of the Holy Spirit. We need a city-wide outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We are so anemic and pathetic. God, come down! Sweep across this broken city! We need more of you, Holy Spirit. Much more.

In Jesus' name,
Amen.

Christian Happiness

2010-10-12T01:51:00.004-04:00

When Jonathan Edwards was 18 years old he preached his first formal sermon, titled, Christian Happiness.

The thesis of the sermon is simple and large:

Christians should be happy.

Why should Christians be happy? The sermon answers this question in 3 points.

Point 1: Our bad things will turn out for good.

Point 2: Our good things can never be taken away from us.

Point 3: The best things are yet to come.
Here’s an extended quote from point #2 (paragraph breaks added):

The godly man is happy in whatever circumstances he is placed because of the spiritual privileges and advantages, joys and satisfactions, he actually enjoys while in this life. How great a happiness must needs [it] be to a man to have all his sins pardoned and to stand guilty of nothing in God’s presence: to be washed clean from all his pollutions; to have the great and eternal and almighty Jehovah, who rules and governs the whole universe, and doth whatsoever he pleases in the armies of heaven and amongst the inhabitants of the earth, reconciled to him and perfectly at peace with him.

How great a pleasure and satisfaction must it be to him to think of it, and not only that God is reconciled to him or has nothing against [him], inasmuch as all is pardoned; but also that this same almighty being who created him, who keeps him in being and who disposes of him and all other things every moment, loves him, and that with a great and transcendent love; and that He has adopted him and taken him to be His child, and given Himself to him to be his father and his portion, and that takes care of him as one that is very dear to Him, continually guides and directs him, and will lead him to the fountain of living waters.

And how joyful and gladsome must the thoughts of Jesus Christ be to him, to think with how great a love Christ has loved him, even to lay down His life and suffer the most bitter torments for his sake, Who also now continually intercedes for him at the throne of grace; to consider that so great a person as the eternal Son of God, who also made the worlds, is his lord and master, and is not ashamed to call us brethren, Who will come in and sup with him, and He with him, and to see His arms expanded to embrace him and offering Himself to be embraced by him. And beside, what a satisfaction and pleasure must it give to his mind to think that he is now sanctified and made holy, adorned and beautified with those lovely graces that make him lovely in the sight of God and excellent in the sight of saints and angels; to reflect on himself and consider that he acts rationally and doth that which the best of beings has commanded, that he in some measure acts worthy of the nature of a man, in some measure answers the end of his coming into the world in glorifying God and doing good to his fellow creatures, and that he has not lived altogether in vain: not as it is with many; they live in the world and burthen the same, and had better be dead than alive for all the good they do in it, or any they do towards manifesting the glory of him that made them.

The reflection on these things affords such a peace and pleasantness to the mind, as far exceeds and is immensely above all outward delights. What there is no wicked man doth know, neither; neither hath it entered into their hearts to conceive how great are the comforts and pleasures of the godly, and how great [the] things God hath prepared for all those that love [him], even in this life; their pleasures are of vastly a more refined, higher and more noble kind than those of the wicked, besides the many other advantages that this has above that, but especially that taken notice of in the Doctrine: that no worldly afflictions in the world are able to deprive them of them, but they, as rightly improved, do only serve to give them a quicker and more lively sense of spiritual enjoyments.

All Trespasses

2010-10-05T23:24:00.009-04:00

Colossians 2:13-14:

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the certificate of debt with its handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Wow. Thank you, Jesus!

Thirty Years.

2010-09-30T23:30:00.004-04:00

It's here.

Today, I turned 30. 30 on the 30th.

A milestone year. Thank you, Jesus!

May the work begin. Unless the Lord builds the house...

Global Cities

2010-09-19T15:16:00.014-04:00

Above: Bird's eye view of Hong Kong

Above: New York City commuters wait for their train in the Union Square subway station on March 9th

Unequivocally interesting...especially if you live in one of the cities on the list below. As a Christian, there are eternal kingdom implications to all this. Unequivocally (again), first century Christianity had its churches planted in major cities. There was Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, and of course Rome and Jerusalem. From these cities, the church served as a launchpad for missions and Gospel proclamation. Eternal impact. What are you living for? Where you living?

"Water runs downhill, and the highest hills are the great cities. If we can stir them we shall stir the whole country." -D.L. Moody.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Global Cities Index 2010

In this second collaboration between Foreign Policy, A.T. Kearney, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, we bring you the world's top global cities.

The 2010 Global Cities Index looks at 65 metropolises worldwide, measuring how much sway a city has beyond its borders -- its influence and integration with global markets, culture, and innovation.

Above: Singapore
Above: Los Angeles

Rank	City	Rank by Population	Rank by GDP
1	New York	6	2
2	London	28	5
3	Tokyo	1	1
4	Paris	20	6
5	Hong Kong	31	14
6	Chicago	25	4
7	Los Angeles	12	3
8	Singapore	38	23
9	Sydney	43	24
10	Seoul	22	19
11	Brussels	54	48
12	San Francisco	46	16
13	Washington	42	10
14	Toronto	36	20
15	Beijing	13	33
16	Berlin	48	46
17	Madrid	34	22
18	Vienna	55	40
19	Boston	41	11
20	Frankfurt	64	20
20	Shanghai	7	21
22	Buenos Aires	11	12
23	Stockholm	59	52
24	Zurich	61	58
25	Moscow	19	13
26	Barcleona	37	31
27	Dubai	56	49
28	Rome	49	37
29	Amsterdam	63	60
30	Mexico City	5	8
31	Montreal	44	35
32	Geneva	65	61
33	Miami	58	54
33	Munich	35	18
35	Sao Paulo	3	9
36	Bangkok	32	42
37	Copenhagen	60	59
38	Houston	40	17
39	Taipei	53	26
40	Atlanta	39	15
41	Istanbul	21	30
42	Milan	52	39
43	Cairo	17	36
44	Dublin	62	55
45	New Delhi	2	32
46	Mumbai	4	25
47	Osaka	16	7
48	Kuala Lumpur	57	65
49	Rio de Janeiro	14	27
50	Tel Aviv	50	40
51	Manila	15	34
52	Johannesburg	45	43
53	Jakarta	24	47
54	Bogota	29	45
55	Caracas	51	62
56	Nairobi	47	64
57	Guangzhou	27	38
58	Bangalore	30	53
59	Lagos	18	63
60	Karachi	10	50
61	Ho Chi Minh City	33	56
62	Shenzhen	26	28
63	Kolkata	8	44
64	Dhaka	9	50
65	Chongqing	23

Life

2010-09-13T18:08:00.007-04:00

"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." -John 6:63

Upcoming...My church is hosting Charlie Hall to lead worship this upcoming Sunday on the 19th of September. For more information, check out: Gallery Church.

***UPDATE 9/19/10:***
It was an awesome time of worship with Charlie Hall. Indeed, God make us "a generation that seeks your face, O God of Jacob!"

A Different Kind of Famine

2010-08-28T21:50:00.006-04:00

As I was reading the Bible today, a verse struck me as one that was very descriptive of New York (maybe even of the United States as a whole). Here it is:

"Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord GOD, "when I will send a famine on the land--not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD."
-Amos 8:11.

There is a theological/biblical famine in this nation. May God's preachers faithfully commit themselves to preaching the Word of God. The people are thirsty.

The Incompatibility of Evolution with the Christian Faith.

2010-08-27T13:29:00.005-04:00

(Pictures: Taken at Washington D.C.'s Smithsonian Museum in 2009.)

Today's edition of The Wall Street Journal had a piece by writer John Farrell which celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Roman Catholic Church's encyclical Humani Generis. In that historic document, Pope Pius XII “confirmed, in broad terms, that there is no intrinsic conflict between Christianity and the scientific theory of evolution.”

Dr. Mohler wrote an excellent piece in reaction to Farrell's article: Mohler Article.

Here's an excerpt:

The 60th anniversary of Humani Generis should serve as a reminder that evolutionary theory does indeed present Christian theology with an inevitable conflict. In the course of arguing the opposite, John Farrell actually makes this point with profound clarity. Humani Generis did not go far enough, he insists, even as he points to “unfinished business” between the Roman Catholic Church and evolution.

The Catholics will sort out their theological questions for themselves. For evangelicals, the direct lesson is that any accommodation to evolutionary theory comes with huge and inescapable theological costs. There is no way to affirm an historical Adam while holding to any mainstream model of evolution, and there is no way to affirm the Gospel without an historical Adam.

Furthermore, accommodations to evolutionary theory never end. There will always be “unfinished business” that will demand further theological concessions.

This is...His desire.

2010-08-24T19:29:00.004-04:00

It has been quite a cloudy, rainy day here in New York City. Despite the weather, upon coming out of H-Mart (a Korean supermarket in NYC), there were two young men diligently and efficiently distributing pamphlets outside the store. Needing to return my shopping cart, my fate for a direct encounter with these men was sealed. Immediately upon receipt of their pamphlet, I discovered the sad truth that they were proponents of a false religious system.

On the same note, it is quite compelling to consider the fact that after nearly 500 years since the Protestant Reformation, so many of us still almost inherently cling to a notion of "pleasing" God by and through works.

Human nature inherently knows that it is separated from Creator. Even the English word "religion" has its etymology from the Latin words "re" - "ligare" meaning, to "tie back." We are separated from a Holy God and everything within us wants to "reconnect" with Him...even if we don't know who "He" is. That is why humans all over the world are adherents to a "religion." Humans try to make amends and "work" their way back to God. They try to live a morally "good" life in order to be right with the celestial judge of the universe.

Jesus, God in human flesh, came 2,000 years ago to die for humanity's sins. Christianity is unique in that, instead of us trying to "get" to God, God chooses to "come down" to us. Not only does He "come down" to our level, but He chooses to die in our place--effectively paying for sins once and for all! Talk about amazing grace!

Anyway, the point I was trying to make with this blog was that even among so many of us "born-again" Christians, we get things mixed up and try to "serve" our way into heaven. Yes, serving is good--but only if it is an act of obedience flowing out of a love for Jesus. It is duly noted that Jesus Himself stated, "If you love me, keep my commands." Disobedience is tantamount to hypocrisy.

That all being said, why do you serve? Whether it is going on a missions trip to another country or helping to set up the youth group service on Sunday at church, why do you serve? Service, sacrifice, and acts of worship all become meaningless without love and knowledge of the God who saved you. Some churches do a great disservice to its people when they say, "oh forget about it, growth in doctrinal and biblical knowledge is not that important...have the people serve, and by SERVING they will experience growth and intimacy with God." Oh really? The detriments of such a stance will not be outlined in this blog, but suffice it to say, I serve a God who said:
"For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." -Hosea 6:6.

The Prerequisite for an Obedient Life.

2010-07-30T12:57:00.005-04:00

Jimmy was a miserable sinner. Yeah, he enjoyed his sin, but his life was miserable. He had no purpose. Happiness always seemed one step away...evasive. Then, one day, the Gospel was heard by Jimmy. As God gave him a regenerative heart, he believed in the Treasure, that is, Jesus Christ. His eyes were OPENED!

5 years later. Yeah, Jimmy knows that he's going to heaven. He believes in Jesus. What's hard for Jimmy is living here...on earth...now. He feels defeated. He keeps falling to the same sins...over and over again. He is in bondage.

So many can resonate with Jimmy's predicament.

The Gospel is not just the ABC's of Christianity. It is the A to Z of Christianity. You never "grow up" from it and depart. You only continue growing deeper into it. The Gospel tells you that you are a helpless sinner, but that your sins are covered by the blood of Jesus. The Gospel establishes you identity far better than any thing else. It gives you power to live daily.

Here's what it comes down to. Here's the prerequisite for an obedient life:

And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people and I will be their God. -Ezekiel 11:19-20

How to Be Spiritually Minded

2010-07-11T23:14:00.002-04:00

By John Piper
November 1, 2006

This article was triggered by the drift of my mind on Sunday afternoon toward the Apple Computer video ads. They are funny. But as I was pondering Mac vs. PC, I began to ask myself if I was lured away from being spiritually minded. I do believe it is possible to think about computers in a spiritual way. But was I doing that? Or was I drifting into the very fascination and desire that makes God feel remote and the Bible unattractive and heaven irrelevant and hell inconceivable? It was a critical moment. God snatched me.

Being spiritually minded is a matter of life and death. Paul said in Romans 8:6, “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” The phrase “set the mind on the Spirit” translates a noun phrase, phronēma tou pneumatos—“mindset of the Spirit.” There is no good one-word English equivalent for phronēma. It is not just “mind” but also “attitude.” And not just “mindset” but also “attitude-set.” It is the frame and disposition of our mind. To say that we have a “phronēma of the Spirit” is to say that the Spirit is shaping our mind-attitude-set according to his own. It exalts Christ and values God and cherishes the Word of God and sees people and things with a relentless God-consciousness.

I long to be spiritually minded all the time. I want to see the world with spiritual eyes—computers and all. So I stopped computer gazing and wrote the following strategies for being and staying spiritually minded. They are not in any particular order. Only as they came to me with a few tweaks.

Realize your outer nature is wasting away and inner nature must be renewed by setting your mind on things that are above.

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. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Take radical steps to keep your mind pure.

You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. (Matthew 5:27-29)

Make God the gladness of all your joys.

Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. (Psalm 43:4)

Literally the phrase “my exceeding joy” is “gladness of my joy.” I take this to mean that in all our joys God should be the gladness of the joy. Every joy should become a joy in God. If a joy cannot offer a taste of who God is, and be enjoyed the more for that, then it is unspiritual joy.

See each person you meet as you will see them a hundred years from now.

The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.(Luke 16:22-23)

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. (2 Corinthians 5:16)

Ponder that at every moment, even your happiest, there is misery and wailing in 10,000 places, some of them very near.

Will that not kill all our joys? Better to be real and sad than happy and fake. But I don’t think we have to choose. Real and happy and sorrowful is possible. That is why Paul says that he is “sorrowful yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). Listen to this heart-wrenching story that David Brickner (head of Jews for Jesus) tells.

Some months ago I was flying home from a meeting when the man sitting behind me began gasping for breath. An announcement over the plane’s intercom called for a physician. Soon a doctor and several nurses came to the man’s aid but to no avail. I began to pray for the man and his wife, who was sitting beside him. The pilot announced that due to a medical emergency the plane was going to land in Edmonton. I could hear the activity behind me escalate as the doctor and nurses took turns doing CPR. If you’ve never been near a person who is dying despite these efforts, I can assure you that it is not much worse than what we see on television. The sound of air being forced out of a human being’s lungs, the sounds and smells of the death rattle were horrific. I heard the doctor pronounce, “Time of death, 10:25 A. M.”

And then the captain announced that the passenger’s situation had “stabilized,” and therefore we would continue to San Francisco. I don’t know how many people realized that what was announced as though it was the passing of the emergency was actually a veiled announcement of the passing of this man’s life. Certainly those of us nearby knew. The flight attendants pulled a blanket over his head. His wife, still beside him, was sobbing and moaning. And then the flight attendants began to come through the aisles . . . serving lunch! Lunch!? How could anyone in that cabin eat after what had just happened? But they did. (Jews for Jesus, Newsletter, Nov. 2006, p. 1)

That is a parable of the world at any given time. Some are eating lunch and thousands are wailing. It helps to remember this when we are carried away from reality with some computer ad.

Remember Jesus’ warning about what chokes spiritual life: cares, riches and pleasures of life.

Those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. (Luke 8:14)

The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. (Mark 4:19)

Ponder what smells good to God and what he delights in!

And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:2)

For we are the aroma of Christ to God. (2 Corinthians 2:15)

His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love. (Psalm 147:10)

Be friends with spiritually minded people.

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. (Proverbs 13:20)

Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” (1 Corinthians 15:33)

Read God-besotted, spiritually minded writers.

For example, read the sermons of Jonathan Edwards and John Owen in Volume Seven of his Works, On Spiritual Mindedness. Here are some sample sermon titles from volume 25 of the Yale edition of Edwards’ Works, just to give you a flavor how different things were in those days:

"The Great Concern of a Watchman of Souls"
"The Beauty of Piety in Youth"
"The Church’s Marriage to Her Sons, and to Her God"
"Yield to God’s Word, or Be Broken by His Hand"
"Saving Faith and Christian Obedience Arise from Godly Love"
"The Peace Which Christ Gives His True Followers"
"Men’s Inhumanity to God"
"Christ Is to the Heart Like a River to a Tree Planted by It"
"God Is Infinitely Strong"

Ponder your life that will very soon be without a body.

Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:8)

How attached are all your joys to your body?

Think about how short life is.

“All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you. (1 Peter 1:24-25)

Ask for spiritual-mindedness.

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. (Psalm 90:14)

The psalmists pray often for the heart and mind they long to have.

Remember you died with Christ and have crucified the flesh.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:24)

The most basic key to spiritual-mindedness is the deep assurance that you really have died and risen with Christ and that you are forgiven and justified in him.

Accept God’s appointed suffering as discipline to bring about greater spiritual mindedness.

For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:7-11)

Go to the hospital to pray with a dying man.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. (Ecclesiastes 7:2)

I did this last week and it had, as always, a sobering effect and blew away much worldliness from my mind.

Risk being thought foolish and weird.

It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household. (Matthew 10:25)

Realize that millions of people in the other religions of the world are not looking for people with more American cultural coolness or techno savvy. They are looking for a “holy man,” a “man of God.”

The question will not be, “Is he quick-witted and fast-talking and clever?” The question will be: “Does he pray a lot? Does he know his holy Book, much of it by heart? Is he self-denying and focused on God? Is he powerful in his weakness?”

Longing to be spiritually minded with you,

Pastor John

Pascal and LeBron

2010-07-10T21:46:00.008-04:00

In the past few weeks leading up till this past Thursday, Americans were obsessed by the question, "Where is LeBron James going to go play basketball next season?" The American obsession was verified and highlighted by the fact that ESPN donated (yes, for free) an hour of prime time television time to LeBron, just for the sole purpose of allowing LeBron to announce his decision on their network. Why did ESPN do it? They knew that Americans would watch.

Now that it is all over, the question I am asking is, "Why do people care so much about the National Basketball Association...an entertainment industry...a trivial diversion in life?"

In an age of mass entertainment venues, Facebook, multi-tasking, ADD (ADHD now?), and numerous social-media addictions...here's one line from Pascal's Pensees (from #136) that is worthy of much of meditation:

I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

Douglas Groothuis (Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary) has written wisely on these issues. In his essay “Why Truth Matters Most: An Apologetic for Truth-Seeking in Postmodern Times” (JETS, September 2004) he takes his cues from Pascal:

In the middle of the seventeenth century in France, Blaise Pascal went to great lengths to expose those diversions that kept people from seeking truth in matters of ultimate significance. His words still ring true. In his day, diversion consisted of things like hunting, games, gambling, and other amusements. The repertoire of diversion was minute compared with what is available in our fully-wired and over-stimulated postmodern world of cell phones, radios, laptops, video games, omnipresent television (in cars, restaurants, airports, etc.), extreme sports, and much else. Nevertheless, the human psychology of diversion remains unchanged. Diversion consoles us—in trivial ways—in the face of our miseries or perplexities; yet, paradoxically, it becomes the worst of our miseries because it hinders us from ruminating on and understanding our true condition. Thus, Pascal warns, it “leads us imperceptibly to destruction.” Why? If not for diversion, we would “be bored, and boredom would drive us to seek some more solid means of escape, but diversion passes our time and brings us imperceptibly to our death.” Through the course of protracted stupefaction, we learn to become oblivious to our eventual oblivion. In so doing, we choke off the possibility of seeking real freedom.

There is an ineluctable tension between our aspirations and our anticipations and the reality of our lives. As Pascal wrote,

Despite [his] afflictions man wants to be happy, only wants to be happy, and cannot help wanting to be happy. But how shall he go about it? The best thing would be to make himself immortal, but as he cannot do that, he has decided to stop thinking about it.

We humans face an incorrigible mortality that drives us to distractions designed to overcome our worries:

Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. Now the order of thought is to begin with ourselves, and with our author and our end. Now what does the world think about? Never about that, but about dancing, playing the lute, singing, writing verse, tilting at the ring, etc., and fighting, becoming king, without thinking what it means to be a king or to be a man.

The compulsive search for diversion is often an attempt to escape the wretchedness of life. We have great difficulty being quiet in our rooms, when the television or computer screen offers a riot of possible stimulation. Postmodern people are perpetually restless; they frequently seek solace in diversion instead of satisfaction in truth. As Pascal said, “Our nature consists in movement; absolute rest is death.” The postmodern condition is one of oversaturation and over-stimulation, and this caters to our propensity to divert ourselves from pursuing higher realities.

Perpetual Novelty

2010-07-04T22:53:00.002-04:00

"I may, I suppose, regard myself as a relatively successful man. People occasionally stare at me in the streets, that's fame; I can fairly easily earn enough money to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Internal Revenue Service. That's success. Furnished with money and a little fame, even the elderly, if they care to, may partake of friendly diversions. That's pleasure. It might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time. That's fulfillment. Yet, I say to you, and I beg you to believe me, multiply these tiny triumphs by millions, add them all up together, and they are nothing, less than nothing. Indeed, a positive impediment measured against one drop of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are."
-Malcolm Muggeridge

The Invasion

2010-06-23T23:58:00.004-04:00

Lyrics:

Creation’s groaning, lost their hope and feel they always closed in
Lots to cope with, on the ropes, wish they was in the open
This broken world is so dim, our souls are searching, groping
For one with hope to hold us close, and set goodness in motion
I remember growing up in Dallas, I thought me and my close kin
Was more than straight, our folks was great, not broke that paper flowed in
Not boasting man, just saying in my brain I didn’t know then
That all went wrong, and it just can’t go right like a broke pen
My mind was blind and cloaked in, but then that foolishness departed
I saw this thing’s an ocean, and we just tryna swim real far but
But can’t nobody float when we ain’t got boats or no fins
We need a hero to go in, cause our solutions don’t win
Education can’t fix it, more dough just leads to more sin
Medicine is temporary, government seems so thin
With all these weighty problems, that ain’t shrinking they just growing
Who’s adequate to save us, how about He knew no sin?

Hook:
Like a G5 yeah you rushed to rescue me
Took a cross in exchange for a throne to save me
You began the work and I know you’ll finish
And make all things right when you come back
Cause you’re my hero, you already saved the day
Cause you’re my hero, and I know you’re coming back for me

Verse 2:
Follow the steps bro, Adam sinned now we all dead so
We gotta sentence on our head like death row, everything is wrecked
All creation is a mess bro,
In the fullness of time, in steps the hero no red cloak, He’s Jesus
No flashing lights, glitz n glam, and no cameras
He came to serve needy folks, and point them to the answer
You see Him healing, feeding folks, and telling them the standard
Our most basic need is to be ransomed by Jesus
It has first place, yeah we separated in the worst ways
Even physically peep how the earth quakes
Separated socially, murder and the worst rapes
Even separated from ourselves, we in the worst state
It’s so major, that’s the reason that we need a Savior
Cause the root of needs is separation from Creator
Jesus came humbly to restore us to our maker
And later He’ll restore all that He made bruh, He’s Jesus

Verse 3:
God is not pleased man, it’s clear that His standards missed
The world is running rampant with, sin it’s an abandonment
Man is feeling stranded, feeling hopeless since his banishment
God is angry at the distortion and the mismanagement
Evil is at work, but don’t be thinking He can’t handle it
He promised He would do away with all of it, dismantle it
He’s put up with this damage in His world, but He’s promised us
That He’ll destroy all His enemies and then He’ll walk with us
New Heaven, new Earth that’s where all His sheep dwell
Cause Jesus succeeded in every part of life that we failed
Died the death we couldn’t die, paid our price with 3 nails
Began the work He promised, in the end we all will be well
Already beat our enemies and when His Kingdom’s realized
All those who oppose Him will see Jesus with some real eyes
Deliverance is offered us, the hero He is urging us
Salvation is exclusive to His people who have turned to trust

What Is the Gospel?

2010-06-20T14:50:00.001-04:00

What Is the Gospel?

What is the Gospel? from Southern Seminary on Vimeo.

The Key to Fruitful Living

2010-06-19T17:14:00.012-04:00

The words of Jesus in John 15:5-8:

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples."

Doing the work of God (fruit) is an evidence of genuine salvation. False "salvations" yield no fruit. Those are people who are very content to have "said a prayer to accept Christ" and now, they "know" they're going to heaven--regardless of how sinful their lives continue to be. To live a life that maximizes the glory of God within that life, is to live a life that bears fruit. "Abiding" occurs by "obeying" Jesus. A person who daily abides in Jesus (reads and believes the word, prays, walks in the Spirit) cannot help but to be fruitful. The life-giving vine causes the branch that abides to burst out with life.

Friend, are you fruitful today? Is your life completely satisfying? It all depends on where one abides. Are you abiding in Jesus today? He will give you life and power to overcome. If you are asking today, "How can I glorify God?" Remember:

"By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples."

Faith Fueled Significance

2010-06-16T22:16:00.001-04:00

He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. -Matt.13:58

The greatest tragedy would be to live this one short life without faith, and thereby, forfeit the opportunities to see God work.

Alethia. Saving Faith.

2010-06-12T17:48:00.021-04:00

"Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well."

-Luke 17:19.

Do you perceive how much our daily lives require faith? I realize that we are not only saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, but almost every moment in our lives is a call to faithfulness. The question always is, "Will I choose to believe God?"
It all comes down to who or what you believe. Sin makes a promise. God makes a promise. Wicked lives are just resultants of human agents choosing to believe in lies. It goes something like this...

Sin: "You will not surely die...you will be like God." (Genesis 3:4-5.)
God: "In my presence is the fullness of joy." (Psalm 16:11.)

Which do you believe?
OR maybe it goes something like this...

Sin:"Enjoy the moment. Repent later. It'll feel real good."
God: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you...to give you a future and a hope."
Every moment. Every day. A call to make a choice. Our lives consist of our choices. Your JOY depends on your choices. Who you will be tomorrow depends on your decisions today. Choose well. Eternity awaits. Just a few more years...
_____________________________________________________
My newborn, Alethia. She was born on June 3rd. Thank you, Jesus. Live up to your name, girl...change the world with the truth, that is, Jesus Christ!
_____________________________________________
Something I came across. You decide what you want to do with it. The source seems pretty credible to me:

Curt Jurgens, a German actor and idol, had a negative experience when his heart stopped during much of the four hours it took Dr. Michael Debakey in Houston to replace part of an aorta (the main blood vessel):

Soon I had a feeling that life was ebbing from me. I felt powerful sensations of dread. I had been looking up into the big glass cupola over the operating room. This cupola now began to change. Suddenly it turned glowing red. I saw twisted faces grimacing as they stared down at me.
I tried to struggle upright and defend myself against these ghosts, who were moving closer to me. Then it seemed as if the glass cupola had turned into a transparent dome that was slowly sinking down over me. A fiery rain was now falling, but though the drops were enormous, none of them touched me. They spattered down around me, and out of them grew menacing tongues of flames licking up about me.
I could no longer shut out the frightful truth: beyond the faces dominating this fiery world were faces of the damned. I had a feeling of despair … the sensation of horror was so great it choked me.
Obviously I was in Hell itself, and the glowing tongues of fire could be reaching me any minute. In this situation, the black silhouette of a human figure suddenly materialized and began to draw near. It was a woman in a black veil, a slender woman with a lipless mouth and in her eyes an expression that sent icy shudders down my back.
She stretched out her arms toward me and, pulled by an irresistible force, I followed her. An icy breath touched me and I came into a world filled with faint sounds of lamentation, though there was not a person in sight. Then and there I asked the figure to tell me who she was. A voice answered: “I am death."
I summoned all my strength and thought: “I’ll not follow her any more, for I want to live.”

(To Hell and Back by Dr Maurice Rawlings, pg. 76-77)

When We Stray from Holiness.

2010-06-09T17:23:00.001-04:00

D.A. Carson, For the Love of God, volume 2, Jan. 23 entry:

One of the most striking evidences of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift.

In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform.

In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations.

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, and obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.

We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance;

we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom;

we drift toward superstition and call it faith.

We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation;

we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism;

we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

C.S. Lewis: Three Kinds of Men.

2010-05-10T22:57:00.001-04:00

C.S. Lewis’s short essay, “Three Kinds of Men,” from his collection of essays, Present Concerns (pp. 9-10):

There are three kinds of people in the world.

The first class is of those who live simply for their own sake and pleasure, regarding Man and Nature as so much raw material to be cut up into whatever shape may serve them.

In the second class are those who acknowledge some other claim upon them—the will of God, the categorical imperative, or the good of society—and honestly try to pursue their own interests no further than this claim will allow. They try to surrender to the higher claim as much as it demands, like men paying a tax, but hope, like other taxpayers, that what is left over will be enough for them to live on. Their life is divided, like a soldier’s or a schoolboy’s life, into time “on parade” and “off parade,” “in school” and “out of school.”

But the third class is of those who can say like St Paul that for them “to live is Christ.” These people have got rid of the tiresome business of adjusting the rival claims of Self and God by the simple expedient of rejecting the claims of Self altogether. The old egoistic will has been turned round, reconditioned, and made into a new thing. The will of Christ no longer limits theirs; it is theirs. All their time, in belonging to Him, belongs also to them, for they are His.

And because there are three classes, any merely twofold division of the world into good and bad is disastrous. It overlooks the fact that the members of the second class (to which most of us belong) are always and necessarily unhappy. The tax which moral conscience levies on our desires does not in fact leave us enough to live on. As long as we are in this class we must either feel guilt because we have not paid the tax or penury because we have. The Christian doctrine that there is no “salvation” by works done to the moral law is a fact of daily experience. Back or on we must go. But there is no going on simply by our own efforts. If the new Self, the new Will, does not come at His own good pleasure to be born in us, we cannot produce Him synthetically.

The price of Christ is something, in a way, much easier than moral effort—it is to want Him. It is true that the wanting itself would be beyond our power but for one fact. The world is so built that, to help us desert our own satisfactions, they desert us. War and trouble and finally old age take from us one by one all those things that the natural Self hoped for at its setting out. Begging is our only wisdom, and want in the end makes it easier for us to be beggars. Even on those terms the Mercy will receive us.

Outward Compliance is a Result of Inward Change.

2010-05-09T23:11:00.002-04:00

Tim Keller, Gospel in Life: Grace Changes Everything (p. 25-26):

In 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, Paul wants the people to give an offering to the poor. But, he doesn’t put pressure directly on their will, saying, “I’m an apostle and this is your duty,” nor pressure directly on their emotions, telling them stories about how much the poor are suffering and how much more they have than the sufferers. Instead, Paul vividly and unforgettably says, “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). Paul brings Jesus’ salvation into the realm of money and wealth and poverty. He reminds them of the gospel. Paul is saying, “Think of Jesus’ costly grace until you are changed into generous people by the gospel in your hearts.” So the solution to stinginess is a reorientation to the generosity of Christ in the gospel, where he poured out his wealth for you. Because of the gospel you don’t have to worry about money: the cross proves God’s care for you and gives you security. Because of the gospel you don’t have to envy anyone else’s money: Jesus’ love and salvation confer on you a remarkable status—one that money cannot give you.

What makes you a sexually faithful spouse, a generous—not avaricious—person, a good parent and/or child is not just redoubled effort to follow the example of Christ. Rather, it is deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out of the changes that understanding makes in your heart—the seat of your mind, will, and emotions. Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding and identity, and our view of the world. It changes our hearts. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting.

Craving

2010-05-09T01:33:00.005-04:00

Jesus said to them,

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

-John 6:35

Two Things, Real Quick:
1. Happy Mother's Day!
2. Praise God! I am officially done with my Master's of Divinity! May 14, 2010 is the date for the graduation ceremony.

Humans are incurably spiritual. That's why truth is so important. Truth is immaterial. Truth is mental. Truth cannot be felt, but it exists. Truth, when grasped, sets us free.

Give a man possessions. Glorify him and let him have prestige. Grant him financial success. Satisfy his lusts. Do all these things for him and yet, if you strip him of truth, he hungers...he has an incurable craving. A craving that gnaws at the soul and actually grows the longer it is unfed. A craving that is so innate that it begins to render all other "goods" in life devoid of meaning. Joy is lost as everything else seems so...ridiculously ephemeral, temporal, trivial, and unsatisfying. "Mud pies," C.S. Lewis once called them.

Idolatry has a strange way of destroying the idolater. In an ironic twist, the very thing that one thought ought to bring happiness turns out to be bankrupt in its promises and becomes the bearer of grief. In hunger, we try to satisfy our cravings with idols. "Perhaps a relationship will bring the affirmation and love that I crave?" "If I only had degree from ________ University..." "If I only had _______ ministry position, I would..." The list could go on and on. Hence, as we center our lives around these idols, we turn from truth. In turning from truth, we enslave ourselves to hunger. Resultant from perpetual hunger, we inevitably die.

Jesus. Jesus is Truth. Jesus is God. Jesus is God who died and paid for your sins. Jesus is God who resurrected in victory.

Why is all that relevant? Because in John 6:35, Jesus offers Himself as the solution for hunger and thirst. As spiritual beings, we hunger for the eternal. WE HUNGER FOR GOD. God, being ultimate truth, the ultimate real, can satisfy our deepest cravings. Hence, the words, "shall never thirst." God, the ultimate truth, satisfies the thirst of a humanity that is thirsting for Him--whether they know it or not.

Until your thirst is satisfied by Jesus, you will lack joy. Sure, you might have bouts of illusion-like happiness, but deflating depression will be your norm. Self-derived meaning is imbecility. Even if you fool yourself into believing that "life is whatever you make it out to mean," death will ultimately viciously rip that facade apart. Make no mistake about it: Life's meaning comes from its Creator.

Advice For The Next Generation of Ministers

2010-05-03T19:53:00.003-04:00

At the Together 4 The Gospel conference, Ligon Duncan answered the question, “If you, an experienced pastor, had 10 minutes to exhort 200 of the next generation of ministers what would you say to them?” His answer was laid out in the following six exhortations:

1. Preach the Word

“J.I. Packer says that for those of us who are conservative, evangelical Protestants, when we are faithfully preaching the Word of God, the Word is delivering God’s message through us to His people. It is not that we are delivering the Word of God to His people, it is that His Word is delivering through us His Word to His people.”

2. Love your people

“You cannot reform what you do not love . . . your people will receive even your rebuke when they know that you love them. But if they catch a whiff of your distance, detachment or cynicism they will not bear the wounds of a friend that you must deliver if you are going to be a faithful pastor. You must love your people passionately.”

3. Pray down heaven

“A young woman met me at the door of the church at the end of Sunday morning worship services with tears in her eyes and she said, ‘Dr. Duncan, what was it that he did (pastor Derek Thomas) in the middle of the service?’ I started going back over the order of service and it occurred to me that he prayed a lengthy, biblical pastoral prayer,” Duncan said. “I said ‘do you mean the prayer?’ ‘Yes, that thing’ she said. ‘What was that?’ I said ‘are you from a Christian background?’ ‘O, yes,’ she said. ‘Have you grown up going to church?’ I asked. ‘O, yes: my father is a pastor,’ she said. She grew up in church. But she had never heard a pastor assail the gates of heaven in prayer for his people.”

4. Promote family religion

“Did you know that Calvin and many of the Reformers wanted daily preaching? After 50 or 60 years or so it became apparent that there was not going to be daily preaching regularly attended in Protestant churches so Matthew Henry and others recognized that they had to make every home a local church. If we do not family religion it will contradict what happens every Lord’s Day as you preach the Word.”

5. Equip your elders

“Whoever the shepherds are in your local congregation, you must pour your lives into them. Every follower of Jesus Christ in the local church is to be one who not only follows Jesus Christ herself or himself, but calls others to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. You must have a group of godly, qualified male elders, or shepherds, nurturing and admonishing that congregation, discipling alongside of the public ministry of the Word on the Lord’s Day.”

6. Live a godly life

“Robert Murray McCheyne said, ‘my people’s greatest need is my own holiness.’ We will contradict what we say from the pulpit if our lives do not bear it out. The Gospel cannot be preached wordlessly, but it can be contradicted wordlessly. Our lives can contradict what we speak.”

The Millennial Generation

2010-04-27T22:10:00.005-04:00

Psalm 145: 4

"One generation shall commend your works to another,

and shall declare your mighty acts."

From USA Today:

Most young adults today don't pray, don't worship and don't read the Bible, a major survey by a Christian research firm shows.

If the trends continue, "the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships," says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources. In the group's survey of 1,200 18- to 29-year-olds, 72% say they're "really more spiritual than religious."

Among the 65% who call themselves Christian, "many are either mushy Christians or Christians in name only," Rainer says. "Most are just indifferent. The more precisely you try to measure their Christianity, the fewer you find committed to the faith."

...

Key findings in the phone survey, conducted in August and released today:

•65% rarely or never pray with others, and 38% almost never pray by themselves either.

•65% rarely or never attend worship services.

•67% don't read the Bible or sacred texts.

Many are unsure Jesus is the only path to heaven: Half say yes, half no.

"We have dumbed down what it means to be part of the church so much that it means almost nothing, even to people who already say they are part of the church," Rainer says.

Isaiah 6:8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

God, please reach this generation!

The Source of Joy.

2010-04-20T23:19:00.001-04:00

He must increase, but I must decrease.

-John 3:30

Justified...in God's eyes.

2010-04-17T21:51:00.000-04:00

The Bible pictures all human beings as defendants in a courtroom: a courtroom in which God is the judge and our sins constitute the evidence against us. The judge weighs the evidence and finds every single one of us guilty of sin and announces that we, therefore, must be condemned. The marvelous news of justification is that God has himself provided for us the means of escaping that condemnation: by responding to his gracious initiative in faith, we become joined with Christ, who died for us and was raised for us. We become joined to Christ, who takes on himself the penalty for our sin and covers us with the ‘righteousness’ that we need to reverse the verdict of condemnation and receive the verdict of ‘justified’, ‘right’ with God. And because we have been joined to Christ, the holy one, and have in that union received the gift of God’s powerful holy Spirit, we, who have been justified, also find our lives transformed so that we love God and neighbour.
-Doug Moo

What a Wretched Man I am.

2010-04-14T18:29:00.001-04:00

I am not what I ought to be — ah, how imperfect and deficient!

I am not what I wish to be — I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good!

I am not what I hope to be — soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection.

Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
-John Newton, writer of the hymn Amazing Grace.

Lust

2010-04-06T20:55:00.001-04:00

A N T H E M

Strategies for Fighting Lust

By John Piper November 5, 2001

I have in mind men and women. For men it's obvious. The need for warfare against the bombardment of visual temptation to fixate on sexual images is urgent. For women it is less obvious, but just as great if we broaden the scope of temptation to food or figure or relational fantasies. When I say "lust" I mean the realm of thought, imagination, and desire that leads to sexual misconduct. So here is one set of strategies in the war against wrong desires. I put it in the form of an acronym, A N T H E M.

A - AVOID as much as is possible and reasonable the sights and situations that arouse unfitting desire. I say "possible and reasonable" because some exposure to temptation is inevitable. And I say "unfitting desire" because not all desires for sex, food, and family are bad. We know when they are unfitting and unhelpful and on their way to becoming enslaving. We know our weaknesses and what triggers them. "Avoiding" is a Biblical strategy. "Flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness" (2 Timothy 2:22). "Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires" (Romans 13:14).

N - Say NO to every lustful thought within five seconds. And say it with the authority of Jesus Christ. "In the name of Jesus, NO!" You don't have much more than five seconds. Give it more unopposed time than that, and it will lodge itself with such force as to be almost immovable. Say it out loud if you dare. Be tough and warlike. As John Owen said, "Be killing sin or it will be killing you." Strike fast and strike hard. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" ( James 4:7).

T - TURN the mind forcefully toward Christ as a superior satisfaction. Saying "no" will not suffice. You must move from defense to offense. Fight fire with fire. Attack the promises of sin with the promises of Christ. The Bible calls lusts "deceitful desires" (Ephesians 4:22). They lie. They promise more than they can deliver. The Bible calls them "passions of your former ignorance" (1 Peter 1:14). Only fools yield. "All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter" (Proverbs 7:22). Deceit is defeated by truth. Ignorance is defeated by knowledge. It must be glorious truth and beautiful knowledge. This is why I wrote Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ. We must stock our minds with the superior promises and pleasures of Jesus. Then we must turn to them immediately after saying, "NO!"

H - HOLD the promise and the pleasure of Christ firmly in your mind until it pushes the other images out. "Fix your eyes on Jesus" (Hebrews 3:1). Here is where many fail. They give in too soon. They say, "I tried to push it out, and it didn't work." I ask, "How long did you try?" How hard did you exert your mind? The mind is a muscle. You can flex it with vehemence. Take the kingdom violently (Matthew 11:12). Be brutal. Hold the promise of Christ before your eyes. Hold it. Hold it! Don't let it go! Keep holding it! How long? As long as it takes. Fight! For Christ's sake, fight till you win! If an electric garage door were about to crush your child you would hold it up with all our might and holler for help, and hold it and hold it and hold it and hold it.

E - ENJOY a superior satisfaction. Cultivate the capacities for pleasure in Christ. One reason lust reigns in so many is that Christ has so little appeal. We default to deceit because we have little delight in Christ. Don't say, "That's just not me." What steps have you taken to waken affection for Jesus? Have you fought for joy? Don't be fatalistic. You were created to treasure Christ with all your heart - more than you treasure sex or sugar. If you have little taste for Jesus, competing pleasures will triumph. Plead with God for the satisfaction you don't have: "Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days" (Psalm 90:14). Then look, look, look at the most magnificent Person in the universe until you see him the way he is.

M - MOVE into a useful activity away from idleness and other vulnerable behaviors. Lust grows fast in the garden of leisure. Find a good work to do, and do it with all your might. "Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord" (Romans 12:11). "Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 15:58). Abound in work. Get up and do something. Sweep a room. Hammer a nail. Write a letter. Fix a faucet. And do it for Jesus' sake. You were made to manage and create. Christ died to make you "zealous for good deeds" (Titus 2:14). Displace deceitful lusts with a passion for good deeds.

I Never Made a Sacrifice.

2010-03-20T02:20:00.002-04:00

This week was David Livingstone’s birthday. He was born March 19, 1813. He gave his life to serve Christ in the exploration of Africa for the sake of the access of the gospel.

On December 4, 1857, he spoke a powerful application of Jesus’ words in Mark 10:29-30. Jesus said,

Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

Here is what Livingstone said to the Cambridge students about his “leaving” the benefits of England:

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. . . . Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.

Cited in Samuel Zwemer, "The Glory of the Impossible."

Edward Payson concludes a sermon on hell with these words...

2010-02-23T18:13:00.001-05:00

I cannot, must not, however, conclude, without addressing a word, my professing friends, to you. And I hope you will bear with me, if, in view of such a subject as this, I address you with apparent severity.

An apostle teaches ministers, that they must sometimes rebuke professing Christians sharply; but I trust my sharpness will be the sharpness of love; and I know that I shall say nothing to you, half so severe as the reproaches which I have directed against myself, while preparing this discourse.

We all deserve perdition, a thousand times, for our stupid insensibility to the situation of those, who are perishing around us. We profess to believe the word of God; but can you all prove that you believe it? Do you all act, as if you believed it? What, believe that many of your acquaintances, your children, are in danger of the fate, which has now been described!

Dare you go to God, and say, Lord, I believe thy word, I believe that all thy threatenings will be fulfilled, and then turn away, and coolly pursue your worldly business, without uttering one agonizing cry for those, who are exposed to these threatenings? Dare you go and claim relationship to Christ, and profess to have his Spirit, without which you are none of his, and then make no effort, or only a few faint efforts, to save those, for whom he shed not tears only, but blood? O, if you can do this, where are the bowels, I will not say of a Christian, but of a man?

Go, I may say to such, go, inconsistent, cruel, hard-hearted professors; go, slumber over the ruin of immortal souls; wrap yourself up in your selfish temporal interests, and say, I have no time to spare for rescuing others from everlasting burnings. Go, wear out your life in acquiring property for your children, and leave their souls to perish in the fire that never shall be quenched. Go, adorn their bodies, and banish from them, if possible, the seeds of disease; but leave in their bosoms that immortal worm, which will gnaw them forever. And when God asks, where is thy child? thy brother? thy friend? Reply, with impious Cain, I know not, I care not: am I his keeper?

But I cannot proceed further in this strain. I would rather beseech, and melt, and win you by tenderness.

Say, then, Christian, dost thou believe that Christ died to save thee from the misery, which has been imperfectly described? Dost thou believe, that if he had not loved thee and given himself for thee, the gnawing worm and the unquenchable fire would have been thy portion forever? O then, where is thy gratitude, thy love? (from The Complete Works of Edward Payson)

"The Thorn"

2010-02-01T22:34:00.004-05:00

The Thorn
by Martha Snell Nicholson

I stood a mendicant of God before His royal throne
And begged him for one priceless gift, which I could call my own.
I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart
I cried, “But Lord this is a thorn and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange, a hurtful gift, which Thou hast given me.”
He said, “My child, I give good gifts and gave My best to thee.”
I took it home and though at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
As long years passed I learned at last to love it more and more.
I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace,
He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face.

Pregnancy as a Parallel to Life.

2010-01-31T22:58:00.006-05:00

John 16:21

A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

January 1st, 2008. The day my daughter was born into this world. I keenly remember all the hours leading up to her birth. Michelle did not have an easy road to delivery and I recall the hours of labor with vivid recollection. 30+ hours of labor ultimately ended in the operating room as Faith was born via C-section. I recall holding my wife's hand--assuring her all things will be well, internally praying that what I just told her was indeed going to be. Then, within a matter of minutes, I heard the fresh cry of my newborn daughter as she took her first breaths outside the womb...the moment was just precious.
Suffering is a common human thread. It is inevitable that we should feel and undergo suffering in this fallen world. But what for? For the saints, suffering has purpose. Greater conformity to Christ, deepening of faith, and greater intimacy with God are all part of it...but there is yet one more purpose...
As I am walking with my wife through our second pregnancy, I am realizing that suffering for believers exist to build expectancy. It keeps us from getting too comfortable in this present world. Just when things seem to settle down, something disastrous occurs...and we sigh, and then we look forward. Yes, pregnancy and labor is difficult, yet we endure it well because we have great expectancy...the hope that a healthy child will be born into this world. In many ways, our lives on earth is like a brief pregnancy when compared to our lives in eternity. Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's painful. But just as in pregnancy, there will come a day when it will all end and REAL life will begin. So pain comes, and we suffer, but Christ has resurrected and that means that all of our suffering is but for a brief moment...a preparation for eternity. In the midst of suffering we look forward to eternity...to the moment faith will be sight. We long to see Jesus. I think that is what Paul meant in Romans 8:22-23 where he writes,
"For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body."

So with that, I say...Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!
Today is the day. Carpe Diem (in Christ, of course :) )

Please read and pray for Pastor Matt Chandler who is undergoing radiation treatment. Read the article here.

Was God Angry With Haiti?

2010-01-21T16:18:00.006-05:00

Luke 13:1-5
There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

Donate for Haiti Relief: Baptist Global Response

For God So Loved Haiti
(Transcript of January 17, 2010 sermon at NYBC.)

I. Jesus, in John 16:33 said, “In this world you will have trouble.” This statement proved true last year, and was true the last ten years…a decade many would like to forget. This statement proves true on a micro, personal level—as well as on a macro, global, international level. Which is why, on personal levels, heart-breaking divorces occur, relationships are severed by conflict, fathers lose jobs, children run away from home, and loved ones die of brutal disease. And, as I’ve said, this statement proves true on a macro, global, level because as we have seen this past week, we are indeed in a world FULL of trouble.
II. Barely two weeks into the New Year, the western hemisphere has already experienced a global tragedy of biblical proportions. It was 5 pm on January 12, 2010 when a nightmarish 7.0 earthquake hit the tiny nation of Haiti. The magnitude of this earthquake is unprecedented in this country’s history. Churches, markets, homes, orphanages, and government buildings have all collapsed. Entire villages may have disappeared. The earthquake’s epicenter was only 10 miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince. About 4 million people live in and around the city. The death toll is still uncertain, but we can safely assume that thousands have been killed by this earthquake. Watching the news photographs, my heart sank and grieved at the sight of bodies—amassed in heaps on the streets of Haiti, discarded with brutal anonymity—because the death toll is so high. Pictures of women weeping over the deaths of parents. Pictures of the masses awaiting much needed medical care. Pictures of men heart-broken with grief, weeping over the lifeless bodies of their children.
III. All around the world, people are sending help. The University of Miami School of Medicine sent a plane full of doctors and nurses to set up a field hospital. The World Bank pledged an additional $100 million. The United Nations said $10 million would be released immediately from its central emergency response fund. The United States, China, and European states have sent rescue teams. Missionaries and Christian relief organizations are doing work. Yet, in the midst of such tragedy and disaster, the question often arises, “Where was God in all of this?” “Couldn’t God have stopped this earthquake from occurring?” In fact, I read one news article which reported: “The quake hit at 5 p.m, and witnesses reported people screaming “Jesus, Jesus” running into the streets as offices, hotels, houses and shops collapsed.” So where was Jesus?
IV. Some Christians might quickly believe that “God hates Haiti.” They view this earthquake was an act of God—directly punishing the people of Haiti for their sins. It certainly looks as if God’s wrath has fallen upon Haiti. Plus, it is well known that Haiti has a history of religious syncretism—the mixing of various faiths, including demonic practices. The nation is known for voodoo, sorcery, and a Catholic tradition that has been greatly influenced by the occult.
V. So where was God in all of this, and does God really hate Haiti? For answers to these questions, we turn to today’s Scripture text. SEE ABOVE SCRIPTURE TEXT FROM LUKE 13.
VI. Here is the explanation of today’s text. Jesus, in these verses, describes two disasters. Two distinct tragedies. The first was a killing that was ordered by Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea during A.D. 26-36. Pilate was a ruthless man. Galilee was a region in northern Israel. Evidently, some worshipers from Galilee were condemned by Rome and Pilate had them sought out and killed in the temple while they were in the process of offering a sacrifice. Such killing would have been the grossest sort of blasphemy for the Jews. Incidents like this probably inflamed the Jewish hatred of Rome. History tells us that eventually, in the year 70, the Jews finally rebelled against Rome, which caused Rome to come in and totally destroy Jerusalem.
VII. The second tragedy described by Jesus is about a tower in Siloam, which was an area at the southern end of the lower city of Jerusalem. There was a well known pool there. Apparently, one of the towers in Siloam collapsed, and happened to kill 18 people.
VIII. From this text, we will draw three points. The first, is this: Sin has inevitable catastrophic consequences. In other words, there IS a direct correlation between sin and destruction. Take a look at verse 2-3: “And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” First, Jesus identifies the deceased (those who’ve died) as sinners. He does not call them worse sinners, but nonetheless, he clearly identifies them as sinners. Then, he clearly proclaims that their destruction was a consequence of their sin. We see this because immediately following verse 2, in verse 3, Jesus says, “but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” In other words, unless you (who are still alive) turn from your sins, you too, will be destroyed.
IX. As sure as a brick dropped in mid-air will hit the floor because of the gravity, so will sin have destructive, often catastrophic, consequences…both on the personal and national levels. Therefore, alcohol addiction will eventually destroy the alcoholic’s family. Therefore, adultery, pornography, fornication, and homosexuality will not only bring about sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS, but it will destroy marriages and individuals. On the national level, we have seen how the love of money has caused a nation to borrow on recklessly on credit and thereby plunge an entire nation’s economy into the worst recession since the Great Depression. Sin DOES have consequences—the ultimate consequence being spiritual. Romans 6:23 states, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The eternal consequence of sin is Hell! Every sinner deserves Hell. The Bible teaches us that we are all sinners. In fact, Genesis 3:17 tells us exactly why we live in such a world with so much trouble. Because of the first human sin, we are now all sinners, and we now live in a fallen world, in which God has cursed the ground. But the biggest tragedy is not physical death, for we all will die one day...the biggest tragedy is not knowing Jesus and going to hell.
X. The second point from today's text is this: not only does sin have inevitable catastrophic consequences, but that God is in full control over all catastrophes. Some will claim that the earthquake in Haiti was the work of the devil. That God did not want the tragedy to occur, but somehow, Satan did it anyway. Is this what the Bible teaches? Let’s look at the text again. Verse 5: “I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” Notice the words of Christ: First the words, I tell you and second, you will all. Not “you might”, not “I think you will,” but rather, “you will all likewise perish.” The only reason why He, himself, could make such a conclusive, sweeping pronouncement is because Jesus (being God) was in full control over all catastrophes. True Christianity does not allow God to be a bystander in world events. The Bible claims that God rules over all His creation, all of the time. The earthquake did not occur behind God’s back! It did not take God by surprise! God did not helplessly watch it occur! And Satan definitely cannot do anything without God allowing him to do it. God is not only in full control of every molecule in my body, but He is also in full control of the earth’s crust. Earthquakes are in His control. Relief workers going to help are in His control. But God is not just in full control of earthly disasters, but Jesus, in Luke 12:4-5 says, “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” Hence, God is the one who is in full control over earthly judgment AND eternal judgment.
XI. So far, we’ve seen from this text that: 1. Sin has inevitable catastrophic consequences, and 2. God is in full control over all catastrophes. My third and final point: Catastrophes point us to Christ. Both individual catastrophes and national or global catastrophes. Once again, let’s look at the text. In verses 3 and 5, Jesus states, “…unless you repent…” Through catastrophes, God desires for us to repent and turn to Him. To come to the source of life and joy. The killing of the Galileans and the deaths of those crushed by the tower in Siloam both served as real time, grossly shocking, examples for the people of Jesus’ day that they should serve God. Jesus makes it very clear that those who were killed by the tower were not worse sinners than their neighbors. Yet however, he warned the people that unless they repented and turned to God, they too would likewise perish.
XII. So we come back to the question, “does God hate Haiti?” The answer is “no!” Is Haiti the most sinful nation in the world? We do not know that, and this morning’s text warns us against jumping to such conclusions. Yet, we know that God hates sin and will punish both individuals and nations. But that means that every individual and nation will be found guilty by using God’s perfect and holy standard…for all have fallen short of the glory of God. Yet, that is why the gospel is so precious. It says that though we were all deserving of God’s judgment and hell, God loved us so much that He died for us on the cross. Jesus died on the cross and paid for your sins and mine. 3 days later, He resurrected from the grave and defeated death. You will have eternal life if you repent of your sins and put your trust in Him.
XIII. The earthquake in Haiti, like every other earthly disaster serve to remind us that creation groans under the weight of sin and the judgment of God (Romans 8:19-23). Deep inside us, we know that this is not the way it’s supposed to be. We groan. We see bodies piled up on the streets and we weep. These disasters point us to Christ. “In this world, we will have trouble.” As our eyes fill with tears in this painful world, we look up to heaven and turn to Christ for hope. These disasters, in proper perspective, cause us to cling tighter to Christ. They remind us of our mortality…our humanness. We will all soon die. It was C.S. Lewis who once said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” In a fallen world, the earthquake reminds us that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only true hope for this world. It reminds us that everything else could be lost in a moment, and that life itself is lost quickly.
XIV. So, does God hate Haiti? No, rather, the cross declares that God loves Haiti. That Jesus died for them and loves them. And this truth is applicable on a personal dimension as well. Regardless of the pain and devastation you may have been through, the cross declares that God loves you. Regardless of your sinful past, the cross declares that Jesus loves you. He will save you, wash you, and remove the curse from you if you put your trust in Him. And if you ever doubt His love, read John 3:16- “For God so loved the world…”

The Dawn of a New Decade

2010-01-01T23:29:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year...2010!

Very Merry: New York is Dead Last.

2009-12-18T16:31:00.005-05:00

So, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention came out with a list that ranked the happiest states. 1.3 million Americans across the nation were asked how satisfied they were with their lives. Here's their rankings:

HAPPIEST RANKINGS

The state-by-state list (including Washington, D.C.), from happiest to least cheery:

1. Louisiana
2. Hawaii
3. Florida
4. Tennessee
5. Arizona
6. South Carolina
7. Mississippi
8. Montana
9. Alabama
10. Maine
11. Wyoming
12. Alaska
13. North Carolina
14. South Dakota
15. Texas
16. Idaho
17. Vermont
18. Arkansas
19. Georgia
20. Utah
21. Oklahoma
22. Delaware
23. Colorado
24. New Mexico
25. North Dakota
26. Minnesota
27. Virginia
28. New Hampshire
29. Wisconsin
30. Oregon
31. Iowa
32. Kansas
33. Nebraska
34. West Virginia
35. Kentucky
36. Washington
37. District of Columbia
38. Missouri
39. Nevada
40. Maryland
41. Pennsylvania
42. Rhode Island
43. Ohio
44. Massachusetts
45. Illinois
46. California
47. New Jersey
48. Indiana
49. Michigan
50. Connecticut
51. New York

So, dead last is New York. Turns out, I live in the least happiest state in the United States (including District of Columbia). Interestingly enough, as soon as these lists come out, people tend to flock towards the top ten "happiest" states. Without the realization that happiness and joy have very little to do with locale (I have met many miserable people in Hawaii), people are always in the pursuit of happiness. This "pursuit" (as Jefferson called it) is a good thing. I believe the Creator put that within our hearts. Why? So that we can go from place to place and still be miserable? Of course not! He did it so that hopefully, one day, we could be reconciled to God through the redemptive blood and work of Jesus Christ who died on the cross for us. Jesus Christ who paid for our sins and rose from the dead. Conquering perpetual misery and sadness.

I will echo the words of Saint Augustine:
"If I were to ask you why you have believed in Christ, why you have become Christians, every man will answer truly, "For the sake of happiness.""

Christianity is...FINDING Jesus...FINDING Joy.

Psalm 16:11-
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

May we believe this truth and be personally fulfilled. Joy is irrespective of locale.

When Dad Comes Home

2009-11-29T21:03:00.003-05:00

Sometimes a picture says a million words.

Above, Master Sgt. Joseph Myers surprises his daughter, Hannah, 10, in her elementary school classroom at Universal City, Tex.

Months pass before children see their dads return from deployment. Yet, there is a remarkable bond between parent and child. As opposed to acquaintances whom kids meet and naturally forget with the passage of time, 'daddy' is never forgotten. In fact, the time away increases (perhaps exponentially) the longing a child has for his/her dad. On the flip side, from reading the statements made by the dads who have to go back to war, I ascertain that the separation is just as difficult for the fathers. Of course, for the kids, NO ONE can replace a dad's embrace...and they do not care WHO is watching.

Three spiritual truths emerge from this:

1. As children of God through the blood of our Savior Jesus Christ, we long for the day when our Father and God embraces and welcomes us home. Our hearts anticipate it, but I don't think we'll know the true overflow of joy until that day when our time here has expired and we cross over to eternity.

2. Young children embrace their dads with joy and reckless abandon. Conversely, psychologists say that teenagers are more wary of their environment and tend to be more restrained in their display public affection when their dads surprise them with a visit home. It reminded me of the words of Jesus who said, "unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:3). So much goes into what it means to "have a child-like heart." One aspect of that sort of heart (I believe) is a pure, crazy-joy filled, up and down jumping, love for Dad.

3. A longing for God's embrace is within all of us. Furthermore, God delights and longs to be our Father. Jesus died so that we would be reconciled to God...so that we could call him, "Abba! Father!" (Rom. 8:15). At its core, that's what prayer is...us calling out to Daddy. God's Fatherhood extends to those who never had dads or to those of us who had dads but they either abused or forfeited (via divorce or separation)the position and title. The Bible describes God as the "Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation."

One day in the near future, our faith will be sight...

Gospel-Centered Ministry

2009-11-29T15:54:00.004-05:00

As Christians, the importance of the Gospel can easily get lost in our lives as we progress in time. Instead of it being the center of our lives, we marginalize it...forgetting that it gives us the power to do everything else...especially the power to live life. Here are the Gospel Coalition’s Theological Vision for Ministry and their characteristics for “gospel-centered ministry" (with today's focus on their notion of "doing justice and mercy") :

The first was “empowered corporate worship,” the second was “evangelistic effectiveness,” the third was “counter-cultural community,” the fourth was the integration of faith and work, and the fifth is the doing of justice and mercy.

God created both soul and body, and the resurrection of Jesus shows that he is going to redeem both the spiritual and the material. Therefore God is concerned not only for the salvation of souls but also for the relief of poverty, hunger, and injustice.

The gospel opens our eyes to the fact that all our wealth (even wealth for which we worked hard) is ultimately an unmerited gift from God. Therefore the person who does not generously give away his or her wealth to others is not merely lacking in compassion, but is unjust.

Christ wins our salvation through losing, achieves power through weakness and service, and comes to wealth through giving all away. Those who receive his salvation are not the strong and accomplished but those who admit they are weak and lost. We cannot look at the poor and the oppressed and callously call them to pull themselves out of their own difficulty. Jesus did not treat us that way. The gospel replaces superiority toward the poor with mercy and compassion.

Christian churches must work for justice and peace in their neighborhoods through service even as they call individuals to conversion and the new birth. We must work for the eternal and common good and show our neighbors we love them sacrificially whether they believe as we do or not.

Indifference to the poor and disadvantaged means there has not been a true grasp of our salvation by sheer grace.

Prison now, next stop...eternity.

2009-11-21T23:20:00.002-05:00

I was blessed by this:

As Nice As They Let Me, As Mean As They Make Me

November 20, 2009 | By: John Piper |

One of the growing ministries of Desiring God is the outreach to prisoners. Those of you in the Philippian Fellowship hear about this more often than the rest of our website guests.

On Thursday a team of four of us stopped in at Angola Prison in Angola, Louisiana. Warden Burl Cain was very gracious to take us into his world, even the most painful part of it.

Here is what he said three years ago in Decision Magazine about this prison:

This prison is the largest maximum-security prison in America. It is one of the most famous prisons in the whole world. It has only murderers, rapists, armed robbers and habitual felons. The average sentence is 88 years, with 3,200 people in one place serving life sentences. Ninety percent of the inmates will die here. This is a place of hopelessness, so if Angola can change, the rest of the country’s prisons can’t say, “We can’t do this.”

For those who know prison culture from the inside, this place is astonishing. On a campus of 18,000 acres, which is mainly farm land, the prisoners raise virtually all their food and eat three meals for a total cost of $1.45 each. The fish and crawdads that we ate were from "the Farm.”

There is a local extension of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in the prison and about 140 prisoners are enrolled. There are six churches in the prison and they train their own pastors. They send trained “missionaries” to other prisons to plant churches. They do this without using any tax money. But O the money—and lives—it saves!

Violence in the prison is rare. Courtesy and respect is pronounced. The ministry team of women who were visiting at the same time we were said they were treated with more respect from prisoners here, than in many places on the “outside.” Public profanity is not allowed.

The 42-inch church bell hangs high over the chapel in a prisoner-built tower. They rescued the bell from storage where it had been put after falling and killing a man. Some of the prisoners say: The bell killed a man and we killed a man, but now the bell and we serve the Lord Jesus.

Warden Cain says: I am as nice as they let me be and as mean as they make me be. Given the job he is given to do, it is a good motto.

I saw the Warden’s “nice” as we sat for half an hour with G.B., a prisoner on Death Row whose death by lethal injection the Warden will oversee in January. There are over 80 on death row, some now for over 14 years as appeals go on. The Warden asked me to share the gospel with G.B. Never have I felt a greater urgency to say the good news plainly and plead from my heart. The thief on the cross is a hero on Death Row.

The Warden answered all G.B.’s questions about what the last day would be like and who from his family and the press could be there. He gave G.B. unusual privileges for these last seven weeks. He was manifestly compassionate while stating the facts with precision. I took G.B.’s picture with my phone and said I would pray for him. (Perhaps you would too.)

I preached with all my heart to those who could fit in the chapel, and to the rest by closed circuit television. G.B. (and three others on Death Row) told me they’d be watching. I pulled no punches:

For 90% of you the next stop is not home and family, but heaven or hell. O what glorious news we have in that situation. And believe me it is not the prosperity of Gospel. Jesus came and died and rose again not mainly to be useful, but to be precious. And that he can be in Angola as well as Atlanta. Perhaps even more.

2009-11-18T21:25:00.001-05:00

Fighting for Joy in Christ--especially when I don't feel like it.

2009-11-13T19:26:00.002-05:00

The Following was taken from DesiringGod.org:

When You Don’t Feel Like It, Take Heart

November 12, 2009 | By: Jon Bloom | Category: Commentary

Did you wake up not feeling like reading your Bible and praying? How many times today have you had to battle not feeling like doing things you know would be good for you?

While it’s true that this is our indwelling sin that we must repent of and fight against, there’s more going on.

Think about this strange pattern that occurs over and over in just about every area of life:

Good food requires discipline to prepare and eat while junk food tends to be the most tasty, addictive, and convenient.
Keeping the body healthy and strong requires frequent deliberate discomfort while it only takes constant comfort to go to pot.
You have to make yourself pick up that nourishing theological book while watching a movie can feel so inviting.
You frequently have to force yourself to get to devotions and prayer while sleeping, reading the sports, and checking Facebook seems effortless.
To play beautiful music requires thousands of hours of tedious practice.
To excel in sports requires monotonous drills ad nauseum.
It takes years and years of schooling just to make certain opportunities possible.
This goes on and on.

The pattern is this: the greater joys are obtained through struggle and pain, while brief, unsatisfying, and often destructive joys are right at our fingertips. Why is this?

Because, in great mercy, God is showing us everywhere, in things that are just shadows of heavenly things, that there is a great reward for those who struggle through (Hebrews 10:32-35). He is reminding us repeatedly each day to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Each struggle is an invitation by God to follow in the footsteps of his Son, “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” (Hebrews 12:2).

Those who are spiritually blind only see futility in these things. But for those who have eyes to see, God has woven hope (faith in future grace) right into the futility of creation (Romans 8:20-21). Each struggle is a pointer saying, “Look! Look to the real Joy set before you!”

So when you don’t feel like doing what you know is best for you, take heart and don’t give in. Your Father is pointing you to the reward he has planned for all who endure to the end (Matthew 24:13).

For this light 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. (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)

Persecuted Church

2009-11-08T16:07:00.001-05:00

Today is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. The following is from the blogspot of Dr. David Sills:

The devil hates the advance of the gospel into areas that he has kept blinded for so long and so he fights hard to resist it. Yet, the gates of hell cannot prevail against the onslaughts of those who storm them in Jesus’ name. But, the hard-won advance comes at a high price. A missionary who serves in North Africa told me that as far as he knows, every Muslim he has won to the Lord has been martyred. He also told me that in one North African country the life expectancy of a new believer is forty-five days. This is not news to the new believers; they know that this is a possible outcome when they pray to receive Christ.

We hear such reports and we are sobered. We shake our heads in wonder and horror that such could be the case. Our mission agencies seek strategies and methodologies to protect their missionaries and the new converts. We do so because we live in such luxury, security, and ease that suffering for Jesus sake is virtually inconceivable. We react with grief to news of martyrdom as if it were an unforeseen, unimaginable tragedy.

We apparently have forgotten that Paul told Timothy, “In fact everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Or that Jesus Himself said, “In the world you will have tribulation.” We haven’t time to rehearse all the passages that describe how God’s people throughout the Bible suffered for being His. Yet our lives are so isolated from the New Testament expectations for Christianity that when we see others faithfully serving and suffering for it, we tend to think that they brought it on themselves for being so radical. Hebrews 10 commends those who stood with the suffering believers during their hour of persecution. May we join the ranks of the suffering – or the ranks of those who identify with those who do – however the Lord chooses.

There is a great tragedy in suffering, tribulation, and persecution for Christ’s sake. However, the tragedy is not what we normally think it is. The greatest tragedy of suffering, tribulation, and persecution for Christ is that we are strangers to it. “In fact everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

In This Manner, Pray.

2009-10-24T10:01:00.003-04:00

In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the
power and the glory forever.
Amen.

Three things struck me as I read those verse from Matthew 6:9-13.

1st: God's utter holiness, power, and dominion/glory...He is WORTHY to be praised!

2nd: Our utter frailty before God. Ever notice how the Lord's Prayer magnifies God and shrinks down humanity? "Our debts, give us...our daily bread, ...us into temptation." We are dust. We are dependent on God's daily power and grace. The degree we do not seek His strength in prayer, will be the degree we fracture our daily fellowship with our life source--God.

3rd: The desire to see His kingdom come on earth should be paramount in our own lives...so much so, that we break out into spontaneous prayer CRYING OUT for His kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth.

Disturbing. A Reason To Pray.

2009-10-12T16:04:00.009-04:00

"There are still fellow citizens, perhaps neighbors, even loved ones -- good and decent people -- who hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes; who fail to see your families like their families; who would deny you the rights most Americans take for granted."

"You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman."

-The disturbing words of President Barack Obama at the 13th annual national dinner of the Human Rights Campaign. The Human Rights Campaign is one of the leading organizations promoting what it describes as "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights."

The "outworn" and "old" words that President Obama might have been talking about:

"For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness,"
-Romans 1:26-29. Saint Paul, circa 58 A.D.

"Real and admirable" versus "vile" and "shameful." Only one is right. Nobel Peace Prize or Prince of Peace?

President Obama calls himself a "Christian." What is even more tragic, for politicians can always lie to achieve their ends, is that there were "Christians" who voted for this man in the last election--knowing full well what this man stood for! What sort of nation are you leaving behind for your kids? My heart breaks at the face of a child adopted by two gay men...the boy shouldn't have to be subjugated nor exposed to such perversity. C'mon people of God! C'mon!

"If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." -2 Chronicles 7:14

1 in 4 practices Islam.

2009-10-08T21:02:00.006-04:00

"For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." -Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 7:14).

Those words of Jesus stand in stark contrast against the prevalent notion of Christianity in our nation today. Jesus used words that were not all-encompassing nor all-inclusive: "narrow," "hard," and "few." I recall a conversation that I had years ago with a Christian friend on our college campus. At the time, he was going through a personal spiritual turmoil and was distraught at the fact that there were so few believers in the world. Towards the end of our conversation, he exclaimed that Christianity must somehow overcome the world or else "Jesus' death was in vain."

Today's issue of USA Today had a headline which read, "Global report: 1 in 4 practices Islam." According to the article, the global Muslim population currently stands at 1.57 billion. Apparently, this translates into an almost mind-boggling statistic that "nearly 1 in 4 people in the world practice Islam." Additionally, reporter Eric Gorski reported some fascinating less-known facts about the state of global Islam. For example, China currently has more Muslims than Syria; Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon; more than 60% of the world's Muslims live in Asia; and India has the third largest Muslim population of any nation--yet it accounts for only 13% of India's total population. Indeed, the stereotype that all Muslims are Arabs is simply unfounded. The report also stated that Muslim-Americans are more religious than other Americans. According to the same article, Christianity has 2.1 billion to 2.2 billion followers worldwide and is the number one religion in the world (in terms of size).

Instead of finding consolation in the report that Christianity has a numerical "leg-up" on Islam, I found myself, rather, recalling the conversation with my Christian friend years ago. Very few of the 2.2 billion alleged "Christians" are truly on the "narrow" and "hard" road of genuine salvific faith. Very few will make it to the shores of eternal life. I shudder when I say this. The weight of eternity is indeed heavy and no one's eternal destiny is of trivial consequence. Yet, did Jesus die in vain? Not at all, for Jesus himself stated that only few would find the gate to life. God knew and still knows what He is doing. He is omniscient and sovereign, and I rest therein. I do not fear the rise of global Islam. Christ will be victorious at the end. A correct eschatology prevents the ruffling of any nerves by such news articles as the one in today's USA Today. Admittedly, it requires faith--especially in light of such articles. With human eyes, we perceive a religion that is rapidly amassing adherents and feel as if the battle is being lost. But I have read the end of my Bible, and there is no need to fear--Christ will reign supreme.

I do believe the article when it stated that Muslims were more religious than their "Christian" American counterparts and neighbors. "Religious," simply meaning one whose outward, visible life aligns with his internal beliefs...even if those beliefs are falsehoods (such as Islam). I remember having to wait for a Islamic street vendor to finish one of his five daily prayers facing Mecca before I could buy a cell phone clip from him...he was kneeling on a rug in the middle of mid-town Manhattan! Not to say that outward presentations reflect genuine religious affections (for there are even some Christians who worship with lip and no heart), nor do I believe that the Muslim man's genuine "religiosity" will save him (for the spiritual babe in Jesus still stands before God justified--unlike the condemned "religious" Muslim zealot.) Yet, for many within Christendom, the question is often the one of validity...when we say that we believe in Jesus, are we making a valid statement? Do we really believe what we say we believe? Is there an outward, visible life alignment?

So why are there so many "verbal" Christians, but so few "living" Christians? John Paul Yun once told me (he himself, might have been quoting someone else), "If we lived like we sang, the world would be a different place." The statement itself carries the implication that there is currently no alignment between lip and life, and therefore, the world is not a different place. But why isn't it? C'mon, we have 2.2 billion! Or do we? Oh yeah, Jesus did say only a few would find it...

College Harvest

2009-10-02T20:57:00.004-04:00

I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. -John 4:35-36

I was blessed by reading this email. I thought it would be pretty awesome to share it with you "all." Praise God for His harvest on the college campuses of the greater New York City area.

Friends,

God’s love changes everything!

Three years ago, Stephanie was far from God. During an InterVarsity weekly meeting, I invited students to follow Jesus. Stephanie responded, indicating a desire to center her life around God.

Yesterday at Baruch, Stephanie spoke about God’s Love to a room of 120+ students crammed shoulder to shoulder at one point. (The room is designed to hold 80 people.)

Having experienced God’s extravagant welcome for herself, Stephanie invited Baruch students to respond to the gospel. “We’re a community that is skin to skin in the elevator, but inside we’re miles apart... We believe God loves each and every one of the 16,097 students on this campus...” Steph invited people to a relationship with God. 4 students responded, indicating a desire to be reconciled to God! About 100 students signed the IV vision poster, committing themselves to seek God’s transformation, Baruch College’s renewal, and to become the best leaders/culture makers they can be.

After the meeting, we had incredible conversations with the students who responded. I had additional opportunities to speak with a Muslim student and to share the gospel with a skeptic.

I also heard this week about 2 student coming to faith at Brooklyn College and at John Jay College, and I heard of 2 people making a decision to follow Jesus at NYU yesterday!
It’s incredible to watch God draw young people to himself!

This feels suspiciously like Acts 2; worship, community, teaching, fellowship, prayer, and God adding to our numbers daily. (May this be so!)

To God alone be the glory!

Love,
Sophia

Sophia Babael Gaboury
Campus Ministry | Baruch College, CUNY

INTERVARSITY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
Lives Transformed. Universities Renewed. World Changers Developed.

Small Groups

2009-09-28T10:14:00.003-04:00

The following was taken from Dr. John Piper's sermon, "The Love of Human Praise as the Root of Unbelief." -

7 Reasons We Need Small Groups

He has given pastors to the church “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-12). I believe in what I do. And I believe that it is not enough. Here are the seven reasons I gave the small group leaders.

The impulse avoid painful growth by disappearing safely into the crowd in corporate worship is very strong.
The tendency toward passivity in listening to a sermon is part of our human weakness.
Listeners in a big group can more easily evade redemptive crises. If tears well up in your eyes in a small group, wise friends will gently find out why. But in a large gathering, you can just walk away from it.
Listeners in a large group tend to neglect efforts of personal application. The sermon may touch a nerve of conviction, but without someone to press in, it can easily be avoided.
Opportunity for questions leading to growth is missing. Sermons are not dialogue. Nor should they be. But asking questions is a key to understanding and growth. Small groups are great occasions for this.
Accountability for follow-through on good resolves is missing. But if someone knows what you intended to do, the resolve is stronger.
Prayer support for a specific need or conviction or resolve goes wanting. O how many blessings we do not have because we are not surrounded by a band of friends who pray for us.

So please know that when this small-group ministry of our church is lifted up, I don’t think it’s an optional add-on to basic Christian living. I think it is normal, healthy, needed, New Testament Christianity. I pray that you will be part of one of these small groups or that you will get the training and start one. This is the main strategy through which our pastors and elders shepherd the flock at Bethlehem: Elders > small group leaders > members to one another.

Purposes for Suffering

2009-09-27T18:11:00.001-04:00

The following is an excerpt taken from Mark Talbot's talk at Desiring God's 2009 National Conference:

Often after we have suffered a while, the problem with how God can will such suffering resolves itself, because we start to see the good that God is accomplishing by it.

Luther himself has said that without the tremendous battles with depression, etc. neither he nor anyone else could come to understand Scripture, faith, fear, or love of God. He conjectured that King David must have been plagued by a very fearful devil, for he could not have had such profound insights if he had not experienced such great assaults.

Luther felt that his depressions were necessary. Nonetheless, at the same time, he saw them as painful and worthy of being fought against. But over time he came to see them for the benefit they afforded, and so he was enabled to endure them with more patience and hope.

It's not implausible to think that many of the afflictions in Calvin's life were aimed at making him more reliant on God and his goodness rather than upon his own giftings and abilities.

Sometimes, as Calvin put it, God's fatherly favor does not shine forth for his children in the course of providence. And yet, if we are in a composed frame of mind, we can see that in the end God uses all of these things for good. These are the moments when we experience the immeasurable felicity of the godly mind.