1 - Sweet fellowship with God - true communion through prayer, reading and meditation on God's Word, truths and works...2 - I was given good health and alertness - not sleepy during me time3 - I benefited from a great setting - beautiful, comfortable, great to reading chairs, quiet4 - My family at home did very well; they were willing to send me off and pray for me ( and were people serving them by asking if they can make a meal for them)5 - The knowledge of friends and church praying for me was a great encouragement to me6 - A diligence from God was given to me to spend my time wisely in reading, praying and journaling7 - The prayers and pursuit of a vision and "holy ambition" as a pastor was a great help in focusing my time and energy and proved fruitful (if you want to know more what I mean by this - see this Sermon "A Holy Ambition" - I have been praying that God would speak to me and give me a particular burden that would drive me)8 - The use of my Kindle was a great blessing and help to me in the accessibility of books and comfort to read longer in comfort9 - The confirmation from God regarding a holy ambition - more to come...10 - The knowledge that the cabin that I stayed at was being provided to me by dear friends who are part of the congregation and who love and pray for me (thank you Joe and Suzanne Tromberg)11 - The help of sporadic breaks to provide variety to my time - Fox News, whirlpool (yes, it was luxury), a good cold run in the country (I love running in sub zero conditions)12 - Freedom and protection from temptations of the flesh and other distractions that would draw me away from my purpose.13 - Good sleep in a very comfortable bed...
This week I came across a great resource by Mark Driscoll. You need to get and read this little book called Pastor Dad: Scriptural Insights on Fatherhood.
You can download the pdf file for free and print it off yourself or buy the book for $8 here.
You can also read the chapters only below – see table of contents.
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Table of Contents PrefaceChapter 1 |
Another way of expressing our personal vulnerability is through our experience of need. There is a close connection between what we fear and what we think we need.
If we need comfort, we will fear physical pain.
If we need approval from others, we will fear being criticized.
If we need love, we will fear rejection.
If we need admiration for our attractiveness, we will fear getting fat.
Whatever you need is a mere stone's throw from what you fear.
Two prominent categories of fear are those fears related to money and people. Their power to provoke fear is directly related to how much we need them. If we need what people can give us, they are in control and we will fear them. If we need what money can give us, we will notice rising insecurities whenever we do the bills. (p. 41)
Brethren, I would point out that obedience is taught throughout the entire Bible and that true obedience is one of the toughest requirements of the Christian life. Apart from obedience, there can be no salvation, for salvation without obedience is a self-contradictory impossibility. The essence of sin is rebellion against divine authority.
I am satisfied that when man believes on Jesus Christ he must believe on the whole Lord Jesus Christ - not making any reservation! I am satisfied that it is wrong to look upon Jesus as a kind of divine nurse to whom we can go when sin has made us sick, and after He has helped us, to say "Goodbye" - and go on our own way.
I thank God that heaven is the world of God's obedient children. Whatever else we may say of its pearly gates, its golden streets and its jasper walls, heaven is heaven because children of the Most High God find they are in their normal sphere as obedient moral beings.
I Call It Heresy! - A.W. TOZER Twelve Timely Themes From 1st Peter CONTENTS 1 - I Call It Heresy! | ||
Description: Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is best known as the theologian of revival. In this, his major study on the theme, he analyses the nature of a genuine work of the Holy Spirit. He was one of the few truly great theologians of the English speaking world, an intellectual and spiritual giant. Of his several treatises in this field, The Religious Affections ranks as ëmagnum opusÃ. The author's object in this book is to distinguish between true and false religion by showing the marks of a saving work of the Holy Spirit in men. In his Preface, Edwards stresses the importance of using "our utmost endeavours clearly to discern...wherein true religion does consist." For "till this be done, it may be expected that great revivings of religion will be but of short continuance."
This is simply one of the best Christian books that was ever written. Worth mastering in your lifetime. Edwards searches the depths of the human heart and bibically drives home an affectional theology. Profound!
This is from Justin Taylor's blog "Between Two Worlds" and he writes:The third edition of William Lane Craig's classic apologetics textbook, Reasonable Faith, is now available. This book holds a special place in my heart and mind, given that the Lord used it in some significant ways early in my undergraduate years at a studies of religion program at a state college. There's nothing else quite like it on the market. Even if you don't agree with all of the arguments and perspective, I've long thought that every Christian family should own at least one copy.A web-based companion to the book has been set up online.
If you like A. W. Tozer (and I do) you will like this piece by Tim Challies.
While it is good to walk among the living, it is good also to live with the wise, great, and good dead. It keeps out of life the dreadful feeling of extemporaneousness, with its conceit and its despair. It makes us always know that God made other men before He made us. It furnishes a constant background for our living. It provides us with perpetual humility and inspiration. (In W. Wiersbe, Walking with the Giants, p. 15)Isaac Watts wrote:
The lives or memoirs of persons of piety, well written, have been of infinite and unspeakable advantage to the disciples and professors of Christianity, and have given us admirable instances and rules how to resist every temptation of a soothing or a frowning world, how to practice important and difficult duties, how to love God above all, and to love our neighbors as ourselves, to live by the faith of the Son of God, and to die in the same faith, in sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life. (In James Reid, Memoirs of the Westminster Divines, p. iv)Jonthan Edwards wrote:
There are two ways of representing and recommending true religion and virtue to the world; the one, by doctrine and precept; the other, by instance and example.
Al Mohler challenges men to read books and says:I am repeatedly asked about books that boys and men will want to read. The fact is that many guys just do not read for fun (if much at all) and yet, every now and then, they read a book that captures their attention. This list is for the moms and wives who are looking for a book that just might light that fire.Here is the link to the page with more detail but I have listed the names of the books below. They look good.One reason for low interest in reading among males is the fact that much of the reading they are required to do in school is so uninteresting or demoralizing for boys. I believe that reading is appetitive. Readers develop a more ravenous appetite for books when they discover that they want to read and actually enjoy it. Here are some recent books that men and older teenagers are likely to enjoy.
Here is my sermon manuscript that I preached on Sunday, June 1st. I continued the series "Following Jesus" and preached on the topic of "Becoming a Suffering-Servant."
Around the world some 120,000 new books are published each year. That adds up to ten thousand every month; over 300 each and every day. Americans buy over 4.5 million books every day, including many of these new titles. This adds up to over 1.5 billion books per year that are consumed within America. Yet even this totals only 35% of the books that are sold worldwide. While it might seem that television and the Internet are decreasing our love for reading, it is clear that books sell better today than at any other time in history.
As the number of books rolling of the presses increases, the discernment of Christians decreases. Local churches are finding it increasingly difficult (and tragically, increasingly unnecessary) to equip their people to discern good from bad, better from best.
Discerning Reader is a site dedicated to promoting good books--books that bring honor to God. At the same time, we hope to help Christians avoid being unduly influenced by books and teachers that are not honoring to God.
We do not seek to be harsh or judgmental. Rather, we seek only to be discerning as we compare books to the written Word of God. We let the words of authors speak for themselves and simply hold the books up to the light of Scripture. In doing so, we are building a database of reviews which we feel cast a discerning light on the books that are found in Christians homes, churches and bookstores.
I recommend bookmarking discerningreader.com as a helpful resource.
I now come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.
The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
Paul David Tripp recently published a powerfully piercing book on the human heart called "Quest for More: Living for Something Bigger than You." I recommend the careful reading of this book. It is well written with few wasted words.When the enemy somehow tricks you into squeezing the size of your life to the size of your personal dreams, wants, and needs, he has got you right where he wants you. He has won a victory every time he successfully tempts you to exchange the God-centered more for which you were created, replacing it with one of the endless catalog of me-centered "mores" that dangle before us in this fallen world. His lie is this: "Transcendence is really found when you live at the center of your world." Or, "Ultimate joy and satisfaction is found when you live for you."
Now you may be saying, "Come on, Paul, I'm biblically smart enough to know that that isn't true!" You probably do, but the struggle I am describing very often takes place inside the borders of good theology and regular participation in the scheduled programs of the church. It is possible, and maybe even quite regular, to participate in these things and still be settling, in the little moments of my daily existence, for much, much less than the transcendence for which you were created. Things as mundane as wardrobe, menu, schedule, workload, location, traffic, weather, being right, getting affirmed, money, housing, employment, gardens, family rooms, sex, leisure, who's in the bathroom first, who did what with my newspaper, who ate the last of the cereal, etc.—all of which are important in some way—rise to a spiritually dangerous level of importance in the heat of the moment. These are the moments we live in every day. The normal day is a 24-hour collection of little moments. Day after day, week after week, and year after year, these little moments set the character of a person's life.
When little things become the big thing for which I consistently fight, I have forsaken transcendence for the temporary shadow glories of creation. The temporary satisfaction and pleasure that I get will not last. These things are like spiritual crack; they will give me a quick emotional or spiritual rush, while leaving me unfilled and hungering for the next rush.
But when we get angry at a person, we are displeased with a choice they made and an act they performed. Anger at a person always implies strong disapproval. If you are angry at me, you think I have done something I should not have done.This is why being angry at God is never right. It is wrong - always wrong - to disapprove of God for what he does and permits. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" (Genesis 18:25). It is arrogant for finite, sinful creatures to disapprove of God for what he does and permits. We may weep over the pain. We may be angry at sin and Satan. But God does only what is right. "Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments" (Revelation 16:7).
He then advises us not to "stuff our feelings" but to confess our struggles with God:
I think this is helpful and biblical counsel on the subject.But many who say it is right to be angry with God really mean it is right to express anger at God. When they hear me say it is wrong to be angry with God, they think I mean "stuff your feelings and be a hypocrite." That's not what I mean. I mean it is always wrong to disapprove of God in any of his judgments.
But if we do experience the sinful emotion of anger at God, what then? Shall we add the sin of hypocrisy to the sin of anger? No. If we feel it, we should confess it to God. He knows it anyway. He sees our hearts. If anger at God is in our heart, we may as well tell him so, and then tell him we are sorry, and ask him to help us put it away by faith in his goodness and wisdom.
When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, he removed forever the wrath of God from our lives. God's disposition to us now is entirely mercy, even when severe and disciplinary (Romans 8:1). Therefore, doubly shall those in Christ turn away from the terrible specter of anger at God. We may cry, in agony, "My God, My God, where are you?" But we will follow soon with, "Into your hands I commit my spirit."
Why then should we think that our innocent lives will exempt us from sufferings, or that troubles shall do us such harm? For verily it is for our present and future good that our God doth send them upon us. I count therefore, that such things are necessary for the health of our souls, as bodily pains and labour are for [the health of] the body. People that live high, and in idleness, bring diseases upon the body: and they that live in all fullness of gospel-ordinances, and are not exercised with trials, grow gross, are diseased and full of bad humours in their souls. And though this may to some seem strange: yet our day has given us such an experimental proof of the truth thereof, as has not been known for some ages past.
Alas! we have need of those bitter pills, at which we so winch and shuck: and it will be well if at last we be purged as we should thereby. I am sure we are but little the better as yet, though the physician has had us so long in hand. Some bad humours may possibly ere long be driven out: but at present the disease is so high, that it makes some professors fear more a consumption will be made in their purses by these doses, than they desire to be made better in their souls thereby. I see that I still have need of these trials; and if God will by these judge me as he judges his saints, that I may not be condemned with the world, I will cry, Grace, grace for ever.
But this has not happened, and this "secularization thesis" is now largely discredited. Virtually all major religions are growing in number of adherents. Christianity's growth, especially in the developing world, has been explosive. There are now six times more Anglicans in
Here is a great video by John Piper mentioning this ministry:
Most people don't expect you to understand what we're going to tell you in this book. And even if you understand, they don't expect you to care. And even if you care, they don't expect you to do anything about it. And even if you do something about it, they don't expect it to last.
