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Oct 29
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A Possible Marriage Saver in Nine Steps

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The grace of God is patient and works both instantaneously and over time. A mistake we sometimes make is thinking too idealistically, as though if we blow our first apology, there is no chance for a second.

The way to think about this marriage saver biblically is that it is an effort to see Colossians 3:13 fleshed out in real life: “Bear with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgive each other.” There is both “bearing with” and there is “forgiving.” How do they mingle in marriage?

Here’s one way I have in mind. I will describe nine steps to reconciliation with your wife (or husband, or friend, or colleague). Something like this is needed when you are too sinful to apologize sincerely the first time. This is real experience more often than I would like to admit, and, in another sense, not often enough. (Wives and husbands, hear these steps with yourself in both roles.)

Step 1. Your wife points out something you said or did that is wrong or that she doesn’t like.

 

Step 2. You get angry. (For five or six reasons that seem good to you at the moment).

 

Step 3. You have the grace to know in your head that this anger is ungodly and that a heartfelt apology, both for what she pointed out and for the anger, is in order.

 

Step 4. You are able to say the words of apology but not able to feel sorry because the anger has made your heart hard toward her. You don’t feel tender, you don’t feel broken, you don’t feel sorry. But you know you should, so you say, “I’m sorry.” This is better than silence. It is a partial grace.

 

Step 5. She feels that you are angry and is, understandably, not satisfied with words that do not carry heartfelt contrition.

 

Step 6. Time goes by. Twenty-four hours? Two days? The Holy Spirit, ever patient, and relentlessly holy, will not let you go. He works against the anger (James 1:19–20). He stirs up gospel truths (Ephesians 4:32). He softens the heart (Ezekiel 36:26). This may be through Bible reading, the word of a friend, reading a book, attending a worship service. Meanwhile she is waiting, wondering, praying, hoping.

 

Step 7. Anger subsides. Sweetness rises. Tenderness is awakened. Sorrow for sin grows.

 

Step 8. You take her aside and you tell her that the first apology was the best you could do at the time because of your sin. You admit it was insufficient. You tell her with tenderness how you feel toward her, and you apologize with heart, and ask for forgiveness.

 

Step 9. In mercy, she forgives and things are better.

What I hope you do with this is talk it over with your spouse to see if it fits your experience. One of the values of building this possible pattern into your set of expectations is that you can cut each other some slack (called mercy), so that step 6 doesn’t feel hopeless for either partner.

(This post was written by Pastor John Piper and orginally published on the Desiring God blog.)

Oct 29
Love0

Twelve lessons on biblical manhood I learned from my father

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The young paratrooper stood at the open door of the C-47 transport plane. Wave after wave of angry wind currents battered his army fatigues with the ferocity of a category five hurricane. He paused momentarily, double-checked his static line and then leaped into the darkness below. Instantly, the darkness wasn’t so dark any more. As he plummeted toward the earth, shells from anti-aircraft canons whizzed near him, burning up like a thousand falling stars slithering across the nighttime sky, shells that German soldiers propelled into the atmosphere with deadly intent. Explosions illumined the approaching earth below. Drifting intentionally toward the hostilities defied common sense and he was deeply fearful, but the young soldier was on a mission far greater than even he understood in that moment of moments. That young soldier was my father. It was 2 a.m., June 6, 1944, and he was in harm’s way, big-time. The hedge-infested landscape of northern France, largely flooded with water by Germany’s paranoid Fuhrer, waited as dad and his colleagues in the 101st Airborne descended to join the cataclysmic battle known to posterity simply as “D-Day.”

My father, who died in 1991 when a leaky blood vessel burst in his chest, would tell you that God’s mercy alone carried him through D-Day alive. Sovereign grace saw him through the Allies’ Operation Market Garden (which didn’t turn out to be the Allies’ proudest moment). It preserved him through the Battle of the Bulge, where American troops won despite being grossly outnumbered, completely surrounded (it is the Airborne’s job to be surrounded, my father once told me) and deep-frozen in one of the coldest European winters on record. Divine mercy, dad always said, kept him alive to V-J Day and spirited him back to Georgia to marry my mom. And it was mercy all, immense and free, that converted my dad to Christ shortly after they exchanged nuptials. Charles M. Robinson the soldier became an excellent husband and father, faithfully raising three boys to be faithful husbands, fathers and churchmen.

Over the years as I have read God’s Word and reflected back upon his quiet testimony to God’s grace in our home, I have been increasingly thankful for the Godward values he instilled in us. Unfortunately, godly, committed fathers are the exception in today’s culture rather than the rule, but I was blessed by God’s mercy to be raised by one. Though he was far from a perfect man, my father exemplified biblical manhood in many respects and taught me many lessons by example. Following is 12 things that my father’s example taught me about biblical manhood:

  • The right thing is not always the easy thing. Ask any of my father’s friends and they will tell you that humble courage, above all other attributes, typified my father. If he feared anything other than the Lord, our family never knew it. Dad was particularly adamant about doing the right thing, even, or perhaps especially, when it was a difficult thing. But courage should always display itself in a manner befitting the humility of Christ, I think he would be quick to say. My father did not believe he was courageous. When I asked him if he was scared the night he jumped into Normandy, his replay was an incredulous “Of course.” So what made you do it? “Because there was something at stake that was far larger and far more important than my safety,” he said. That’s humility wed to courage. That’s like Christ and I want to be like that.
  • The right thing is not always the popular thing. Like following Christ, making the right decisions will not always win the applause of others, even some who profess undying devotion to you.
  • Greatness is found in humility, not in touting one’s own greatness. I will never forget my father, in the context of teaching me how to play the great game of baseball (the national pastime seems to be imbedded somewhere in my family’s DNA), said, “When you make a great play, hit a home run (I was a singles hitter, so this particular play wasn’t much of an issue) or do something to help your team in an obvious way, act like you’ve been there before.” My father wanted God, not me, to be glorified, even in sports.  Dad was appalled at the strutting of professional athletes and was always put off by those who strutted in life, particularly in the church.
  • Men are called to do hard things. Men are called to make difficult decisions in the home, workplace and church. Men are called to do hard things like taking a wife and raising children. My father saw a tendency among young men toward delayed adolescence in my generation and was deeply concerned.  That God makes men a bit rough around the edges is suggestive, he believed.
  • Husbands are called to protect their wives. Physically, emotionally and spiritually, a man must be willing to lay down his life for his wife.
  • Fathers are called to protect their children. Physically, emotionally and spiritually, a man must be willing to lay down his life for his children.
  • Be good at what you do. That 1 Corinthians 10:31 is such an oft-quoted Scripture verse in my home is probably attributable to my father. Whether you were going to be a plumber, professor, athlete, student, doctor, pastor or custodian, you must never stop striving to grow in your ability to do it with great skill and integrity with a sense of stewardship.  My father was a master builder and approached every project as if it were his last. Every sphere of life belongs to God and all must be done to His glory.
  • Talk is cheap, especially in the Christian life. “There are men who are talkers and there are men who are doers,” he told me. Dad was a “doer,” which is a North Georgia way of saying, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
  • Father/husband, if there is a financial crisis in the home, you are the solution, not your wife. My father took seriously the husband/father’s role as the chief provider for the family. He would have found the modern-day “stay at home dad” ungodly, effeminate and repugnant. If your lifestyle requires her to take on a career and pushes the children to the babysitter where they are being raised by someone else, adjust your lifestyle to fit the man’s wages. If extenuating circumstances make this impossible, the man should take on additional work so his wife can be faithful to her divine calling as a full-time mother. Dad always said, “You are the solution.”
  • There is no substitute for “being there.” My dad never had to learn such words as “quality time” and “quantity time.” I do not recall a single baseball game (and I played in hundreds growing up) or important church or school event without my dad (and mom) in the audience. We went to church Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night as a family, no questions asked. That we were being raised as churchmen was an assumption. At home we spent hours talking about everything from God’s Word to sports, the news, good books and the merits/demerits of country/rock/pop/gospel music. In short, his was a huge presence on the landscape of my life and my time with him continues to bear fruit, even as I arrive upon the borders of middle age.
  • Treasuring Christ, not material things, will give you ultimate satisfaction. The Lord blessed my father with material means, but I have no doubt it was never an idol. Whatever wealth he had, it never had him. One of my fondest memories growing up in our household was my parents, under my father’s leadership, providing food, Christmas toys, rent/mortgage money and thousands of dollars in other provisions for the poor of our community, which were numerous. “God has blessed us to be a blessing to others,” he once told me. “We must lay up treasure in heaven, not here.” That’s the biblical prosperity gospel.
  • Authentic manhood is proven by serving others, not by the deployment of bare knuckles. In the mountains of North Georgia where I grew up, a rite of passage into manhood seemed to be participating in and winning at least one fist fight. This was a huge problem for a runty boy like me, who didn’t tip the scales at 100 pounds until the ninth grade. In high school, I used to joke with my friends, “I’m a lover, not a fighter.” My father, who was as physically tough a man as I have ever met, warned me against confusing real manhood with such boorishness. Real manhood is found in sacrificing your needs, wants and desires in service of others as Christ did on Calvary. The real man is the Christ-picturing servant, not the Rocky Balboa wanna-be.

I am following in giant footsteps and I pray that the Lord will give me grace to set an example that points my children to Christ and His Gospel in a compelling and fruitful way.

 

This post was written by Jeff Robinson and originally posted here.

Oct 27
Love0

Why are you so wedded to the world?

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George_Whitefield_preaching

Did it ever prove faithful or satisfactory to any of its votaries? Has not Solomon reckoned up the sum total of worldly happiness? And what does it amount to? ‘Vanity, vanity, saith the preacher, all is vanity,’ nay he adds, ‘and vexation of spirit.’ And has not a greater than Solomon informed us, that a man’s life, the happiness of a man’s life, doth not consist in the things which he possesseth? Besides, ‘know ye not that the friendship of this world is enmity with God; so that whosoever will be a friend to the world (to the corrupt customs and vices of it) is an enemy of God?’

What better reasons can you give for being wedded to your lusts? Might not the poor slaves in the galleys as reasonably be wedded to their chains? For do not your lusts fetter down your souls from God? Do they not lord it and have they not dominion over you? Do not they say, Come and ye come; Go and ye go; Do this and ye do it? And is not he or she that liveth in pleasure, dead, whilst he liveth?

And above all, how can ye bear the thoughts of being wedded to the devil, as every natural man is. For thus speaks the scripture, ‘He now ruleth in the children of disobedience.’ And how can ye bear to be ruled by one, who is such a professed open enemy to the most high and holy God? Who will make a drudge of you, whilst you live and be your companion in endless and extreme torment, after you are dead? For thus will our Lord say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.’

George Whitefield, “Christ the Believer’s Husband,” The Sermons of George Whitefield (Kindle Edition)

 

Originally posted by Aaron Armstrong here on  October 21, 2012
Oct 27
Love0

The Story of Ian and Larissa

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Recently, Pastor Rocky showed me this video. It has wrecked us, so it was clear we needed to pass it along to you. How are we serving our spouses?

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Let all of us love our spouses more because of this example.

Oct 26
Love0

Mission Agencies: How Do I Choose One?

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There are more than 700 Protestant missionary-sending agencies in North America. They range from huge to tiny, well-established to new, and excellent to not-so-excellent. Most of them have impressive publicity and representatives. How can one choose? Here are some areas you might want to explore, and questions to ask.

How will you decide?

Church Ties

The first place to look is with agencies that are closely linked with your local church. If you don’t know who these are, ask your pastor. If you go with an agency that is closely lined with your local church, you are likely to find similar theology and background and you are likely to receive more financial support from your local church. There are, however, some additional considerations – especially if your church cooperates with a wide range of agencies. As an alternative to setting out fleeces, flipping coins, or reading tea leaves, here is a basic check list of criteria for choosing an agency.

 

Statement of Faith

Although most non-denominational agencies are conservative, they are not highly detailed in their doctrinal statements. Because of this you will have little trouble agreeing with them on the basics if your theology is conservative. Further, you may be surprised to find that some denominations with liberal membership have a missionary force that is quite conservative.

 

Countries

Most missionary candidates have some feelings of preference for a certain area or type of subculture. But try not to be overly rigid, because many agencies will want to make strong suggestions concerning your location. Long experience shows that God often speaks to a candidate through an agency!

 

Track Record

How well is the agency doing? What has been its impact on the field? Has the work grown, especially in the last two years? Even though work is very slow in some countries, an agency should have something to point to.

 

Size

On the positive side, a small agency has the advantages of a friendly, informal family. A large agency has the fringe benefits of a solid, sophisticated organization. On the negative side, the sloppy methods of some small agencies have helped to keep them small for decades. And the bureaucratic efficiency of some large agencies could give you that lost feeling of being merely a cog in a big machine.

 

Importance

How needed is the agency? What would happen to the progress of world evangelization if it disappeared? Just how much is riding on its success? Remember that some of the less dramatic types of work, such as teaching missionary children, may be in the background, but are nonetheless essential.

 

Management

Is the agency moving in a clear direction? Do the directors actually help their people? It’s difficult to tell from publicity material alone. A dedicated field staff with all eyes on the Lord may stumble and flounder from one huge success to another for years, even though supervisory support is erratic.

 

Type of Work

Does the ministry actually need you? If you feel you should get into one particular type of work, make sure they want people in that line now! If you’re more flexible, no problem.

 

Leadership

Who are the leaders, the guiding lights? How long have they been with the organization? What is their reputation in the church? Don’t be bashful about asking people from other organizations about their leadership; you aren’t digging up dirt, you’re doing your homework wisely.

 

Organization

Is the organizational leadership appointed? Elected? Is the whole show run by one man? Is it run as an oligarchy by one family? Some small agencies are. And are they authoritarian, democratic, or somewhere in-between? Is the individual missionary’s voice heard in policy discussions? What is their attitude toward women?

 

Origin

How and when did they get their start? As a natural outgrowth of the ministry of one person or small group? As a splinter from another agency? As a new outreach from an established organization?

 

Standards

What qualities and qualifications must you have as a candidate? Does the ministry provide or require special training? The best thing is to seek an agency in which you meet all their qualifications without being overly qualified.

 

Turnover

How many years does the average missionary stay on? And where do they go after they leave – into some other notable work or into thin air? Why did they leave? Ask agencies what the common reasons are for leaving their particular agency.

 

Personnel Sources

Where do the candidates come from? One denomination? Several countries? The white collar culture? If you were raised in the Oakland ghetto, you may be broadened by working alongside ex-farmhands from Missouri, but be prepared for a few adjustments.

 

Finances

What if you’re in the upper Amazon valley and your support drops off one month? Or if you get 100% of your support this month and your co-worker down the river gets only 50%, in your pay checks do you both receive 75% or do you each get what came in specifically for each? Is this agency’s financial policy sound? Is it open to the public? Are their contributions solidly behind them with a high per-person support figure? How much of your personal support will go toward the agency’s overhead? If their overhead expense is greater than a quarter of the total budget, find out why.

 

Style

Finally, there is that indefinable business of feel. Are these your kind of people? If not, do you like them anyway? Are you comfortable with them? Find out about the styles of relating among the agencies’ staff members. How are their missionaries on the field or on furlough cared for? Are they cared for, and if so, how well? Talk to the missionaries on furlough. Write to one of their missionaries in your country of interest. Visit the field if you can. It’s worth the effort; it’s like picking out a new family.

Don’t ever let yourself get bogged down in the details of choosing an organization. Remember, if God has clearly led you to go overseas as a missionary, then someone is waiting for you. God will show you where you are to serve Him.

James Rutz served on the staff of Caleb Project in the 1980s.

Used with permission

www.Pioneers.org

 

Oct 26
Love0

The Next Step: Disciple a Few

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Maybe you attended a missions conference. Or read a book or article. Or heard a life-altering message. Or perhaps best of all, you were turned upside down by personal interaction with a fellow Christian. For the first time, you’re seeing that we are all “sent.” Every Christian is called to live on gospel mission. Whether God is lighting a new fire in you for “living sent” where you already are, or he’s calling you to cross a culture in missions, what’t next? Where do you go from here?

Here’s the guidance David Platt has for us in his book Radical:

I am concerned about a general vagueness that has existed in contemporary Christianity regarding the next step. We have seen that God blesses us so that his glory might be made known in all nations. But an all-important questions remains. How do we make God’s glory known in all nations? If God has given us his grace so that we might take his gospel to the ends of the earth, then how do we do that? Do we walk out into the streets and just start proclaiming the glory of God somehow? Should we all go to other nations? If we go, what do we do when we get there? What does all this look like in our day-to-day lives?

Jesus has much to teach us here. If we were left to ourselves with the task of taking the gospel to the world, we would immediately begin planning innovative strategies and plotting elaborate schemes. We would organize conventions, develop programs, and create foundations. We would get the biggest names to draw the biggest crowds to the biggest events. We would start megachurches and host megaconferences. We would do . . . well, we would do what we are doing today.

But Jesus is so different from us. With the task of taking the gospel to the world, he wandered through the streets and byways of Israel looking for a few men. Don’t misunderstand me — Jesus was anything but casual about his mission. He was initiating a revolution, but his revolution would not revolve around the masses or the multitudes. Instead it would revolve around a few men. It would not revolving around garnering a certain position. Instead it would revolve around choosing a few people. He would intentionally shun titles, labels, plaudits, and popularity in his plan to turn the course of history upside down. All he wanted was a few men who would think as he did, love as he did, see as he did, teach as he did, and serve as he did. All he needed was to revolutionize the hearts of a few, and they would impact the world.

(Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, [Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2010], 87-88)

________

This article was written by David Mathis by September 28, 2011

David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for John Piper and Desiring God, and elder at Bethlehem Baptist Church in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. He and his wife Megan have twin sons (Carson and Coleman) and live in Minneapolis. David is editor of Thinking, Loving, Doing and Finish the Mission (most recently).

Oct 26
Love0

The Word and Women

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I spend a lot of time with women. On most days a parade of women’s faces and voices is moving through my mind—reminders and echoes from various conferences and Bible study groups. Having recently visited a number of women’s groups in England, I’m currently hearing echoes of strong words, articulated with that invigorating British combination of joviality and definiteness. It was a joy to be among various evangelical groups, and to witness both the hunger for God’s Word and also the training up of women to meet that hunger. They’re in a context where women’s issues are hotly debated, and where their complementarian position is generally scorned.  They’re studying and teaching and sharing the Bible with all their hearts. They’re doing it with the encouragement of pastoral leadership committed to biblical instruction of all God’s people. I learned a great deal from my sisters in England.

It’s interesting to return from that context into our ongoing American conversation over gender roles. What strikes me is that we women (just like all human beings everywhere) do best when we focus on taking in and giving out the comprehensive revelation of God’s Word. If it’s really true that the Bible is made up of God’s breathed-out, living and active words, then there’s nothing more important, during this short span of time before we meet God face to face, than hearing and believing and sharing and delighting in his words of life to us.

Any time we pull out one strand of Scripture and concentrate on it, apart from God’s full revelation, we can so easily get into trouble. Women love to talk and think about women. And we should! We must! However, if we focus too exclusively on that theme, it tends to grow into the overarching one that interprets everything else we read and think. We might do better, all of us, to aim for a consistent focus on Scripture’s main theme. I don’t have that theme in a nutshell, but it might be something like: God redeeming a people for himself, through Jesus Christ his Son. However we summarize it, surely we Christians would put Jesus Christ and his redemption at the center of the Bible’s whole revelation. The question I must ask myself is whether that theme is at the center of my thinking.

Environmentalists . . . parents . . . artists . . . women . . . all of us, whatever our specific concerns, tend to look for the strand of the Scriptures that relates to us. The danger comes any time I go after making my own story (or women’s stories) central, as opposed to making sense of my story (or women’s stories) within the larger story of God’s redemption in Christ. Take the scriptural word submission, for example. If I focus on that word and that principle itself, I can get in all kinds of trouble. I can blow up the word into all sorts of rules and scenarios that Scripture itself never addresses. Or I can diminish the word into a shriveled-up relic, ignoring Scripture’s plain command. The word is given to us and explained to us in the context of Christ and his church. The principle is shown to shine throughout the Scriptures from the very first woman onward, as the story of the first man and woman keeps appearing, a reference point never left behind. I believe we women can learn about submission in the best way by studying the whole Scriptures, and by learning to love Christ as he is revealed to us and speaks to us through the inspired Word.

Spirit-Filled Power and Clarity

Christ’s love is revealed to us in a book. I don’t mean to trespass into the territory of bibliolatry, but I do mean to affirm the Spirit-filled power and clarity of the God-breathed Word. The principle of Scripture’s perspicuity (clarity, or understandability), for which the Reformers fought and died, is crucial. God’s Word is neither too vague nor too complicated to be understood clearly by God’s people. In Nehemiah 8, all the “men and women and all who could understand what they heard” stood for hours listening and learning from the Levites, who “helped the people to understand the Law” and “gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” The people went away rejoicing, “because they had understood the words that were declared to them” (Neh. 8:1, 3, 7-8, 12).

I love it that the women are mentioned in that magnificent scene from Nehemiah, where the remnant of God’s people who’ve returned from exile to a broken-down city recommit themselves to being a people of God’s Word. They are holding on to God’s promises when all the visible signs of those promises have been cut away; they’re left with the promises themselves, the words. And so in that scene they listen really carefully, for hours. They study the words to understand what God is saying to them.

That’s what we need to do, isn’t it? Women, like all of God’s people, need to listen really carefully to all of God’s Word, book by book, from beginning to end. We need to learn how to read it, so that we can rightly evaluate the voices around us that would tell us what it says or doesn’t say. We need to seek and live under the leadership of godly preachers and teachers who love and reverence God’s Word—not just “out there” in cyberspace but in local, biblically committed congregations. Within the community of God’s people we need to study the Word book by book, learning how to grasp the main point of a book and how that main point shapes everything in that book from beginning to end. What’s the main point of the book of Titus, and how does each passage within that book fit into the whole? What is the book of Judges all about, and what do we learn from it about the Bible’s unfolding story of redemption? We need to read the stories of various women, like Sarah, or Ruth, or Jephtha’s daughter, in light of the whole books in which they are found and in light of the Bible’s overarching theme. We need to teach and model for the younger women around us how to read and study the Word. We need to share with other women not just a message of encouragement for women, but a message of redeemed life in Christ for every person who believes in him, according to his Word.

It’s all about the Word. It’s our God-given lamp to light our paths. I’m still hearing those English women’s sturdy voices in my mind, talking about studying the Bible. They reminded me again that, until we get to see Jesus face to face, we get to live on his Word.

 

This article was written by Kathleen Nielson and originally posted at www.thegospelcoalition.org. It can be found here.

Oct 26
Love0

What’s the Last Thing You’ve Done to Surprise Your Wife?

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Knowing how high a priority C.J. Mahaney places on surprising his wife Carolyn, Southern Seminary’s interviewer asked him this question in an interview published in the new issue of the Seminary’s magazine, Towers (April 11, 2011; page 16).

Before answering the question with specific examples, C.J. set the context:

Let me say that I have a wife whom I don’t deserve. No one has influenced me more than she has. There’s no one I respect more than her. There’s no one I love more than her. I am devoted to building as many romantic memories with her and spending as much time with her as possible. And I want Carolyn to live aware that I am always planning or working on a new surprise as an expression of my love for her.

Then he talked specifics:

The most recent surprise was a trip to sunny and warm Florida in the midst of a very cold winter at home.

Normally trips will be planned well in advance to coordinate schedules. By planning in advance you can build anticipation and in some ways something planned in the future has a way of serving your soul in the present. But the trip to Florida didn’t receive a great deal of planning and this spontaneous trip was great fun. And the largest snowstorm of the year hit the D.C. area while we were in Florida so that made it even sweeter.

Before that, in December, I surprised her with an overnight trip to the W Hotel in downtown D.C. At any given time, there are actual multiple surprises in the planning stage ranging from the small expressions to more significant ones. Surprises don’t have to be expensive to be meaningful. Something as simple as bringing home her favorite candy at the end of the day is another way to say, “I love you.”

Why all the surprises? If you met her, you’d understand why. I have been the object of her affection and support for 36 years now. I want to do all that I can to communicate my gratefulness. I don’t deserve my wife.

As C.J. writes elsewhere, meaningful surprises are normally the result of thoughtful and diligent study and planning by the husband. But many husbands are thickheaded and don’t study their wives or plan surprises very well. So where can we start?

To find specific help and suggestions on how to study your wife and her particular interests (with the goal of eventually surprising her), C.J. has written a few resources that may prove helpful for husbands. First, see his free ebook Biblical Productivitywhere he further explains how his role as husband motivates him to study, serve, and surprise Carolyn. And also consider reading “Learning, Leading, and Loving,” chapter three in his book Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband Needs to Know (Crossway, 2004). “As a romancer of my wife, I know that my essential role is that of a student and a planner,” he writes (32). Behind the meaningful surprises for a wife is this intentional study and careful planning of a thoughtful husband.

April 26, 2011 by Tony Reinke

Oct 26
Love0

Key to a Father’s Courage

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John G. Paton was a missionary to the New Hebrides, today called Vanuatu, in the South Seas. He was born in Scotland in 1824. I gave my Pastors’ Conference message about him because of the courage he showed throughout his 82 years of life. When I dug for the reasons he was so courageous, one reason I found was the deep love he had for his father.

The tribute Paton pays to his godly father is, by itself, worth the price of his Autobiography, which is still in print. Maybe it’s because I have four sons (and Talitha), but I wept as I read this section. It filled me with such longing to be a father like this.

There was a “closet” where his father would go for prayer as a rule after each meal. The eleven children knew it and they reverenced the spot and learned something profound about God. The impact on John Paton was immense.

Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, were blotted from my understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and shut itself up once again in that Sanctuary Closet, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt with the victorious appeal, “He walked with God, why may not I?” (Autobiography, p. 8)

How much my father’s prayers at this time impressed me I can never explain, nor could any stranger understand. When, on his knees and all of us kneeling around him in Family Worship, he poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the Heathen world to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need, we all felt as if in the presence of the living Savior, and learned to know and love him as our Divine friend.” (Autobiography, p. 21)

One scene best captures the depth of love between John and his father, and the power of the impact on John’s life of uncompromising courage and purity. The time came for the young Paton to leave home and go to Glasgow to attend divinity school and become a city missionary in his early twenties. From his hometown of Torthorwald to the train station at Kilmarnock was a 40-mile walk. Forty years later, Paton wrote,

My dear father walked with me the first six miles of the way. His counsels and tears and heavenly conversation on that parting journey are fresh in my heart as if it had been but yesterday; and tears are on my cheeks as freely now as then, whenever memory steals me away to the scene. For the last half mile or so we walked on together in almost unbroken silence – my father, as was often his custom, carrying hat in hand, while his long flowing yellow hair (then yellow, but in later years white as snow) streamed like a girl’s down his shoulders. His lips kept moving in silent prayers for me; and his tears fell fast when our eyes met each other in looks for which all speech was vain! We halted on reaching the appointed parting place; he grasped my hand firmly for a minute in silence, and then solemnly and affectionately said: “God bless you, my son! Your father’s God prosper you, and keep you from all evil!”

Unable to say more, his lips kept moving in silent prayer; in tears we embraced, and parted. I ran off as fast as I could; and, when about to turn a corner in the road where he would lose sight of me, I looked back and saw him still standing with head uncovered where I had left him – gazing after me. Waving my hat in adieu, I rounded the corner and out of sight in instant. But my heart was too full and sore to carry me further, so I darted into the side of the road and wept for time. Then, rising up cautiously, I climbed the dike to see if he yet stood where I had left him; and just at that moment I caught a glimpse of him climbing the dike and looking out for me! He did not see me, and after he gazed eagerly in my direction for a while he got down, set his face toward home, and began to return – his head still uncovered, and his heart, I felt sure, still rising in prayers for me. I watched through blinding tears, till his form faded from my gaze; and then, hastening on my way, vowed deeply and oft, by the help of God, to live and act so as never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as he had given me. (pp. 25-26)

The impact of his father’s faith and prayer and love and discipline was immeasurable. O fathers, read and be filled with longing.

With you in the battle,

Pastor John

 

©2012 Desiring God Foundation. Used by Permission.

By John Piper. ©2012 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org

 

Oct 25
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Lord’s Prayer (Pt.4)

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The following is the fourth part of a series written by one of our members, David Carrico. Previous parts can be found at the links below:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

“Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come.” Matthew 6:9

Stepping through a meditation of the Model Prayer, our next pause to consider is at “Thy kingdom come.”  This is a phrase that has so much depth and so many layers of meaning that I could probably write at least a half-dozen blogs on it, or write twenty or thirty pages in this one, and still not cover everything that it contains.  I’m not going to do so.  But I am going to cover one aspect of it that I haven’t heard discussed much, and the article is still going to be a bit longer than the previous articles in the series.

When you think of kingdoms, what is the one common element that every kingdom has to have?  A king.

Have you ever thought about what the purpose of a king is?  What function does he serve?

In the grand scheme of things, there seem to be two reasons why societies have created kings and kept them around.  First, to govern:  to make laws, establish rules, and enforce them.  This is the ruling function.  The second reason is to serve as the visible embodiment of the kingdom; to be the representation of the kingdom as a whole.  This is the reigning function.

In human kingdoms those two functions were not always united in the same person.  In the Empire of Japan, for example, there was an extended period of history where the Emperor reigned, but the Shogun (warlord) ruled.  And in England, a struggle began during the reign of King John in the 1200s that after a few hundred years eventually culminated with the ruling function passing to Parliament and the ministers, so that today Queen Elizabeth II reigns but does not rule.

So sometimes the king rules, sometimes the king reigns, and sometimes he does both.

But the Matthew passage isn’t talking about a human kingdom, is it?  When it says “Thy kingdom”, it’s referring to a kingdom that is God’s.  Is it an earthly kingdom?  When you dig out your Rand McNally World Atlas, or fire up Google Maps, do you find a Kingdom of God located somewhere on Earth?  No.  So what is the Matthew passage referring to?  We’ll get to that in a moment.

I find it interesting that the idea of God having a kingdom is not something that is presented in the Bible beginning on page 1.  I mean, with the very first words of Genesis we are immediately presented with a God who is omnipotent and omniscient and creator.  But we don’t encounter the idea that God is king until after a lot of human history has passed.  In fact, the first mention of God being a king doesn’t occur until the beginning of the kingdom of Israel itself.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah; and they said to him, “Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.”  But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord.  And the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.”  1 Samuel 8:4-7 

So from the very lips of God we see that as part of being the God of Israel, He was also the king of Israel.  And again:

When you saw that Nahash the king of the sons of Ammon came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ although the Lord your God was your king.  1 Samuel 12:12

That’s the beginning.  That’s the first place where it is revealed to us that God is a king.  This would seem to imply that He has a kingdom, but we don’t see that clearly stated for a while; not until late in the book of Psalms, actually.  There are several references to God as king in the book of Psalms, but the only passage that refers to God’s kingdom is the following:

All Thy works shall give thanks to Thee, O Lord,

And Thy godly ones shall bless Thee.

They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom,

And talk of Thy power;

To make known to the sons of men Thy mighty acts,

And the glory of the majesty of Thy kingdom.

Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,

And Thy dominion endures throughout all generations. 

Psalms 145:10-13

And God’s kingdom also appears in Isaiah and Jeremiah as well.  But those references are all relatively light.  God’s kingdom doesn’t really appear as a major theme until the New Testament.  I’m not going to discuss all the instances of the theme there, but a good concordance will take you to them.

But what is this idea of God’s kingdom trying to tell us?  Well, I believe there is one aspect of the idea of God’s kingdom that is paramount, and it’s one that the people of Jesus’ time understood intuitively because of their cultural and societal background that we usually don’t grasp well because of the differences between us in culture and society.

You see, a king is a sovereign.  The dictionary definition of a sovereign is “one who has supreme authority”.  That’s a good description of God, isn’t it?  After all, He created the universe, He sustains the universe, and He will at the end of days destroy the universe.  Moreover, we have the following from the Apostle Paul:

“I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time —  He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords…”  1 Timothy 6:13-15

God is sovereign of all and over all.  (And that’s certainly an important doctrine, but that’s also a discussion for another time.)  So does that mean that His kingdom is the universe?  Well, yes and no.  There are actually two kingdoms in play here:  the kingdom of the universe, and the kingdom of those who belong to Him.  God is sovereign over both, and people can be in both, but there is a difference.

Let’s use the following for a metaphor of what I’m trying to describe:  let’s say I work for a company who in the course of business assigns me to a position in London, England.  I relocate there, and I spend the next several years living in the kingdom of England.  All the time I am there I am subject to English laws and rules, but I am still an American citizen, holding a US passport.

Now let’s say that one day I get an invitation to come before Queen Elizabeth.  I appear at the appropriate palace, hopefully a little early, clean shaven, teeth brushed, dressed in my best suit.  One of the Royal Guards escorts me to the throne room.  I stand in the doorway and see the queen seated on her royal throne, dressed in her royal regalia.  She bids me come forward, and I walk down the length of the throne room with some nervousness, hoping that my shoes won’t squeak.  In a moment, I stand directly before the queen, the sovereign of all England.  In her mannered voice she tells me that she knows all about me, and she desires that I become a subject and citizen of the kingdom of England.  I drop to my knees, place my hands between hers, and swear allegiance, faithfulness, and obedience to her.  At the conclusion, she takes from me my blue US passport and hands to me a brand new maroon United Kingdom passport, which will mark me as a citizen of her kingdom to everyone in the world.

When I walk out of the palace afterward, I’m still me.  I’m still in the kingdom of England.  I still live in the same place.  I still work at the same job for the same boss and employer.  I still get the same paycheck.  I’m still just as subject to the laws and regulations of England as I was before I walked into the palace.  But I’m not the same.  What’s changed?

What has changed is my relationship with the queen.  Before this event, I lived in her kingdom and was subject to her laws, but to me she was the queen.  Now she is my queen.  She has established a personal relationship with me, and I am bound to her as her subject.

In the same way, before I was saved I lived in God’s universe, His kingdom, but He was the God.  But after the Holy Spirit entered my life and brought me to a saving knowledge of Jesus, my relationship with God changed.  Now He is my God.  We have a personal relationship which can be described many different ways.  But one of the ways it can be described is a personal relationship between a subject and a king.  And to a great extent, as much as we can understand of God’s will, that is what history is all about:  the drawing of residents of God’s kingdom to become subjects and citizens of that kingdom.  God in His sovereignty not only created a plan of salvation, but draws some people to it.

Americans really have trouble understanding everything contained in that relationship, because that kind of thing hasn’t been a part of our culture and society for over 200 years.  But it is a very deep relationship, one that has obligations on both sides of it, and it would take another entire blog to discuss those.

So when Jesus holds up “Thy kingdom come” to us as a model, what should it mean to us?

That we should pray that God will continue to build His personal kingdom, one life and soul at a time, and that He will allow us the privilege of participating in it.

Grace and peace to you.

David

 

Oct 23
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How SHOULD we be praying

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20121023-151346.jpgHeritage is a place with a lot of “going”. At any given moment there is likely to be someone going somewhere to tell others about Christ. This may be across the street or often around the world. So how should we be praying? I want to give an outline of a God-centered approach to praying for those “goings”.

1) Pray for God to DO what only He can… Let this be our starting point. “God, we are asking You to work in hearts in ways we will never be able.” Let’s ask God to go before us. We believe He will. And what’s more, He has told us to ask.

2) Pray for God to give OPPORTUNITIES… We are asking for God to be working in hearts and now we are asking Him to lead us to these people. “Lord, lead us to those You are working on and give us eyes to see Your hand at work.”

3) Pray for God to give us BOLDNESS and CLARITY… It can be scary sharing in a place opposed to the Gospel. It can be scary sharing in the Bible Belt. Let us plead with God for courage and boldness to speak up and share the truth of what He has done. With this message we need to be clear. A confusing message is rarely helpful. Let us be praying for clear presentations of the Gospel. “Oh lord we ask you to give those going courage and clarity. Let them recognize the opportunities given them and boldly proclaim this wonderful message in ways that can be understood by all who hear.”

And finally, after those things have been lifted up, we pray for those going.

4) Pray God will be GLORIFIED by those going… Notice the focus is not on their safety, their health, or their comfort. The emphasis is on God’s glory. By all means pray for all of those things, but our top priority is God being glorified. “Father, we pray you will work in the lives of those going that they may bring You the most glory. Because we love them we ask for You to keep them safe. Because they are dear to us we ask You to bring them back in one piece. Because we care we ask You to keep them from sickness and help them through all difficulties. And because You are worth everything we pray for Your Name to be glorified above all. Help us to entrust them to You.”

It is my sincere belief this is how we can and should be praying for those going to share with their neighbors or even the nations. Are you faithfully praying? Are you faithfully going?

 

Oct 22
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Who Does God Say He Is?

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What comes to mind when you think of God?

Seriously…

Who is this God we are growing to know? Oftentimes our understanding of God needs to be untangled from the mix of ideas commonly shared about Him. Let’s go to His Word and write what is said about who God is:

 

Exodus 3:5-6

 “Then He said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.”

 

Exodus 34:6-7

“Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the LordGod, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; 7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

 

Psalm 25:8

“Good and upright is the Lord;
Therefore He instructs sinners in the way.”

 

Psalm 90:1-2

“Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.”

Psalm 102:12

 “But You, O Lord, abide forever,
And Your name to all generations.”

Psalm 113:5-6

“Who is like the Lord our God,
Who is enthroned on high,
6 Who humbles Himself to behold
The things that are in heaven and in the earth?”

 

Psalm 145:17

“The Lord is righteous in all His ways
And kind in all His deeds.” 

Isaiah 6:3

“And one called out to another and said,

“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,
The whole earth is full of His glory.”

Malachi 3:6

 “For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

Romans 8:35-39

 “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Willtribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, ornakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 Just as it is written,

“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;
We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer throughHim who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 11:33-36

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? 35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the gloryforever. Amen.”

Colossians 1:15-17

 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

Hebrews 13:8

 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

James 1:17

 “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

1 Peter 1:3

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whoaccording to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,”

1 John 4:8

“The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” 

Rev 4:8

“And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and nightthey do not cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.””

 

Look back over these descriptions of our God. As His children, we see evidence of His character in the ups and downs of our lives. Here are just a few more texts that help us see more of the fullness and awesomeness of God. Read these slowly and thoughtfully.

 

1 Samuel 2:6-10

 “LORD, You are the One who kills and makes alive…this is difficult for me to understand. You alone are God. I recognize your absolute power over life and death. I praise You for life! …”

Isaiah 40:28-31

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. 29 He gives strength to the weary, And to him who lacks might He increases power. 30 Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly, 31 Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.”

 

This is the GOD that we have the privilege to serve! This is the GOD who has graciously caused us to know Him through His creation and through salvation! This is the GOD who seeks that all people would know Him. He has entrusted us with the responsibility to speak the Gospel into the lives of those around us.

 

May our hearts beat with His; may we be His hands, His feet, His voice that all may truly know Him.

 

 

Oct 22
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Why Them?

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“Created for God’s Glory“ Bible study with Lynn Broderick; Wednesday nights 6:30 to 8:00; room 405

What makes a person – any person – special enough to warrant an honorable mention by God in His Word?
When God chose to record His dealings with mankind, revealing His character and His ways, He did so by revealing His relationship with men He chose, and with some women also. Relatively few women are mentioned in contrast to the number of men. Why did God choose these women? What made them special? What can we as women learn from their victories and/or mistakes, in order to become more godly and Christ -like?  Come find out!
There is no homework per-say. The only request is for you to keep a journal of God’s impressions to you as we study.

Oct 22
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The WHAT and the WHY of Precepts

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The book of Zechariah is such an encouraging book to be studied, especially during the current times of such unrest in the world and at home.  We want to know what the future holds for us — that vast uncharted sea of unknown, holding joy or terror, comfort or pain, love or loneliness.  Some people fear the days to come, wondering what evils lurk in the shadows; others use any means they can trying desperately to discover what might lie ahead.  But tomorrow’s story is known only to God and only a few chapters have been revealed to us through the Scriptures.  God used Zechariah to proclaim the Word of the Lord and give a brief view into what promises God had for our future; pointing out sin, explaining its consequences, and calling men and women to repentance and obedience.
Your King is Coming and He will reign forever and ever.  The Messiah will come both to rescue people from sin and to reign as king.  He will establish His kingdom, conquer all His enemies, and rule over all the earth.  Everything will one day be under His loving and powerful control.  So why do we worry and fret so much about what God knows and controls for our future?  We may never see more than a moment ahead, but we can be secure if we trust in Him.  Come and study the book of Zechariah and strengthen your faith in  God — He alone is your hope and security in the unknown future we face. 
What is Precept?
An in-depth inductive way to study God’s Word by observing the text line-by-line and allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal deap and wonderful insights into God’s wisdom and understanding. The study began Oct 11 and will run every Thursday. from 9:30am to 11:30am. Email Judy for more information. 
Why come?
I have been studying with Kay Arthur and Precept Ministries for over 20 years and can hardly wait to start the next study.  God reveals so much application from His word during the studies that I never seem to exhaust the depths of His blessings for me in His Word.  I not only learn from the text but from the other women in the class as they share the insights and understanding they have received from the ultimate teacher – Holy Spirit.  God wants us to know without any doubt that He is God and there is no other……He will meet with you moment by moment as you allow Him time in His Word.
Oct 16
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Ten Tips for Teaching Kids About God

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The most recent edition of Matthias Media’s enews newsletter had a great little list of tips for teaching young children about God. It was written by Stephanie Carmichael. Carmichael has written several books for young kids and two of them, Grumpy Day and The Birthday Party are available to read online. Here are her tips:

Teach all the time: Young children live in the moment. Help them to learn in the moment by making the most of opportunities as they arise. Talk about God in the day-to-day things you are doing.

Teach at a special time: Try to set aside a special time to read about God. Prepare for this time. If you are going to read the Bible, think about what you will read and how to simplify and explain it.

Questions and answers: Listen to your children’s questions, and give quality time to answering them. But also ask them questions about what you’ve been trying to teach to check they have understood.

Teach through your life: You are a living example (or visual aid) of someone who loves God. Set a faithful example of dependence on God and let them see you reading the Bible for yourself.

Be prayerful: Like adults, children need God’s help to grow in Christ and they can learn to pray. So pray for them and pray simple prayers with them (e.g. “sorry God that we…”, “thank you God for…”, “God, please help…”).

Be simple: Young children are not abstract thinkers so be literal and concrete. Use real examples where possible (eg. God made this flower). Use simple vocabulary that they can understand. Avoid jargon.

Be specific: Move from the specific (God loves Ben) to the general (God loves everyone). Use lots of familiar examples so that they can understand.

Repeat and repeat again: You might get tired of saying it, but remember young children thrive on repetition.

Be thankful: Approach God with thankfulness. Model to your children how we can thank God in various situations and what we can thank God for.

Be visual: Young children learn through their eyes as well as their ears. Use pictures, visual aids, picture books etc.

This article is from www.challies.com and can be found here. 

Oct 16
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How to Provide a Rational Justification for the Christian Faith

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New York City pastor Tim Keller says Christians should be able to present rational arguments for their faith, noting that the “just believe” statement isn’t going to cut it, especially today.

In a two-part blog post, the latest of which was published Tuesday, Keller stated, “Believing has both a head and a heart aspect, so while some non-Christians will need more help with one than the other, we can’t ignore either one.”

The Redeemer Presbyterian Church pastor was making the case for apologetics, or what apologist William Lane Craig defines as the branch of Christian theology which seeks to provide a rational justification for the truth claims of the Christian faith.

What apologetics aims to do is answer the “why” question, said Keller, who has seen many skeptics brought into a Christian community but still left asking “why should I believe you and not an atheist or a Muslim?”

Keller emphasized that rather than just presenting a case for Christianity, a “gospel-shaped apologetic” must “challenge the non-believer’s worldview and show where it, and they, have a real problem.”

“I try to show that it takes faith to doubt Christianity, because any worldview (including secularism or skepticism) is based on assumptions,” he wrote.

Responding to those who say they can only believe in something if it can be rationally or empirically proven, he stated, “[T]here are all sorts of things you can’t prove rationally or empirically. You can’t prove to me that you’re not really a butterfly dreaming you’re a person. (Haven’t you seen The Matrix?) You can’t prove most of the things you believe, so at least recognize that you have faith.”

When confronted with an objection to Christianity, such as the “how could a good God allow such suffering” question, Keller offered this response: “Really? There could be all sorts of good reasons why God allowed something to happen that caused suffering, despite our inability to think of them. If you’ve got an infinite God big enough to be mad at for the suffering in the world, then you also have an infinite God big enough to have reasons for it that you can’t think of.”

Citing the late theologian and apologist C.S. Lewis, the New York pastor argued that one can only judge suffering as wrong “if you’re using a standard higher than this world, a supernatural standard.”

“If there’s no God, you have no reason to be upset at the suffering in this world. That’s just the way it is. It takes faith to get mad at this world.”

The goal in these arguments, Keller emphasized, is to show people that it takes faith to doubt Christianity.

Rather than starting with telling people what to believe, show them their real problem, he said. “We are showing secular people that they have less warrant for their faith assumptions than we do for ours. We need to show that it takes faith even to doubt.”

What needs to happen at some point is a presentation of the Christian story “in a way that addresses the things that people most want for their own lives.”

Show how Christianity can give them what they are trying to find outside of Christianity, he summed.

“There is a way of telling the gospel that makes people say, ‘I don’t believe it’s true, but I wish it were,'” said Keller. “You have to get to the beauty of it, and then go back to the reasons for it.”
Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/tim-keller-on-how-to-provide-a-rational-justification-for-the-christian-faith-78877/#rlGEqTSMkem6mKgi.99

Oct 16
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5 Ways For Building Loving Relationships With Your Neighbors

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What does the single mom that’s trying to figure out what to cook for dinner, the college student lacing up his running shoes, and the elderly couple walking their dog all have in common? They’re likely your neighbors.

Right now, there are people of many shapes and sizes with an array of beliefs and backgrounds from a variety of races and regions that live – to be quite honest – uncomfortably close to you.

Think about it: that guy in his boxers playing X-Box across the hall in your dormitory, and the divorcee who’s trying to restart her life next door to your life, both showed up in your life completely unannounced. They just rolled right smack dab into the middle of your world and no one even consulted you. Such is life, asG.K. Chesterton humorously observed, “We make our friends, and we make our enemies, but God makes our next door neighbor.”

What this means, of course, is that something quite profound is at work all around you. God has hand picked and delivered to your doorstep a mysteriously peculiar but perfectly suited group of neighbors. Every person that God brings into your life is full of meaning, so full in fact that God summarized the entire law with one word concerning neighbors, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians 5:14; James 2:8).

Seeing the significance of loving neighbors, an obvious question arises, “How are we to love our neighbors?” The most basic and beautiful answer to this question comes in the gospel. In order for us to love our neighbor we must first know Jesus as neighbor.

Jesus became our neighbor in the incarnation when the eternal Son of God became flesh and took up residence among us (John 1:14). Then, he showed us the extent of neighborly love by coming not to be served but to serve, demonstrating His love on the cross, removing the guilt of our miserable neighborliness and renewing us in love (Matthew 20:28, Romans 5:8). At this moment, he is in heaven preparing a place especially for us, that when he returns, we might forever be neighbors with Him (John 14:2-3).

To live out the ultimate neighbor love of Jesus in the here and now, let’s briefly look at a five practical steps for building loving relationships with neighbors.

1. Meet Your Neighbors

If we ever hope to love our neighbor in a way that even remotely resembles the love of Christ, we must overcome our tendency to remain anonymous. So whether we’re reintroducing ourselves to what’s-his-name next door, or establishing a relationship with the brand new employee in the corner cubicle, a personal introduction with pleasantries is the first step in opening up lines of relationship. Loving your neighbor starts with meeting your neighbor.

2. Refocus Attention on Your Neighbors

The very thought of meeting neighbors causes nervousness for many of us. Sometimes this nervousness is triggered by focusing on how we appear rather than the person appearing before us. To refocus, take a deep breath and ask the Lord for courage. Remind yourself that this person shares with you in the image of God, in being a sinner, and in desperately desiring love and care. This little exercise will often clear your heart of anxiety and refocus attention on your neighbor.

3. Make Notes about Your Neighbors

If you are often forgetful of names or important personal details like family relations, occupation, etc. let me encourage you to commit that information to writing soon after the encounter. One of the most helpful practices I’ve found in neighboring is simply making notes about the people I meet and revisiting those notes often to refresh my memory.

4. Plan to Follow Up with Your Neighbors

Make every effort to beat down a path through the hedge. Lengthy silence will send a relationship into limbo; so seek to keep short accounts with neighbors by targeting regular times for reconnection and deepening of the relationship. Informal hospitality is quite possibly the best path forward. Be open to spontaneity. Keep it simple. Sometimes lemonade on the front porch or a plate of cookies is better than a four-course meal on fine china.

5. Step into Service of Your Neighbors

Listen and look for ways to care for ordinary needs in your neighbors life. If they’re out of town, volunteer to mow the grass or check the mail while they’re gone. If they’re having car trouble, offer to drive them to work or make a grocery store run. Offer your time, talents, treasure, and yes, even your tools. Take advantage of the opportunities before you, and then purpose to walk through the open door.

These five instructions are not exhaustive by any stretch—just a few simple ways to get down the neighbor-loving road. More important than what you do, however, is the purpose for which you do it. Each of the five points above, or any additional steps you may take are not just good things to do but occasions to participate in and share the love of Christ. In being good neighbors, we are positioned to touch others with the truth and power of the neighbor-loving gospel.

What step will you take this week to build a closer relationship with your neighbors?

This post was originally published and can be read in it’s entirety here. Nate Shurden is pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Franklin, TN. He blogs and can be followed on Twitter @NateShurden.

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