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Feb 20
Love0

February 20 Prayer Guide

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“We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

Love is a verb. Pray that we would be vessels for God’s love to saturate us and overflow through our lives to others, that they may know Him and His love.

Feb 19
Love0

February 19 Prayer Guide

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 “…let us love one another, for love comes from God…Whoever who does not love does not know God…This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins…. Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  1 John 4:7-11

Pray that we would learn to love one another as God loves us.

Feb 18
Love0

February 18 Prayer Guide

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“ …rather serve one another in love…’Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Gal 5:13,14

Pray that we would truly be about God’s ministry-loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.

 

Feb 17
Love0

February 17 Prayer Guide

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“For Christ’s love compels us…And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”  2 Cor 5:14,15

We were made to live for things bigger than ourselves.  Pray that we would live outside our world of SELF.

Feb 15
Love0

February 15 Prayer Guide

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“The god of age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  2 Cor 4:4.

Pray that we would not be blind to spiritual truths.

 

Feb 14
Love0

Parenting Reminders

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Some of my greatest joys in life stem from being a parent to two delightful children. However, some of my greatest struggles in life also stem from being a parent to these same two children. There are days that I cannot imagine anything more rewarding and other days that I want to get into the fetal position and remain there for a week. Here are a few reminders for me and all the other Christian parents out there:

Affection and Love: We can never show our children too much love. I have yet to meet the adult who tells me, “My parents just showed me too much love!” But sadly, I have often heard the reverse. Shower your children with affection. May they know our warm embraces and messy kisses!

Have the Right Goal in View: As Christian parents, our goal in raising our children is not primarily to prepare them for going out into the world as fully functioning adults. Our goal, as Christian parents, is to prepare our children for eternity! This should shape all that we do in our homes.

Focus on My Responsibility: But having said that, we can’t “force” our children to be faithful, less sinful, or more righteous. That isn’t our responsibility. Our responsibility is to be faithful in our own charge as parents. In that regard, I can surely hinder or help their sensitivity to Christ, growth in sanctification, understanding of grace, and maturing in character, but I can’t guarantee it, secure it, or determine it. Let’s be faithful in what we do have responsibility for and spend less energy trying to control that which we don’t have responsibility for.

Keep Your Eyes Forward: We can be prone to look over our shoulders. What will OUR parents think? What will others at church think? What will my pastor think? Our children are disobedient and we find ourselves cringing inside and looking to see if anyone else was watching. And when we see others looking on, immediate concern grips our minds. Will they think my children are disobedient or bad? Will they think I am a terrible parent? Stop! We aren’t parenting for others’ approval. We are parenting for the good of our children to the glory of God. Let’s keep our eyes looking forward and heavenward for the good of our children and the glory of God.

Don’t Get Too High nor Too Low: Children change, so let’s not get too high or too low by what we see in our child’s character, actions, or soul in any given day or during any given period. Let’s rejoice some. Let’s mourn some. But let’s do so with restraint.

Tomorrow has Enough Worries of its Own: We can’t control today, let alone tomorrow. Be faithful today. My son taking a toy from his sister today doesn’t mean he is a good candidate for robbing convenience stores at age eighteen. We can get caught up in what they will be like next week, next year, or when they are twenty-one. Let’s just be faithful in our parenting today.

Run the Right Direction: God knows a thing or two about wayward children, so let’s seek Him who has an understanding ear. What grace we need in parenting and what grace is given in Christ. May we run to Him with our frustrations, struggles, trials, and failures. He should be our first counselor and comforter.

Parent on Your Knees: Oh for an army of parents who exercise as much energy in prayer for our children as we do in lecturing them. Prayer may be the most important and most neglected of parental responsibilities. Let us pray for and with our children–not just before bed–not just over meals, but throughout the day and for all their lives.

Show and Tell: Let’s not just tell our children about the Christian faith, but show it. Let us ask for their forgiveness when we have been irritable or have yelled at them, lead them in family worship, talk much about Christ, extend grace, be quick to point out God’s good providence, joyfully lead them to church, pray for and with them, and sing a few hymns in the shower!

Christianity not Morality: Morals are good, but not in and of themselves. Let’s teach our children and pray for a morality that flows from a heart changed by God’s grace. For many of us, our default is to slip into morality parenting, rather than Christian parenting. The former is focused solely upon outward behavior, the latter is focused upon inward change which will manifest fruit  in moral outward behavior.

Lastly and Most Importantly, Count the Blessings: Let’s thank God everyday for our children. Even on those hard days, find the blessings amidst the chaos! Count every blessing that comes as a parent. Let it fill us with wonder that the Lord of the Universe has given us the privilege of having these little souls under our care. What a blessing. Thinking on that may even help us get out of that fetal position.

This post was written by Jason Helopoulos and can be found here.

Feb 14
Love0

Don’t Take It from Me: Reasons You Should Not Marry an Unbeliever

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Over the course of our ministry, the most common pastoral issue that Tim and I have confronted is probably marriages—either actual or proposed—between Christians and non-Christians. I have often thought how much simpler it would be if I could remove myself from the conversation and invite those already married to unbelievers do the talking to singles who are desperately trying to find a loophole that would allow them to marry someone who does not share their faith.

That way, I could skip all the Bible passages that urge singles only to “marry in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39) and not “be unequally yoked” (2 Corinthians 6:14) and the Old Testament proscriptions against marrying the foreigner, a worshiper of a god other than the God of Israel (see Numbers 12 where Moses marries a woman of another race but the same faith). You can find those passages in abundance, but when someone has already allowed his or her heart to become engaged with a person outside the faith, I find that the Bible has already been devalued as the non-negotiable rule of faith and practice.

Instead, variants of the serpent’s question to Eve—“Did God really say?” are floated, as if somehow this case might be eligible for an exemption, considering how much they love each other, how the unbeliever supports and understands the Christian’s faith, how they are soul-mates despite the absence of a shared soul-faith.

Having grown weary and impatient, I want to snap and say, “It won’t work, not in the long run. Marriage is hard enough when you have two believers who are completely in harmony spiritually. Just spare yourself the heartache and get over it.” Yet such harshness is neither in line with the gentleness of Christ, nor convincing.

Sadder and Wiser

If only I could pair those sadder and wiser women—and men—who have found themselves in unequal marriages (either by their own foolishness or due to one person finding Christ after the marriage had already occurred) with the blithely optimistic singles who are convinced that their passion and commitment will overcome all obstacles. Even the obstacle of bald disobedience need not apply to them. Only ten minutes of conversation—one minute if the person is really succinct–would be necessary. In the words of one woman who was married to a perfectly nice man who did not share her faith: “If you think you are lonely before you get married, it’s nothing compared to how lonely you can be AFTER you are married!”

Really, this might be the only effective pastoral approach: to find a man or woman who is willing to talk honestly about the difficulties of the situation and invite them into a counseling ministry with the about-to-make-a-big-mistake unequal couple. As an alternative, perhaps some creative filmmaker would be willing to run around the country, filming individuals who are living with the pain of being married to an unbeliever, and create a montage of 40 or 50 short (< 5 minutes) first-hand accounts. The collective weight of their stories would be powerful in a way that no second-hand lecture ever would be.

Three True Outcomes

For the moment, though, here goes: There are only three ways an unequal marriage can turn out, (and by unequal I am willing to stretch a point and include genuine, warm Christians who want to marry an in-name-only Christian, or someone very, very far behind them in Christian experience and growth):

  1. In order to be more in sync with your spouse, the Christian will have to push Christ to the margins of his or her life. This may not involve actually repudiating the faith, but in matters such as devotional life, hospitality to believers (small group meetings, emergency hosting of people in need), missionary support, tithing, raising children in the faith, fellowship with other believers—those things will have to be minimized or avoided in order to preserve peace in the home.
  2. Alternatively, if the believer in the marriage holds on to a robust Christian life and practice, the non-believing PARTNER will have to be marginalized. If he or she can’t understand the point of Bible study and prayer, or missions trips, or hospitality, then he or she can’t or won’t participate alongside the believing spouse in those activities. The deep unity and oneness of a marriage cannot flourish when one partner cannot fully participate in the other person’s most important commitments.
  3. So either the marriage experiences stress and breaks up; or it experiences stress and stays together, achieving some kind of truce that involves one spouse or the other capitulating in some areas, but which leaves both parties feeling lonely and unhappy.

Does this sound like the kind of marriage you want? One that strangles your growth in Christ or strangles your growth as a couple, or does both? Think back to that off-cited passage in 2 Corinthians 6:14 about being “unequally yoked.” Most of us no longer live in an agrarian culture, but try to visualize what would happen if a farmer yoked together, say, an ox and a donkey. The heavy wooden yoke, designed to harness the strength of the team, would be askew, as the animals are of different heights, weights, walk at different speeds and with different gaits. The yoke, instead of harnessing the power of the team to complete the task, would rub and chafe BOTH animals, since the load would be distributed unequally. An unequal marriage is not just unwise for the Christian, it is also unfair to the non-Christian, and will end up being a trial for them both.

Our Experience

Full disclosure: One of our sons began spending time a few years back with a secular woman from a Jewish background. He heard us talk about the sorrows (and disobedience) of being married to a non-Christian for years, so he knew it wasn’t an option (something we reminded him of quite forcefully). Nevertheless, their friendship grew and developed into something more. To his credit, our son told her: “I can’t marry you unless you are a Christian, and you can’t become a Christian just to marry me. I’ll sit with you in church, but if you are serious about exploring Christianity you will have to do it on your own—find your own small group, read books, talk to people other than me.”

Fortunately, she is a woman of great integrity and grit, and she set herself to looking into the truth claims of the Bible. As she grew closer to saving faith, to our surprise our son began growing in his faith in order to keep up with her! She said to me one day, “You know, your son should never have been seeing me!”

She did come to faith, and he held the water when she was baptized. The next week he proposed, and they have been married for two and a half years, both growing, both struggling, both repenting. We love them both and are so grateful that she is both in our family and also in the body of Christ.

I only mention the above personal history because so many of our friends in the ministry have seen different outcomes—children who marry outside the faith. The takeaway lesson for me is that even in pastoral homes, where the things of God are taught and discussed, and where children have a pretty good window on seeing their parents counsel broken marriages, believing children toy with relationships that grow deeper than they expect, ending in marriages that don’t always have happy endings. If this is true in the families of Christian leaders, what of the flock?

We need to hear the voices of men and women who are in unequal marriages and know to their sorrow why it is not merely a disobedient choice, but an unwise one.

This post was written by Kathy Keller and can be found here. She serves as assistant director of communications for Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. She is co-author with her husband, Tim, of The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God.

Feb 14
Love0

There’s a technical German theological phrase for this stuff….

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Having seen this,

words almost fail me — but not quite.  Perhaps the weirdest thing is that I too have found peanut eating Italian monkeys to be a great source of spiritual inspiration — it is as if, you know, Rob and I are like totally connected at some kind of deep spiritual level and stuff!  Awesome.  Whodathunkit?


Seriously, this kind of bullsgeschichtlich Abfall, to use the technical German theological phrase, is its own refutation and should be called out for what it is: laughable, self-important gibberish.    To build on a phrase from Niebuhr,  for these chaps “A God of their own invention brought people just like them into a kingdom without clear definition through the ministrations of a Christ who looks like an over-indulged American thirty-molesworth_reasonably_small.jpgsomething.”  So, yes, people will take it seriously and the book will no doubt sell in vast quantities.   As the old song has it: Find out what they like and how they like it and let them have it just that way.

Originally posted by Carl Trueman here.

Feb 14
Love0

February 14 Prayer Guide

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“Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”  Ephesians 6:11.

Pray against the scheming that goes on to oppose the works of God.

Feb 13
Love0

February 13 Prayer Guide

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“For our struggle…is against the powers of this dark world…Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” Ephesians 6:12, 13.

War is being waged on the people of God. Pray fervently that our efforts to further the Gospel would not be hindered.

Feb 12
Love0

February 12 Prayer Guide

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“We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.”  1 John 5:19.

We will receive opposition in our efforts to minister to others. Expect it and be in fervent prayer against it.

Feb 11
Love0

Maybe you should think about Kenya

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Given the fact we have a Kenyan in our group (Mindi) this little call to prayer seems that much more important. Be thinking about the nations as you go about your lives today.

Kenya: Uncertain Future for Christians Prompts Call for Prayers Ahead of Election

 Kenya Election

Political instability in Kenya, triggered by influences from the Muslim minority group al-Shabaab, is causing great concern over the future religious atmosphere in the Eastern Africa country, says Open Doors, a Christian persecution watchdog group. The organization is asking for prayer with less than one month to go before the country’s general election.

“We are at a defining moment because these are the first elections under the new constitution with its many new structures and elective and nominative posts,” explains the Open Doors coordinator for the region, who – as the case with most of the ministry’s international field workers – remains anonymous for security reasons.

Al-Shabaab’s success in pressuring the government to allow greater official influence for Islam is troubling, say Open Doors officials. Islamic family courts based on Sharia Law have been implemented in all counties – even in those with a low Muslim presence. It is feared that at least 10 of the counties with higher Muslim representation may push for the implementation of Sharia Law and may even be harboring ambitions to break away from the rest of the country, which is Christian dominated (83 percent).

“It was reported by Open Doors that 22 Christians were killed in incidents last year and over 100 seriously injured or maimed,” said Open Doors USA spokesman Jerry Dykstra. “The persecution of believers in the Muslim parts of the country has increased. Please join Open Doors in praying for Kenya as it prepares for elections next month.”

More than 1,200 people died in post-election violence in 2007. After the setup of a tribunal was blocked by politicians in Kenya, the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided to prosecute six politicians. Charges against two were dropped, while two of the remaining four are running in the elections – one for president and the other as his running mate. Some reports of violence have already surfaced this year. The election is scheduled for March 4.

Open Doors released the prayer requests below:

The New Constitution: The country voted in a new constitution and it is in the process of being implemented. There continues to be a backlash against Christians who opposed some clauses in the constitution. Pray that the Lord would guide the full implementation process and this harassment of Christians will stop.

The Presidency: Current president Mwai Kibaki has completed two terms and must now hand over leadership to a new elected president. Pray that the handover process will be smooth. Pray that God gives the new president wisdom.

The 42 Tribes: Kenya has a total of 42 recognized tribes that have been polarized against each other. Pray that God would protect Kenyans against political pressures to divide along these tribal lines, but instead rise higher to accept and celebrate one another.

The Challenge of Islam: Islamic influence is growing in the country and with it the levels of persecution towards Christians, especially in Muslim-dominated areas. Pray that the Christians in those areas would gain wisdom and strength to enable them to stand strong in the faith.

Refugees: The government decided to relocate all Somali refugees to the camps in readiness to repatriate them. Pray for Christian refugees. This decision directly affects them. They are worried and afraid for their safety. May the Lord bring solutions to their individual cases.

Open Doors Work in Kenya: Pray for the Open Doors team as it travels to difficult areas in the region to do research, conduct training and give comfort and encouragement to believers.

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/kenya-uncertain-future-for-christians-prompts-call-for-prayers-ahead-of-election-89539/#maWAHvO3FA9Kd1gw.99

Feb 11
Love0

February 11 Prayer Guide

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“…your words were heard, and I have come in response to them….I was detained…” Daniel 10:12,13.

Do not give up praying for the evil one can interfere with our spiritual messengers.

Feb 04
Love0

Becoming a Better Listener

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This is a week late, but still worth your time…

 

As Christians we sit through a lot of sermons. The preaching ministry is one of God’s greatest means of grace to us, the means by which he teaches us truth, by which he calls us to pursue truth and to live out of it. And yet many of us are passive listeners, people who expect great preaching skill from the pastor but demand no listening skill from ourselves.

Lately I have come across a few resources dedicated to helping Christians be better listeners, to help them emphasize active listening. Here are three of them, each with a few words of description and an overview of the contents. If you have never read a book on how to listen to a sermon, I’d encourage you to do that. Take full advantage of the privilege you have of sitting under the ministry of the Word!

Helping Johnny Listen

Helping Johnny ListenHelping Johnny Listen by Thadeus Bergmeier. “The preaching of God’s Word happens tens of thousands of times each week across the world.  As these sermons are given, when the preacher is faithful to the text of the Scripture, it is as if God is speaking to the people of that given congregation. The question is, are people listening? Listening to preaching is more than showing up, sitting still or even nodding one’s head.  It is taking that which is preached and applying it to life.  Helping Johnny Listen is a book designed to help the average person who sits in the average church on the average Sunday take full advantage of the sermons they hear so that they are able to live what they hear.”

Thad’s book is written from a pastoral perspective and is applicable to any level of listener. I was glad to see that he included a section on the difficulties of being a preacher and a listener in the Internet age—when better sermons by better preachers are available in the millions online. He focuses on the importance of being a faithful listener within the long context of a single local church.

Here is how he structures the book:

  1. The Preaching Intersection
  2. Receive the Preaching of God’s Word
  3. Examine the Preaching of God’s Word
  4. Live the Preaching of God’s Word
  5. Persevere the Preaching of God’s Word

($20 at Amazon)

Expository Listening

Expository ListeningExpository Listening: A Handbook for Hearing and Doing God’s Word by Ken Ramey. “In many people’s mind, if they don’t get anything out of the sermon, it’s the preacher’s fault. But that’s only half true. The Bible teaches that listeners must partner with the preacher so that the Word of God accomplishes its intended purpose of transforming their life.Expository Listening is your handbook on biblical listening. It is designed to equip you not only to understand what true, biblical preaching sounds like, but also how to receive it, and ultimately, what to do about it. You need to know how to look for the Word of God, to love the Word of God, and to live the Word of God. In this way, God and His Word will be honored and glorified through your life.”

Ken’s book is also written at a popular level and, with just 110 pages of text, is quite a manageable read. It comes endorsed by John MacArthur, Joel Beeke, Jay Adams, Lance Quinn, Thabiti Anyabwile and yours truly.

He follows this structure:

  1. Welcoming the Word
  2. A Theology of Listening
  3. Hearing with Your Heart
  4. Harrowing Your Heart to Hear
  5. The Itching Ear Epidemic
  6. The Discerning Listener
  7. Practice What You Hear
  8. Listening Like Your Life Depends on It

($10.19 at Amazon | $10.07 at Westminster Books)

Listen Up

Listen UpListen Up by Christopher Ash. “Why on earth does anyone need a guide on how to listen to sermons? Don’t we simply need to ‘be there’ and stay awake? Yet Jesus said: ‘Consider carefully how you listen.’ The fact is, much more is involved in truly listening to Bible teaching than just sitting and staring at the preacher. Christopher Ash outlines seven ingredients for healthy listening. He then deals with how to respond to bad sermons – ones that are dull, or inadequate, or heretical. And finally, he challenges us with ideas for helping and encouraging our Bible teachers to give sermons that will really help us to grow as Christians.”

Ash’s book is actually just a booklet, weighing in at only 31 pages. The beauty of this one is that very thing—its brevity. This is the kind of booklet you can buy in bulk and distribute widely. Many churches hand it out to all of their members as a reminder of their duty to listen. In those 31 pages, Ash packs in quite a lot of value. The book is an an attractive, fun, easy-to-read format that will make people want to read it.

Here is the way he breaks down the subject:

  1. Expect God to Speak
  2. Admit God Knows Better Than You
  3. Check the Preacher Says What the Passage Says
  4. Hear the Sermon in Church
  5. Be There Week by Week
  6. Do What the Bible Says
  7. Do What the Bible Says Today—and Rejoice!
  8. How to Listen to Bad Sermons
  9. Suggestions for Encouraging Good Preaching

($2.39 at Westminster Books, discounts for bulk purchasing)

This post was originally found on www.challies.com

Feb 04
Love0

10 Things to Pray for Your Wife

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Our hunger for God will not be confined to our closets. As we know him and delight in all that he is for us in Jesus, our joy in him reaches beyond personal experience on a quest to be reproduced in others. One of the simplest ways we realize this is by taking serious how we pray — by wanting and asking for others the same things we want and ask for ourselves.

It is a beautiful thing — a miracle — when we become as invested in the sanctification of others as we are in our own. And, of course, the best place to start is with our spouses.

So men, here are ten things to want from God (and ask from him) for your wife:

  1. God, be her God — her all-satisfying treasure and all. Make her jealous for your exclusive supremacy over all her affections (Psalm 73:24–25).
  2. Increase her faith — give her a rock-solid confidence that your incomparable power is only always wielded for her absolute good in Christ (Romans 8:28–30).
  3. Intensify her joy — a joy in you that abandons all to the riches of your grace in Jesus and that says firmly, clearly, gladly: “I’ll go anywhere and do anything if you are there” (Exodus 33:14–15).
  4. Soften her heart — rescue her from cynicism and make her tender to your presence in the most complicated details of dirty diapers and a multitude of other needs you’ve called her to meet (Hebrews 1:3).
  5. Make her cherish your church — build relationships into her life that challenge and encourage her to walk in step with the truth of the gospel, and cause her to love corporate gatherings, the Lord’s Table, and the everyday life of the body (Mark 3:35).
  6. Give her wisdom — make her see dimensions of reality that I would overlook and accompany her vision with a gentle, quiet spirit that feels safe and celebrated (1 Peter 3:4).
  7. Sustain her health — continue to speak your gift of health and keep us from presumption; it is by blood-bought grace (Psalm 139:14).
  8. Multiply her influence — encourage and deepen the impact she has on our children. Give her sweet glimpses of it. Pour her out in love for our neighbors and spark creative ways to engage them for Jesus’s sake (John 12:24).
  9. Make her hear your voice — to read the Bible and accept it as it really is, your word… your very word to her where she lives, full of grace and power and everything she needs pertaining to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).
  10. Overcome her with Jesus — that she is united to him, that she is a new creature in him, that she is your daughter in him. . . No longer in Adam and dead to sin; now in Christ and alive to you, forever (Romans 6:11).

And then a thousand other things. Amen.

[Download a new print-version (PDF) of “10 Things to Pray for Your Wife.” You can also get lock-screen versions for your iPhone4 or iPhone5.]

The following post was written by Jonathan Parnell 

Jan 10
Love0

Dirty Minded Men

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Men Like to Look At Naked Girls On The Internet. Here’s Why They Should Stop That.

I had a bit of a personal crisis when I saw this link from The Huffington Post titled, “Research Suggests that All Men Watch Pornography.” My first thought was that they could not have possibly talked to all men. I know this, because I do not watch pornography. This made me suspicious that the link was tied to a pornographic Web site designed to trick me, the last man standing, into accidentally seeing pornography in order to validate their research. (Or, more disturbingly, it could be that I am not actually a man because I do not watch pornography.)

Do not mistake my assertion for some kind of moral high ground. I have seen pornographic images before, and my mind is fairly full of sexual imagery that I have stored from various fantasies; I don’t really need pornography to qualify as a pervert. I do not think that this makes me abnormal, as the sexual drive is a gift from God. It’s just that I believe pursuing pornographic fantasy is like driving a car at high speed down the wrong lane.

I discovered that the title of the article was a bit misleading, as it suggests that all mencurrently watch porn. In fact, the research documented that they could not find any man who hadn’t seen it before. And that I can believe. It is possible that there is not a man in the United States over the age of 20 who has never seen pornography.

So how is a Christian man or woman supposed to respond to this research? I suppose that we could act shocked, as if we did not previously know that men like to look at naked women. Or we can pretend that a curious, 18-year-old boy with an Internet connection and no supervision would always refuse to click on that flashing picture of a buxom woman that popped up in the advertisement section of his e-mail account.

But the reality is, for a multitude of reasons—from our creation as sexual beings to the result of the fall and sin—men today like to look at naked women via pornography. We know why they do it, and we know that they do it. The question is why shouldn’t they do it?

The research shows that there is little reason for men not to indulge:

“Not one subject had a pathological sexuality,” he said. “In fact, all of their sexual practices were quite conventional.
“Pornography hasn’t changed their perception of women or their relationship, which they all want to be as harmonious and fulfilling as possible,” he added.

Before I can take this statement at face value, I have to wonder what “pathological sexuality” means. I wonder how they know that watching pornography hasn’t changed men’s perceptions of women or their relationships. Really? Their perceptions haven’t changed at all by watching pornography? Their expectations for sex haven’t changed? I find that difficult to believe.

Gary Wilson gave a great talk at TEDs titled “The Great Porn Experiment” on this very subject. (I highly recommend this talk to you. Highly, highly recommend it.) He used the information gleaned from this study, but he came up with a different answer: Porn does affect a man’s relationships, and it affects his ability to even have sex at all. But asking the man about it isn’t helpful. Why? Because asking a man who looks at porn about the negative influence it may be having is like asking a fish about water. It’s all he knows. Wilson goes on to say that “of all activities on the internet, porn has the most potential to become addictive.” And Gary Wilson is simply looking at this from the science side of things, not from a Christian perspective. (He may be a Christian, I have no idea. But that is not the nature of his talk here.)

The Bible, it turns out, is not trying to put a damper on our sexual enjoyment. Pornography inhibits in real life relationships. It causes people to suffer emotionally and physically. Sex was designed by God to be intimate, not anonymous. It was designed to cause us to value our lover, our spouse, as one with whom our pleasures are fulfilled. God knows that real skin, real kisses, real sex with our covenant partner is so much sexier than digital images that can never embrace us.

This post was written by Pastor Brad Williams and can be found at www.patheos.com.

Jan 10
Love0

Husbands: A Tip that Could Save Your Marriage

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With a title like this there is little room for dilly-dallying along the way to the answer. So without much introduction, here is the tip that could save your marriage: Get a part-time job.

There. That’s it. Husbands, if you want to save or strengthen your marriage, get a part-time job.

I should say right off the bat that I am not talking about a literal job that will pull you away from the home for more hours. Instead I’m arguing for the husband to approach his time at home with his family with the same thoughtful intentionality and engagement that he would if he were to go to work.

Far too many marriages are suffering because the husband comes home mentally, physically and emotionally zapped from his work day. He has done well as the provider for the home and now he is going to come home and collapse into a lazy-boy (aptly named) or in front of a computer or some other process of decompression and relaxation from a tough day at work. This type of thing may be ok occasionally but if practiced regularly it will lead to major problems.

Years ago after starting a new job I came home mentally and emotionally drained several days in a row. Laying on the floor “resting” became my default posture. One day my wife walked over and said, “Hey, we don’t want your left-overs. Don’t give everyone else your best only to serve us left-overs.”

This hit me like a ton of bricks. My wife and family were grateful that I was providing, but they were not content with a mere provider. They wanted a dad and a husband. In other words, there is more to the job of being a husband than just making money. He needs to be thoughtfully, intentionally, and continually engaged in the home.

This is why the illustration of having a second job in the evenings works so well. As husbands we must come home with at least, if not more engagement than we would have at work. Husbands come home to lovingly lead their families. They need to be serving their wives by listening, learning, nourishing, and shepherding them. We can’t do that when we are “recovering” from work or checking out for some much needed “me” time. The job description for a husband entails thoughtful intentionality. We have got to be in the game and doing our job.

It would not be a stretch to say that over 90% of the marital counseling I have done as a pastor involves the husband sleeping at his post in one way or another. He hangs his hat on being the provider while neglecting his role as shepherd-leader of the home. Fixing this will not solve everything but it will drastically improve a lot of things.

So husbands, let me challenge you to come home from work like you are going to work at a job you love in a place you love. Come alongside your wife to talk, listen, and learn her. Play with the kids. Do some chores. Make some jokes. Read the Bible. Pray together. Play a game. Make some dessert. Fix something that broke. Flirt with your wife. Sit and talk. Whatever you do, do it heartily and intentionally like a guy who is there, engaged with his family not escaping from his family.

This post wwas written by Erik Raymond at www.ordinarypastor.com.
Jan 03
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Lord’s Prayer (pt.10)

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The following is the tenth 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 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

 

“Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”  Matthew 6:9-13

We’ve meditated our way through the Model Prayer and arrived now at the final phrase.  Today we meditate on “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.  Amen.”  Not every ancient manuscript of the Gospel of Matthew contains this phrase.  For that reason, not every modern translation will contain it.  Your Bible may not.  It is, however, found in the King James Version, and as such is part of what almost all of us accept as the full text of Jesus’ prayer.  And there’s certainly nothing unscriptural or unbiblical about it, so I accept it as part of the text of the prayer, and therefore fitting for our meditations.

At first glance this sentence seems to be almost banal.  I think that may be because if we’ve been in church much, we’ve probably heard it several times, which means it’s probably starting to seem routine.  I’m becoming more and more convinced that one of Satan’s favorite ploys to disarm Christians is to make vital and important teachings seem routine, because once something slides into the “Routine” column in our lives and our busy schedules, the less likely we are to really think about it and the more likely we are to simply go through the motions.

Back to the topic at hand.  No, this sentence is not at all banal, or superficial, or routine, or anything like that.  I can’t say that it is the most important sentence in the prayer, because each sentence and phrase as crafted and pronounced by Jesus is incredibly important in guiding us.  I will say that it provides a fitting climax and ending to the prayer.

Why?

Well, first of all, it is fitting because it is a doxology—a statement of worship and praise—for God is always worthy of worship.  Worship should be a part of our prayer life.  In the modern church, all too often we seem to think that worship is always some kind of music.  In fact, one of the recent trends is to segregate church-related music into categories, one of which is called “Praise Music”.  That’s a trap.

Why?

It’s a trap because it emphasizes praise at the expense of worship.  It gives the impression that in order to worship you must first praise.  And I wonder sometimes if the traditional order of service in most churches, where we sing our hymns and psalms and spiritual songs/praise choruses before the sermon doesn’t reinforce that impression.  What would happen in church if we had the sermon first, and only sang praises after God’s word and will had been proclaimed; if we only sang praises after we had been reminded of just what God has done for all of us?  Just a thought.

But I digress.  We were talking about the observation that modern thinking seems to be leaning toward the idea that worship grows out of praise.  But that’s not how it works, according to scripture.  Let’s look at an event in the future to understand this.

…the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created.”  Revelation 4:10-11

Worship comes first in this scene; then comes the praise.  The principle is true today:  true praise grows out of true worship, not the other way around.  And that is how it should be, because if we do not have worship in our hearts, then any praise we speak or sing is just noise.

And the topic of worship leads us to the second reason why this sentence is a fitting conclusion for the prayer.  The Greek word translated as “worship” is a form of the word proskuneo, which literally means to fall on your face before someone or something.  For example, look at the following passage:

Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things will I give You, if You fall down and worship me.”  Then Jesus said to him, “Begone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.'” Matthew 4:8-10

This is, of course, the third of the three great temptations Jesus suffered between His baptism and the beginning of His active ministry.  Here we see Satan at his subtlest.  He’s trying to distract Jesus from His purpose.  He’s trying to derail Jesus before He even gets started.  I believe it is significant that Satan saves his last and greatest effort to convince Jesus to worship him.  You see, although Satan is the Father of Lies, he knew a great truth:  that which is worshipped will ultimately be what is served.  Jesus underlines that truth in His response.

How does that apply to what we are meditating on?  Well, look again at what Satan tempts Jesus to do:  to fall down and proskuneo.  Now, think about the physical position of the proskuneo, on your face on the ground.  This is a position that a subject assumed before his lord, before his king.  This is a position like Joseph assumed before Potiphar, and later before Pharaoh.  It’s a position of helplessness, because there is no way you can strike at someone when you’re on your face in the dirt.  It’s a position of utter and abject submission.  And that is really what Satan was trying to get Jesus to do; submit to his authority, rather than God’s.

Now, let’s look back at the prayer.  Remember, in the last meditation we had arrived at the conclusion that “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” was an admission of helplessness and a plea for God to protect and sustain us.  It is not accidental that that phrase was the lead-in to the “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever”.

Why?

Well, let’s break this final sentence down a little bit.  What is it saying?

  • For Thine is the kingdom
  • For Thine is the power
  • For Thine is the glory

That’s okay as far as it goes, but it’s still not as explicit as it could be.  Try this:

  • For Thine—not mine—is the kingdom
  • For Thine—not mine—is the power
  • For Thine—not mine—is the glory

Does that make it clearer?

You see, in every human life since Adam and Eve (with the exception of Jesus) sin has occurred and will continue to occur until God ends Time.  All sin breaks down into one of three categories:  lust of the flesh (gluttony), lust of the eyes (greed), and the pride of life (arrogance).  Those are the three temptations to which Eve and Adam succumbed, those are the three temptations which Jesus successfully repulsed, and those are the three temptations to which you and I are subject on a daily basis.  But when viewed from another direction, each of those three temptations is really just one sin:  substituting our own judgment for that of God.  At the root of every sin is the rejection of God’s will.

So this prayer concludes with a three-fold submission of our wills to that of God in an act of worship.  Before and to the very God and King of the universe we set aside our own desires and subordinate them to His will.  We willingly acknowledge His authority.  And we give to Him the glory that is His by right; the glory that was never rightfully ours.  We do this because only when we have truly worshipped can we begin to truly serve Him.

Father, You, not I, are King of the Universe; You, not I, have all authority and power; and to You alone, never me, is all glory and honor due.  May it ever be so.  Amen and amen.

But as with every other aspect of this prayer, this is something that must be done day after day, one day at a time.  Never let this prayer or its principles become rote to you.  This is too serious a matter to let lapse into routine.  Your relationship with God, your relationship with your brothers and sisters in Christ, and your ability to properly serve Jesus are all dependent on what Jesus teaches here.  Take these teachings in to your heart, meditate on them as David instructs in Psalm 119:11, knowing that as you do so you are submitting yourself to God’s word and God’s will.

Grace and peace to you.

David

 

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