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Jan 01
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5 Ways to Pray for Your Pastor in 2013

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Just the other day I received a letter in the mail from a medical doctor whom I have never met before. Having told me how he had benefited from some of my sermons and articles, he went on to tell me, “I pray for you. I will be able to do so on a very regular basis now and trust that you will be helped and strengthened in your ministry and family.” This was an enormous comfort and encouragement to me. Contrary to what some might suppose, ministers of the gospel desperately need the prayers of the saints. One of my seminary professors used to tell the student body, “Pastors have a bull’s eye on their back and footprints up their chest.” This is quite an appropriate description of the hardships that God’s servants are called to endure for the sake of the gospel. The flaming arrows of the evil one are persistently being shot at pastors. In addition, the world is eager to run them over at any opportunity. This is, sadly, also a reality with regard to some in the church.

With so much opposition and difficulty within and without, pastors constantly need the people of God to be praying for them. The shepherd needs the prayers of the sheep as much as they need his prayers. He also is one of Christ’s sheep, and is susceptible to the same weaknesses. While there are many things one could pray for pastors, here are five straightforward Scriptural categories:

1. Pray for their spiritual protection from the world, the flesh and the Devil.

Whether it was Moses’ sinful anger leading to his striking of the rock (Num. 20:7-12), David’s adultery and murder (2 Sam. 11), or Simon Peter’s denial of the Lord (Matt. 26:69-75) and practical denial of justification by faith alone (Gal. 2:11-21), ministers are faced with the reality of the weakness of the flesh, the assaults of the world and the rage of the devil (see this article). There have been a plethora of ministers who have fallen into sinful practices in the history of the church and so brought disgrace to the name of Christ. Since Satan has ministers of the gospel (and their families) locked in his sight—and since God’s honor is at stake in a heightened sense with any public ministry of the word, members of the church should pray that their pastor and their pastor’s family would not fall prey to the world, the flesh, or the Devil.

2. Pray for their deliverance from the physical attacks of the world and the Devil.

While under prison guard in Rome, the apostle Paul encouraged the believers in Philippi to pray for his release when he wrote, “I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:19). (See also 2 Cor. 1:9-11).

When Herod imprisoned Simon Peter we learn that “constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church” (Acts 12:5). After an exodus-like deliverance from prison, Luke tells us that Peter showed up at the home where the disciples were continuing to pray for his deliverance. This is yet another example of the minister being delivered from harm due, in part, to the prayers of the saints.

3. Pray for doors to be opened to them for the spread of the gospel.

In his letter to the Colossians Paul asked the church to be praying “that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains” (Col. 4:3). The success of the spread of the gospel is dependant in part on the prayers of the people of God. In this way, the church shares in the gospel ministry with the pastor. Though he is not the only one in the body who is called to spread the word, he has a unique calling to “do the work of an evangelist.” The saints help him fulfill this work by praying that the Lord would open doors “for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ.”

4. Pray that they might have boldness and power to preach the gospel.

In addition to praying for open doors for the ministry of the word, the people of God should pray that ministers would have Spirit-wrought boldness. When writing to the church in Ephesus, the apostle Paul asked them to pray for him “that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel” (Eph. 6:19). There is a well-known story of several college students going to visit the Metropolitan Tabernacle in order to hear Charles Spurgeon preach. As the story goes, Spurgeon met them at the door and offered to show them around. At one point he asked if they wanted to see the church’s heater plant (boiler room). He took them downstairs where they saw hundreds of people praying for God’s blessings on the service and on Spurgeon’s preaching. The gathering of the people of God to pray for the ministry of the word is what he called “the heating plant!” Believers can help ministers by praying that they would be given boldness and power in preaching the gospel.

5. Pray that they might have a spirit of wisdom and understanding.

One of the most pressing needs for a minister of the gospel is that he would be given the necessary wisdom to counsel, to know when to confront, to mediate and to discern the particular pastoral needs of a congregation. This is an all-encompassing and a recurring need. The minister is daily faced with particular challenges for which he desperately needs the wisdom of Christ. It is said of Jesus that “the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge, and of counsel and might” was upon Him (Is. 11:2). The servants of Christ need that same Spirit. Much harm is done to the church as a whole if the minister does not proceed with the wisdom commensurate to the challenges with which he is faced. Those who benefit from this wisdom can help the minister by calling down this divine blessing from heaven upon him.

 

This article was written by Nicholas Batzig and can be found here.

Jan 01
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New Year’s Resolutions

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Well, it’s that season once again. It’s the fodder for blogs, newspaper articles, TV magazine shows and way too many Twitter posts. It’s the time for the annual ritual of dramatic New Year’s resolutions fueled by the hope of immediate and significant personal life change.

But the reality is that few smokers actually quit because of a single moment of resolve, few obese people have become slim and healthy because of one dramatic moment of commitment, few people who were deeply in debt have changed their financial lifestyle because they resolved to do so as the old year gave way to the new, and few marriages have been changed by the means of one dramatic resolution.

Is change important? Yes, it is for all of us in some way. Is commitment essential? Of course! There’s a way in which all of our lives are shaped by the commitments we make. But biblical Christianity – which has the gospel of Jesus Christ at its heart – simply doesn’t rest its hope in big, dramatic moments of change.

Living in the Utterly Mundane

The fact of the matter is that the transforming work of grace is more of a mundane process than it is a series of a few dramatic events. Personal heart and life change is always a process. And where does that process take place? It takes place where you and I live everyday. And where do we live? Well, we all have the same address. Our lives don’t careen from big moment to big moment. No, we all live in the utterly mundane.

Most of us won’t be written up in history books. Most of us only make three or four momentous decisions in our lives, and several decades after we die, the people we leave behind will struggle to remember the events of our lives. You and I live in little moments, and if God doesn’t rule our little moments and doesn’t work to recreate us in the middle of them, then there is no hope for us, because that’s where you and I live.

The little moments of life are profoundly important precisely because they’re the little moments that we live in and that form us. This is where I think “Big Drama Christianity” gets us into trouble. It can cause us to devalue the significance of the little moments of life and the “small-change” grace that meets us there. And because we devalue the little moments where we live, we don’t tend to notice the sin that gets exposed there. We fail to seek the grace that is offered to us.

10,000 Little Moments

You see, the character of a life is not set in two or three dramatic moments, but in 10,000 little moments. The character that was formed in those little moments is what shapes how you respond to the big moments of life.

What leads to significant personal change?

  • • 10,000 moments of personal insight and conviction
  • • 10,000 moments of humble submission
  • • 10,000 moments of foolishness exposed and wisdom gained
  • • 10,000 moments of sin confessed and sin forsaken
  • • 10,000 moments of courageous faith
  • • 10,000 choice points of obedience
  • • 10,000 times of forsaking the kingdom of self and running toward the kingdom of God
  • • 10,000 moments where we abandon worship of the creation and give ourselves to worship of the Creator.

And what makes all of this possible? Relentless, transforming, little-moment grace. You see, Jesus is Emmanuel not just because he came to earth, but because he makes you the place where he dwells. This means he is present and active in all the mundane moments of your daily life.

His Work to Rescue and Transform

And what is he doing? In these small moments he is delivering every redemptive promise he has made to you. In these unremarkable moments, he is working to rescue you from you and transform you into his likeness. By sovereign grace he places you in daily little moments that are designed to take you beyond your character, wisdom and grace so that you will seek the help and hope that can only be found in him. In a lifelong process of change, he is undoing you and rebuilding you again – exactly what each one of us needs!

Yes, you and I need to be committed to change, but not in a way that hopes for a big event of transformation, but in a way that finds joy in and is faithful to a day-by-day, step-by-step process of insight, confession, repentance and faith. And in those little moments we commit ourselves to remember the words of Paul in Romans 8:32

“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us, how will he not also with him freely give us all things.”

So, we wake up each day committed to live in the small moments of our daily lives with open eyes and humbly expectant hearts.

 

This article was written by Paul Tripp and can be found on his blog, here.

Dec 31
Love0

God Doesn’t Love You Because You’re Lovable

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“We must remind ourselves that God loves us, not because we are lovable, but because we are in Christ, and the love which the Father has for him flows over to us because we are in him.” – Jerry Bridges, Who am I?

God doesn’t love us because we are lovable.

In fact, in and of ourselves we are very much unlovable.  But Mark, you ask, aren’t I good enough, smart enough and doggone it don’t people like me? Yes people may like you.  Yes, you may be smart enough.  But you’re not loveable enough to merit God’s blazing holy love that burns up all impurities in its presence.

The Bible gives us pretty rough assessment of our “lovableness”.

…as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
(Romans 3:10-18)

Observe how lovable we are: we’re unrighteous, have no interest in or understanding of God.  We’re worthless. Our throats are open graves – what a lovely stench! And the the venom of asps under our lips makes us doubly attractive to God, as well as our mouths full of curses and bitterness.

Can you imagine a husband saying to his wife, “I love you honey.  Your mouth reminds me of an open grave. And your lips  are like the venom dripping from a Gaboon Viper.”  Somehow I don’t think that wife would feel particularly lovable.

Though our sin renders us repellent to God, when he saves us he not only washes our sins away, but he plunges us into Christ. We become so organically and intimately one with Christ that when God looks on Jesus he sees us, and when he looks on us he sees Jesus. When God loves Jesus, he loves us in him and when God loves us he loves his Son in us.

The Father doesn’t love believers because we are lovable, but because Jesus is infinitely lovable and God has made us one with Jesus. And because we are one with him, when the Father pours out his love on  his Son, that love washes over us as well.

Let this truth fill you with joy today.  No matter what kinds of trials you’re facing, remember the Father loves you with the love he has for his own Son.  And nothing can separate you from that love.  Ever.

 

This was written by MARK ALTROGGE at www.theblazingcenter.com.

Dec 31
Love0

Wild, Free, and Wonderful: The Call of Christ in the Life of Mack Stiles

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Most of us would have been scared away from the Middle East by the events of September 11, 2001. But not Mack Stiles.

Not that he didn’t waver just a bit. Here’s the story.

Loosening the Roots

For years Mack had labored stateside with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in an administrative job that, you might say, didn’t fit him like a glove. If you’ve met Mack, you likely noticed right from the start how outgoing and people-oriented and relationally energetic he is. Not that administrators can’t be people-people. It’s just this particular slot wasn’t optimal for this particular Mack.

After much wrestling, Mack sensed that God was loosening his American roots and preparing him and his family for a fresh work and new season of life — drastically new, in fact. Providence presented him with an opportunity in the Middle Eastern city of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Mack and his wife Leeann and their three sons (Tristan, David, and Isaac) spent a year in transition and preparation for this new venture.

Then, just as they were readying themselves for the decisive actions — like selling their home in the States — 9/11 happened.

Driving a Stake in the Ground

When the planes hit the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, and the towers soon fell — while most of us felt like we were waiting for the debris of Western Civilization to settle — Mack felt a profound confirmation of God’s call for his family. Perhaps most of us would have felt the need to stay put for a while, or desired to cleanly place things on hold, or even sensed the Jonah instinct to head in the opposite direction of Nineveh.

But 9/11 had a strange way of ratifying God’s summons for Mack and his family to transport their lives to the Middle East, of all places. So the very next day Mack drove a stake in the ground — figuratively in his sense of calling, and literally in his front yard.

“I banged the ‘For Sale’ sign in the front yard of my house the next day, so convinced was I that this was the very opportunity for me to be who I was meant to be. To join the call of Christ that was wild and free and wonderful. To live the gospel with love and boldness. To show the world that the church’s response to the horrific events of 9/11 were not military, but missionary.”

The Gut Check

Such was Mack’s admirable resolve on 9/12. But as you know, the Christian life is typically a lot earthier than that.

“The gut check happened when the house sold on 9/13,” Mack admits. “Second thoughts swirled through my mind. Were we really moving to the place those suicide bombers lived?”

But it is not good for man to be alone. God gave him Leeann to help re-confirm the newly confirmed call on their lives.

“Thankfully my wife, more unwavering than her husband, kept us focused and on track so that we, with our three sons, moved to Dubai a few short months later.”

Flourishing in the Middle East

Today, over a decade later, Mack is still in Dubai and thriving. Again and again God has confirmed that such a cross-cultural risk was right for the Stiles, even as just about everything American in them would have begged to differ. It didn’t help them at the time of decision, but it turns out that with the eyes of faith, rather than fear, Dubai has been a much more welcoming place than they would have thought.

“We discovered, once we got here, that the Middle East is made of hospitable and wonderful people, the vast majority of whom are as far away from suicide bombers as most people in America are from chainsaw murderers. It turns out, living the Christian life in the Muslim world is in some ways easier than living out faith in a secular society.”

“I have far more opportunities to share the gospel than I did in the United States.”

Speaking, Writing, Leading

Mack travels extensively encouraging the church worldwide, even as he continues as CEO of Gulf Digital Solutions in Dubai and serves as general secretary for the Fellowship of Christian UAE Students (FOCUS).

Mack also writes. Since moving to Dubai, he authored Marks of the Messenger: Knowing, Loving, and Speaking the Gospel, of which D. A. Carson says, “I do not think I have ever read a book on evangelism that makes me more eager to pass it on than this one — better, that makes me more eager to evangelize than this one.”

Mack serves as an elder of the recently planted Redeemer Church of Dubai. Pastor Dave Furman says, “It would be an understatement for me, a young church planter, to say that having an experienced leader like Mack help plant a church was beneficial.” Church planters take note. Might it be worth praying God would do the same for your team?

“Mack has brought wise counsel and a commitment that has sustained us through difficult times,” says Furman. “When we set out to plant, Mack and his wife Leeann were the first people to walk up to me and ask if they could help us with the plant. I look back at that day as a key day in the history of Redeemer Church of Dubai.

“Mack is one of the most incredible leaders that I know. He is a great visionary and is one of the greatest catalyzers I’ve been around.”

Mack Stiles took a great, God-dependent risk, made a tough decision to go to a hard place, and today is thriving as he likely never would have in his former vocation and setting. Mack is deeply grateful he answered Christ’s wild, free, and wonderful call to the nations.

How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” –Romans 10:14–15

 

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

Dec 31
Love0

Lord’s Prayer (pt.9)

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The following is the ninth 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

 

“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.”  Matthew 6:9-13a

We’re almost done with our meditations on the Model Prayer.  Today we meditate on the last of the petitions, and the meditation is the longest one we’ve done.  Let’s consider “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

This portion of verse tends to confuse new Christians—and probably some older ones as well—for it certainly seems to imply that God is actively involved in some way in tempting us to sin.  Literally nothing is farther from the truth than that thought.  James deals with that in his short epistle.

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.  James 1:13

God does not tempt anyone to do evil.  No one.  None.  Has never happened.  Will never happen.  That is a fact that is just as solid as the fact of Christ’s resurrection upon which our very salvation rests.  Believe it.  It is totally contrary to His holy nature, and it will never occur.  So we can dismiss that from our thoughts about this verse.

Part of the problem in reading this portion of verse is that “temptation” in English carries with it a strong connotation of sin and evil, but it is not the most accurate translation of the Greek word involved.  The Greek word is a form of the word peirazó, which is really a morally neutral word.  Whether it should be translated with a good connotation or an evil one depends on the context of the passage it’s used in.  What peirazó literally means is to put to the test, to prove, to assay (like a mineral ore).

So the verse should more accurately read something like “And do not put us to the test, but deliver us from evil.”  It’s not as elegant a translation as the traditional one seen in the NAS and most other English translations, but I think it does a better job of communicating the true meaning of the passage.

Being tested . . .  None of us like to be tested.  None of us like to be put under pressure, squeezed like a toothpaste tube.  None of us like the stress, or the headaches, or the bad feelings of things going wrong.  Yet we should not be surprised when those things come on us, for didn’t Jesus say:

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.  He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.  And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”  Matthew 10:34-38

Jesus was pretty direct with the first disciples that following Him would not be an easy time; that even in their own families, which ought to be their greatest support, there would be division, dissension, and turmoil.

Yes, none of us like to be put to the test.  Why?  Well, among other things is the fact that it is when we are squeezed that we demonstrate what we really are.  It is when the world is trying to hammer us, it is when our bodies agonize and deteriorate, it is when our friends abandon us that we show whether or not we really are disciples of Jesus Christ.

It’s a bit of an icky analogy, perhaps, but I really like the picture of the toothpaste tube.  When you squeeze a toothpaste tube, when you put pressure on it, what comes out?  Toothpaste.  That’s because a toothpaste tube is created to hold toothpaste, and to give that toothpaste to everyone around it when it is squeezed.

Consider whether we should be like that toothpaste tube.

Are we created?

Twice so

Physically (Psalm 139:13)

Spiritually (Ephesians 2:8-10a)

Should we be filled with something?

With the Spirit of God (Ephesians 5:18)

Do we have a purpose?

A double purpose:

To spread the gospel of Christ (Matthew 28:19-20)

To show the agape of God to the world (Matthew 22:35-40)

So when we are put to the test, what should come oozing out of us is the agape of God constantly replenished by the presence of the Spirit of God.  Is that what happens?

All too often, no.

Why?

Because we haven’t been tested enough.

And now you’re going “Huh?  What does being put to the test have to do with what we show when we’re tested?”

Yes, I know it sounds nuts, but listen to James again:

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.   James 1:2-4

It sounds like James is saying that our trials and tests have a purpose, doesn’t it?  Well, since we’ve already established that God is sovereign, and that He does in fact have a will and a plan at work in His creation, it’s pretty safe to assume that what James is saying is the case.  There is indeed a divine purpose behind our tests:  to build our endurance in our faith.  To make our faith stronger.  Which in turn is part of what is needed to sanctify us, to make us more like Christ.

I’m going to use another physical world analogy here.  Take the case of a body-builder, a guy who wants to win the Mr. Universe competition.  At the beginning of his career, does he walk into the gym, pick up a set of barbells, pump them up and down a couple of times, then pronounce, “That’s it, I’m good to go . . .”?  Of course not.  He goes to the gym regularly, and he works hard at the weights, following a disciplined approach that tears down existing muscle mass to replace it with larger, stronger, greater muscle mass, until he arrives at (what he believes is) the ideal physique.  It is a long, grueling, and often painful process.

In much the same manner, it is the trials and tests of our lives—health, marriages, children, jobs, etc.—that allow us to build and develop our faith into something that is muscular, that is strong.  It is the learning to walk with God through the valley of the shadow of death that strengthens us.  It is the facing of cancer or other dread diseases in our bodies, or even worse, in the bodies of our loved ones, that builds in us that 2 a.m. in the morning faith that allows us to trust God even in the darkest hours.

So yes, we should consider it a joy to know that God finds us worthy of growing more like Christ.

We’ve been focusing on the testing part of the phrase; now let’s consider the rest of the phrase:  but deliver us from evil.

This reference to evil is probably why most translators use the word temptation in translating the first part of the phrase.  But the Greek actually reads literally like “rescue us from the evil.”  Because of this, some translations read something like “deliver us from the evil one.”  So one way it looks like the prayer is referring to a generic evil or sin; the other way it looks like the prayer is referring to Satan.  I lean to the second, myself.  The malice and evil of Satan are focused on each of us in a very personal way, and I have no trouble at all in seeing him involved in this.

You see, every trial, every test, every assaying has two sides to it.  It’s a pass/fail situation.  You’re either going to choose to perform what God’s prescriptive will directs (responsibility of man, remember?), or you’re not.  So while God considers it a test, Satan considers it an opportunity to tempt you.  And he is very subtle, and very wily, and very very very well aware of our weaknesses.  Here’s James again:

But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.  Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.  Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. James 1:14-16

Because of our human nature, despite our relationship with Jesus, Satan can find all the tools he needs to tempt us to do something other that what God prescribes.

So you see, what we see in this phrase of the prayer is an acknowledgement of our weakness.  Left to our own devices, we will succumb to the evil one every time.

But we have a promise to cling to in our tests.

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.  No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.  1 Corinthians 10:12-13

First:  Paul warns us against thinking that we can stand on our own two feet; that we will fall if we do so.  Second, note that we are not unique:  every test and trial we face has been faced by other believers during the ages, and will be faced by more believers in the times to come.  But third, see the promise:  God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to bear.

And finally, we have the example of Jesus himself:

And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”  Matthew 26:39

Even Jesus, at the moment of His greatest test, asked God if He really had to go through with God’s plan.  To me, that is the greatest proof in Scripture that He was fully human, because that is what every human asks in times of test:  variations of “Why me?” or “Why do I have to go through this?”.

But His final response is also to me the greatest proof in Scripture that He was fully divine:  “Let Your will be done.”  That moment of supreme obedience could only be performed by the sinless Christ.  Not one of us could have done it if we had been in His place.

So today, following the model of Jesus, when we are faced with tests, what should our response be?  Obedience.  Pure and simple obedience to the prescriptive will of God.  And so this prayer is a prayer that God will work in us every day in such a way that we are not so overwhelmed with the pressure squeezing us that we lose sight of the need for our obedience, that we will be submissive to His will, and that we will be dependent on Him.

In a very real way, this little phrase is the tip of the spear.  Everything else in this prayer leads to this part of the prayer.  All of the praise, the honor, the confession, the forgiveness, the petitions, they all serve to bring us to this point where we tell God in our weakness that we cannot act as He would have us act without His hand of strength, protection, and provision on our lives.  We cannot show agape to the world when we’re being squeezed without God.  We cannot even be obedient to God without His help.

God, in Your will, do not let us be tested beyond our ability to cling to You in obedience.  Amen.

It is at once perhaps the most honest and yet most liberating prayer we can pray.

Grace and peace to you.

David

Dec 31
Love0

Imperishable Beauty

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Some time ago a reader of this site asked if I could address a concern in his life. He had been pursuing a young lady and beginning to think about marriage, but rather suddenly found that he was no longer attracted to her. She was a godly person and just the kind of woman he could see himself settling down with. But then he looked at her and saw that the physical attracted had just plain disappeared. What could he do? What had gone wrong? Michael McKinley recently addressed a question much like this over at the 9Marks blog, so I will begin with his thoughts and add my own.

I want to encourage this young man to do three things:

Look in the Mirror. Start by taking a look in the mirror. “It’s unlikely that the paunch hanging over the waistband of your cargo shorts represents her idea of masculine perfection. And even if women are less hung up on physical appearances, you’re probably not the romantic and emotional connection she’s been dreaming of her whole life either.” Exactly so. It smacks of pride to look at this woman, created by God in his image, and to determine that she is not up to your standards. Men are often looking for an ideal of physical perfection even though they are far from the male equivalent. Why begin with a mirror? Because, as Michael points out, we’re all making compromises. That complete package who is perfect in every way—from the physical to the spiritual to the realm of character—that person doesn’t exist; and if she did, you’d drag her down in no time.

Look at Your Character. I have written regularly and as forthrightly as I know about young men and their dedication to pornography. Porn is giving young men a completely unrealistic view of women, elevating the physical and completely ignoring all matters of character. Have you ever watched a pornographic video that emphasized beautiful character? Exactly. It’s ridiculous to even imagine it. Five or ten or twenty years of dedication to pornography will go a long way to convincing you that only beauty and sexiness will maintain your interest in the long run. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. Need proof? Just look to Hollywood and these ugly old men who marry the beautiful starlets, only to grow tired of them a few months later. No amount of beauty can overcome sour character.

Look at the Bible. Best of all, look to the Bible. Read the book of Proverbs three or four times. Here is a whole book dedicated to young men, so read it and see what it says about choosing a wife. From beginning to end it will contrast the wise woman with the foolish woman, showing how the ideal wife is marked not by physical perfection but by the unfading beauty of godly character. Eventually you’ll find your way to Proverbs 31:30 and read “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” Our God is a God of beauty and he rates physical attractiveness far, far below what Peter refers to as “the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Peter 3:4). If you choose beauty over character, you are a fool.

The reality is that physical beauty is attractive and wonderful and a reflection of God’s character, but in this world it is also fleeting and fading. You may marry a woman who is physically perfect in every way, be she is only ever one illness or disease or accident away from disfigurement. Then only character will remain—character that may be sweet and joyful, or character that may grow bitter and resentful.

Does physical attractiveness have any function in marriage? Sure it does. It matters. But it matters very, very little in comparison to character. Here’s the rub: If you cannot be attracted to beautiful character, you won’t remain attracted to physical beauty. So should you keep pursuing that godly young woman who just isn’t attractive enough for you? My concern isn’t for you, it’s for her. I wouldn’t advise you to stop pursuing her, but I might advise her to run away from you!

 

The above post is from challies.com and can be found here.

Dec 31
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Iranian Pastor Shares Joy Despite Imprisonment in Letter to Christians

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Are you aware of the Iranians among us? Did you know there is an ABF class specifically for Iranians, led by Iranians? You may not have known these things or ever thought about why you should care about what Believers are going through in this part of the world. For this very reason (and others) we are posting this article. It is worth your time and something that should stir your heart to prayer.

Pastor Behnam Irani smiling in this undated photo.

Jailed Iranian pastor Behnam Irani, who was last month denied hospitalization despite his critical condition, wrote a letter from his prison cell days before Christmas, ministering to Christians in his country and thanking God for letting him share “very little of” Jesus‘ sufferingon the cross.

“Despite the pressure and difficulties in prison, I am pleased to share, what is like a fountain, my Christian joy with you in the new Christmas days to come,” wrote Irani, who is currently serving a six-year sentence, according to the letter translated by Minnesota-based Present Truth Ministries, which has missionaries and pastors working in various Middle Eastern countries.

“My brothers and sisters, I love you all. Christ has given you to me on Calvary. Even if I were sentenced to many years behind bars for the salvation of one of you, there would never be any complaint,” said the pastor in his 40s in the letter, seemingly written to the people he has ministered to and Christian workers in Iran.

Before his arrest in 2011 for “acting against the interests of national security. Irani was leading the Church of Iran in the city of Karaj in Alborz Province. He has been tortured in prison and was denied hospitalization for a bleeding ulcer. He had been found several times unconscious in his prison cell when visited, raising fears for his well-being.

But Irani is still thinking of the well-being of his people. “You are so precious that God himself braved the death on the cross. Do I or other servants not have to bear imprisonment for you?” Irani added. “I wish you can love each other as much as I love you, at least. Sooner or later our earthly settlement will end, and we will leave the world with all its attractions. Please do not let any earthly attraction prevent you from sweet Christian relations.”

Irani also sought to warn and encourage Christian workers, asking them to fix their eyes on spiritual things and not on worldly problems and temptations. “There were times when I was being tempted and paying more attention to my future during my ministry as a servant of Christ,” he wrote, adding that verses from the Bible serving as “a red light stopped me, even though I was sometimes fined for passing this red light.”

Many a times, he added, Christians, especially servants, act like the Samaritan woman (John 4). The water jar she was carrying represented her worldly needs and desires, but she left it after she realized who Jesus is and what He can offer. Irani said Christian workers should not be concerned too much about financial support and other difficulties.

“In these days which are truly evil, I encourage you to be alert. Do not fear for the recent economic crisis covering the larger part of the world and especially Iran,” he wrote in the wake of reports that many Christians from Iran are fleeing persecution and famine. “You servants will find new excuses for reducing the quality and hours of your ministry; and drowning more deeply in worldly affairs you will come to a point when it is too late.”

To his “brothers and sisters, and servants who are scattered all over the church of Iran,” he stated, “Tears are shed for you. I wipe them not to be noticed. They originate from the pain of my love to you. How well I now understand when Paul the Apostle said to the church, ‘I raised you with tears.'”

The issue of some fleeing or migrating to other countries must not cause division in the church, Irani warned. “Perhaps one day we who are currently residing in Iran will immigrate away and they [those who have fled or migrated] return to Iran instead. What is expected is that we don’t forsake God’s kingdom wherever we are in this planet. Believers ought to cooperate fully with servants and aid them in pressure and difficulties. Bear their possible mistakes with the Christian love and don’t express them verbally. Respect the anointing God has given them, and know that any disrespect to their ministry and anointing is regarded as disrespect to the Holy Spirit.”

Irani became a Christian in 1992, and became a pastor 10 years later. His wife and two children have said they are afraid that unless the beatings stop and he is offered proper medical care, he might die in the prison soon.

But suffering has not robbed Irani of the joy Jesus gives. “Once again, I congratulate all the saints at Christmas and the coming new year,” he said, concluding the letter.

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/iranian-pastor-shares-joy-despite-imprisonment-in-letter-to-christians-87150/#os84yhBH9M3o78Fz.99

Dec 29
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Explanations/Disclaimer/Permissions

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Thoughts from the Heritage Staff

Why are we encouraging people to use this?

It is our conviction that the Word of God is the perfect tool for our lives and walks with Christ. We work hard to make it central in every aspect of everything we do in and around Heritage. And while a catechism is not directly Scripture, it is a useful tool for learning and retention.

As the goldfish swimming in the bowl is unaware of the temperature and taste of the water in which he swims, so often the most powerfully formative forces of our societies and cultures are those with which we are so familiar as to be functionally unaware of how they shape our thinking, even our thinking about what exactly it means to say that Scripture has supreme and unique authority. It would be a tragic irony if the rejection of creeds and confessions by so many of those who sincerely wish to be biblically faithful turned out to be not an act of faithfulness but rather an unwitting capitulation to the spirit of the age.

Trueman, Carl R. (2012-09-20). The Creedal Imperative (Kindle Locations 256-260). Good News Publishers.

If you are interested in learning more about the purpose, benefits, and even a bit of history of the creeds we would recommend reading:

Grounded in the Gospel, Parret, Gary 

Historically, the church’s ministry of grounding new believers in the essentials of the faith has been known as catechesis–systematic instruction in faith foundations, including what we believe, how we pray and worship, and how we conduct our lives. For most evangelicals today, however, this very idea is an alien concept. Packer and Parrett, concerned for the state of the church, seek to inspire a much needed evangelical course correction. This new book makes the case for a recovery of significant catechesis as a nonnegotiable practice of churches, showing the practice to be complementary to, and of no less value than, Bible study, expository preaching, and other formational ministries, and urging evangelical churches to find room for this biblical ministry for the sake of their spiritual health and vitality.

The Creedal Imperative, Trueman, Carl R. 

What if “No creed but the Bible” is unbiblical?

The role of confessions and creeds is the subject of debate within evangelicalism today as many resonate with the call to return to Christianity’s ancient roots. Advocating for a balanced perspective, Carl Trueman offers an analysis of why creeds and confessions are necessary, how they have developed over time, and how they can function in the church of today and tomorrow.

 

We are NOT endorsing every thought expressed...

Just because we are recommending this does not mean we are in total agreement with everything written by it’s authors. This is not new and should not come as a surprise. We are a fellowship with a wide range of thoughts on issues. Though we believe it to be good, don’t go to far in thinking each and everyone of us is in full agreement with every view presented.

 

The New City Catechism is it’s own App. 

We are encouraging you to download it to support them. The reasons we have included it in our app are as follows: 1) Their App only works on the iPad. 2) By porting it into our App we can give access to people on a number of different platforms. If this last sentence did not make sense to you, just know it should work for you. 3) It is simpler to get it into everyone’s hands by just putting it there and not telling everyone where to go.

And YES, we checked, and the New City people have given us permission to do this.

The following is the specific legalese they asked us to include.

New City Catechism Copyright Information:

New City Catechism was adapted by Timothy Keller and Sam Shammas from the Reformation catechisms.

Copyright © 2012 by Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

NIV Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ESV Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

New City Catechism was devised by Timothy Keller and Sam Shammas. Produced by Ben Peays.

Videos produced by The Gospel Coalition and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Directed by Sam Shammas. Filmed by Scott Smith. Edited by Peter Ostebo.

App by Brushfire

The Gospel Coalition and Redeemer Presbyterian Church would like to thank all those who trialled, reviewed, and participated in the filming of New City Catechism.

Dec 29
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F.A.Q.

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MOST OF YOUR QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED BY THEINTRODUCTION TO NEW CITY CATECHISM. PLEASE READ THAT FIRST.

WHAT AGE IS THE CHILDREN’S CATECHISM AIMED AT?

This very much depends on your children and your way of using the catechism. Memorization can begin at an early age but if you want to use the Bible verses and prayers then 4th to 5th graders will get the most out of it. On the other hand, if your children are able to memorize and recite the Apostles’ Creed (the longest catechism answer) then they should be able memorize the entire New City Catechism with ease.

WHY IS SOME OF THE TEXT IN COLOR IN THE ANSWERS?

In the adult version the children’s answer appears in color to differentiate it from the longer adult answer. New City Catechism is a joint adult and children’s catechism. In other words, the same questions are asked of both children and adults, and the children’s answer is always part of the adult answer. This means that as parents are teaching it to their children they are learning their answer to the question at the same time, albeit an abridged version. The adult answer is always an expanded version of the children’s answer and so the colored text shows the children’s answer within the adult one.

IN WHAT ORDER SHOULD I GO THROUGH THE VERSES, COMMENTARIES, AND SO ON?

Start by reading the Bible verse that accompanies each question and answer, and seeing how it applies and how the question and answer derive from it. Then read the text commentary, and then watch the video commentary. If you have access to either of the further reading books, read the recommended chapter(s). End your time in prayer, using the attached prayer as a starting point and for inspiration.

HOW DO I USE NEW CITY CATECHISM?

New City Catechism consists of 52 questions and answers so the easiest way to use it is to memorize one question and answer each week of the year. Because it is intended to be dialogical it is best to learn it with others, enabling you to drill one another on the answers not only one at a time but once you have learned 10 of them, then 20 of them, and so on. The Bible verse, written and filmed commentary, and prayer that are attached to each question and answer can be used as your devotion on a chosen day of the week to help you think through and meditate on the issues and applications that arise from the question and answer.

HOW DO I USE NEW CITY CATECHISM WITH MY FAMILY?

New City Catechism consists of 52 questions and answers so the easiest way to use it is to memorize one question and answer together as a family each week of the year. It is intended for parents to help their children memorize the children’s answer and then for parents to learn the longer, extended adult answer themselves. Parents will have different ways of approaching the memorization process depending on their children and their particular circumstances—so there are no prescribed times of day or particular devotional practices attached. When and how parents use the catechism can be as diverse as during family devotions, at the breakfast table, as part of a longer study including comprehension questions and praying, or as a fun memorization time with flashcards and drills. Parents may decide to read aloud the Bible verse and pray aloud the children’s prayer attached to each question and answer, or it may be appropriate for your child to read and pray aloud themselves.

HOW DO I USE NEW CITY CATECHISM WITH MY STUDY GROUP?

Groups may decide to spend the first 5–10 minutes of their study time looking together at only one question and answer thus completing the catechism in a year, or they may prefer to study and learn the questions and answers over a contracted length of time, for example by memorizing 5 or 6 questions a week and meeting together to quiz one another, discuss them, as well as read and watch the accompanying commentaries.

WHY ARE SOME OF THE PRAYERS LONGER THAN OTHERS?

The prayers are intended to help and inspire you in prayer by showing you some of the ways historic preachers and authors prayed to and praised God. Please feel free to lengthen or shorten the prayers as is most helpful to you.

WHICH CATECHISM SHOULD I LEARN AFTER THIS ONE?

New City Catechism is based on and adapted from Calvin’s Geneva Catechism, the Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechisms, and especially the Heidelberg Catechism. A good next step would be to learn either Westminster Shorter or Heidelberg.

ANY ADDITIONAL RESOURCES YOU WOULD RECOMMEND?

Kevin DeYoung has written an excellent exploration of the Heidelberg Catechism in The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism (published by Moody).

Thomas Watson’s A Body of Divinity (published by Banner of Truth or Kessinger) is a great exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

Thomas F. Torrance’s The School of Faith, Catechisms of the Reformed Church (published by Wipf & Stock) has a fascinating introduction to catechesis as well as being a great collection of the historical catechisms.

Grounded in the Gospel by Gary Parrett and J. I. Packer (published by Baker) provides a case for why catechetical instruction is still important for churches and discipleship today.

Dec 23
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Why Doesn’t God Do More to Restrain Evil and Suffering?

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In thinking about the subject matter on Wednesday nights, it makes me want to dive in deeper to how great God is. There are no shortage of questions and people willing to question God, but few take the time to seek answers. Here Randy Alcorn begins to unpack some of the questions. I will be breaking it into parts because it is quite lengthy. If you are eager you can find the whole thing here.

 

Why Doesn’t God Do More to Restrain Evil and Suffering? Part 1

Survivors of 9/11

God may already be restraining 99.99 percent of evil and suffering.

Why does the chaos that breaks out in some corner of the world always prove the exception rather than the rule? Why haven’t tyrants, with access to powerful weapons, destroyed this planet? What has kept infectious diseases and natural disasters from killing 99 percent of the world’s population rather than less than 1 percent?

In the collapse of New York’s Twin Towers, fifteen thousand people came out alive. While this doesn’t remove the pain felt by families of the nearly three thousand who died, it shows that even on that terrible day, suffering was limited.

CityNanci said to me, “Given what Scripture tells us about the evil of the human heart, you’d think that there would be thousands of Jack the Rippers in every city.” Her statement stopped me in my tracks. Might God be limiting sin all around us, all the time? Second Thessalonians 2:7 declares that God is in fact restraining lawlessness in this world. For this we should thank him daily.

If God permitted people to follow their every evil inclination all the time, life on this planet would screech to a halt. Sometimes God permits evil by giving people over to their sins (see Romans 1:24–32), and this itself leads to the deterioration and ultimate death of an evil culture, which is a mercy to surrounding cultures. The most morally corrupt ancient cultures no longer exist.

“But many children suffer; why doesn’t God protect them?” We don’t know the answer, but we also don’t know how often God does protect children. The concept of guardian angels seems to be suggested by various passages (see, for example,Matthew 18:10).

God gives us a brief, dramatic look into the unseen world in which righteous angels battle evil ones, intervening on behalf of God’s people (see Daniel 10:12–13, 20). How many angels has God sent to preserve the lives of children and shield them from harm?

My earliest memory is of falling into deep water and nearly drowning; someone my family didn’t know rescued me. As a parent and a grandparent I have seen many “close calls” where it appears a child should have died or suffered a terrible injury, but somehow escaped both.

This thought, of course, doesn’t keep a parent’s heart from breaking when her child suffers or dies. Still, though I can’t prove it, I’m convinced God prevents far more evil than he allows.

Dec 23
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Are the Atheists Right about Christmas?

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This Christmas the American Atheists have posted a large billboard in Times Square New York. It has two pictures: one of Santa Claus and the other of Jesus on the cross. The captions under the pictures are “Keep the Merry” and “Dump the Myth”. Apart from having the captions under the wrong pictures, the sentiment is one I agree with.

Christmas is a merry season that is based on truth, not myth. Confusing the truth with myth doesn’t help people understand the event, or experience the merriment. Santa Claus is an ever growing and developing myth. It is possibly based on some fact, lost to any serious historical research. St Nicholas is said to have been born in AD 270, and became a bishop in Myra. He is reputed to have suffered and been imprisoned under the persecution of Diocletian and subsequently attending the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says that this is “most improbable, as he is not in any of the early lists of bishops present at the Council, nor referred to in the writings of Athanasius.” Indeed the Dictionary goes so far as to state that “scarcely anything is historically certain about him”. The earliest reference to him is a church built in his honour in AD 565, and his popularity only rose after his supposed remains were moved to Bari, in Southern Italy in AD 1087. The mythical quality of Santa Claus has increased over the last century through American advertising campaigns. Today, he is one of the most treasured and universal icons of Western civilisation—promising to generously give gifts to good children.

In comparison to this, the historical evidence for the death of Jesus is overwhelming. It is widely referred to during the first century. The very earliest Christian writings build their arguments on the basis of his crucifixion. Some of these were written within 20 years of the event. Non-Christian writings (both Jewish and Roman) also refer to his death by crucifixion.

Even sceptical scholars accept that Jesus was crucified. After all, it is an extraordinary idea to have the Messiah killed. Who would have expected such an outcome? Yet it is in his death, and subsequent resurrection, that the merriment of Christianity is found, as Christians claim to find forgiveness and new life in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

The difference between Jesus and St Nicholas is not only in the historical evidences but also in their meaning. One man comes like a cargo cult, as the smiling face of our malignant materialism; rewarding morality by giving gifts only to good children. The other does not give gifts but himself – and not for the good, but for the bad, for he came to not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. His gift means forgiveness and a fresh start.
The gift of Christ is the joy of Christmas. Christians cannot help but rejoice in the coming of our Saviour and our joy is expressed in song. We sing because of his birth, we sing because of his death, we sing because of his resurrection. We sing because we are His! Few people are as committed to singing as Christians. We are not like the shops playing carols because it is that time of the year again. The gift of rebirth is not like a toy: coming without a battery, broken on Boxing Day and discarded by New Year. The joy that comes from knowing our Lord and sharing in his spiritual family far exceeds the “happy holiday season” of those whose world is limited to materialism (economic or philosophical).

Some cultural Christians—even atheists—like to share in our merriment by singing the carols with us. And of course they are very welcome. However, true joy is found not in the music or the emotions or the nostalgia it produces but in the words and ideas the carols express. Christians are singing of their Lord and Saviour, who loved them and died for them. Their joy, which the congregational singing clothes, is the message of the gospel.

Some other people have an arrogant confidence that somehow the shifting sand of modern scholarship has disproved the Bible. This enables them to make up a new religion and call it “Christianity”. A frequent SMH Christmas columnist wrote: “The Christian God exists within us, and nowhere else. It is a spirit within us to make us whole… If we nurture that spirit and revere its power, we will have found God—not in the wonders of “creation” but in the greater wonders of human kindness and charity. Since there’s no supernatural God…” Such mythologists attack believers for not sufficiently doubting, while apparently never doubting their own confident assertions. They misuse the truism that doubt is an essential part of belief, to gut Christianity of all historical certainty; reducing Christmas to symbolic myths and knowledge to the post-modern faux humility of relativism. The ancient world was well versed in mythology, but every reference to myths in the New Testament is negative (1 Timothy 1:4, 4:7; 2 Timothy 4:4; Titus 1:14 and 2 Peter 1:16).  Indeed one apostle contrasts myths with truth and another goes out of his way to say, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty”(2 Peter 1:16).

This history is certain: the New Testament writers believed they had witnessed the crucifixion and resurrection of the true Messiah. Accepting their witness is not arrogance, but has brought to every generation unbounded joy—”Joy to the world—the Lord has come!” It is possible that they were wrong, and Jesus isn’t the Saviour of the world. However, it is arrogance, not humility, to claim the name “Christian” while rewriting Christian beliefs in terms of mythology or replacing the historical Jesus with the mythical Santa Claus.

The atheists are right—dump the myth and keep the merry.

 

This post is courtesy of Phillip Jensen, Dean of St Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney.

Dec 23
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The Unbaked Biscuit

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I’ve had this thing going lately about biscuits. It is probably due to the colder (delicious) fall air. This is the season of comfort food. But to have comfort food, there needs to be a comfort person. This is not just the season to have a hot dinner hitting the table, it is the season to have a person who loves you putting it there. In my life (prompted by the cute faces that travel about my home at half height) this has somehow become a burning need to perfect biscuits. Of course there are other things too, but biscuits are just so symbolic.

Biscuits make up a small part of the culinary world. They are easy and quick, and have been satisfying children leaving honey trails on the table for generations. But biscuits have to be made. It isn’t enough to think of biscuits, because having thought of them doesn’t make a childhood more full. Having thought of them doesn’t give the dinner table that wonderful allure that having actually made them does. Your thoughts alone will not play into the memories of your children.

A little guilt cycle often happens in the life of a mother. It usually goes something like this, and could take anywhere from two minutes to two years to complete itself:

I thought of biscuits. I would like to be a person who makes biscuits for my hungry children. I do not feel like making biscuits right now. I will make biscuits another time. I will have time when I am not tired and feeling fat. The kids won’t know. I wish I had made biscuits. I could have made biscuits. I’m such a bad mom who doesn’t make biscuits. I am not as good as all the moms who are everywhere in this stupid world making biscuits. People who talk about making biscuits are self-righteous. I hate biscuits. They make me feel guilty. Jesus loves me! Biscuits or not! Jesus doesn’t care that I didn’t make biscuits. Home free! Biscuit-free!

Of course the conclusion here is perfectly accurate. Jesus doesn’t care in the abstract whether or not you are making biscuits. And of course biscuits are only an example of something that you could do for your children, might not want to do, wish you had done, and then feel stricken with guilt over not doing. It could just as easily be decorating your kids’ room, sewing a dress, making the birthday cake they wanted, talking to them in the evening longer than you wanted to, quitting your job to prioritize spending time with them, cleaning the bathroom, or any other thing that could actually be done — anything that could qualify as a work.

The thing is, works-righteousness is a damning theology. Jesus did the work for us by living sinlessly and dying for our sins. We cannot earn anything by doing, so it is dangerous to start talking about anything that Christians should be doing. If you could be the most accomplished mother in the world on your own strength, it wouldn’t matter in the end. There is no freedom from sin that you can find by doing something. Jesus is all. His blood is sufficient, and there is nothing you can do that will change that.

But His blood will change you. When Jesus is all, things happen. When you believe to your core that you are forgiven and loved, one of the first things that happens is you start doing things. Fruit is intimately connected with forgiveness. When we are forgiven, we do not gallop out into a life of ambiguity and indifference. We do not become great negotiators of whether or not it matters that we aren’t doing things. We become filled with gratitude, love, joy, and peace. And then, having a firm foundation of another’s righteousness, we are free to go out and do.

Jesus does not care even the tiniest bit what you do for your salvation, because there is nothing you can do for it. But He cares very much what you do with it. Having been given it, go out and . . . reflect on all the things that you don’t have to do? be embittered by every appearance of work? despise anything that doesn’t come easily to you, that might be difficult? choose to be above the physical world? look down on sisters who are getting more done than you?

What is fruit but the outworking of our salvation? Take what you have been given, and turn a profit on it. The parable of the talents in Matthew 25 is quite relevant here. The master gives gold to his servants before he leaves on a journey. Two of them use the gold to earn more. Their investment pleases the master. He says, “Well done!” But the man who is given one talent and merely keeps it safe does not please him. “Why would you bury what I gave you? Why would you sit on it in fear? What I gave you was to be used. Turn a profit on it.”

Is this us? Are we always guarding the gold we were given, always afraid of losing something? Are we storing up an arsenal of unbaked biscuits with which we will feed no one? And when our Master returns and asks us, “What have you done with what I have given you?” will we point at the other servants and say, “Look at them! They thought the gold you gave us wasn’t sufficient. I knew it was, so I hid it, to keep it safe for Your return”?

Our Master did not give us this gold of forgiveness so that we might hide it. He wants us to use it. He wants us to make things happen with it. He wants us to take our salvation and turn it into biscuits, hot on the table. He wants us to take our salvation and turn it into contagious joy, into sacrifice for others. He wants us to use it.

The love of Christ is not the reason that we don’t have to do things. It is the reason we get to do things freely. If you had no gold, there would have been nothing to invest. If your Master gave you gold, you should not be sitting on it.

In Christian circles there is constant talk about free salvation. It is free, thank God. But it is only free to us. God paid a great price for it. Jesus paid with His blood. It is free to us because someone else paid a great deal. And this is why we do not work out our salvation by never doing anything that might be hard or difficult to us. We imitate Christ, and we make sacrifices for others. We do things that are hard, that cost us much, because we want our gifts to be free to others.

It is so easy for us as mothers to look at the work we do on behalf of our families and resent that it is free to them. Look at those kids, thinking that the clean clothes just appear magically. Look at these people, not valuing the cost of my work. Look at this ungrateful family who just takes the food and eats it. Like it was free! But it is very important that we see the damage that this kind of thinking brings with it.

When we want the cost to be shared by all, we are not imitating Christ. When we imitate Christ, we want to give what costs us much, and we want to give it freely. Of course we have short-term vision, and often we feel like when we freely give, we need to see right away that it is being used responsibly. We worry that our free sacrifice will make our children greedy takers.

We think that we can see how wrong it would be if they thought that our making of biscuits was in any way easy. We want to know, within the next fifteen minutes, that everyone saw what we sacrificed, acknowledged it gratefully, thanked us profusely, reflected on it quietly, and came up with a way to repay us. But God thinks in much, much bigger story lines.

So imitate Christ in your giving. Do it daily, do it in as many little ways as you possibly can. Find a way to imitate Him in the folding of the laundry, in the stocking of the fridge, in the picking up of other people’s socks. And then decide consciously that you are giving this meal, this clean room, this cheerful Christmas — that you are giving it all freely. And much later, maybe thirty years later, you would like to see your children turn a profit on it. You would like to see your kids taking what they were freely given and turning it into still more free giving. This is because God’s story is never little. He works in generations, in lifetimes, and He wants us to do the same.

So if the very suggestion of something you might do makes you bristle, if it makes you feel judged or threatened or angry, you need to look to Christ. Your salvation has been paid for; this isn’t about that. Stop and be grateful. Thank God things to bake have nothing to do with your salvation. Thank Him for loving you. Thank Him that He has given you so much to use.

Then, after you have remembered the strength of your salvation, go out and do something with it. Find ways to use what you have been given to freely bless those around you. Tie on an apron and dust yourself lightly with flour. You are not here in this world to work your salvation in (thank God), you are here to work it out.

There are a million different ways to use this kind of gold. As much as God wants us to be using it, He wants us to be using it in different ways. We don’t all need to be making biscuits, but we should all be doing something. We should be getting our hands into stuff to give. We should be blessing others, thinking of others, giving to others. And we should be doing it so freely that we don’t remember it, because we are willing to wait to see what is done with it. We are willing to see, years down the road, what kind of interest accrued on those biscuits.

This blog post is chapter two from Rachel Jankovic’s new book, Fit to Burst: Abundance, Mayhem, and the Joys of Motherhood (Canon Press, 2012), 19–25. Posted by permission of the publisher. The book is available exclusively from Canon Press as a pre-release special (order by December 7th to have in time for Christmas). The book officially releases in late January.

Dec 23
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Raising Kids the World Will Hate

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When I was a boy, my dad asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” To which I frankly answered (quite adorably no doubt), “A daddy.” When my relentlessly realistic dad informed me that no one would pay me to be a father, I told him that I would gladly pay myself.

In 2011 my dream of being a father came true when my son, Oscar, was born. Since that day my hopes and dreams have shifted to what Oscar will be when he grows up. Of course, I like to imagine him growing up handsome, talented, godly and kind, but there’s no way to really know yet. I can be fairly certain he’ll have an affinity for Texas A&M and the Green Bay Packers. There’s little doubt that he’ll have a disappointing hairline, love to eat and sweat even when it’s cold. For the most part, however, I’ll just have to wait and see who he grows up to be.

I often daydream about what a great guy he might be and how well loved he’ll be by others. I daydream that coaches, teachers and pastors will approve of him and even be impressed by him. I envision his peers holding him in high esteem, wanting him around all the time. I imagine that the generation that follows him will admire him. I hold tightly to the thought that, as he becomes a man, he will grow in favor among any and all he comes into contact with. Some of these desires are healthy, and some are prideful.

I have a strong, and certainly not uncommon, desire for my child to be validated by the love of other people. Most parents want their son or daughter to be a lovable person, and it’s that desire that makes John 15:19so important and so transformative when it comes to the way we prepare our children for the future. Christ tells His disciples, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” It’s not just John 15:19, either. There are many Scriptures that describe the adversarial relationship that God’s followers will have with those who are not believers.

Reading this, I realized that if God answers my prayer for my son to be a follower of Christ, people will hate him. People will absolutely, unquestionably be repulsed by my son.

If God graciously saves my Oscar, people will call him a bigot and a homophobe. Some will ridicule him as a male chauvinist as they scorn his “sexist” beliefs. He’ll be despised as closed-minded for saying that Jesus Christ is not only God but the only God. He will probably meet a girl who insults his manhood or considers him old fashioned for waiting until marriage to have sex. His peers will think him a prude. Bullies will call him a coward. His integrity will draw insults like “goody two shoes” (I don’t even know what that means).

Teachers will think that that my son ignores scientific facts about our origins, prompting his classmates to mark him an idiot. People will tell him he has been led astray by his parents down an ancient path of misguided morality masked as a relationship with God. Financial advisors will think he’s irresponsibly generous. When he takes a stand, there will be those who will not tolerate his intolerance. He will be judged as judgmental. He will have enemies, and I’ll be asking him to love them, and even for that he’ll look foolish.

If you’re like me and hope for your kids to be fully devoted followers of Christ, then we need to be raising up a generation who is ready to be distinctly different from their peers. In a lot of ways, that’s the opposite of my natural inclination in how to raise my son. Raising kids who are ready to be hated means raising kids who unashamedly love God even in the face of loathing and alienation. Regardless if the insults of the world are naive or legitimate, I pray our children will be ready to stand firm in the midst of a world that hates them.

 

This post is from the Village Church blog and can be found here.

Dec 23
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A Wife’s Inner Beauty: Convicting and Compelling

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Years ago, I wrote a newsletter called Every Husband Feels Like a Jerk and Every Wife Agrees. It was meant to explain a common phenomenon that kept emerging in the course of my marriage counseling practice. No matter what else they brought to the table, couples seemed to agree on one thing: No one believed the husbands demonstrated loyal love in their marriages.

In fact, whenever I began to talk about the quality of love in the marital relationship, most husbands began to act ashamed. They were like Isaiah when he saw the Lord sitting on his throne, “high and lifted up” (Isa. 6:1). It seemed like their wives were so good at love.

It’s true. In almost every case, a wife approaches marriage with a deeper understanding of and passion for loyal love. I consider this a God-given gift, one way she reflects the image of God (Gen. 1:27). I began to identify this as an aspect of a wife’s inner beauty.

This inner beauty exposes areas where a husband is lacking. Just as Isaiah encountered the Lord’s beauty, I heard husbands echo his response: “My destruction is sealed, for I am a sinful man and a member of sinful race” (Isa. 6:5).

But unlike Isaiah, who was reduced to humble contrition in the presence of such loveliness, husbands tend to fight back. “My wife wants too much from me,” they declare. The wives counter with a long list of their husbands’ failures. This tension increases because neither the husband nor the wife responds well to her gift of inner beauty.

Couple Implications

If inner beauty is God’s gift to a woman, then it stands to reason that it’s a gift that can be employed in the service of building redemptive marriages. I want to suggest a couple of implications for each couple.

To grow in loyal love, a husband must not be afraid for his sin to be exposed in his wife’s presence. This requires humility. He must stop telling his wife she wants too much and instead look to the Lord for his help. Typically, a husband wants to be a knight in shining armor. Instead, he needs to be willing to humbly see the ways he hides and casts blame. As a husband opens up to this exposure and learns to look to the Lord for forgiveness and care, he has more to give his wife. A wife’s inner beauty matters because a husband can let it expose his deep need for God’s grace and mercy. A wife’s inner beauty is meant to turn a husband toward the Lord, not drive him to intimidation, control, or defensiveness.

To use her gift to enhance loyal love, a wife must remember that her husband experiences shame in her presence. He experiences this whether or not she says or does anything. Her gift of inner beauty can be that powerful. When a wife trusts this, she can relate to her husband with more kindness and rest instead of feeling compelled to help her husband recognize where he is lacking. When Peter encourages wives to let their “adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,” (1 Peter 3:4), he is telling wives to rest as their husbands learn how to make room for the ongoing conviction of sin that comes with marriage. Peter wanted women to stop expending so much effort. A husband’s struggle to love well should turn a wife toward more faith and less activity as she waits for him to grow into God’s love.

In fact, as a wife rests and shows kindness in the midst of her husband’s frustration, she can have a powerful effect. After Isaiah witnesses God’s beauty and expresses humility, a seraph touches his lips with a coal and says, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for” (Isa. 6:7). Later, we find Isaiah willingly responding to the Lord’s direction. Beauty and kindness together inspired courage in Isaiah. He is moved to stand up and follow the Lord.

It works the same way in marriage. When a husband responds well to his wife’s inner beauty, and when a wife mixes it with kindness, she becomes a compelling force in her husband’s life.

 

Gordon C. Bals founded Daymark Pastoral Counseling in Birmingham, Alabama, a ministry committed to restoring people to God and to one another. Anyone interested in reading further about this topic and/or related marital themes can find them in his recently published book, Common Ground: God’s Gift of a Restored Marriage, available on Amazon or on his website, www.daymarkcounseling.com.

Dec 23
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Let’s Rethink Our Holly-Jolly Christmas Songs

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Sometimes I learn a lot from conversations I was never intended to hear. This happened the other day as I was stopping by my local community bookstore. It’s a small store, and a quiet store so it was impossible not to eavesdrop as I heard a young man tell his friend how much he hated Christmas. And, you know what, the more he talked, the more I understood his point.

This man wasn’t talking about the hustle and bustle of the holidays, or about the stresses of family meals or all the things people tend to complain about. What he hated was the music.

This guy started by lampooning Sting’s Christmas album, and I found myself smiling as I browsed because he is so right; it’s awful. But then he went on to say that he hated Christmas music across the board. That’s when I started to feel as though I might be in the presence of the Grinch. You know, when every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small, would stand close together, with Christmas bells ringing; they’d stand hand-in-hand. And the Who’s would start singing. The sour old green villain didn’t like that.

But then this man explained why he found the music so bad. It wasn’t just that it was cloying. It’s that it was boring.

 

“Christmas is boring because there’s no narrative tension,” he said. “It’s like reading a book with no conflict.”

Now he had my attention.

I’m sure this man had thought this for a long time, but maybe he felt freer to say it because we were only hours out from hearing the horrifying news of a massacre of innocent children in Connecticut. For him, the tranquil lyrics of our Christmas songs couldn’t encompass such terror. Maybe we should think about that.

Of course, some of the blame is on our sentimentalized Christmas of the American civil religion. Simeon the prophet never wished anyone a “holly-jolly Christmas” or envisioned anything about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. But there’s our songs too, the songs of the church. We ought to make sure that what we sing measures up with the, as this fellow would put it, “narrative tension” of the Christmas story.

The first Christmas carol, after all, was a war hymn. Mary of Nazareth sings of God’s defeat of his enemies, about how in Christ he had demonstrated his power and “has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate” (Lk. 1:52). There are some villains in mind there.

Simeon’s song, likewise, speaks of the “fall and rising of many in Israel” and of a sword that would pierce the heart of Mary herself. Even the “light of the Gentiles” he speaks about is in the context of warfare. After all, the light, the Bible tells us, overcomes the darkness (Jn. 1:5), and frees us from the grip of the devil (2 Cor. 4).

In a time of obvious tragedy, the unbearable lightness of Christmas seems absurd to the watching world. But, even in the best of times, we all know that we live in a groaning universe, a world of divorce courts and cancer cells and concentration camps. Just as we sing with joy about the coming of the Promised One, we ought also to sing with groaning that he is not back yet (Rom. 8:23), sometimes with groanings too deep for lyrics.

The man in the bookstore knew that reality is complicated. There’s grit, and there’s tension. Without it, Christmas didn’t seem real to life. It’s hard to get more tense than being born under a king’s death sentence (Matt. 2:16), and with an ancient dragon crouching at the birth canal to devour you (Rev. 12:4). But this man didn’t hear any of that in Christmas. I’m glad I overheard him.

We have a rich and complicated and often appropriately dark Christmas hymnody. We can sing of blessings flowing “far as the curse is found,” of the one who came to “free us all from Satan’s power.”

Let’s sing that, every now and then, where we can be overheard.

 

This post is from Dr. Russell D. Moore is the Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice-President for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He also serves as a preaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church, where he ministers weekly at the congregation’s Fegenbush location. Dr. Moore is the author of The Kingdom of Christ and Adopted for Life. His blog can be found here.

Dec 11
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The Story of God

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Well, here you go. The Story of God in just a few minutes. I’m posting it because it is interesting. It is also a great picture of finding ways to communicate what God has done. We don’t have to put it on video. We don’t even have to be creative, but we should be willing and ABLE to share this great story.

Dec 11
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Lord’s Prayer (pt.8)

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The following is the eighth 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

“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.” Matthew 6:9-12

We have arrived in our meditations at a sentence that I think we all too often gloss over when we read and interpret this prayer. “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

Well, right away, we have to deal with that word “debts”. It is loaded with such a financial connotation in English that some translators use the word “trespasses” instead, which really isn’t much clearer in meaning and is definitely a less elegant translation. But either way, most people read the idea of sin into “debts” or its equivalents. We’ll get back to that.

So what does the word “debts” really mean? Up to this point, Jesus has been talking mostly about God and our relationship with Him. Has he all of a sudden switched gears and started talking about our financial situations?

No.

But to understand what’s really going on here, we’re going to have to dig into a bit of Greek. Bear with me. I’ll try not to dig any deeper than I have to.

The word that’s translated as “debts” is derived from the Greek word opheil¢, which can mean an amount that is owed, an obligation that is owed, or a service which is due to someone else—a duty, in other words. And it is this last meaning that really seems most to be in play in this verse—specifically the lack of performance of a duty.

So the verse could really be read as: Forgive us where we have failed you, just as we forgive those who have failed us.

As part of creation, we have a duty to God. Because we are among those ransomed by the blood of Christ, we have a duty to Christ. And all sin, from the least unkind thought that momentarily crosses our minds to the most horrific and grisly of murders that could be committed, is a failure of our duty to God.

“But wait,” you ask, “as believers, as sons and daughters of God, aren’t we already forgiven?”

Yes, insofar as we are talking about justification. Any and every sin that we commit, whether before we come to know Jesus as Savior or afterward, is forgiven us at the exact moment we establish that relationship with Him. So when (not if) we sin as believers, nothing we do can ever endanger our personal salvation.

But that does not mean that there is no effect of our sinning. Sin in our lives has the potential to become a barrier between us and God. Paul gives a warning about that in his first letter to the Thessalonian church.

Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22

The indication is that not abstaining from every form of evil, not keeping away from sin, can and does quench the presence of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives.

So yes, if we do not regularly confess our sins before God, pretty soon we’re comfortable with them, we don’t notice the increasing weight of the sins, and we don’t notice when our relationship with God becomes dim and dismal. That is why the first part of the verse in the prayer asks God to forgive us where we have failed in our duty to him.

But why is the second part of the verse there? Why are we supposed to pray about how we forgive those who have failed us? After all, if they’ve sinned against us, haven’t they also sinned against God, and shouldn’t they be dealing with Him? Well, that’s true as far as it goes, but it’s not that simple.

Do you remember what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments?

And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:35-40

The last sentence of this quotation is a figure of speech that basically means that everything in the Old Testament ties to one or the other or both of those commandments. That was a revelation to me the day that I first realized it. Think about it: every one of the Ten Commandments derives from one or the other of those two commandments. Every law in the books of Moses derives from those two commandments. (And actually, they are quotations themselves: see Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.) Every instruction from the prophets of God derives from those two commandments. And today we can see that every teaching in the New Testament also resonates with them. For example:

“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. John 15:9-12

This very clearly tells us that as children of God, we are to have vertical relationships with Him, and horizontal relationships with those around us. And just as the vertical relationships should be based on and filled with agape (love), so the horizontal relationship should also be based on and filled with agape.

Okay, but what does that have to do with “…forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors…“?

Here’s where we get to the part that always seems to get brushed over when we read or teach this. Focus in on this.

This is relating God’s forgiveness to how we forgive others. To paraphrase it in more colloquial modern English, this verse is saying “God, You forgive us where we have failed you just as much (or as little) as we have forgiven those who have failed us.”

And before you start thinking that this is something crazy that came out of David’s feeble and twisted mind, look at this:

“For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. Matthew 6:14-15

Jesus says this just a couple of sentences after the phrase we’re meditating on here, immediately after He concludes the prayer. That is not coincidental. Those two passages are absolutely directly related. I believe that Jesus is teaching us that the clarity of our daily relationship with God is directly related to the clarity of our daily relationship with those around us.

If we desire to know God; if we desire to have the closest possible relationship with Him; if we desire to know His cleansing forgiveness on a regular (daily) basis so we can experience that closeness; then we must first forgive. If we want to experience God’s forgiveness of our failures, then we must first forgive others when they fail us in any way.

Why?

Because a hard, harsh, and unforgiving heart is not one that can know God. If we add to our failures by failing to forgive others in a Christ-like manner, then we have in that moment taken a step away from God; and with each succeeding step of unforgiveness our relationship with God gets dimmer and more dismal. We’re still saved, but we don’t know the joy of our salvation any more, and we have placed ourselves in the position where God is much more likely to discipline us than bless us.

“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” This may actually be one of the most important parts of the prayer, and yet it is the one usually least emphasized. But nothing that Jesus teaches is unimportant, and so it is with this sentence. It is vitally important to our being able to draw close to God, which should be one of our chief aims as Christians. But to do that, to forgive others, we may have to voice another prayer along with it: “And change me, Father, so that where I have not forgiven I can now forgive.” That might just be the second most important prayer of your life.

;

Grace and peace to you.

David

Dec 07
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What Is Sin?

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The following is a definition of sin by David Powlison  from The Journal of Biblical Counseling (Spring 2007; Vol. 25, No. 2) pp. 25-26. My hope is for you to keep thinking about our questions and let the Word of God richly dwell within you. Let us be people who are becoming more like Christ in all areas of our lives

Grace and peace,

Chad

 

First, people tend to think of sins in the plural as consciously willed acts where one was aware of and chose not to do the righteous alternative. Sin, in this popular misunderstanding, refers to matters of conscious volitional awareness of wrongdoing and the ability to do otherwise. This instinctive view of sin infects many Christians and almost all non-Christians. It has a long legacy in the church under the label Pelagianism, one of the oldest and most instinctive heresies. The Bible’s view of sin certainly includes the high-handed sins where evil approaches full volitional awareness. But sin also includes what we simply are, and the perverse ways we think, want, remember, and react.

Most sin is invisible to the sinner because it is simply how the sinner works, how the sinner perceives, wants, and interprets things. Once we see sin for what it really is – madness and evil intentions in our hearts, absence of any fear of God, slavery to various passions (Eccl. 9:3; Gen. 6:5; Ps. 36:1; Titus 3:3) – then it becomes easier to see how sin is the immediate and specific problem all counseling deals with at every moment, not a general and remote problem. The core insanity of the human heart is that we violate the first great commandment. We will love anything, except God, unless our madness is checked by grace.

People do not tend to see sin as applying to relatively unconscious problems, to the deep, interesting, and bedeviling stuff in our hearts. But God’s descriptions of sin often highlight the unconscious aspect. Sin – the desires we pursue, the beliefs we hold, the habits we obey as second nature – is intrinsically deceitful. If we knew we were deceived, we would not be deceived. But we are deceived, unless awakened through God’s truth and Spirit. Sin is a darkened mind, drunkenness, animal-like instinct and compulsion, madness, slavery, ignorance, stupor. People often think that to define sin as unconscious removes human responsibility. How can we be culpable for what we did not sit down and choose to do? But the Bible takes the opposite track. The unconscious and semiconscious nature of much sin simply testifies to the fact that we are steeped in it. Sinners think, want, and act sinlike by nature, nurture, and practice.

Dec 07
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Is It Okay for a Christian Couple to Live Together If They Aren’t Married?

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The following is part of a discussion on the topic from desiringGod.org. I am posting this because it was part of our discussion this past Sunday and I promised to start putting some resources on here to help push the convo. You can listen to the audio right here. Know I am praying for you and looking forward to our time together this upcoming Lord’s day.

Grace and peace,

Chad

My daughter and her live-in boyfriend have become saved and are repentant. They want to get married now, but our church won’t let them get married until they move apart. What would you advise?

I think this is a good policy. I think it’s a very good policy. I don’t know if we have it, but we should if we don’t.

 

And so I would advise to this parent to say to the boyfriend and daughter, “Move out!”

And if they say, “Why?”—and I’m dealing with a situation like this right now, where a kid is about to move in as a Christian with his girlfriend (“Not going to have sex!”)—here’s the why:

It’s not primarily, “You’re going to be tempted, and you’re going to give in, and you’re going to have more sex. That’s why.” That’s not the main reason.

The main reason is that when a man and a woman live together it says crystal clear to the world that having sex together without marriage is okay. That’s what it says.

Now, you say you’re a Christian. Do you want to say that sex before marriage is okay? And if you want to say that, then something is profoundly wrong!

And if you say, “That’s their problem,” you’re not loving people. It’s not their problem. It is your problem. You should take steps to communicate truth, and the sanctity of sex in marriage is a glorious truth, and you should want to hallow it and cherish it.

And the last thing I might say is to the guy: “Sixteen years from now—it’s going to be here just like that—your daughter says she wants to move in with her boyfriend. What would you say? She says, ‘Dad, it’s their problem! We’re not going to have sex!’ What would you say? Well, say it to yourself now.”

 

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