Author: Brian

Follower of Jesus, Husband, Dad, Grandpa, and Pastor

Blind Blind Blind

On By BrianIn Church Life

In Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield, David becomes friends with Agnes.  David sees their friendship as a brother and sister type relationship.  Agnes has other thoughts, but keeps quiet.  Meanwhile, David’s aunt sees Agnes as a perfect match for David even while he pursues and eventually marries another girl.  From time to time, his aunt watching her nephew is prone to say: “Blind, blind, blind.”

Blind, blind, blind.  We are all more blind than we like to think – especially as it relates to our sin.  Like David’s aunt, others may see what is incredibly clear to everyone but us.  That is one reason we need the church.  We need others to help us see our blind spots, to see the sins that we are blind to.  Even as we read the Scriptures, our blindness can keep us from seeing obvious applications to our own lives.  This is another reason we need the church – especially the preaching.  The pastor may bring applications from the Word that we would have never made, even though they may be the applications we most need.  Above all, we need to join the Psalmist in crying out to God – “Search me, O God, and know my heart!  Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”  We need to seek God’s help to reveal the sins we are blind to – but again he may do it through the ministry of the church.

John Newton writes in his hymn, Amazing Grace, “I once was blind, but now I see.”  Yes, now we see, but not yet perfectly.  We still need each other and our Lord to help us see the depths of our sin.

Gain and Loss In Prayer

On By BrianIn Prayer Quotes

What do I lose when I have a praying life?  Control.  Independence. 
What do I gain?  Friendship with God.  A quiet heart. 
The living work of God in the hearts of those I love. 
The ability to roll back the tide of evil. 
Essentially, I lose my kingdom and get his. 
I move from being an independent player to a dependent lover. 
I move from being an orphan to a child of God.

– Paul Miller in A Praying Life

May You Be Strengthened

On By BrianIn Habit of Prayer

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  – Colossians 1:11-12 (ESV)

I came across these verses about a month ago, and it has become my prayer for many people I know who are facing trials and struggles.  I believe it might be a helpful model for you too in your prayers for the hurting and weary – maybe even yourself.

Strength – Our strength is small.  And so we pray that God would strengthen us with his power and might each day as we walk through our trials. 

Endurance – Sometimes it is easy to give up, to despair.   And so we pray that God would give us strength to endure, to press on, to persevere, to hold onto him.

Patience – Sometimes it is easy to become impatient with trials that continue on and on, with the things that slow us down or hold us back.  It is easy to get frustrated.  Ando so we pray that God would give us strength to be patient in the midst of our trials. 

Joy and thanksgiving – It can be incredibly hard to be joyful and thankful in the midst of trials.  But Paul points us beyond our circumstances to a glorious truth that will never change.  The Father has granted us salvation.  This is reason to rejoice and give thanks.  And so we pray that God would give us strength to remember our great salvation, and find joy and gratitude in it always.

Inheritance – Life can be hard now, but a glorious day is coming when there will be no more trials, no more tears, no more sickness, no more pain.  We will dwell with our Lord forever.  And so we pray that God would give us strength to remember our glorious hope.

Father, there are so many who are hurting and weary, ourselves included.  Strengthen us with your mighty power so that we may endure with patience, joyfully give thanks for your great salvation, and cling to our glorious hope.  Amen. 

Web Weekly

On By BrianIn Idolatry, PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

First, some posts about the gospel.  Tullian Tchividjian talks about the important connection between the gospel and our Christian growth in two posts here and here.  Meanwhile, Trevin Wax suggests that worry comes from a failure to grasp the gospel.

Second, another post on idolatry.  Thabiti Anyabwile gives us a quote from Paul David Tripp that ties our desires, idolatry, and spiritual adultery together.

Resolutions

On By BrianIn Biography/History

I am teaching a class on the Great Awakening.  Today we are looking at Jonathan Edwards.  As part of the class we are going to look at his Resolutions, or at least the first 10 of his 70 (time constraints!).  They are well worth reading.  I have included the first 10 to challenge us with a few observations following:

Excerpt from Jonathan Edward’s Resolutions

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

Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

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

 2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the fore-mentioned things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three Observations

First, his focus.  He has a clear focus, a purpose in life.  He isn’t just coasting along.  And his focus is summed up in his first resolution: to live for God’s glory, his own profit and pleasure, and the good of mankind.  One may wonder how the middle one relates to the others, but in Edward’s mind his profit and pleasure were found in God.  So living for God and his own pleasure were the same thing.  And of course, living for the good of others is part of living for God.  The question for us then is:  Are we living focussed lives, and if so, what is our focus? 

Second, his sense of time.  He wants to remember that this life is brief.  Death is certain (#9), and so he wants to live each moment as if it were his last (#7).  He wants to live with all of his might (#6), not wasting a single hour (#5).  His desired intensity is incredible.  Meanwhile we talk about wasting time here and killing time there.  Life is short – are we living it well? 

Third, his humility.  He recognizes how feeble he is.  In his introduction, he recognizes his need of God’s help and grace to keep these resolutions – he can’t do them in his own power.  He further sees the possibility of failure, and recognizes the need to repent and start again (#3).  Finally, rather than condemning the failures of others, he wants the failures of others to remind him of his own failings (#8).  Essentially he wants to remember that he is a sinner saved by grace.  What about us?  Do we recognize our own sins and see our daily need for grace?

Maybe with God’s help we need to make some of our own resolutions for life….

Web Weekly

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for the weekend to challenge you to grow in your walk with the Lord:

First, Ray Ortland quotes Simone Weil with the reminder that worship is inevitable – the only question is whether we will worship God or an idol.  If we want to worship God, Kevin DeYoung provides us with 20 Biblical ways to glorify God. 

Second, Stephen Altrogge reminds us that we should seek to live in such a way that others can imitate us, and that we should seek others that we can imitate.  While we follow Christ, it is helpful for us to see what that means fleshed out in one another.

Third, there are a number of posts related to spiritual disciplines worth looking at.  Chris Brauns invites us to the habit of true confession to one another toward the end of reconciliation (the comic alone is worth looking at).  Then Stephen Altrogge asks four people about godly habits they have cultivated.  There are some interesting ones to consider.  Here are the links to this four part series:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.  What is a godly habit that has helped form you that you might share with us?  Comments are open.

Substitute for God

On By BrianIn Idolatry Quotes

Idolatry, ancient and modern alike, consists in trusting some substitute for God to serve some uniquely divine function….  Why do people choose the substitute over God himself?  Probably the most important reason is that it obviates accountability to God.  We can meet idols on our own terms because they are our own creations.  They are safe, predictable, and controllable; they are, in Jeremiah’s colorful language, the “scarecrows in a cucumber field” (10:5).  They are portable and completely under the user’s control.  They offer nothing like the threat of a God who thunders from Sinai and whose providence in this world so often appears to us to be incomprehensible and dangerous.  People who “remain in the center of their lives and loyalties, autonomous architects of their own futures,” Keyes argues, thereby avoid coming face to face with God and his truth.  They need face only themselves.  That is the appeal of idolatry.

– David Wells in God in the Wasteland (Eerdmans 1994)

Keyes quote from Keyes, “The Idol Factory” in No God But God
edited by Os Guinness and John Seel (Moody Press 1993)

Two Ways To Live

On By BrianIn Book of Luke, Heart

In the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6, Jesus gives us two ways to live. 

One way is to live for self.  We can chase after riches, fullness, laughter, and popularity.  We can live to gain for ourselves, as though the world revolved around self.  This is our tendency even from our youngest years – consider the toddler throwing a tantrum because he doesn’t get what he wants.  To those who live this way, Jesus says:  “Woe to you.”

But Jesus calls us to another way of life.  He calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him.  Instead of living for self, we should live for Christ.  We should be willing to give up all the world chases after and become poor, hungry, weeping, hated, rejected, and ridiculed for the sake of Christ.  When we live for Christ instead of ourselves, Jesus says:  “Blessed are you.”  But that is not all.  Jesus then goes on to tell us to live for others – even those who hate us, ridicule us, and reject us.  He tells us to love our enemies.  We are to do good, bless, pray for, and be merciful to others.  Rather than judge and condemn others, we should forgive and give generously.  Live for Christ and others.  Love God and people.  Live with a passion for God and compassion for people.

Two ways to live.  We can live for self or we can live for Christ and others.  Jesus closes his sermon with four applications:

First, choose your teachers carefully.  Those blind to the truth follow those blind to the truth, and they both fall into a pit.  But if you are in Christ, you are no longer blind, so don’t follow those who are.  When we are fully trained we will be like our teacher.  If we make the lies of our culture our teacher, we will be like our culture – we will live for self.  If we make Christ our teacher, we will be like Christ, willing to give of ourselves for others.  So who are we listening to?  What does our favorite music, movies, books, magazines, and websites teach us?  What do our closest friends teach us?  To live for self or for Christ?  Have we chosen our teachers carefully?  Do we need to make some changes? 

Of course, our culture is everywhere, and we cannot help but hear the lies, but we can minimize our exposure.  And when we do hear the lies, we can reject them rather than let them shape us.  We must continually ask ourselves the question as we traverse this world:  “Is this true?”  And we must saturate ourselves with the truth of God’s Word so we can know the truth and see the lies. 

Second, Jesus calls us to apply the truth to ourselves first.  We may agree with Jesus that we should live for him instead of ourselves, but we have this tendency too often to apply the truth to someone else.  We think: “He really needs to hear this message.  I hope so-and-so is listening.  I should send this post to her….”  Though we may have a plank in our own eyes, we want to take the speck out of another’s eyes.  Jesus calls us to look to ourselves first, to apply the message to our own lives.

Third, we need to focus on the heart.  The tree determines the fruit.  Our heart determines our words and actions.  It would be easy to hear Jesus’ message to love others, and attempt to tinker with our words and actions.  But Jesus says we need to go deeper, we need to address our hearts. 

We are all born with hearts bent toward sin, bent toward self.  So our first need is to get a new heart bent toward God.  We need to be born again.  We need Christ to come into our lives and change us if we have any hope of living for Christ and others. 

Assuming we have received Jesus as our Savior and have received a new heart, we must guard our hearts.  Our new heart believes the best thing is to live for Jesus.  It desires to live for Jesus.  With that believe and desire, we will live for Jesus.  But we have been living for self for a long time.  And our culture calls us constantly to live for ourselves.  And so we must guard our hearts from the lies of the culture we once believed.  We must guard our hearts from the sinful desires of our culture we once desired.  When we don’t, lies mix with truth, sinful desires mix with desires for Christ, and we sin.  That is why we still sin.  Sometimes we believe the lies, desire what the lies promise, and live out the lie.  What we believe is what we will desire, and what we desire is what we will do.  Our heart leads to our words and actions.

And so we must also examine our hearts.  We need God’s Word to discern the thoughts and intents of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12) to reveal the lies and sinful desires.  We need to pray with the Psalmist:  “Search me, O God, and know my heart (Psalm 139).  We can’t just tinker with our words and actions.  We must examine our hearts.

Finally, we must live the truth.  We shouldn’t claim Jesus is our Lord if we don’t obey him.  We can’t simply listen to the truth, we must live it out.  If we do, we are like the man who builds on a firm foundation, whose house stands.  If we don’t, we are like a man who builds without a foundation, and great is the ruin.

Jesus calls us to stop living for ourselves, and to start living for Christ and others.  If we are to do that, we must choose our teachers carefully.  We must apply this truth to ourselves first.  We must focus on the heart – we need a new heart, we must guard our heart, and we must examine our heart.  We must live out the truth. 

So how do you need to respond to Jesus’ message?  As you respond and live for Christ and others, you will hear our Lord say to you: “Blessed are you!”

Web Weekly

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

I’ve been busy getting ready for winter which could be here any day where I live, and so blogging has had to move to the back burner for a bit.  But hopefully I’ll be blogging again this week.  To kick-off, here a few posts of interest to check out:

First, Crossway gives us an excerpt of Darrin Patrick’s new book Church Planter, which among other things addresses different types of idolatry. 

Stephen Altrogge addresses the issue of being too busy to delight in Jesus.  And Mike Wittmer calls us to slow down to notice the love of God in our daily lives.

Finally, Mike Wiitmer calls us to stop living like atheists, and run to God in prayer.

Happy reading!

Love or Not

On By BrianIn Uncategorized

A few weeks ago I finished Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield.  It offers an interesting look at true love vs selfishness.  (Friendly warning: this post includes numerous spoilers….)

Let’s start with selfishness.  Mr. Murdstone claims to love people, but he only wants to control them and make them like himself.  Steerforth claims to love people but only to get what he wants.  Uriah Heep claims to be humble, but only as a disguise for his selfish grasping plans.  All three make great claims, but obsessed with themselves they leave a trail of human wreckage.

How different is real love.  Mr. Peggotty gives up everything to travel all over Europe in search of his adopted daughter whom Steerforth has lured away.  Like Jesus, he goes to great lengths to seek and save one who is lost.  And then there is Agnes who loves Copperfield, and stands by him through thick and thin even when he marries another.  Neither Agnes nor Mr. Peggotty have any promise of return, but both give of themselves for those they love.

Dicken’s characters have real life counterparts.  In the “novel” of life, we undoubtedly know both types of people to various degrees.  But the real question is:  what kind of character are we?  The character who talks a good talk but is obsessed with self no matter who is hurt?  Or the character who speaks with self-giving actions even to his own hurt?

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.  But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?  Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
– I John 3:16-18