Category: PASSION Points

Passion Points

On By BrianIn Idolatry, PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

Gospel Ripples – Jeremy Walker (Reformation 21)
Here are reasons why the saints need to go on hearing the gospel. It brings back to our hearts and minds the truths of our salvation, stirring us up to love and prompting us to serve. It emphasizes spiritual realities, the enduring facts of man’s sin and God’s grace, of heaven and hell and the sacrificial Lamb who stands between them. It reminds us of life and of death. It reinforces and freshly adorns our convictions. It prepares us to make Christ known.

Preaching the Gospel To Yourself – Tim Challies
Why don’t you make it part of your practice, and see the difference it makes to begin each day reminding yourself of who you were, and who you now are in Christ.

Three Questions To Help Diagnose Possible Football Idolatry – Kevin DeYoung
Wherever there is a consuming passion for anything that is not God there is the danger of idolatry. And football is certainly a consuming passion for many in this country. So what are some of the signs that football has grown to idolatrous proportions in the heart of the Christian?

Becoming Christ-like: The Goal of the Christian Life? – Daniel Wallace
If my goal is for me to become Christ-like, then my goal is inevitably and necessarily self-centered. How well am I doing at this goal? What do I look like as a Christian? My goal had become my role, and the focus had become too inward.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day celebrating our glorious and gracious God with your local church!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

9 Questions to Help You Steward All Of Your Life For God’s Glory – Brad Hambrick
Life is not primarily about what we avoid, but what we pursue.

“All the Law and the Prophets…” in a Piece of Fruit – Jared Totten
Or to say it another way, if you keep this one rule (love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength) then by default you will have kept all the other rules as well…including that one way back in the garden. Yes, the one about the fruit….

Never Resist the Urge to Pray – Erik Raymond
Let us be a people who never, ever, resist the urge to pray. After all, we know the urge is from God, to be used by God, [in] accordance with his commands for our good.

Why Does God Let Me Stay So Weak – Mark Altrogge
To be content with weakness doesn’t mean we give up trying to put sin to death. It doesn’t mean we quit trying to bear fruit for God. But it means that when we fail, when we realize how weak we are, we won’t despair but turn to Christ and ask him to give us HIS power. HIS strength. HIS wisdom. HIS grace.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day with the Lord and his church!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

5 Great Reasons To Memorize Scripture Today – Tim Challies (from Donald Whitney)
There are few areas of the Christian life where there is a wider gap between what Christians want to do and what Christians actually do than in this area: memorizing Scripture.

A Simple Method To Organize Your Prayers – Tim Challies
Christians have created many patterns and systems to help them as they pray. One of my favorites is John Piper’s model of praying…

Spiritual Disciplines, Legalism, and Laziness – Trevin Wax (with Donald Whitney)
When I consider my own spiritual life, I can’t help but think about certain practices and disciplines that the Lord has used to shaped me over the years.

A Gospeled Church – Jared Wilson
You cannot grow in holiness and holier-than-thou-ness at the same time. So a church that makes its main thing the gospel, and when faced with sin in its ranks doesn’t simply crack the whip of the law but says “remember the gospel,” should gradually be seeing grace coming to bear. 

You see above two posts interacting with Donald Whitney whose revised version of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life just came out.  Highly recommended!

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day with your local church!

 

Passion Points

On By BrianIn Idolatry, PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

Don’t Waste Your Beach Vacation – Steve Dewitt (Via Trevin Wax)

Three Tips for Better Bible Reading – Andy Naselli (DG)

5 Insights Into Idolatry – J. D. Greear

8 Ways to Beat Temptation – Mark Altrogge

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshiping our glorious and gracious God with your local church!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some really good posts for your weekend reading:

15 Beautiful Benefits of the Word of God – Kristen Wetherell (Unlocking the Bible)
If you’re wondering how to come to the Word today, consider these 15 beautiful benefits of Scripture…

Five Specific Prayers for the Unsaved People in Your Life – Todd Benkert
There are people all around you who need Jesus. He wants to use you to reach them. Here are some of the specific ways you too can pray for people the in your life who need Christ…

The Repentant Heart is a Renouncing Heart – Trevin Wax
The repentant heart renounces any attempt to justify its sin; it humbly acknowledges sin’s existence and its sentence. The repentant heart renounces self-sufficiency; it knows its beating is a gracious gift of God…

Disillusionment with the Church – Jason Helopoulos
I would contend that many of our disillusions with the church are based upon a wrong ethic. We misunderstand the true nature of fellowship in the gospel community. And therefore, we wrongly apply the ethic of other communities to the church.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn Idolatry, PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

How to Grow Spiritually – William Boekestein (Ligonier)
Participating in preaching, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer must regulate the routine of any healthy Christian.

When We Best Learn the Bible – Jen Wilkin (DG)
But sound Bible study is rooted in a celebration of delayed gratification. Gaining Bible literacy requires allowing our study to have a cumulative effect — across weeks, months, years — so that the interrelation of one part of Scripture to another reveals itself slowly and gracefully, like a dust cloth slipping inch by inch from the face of a masterpiece.

What Is Your Mud Pie? – Tim Challies
It is one of C.S. Lewis’ most powerful and most enduring illustrations: An ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. It is a vivid illustration and one that is simple enough to see in the lives of other people—those people who settle for lesser pleasures when the greatest of all pleasures awaits. But I, at least, find it far more difficult to see in my own life. You may find it just as difficult.  It is worth asking: What is your mud pie?

Success is Dangerous – Jared Wilson
We all prefer success to failure but, really, success is more dangerous. In failure, we know we rely totally on God’s approval and sustaining arm. In success, it is easy to begin looking around, surveying all the territories claimed, all the peoples gathered, all the ministry renown redounding, and we think, “Well, lookee here. Look what has been built with my talents, my gifts, my skills, my strategies, my visions, my sweat, my sacrifice.”

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day with your local church worshiping our great God!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

It has been a busy week with VBS at our church, so I haven’t had a lot of time for blogging.  But it was also a good week, for which we praise God.  Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

Satan’s Simple Plan – Kevin DeYoung
He really only wants one thing: he wants to keep you from Christ.  He wants to make you selfish. He wants you to live for your ambition. He wants you to live for your addiction. He wants you live for your ego. He wants you to live for anyone or anything that’s not Jesus.

When Sin Looks Delicious – Tim Challies
Do you ever have those days where you just want to sin? Sin looks delicious while righteousness looks distasteful. Sin looks satisfying and holiness looks frustrating. You wake up in the morning with a desire to do what you know you should not desire to do. Your heart echoes with what God said to Cain: “Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you.” And your desire is for it.  What do you do on a day like that?

Sin is Cosmic Treason – R. C. Sproul (Ligonier)
Not until we take God seriously will we ever take sin seriously. But if we acknowledge the righteous character of God, then we, like the saints of old, will cover our mouths with our hands and repent in dust and ashes before Him.

History Could Happen Again – Nathan Finn (DG)
Knowing how God has worked in the past can help us ask some key questions of ourselves in the present. Are we praying for revival in our own spiritual lives? Are we praying for the salvation of the nations? Are our churches setting aside a specific time for focused — even extraordinary — prayer for a global awakening through the advance of the gospel? Do we long for the Lord to move among us as he moved among those who came before us?

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day celebrating our gracious Savior!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

5 Things Romanian Believers Taught Me About Prayer – Trevin Wax
For the Christians whose identities were forged through the fire of Communist oppression, prayer is an act of quiet desperation that manifests itself in bold supplication. I’ve never seen humility and confidence so perfectly married as when listening to (and joining) Romanians in prayer.

Unanswered Prayer – Tim Challies
The best way I know how to answer is to point to the cross…

Sharpen Your Affections with Fasting – David Mathis
What makes fasting such a gift is its ability, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to focus our feelings and their expression toward God in prayer.…

4 Changes that Jesus’ Second Coming Produces in Us – J. D. Greear
If you know the world has an end—and that it could be soon—that rearranges your priorities. It makes no sense to go around rearranging deck chairs if you’re on the sinking Titanic. And yet that’s what many of us are doing with our lives. 

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some great posts for your weekend reading:

Full of Grace and Truth – Kevin DeYoung
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately.  We all need to strive for both and tend to lean toward one or the other.  The need is great as we relate to each other and to our culture. This post says it well – please read!

Students, Don’t Waste Your Summer – Jeff Brewer (TGC)
Here are some great ideas for all of us whether you are a student or not.

“One Anothers” I Can’t Find in the New Testament – Ray Ortlund
Sanctify one another, humble one another, scrutinize one another, pressure one another, embarrass one another, corner one another, interrupt one another, defeat one another, sacrifice one another, shame one another, judge one another, run one another’s lives, confess one another’s sins, intensify one another’s sufferings, point out one another’s failings . . . .  Indeed!

4 Reasons to Give Generously – J. I. Packer (Crossway)
It’s Packer and it’s important, so go ahead and read it…and live it too!

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day showing grace and truth and the proper “one anothers” with your local church!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

Whom Shall You Fear – Kevin DeYoung
For if the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, the fear of man is the beginning of misery, compromise, and disappointment.

4 Ways To Find God’s Grace in Our Failures – Joe Thorn
If you haven’t figured it out yet let me encourage you to see something that will greatly help you. Not all of your ideas are good. Some of them are bad. And God will often let you flail and fail out there for very good purposes. And when you fail do not lose the opportunity to find grace in the midst of it.

9 Things You Should Know About Prayer in the Bible – Joe Carter (GC)
4. The Bible records Jesus praying 25 different times during his earthly ministry.

A Spiritual Family Tree – Jason Helopoulos
I’m interested in your spiritual family tree. From where did you come spiritually? Who shared the faith with you? And who shared the faith with them? If you are a believer, you are in a long line dating all the way back to Abraham. But even more importantly, what does your spiritual family tree look like going forward? What growth is budding off of your branch? 

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshiping the Lord with your local church!