Category: Uncategorized

Sola 13

On By BrianIn Uncategorized

If you live in Michigan or nearby, you may want to be aware of the Sola 13 conference coming up.  Here is the description from their website:

Sola Fide! Sola Scriptura! Solus Christus! Sola Gratia! Soli Deo Gloria! These five Latin phrases articulated the foundation of the Reformation and a call for the church to remember the heart of our faith. On December 6th and 7th in Lansing, Michigan we will once again celebrate and promote these cries of the Reformation.

Join with us as we are encouraged by some of our dear friends (John Piper, Matt Chandler, Albert Mohler, Stephen Um, Leonce Crump, Kevin DeYoung, and Noel Heikkinen) in the foundational truth that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone, standing on the Scriptures alone.

Early bird tickets are $45 through the end of the month.  For more details, check out their site.

Westminster Books

On By BrianIn Uncategorized

A few months ago, I said that I was going to start highlighting some helpful resources  that you might be interested in.  I managed to recommend one resource, and then never continued.  I want to try to start again – this time recommending an online bookstore called Westminster Bookstore.  I found out about them from some other blogs.  Westminster features Reformed books and resources, including a lot of historical books from the Puritans.  They also have Bibles, commentaries, church ministry books, curriculum, children’s books, and more.  It is a fun site to explore.  Plus they often have incredible specials on new books coming out – you can sign up to get their weekly newsletter.  John Piper’s Desiring God ministry recently closed their online store and you can find all of Desiring God’s books and curriculum now at Westminster.  They also offer free shipping on orders over $49.  You can follow the link below, or the link I just added to the side bar.  Disclaimer: I am a Westminster blog partner and get referral credit if you follow these links – think of it as supporting this blog.
WBlogo

Vote and Pray

On By BrianIn Uncategorized

God has given us an incredible opportunity that few people in the history of our world have ever had.  We have the opportunity to vote for our leaders.  Tomorrow we each get one ballot to choose who we want to be our leaders for the next few years. We must be good stewards of this opportunity God has given us.

To be good stewards, we must vote.  To stay home tomorrow is to follow the example of the wicked servant who refused to use the one talent given to him.  He buried it in the ground instead, and was strongly condemned (Matthew 25:14-30).

To be good stewards, we must vote for a candidate who has a chance of winning.  In the presidential race, that means we must vote for Romney or Obama.  To vote for anyone else is to waste your vote, to bury it in the ground.  It would be like going to a casino and playing a game with absolute 0% chance of winning.  Your chances at a casino are never good, but playing with 0% chance of winning is utter foolishness.  So is voting for someone who has no chance of winning.  You may not like either candidate, but one of them is going to win, so vote for the better of the two.

To be good stewards, we must vote wisely by weighing the issues.  We must weigh the economic issues.  We must weigh the foreign policy issues.  We must weigh the moral issues:

  • What is the candidate’s stand on same-sex marriage? (See a discussion here)
  • What is the candidate’s stand on abortion which has killed 50+ million babies in almost 40 years?
  • What is the candidate’s stand on the current administration’s policy requiring even religious non-profits to pay for insurance that will pay for their employees to buy abortion-inducing contraceptives.  Will the candidate stand for religious freedom and against this religious persecution?

To be good stewards, we must weigh the issues, and then vote accordingly.  We must vote wisely.

For further thoughts on why you need to vote tomorrow, see Joel Beeke’s helpful post.

But we must do more than vote.  We must also pray.  This too is an incredible opportunity that God has given to us.  We must be good stewards of this opportunity and cry out to God on behalf of our nation.  I could elaborate on this point, but instead I suggest you go to Albert Mohler’s post and use it as a guide for your prayers.

Vote and pray.  May we be good stewards of both opportunities tomorrow.

RHMA Take Home Thoughts, Part 3

On By BrianIn Uncategorized

At the RHMA conference, D. A. Carson gave a two part seminar on “How To Think Wisely about Suffering and Evil.”  I wish you could have heard the entire thing.  What follows doesn’t begin to give the topic or seminar justice, but are simply some points that stood out to me:

  • We all sin, so we all deserve to suffer.
  • Suffering is short compared to eternity (at least for those in Christ).
  • We can’t grasp God’s plan; we need to trust him.
  • Our suffering may be God’s providential discipline (Hebrews 12:3-11).
  • God brings good things out of bad things (think Joseph in Egypt).
  • When you doubt God’s goodness, go back to the manger and the cross and see his love.
  • Christians have been granted to believe and suffer (Philippians 1:29).

RHMA Take-Home Thoughts Part 2

On By BrianIn Uncategorized

Another main speaker at the RHMA conference was Duane Litfin.  A few reflections from his two main sessions:

  • How do you picture Jesus?  He is no longer a simple carpenter or a tortured sacrifice on a cross.  He is the risen and ascended Lord and King.  When John sees him in Revelation 1, he falls down at his feet as though dead.  As we picture him in all his glory, it should have positive affects on our worship, our obedience, and our confidence.
  • In Matthew 21, Jesus chose a humble donkey to ride into Jerusalem.  Jesus has a habit of choosing to use the humble – people like us.  God chooses us not because we are wonderful, but because he is.
  • The disciples untied the donkey and brought it to Jesus.  Jesus used the donkey because it was available.  Are we available?  How do we use our time, our money, our hands, our tongues, our minds, our hearts?  Are we available or are we tied up with other things?

RHMA Take-Home Thoughts, Part 1

On By BrianIn Uncategorized

Over a week ago I promised to share some highlights from the RHMA conference I attended.  The conference is for pastors/wives of small town and country churches.  One of the main speakers this year was D. A. Carson.  A few thoughts from his two main sessions for reflection:

  • Jesus was not held to the cross by the nails but because he desired to do God’s will.  Likewise, we must not sin because we desire to do God’s will.
  • Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” so we would never have to make that cry.  He was forsaken in our place.
  • Though least in the kingdom, we are greater than John because we can better point others to Jesus, especially to his death and resurrection that brings salvation.  In other words, the Christian criteria for greatness are radically tied to proclamation and witness.  What makes us great is that we can point others to Jesus.

Spiritual Slacker

On By BrianIn Uncategorized

Heard this devotional this morning on the radio from Our Daily Bread.  Well worth considering:

While studying the book of Proverbs in my small-group Bible study, our leader suggested that we change the description of a lazy person from a sluggard to a slacker (6:6,9). Ah, now he was speaking my lingo. I immediately started thinking of all the people I consider to be slackers.

Like the men and women who fail to teach and discipline their children. Or that guy who refuses to help around the house. Or those teenagers who neglect their studies and play Internet games day and night.

If we’re honest, we’re all susceptible to this. What about being a “prayer slacker” (1 Thess. 5:17-18), or a “Bible-reading slacker” (Ps. 119:103; 2 Tim. 3:16-17), or a “non-exercising-of-our-spiritual-gift slacker” (Rom. 12:4-8), or a “non-witnessing slacker”? (Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 1:8).

If we are not doing what we know God wants us to do, we are certainly spiritual slackers.

For the rest, see here.

Thorns?

On By BrianIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.
Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold,
some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.  
 – Matthew 13:7-9

Are there thorns in your life seeking to choke you
and keep you from being fruitful?

Maybe it’s time to pull some weeds….