Form the positive habit of starting each day
with a few minutes of prayer.
– Billy Graham
Tag: Christianity
Ministry Monday
Here are some good posts for pastors:
New Pastor Advice – Jason Helopoulos
He packs up the U-haul with all his family’s belonging, his books are sealed in boxes, he heads across the country, arrives in the field, and he is ready to begin pastoring. Where to start? What to do?
The Punches I Never Saw Coming – Christopher Hemmerich (GC)
Maybe I was naive. I fully expected difficulty in pastoral ministry. But I expected the attacks to come from somewhere “out there” rather than somewhere “in here.” I had no category for sheep who bite…
Carson’s Lessons from the Good Times and Bad – John Starke (GC)
Carson…offers lessons we can learn from the both the “lean years” and also the “high growth years.” For pastors and ministers longing for gospel renewal in their churches and cities, and for those experiencing revival right now, these are encouraging and helpful lessons.
Passion Points
Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:
O Jesus, King Most Wonderful – Bernard of Clairvaux (via Trevin Wax)
O Jesus, King most wonderful,
Thou Conqueror renowned,
Thou Sweetness most ineffable,
In Whom all joys are found….
10 Love Challenges – David Murray
Yesterday I gave my congregation 10 Love Challenges that translate the sometimes nebulous idea of love into very practical, do-able actions….
Why Satan Might Not Be Tempting Us – Gary Thomas
Sometimes, I’m reading one of the Christian classics and I find myself saying, even out loud, “Ouch.” That happened to me once when I was spending time with John Wesley. His insight was so heavy and so unique, it just about knocked me out of my chair….
You Do Not Labor in Vain – Dan Doriani (GC)
Jesus will bless the faithful: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. . . . I was sick and you looked after me.” We will say, “When?” Probably at work. At work we have the greatest skill, training, time, and resources. If, by faith, we strive to love God and neighbors at work, then we serve him. And he will remember it forever.
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day loving God and your brothers and sisters in Christ!
Missions Focus: PIEI
Today I want to draw your attention to Partners in Evangelism International (PIEI). This missions group focuses on partnering national pastor/missionaries from other countries with American churches. Each country ministry has its own steering committee of nationals and Americans with its own distinctions. While I can’t speak for most of the ministries, I can heartily recommend the Romanian and Ukrainian ministries. Our church started partnering with a national pastor/missionary family in the Ukraine a couple of years ago, and it has been a wonderful partnership. Some things we really appreciate:
• We get a monthly report that gives us an update on their ministry and ways we can pray for them. It is really exciting to regularly hear what God is doing in the Ukraine, and to be able to partner with them in prayer.
• Nationals often need significantly less support than Americans. That doesn’t mean Americans don’t need to be missionaries – they do. But training and supporting nationals to do the ministry should be part of our overall Great Commission strategy. And as a small church with a small missions budget, our small gift goes a long way.
• PIEI doesn’t have a paid home office. Everyone is a volunteer. This approach is not for every agency, and it does create its own issues, but our church appreciates that all the money we give goes overseas.
• We are also encouraged to go overseas to minister with the nationals. Our church hasn’t made use of this opportunity yet, but I look forward to taking a group sometime in the future.
Cornel Stef, who leads the Romanian/Ukrainian ministry on the American side, has come to our church twice to share about the ministry. He and his wife even hosted my family for lunch when we were down in Chicago just over a year ago. In his last visit this Fall, he mentioned the need for new American churches to support nationals in the Ukraine. Some nationals currently in ministry are not at full support, and others have been trained for ministry but are unable to serve without support. If your church is looking to expand its missions program and enter into an exciting partnership overseas, I encourage you to contact Cornel – cstef@piei.org.
What We Were Made For
We were not created for our own liberty, happiness, or fulfillment. We were not created to find our own way and to discover our own joy. We were not designed to define what our needs are and to give our lives to meet them. We were not made to treat the world like an endless buffet of delights for our consumption. We were made for God, made to live for his glory, and made to find the fullest expression of our humanity in loving, worshipful community with him…. Every day billions of us get up and ignore the love relationship with God for which we were created. Because we do not love him as we should, we do not have the motivation to please him. Because we are not motivated to please him, we find it easy, in small moments and big, to replace him with something else. We replace love of God with a life-dominating love of self. We replace concern for the glory of God with self-glory…. Inserting ourselves in the center of our world is the ultimate delusion. Sin not only denies the structure of the world as God made it, but it also denies our very identity as human beings. We are God’s image bearers. We were made for him.
– Paul David Tripp in Forever
Passion Ethics
Here are some updates on some important current religious freedom issues:
Saeed Abedini, American pastor jailed in Iran, denied medication, family says – Fox News Iranian jailers have denied crucial medication to Pastor Saeed Abedini, the American citizen imprisoned there for his faith, according to the Idaho resident’s family and legal team.
Here are some ways you can help.
Home School Legal Defense Association Files Romeike v. Holder with U.S. Supreme Court – CrossMap
HSLDA Chairman and principal author of the petition, Michael Farris, said that the Court should intervene for the sake of justice. “The United States should be a place of asylum for those who are persecuted because of their decision to follow their core religious beliefs,” he said. “Parents, not the government, decide first how children are educated. Germany’s notorious persecution of families who homeschool violates their own obligations to uphold human rights standards and must end.”
Farris has called for a day of prayer on November 17 in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s November 26 decision on whether to hear this case as well as Hobby Lobby’s case.
Hobby Lobby asks US Supreme Court to take up case over federal birth-control coverage mandate – Fox News
Lawyers for the Oklahoma City-based craft store chain and its sister company, Mardel Christian bookstore, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case because of what they say are conflicting decisions by other courts regarding religious freedom.
And in related cases, Freshway Foods wins its initial lawsuit, and Cornerstone University – one of the schools I attended – adds its own lawsuit.
On Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, Cornerstone University joins Dordt College in filing a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration unconstitutional mandate that employers – including religious ones – provide insurance coverage that facilitates access to drugs that can induce abortions. – See more at: http://www.cornerstone.edu/details.aspx?p=19E2931D85131112&ppid=56597&naid=EBD15E2C1F34E07C#sthash.h04UvDbg.dpuf
Prayer Quote of the Week
The word of God is the food
by which prayer is nourished and made strong.
– E. M. Bounds
Passion Points
Here are some helpful posts on getting into the Word for your weekend reading:
7 Arrows for Bible Reading – Matt Rogers (via Trevin Wax)
A helpful approach for digging into the Word on your own or in a group.
How To Be Better Bereans (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three) – Kevin DeYoung
The Jews in Berea, it is said, were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for “they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). How telling–for them and for us–that nobility is measured not by titles, land, parentage, wealth, or degrees, but by how we handle the word of God. Our approach to the Scriptures sets us apart as riff-raff or royalty. So how do we become better Bereans?
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day digging into the Word!
In Christ, I Am a New Creation, Part 2
Who am I? In Christ, I am a new creation. The old sinful distorted way of life is past. I have been made new with news desires and a new ability to be like God and reflect God. And yet while I am new, I am also being renewed. I have entered a process of becoming more and more like God, of reflecting God more and more. I am like a prisoner who has been set free. I am free, but I must learn to live out my new freedom. I must learn to live as a new creation. And Colossians 3 gives me very specific instructions on what this looks like:
• God made me to think, and as a new creation I am being renewed in knowledge (v10). No longer conformed to the thinking of this fallen world, I am being transformed by the renewing of my mind (Romans 12:2). And this takes places as I immerse myself in God’s Word – as it dwells in me richly (v16).
• God made me to love, and as a new creation I must put on love in all its fullness. I must begin to practice compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with others, and forgiving others (v12-14).
• God made me to work, and as a new creation I begin to work heartily as unto the Lord (v22-24). No longer simply trying to keep the boss happy, or thinking only of what I can get out of it, or being as lazy as I can get away with, now I am to work heartily in service to God. My work becomes an opportunity to serve God all week long.
• God made me to rest, and as a new creation I begin to learn what it means to rest. Colossians doesn’t address this, but Jesus does in Luke 10:38-42. While Martha is busy serving, Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet. There is a time to work and a time to rest. And one reason we rest is to simply sit at the feet of Jesus to learn and grow in him.
• God made me to live uprightly, and as a new creation I begin to put off sin and put on what is right. I clothe myself with love (v12-14), which Jesus said is the sum of righteousness (Matthew 22:37-40). And I put off sexual immorality and all that goes with it, anger and all its sisters, and wrong ways of speaking: slander, obscenity, and lying (v5-9).
• Finally, God made me to reflect him, and as a new creation I seek to do just that. In whatever I do, I am to do it in the name of Jesus (v17) – as his ambassador, as his representative. Every word and every deed to reflect him.
In Christ, I am a new creation. May we grow in living out this wonderful new identity.
Also in this series:
In Christ, I Am a New Creation
Who am I? God made me in his image – to be like him, to reflect him. But I have become a distorted image-bearer. I am not like God as he made me to be. I don’t reflect him, but rather seek to be my own god. And if this was the end, a miserable end it would be. But God didn’t leave us this way. He made a way for us to become a new creation in Christ.
The promise is given in Ezekiel 36:25-27. God would give us a new heart and spirit – giving us new desires to once again be like him and reflect him. God would give us his own Spirit – giving us a new ability to once again be like him and reflect him.
In the fullness of time, Jesus came – fully God and fully man, God and perfect image-bearer of God. And he died that we might die to sin – our old distorted way of life. And he rose that we might rise to a new way of life, that we might live for righteousness, that we might again live as image-bearers of God (I Peter 2:24, Romans 6:3-4).
So now, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (II Corinthians 5:17). In Christ, I have a new identity. No longer am I a distorted image-bearer, but now I am a new creation in Christ. The old distorted way of life is past. Now I have been made new. I have new desires to love again. I have a new mind to think again. I have a new ability through the Spirit to live uprightly again. In Christ, I am a new creation.
Colossians 3:9-10 puts it this way. I have put off the old self with its practices – the old distorted way of living. And I have put on the new self. I am a new creation. But the verse goes on to say that I have put on the new self “which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” I am new, but I am also being renewed. I am a new creation, but I am not yet perfect. Becoming a new creation means I have entered into a process in which I become more and more like God, in which I begin to reflect God more and more.
I was a prisoner caught in a distorted way of life, but now I have been set free, and must learn to live as a free person. I must learn to live as a new creation. And Colossians 3 tells us how. We are to put to death that which belongs to the old distorted way of life (v5-10), and put on that which agrees with our new identity as a new creation in Christ (v12-17). Tomorrow we will look at some specific ways that we are to do this.
