HT:MA
Technorati Tags: worship
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
unceasing worship
We do not go to church to worship. But as continual worshipers, we gather ourselves together to continue our worship, but now in the company of brothers and sisters. ~ Harold Best, Unceasing Worship
HT:MA
HT:MA
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
focus
David Smith spoke to day on the focus of an organization being what is important while the focus of an organism is who is important. As the Church, we are an organism (or body) and the who is Jesus. He is our focus. He is our all in all.
This is why in our preaching the indicatives are more important than the imperatives. Or perhaps better said, the weight of our speech should be toward the indicative.
This is why in our preaching the indicatives are more important than the imperatives. Or perhaps better said, the weight of our speech should be toward the indicative.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
ah bobby
I loved Bobby Zimmerman's "christian" stuff ... here he is with Tom Petty playing In the Garden.
When they came for Him in the garden, did they know ?
When they came for Him in the garden, did they know ?
Did they know He was the Son of God, did they know that He was Lord ?
Did they hear when He told Peter, "Peter, put up your sword" ?
When they came for Him in the garden, did they know ?
When they came for Him in the garden, did they know ?
When He spoke to them in the city, did they hear ?
When He spoke to them in the city, did they hear ?
Nicodemus came at night so he wouldn't be seen by men
Saying, ?Master, tell me why a man must be born again?
When He spoke to them in the city, did they hear ?
When He spoke to them in the city, did they hear ?
When He healed the blind and crippled, did they see ?
When He healed the blind and crippled, did they see ?
When He said, "Pick up your bed and walk, why must you criticize ?
Same thing My Father do, I can do likewise"
When He healed the blind and crippled, did they see ?
When He healed the blind and crippled, did they see ?
Did they speak out against Him, did they dare ?
Did they speak out against Him, did they dare ?
The multitude wanted to make Him king, put a crown upon His head
Why did He slip away to a quiet place instead ?
Did they speak out against Him, did they dare ?
Did they speak out against Him, did they dare ?
When He rose from the dead, did they believe ?
When He rose from the dead, did they believe ?
He said, "All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth"
Did they know right then and there what that power was worth ?
When He rose from the dead, did they believe ?
When He rose from the dead, did they believe ?
HT:RO
When they came for Him in the garden, did they know ?
When they came for Him in the garden, did they know ?
Did they know He was the Son of God, did they know that He was Lord ?
Did they hear when He told Peter, "Peter, put up your sword" ?
When they came for Him in the garden, did they know ?
When they came for Him in the garden, did they know ?
When He spoke to them in the city, did they hear ?
When He spoke to them in the city, did they hear ?
Nicodemus came at night so he wouldn't be seen by men
Saying, ?Master, tell me why a man must be born again?
When He spoke to them in the city, did they hear ?
When He spoke to them in the city, did they hear ?
When He healed the blind and crippled, did they see ?
When He healed the blind and crippled, did they see ?
When He said, "Pick up your bed and walk, why must you criticize ?
Same thing My Father do, I can do likewise"
When He healed the blind and crippled, did they see ?
When He healed the blind and crippled, did they see ?
Did they speak out against Him, did they dare ?
Did they speak out against Him, did they dare ?
The multitude wanted to make Him king, put a crown upon His head
Why did He slip away to a quiet place instead ?
Did they speak out against Him, did they dare ?
Did they speak out against Him, did they dare ?
When He rose from the dead, did they believe ?
When He rose from the dead, did they believe ?
He said, "All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth"
Did they know right then and there what that power was worth ?
When He rose from the dead, did they believe ?
When He rose from the dead, did they believe ?
HT:RO
Technorati Tags: music
lighthouse church planting
Dan Edelen doesn't understand church planting and is sure of it. ... and I agree with much of his perspective. But I would say it differently. I do understand church planting, I just don't understand why some specific people do it and/or where they do it and/or how they do it. Here's a quaint video providing one perspective.
Technorati Tags: ecclesiology
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
why church
David Mathis quotes Martyn Lloyd-Jones:
Not that I disagree with the good doctor but I think he did not say enough here. Eph 3.10 tells us God's cosmic plan is that “through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” The following thoughts (possibly even quotes) are from The Community of the King by Howard A. Snyder.
Paul is telling us in Ephesians that Jewish and Gentile believers are reconciled both to God and to each other. They have joined in a reconciling relationship to Jesus that transcends and destroys their old hostility toward each other. No longer enemies, they are now brothers and sisters. In Christ, God acts with such redemptive power that He is able to overcome hatreds and heal hostilities. The mystery of Christ (Eph 3.4) is not merely that the gospel is preached to Gentiles; it is that through this preaching, Gentile believers are now “heirs together” and “members of one body.” In 1 Corinthians 1:23-24 Paul says, "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." Christ crucified for the unification and glorification of Jews and gentiles in the church is the mystery of God and the wisdom of God.
The church is the fruit this reconciling love, and thus the revelation of God's manifold wisdom. The church, as Christ's body, shares Christ's reconciling work. The church is more than God's agent of evangelism or social change; it is, in submission to Christ, the agent of God's entire cosmic purpose. What God is doing in Jesus Christ and what he is doing in and through the church are part of the redemption of all creation.
The reconciliation of all in Christ is why Paul can say that now “through the church, the manifold wisdom of God” is “made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 3:10).
The primary task of the Church is not to educate man, is not to heal him physically or psychologically.... I will go further; it is not even to make him good. These are things that accompany salvation; and when the Church performs her true task she does incidentally educate men and give them knowledge and information...she does make them good and better than they were. But my point is that those are not her primary objectives. Her primary purpose is not any of these; it is rather to put man into the right relationship with God, to reconcile man to God. (Preaching & Preachers, 30)
Not that I disagree with the good doctor but I think he did not say enough here. Eph 3.10 tells us God's cosmic plan is that “through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” The following thoughts (possibly even quotes) are from The Community of the King by Howard A. Snyder.
Paul is telling us in Ephesians that Jewish and Gentile believers are reconciled both to God and to each other. They have joined in a reconciling relationship to Jesus that transcends and destroys their old hostility toward each other. No longer enemies, they are now brothers and sisters. In Christ, God acts with such redemptive power that He is able to overcome hatreds and heal hostilities. The mystery of Christ (Eph 3.4) is not merely that the gospel is preached to Gentiles; it is that through this preaching, Gentile believers are now “heirs together” and “members of one body.” In 1 Corinthians 1:23-24 Paul says, "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." Christ crucified for the unification and glorification of Jews and gentiles in the church is the mystery of God and the wisdom of God.
The church is the fruit this reconciling love, and thus the revelation of God's manifold wisdom. The church, as Christ's body, shares Christ's reconciling work. The church is more than God's agent of evangelism or social change; it is, in submission to Christ, the agent of God's entire cosmic purpose. What God is doing in Jesus Christ and what he is doing in and through the church are part of the redemption of all creation.
The reconciliation of all in Christ is why Paul can say that now “through the church, the manifold wisdom of God” is “made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 3:10).
Saturday, March 21, 2009
our need
If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior. ~ D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation
HT:JH
HT:JH
thank god
David Di Sabatino states:
He is right. Thank God for His mercy on us and I pray we would fully receive that and love others as He has loved us.
I think that if you or I met the prophet Ezekiel or Hosea brought his whore wife over for dinner or John the Baptist sat at your table and demanded to be fed locusts and honey, we'd call the cops never mind anathematize them. I always ask people when they start parsing the life of Elvis or Bono or some lesser mortals and whether they are heaven bound what their reaction would be if the Apostle Paul showed up a few years after his conversion to speak in your hometown church, and he had been responsible for killing your parents. Not likely you’d be dropping a bundle in the offering that night.
He is right. Thank God for His mercy on us and I pray we would fully receive that and love others as He has loved us.
Friday, March 20, 2009
sanders on schaeffer on trinity
Fred Sander writes, "True to trinitarian form ... one of the main things Schaeffer wants to say is that sanctification is a project of the entire Trinity, and he does so by surveying the way each of the three persons is related to Christian holiness:
God the Father is active in our sanctification as the one who will accomplish it, and who sets the standard of it: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you” and “equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in you what is pleasing in his sight.” (I Thess. 5:23; Hebrews 13:20-21). Elsewhere (in True Spirituality, Works III:275) Schaeffer says, “When we accept Christ as our Savior, we are immediately in a new relationship with God the Father. … but, of course, if this is so, we should be experiencing in this life the Father’s fatherliness.”
God the Son is involved in our sanctification in that it is the purpose for which he died: “Christ gave himself for the church, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word… gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Ephesians 5:25-26; Titus 2:11-14)
God the Spirit is the holy one who makes us holy: “you were washed, you were sanctified…by the Spirit of our God… and are being transformed from glory to glory… by the Lord who is the Spirit … and we are saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.” (I Cor 6:11; II Cor 3:18; II Thess 2:13)
glory days
My friend Iggy reminded me of some pretty sweet times enjoying Sweet Comfort Band.
Technorati Tags: music
Thursday, March 19, 2009
more trinity
By Fred Sanders on Francis Schaeffer on the trinity ...
The first point in Schaeffer’s Bible study on the Trinity is that the God of the Bible is personal: God has plans which he considers in advance and then carries out with purpose (Eph. 1:4). Not only does he think but he takes action, real action in space and time (Gen. 1:1). And not only does he think and act, but he feels. He loves the world (John 3:16). “Love is an emotion. Thus the God who exists is personal. He thinks, acts, and feels, three distinguishing marks of personality. He is not an impersonal force, nor an all-inclusive everything. He is personal. When He speaks to us, He says “I” and we can answer Him “You.””
One of Schaeffer’s favorite phrases for the personhood of God was that he was “personal on the high order of Trinity,” and the next step in his basic trinitarian Bible study is to state all the biblical evidence about unity and diversity in the God of the Bible. The Old Testament teaches, and the New Testament reaffirms, that there is only one God (Deut. 6:4; James 2:19). “But,” Schaeffer goes on, “the Bible also teaches that this one God exists in three distinct persons.” His first line of evidence for this claim is the divine plurals used in the language of the Old Testament: “Who will go for us” (Isa. 6:8), “Let us make man in our image” (Gen. 1:26), “Let us go down and confuse their language” (Gen. 11:7). “In this verse, as in in 1:26, the persons of the Trinity are in communication with each other.”
These Old Testament plurals, it seems to me, would not be enough to prove the Triunity of the one God all by themselves. They are odd enough to require some explanation: Why would a consistently monotheistic revelation use words like we, us, and ours? And they might point to a certain fullness or richness of God’s inner life. But solid trinitarianism has to wait until the Son and the Spirit are directly revealed in the events of the New Testament. What Schaeffer primarily wants us to learn from these passages, however, is not triunity itself but the fact that it pre-exists creation. Combined with a few New Testament insights (”you loved me before the foundation of the world,” said Jesus to his Father in John 17:24), these plurals show that “Communication and love existed between the persons of the Trinity before the creation.” And that matters a lot to Schaeffer, because it means that when God reveals himself as Father, Son, and Spirit, he is revealing who has always been.
When he turns to the New Testament, Schaeffer highlights the baptism of Christ (Matt. 3:16-17) because of the clarity with which each of the three persons is shown there. He also points to a few of the passages where all three persons are named in a single verse: Matt. 28:19; John 15:26; I Peter 1:2.
With this biblical doctrine of God as his foundation, Schaeffer’s soteriology is explicitly trinitarian. Under the heading of salvation, the Trinity is not the very first thing Schaeffer teaches. That priority is reserved for a classic Protestant statement of the biblical doctrine of salvation by grace alone through faith alone. But from that all-important point of entry, the very next thing Schaeffer wants to say is that what this justification introduces us into is a new relationship, or web of relationships, to the Triune God:
This new relationship with the triune God is, then, the second of the blessings of salvation, justification being the first. This new relationship, as we have seen, is threefold:
1. God the Father is the Christian’s Father.
2. The only begotten Son of God is our Savior and Lord, our prophet, priest and king. We are identified and united with Him.
3. The Holy Spirit lives in us and deals with us. He communicates to us the manifold benefits of redemption.
In summary, commenting on 2 Cor 13:14, Schaeffer says “The work of each of the three persons is important to us. Jesus died to save us, the Father draws us to Himself and loves us, and the Holy Spirit deals with us.”
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
trinity
… the Holy Spirit indwelling the individual Christian is not only the agent of Christ, but he is also the agent of the Father. Consequently, when I accept Christ as my Savior, my guilt is gone, I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and I am in communication with the Father and the Son, as well as of the Holy Spirit –the entire Trinity. Thus now, in the present life, if I am justified, I am in a personal relationship with each of the members of the Trinity. God the Father is my Father; I am in union with the Son; and I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This is not just meant to be doctrine; it is what I have now. ~ Francis Schaeffer (True Spirituality; Works III:271)
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
maturity
I like this picture posted by David Rudd for a number of reasons.
I have seen far too many communities celebrate their perceived success in the Men's Group, Women's Group, etc. bubble. While I think these things can be successful most of these communities failed to see them for what they are. They cater to the immature. If they become vehicles to help someone move toward maturity, great. But too often activities at that level have become the goal. Churches bragging about how big these groups are is wrong. I think it is more about the number of people joining and the number moving onto something deeper, that would be great.
But that's not what I've seen.
I have seen far too many communities celebrate their perceived success in the Men's Group, Women's Group, etc. bubble. While I think these things can be successful most of these communities failed to see them for what they are. They cater to the immature. If they become vehicles to help someone move toward maturity, great. But too often activities at that level have become the goal. Churches bragging about how big these groups are is wrong. I think it is more about the number of people joining and the number moving onto something deeper, that would be great.
But that's not what I've seen.
Technorati Tags: ecclesiology
violation of the will
God saves no man to his harm. And God saves none against his will. Grace makes the sinner willing. It is a secret exercise of omnipotence on the hidden man of the heart coaxing and alluring him to salvation and glory by Christ. It is always effectual but it is never brute strength. ~ Maurice Roberts, The Thought of God
HT:OFI
HT:OFI
Technorati Tags: Calvinism
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)