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9月30日 Class Update: Helping Others ChangeI mentioned Sunday morning that I use my blog to mention any class updates on the Sunday morning class Helping Others Change. This week we will work through Lesson 4 - "Following the Wonderful Counselor". In this lesson we will bridge from our need of change (Lessons 1-3) to the commitments we need to speak into others lives. We have seen our need of change and the location of our need (not just behavior but our heart: desires, affections, motivations). Starting this week we will see our calling to help others see their own hearts and then we will get a big picture of our priorities in helping other people. I will be away from New Life in Christ Church this week. I am preaching at Hope of Christ church in Stafford as Leonard Bailey recovers from knee surgery this week. Bob Rumbuagh will be teaching this lesson. Make sure you look at your homework (Lessons 2-3 Make it Real)! 9月25日 God's Happiness and Our HappinessNor do these things argue and dependence in God on the creature for happiness. Though he has real pleasure in the creature's holiness and happiness, yet this is not properly any pleasure which he receives from the creature. For these things are what he gives the creature. They are wholly and entirely from him. His rejoicing therein is rather a rejoicing in his own acts, and his own glory expressed in those acts, than a joy derived from the creature. […] For what has been said, it appears, that the pleasure God hath in those things which have been mentioned, is rather a pleasure in diffusing and communicating to, than in receiving from the creature. Surely, it is no argument of indigence in God, that he is inclined to communicate of his infinite fulness. It is no argument of the emptiness or deficiency of a fountain, that it is inclined to overflow. Another part of God's fulness which he communicates, is his happiness. This happiness consists in enjoying and rejoicing in himself; and so does also the creature's happiness. It is a participation of what is in God; and God and his glory are the objective ground of it. The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God; by which also God is magnified and exalted. Joy, or the exulting of the heart in God's glory, is one thing that belongs to praise. The End For Which God Created The World by Jonathan Edwards Loving God ... Needing GodIt would be a bold and silly creature that came before its Creator with the boast "I'm no beggar. I love you disinterestedly." […] He addresses our Need-love: "Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy-laden," or, in the Old Testament, "open your mouth wide and I will fill it." […] Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help? [...] St. John's saying that God is love has long been balanced in my mind against the remark of a modern author (M. Denis de Rougemont) that "love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god"; which of course can be re-stated in the form "begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god." This balance seems to me an indispensable safeguard. If we ignore it the truth that God is love my slyly come to mean for us the converse, that love is God. From The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis 9月18日 The End for Which God Created the WorldThis is mind boggling and world-upsetting, and yet so soul-enriching to think there is something so wonderful outside of ourselves. First, God's greatest love is God himself (and he is perfectly right for him to do so) - "[T]he moral rectitude of the disposition, inclination, or affection of God chiefly consists in a regard to himself, infinitely above his regard to all other beings; or, in other words, his holiness consists in this." - Jonathan Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, page 98. Second, God created the world to show how great he is (though he doesn't need the world to be great): "Thus it appears reasonable to suppose, that it was God's last end [i.e. ultimate purpose], that there might be a glorious and abundant emanation of his infinite fulness of good ad extra, or without himself; and that the disposition to communicate himself, of to diffuse his own fulness, was what moved him to create the world." page 100. The Miracle of Blood ClottingWhat is it about our bodies that show that they have been carefully designed by a Creator? See this video about blood clotting. 9月10日 The Cost of Avoiding Pain Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung, possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell. CS Lewis, The Inspirational Writings of C.S. Lewis (New York: Inspiration Press, 1994), 278. 9月8日 Helpful Books on Sufering and Death A Grief Observed by CS Lewis When God Weeps by Joni Eareckson Tada and Steve Estes Heaven by Randy Alcorn What books have you found helpful? Honoring Shirley Dawson My wife Julie wrote a short article honoring Shirley Dawson and her love for God, her family, and others. You can read it if you click here. Shirley passed away, going to see the Lord on September 8, 2008. I will miss her dearly, as will my whole family. Shirley is a huge reason I came to New Life in Christ church. When I interviewed at New Life in 2004, she told me how much she had been praying for me. I was convinced that a church where people prayed for the pastors was a good church to be at. So, I came, and I remain very thankful to God for her life and witness of Christ. 9月6日 Only a DadI came across this poem when I was reading to my kids. It made me think of my dad and his work and sacrifice for his family. I can only hope that my kids would have such a memory of me. We may feel like we are doing very little, but a little bit of love to those who matter the most makes a big difference. Only A Dad Edgar Guest Only a dad with a tired face, Coming home from the daily race, Bringing little of gold or fame To show how well he has played the game; But glad in his heart that his own rejoice To see him come and to hear his voice. Only a dad with a brood of four, One of ten million men or more Plodding along in the daily strife, Bearing the whips and the scorns of life, With never a whimper of pain or hate, For the sake of those who at home await. Only a dad, neither rich nor proud, Merely one of the surging crowd, Toiling, striving from day to day, Facing whatever may come his way, Silent whenever the harsh condemn, And bearing it all for the love of them. Only a dad but he gives his all, To smooth the way for his children small, Doing with courage stern and grim The deeds that his father did for him. This is the line that for him I pen: Only a dad, but the best of men. From the book "A Heap o' Livin'" ©1916 Reprinted in "The Children's Treasury of Virtues" by William Bennett, 1998 9月1日 Seeing God, Savoring God"It is crucial for evangelism and missions that we understand that true saving faith is grounded on a spiritual sight of the glory of God in the gospel. This will have a huge impact on the way we think about missions and evangelism. The primary impact will be to make sure that the missionary and the evangelist are spiritual people who see and savor the glory of God in the face of Christ." - John Piper, God is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself |
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