Anyone who knows me very well knows that Tim Keller is one of my heroes. Why? Because he is radically captured by the Gospel and it comes through so clearly in his teaching and preaching. In Fall 2005 he preached a sermon on the Prodigal Sons that is amazing! If you take only one piece of advice from me, please listen to it: http://www.redeemer2.com/visioncampaign/index.cfm?page=vision_sermons&week=1
The other messages from this series can be found at:
http://www.redeemer2.com/visioncampaign/index.cfm?page=vision_sermons&week=1
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Funky Presbyterian: This is what the gospel looks like.
In contrast to the firefighters: This is what the gospel looks like. from my friend Greg's blog
What does it look like to embody the antithesis of the Gospel?
This article was shocking to me!
Feb 16, 2006
Mo. Firefighters Refuse to Help Non-Member
MONETT, Mo. (AP) -- Rural firefighters stood by and watched a fire destroy a garage and a vehicle because the property owner had not paid membership dues.
Bibaldo Rueda - who was injured battling the flames Monday - offered to pay the dues as the fire blazed away, but the Monett Rural Fire Department does not have a policy for on-the-spot billing, Sheriff's Detective Robert Evenson said.
Fire Chief Ronnie Myers defended the no-pay, no-aid policy, saying the membership-based organization could not survive if people thought the department would respond for free. The department said it will fight a fire without question if a life is believed to be in danger.
Rueda used a garden hose and buckets to fight the flames while firefighters stood by on the road, watching in case the blaze spread to neighboring properties owned by members. The fire eventually burned itself out.
Rueda said no one told him about the dues policy when he moved in 1 1/2 years ago.
With this happening in rural Missouri, I would almost be willing to bet most of the firefighters were churchgoers.
When we understand and increasingly believe the Gospel and God's radical love for us revealed in it, we will begin to embody it in missional living. A failure to believe the Gospel in the stuff of life leads to self-centered, I'm-only-going-to-help-you-if-you-pay-your-dues type living.
Feb 16, 2006
Mo. Firefighters Refuse to Help Non-Member
MONETT, Mo. (AP) -- Rural firefighters stood by and watched a fire destroy a garage and a vehicle because the property owner had not paid membership dues.
Bibaldo Rueda - who was injured battling the flames Monday - offered to pay the dues as the fire blazed away, but the Monett Rural Fire Department does not have a policy for on-the-spot billing, Sheriff's Detective Robert Evenson said.
Fire Chief Ronnie Myers defended the no-pay, no-aid policy, saying the membership-based organization could not survive if people thought the department would respond for free. The department said it will fight a fire without question if a life is believed to be in danger.
Rueda used a garden hose and buckets to fight the flames while firefighters stood by on the road, watching in case the blaze spread to neighboring properties owned by members. The fire eventually burned itself out.
Rueda said no one told him about the dues policy when he moved in 1 1/2 years ago.
With this happening in rural Missouri, I would almost be willing to bet most of the firefighters were churchgoers.
When we understand and increasingly believe the Gospel and God's radical love for us revealed in it, we will begin to embody it in missional living. A failure to believe the Gospel in the stuff of life leads to self-centered, I'm-only-going-to-help-you-if-you-pay-your-dues type living.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Book Recommendation: The Other Six Days by R Paul Stevens
The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work and Ministry in Biblical Perspective by R. Paul Stevens is another really good book. It is quite provocative (and I don't agree with some of his views: but do I agree with any book without exception? But I digress....) yet much of what he brings up about the calling of every Christian is compelling.
Here are a few quotes:
"a theology of the whole people of God must encompass not only the life of God’s people gathered, the ekklesia, but the church dispersed into the world, the diaspora, in marketplace, government, professional offices, schools, and homes" (8)
John Stott: “It is safe to say that unbalanced notions about either clergy or laity are due to unbalanced notions of the Church. Indeed, to be more precise, too low a view of laity is due to too high a view of clergy, and too high a view of clergy is due to too low a view of the Church” (50) [qtd from Stott, One People, 18]
“Our ordinary occupations find their true meaning in something larger than personal fulfillment. They are callings taken up in what the apostle Paul calls ‘my purpose’ (2 Tim 3:10)…. the Christian doctrine of vocation—so central to the theology of the whole people of God—starts with being called to Someone before we are called to do something” (72)
“We live in a post-vocational age. Without any theology of vocation we lapse into debilitating alternatives: fatalism (doing what is required by ‘the forces’ and ‘the powers’); luck (which denies purposefulness in life and reduces our life to a bundle of accidents); karma (which ties performance to future rewards); nihilism (which denies that there is any good end to which the travail of history might lead); and, the most common alternative today, self-actualization (in which we invent the meaning and purpose of our lives, making us magicians). In contrast the biblical doctrine of vocation proposes that the whole of our lives finds meaning in relation to the sweet summons of a good God” (72).
“The whole of our life has the glorious prospect of living out the great doctrines of the faith. The doctrine of the Trinity, for example, directs God-imaging creatures to live relationally…. The incarnation revolutionizes our attitude to things and promotes a radical Christian materialism. The atonement equips us to live mercifully. Ecclesiology evokes the experience of peoplehood, living as the laos of God rather than a bouquet of individual believers….Eschatology teaches us to view time as a gift of God rather than a resource to be managed” (244-245)
“What makes an activity Christian is not the husk but the heart… What makes a work Christian is faith, hope, and love. This is a crucial point. Orthopaxy is not merely accomplished by the skillful performance of ministerial duties…. I can preach a sermon to impress people; I can fix a shower door at home for the glory of God. I have probably done both” (249).
I will interact with some of the powerful points from the book sometime soon.
Here are a few quotes:
"a theology of the whole people of God must encompass not only the life of God’s people gathered, the ekklesia, but the church dispersed into the world, the diaspora, in marketplace, government, professional offices, schools, and homes" (8)
John Stott: “It is safe to say that unbalanced notions about either clergy or laity are due to unbalanced notions of the Church. Indeed, to be more precise, too low a view of laity is due to too high a view of clergy, and too high a view of clergy is due to too low a view of the Church” (50) [qtd from Stott, One People, 18]
“Our ordinary occupations find their true meaning in something larger than personal fulfillment. They are callings taken up in what the apostle Paul calls ‘my purpose’ (2 Tim 3:10)…. the Christian doctrine of vocation—so central to the theology of the whole people of God—starts with being called to Someone before we are called to do something” (72)
“We live in a post-vocational age. Without any theology of vocation we lapse into debilitating alternatives: fatalism (doing what is required by ‘the forces’ and ‘the powers’); luck (which denies purposefulness in life and reduces our life to a bundle of accidents); karma (which ties performance to future rewards); nihilism (which denies that there is any good end to which the travail of history might lead); and, the most common alternative today, self-actualization (in which we invent the meaning and purpose of our lives, making us magicians). In contrast the biblical doctrine of vocation proposes that the whole of our lives finds meaning in relation to the sweet summons of a good God” (72).
“The whole of our life has the glorious prospect of living out the great doctrines of the faith. The doctrine of the Trinity, for example, directs God-imaging creatures to live relationally…. The incarnation revolutionizes our attitude to things and promotes a radical Christian materialism. The atonement equips us to live mercifully. Ecclesiology evokes the experience of peoplehood, living as the laos of God rather than a bouquet of individual believers….Eschatology teaches us to view time as a gift of God rather than a resource to be managed” (244-245)
“What makes an activity Christian is not the husk but the heart… What makes a work Christian is faith, hope, and love. This is a crucial point. Orthopaxy is not merely accomplished by the skillful performance of ministerial duties…. I can preach a sermon to impress people; I can fix a shower door at home for the glory of God. I have probably done both” (249).
I will interact with some of the powerful points from the book sometime soon.
Book Recommendation: Don't Waste Your Life by Piper
John Piper is another hero of mine. His book Don't Waste Your Life is a very straight-forward, life-giving, and convicting. God is using the book to propel me to be Cross-embracing in the whole of life.
Here are a couple of quotes:
Pressed by the Bible to Know One Thing:
"I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).”
“The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing. If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on into eternity, you don’t need to have a high IQ. You don’t have to have good looks or riches or come from a fine family or a fine school. Instead you have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things—or one great all-embracing thing—and be set on fire by them.”
A Tragedy in the Making
"You may not be sure that you want your life to make a difference. Maybe you don’t care very much whether you make a lasting difference for the sake of something great. You just want people to like you. If people would just like being around you, you’d be satisfied. Or if you could just have a good job with a good wife, or husband, and a couple of good kids and a nice car and long weekends and a few good friends, a fun retirement, and a quick and easy death, and no hell—if you could have all that (even without God)—you would be satisfied. That is a tragedy in the making. A wasted life.”
Here are a couple of quotes:
Pressed by the Bible to Know One Thing:
"I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).”
“The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing. If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on into eternity, you don’t need to have a high IQ. You don’t have to have good looks or riches or come from a fine family or a fine school. Instead you have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things—or one great all-embracing thing—and be set on fire by them.”
A Tragedy in the Making
"You may not be sure that you want your life to make a difference. Maybe you don’t care very much whether you make a lasting difference for the sake of something great. You just want people to like you. If people would just like being around you, you’d be satisfied. Or if you could just have a good job with a good wife, or husband, and a couple of good kids and a nice car and long weekends and a few good friends, a fun retirement, and a quick and easy death, and no hell—if you could have all that (even without God)—you would be satisfied. That is a tragedy in the making. A wasted life.”
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Recommended Books
If you want to engage more in learning about, experiencing, and practicing Gospel Transformation, a must-read is Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands by Paul David Tripp. Next to the Bible, this may be the best book I've ever read.
Another of my top 5 that has recently come out and speaks clearly to many of the problems in the American Church and American Culture is Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. AWESOME!!!
If you want to know the others in my top 5:
Knowing God by J.I. Packer
A Quest for Godliness by J. I. Packer
Not the Way It's Supposed to Be by Cornelius Plantinga
Another of my top 5 that has recently come out and speaks clearly to many of the problems in the American Church and American Culture is Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. AWESOME!!!
If you want to know the others in my top 5:
Knowing God by J.I. Packer
A Quest for Godliness by J. I. Packer
Not the Way It's Supposed to Be by Cornelius Plantinga
Some Thoughts on the Church
As Joe Novenson once said, "The church may be a whore, but she is God's wife and your mother."
G.K. Chesterton: "The church has gone to the dogs at least 5 times, and each time it is the dogs that came back dead."
Jesus seemed to think that the church was pretty important to His whole plan (Matthew 16:17-19 and John 17:21-26).
The church today is radically messed up but abuse doesn't point us to disuse but to proper use. We are called to engage with others in living out the Truth as revealed in God's Word and to seek out a church that is pursuing that. Christ calls us to this (John 17:21-26), even as He prays for it.
To gripe or abandon the local church without pursuing misses the point and reveals that we are more concerned with our pain and desires than with God's passion and desires. Or as Madonna has said recently, "When you turn over an apple cart, all you have is a mess of apples on the floor and how does that help anything."
G.K. Chesterton: "The church has gone to the dogs at least 5 times, and each time it is the dogs that came back dead."
Jesus seemed to think that the church was pretty important to His whole plan (Matthew 16:17-19 and John 17:21-26).
The church today is radically messed up but abuse doesn't point us to disuse but to proper use. We are called to engage with others in living out the Truth as revealed in God's Word and to seek out a church that is pursuing that. Christ calls us to this (John 17:21-26), even as He prays for it.
To gripe or abandon the local church without pursuing misses the point and reveals that we are more concerned with our pain and desires than with God's passion and desires. Or as Madonna has said recently, "When you turn over an apple cart, all you have is a mess of apples on the floor and how does that help anything."
More on Gospel-Driven Motives
LOC said in response to my earlier blog on motives...
"But Can we ever REALLY do anything motivated by anything other than selfishness in the end?Even when we do things anoymously our hearts are deceiving and full of evil. "
My answer:
A resounding Yes...Paul says it (1Cor 13) and I have experienced it that love for God and others rather than selfishness can and should be the motivation for the good things we do, as a result of a transformed heart, which is a response to the Gospel (God free love and grace towards us) and the work of the Spirit to change our heart. I am not saying that we can have absolutely pure motives, nor am I saying we should navel-gaze to try and figure out our "true" motivation anytime we do things. But to say that what pleases God are kind actions driven by Gospel-driven motivation. Anything less should drive us to God so that He might graciously change us. 1Tim1:5 "But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith."Now it is just as wrong to have a Gospel transformed heart and to do nothing (I would actually say this is impossible, for a Gospel-transformed heart moves us to action). Also I would agree with CS Lewis that showing kindness, even while wrestling with poor motives, often can be the instrument through which God transforms our motives and attitude. But I ramble. May we run to God continually to experience His grace that we might embody that grace in our actions and our motivations.
"But Can we ever REALLY do anything motivated by anything other than selfishness in the end?Even when we do things anoymously our hearts are deceiving and full of evil. "
My answer:
A resounding Yes...Paul says it (1Cor 13) and I have experienced it that love for God and others rather than selfishness can and should be the motivation for the good things we do, as a result of a transformed heart, which is a response to the Gospel (God free love and grace towards us) and the work of the Spirit to change our heart. I am not saying that we can have absolutely pure motives, nor am I saying we should navel-gaze to try and figure out our "true" motivation anytime we do things. But to say that what pleases God are kind actions driven by Gospel-driven motivation. Anything less should drive us to God so that He might graciously change us. 1Tim1:5 "But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith."Now it is just as wrong to have a Gospel transformed heart and to do nothing (I would actually say this is impossible, for a Gospel-transformed heart moves us to action). Also I would agree with CS Lewis that showing kindness, even while wrestling with poor motives, often can be the instrument through which God transforms our motives and attitude. But I ramble. May we run to God continually to experience His grace that we might embody that grace in our actions and our motivations.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Thoughts on and Longings for the Beautiful Community of the Church
"Church" in the Bible is actually "ekklesia" in the greek meaning assembly/the gathered ones. Through the NT writers direction, church is the gathering of believers for the sharing of life and worship of God (both in corporate liturgical worship and the corporate living wholly for God).
The thing that strikes me about many who object to seeing the church in this way is that so many of them seem so caught up into American individualism that they fail to see God's enormous blessing that the Scripture promises (Ps 133) for being a part of a vital community of believers (admittedly most American churches lack both the real vitality and real community) and of God's calling to be a part of a larger body to worship God (John 17:20-24; 1Pet 2:4-10).
How can we exhibit the unity that Jesus is praying for, the barrier-breaking unity that Jesus says will testify to the reality of the Gospel (Jn 17.20-26), if we just get together with a couple of our friends who we naturally like or who are just like us.?
I will be the first to agree that many corporate gatherings (churches) have become emptied out of what God intended it to be.
But one thing is clear throughout Scripture that God calls us to worship Him corporately (Ps 92, 84, 1Pet 2:4-10) and more than that to be a corporate witness of love and grace and truth (John 17:20-24, 1Pet 2:4-10). Too often people have taken the "where two or three are gathered" and used that to say that is corporate worship. That verse is actually talking about church discipline and refers to the witnesses necessary to represent God before another believer who is living in sin. The Scriptures really aren't interested in setting up a strict guideline for how many qualify as a gathering, but the nature of corporate gatherings from the Bible would definitely point us that this gathering should be larger than an individual or than an individual family.
Not only is this where God's call is, but being a part of biblical community of real relationships, real worship, real engagement with God, church-being (as Marva Dawn calls it), what God has intended the church to be, is the greatest privilege and blessing that we can receive here on earth, the only real and enduring taste of heaven when we can find it.
Ps 133 "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity.... for there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore."
I am a pastor and I ache for these real relationships, real engagement, and real worship here in Shreveport. I have experienced this in the past and am pursuing it whole-heartedly here. As for me, I will pour out my life in pursuing real community and self-sacrificial sharing in worship that I might join together with others to reflect God's only-Gospel-possible glory and that I might drink deeply from the blessings found there.
May we seek out churches, other believers, and pastors, who are desiring and pursuing God's call for the church. We who earnestly hunger for this must join together in being the church! May God provide this for you.
The thing that strikes me about many who object to seeing the church in this way is that so many of them seem so caught up into American individualism that they fail to see God's enormous blessing that the Scripture promises (Ps 133) for being a part of a vital community of believers (admittedly most American churches lack both the real vitality and real community) and of God's calling to be a part of a larger body to worship God (John 17:20-24; 1Pet 2:4-10).
How can we exhibit the unity that Jesus is praying for, the barrier-breaking unity that Jesus says will testify to the reality of the Gospel (Jn 17.20-26), if we just get together with a couple of our friends who we naturally like or who are just like us.?
I will be the first to agree that many corporate gatherings (churches) have become emptied out of what God intended it to be.
But one thing is clear throughout Scripture that God calls us to worship Him corporately (Ps 92, 84, 1Pet 2:4-10) and more than that to be a corporate witness of love and grace and truth (John 17:20-24, 1Pet 2:4-10). Too often people have taken the "where two or three are gathered" and used that to say that is corporate worship. That verse is actually talking about church discipline and refers to the witnesses necessary to represent God before another believer who is living in sin. The Scriptures really aren't interested in setting up a strict guideline for how many qualify as a gathering, but the nature of corporate gatherings from the Bible would definitely point us that this gathering should be larger than an individual or than an individual family.
Not only is this where God's call is, but being a part of biblical community of real relationships, real worship, real engagement with God, church-being (as Marva Dawn calls it), what God has intended the church to be, is the greatest privilege and blessing that we can receive here on earth, the only real and enduring taste of heaven when we can find it.
Ps 133 "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity.... for there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore."
I am a pastor and I ache for these real relationships, real engagement, and real worship here in Shreveport. I have experienced this in the past and am pursuing it whole-heartedly here. As for me, I will pour out my life in pursuing real community and self-sacrificial sharing in worship that I might join together with others to reflect God's only-Gospel-possible glory and that I might drink deeply from the blessings found there.
May we seek out churches, other believers, and pastors, who are desiring and pursuing God's call for the church. We who earnestly hunger for this must join together in being the church! May God provide this for you.
Can bad motives cause "do-gooding" to be sin?
Anonymous asks in response to one of my earlier posts:
Anyway, I was curious about how "to do good without it being driven by love is sin." Do you mean that good deeds motivated by pride or a desire to be rewarded or in order to get ahead are a sin? What about good deeds out of a sense of obligation? Just curious.
Because according to Scriptures motives are as important to God as the acts themselves. Or to say it another way, transformation from God is seen more in a radical change of motives than it is in just a change of actions.
1Corinthians 13:1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Matthew 6:1 "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. 2 "So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
In Matthew 6, Jesus is exposing the Pharisees' hypocrisy and while he never calls their outward acts driven by self-centered motives "sin", he portrayal of them speaks even more strongly in that direction, as seen in
Matthew 23:25 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.
26 "You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.
27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
28 "So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Romans 14:23 "whatever is not from faith is sin."
Cain's offering in Genesis 4 was not received by God why? We don't know for sure but it seems to flow from not being given of the first fruits (he gave leftovers; his heart was not fully behind the gift/act.)
Righteousness in the Biblical faith is more than what is done (though not less). It is rooted in a response to God leading to love for God and love for men. Anything less than that is sin.
Having said that, I don’t mean we shouldn’t do acts of kindness if we lack love. [When we are faced with a less than loving motive (only in glory will our motives be 100% pure) and the opportunity to show kindness, we should still show kindness.] I do mean that our lack of love exposes our sinful condition and should lead us to repentance before God, acknowledging that our non-love-driven “good deeds” are less than what pleases God and looking for Him to so transform us by His Spirit into Christ’s likeness that we would truly love.
Biblical Christianity is more about joyously pleasing God than it is about being good people. As a matter of fact, "do-gooding" often is aimed at distancing ourselves from real lived-out dependence on Christ’s intercession for us (which is the heart of the Christian Gospel), by trying to feel better about ourselves or offer God a sacrifice less than what He has already provided. To see more of what I am talking about read John Piper’s Desiring God [online at http://desiringgod.org/dg/id1.htm].
Anyway, I was curious about how "to do good without it being driven by love is sin." Do you mean that good deeds motivated by pride or a desire to be rewarded or in order to get ahead are a sin? What about good deeds out of a sense of obligation? Just curious.
My answer:
Because according to Scriptures motives are as important to God as the acts themselves. Or to say it another way, transformation from God is seen more in a radical change of motives than it is in just a change of actions.
1Corinthians 13:1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Matthew 6:1 "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. 2 "So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
In Matthew 6, Jesus is exposing the Pharisees' hypocrisy and while he never calls their outward acts driven by self-centered motives "sin", he portrayal of them speaks even more strongly in that direction, as seen in
Matthew 23:25 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.
26 "You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.
27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
28 "So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Romans 14:23 "whatever is not from faith is sin."
Cain's offering in Genesis 4 was not received by God why? We don't know for sure but it seems to flow from not being given of the first fruits (he gave leftovers; his heart was not fully behind the gift/act.)
Righteousness in the Biblical faith is more than what is done (though not less). It is rooted in a response to God leading to love for God and love for men. Anything less than that is sin.
Having said that, I don’t mean we shouldn’t do acts of kindness if we lack love. [When we are faced with a less than loving motive (only in glory will our motives be 100% pure) and the opportunity to show kindness, we should still show kindness.] I do mean that our lack of love exposes our sinful condition and should lead us to repentance before God, acknowledging that our non-love-driven “good deeds” are less than what pleases God and looking for Him to so transform us by His Spirit into Christ’s likeness that we would truly love.
Biblical Christianity is more about joyously pleasing God than it is about being good people. As a matter of fact, "do-gooding" often is aimed at distancing ourselves from real lived-out dependence on Christ’s intercession for us (which is the heart of the Christian Gospel), by trying to feel better about ourselves or offer God a sacrifice less than what He has already provided. To see more of what I am talking about read John Piper’s Desiring God [online at http://desiringgod.org/dg/id1.htm].
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Do-Gooding vs. Gospel Obedience
“Do gooding” is antithetical to Gospel living. Christians certainly will be those who do good but our good deeds will increasingly flow from love, from right motive, from a transformed heart. We are called to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, & strength and that will lead to lived-out obedience to Him. Yet to do good without it being driven by love is sin and less than the Christian calling. Christians while delighting in doing good, should delight even more in showing mercy & forgiveness (driven by the mercy & forgiveness we have received) and even more our delight should be in loving God through bringing pleasure to Him.
Love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly with Thy God. Micah 6:8
Love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly with Thy God. Micah 6:8
Quotes from Girl Meets God
Here are some of my favorite quotes from Lauren Winner's fantastic book Girl Meets God:
“the very anonymity that made church-hopping appealing has begun to wear me down. I am tired of looking for a church, tired of having my spiritual community be just a patched-together group of Christian friends scattered across the four corners of the earth, folks I can call at any hour but never pray with face to face or eat cheese straws with during coffee hour. I am tired of being expected anywhere on Sunday morning” (30).
[On Christmas Day] “So much for celebrating Jesus’ birthday. I am more like the child who spends Mother’s Day demanding to know why there is no Children’s Day, not understanding that Children’s Day is every other day of the year” (76).
"Hannah, who's a Baptist, often says that a baby can't promise to do everything one promises in baptism. I have never found this a very persuasive argument. It strikes me as too individualistic. The very point is that no baptismal candidate, even an adult, can promise to do those things all by himself. The community is promising for you, with you, on your behalf. It is for that reason that I love to see a baby baptized. When a baby is baptized, we cannot labor under individuals in Christ can or should go this road alone. When a baby is baptized we are struck unavoidably with the fact that this is a community covenant, a community relationship, that these are communal promises” (80).
“Judaism taught me daily to expect God to resurrect the dead. True enough, over the centuries the rabbis have debated the details of Jewish after-life, but it boils down to what you say every day in prayer. And what you say every day in prayer, in the middle of the Shemoneh Esrei (literally, the ‘eighteen,’ because it comprises eighteen blessings), is that God ‘heals the sick’ and ‘releases the prisoner’ and is ‘faithful to raise the dead.’ Easter, it seems to me, is the most profoundly Jewish of all Christian holidays. For a Jew becoming a Christian, bodily resurrection is no surprise. It is what we had been expecting all along” (193).
Why am I a Christian?
“because this with-God-in-Heaven was this end I was created for. I was, as St. Ignatius of Loyola said, ‘created to praise, revere, and serve Him’; I believe, with Augustine, that people desire to praise God, that God ‘prompts’ that desire in us and that the end toward which we restlessly ever move is rest in Him. Or again, there is what Cyril said, right after he instructed his catechumens to allow themselves to be caught in God’s net: ‘Jesus is fishing for you, not to kill you but to give you life’” (194-195)
While I certainly don't agree with everything Winner has to say, she seems to model what it looks like to have a heart for pursuing authentic Christianity.
“the very anonymity that made church-hopping appealing has begun to wear me down. I am tired of looking for a church, tired of having my spiritual community be just a patched-together group of Christian friends scattered across the four corners of the earth, folks I can call at any hour but never pray with face to face or eat cheese straws with during coffee hour. I am tired of being expected anywhere on Sunday morning” (30).
[On Christmas Day] “So much for celebrating Jesus’ birthday. I am more like the child who spends Mother’s Day demanding to know why there is no Children’s Day, not understanding that Children’s Day is every other day of the year” (76).
"Hannah, who's a Baptist, often says that a baby can't promise to do everything one promises in baptism. I have never found this a very persuasive argument. It strikes me as too individualistic. The very point is that no baptismal candidate, even an adult, can promise to do those things all by himself. The community is promising for you, with you, on your behalf. It is for that reason that I love to see a baby baptized. When a baby is baptized, we cannot labor under individuals in Christ can or should go this road alone. When a baby is baptized we are struck unavoidably with the fact that this is a community covenant, a community relationship, that these are communal promises” (80).
“Judaism taught me daily to expect God to resurrect the dead. True enough, over the centuries the rabbis have debated the details of Jewish after-life, but it boils down to what you say every day in prayer. And what you say every day in prayer, in the middle of the Shemoneh Esrei (literally, the ‘eighteen,’ because it comprises eighteen blessings), is that God ‘heals the sick’ and ‘releases the prisoner’ and is ‘faithful to raise the dead.’ Easter, it seems to me, is the most profoundly Jewish of all Christian holidays. For a Jew becoming a Christian, bodily resurrection is no surprise. It is what we had been expecting all along” (193).
Why am I a Christian?
“because this with-God-in-Heaven was this end I was created for. I was, as St. Ignatius of Loyola said, ‘created to praise, revere, and serve Him’; I believe, with Augustine, that people desire to praise God, that God ‘prompts’ that desire in us and that the end toward which we restlessly ever move is rest in Him. Or again, there is what Cyril said, right after he instructed his catechumens to allow themselves to be caught in God’s net: ‘Jesus is fishing for you, not to kill you but to give you life’” (194-195)
While I certainly don't agree with everything Winner has to say, she seems to model what it looks like to have a heart for pursuing authentic Christianity.
Seeking Happiness in Chrisitianity Could Be Misguided
"If you're seeking happiness, don't choose Christianity; choose port wine." C. S. Lewis
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Welcome to My Weblog
Blogging is a new endeavor for me, so please show me some patience. I hope that this blog will be engaging to all and will move us to engage with God more deeply and to live our lives more wholly for Him.
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