The only reason for being

Courtesy of Ray Ortlund’s blog:

God knows what He’s about…

From the blog of Colin Adams:

When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man, and skill a man
When God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part
When He yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man
That all the world should be amazed,
Watch his methods, watch His ways:
How he ruthlessly perfects whom He royally elects;
How he hammers him and hurts him
And with mighty blows converts him into shapes and forms of clay
Which only God can understand,
While man’s tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands;
Yet God bends but never beaks when man’s good He undertakes
How He uses whom he chooses,
And with mighty power infuses him,
With every act induces him to try his splendour out,
God knows what he’s about…’
(Anon, Quoted in When God Weeps)

Baseball and Soup

You know it’s been a rough year for the Seattle Mariners when Dave Niehaus and Mike Blowers, the play-by-play announcers,  are reduced to talking about soup.  And I quote:

Mike Blowers:  I like a hot bowl of clam chowder….and a nice stew.
Dave Niehaus:  MMMM…..Me too!

You can’t get that kind of cutting edge baseball banter anywhere else, that’s for sure.

Why Grace?

Decided to post something from my wife this morning.  As you’ll see, she’s a much better writer than I, and I’m hoping that this won’t be the last time you get to hear from her.  In this post, she explains why we decided to name our baby girl Grace. 

 

Why Grace?

 

Besides being what I think is a lovely sounding name, “Grace” is a particularly meaningful title for me to give to my first daughter.

  

First, I know that it is by grace that we have been given a daughter.  Conception of a child is not a gift that has been given to everyone, nor is it a gift that has been appreciated and gratefully received by all who have experienced it.  The miraculous creation of a human soul is an incredibly gracious gift.  It is pure grace that this gift has been handed to Paul and me.

  

Second, I know that it is by grace that we will be enabled to raise our daughter in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  Each day that Christ sustains us to live with our daughter is a day of grace.  Every moment we are enabled to hold our tongues and respond to our daughter in patient, consistent training is a moment of God’s grace to us.  Each time we rightly discipline Grace, we know that God’s grace has been extended to us as parents and to our daughter as His child.  It is pure grace that enables a parent to love and train and discipline a child as Christ has loved and trained and disciplined us.

  

Third, I know that we are completely and utterly dependent on the grace of God for the beautiful salvation and sanctification of our daughter.  It is our hope and has been our prayer since before this child was conceived that the incomparable gift of grace through Jesus Christ would be given to her.  That she would be chosen by God to be His own, enabled to love and obey Him, given the richness that comes with a repentant heart, this is our greatest desire for our daughter.  We will strive to raise her in such a way that her heart desires the Lord and loves His Word, but it is foolishness to believe that our greatest wish will be accomplished outside of the pure grace of God.  He is our only hope.

  

And so we name our daughter Grace: thankful that the gracious gift of a child has been given to us, dependent on the Lord to give us the grace to parent her according to His Word, and hopeful in our prayers that Christ will demonstrate His eternal grace to our little girl by adopting her as His own and saving her.

  

Thank you, Jesus, for Grace.

 

 

On the beginning of human life and Presidential Nominees ducking answers

Catrina and I enjoyed watching the ‘conversation’ between Rick Warren and the Presidential Nominees last Saturday night.  I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to find it onTV given our current cable package (it’s called Limited Basic Cable…they don’t even advertise it) but C-SPAN came through for us again.  If you didn’t get a chance to watch it, I would encourage you to do so.  You can find it here.  If you’d rather read their responses, search for ‘Saddleback Civil Forum Transcript’ in Google.

It was interesting to see the difference in styles, and answers, given by the two candidates to the questions.  Catrina and I were very impressed with McCain and how forthright he was on his answers.  It was rather refreshing and something I don’t think we see often enough in politics.  As for Mr. Obama, it seemed to us that he spent most of his time trying to do everything he could to not answer the question in a direct manner.  The worst was when he was asked, “at what point does a baby get human rights in your view?’ 

The following was posted on the First Things blog:

Dr. Hymie Gordon (Mayo Clinic): “By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”

Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth (Harvard University Medical School): “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”

Dr. Alfred Bongioanni (University of Pennsylvania): “I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”

Dr. Jerome LeJeune, “the Father of Modern Genetics” (University of Descartes, Paris): “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence.”

(from the Saddleback Civil Forum)
Rick Warren: At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?
Sen. Barack Obama: Well, I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.

Fascinating…and frightening….and saddening.  First of all, it would seem that if you really didn’t know, you’d err on the side of caution and the protection of the unborn, especially if you are a ‘christian’ and really like that verse in Matthew about how we treat the least of these as he stated in his discussion with Pastor Warren.  That certainly isn’t the case.  Second, I don’t know what I feel about a presidential nominee that hasn’t resolved this issue in his mind, specifically in light of the position he’s striving for.  Above my pay grade?!….there is no higher position than the President of the United States.  However, based upon his platform, numerous speeches, and voting record, we know exactly where he stands on the issue….even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

HT:  James Grant for Justin Taylor

Al Mohler is Wicked Smart…

I’ve enjoyed watching the videos of Al Mohler answer questions about the Bible, post-modernism, grace, and art and culture from this year’s New Attitude Conference.  They’ve broken up the Q&A into short videos (5-7 minutes), with each video being one question.  He’s smart. 

I’d also recommend the sermons from this conference as well.  The sermons and videos can be found here.

Another television show that got cancelled to early…

One of the things I’ve learned about my blog the last couple of weeks is that if I want to significantly increase my readership, I need to write about more television shows.  I’ve gotten more hits off my post about the t.v. show Jericho than any other two posts combined. 

Therefore, in a blatant effort to increase my visibility, I thought I’d write a quick post about another show that got cancelled WAAAYYYYY to early….Firefly.  Apparently, the show was so bad that they decided to make a movie based upon it that did relatively well called Serenity.  In actuality, the television show is great and can be watched online for free here.  I’d recommend watching the show, the network execs only gave it one year so it won’t take too long to get through, and then renting the movie.  Catrina and I loved them both.  Enjoy…

My Struggles with my Charismatic-icism

First of all, I have no idea if ‘charismatic-icsm’ works as a word, but I’m going to give it a try.  I love the fact that I’ve grown up in a charismatic church.  I am so grateful for our recently retired Senior Pastor Tom Goetz who not only left me his entire pastoral library (thousands of dollars worth of books), but who in his 15 years of service faithfully preached the Bible and did not allow us to get off track as many charismatic churches are wont to do.  At our church I’ve seen God do some absolutely amazing ‘charismatic’ (biblical things that do still happen today) things.  I’ll never forget the evening service we had where we watched a man’s leg grow.   I mean literally watched a man’s leg grow, a man that I knew back then and still know today.

Now, there are times in my ‘Charismatic-icism’ that I struggle a bit, specifically when words like ‘Revival’ and ‘Outpouring’ and ‘Renewal’ start being mentioned.   How I desire that God would pour out his Spirit upon his bride, but it seems that often times these special outpourings seem more ‘man-glorifying’ or ‘gift-glorifying’ than God-glorifying.  This has been the case with the recent Lakeland Outpouring.  There are some people that I know that wholeheartedly support Todd Bentley, and others that are quick to call him a false prophet.  Honestly, from what I’ve seen, I’d say that this latest outpouring is less about the glorification of Christ and more about glorifying what he wants to give us….and that is scary. 

I’ve been waiting for John Piper to weigh in on the issue, and I wasn’t disappointed when he finally did with this article (The Charisma article he references can be found here).  As always, I appreciate his perspective.  It is easy for to jump into the judgment seat and hammer Todd Bentley, but I need to remind myself that I need to be praying for him and his family, especially in this difficult time.  Yes, I  disagree with a lot of his doctrine as well as his methods, but I pray that Christ would be glorified in his life and ministry, whatever it ends up to be.  I am also freshly humbled and pray that Christ would protect me and my family, and that in my ministry, I would never elevate the gifts above the Giver.

Anyone who thinks sermon preparation is easy….

has only ever preached sermons they’ve ‘borrowed’ from someone else.  Sermon prep is hard work….as well it should be.  It is not something to be taken lightly, but should be undertaken with great fear and trembling.  At this point, I’m trembling…

Playing my ‘part-time’ part well.

To say this week has been a busy week is an understatement.  My life is often times fairly hectic given the numerous responsibilities I carry between my real job at GSA and my work at the church.  The regular preaching pastor is on vacation this week and so a couple of months ago I volunteered to fill the pulpit.  What I was reminded of again is how difficult it is to split my time and energy between two functions that require so much of both. 

 I know how much time I have to spend at GSA (44 hours this week) and the real tension comes from how much time I have to prepare the sermon(not enough…or at least not as much as I’d like).  For me that includes much meditation, prayer and studying of the text (this week it’s Philippians 2:1-13) before I even get to putting the sermon together.  It’s difficult for me to feel as if I can get into the process when I’ve only got snippets of time to dedicate to the sermon.   The only time I do have to really work on the sermon is after a long day at work, and the last thing I want to do is sit down at a computer after a long day sitting down at a computer, not to mention take time away from my wife to do so.

I remember Tim Keller saying on time that to become a better preacher, it’s better to preach 3 times a week, spending 6 or 7 hours on each sermon than to preach 1 time, spending 20 hours on that one sermon.  I know that I’m learning through this process, and I know that at the end of the day,  the sermon will come together, even if I have to spend a lot of time on Saturday to get it done.  This week has also reminded me how much I depend upon the Holy Spirit to illuminate the Scriptures and empower my words when I preach.  That no matter how much time I put in the sermon, without him it’s just a bunch of words and good intentions. 

I remember Matt Chandler saying once that we need to play our part well, whatever it may be.  For me, in this season, I need to play my ‘part-time preaching’ part well….as well as my ‘full-time GSA’ part well.  Knowing that I can depend upon Christ to meet me where the tension is at its worst…and being confident that he will not let me down.