For What it’s Worth…

A newspaper columnist wrote:
“The average church goer takes a few hours out of the week to experience the sacred … But the rest of the time, he is immersed in a society that no longer acknowledges God as an omniscient and omnipotent force to be loved and worshipped… Today we are too sophisticated for God. We can stand on our own; we are prepared and ready to choose and define our own existence.”
As challenging as these words are, they do make a very real point. We do live in a society that has, in its own estimation, ‘outgrown God’. [We see the increasingly stark consequences of a ‘God-less’ society]. Hebrews addressed ‘exiles and strangers’ (Heb. 11v13), those who live by faith in the promises of God, walking ‘by faith and not by sight’ (2 Cor 5v7). How do you feed your faith in a barren world?

This week as a staff team we were reading a small chapter from Charles Bridges’ book, The Christian Ministry, on “The Fear of Man”. Bridges speaks of the straightforward manner in which we should speak, and how our fear often keeps our mouths closed, or, causes us to disguise our words because of our fear of being thought ill of.
Bridges writes, “The offensive truth must be smoothed, disguised and intermixed, until it is attenuated into an insipid, pointless, and inoperative statement”.
Is our tendency to back off and not speak, or speak in such a way as to mute our words, when our conscience is telling us that the godly course is to ‘speak the truth in love’.
In answer, Bridges encourages a ‘holy but humble indifference to all consequences’, entrusting their response to the Lord. Will we pray that God will make us faithful?

“The heir of heaven serves his Lord to simply out of gratitude; he has no salvation to gain, no heaven to lose;… Now, out of love to the God who chose him, and who gave so great a prize for his redemption, he desires to lay out himself entirely to his Master’s service. Oh, you who are seeking salvation by the works of the law, what a miserable life yours must be!… You have it that if you diligently persevere in obedience, you may perhaps obtain eternal life, though, alas! none of you dare to pretend that you have attained it. You toil and toil and toil, but you never get that for which you toil after, and you never will, for, ‘by the works of the law there shall no flesh living be justified’…. The child of God works not for life, but from life; he does not work to be saved, he works because he is saved.” C.H.Spurgeon

Nobody likes having their will crossed. From an early age we learn to react with anger and outrage when someone dares to impose upon us, to prevent us achieving our aims, to deprive us of what we perceive to be our right to self-determination. But this makes for a clash of wills for the Christian because the Christian lives not according to their own word, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
This is why the foundation of the Christian life is repentance and faith and this is why each and every day of discipleship with Jesus involves dying to ourselves and living to him. As Christians, we should be able to see the fruit of God “crossing our will” in the changes that he has made in us to make us more Like Christ. Can you?

The Bible should be at the centre of our life. Most of us will say that this is the case. We read it, we sing it, we study it, we hear it taught. The Bible is the foundation of our life in God – but, is it? Do we have a thirst to know God’s will that we might do it? Are we eager to know God through his Word? A 19th century Pastor, Octavius Winslow, writes,
When a professing Christian can read his Bible with no spiritual taste, or when he searches it, not with a sincere desire to know the mind of the Spirit in order to [walk] a holy and obedient walk, but with a merely curious aim, it is a sure evidence that his soul is making but a retrograde movement in real spirituality. Nothing perhaps more strongly indicates the tone of a believer’s spirituality, than the light in which the Scriptures are regarded by him.

What is it that we value the most? We live in a world that puts a value on almost everything in our life, including our life! Donald Whitney challenges us…
“Perhaps you would think of something like the Hope Diamond, the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s sculpture of David…yet offer any of these to an emaciated man who is hours from dying of thirst and hunger, the relative value of the world’s greatest treasures drops to nothing. Though inexpensive and often taken for granted, ultimately it is the basics of life – things such as food and water – that are most precious. For without them, there is no life at all. Therefore, I submit that the single most valuable item on earth is the Bible.”
What is it that we value the most?

Calvin’s fourth rule on prayer – “We pray in confident hope”. Calvin rightly comments,
“Cast down and overcome by true humility, we should be nonetheless encouraged to pray by a sure hope that our prayer will answered”
Prayer is essentially linked to faith, and true faith is founded on the sure character of the one in whom we have that faith, and not some abstract quantity or quality of ours. As we come to God in prayer, it is helpful to recall the cross of His Son. We know we come as sinners, but as forgiven sinners – sinners who are now children. Meditate on Paul’s encouragement in Romans 8.32 – “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Let us pray!

Calvin’s third rule on prayer – “We yield all confidence in ourselves and humbly plead for pardon”.
Simply, we are to ‘depend on no assurance whatever but this alone: that, reckoning [our]selves to be of God, [we] do not despair that he will take care of [us].”
We must come, knowing that we deserve nothing but judgment and condemnation, but trusting that Jesus Christ took all we deserved on the Cross. He bought us by his blood and we are his – nothing can snatch us from his hands. We can have confidence in prayer, we can have assurance of God’s love for us, we can know that our Father hear our requests – but only on the basis of Christ’s death for us and never on the basis of our own righteousness – remember that “on Christ the solid rock we stand, all else is sinking sand”.

“AUSTRALIA is marching towards recession while the growth rate is shrinking to a “remarkable” degree, a leading study has found.” [“Australia headed for ‘remarkable’ recession, index shows“, The Australian, April 15.]

What is a Christian response to such a comment?  Trust in God not money?  Do not be afraid, God is in control?  Both of these sentiments are expressed by the Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and so are true beyond doubt.

But, is there more that needs to be said?  Have we ever stopped to consider the role that money and the stuff it buys for us plays in our lives?  Perhaps for the Christian, the G.F.C. should serve as an check on the heart more than the wallet?  Do we need to bring our hearts with our budgets before the Lord and ask whether we honestly seek his kingdom and his righteousness first?  Have you ever considered that a Christian response to recession could be that you become more generous with the way we give?  Something to ponder…

Our preacher said, on Easter, that Jesus just swooned on  the cross and that the disciples nursed Him back to health.  What do you think?

Sincerely,

Bewildered

…

Dear Bewildered:

Beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails with 39 heavy  strokes, nail him to a cross; hang him in the sun for 6 hours; run a spear through his heart; embalm him; put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens.

Sincerely,

Eutychus

See: 1 Cor 15:3-4

Preaching on Hope this weekend and in my research found a very blackly humourous website called despair.com – some of it is downright nasty but they had some great comments on blogging!  I post this as an occassional blogger myself… [Clayton wanted to get this as a T-shirt!]

Anyway, this is not the point of this post.  They have a great little short film on the site that is very thought provoking – I recommend it for a serious ponder.  Have a look at it – I think it is worth 6 minutes of your life – http://despair.com/more.html

Let us know what you think.  C

Hi there – I thought that again the more silent partner should speak…

I would like to recommend two books that have helped me in recent times.  

The first is Atheism Remix by Albert Mohler Jnr.  Mohler is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the US of A and is a theologian who likes to mix it with issues raised by the intersection and clash of Bible and culture.  In this little book [only a bit more than 100 pages, and small ones at that] Mohler goes head to head with the New Atheists – guys like Richard Dawkins [The God Delusion] and Christopher Hitchens.  He looks at the emergence of the New Atheists and why they are different [and more of a threat] to the older variety.  He looks at their arguments and two notable critiques of their ideas.  This is a very helpful little book as it lays out the debate in a simple, understandable manner.  Recommended for those rub shoulders with those who have read [or seen - "The Root of All Evil" showed as a documentary] Dawkin’s especially.

I thought that as Clayton’s name was all over this blog and it claimed to be from “two guys”, I, the silent partner, had better speak up.

I have been working on “lust” this week – to be precise, before I get buried under your pastoral concern, I have been working on what Jesus says about it [Matthew 5.27-30] and why it is NOT GOOD.  Funny enough, the Basement group last night looked at the same passage last night.

What struck me this week was that sin can kill ‘Christians’.

Many of us love the great doctrines of grace, atonement,  predestination – and we rest our assurance on the work of Christ for us alone.  I stand ONLY on what Jesus did and NEVER on what I do.  But Jesus tells us that unless we are radical [in the sense of getting to the root] in dealing with our sin our eternal fate may be a bit hotter than we anticipate.  Does Jesus expect perfection – well [the good Anglican answer] yes and no.  Yes – “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”.  No – this is a goal we will not reach this side of judgement.  BUT IT MUST BE OUR GOAL