Do not seek greatness, seek a broken heart

We are not meant for great feats, great feats are nothing in the presence of God. We are meant to have surrendered hearts, to have hearts of stone turned into flesh and to be conformed into the image of Christ. If we get this, let God do what He will with this clay, whether high or low among the feats of men.

the call to messiness

The Christian life is not a call to earthly palaces or grandeur, it is the call to follow Jesus. This often means getting in the "trough" (muck) and "passion" (suffering) of peoples lives. This is the grandeur of the Heavenly Kingdom, it has the power to reach even the worst of places.

The realist

If a man sees and experiences the world, unafraid of the darkest places, and knows that God is on His throne, believes the promises of God, and sees the beauty, joy and wonder of God. Is this man a dreamer or the true realist -- Hebrews 11.

Outcomes

Some will measure the success of ministry by outcomes, God measures success as denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following Him and trusting Him on the outcome, for He does not fail.

You must suffer - John Piper

Treasuring Him - DWYL Sermon Jam Video

Love is the Fulfilment of the Law. (Paul Washer)

Is my heart honest and genuine?

I had this written about me the other day, "I honestly believe that you have a heart that truly seeks to honor God! ...and I couldn't think of a greater compliment to give anyone than that." I don't know if this is true. When I look at my heart and my motives, I don't like what I see. There is a bunch of false pretenses and unhealthy desires. All my best motives are tainted by great sin. But what I have learned is that instead of looking to myself and trying to get my motives in right, I have to look to Christ. My sin, my false motives, my ugliness were born on the cross. And so I walk out not with any confidence that my motives are right, but in the confidence that Christ covers my sin, because my motives are not right.

When Isaiah saw the Lord, he got an honest and genuine look into who he was. And this man of God cried out, " Woe is me! For I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips . . ." God justifies and imparts grace to Isaiah, cleansing him of his sin. It is through grace that God sends Isaiah to minister and enables Isaiah to say,"Here I am! Send me." His grace is sufficient.

He opens our ears to hear.

A friend of mine came to me and we were talking about how sometimes I get frustrated, not so much because people disagree with me, but because people won't listen. I have known him for years, and he is a much loved brother to me. He told me that it is not so much that people won't listen, as much as they can't listen. He said that has been the case with him. Many of things I have said he was not capable of hearing it at the time. This was good for me to hear, and I hope it will help me to be more patient. God reveals His word not me, as much as I desperately long for people to hear it.

Dare to Love

Love . . . Let it bring us to our knees.

LORD, in loving others, may I lock the door behind me and throw away the key and commit to never leave. And may You send angels to guard the door. Abba, give me wings of eagles to soar in Your love and renew Your strength in me, so that I might run where young men fail; and love and not grow faint. For Love is not a fight; it is something worth fighting for.




Love is not a place to come and go as we please. It is a house we enter in and commit to never leave.

"I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."

Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me

Jesus said, "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me." Do I see my life in those words or am I seeking a comfortable pilgrimage on this earth? The greatest portrayal of the Gospel was at the cross. I need to let that sink into my heart, for the greatest proclamation of the Gospel in my life is found in this statement, "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me." To understand this I must look at the cross. But when I see Christ on the cross these words become stunning and uncomfortable. Impossible. I do not have that in me, anywhere. How could I suffer, in this way? How could I lose my life, in this way? But I must. I must, so that the gospel is preached. Because more stunning and more powerful are the words that call, "follow me". I think when you see these words for what they are you are like Isaiah who trembled and was helpless. The only place I see these words for what they are are in His presence and the only way I can live them is in His presence. If Christ did not say "follow me" there would be no hope. But He does say this and that He is with us, even to the ends of the earth.

--Hebrews 12:1,2

but for a moment

"Some wish to live within the sound of church or chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell."
- C.T. Studd


Abba, help me to become less, take away my selfishness, and help me to run after Your love.

focus on me

I want to lay my life down for others. But I have noticed that I get in the way. When I strive to lay my life down, I get all jumbled and somehow the focus gets on me. No matter how much I hate it, I seem to be good at that. Only when, I admit I cannot do it and run into the grace of Christ, do I really serve.

breadth of ministry

If you concentrate on the depth of your ministry, God will take care of the breadth.

--John McArthur

Good Shepherd

In my glimpse on how fleeting life is recently, the hardest thing for me in it was that if I were to die soon, I don't feel like I have done any ministry yet. I took this to Lord and talked with Him about it and I realized my discontentment at feeling like I would be taken before I did ministry was saying that He is not a good Shepherd. No, He is a good Shepherd, how could I deny that. And I know that whether in life or death, in ministry or no ministry, I can trust Him, and delight that His design is good for me.

Gospel

I wrote this in my 20's

“The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.” The most challenging adventure is to touch and captivate the minds and hearts of students, reaching them where they are. I want to teach because the prize is so great! I have learned that the reward of pouring out you life for others is of much more worth than mere material wealth. You gain delight and joy. Yes, it is a struggle. Yes, you suffer, but you gain delight and joy. As a teacher you impact the lives.

I also want to teach, because so often the children of today have forgotten the beauty, the passion the hidden treasures, and the adventure there is to learn and discover. They are drawn in this society and persuaded to love things that are fading, to love things that do not touch their minds or their hearts. They are taken captive by propaganda and advertisement and live in this instead of beauty and truth. They have forgotten to think for themselves. They have much knowledge but it is not based in thought. They lack learning skills. They lack discipline. They need to be led in the way they ought to go.

I want to teach children how to face this world. I want to teach the truth without bias, so that they might be grounded, to face what ever comes up against them. I want to teach with variety, interest, vigor, stimulating them to seek out knowledge. I want to teach them where they are, how they learn, who they are. I want them to be able to know how to think and learn. I want them know beauty. I want them to live passionate lives.

I am a very simple person. I want to teach because I like beauty.

methods and fads

written Monday, October 22, 2007

When we push certain methods for doing things instead of the scriptures, we make snobbish Christians.

Written Sunday, October 28, 2007 and Sunday, December 30, 2007

The Christian life is not "now that we are kings and princes, we walk out in our strength and work to see God's Kingdome come." It is Grace from first to last. We are not kings and priests of our own strength our righteousness and we never will be. We stand and press into the kingdom not by our works, but by His word that makes it so.

revival

A leter written to my sister seeral years ago

----True revival is a sovereign act of God in which He moves and acts in the hearts of His people to renew them and bring them closer to Himself. The work of the Holy Spirit is intensified in the lives of believers, both individually and corporately. It is God initiated and God controlled. It is not brought about by man or his desires, or works. It is God moving as He pleases.

---- In 1734, God brought about a revival under the preaching of a man named, Jonathan Edwards, a man of sound doctrine and whose preaching focused on the glory of God and not man. Lives were changed and many came to know Christ. Those in the church became passionate about God. Their praising became intense. Their emotions were intense and they freely expressed these emotions in church. They hungered for God and desired to live lives to His honor. The community was changed. And the Gospel was preached everywhere. This was called the Great Awakening.

----Yet there were some who were opposed to this in the church. They said an act of God would not make people so emotional. To this Jonathan Edwards wrote Religious Affections to explain the difference between true and false revival, and to show that it is right to have emotions in a true revival.

----There were other revivals in America in 1727, 1798, 1857, and 1905. After 1800, though a false revival began to be forming. Many began to believe that revival could come about at any time; you just had to have the right “formula”. These preachers believed that if they could bring about the emotional intensity that was marked in the Great Awakening and the other revivals and mass decisions for Christ, that surely this was revival. This came to be known as New School or New Measures. Preachers sought to bring about revival through methodology and techniques that would incite the emotions and “convince men to make a decision for Christ”. They would have a “revival meeting” or a “tent meetings”, in which they would prey on the emotions of men. Charles Finney was one of the leaders in this movement. There came to be an orientation toward the person instead of God. Where as Jonathan Edwards preached about the character and glory of God and sound doctrine, this new methodology focused on convincing man to make a decision and to have an emotional experience. And so many “mass decisions” were made. Yet the community was not affected, it was still as worldly as before and many who made “decisions” turned away from Christ, very few changed their lives, and very few had any discipleship. Evangelism came to mean decisions and numbers, rather than an act of God in some ones life, where they accept Him as Lord and Savior in a radical way.

----And so today, some continue to try to convince men to come to Christ by focusing on man rather than proclaiming God. And now we are in a state of decline where it is hard to tell the difference between a believer and a non-believer. In doing this we have become friends with the world, something the Bible says ought not to be done.

----Now that I have said this, I do believe that some who preach in revival do sincerely desire to obey God. And I would fight side by side with them. And they are truly my brothers and joy. God is bigger than our foolishness. And I do believe that God does work at these “revival meetings”. I also believe that there are some who truly follow sound doctrine and focus on God and not men, yet I would not call this “revival” but merely witnessing. And so you ask if “revivals” are ok. Well, if they are witnessing and discipling and preaching sound doctrine with a focus on the glory of God, then, yes, they are ok, yet this is actually merely witnessing as God has called us to witness. But if they compromise the character of God as many of these “revivals” do, than it is very evil. We are not God and should not presume to be.


P.S.
Yes, like Paul. We plead with men and strive that they might know Christ, but we plead as ambassadors of a King, not as ones who move the King or gives way to men.


Also about the Holy Spirit. Much of it is focussed on emotionalism rather than maturity. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are real and true and good, but it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit that makes one mature. The gifts will pass away, but love will always remain. It is a matter of people focusing on the wrong thing.