What “Be my Valentine” points us to

Was reading a link from John Piper’s Twitter. The theme was some exhortations from Song of Solomon for married couples. Was a nice (and clean) read. Hit one paragraph near the end that struck a chord in me, but with regards not just to marriage, but something and Someone far greater. Namely, our relationship with the Creator of marriage: Our Creator!

The quote from the blog post:

One last thought for husbands and wives: don’t be afraid to say more than you may even be feeling. I know that sound ghastly, like forced romantic hypocrisy. But why do we always assume that it has to be wrong to say what we may not exactly be feeling? Maybe the problem is in the other direction, that we don’t feel enough of what we are saying. If so, the antidote isn’t to stop saying romantic things. In fact, maybe you’ve stopped feeling certain things because it’s been too long since you’ve said them. It’s ok sometimes to speak better than we feel. Share your attraction and share your desire. Say it loud and proud. Your spouse’s heart will skip a beat, and yours might just run ahead to catch up with your mouth.

Oh snap, right on. That applies to men AND women. But here’s where my mind started wandering to far greater realities…

Reminds me of a CS Lewis quote:

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

We indeed don’t feel enough about JESUS CHRIST as we ought. Oh Lord, help us recover the unfettered, exhilarated, joy inexpressible that is worthy of You.

2010: 02/12
CATEGORY: Devotional
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ECHO 2/2/2010 Meeting Notes

Prayer Request Highlights

· Katy Brackett’s skin

· R & G B’s visa renewal

· Mollica’s – financial support

· Brian & Anita Biedebach

· Brad Klassen – sharing Gospel with university students

· Shepherd’s Conference – 1^st week of March. Many coming from far away

· Mike Mahoney’s mother is sick in the hospital

Presentations

Bill Shannon

· Just got back from Croatia

· Once again very encouraged by Todd & Lynn Dick

· Todd has plans on planting yet another church

o Going to send out 16 members from Slovenia, to plant a church in Slovenia

· We did a conference on evangelism.

o How to evangelize to those with life dominating sins

o And another session on “What is the real gospel?”

o Many from Todd’s ministry have lots of influence in the Baptist Union

o And they touch many many countries surrounding Croatia

· And later, I did the life-dominating sins seminar with unbelievers. Doctors etc

· Then I went to Czech Republic with Lance & Sandy Roberts

o They put on the counseling material that I teach

o We taught the material in rapid succession for 32 hours

o They put up the material on the web so that other churches could have the material

· I think now at last Lance has found a place where he can settle long term and do ministry; before he’s gone through 3 ministries before finding this one

· We have some VERY good men out there. They’re very special

· I don’t think there’s an easy field on earth. I think it’s because God wants us on our knees PRAYING

Christian Andresen – EBTC in Berlin and in Zurich

· It’s an incredible testimony to see what God has done at Grace Church over the past few years

· Other missionaries not from Grace Church are jealous of us because we are so well taken care of

· God has done so much through faithful people praying

· Please pray for the Mantens as they readjust to the ministry in Germany and Switzerland

· We have tons of very faithful men as our staff at our Training Center. Please pray for them as they teach

· Please pray for the students as they learn and are equipped

· Please pray that the Word of God would go forth with boldness and clarity

· Just a few thoughts…

o God has really blessed us

o The question is: what will God do next?

o We plan on starting another extension to the west of Berlin, so that we can reach more German-speaking churches

o Financially, we are hoping these ministries to be self-sufficient. That the ones benefiting would be the ones supporting the ministries

§ We have a radio and book ministry, that brings in some additional money

o Longer term, I’d love to see a training center develop in Czech Republic, Romania, Scandanavia

§ Pray that God would provide the right people, places, and the right churches

M B (Classified – please email me if you’d like the notes)

GCC’s Outreach Page (www.gracechurch.org/missions)

· We have a blog, and a Twitter account. Come and check it out!

· We have RSS feeds for every missionary. Subscribe to the ones you want to follow!

· The Facebook group (The Fellow Worker Network) continues. Please search it out on Facebook and request to join, then fill out the spreadsheet with the skills you’d like to offer to help our missionaries

2010: 02/03
CATEGORY: ECHO
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Kill that Turtle… with the Bible?

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem. Gentlemen, we especially are prone to this dramatically poisonous tendency. Before we go any further, let’s say what the problem is outright: we stink at opening ourselves up. It’s awkward.

Whether it’s responding in depth to “how’s it going?” or (heaven forbid) just opening up without being asked, we are horrible at opening ourselves up.

But no, we can’t! People are going to find out we’re sinners! News flash for you: it’s too late, it’s already obvious. How sadly impoverished we are in our understanding of sin and the Gospel. Reflect on the message that you were first saved by; what’s the down before the up? What’s the point on which we fight the secular humanists tooth and nail? We already are sinners and it’s plain to see, and we are basically bad and don’t have a shred of good in us. A little sharing won’t result in any new information in this area.

Here’s some Scripture that commands, either explicitly or strongly implicitly, that we need to open up. And as with all commands of Scripture, unless we want our walks with God or the church body to suffer debilitating spiritual atrophy, we do very well to pay attention and heed! I’m sure the list is way bigger. But this provides a great start.

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. – Gal 6:2

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. - Jas 5:16

… addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart … - Eph 5:19

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices – Col 3:9 (Yes, that includes sharing honestly about how you’ve been, and just because you haven’t thought about it, doesn’t make a default answer of “good” a justifiable lie)

If we were to open up the search to passages about actively encouraging others (as in you encourage another: subject, active verb, object), the list would get WAY bigger. But for the sake of focus, the list above is just the commands that more specifically relate to sharing and opening up to one another.

So are we cool? See the importance? Great. Now here’s a huge roadblock. Forgive me if I’m going for the jugular.

Who enjoys being in awkward situations? Nobody. Who enjoys being the one who made the situation awkward? Very few people. Who thinks that sharing about your walk with God in a casual setting is awkward? Wait… almost everybody? Fail! Since when has it become our culture to have a little bit of boasting in the Lord, confessing sin, asking for prayer, and being vulnerable about challenges to your faith… awkward??? Major, major fail here, people. Look up again at those Biblical commands. If awkwardness stops you, then the command isn’t the problem, you are! Not to mention how much deep, profoundly satisfying, eternally significant joy you’re very foolishly missing out on.

Let’s be honest, it is naturally awkward. Let’s not deny that one bit. That’s why I’d venture to say, and saying this is worth the risk: a quick way I can tell an eternally- and biblically-minded person apart from a worldly-minded person is how good they are at diffusing, getting over, or punching through the awkwardness to get to the spiritual benefit… and opening up and getting others to open up. The former category of people are far more enjoyable to spend time with. And far less draining too.

Has it ever occurred to you that the awkward person who’s trying to talk about Jesus actually knows it’s awkward right now, but shouldn’t be, and so they’re trying to do something about it? We may very well be able to label that “Biblical courage.”

I desperately pray that was not revolutionary. Lord, help us think more like You do.

2010: 01/13
CATEGORY: People
Theology
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Where have you been all this time, Dr Packer?

Can someone please tell me why it took so long before I finally got a copy of Knowing God and mined its treasures?

The first and foremost appetizer for this delicious spiritual feast of a book is Packer’s lofty-yet-accessible writing style, brimming with the overflows of his deep theological background and smelling everywhere of the aroma of a deep acquaintance– no, absolutely the wrong word, better to say RELATIONSHIP– with the God who created him and saved him and commissioned him to his life’s work. Needless to say, it keeps me engaged and my mind soaring in the heights of who God is and second to that, the intricacies of complex English. Love it, love it, love it!

Thank you, Alvin Tan, for deciding to go through this with your small group, and Dan Wu and Jon Wood, for agreeing to go through this book together in SGLSG. I’ll be forever grateful.

And now, some excerpts from the first three chapters that absolutely blew me away. Whatever benefit you derive from these quotes, dear reader, is a joy and blessing to my heart, but know that I’m writing these down primarily for my own benefit and memory.

“… the irony is that modern Christians, preoccupied with maintaining religious practices in an irreligious world, have themselves allowed God to become remote” (12).

“Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated” (18).

“[M]editation is a lost art today, and Christian people suffer grievously from their ignorance of the practice … [It] is … calling to mind … thinking over … dwelling on … and applying to oneself the various things that one knows about … God … as a means of communion with God” (23).

“Yet the [merriment], goodness, and unfetteredness of spirit which are the marks of those who have known God are rare among us [i.e. conservative, doctrinally-sound Christians] … A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge about him” (25-26, emphasis author’s).

“… if one has been given a good bump of common sense one may frequently be able to use this learning to help floundering Christians of less stable temperament to regain their footing … and in this way one may gain for oneself a reputation for being quite a pastor. Yet one can have all this and hardly know God at all” (27).

“Once they were convinced that their stand was right, and that loyalty to their God required them to take it, then … they ‘smilingly washed their hands of the consequences’” (30).

“We must learn to measure ourselves, not by our knowledge about God, not by our gifts and responsibilities in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our hearts. Many of us, I suspect, have no idea how impoverished we are at this level. Let us ask the Lord to show us” (32).

“… knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a person’s heart … Perhaps you have been acquainted with the Bible and Christian truth for many years, and it has meant little to you; but one day you wake up to the fact that God is actually speaking to you– you!– through the biblical message. As you listen to what God is saying, you find yourself brought very low…” (36).

“But, for all this [i.e. warnings about emotionalism and self-centeredness], we must not lose sight of the fact that knowing God is an emotional relationship, as well as an intellectual and volitional one, and could not indeed be a deep relation between persons were it not so” (40).

“This is momentous knowledge … There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me” (42).

Oh the implications for my own relationship with God and for how I minister to other Christians. More to come later, if I find the time to type up another entry.

2010: 01/12
CATEGORY: Devotional
Theology
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ECHO 1/5/2010

As promised to some of you who’ve asked… ECHO notes from last night.

Prayer Request Highlights (See ECHO Prayer Sheet)

East Asia missionary – Point 1
Manten – Point 7
Biedebach – Anita medical

Shannon Hurley – Uganda

Church Training
- The Bible says to train up faithful men (2Tim 2:2)! I’m here now in the States because we’re dropping off a faithful man for training at TMS
- Christopher Kezaala
  - Was a pastor in the Anglican church in Uganda for 20 years, probably wasn’t saved for 10 of those
  - Then started getting discipled by SOS Ministries. Was kicked out of the diocese and almost out of his school. But he knew where and what Truth is, and so he came under us to continue his equipping and growth
- God has amazingly provided over the past few years
  - Originally 2 conferences with the Baptist Union, but God has amazingly provided, 7 conferences to
- I’ve started strategizing with the president of the Baptist Union
  - How to restructure the Baptist Union so that it’s not about politics, but about the glory of God and truth
  - Long term, we want to set up a Bible school to train
- Upcoming Conferences: 8 for 2010
  - Each conference costs $8000
  - 5 for pastors: about 400 pastors per conference
  - 1 for youth: about 600 per conf
  - 1 for women: about 500 per conf
- We still have a relationship with the Anglicans despite recent trials, and it’s getting sweeter
Community Outreach
- People are getting saved!
- Story: Gordon, an ex-Muslim.
- All we can say, God is doing amazing things through broken, crazy vessels
Our Home
- We have a lot of people living in our home
- We moved into a poor rural community, and we took a lot of our leadership with us, and they had nowhere to live
- 22 people in our house right now, kind of crazy
- But we’re moving them out right now as we’re building more homes nearby for them
Some thoughts on humanitarian dollars
- So many Christian dollars go toward Gospel-less humanitarian work, it’s really really a shame
- I love to come alongside humanitarian issues, as long as the main issue is the GOSPEL
- The key is, we need to get truth in there to provide inner change, to provide an inner motivation to provide for your family

R P (omitted, please email if you’re really curious)

2010: 01/06
CATEGORY: ECHO
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Quite Desperate

“How utterly dependent we are on the Holy Spirit in the work of preaching! All genuine preaching is rooted in a feeling of desperation. You wake up on Sunday morning and you can smell the smoke of hell on one side and feel the crisp breezes of heaven on the other. You go to your study and look down at your pitiful manuscript, and you kneel down and cry, ‘O God, this is so weak! Who do I think I am? What audacity to think that in three hours my words will be the odor of death to death and the fragrance of life to life (2 Cor. 2:16). My God, who is sufficient for these things?”

Phillips Brooks used to counsel young preachers with these words: ‘Never allow yourself to feel equal to your work . If you ever find that spirit growing on you, be afraid.’ And one reason to be afraid is because your Father will break you and humble you. Is there any reason to think that God should fit you for the ministry of preaching any differently than he d Paul (41-42)? “

Phillips Brooks used to counsel young preachers with these words: ‘Never allow yourself to feel equal to your work. If you ever find that spirit growing on you, be afraid.’ And one reason to be afraid is because your Father will break you and humble you. Is there any reason to think that God should fit you for the ministry of preaching any differently than he did Paul?”

- John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching, p41-42

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly, Dr Piper.

2009: 08/27
CATEGORY: Devotional
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Because

‘Because’ is an important word. Without it, you will quickly grow guilty of Jesus’ stinging rebuke that “you have abandoned the love you had at first” (Rev 2:4). Lord Jesus, would that never be said of me. Would the 1st Greatest Commandment be the 1st Greatest Priority of my life at all times.

Because I love You. Because I desire You. Because I delight in You. Because You’re my greatest Joy and Treasure. Because what’s important to You is important to me. Because what You want is what I want. Because Your Kingdom’s advance is utmost in Your priorities. Because I want to be part of the greatest cause in the world: Your Great Commission to make disciples of all the nations.

Why am I alive? Just ‘cuz, you know.

2009: 07/27
CATEGORY: Devotional
Theology
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What is the unwasted life?

The unwasted life is the life that in everything that you do in life and in death puts CHRIST on display as supremely valuable.

You have life given by God for this one main reason: Make. CHRIST. Look. Great.

I count everything:

Money as loss;

Food as loss;

Looks as loss;

Friends as loss;

Family as loss;

Job and success as loss;

in comparison with the treasure that Christ has become for me.

- John Piper

2009: 06/12
CATEGORY: Devotional
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A not-so-new stanza

I was recently reintroduced to the last stanza of Come Thou Fount. I really really can’t believe that it’s omitted most of the time. This is seriously among the most WONDERFUL stanzas of a hymn I’ve ever read. Props to John Martin for re-introducing it to Crossroads @ GCC. This is a stanza I’ve hummed in my mind at many times during my work day, while I’m waiting for the elevator, etc. Perhaps due to freshness, it still brings a little tear to my eye, makes my heart soar, and makes my normal small pang of hunger for Heaven into a ravenous gnawing. Maranatha!

Oh, that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in the blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy wondrous grace!
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send Thine angels soon to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

2009: 04/02
CATEGORY: Devotional
Theology
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Oh snap, Dr Mohler

“When a generation is continuously told that its options are limitless, its abilities are boundless, and its happiness is central, why should we be surprised that reality comes as such a difficult concept?” – Al Mohler

2009: 03/21
CATEGORY: People
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is over. The end is found in my majestic, indescribably holy, immensely soul-satisfying God (Ps 63:5). Words fail.

What “Be my Valentine” points us to

ECHO 2/2/2010 Meeting Notes

ECHO 2/2/2010 Meeting Notes

Prayer Request Highlights

Presentations

Bill Shannon

Christian Andresen – EBTC in Berlin and in Zurich

M B (Classified – please email me if you’d like the notes)

GCC’s Outreach Page (www.gracechurch.org/missions)

Kill that Turtle… with the Bible?

Where have you been all this time, Dr Packer?

ECHO 1/5/2010

Prayer Request Highlights (See ECHO Prayer Sheet)

Shannon Hurley – Uganda

R P (omitted, please email if you’re really curious)

Quite Desperate

Because

What is the unwasted life?

A not-so-new stanza

Oh snap, Dr Mohler

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