Lost in Niceness - Alistair Begg

True and Better

Dan Stevers - True and Better from DanStevers.com on Vimeo.

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus at Georgia Tech

What I Learned From Missing Church

I missed church for five weeks in a row recently because of circumstances surrounding the birth of my second child. We have a healthy baby girl now, and all is well. And I wish I didn’t have to miss so much church. However, God used that season of being away to remind me how valuable it is to gather with the body of Christ weekly. Consider the following:

–Preaching complements personal Bible study in the life of a believer. During my absence, I routinely read the Bible and prayed, and to great profit. Yet on my first Sunday back, the pastor addressed a subject that God had also been addressing with me personally. The conjunction of private devotions and public proclamation was powerful. And I’m not alone in that experience. Many times people marveled that a sermon touches on a subject they were already considering—whether harboring unkind thoughts, disrespecting parents, or dealing with an unbelieving spouse. In His providence, God has a way of orchestrating preaching and private devotionals to work together. When you’re not attending church, you can’t experience that.

–In a local church, members demonstrate a special type of kindness to one another. People show kindness in other arenas of life too. And many times they do it with explicitly Christian motives. Still, family members, coworkers, and even strangers often do nice things for us without intending it as an expression of Christ’s love.  When God’s people in a church care for one another, on the other hand, they generally do it with an explicit intention to show Christ-like compassion. That was evident to me when members of our Sunday School class showed up at our house to provide meals following the birth of our daughter. When you’re not part of a church, you miss out on giving and receiving that type of love.

–Singing corporately with other believers nurtures the Christian’s soul. At times I sing to myself, and at times I listen to Christian music. Both help my soul. But there’s something about singing God’s praises with a roomful of other Christians that can’t be replicated through private enjoyment of music. It’s a powerful reminder that we’re not alone in our quest to honor the Lord.

–Giving is an act of worship, not merely a discipline. There’s nothing wrong with giving online to your church or mailing a check when you can’t be there. Still, there’s something special about the moments in a worship service when the offering plates are passed. Even if we’re not putting an offering in the plate that day, watching the ceremony reminds us that giving our money to God is a part of worship just as much as singing, praying, or observing the Lord’s Supper.

There are other benefits of churchgoing that we can’t get merely through individual spirituality. These are just the ones that struck me most forcefully in light of my absence.

Of course, going to church can also be painful at times, as when God’s people are spiteful and cold. Anyone who has been a churchgoer for any length of time (myself included) has a story about being hurt by church members. In a fallen world, the blessings of church attendance will always be mixed with sorrows. Yet the benefits of church attendance are not reserved only for those who attend exceptional churches. Whenever God’s Spirit-filled people gather around His Word, there is blessing.

If poor health, an unavoidable work schedule, or other providential hindrances have kept you away from church for a season, this isn’t intended to make you feel false guilt. When God makes it impossible for His children to attend corporate worship, He provides for the health of their souls in other ways. But if you have simply strayed from church, think about all you’re missing. As the writer of Hebrews says, do not forsake “our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encourage[e] one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:25 NASB). Hopefully you won’t have to be away as long as I was to realize the joys God has for you among His gathered saints.

Link to original article

Dating, Courtship, and Marriage - Paul Washer

Resurgence of Calvinism

Where Did All These Calvinists Come From?

Seven years ago this fall, a young journalist named Collin Hansen wrote a cover story for Christianity Today titled "Young, Restless, Reformed: Calvinism Is Making a Comeback—and Shaking Up the Church." In it he remarked:

Partly institutional and partly anecdotal, [the evidence for the resurgence] is something a variety of church leaders observe. While the Emergent "conversation" gets a lot of press for its appeal to the young, the new Reformed movement may be a larger and more pervasive phenomenon.

Two years later, Hansen released his movement-defining book Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists (Crossway, 2008). Traveling to destinations like the Passion conference in Atlanta, Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Southern Seminary in Louisville, and Mars Hill Church in Seattle, he sought to tell the stories of young people discovering Reformed theology. (Hansen, now editorial director for The Gospel Coalition, has since reflected on the book and the movement here, here, and here.)

One year earlier in 2007, Mark Dever proposed in a series of blog posts 10 factors that sparked this resurrection of Reformed theology among younger American evangelicals.

Now six years later, the "young, restless, Reformed" movement has only grown. The fact you're presently reading The Gospel Coalition blog, which didn't exist as recently as 2009, offers additional evidence.

Last week, Dever dusted off his 2007 series and delivered it, with a few changes, as an hour-long lecture at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. "If there were so few self-conscious Calvinists in the 1950s," the pastor-historian asks, "how did we get so many today?" In what follows I offer a taste of his non-exhaustive, roughly chronological attempt to answer that question—12 sources God has used to reinvigorate Reformed theology in this generation (timestamps included).

1. Charles Spurgeon (10:39)

Dever likens the 19th-century Baptist preacher to an underground aquifer "bringing the nutrients of early generations to those after him." Surprisingly, though, the "aquifers who brought Spurgeon to us" were countless 20th-century pastors—many of them anti-Calvinists—who enthusiastically commended his sermons.

"If you keep being told to buy Spurgeon, eventually you'll read Spurgeon," Dever says. "And if you read Spurgeon, you'll never be able to believe the charge that all Calvinists are hyper-Calvinists and cannot do evangelism or missions." Indeed, the Prince of Preachers seemed about "as healthy and balanced as a Bible-believing Christian could be." It's an irony of history that many of the ministers who "now decry what young Calvinists believe are the ones who recommended Spurgeon to them."

2. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (14:43)

Though lesser known in America than in Britain, "the Doctor" had a preaching ministry for more than 50 years that "shaped countless thousands of Christians" in the mid-20th century. "Even if many born in the 1970s and 1980s haven't heard of Lloyd-Jones," Dever remarks, "chances are their ministers have, and have been influenced by him. Both John Piper and Tim Keller have offered eloquent testimony to 'the Doctor's' influence on their own preaching."

A pastor of enormous influence, Lloyd-Jones was "the one man in 1940s, 1950s, 1960s British evangelicalism you had to deal with." As Dever recounts, "No other figure in the middle of the 20th century so stood against the impoverished gospel evangelicals were preaching—and did it so insightfully, so biblically, so freshly, so regularly, so charitably—all without invoking a kind of narrow partisanship that wrongly divided the churches."

3. The Banner of Truth Trust (23:03)

Have you ever read a Puritan book? Chances are you can thank Banner of Truth. In 1957 Iain Murray and others with a shared vision and budget began reprinting classic Puritan and Reformed titles. "No such editions from the English-speaking tradition had been popularly published for a century," Dever explains.

Motivated by truth more than by sales, the Banner's "assiduous work in publishing in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s has clearly helped to bring forth a harvest in the 1980s and 1990s and still today." The libraries of pastors today are filled with books written centuries earlier due in large part to this vital publishing ministry.

4. Evangelism Explosion (27:15)

The charge that "Calvinism kills missions and evangelism" has long been leveled against Reformed theology. Therefore, Dever believes, an "unlikely aide" to the Reformed cause—and probably least expected of all his sources—was the widespread popularity and apparent success of Evangelism Explosion. Created by a Reformed pastor (D. James Kennedy) and promoted through a Reformed church (Coral Ridge Presbyterian) beginning in 1962, this evangelism program became a "quiet but telling piece of counter-evidence against the stereotype of Calvinism killing evangelism."

5. The inerrancy controversy (34:08)

By the mid-1970s, American evangelicalism's "battle for the Bible" had reached its boiling point. Touching several denominations including the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and the Southern Baptist Convention, this controversy gave prominence to several Reformed theologians (e.g., J. I. Packer, R. C. Sproul, Carl F. H. Henry, James Montgomery Boice, Roger Nicole) and reintroduced the Old Princeton divines (e.g., Charles and Andrew Hodge, B. B. Warfield, J. Gresham Machen) to a new generation.

Not only did the debate get people talking about theology, but the "very shape of the arguments used to promote inerrancy" exemplified the Reformed view of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. (Was Romans written by God's absolute sovereignty or by Paul's willing choice? Yes. Were you saved by God's absolute sovereignty or by your willing choice? Yes. You get the idea.)

6. Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) (37:50)

Born out of theological controversy in 1973, this denomination's official doctrinal standard is a revision of the Westminster Confession of Faith—a document "so associated with the history of Calvinism," Dever suggests, "it could almost be said to define it in the English-speaking world."

"By the late 1990s," he recalls, you could virtually assume the "most seriously Bible-preaching and evangelistic congregations near major university campuses would not be Bible churches or Baptist churches, but PCA congregations." From the success of various seminaries to the influence of Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) on campuses to Tim Keller's ministry in New York City, it's clear the "organizing and growth" of the PCA has been a major contributing factor to the Reformed resurgence.

7. J. I. Packer (40:50)

First published in 1973, this Anglican evangelical's landmark book Knowing God has been read by hundreds of thousands of Christians. In fact, Dever surmises, it's probably "the most substantial book of theology" many American Christians have ever read. The "current grandfather of this Reformed movement," Packer's voluminous body of work over the past 60 years has made him one of the "clearest and most popular theological tutors of Christians who grew up in the evangelicalism of the 1980s and 1990s."

8. John MacArthur and R. C. Sproul (43:52)

Thanks in part to the advent of new technologies like cassette tapes, radio broadcast, CDs, and digital audio files, the teaching ministries of these two men have enjoyed remarkably far-reaching effect for more than four decades. "Their conferences are attended by thousands; their books are legion; their characters are, by God's grace, unquestioned," Dever states. "More steady than spectacular, more quiet and consistent than sudden and electrifying," the manner of their labor smells of Wesley more than Whitefield. Thousands of contemporary Calvinists cut their theological teeth on the teachings of Sproul and MacArthur and their respective ministries, Ligonier and Grace to You.

9. John Piper (46:41)

"This is the one you're all waiting for," Dever quips. Though he hesitates to say so given the stature of the foregoing sources, Piper is probably "the single most potent factor in this recent rise of Reformed theology." Dever explains:

All the previous factors are part of the explanation, but they are part of the explanation for how the wave became so deep, so large, so overwhelming—all preparing the ground, shifting the discourse, preparing the men who would be leaders in this latest resurgence. But it has been John who is the swelling wave hitting the coast. It is John who is the visible expression of these earlier men. He is the conduit through which many of them now find their work mediated to the rising generation.

Through Piper's sermons, books, and appearances at conferences like Passion, his and Desiring God's role in the contemporary resurrection of Reformed theology can scarcely be overestimated.

10. Reformed rap (51:46)

The first time I met Dever, the stairs leading up to his study buzzed beneath my feet. Opening the door, I was startled to hear hip-hop music blaring through the speakers of an old boombox in the corner. "Hi, I'm Matt," I shouted. I had no clue how Cambridge grads rolled.

Christian hip hop has provided a unique soundtrack for the new Calvinist movement. Reflecting on the formative rise of The Cross Movement in the mid-1990s, Dever insightfully observes how an aggressive focus on the glory of God makes sense as a response to secular rap's aggressive focus on the glory of man.

After highlighting the influence of Lamp Mode (e.g., Shai Linne, Timothy Brindle, Stephen the Levite, Json), Reach Records (e.g., Lecrae, Trip Lee, Tedashii, KB, Andy Mineo, Derek Minor), Humble Beast (e.g., Propaganda, Braille, Beautiful Eulogy), and others (e.g., Flame), Dever remarks:

There are groups of young people all over the place, in less-than-healthy churches, who are being taught and equipped theologically by these artists. Even our intern program has served our church in ways we never intended. Shai Linne, Trip Lee, Brian Davis [God's Servant], and others have given our congregation a much closer look at and acquaintance with this part of the Reformed resurgence.

11. Influential parachurch ministries (57:37)

Many of the parachurch ministries that dominated the mid-20th century evangelical landscape had either a Reformed heritage that faded (e.g., InterVarsity, Christianity Today, Southern Seminary) or none at all (e.g., Campus Crusade, various mission agencies). But in the last 20 years, Dever points out, the tide has turned.

In addition to the remarkable theological recovery at Southern Seminary under the leadership of Albert Mohler, Reformed influence has been steadily reaching church leaders (e.g., 9Marks, Acts 29, Together for the Gospel, The Gospel Coalition, Redeemer City to City), college campuses (e.g., RUF, Campus Outreach), and lay people (e.g., World) alike. All of these organizations, Dever explains, have "either explicitly or implicitly public commitments to Reformed theology," presenting young Calvinists with "ministries they trust" and equipping them with solid resources for both their churches and themselves.

12. The rise of secularism and decline of Christian nominalism (59:36)

"There's no reason my Arminian friends should disagree about the effect of any of the previous 11 influences I've noted," Dever contends. Number 12, however, is another story.

This final two-pronged factor has served to "shape a theological climate in which weaker, more pale versions of Christianity fade and in which more uncut, vigorous versions thrive." Arminian theology, Dever fears, is too frail to be helpful. "In a nominally Christian culture, Arminianism may appear to be a satisfying explanation of the problem of evil," he admits. "But as the acids of modernity have eaten away at more and more of the Bible's teachings and even presuppositions about God, that explanation has proven woefully insufficient to more radical critics."

Dever's conclusion is worth quoting at length:

This world's increasingly open and categorical denials of God and his power will likely be met not by retreats, compromises, edits, and revisions, but by awakenings and rediscoveries of the majesty and power of the true God, who reveals himself in the Bible, the God who made us and who will judge us, the God who in love pursued us even to the depths of the incarnation and the humiliation of the cross. This is Christianity straight and undiluted, and the questing, probing spirit of the rising generation has, by God's grace, found this rock.

The contemporary resurgence of Calvinism is a phenomenon many celebrate, many lament, but none can deny. May Christ grant us grace to press forward in a hostile world with truth, humility, unity, and love.

Matt Smethurst serves as associate editor for The Gospel Coalition and lives in Louisville, Kentucky. You can follow him on Twitter.

Kevin DeYoung and Alistair Begg Q&A | 2013 Magnify Conference

James MacDonald Explaining Four False Gospels

The Gospel in Every Sermon: Dever, Driscoll, and MacDonald

Sustaining Marriage Love (Piper, Keller, Carson)

1 Thessalonians 5:2-11

"For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing."

Fear of God!!

The Fear of the Lord Is Still the Beginning of Wisdom (Even Though Evangelicals Almost Never Talk about It)

Jerry Bridges, author of one of the few contemporary books on the fear of the Lord, explains what it means:

  

 

| PRINTABLE VERSION

 

 

Life Beyond the Grave

The Rapture

11 Things Repentance Is Not

How the Ayres Family Buried Their 8 Children

"Could we bear the burden of burying any more children?"

My husband, Bobby, and I have often pondered this question since we buried our son Parker, who was stillborn last fall.

Recently, we walked through the oldest cemetery in New Albany, Indiana, where the founders and many of our town's first settlers are buried. We happened upon the family plot of a father, mother, and their eight children. These parents buried all of their sons and daughters before their oldest was even 20 years old. Contemplate this family's story of hope-filled suffering.

In 1820, 28-year-old Elias and 24-year old Mary Ann Ayres celebrated the birth of their first child, Mary. The next year they received their firstborn son, William. Three years later in 1824, they added another son to their family, Edward. And in 1826, they welcomed another daughter, Caroline H.

After their fifth child, Henry, was born in January 1829, suffering swept in. Their 3-year-old daughter Caroline H. died in August 1829. Her memorial stone says, "She came forth as a flower and was cut down."

Two months later, they buried their 8-year-old son, William. His epitaph reads, "He was a precious gift. In his youth he sought the Lord God of his fathers and is not for God took him."

In 1830, several months after they buried Caroline H. and William, they were comforted with the birth of their third daughter, Caroline S. In August of that same year, however, they laid to rest their fifth-born, Henry (20 months old).

With three of their six children now in heaven, Elias and Mary Ann journeyed on together as a family well acquainted with grief. In March 1833, God blessed them with another daughter, Cornelia. But 16 months later, they gathered at Fairview Cemetery twice in the month of July 1834 to bury Cornelia (16 months old) and Caroline S. (4 years old).

As Cornelia's tombstone testifies, Elias and Mary Ann were still blessing the name of the Lord even after he'd taken five of their seven children to heaven. It reads: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Two years later in 1836, they celebrated the birth of their eighth child, their fifth daughter, Maria. The next year, however, Elias and Mary Ann laid their Maria to rest.

Then in 1839, Elias and Mary Ann buried their 19-year-old daughter, Mary, and their 15-year-old son, Edward, one in July and the other in December. Mary's memorial stone declares, "Her life was hid with Christ in God, and when he who is her life shall appear, then shall she appear with him in glory."

With all of their children resting in peace, this couple likely visited their family plot at Fairview often, encouraged by the truth inscribed on their children's stones. In 1842, just three years after burying the rest of his children, 50-year-old Elias was laid to rest. His testimony reads, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord."

For the next 36 years, Mary Ann was temporarily parted from her husband and all of her children until her death in 1878. She was 82 years old. Her epitaph quotes Psalm 4: "I will lay me down in peace and sleep." She knew the safety and rest of belonging to God, just as she and Elias had taught their children.

When I first discovered the Ayres family story in Fairview Cemetery, I was heartbroken as I realized their continual suffering (and imagined my own suffering magnified eight or nine times). But as I read the testimonies of these parents who chiseled God's Word on the memorial stones of their children, I saw God's grace at work in their suffering, just as it is in our family's suffering. We know what they know: God is faithful to his Word and can always be trusted. He should be praised from one generation to the next.

We can trust our Lord no matter what suffering we may endure because he has already endured it for us. He will help us until the day he returns. Until that day, we must hope in the Lord as we lift our voices to bless the name of the One who gives and takes. We will remember that our lives are hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then we will also appear with him in glory.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/10/10/how-the-ayres-family-buried-their-8-children/

Oxymoron of Christian fornication!!

Lukewarm Christians?

How God Changes Us While We 'Change' the World

For the past few weeks, I have been living in the midst of tiny villages and a cacophony of bugs and chickens in Uganda. We have spent full and happy days visiting people who live in great poverty but have joyously welcomed us into their simple homes.

By the reactions of my friends and family, it would be easy to believe that I am some sort of a sacrificial hero for coming here, even for a few months. But I know the truth, that I am a very flawed person and not a hero. The truth is that I can walk by a mud hut with children in rags and be thinking about whether I am going to get a shower that night. Or as I interact with Ugandans I can be more concerned about whether I am going to get sick rather than reaching out and showing love.

Need God to Change Me

We rarely verbalize our grandiose thoughts that we want to single-handedly change the world, but we often subtly think that we are the key to bringing everyone to Jesus and solving hunger, poverty, and racism quickly and easily. For the past several years, I have watched many students attend conferences and short-term mission trips, then come home fired up and ready to go give everything they have for the sake of the gospel. It is always encouraging to hear what God does during these experiences, particularly as someone discovers a new passion or gift.

But as time goes on, it is not long before I hear the difficulties, often with a tone of surprise. "This is much harder than I ever thought it could be. My team had constant conflict. I am not the leader I thought I was. These people are not changing or growing like they should be."

What is the disconnect between our ideas and the reality of missions and ministry? A huge part of our problem is disordered expectations. We expect that our ideas and training will bring instant revolution. We expect to deal with other people's problems, not our own. We expect to be the agent of change, not the object in need of change.

When we have eyes to see, we learn that ministry reveals more sin and weaknesses in us than we ever dreamed possible. God uses these situations to expose our own selfishness and show us how strongly we hold onto our preferences. When working with people we often learn that we do not always listen well, we do not understand everything, and we are not the solution we think we are. Most importantly, we learn we are not the savior people need.

Needing Change Is Not Glamorous 

However, being the one who needs transformation is not quite so glamorous as being the ministry visionary. It makes for less thrilling tales, and it requires much more honesty and humility on our part. We often overlook how we need the same supernatural work of God that we ask for him to accomplish in others. It is still his Spirit who causes our dead hearts to come alive, turns us from destructive patterns to true life, and transforms our minds.

If we enter service expecting to be changed first, we will be much better equipped for the journey. If we are prepared to ask forgiveness from the people we are trying to serve, we will actually learn to show someone Christ, because we believe we need him too.  If we begin by praying that God would use these experiences to rescue us from ourselves, rather than being the rescuer, then we will learn to see his grace in our weakness.

If we daily meditate on these principles, we are freed to get out of the way and actually see God work. We are freed from insisting that our agenda, strategy, and timeline is perfect and instead begin to see what he is doing, not only in the world, but also in our own hearts. We are freed from the need to draw attention to ourselves and instead acknowledge God at work. "Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant" (2 Corinthians 3:5-6a).

(http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/10/08/how-god-changes-us-while-we-change-the-world/)

Do you believe there's only one way to God? Tim Keller at Veritas [3 of 11]

Tim Keller: Jesus - the only way to God?

Matt Chandler: Lame Christian Music

Should Christians Tithe?

How do you know that Christianity is the one true worldview?

Are all non-Christians going to hell?

Using the Lord's name in vain

Can a Christian lose their salvation?

Francis Chan meets a Jehovah Witness; hehehe

Thabiti "De-bi-di"

03-03-2013 Sunday Morning Sermon from CedarSpringsPresbyterianChurch on Vimeo.

Who is Really Leaving the Faith and Why?

It's likely you've heard the news: the sky is falling. Reports have been circulating for a while now that our churches are on the decline and it's the young people who are to blame. Articles, blogs and even books have been written warning ministry leaders and parents alike, the Millennials are leaving our churches in droves of hundreds and thousands.

Intrigued by the implications of a generation giving up on organized religion, we set out to understand who is leaving and why. And what we found was surprising. Many of the most significant and encouraging findings are largely being ignored, while the less accurate and discouraging ones are being emphasized.

Focus on the Family talked to respected sociologists of religion and studied the best, nationally-representative studies and found the bad news is not as bad as you might have heard. Our new report, "Millennial Religious Participation and Retention" draws out some very important research for those who are raising and ministering to the next generation

Pew Research recently found that 18% of young adults leaving their faith altogether and another 20% are switching from one faith to another. This latter cohort, while leaving individual churches, are not leaving their individual faith. They might be switching to a church across town or to one near their college campus. With more young adults switching than leaving, it's odd very few are talking about those switching. In fact, many, we suspect, have been counting them along with those who are leaving.

Also interesting is the huge difference between conservative, Bible-teaching churches and mainline Protestant churches. The General Social Survey, perhaps the most academically-trusted source for demographic data back through 1972, recently noted a 2.2% decline in mainline churches and a slight 0.6% increase among conservative churches (from 1991 to 2012).

Perhaps most interesting is what Pew learned about those leaving their faith. Pew asked those leaving if they ever had a strong faith as a child. Only 11% said they did. The other 89% said they never had a strong faith in the first place. As our report says:

Not surprisingly, homes modeling lukewarm faith do not create enduring faith in children. Homes modeling vibrant faith do. So these young adults are leaving something they never had a good grasp of in the first place. This is not a crisis of faith, per se, but of parenting.

Young adults are not developing a strong faith as children and walking away as they enter adulthood. Instead, the majority are failing to develop strong faith in the first place and then walking away. As Notre Dame Sociology Professor Christian Smith writes,

Religious outcomes in emerging adulthood ... flow quite predictably from formative religious influences that shape persons' lives in early years ... religious commitments, practices and investments made during childhood and the teenage years, by parents and others in families and religious communities, matter - they make a difference.

This has huge implications for those working to instill faith in our children. First, it's encouraging that those children who develop a deep faith early on will likely hold onto that faith throughout their lives. But secondly, this shows being in and around church is simply insufficient to develop strong faith for many children. Taking children to church and Sunday school, while important, should not be seen as the only, or even best, way to instill strong faith in our children.

Parents should be intentional about creating homes where their children learn a vibrant faith from God-fearing parents, relatives and other adults. Parents should teach personal habits of prayer and Bible reading in their children, which makes them much more likely to hold onto their faith.

Christian Smith doesn't mince words: "Parents are huge, absolutely huge, nearly a necessary condition" for a child to remain strong in their faith into young adulthood. He concludes "without question, the most important pastor a child will ever have in their life is a parent."

There are many reasons why young adults leave their faith, but perhaps the most significant is that they never developed a strong faith in the first place. Instead of trying to appeal to those with lukewarm faith, perhaps we should back up and consider how we can teach parents to cultivate strong, lasting faith long before our children enter adulthood.

For more of our findings, read the complete report at Focus Findings, a ministry of Focus on the Family.

Andrew Hess is the Manager of Church Outreach at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Adjunct Professor of Humanities and Theology at Colorado Christian University. He is passionate about equipping pastors and ministry leaders to lead thoughtful, thriving ministries.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/09/18/who-is-really-leaving-the-faith-and-why/

Funny!

Platt & Dever 2: watch the rest from Vimeo:)

Platt & Dever 1: watch the rest from Vimeo:)

Mark Dever + David Platt on Making Disciples [Video Series]

LINK

Trip Lee "The Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ"

HAPPY MONDAY EVERYONE!!! :D

Don't have work today!! woot woot! hahaha
Hopefully, this video will be encouraging to you all!~

Jesus I My Cross Have Taken - Indelible Grace

Been encouraged, blessed, and challenged by this song lately:



Here's the lyrics to this song:

1. Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow Thee.
Destitute, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shall be.
Perish every fond ambition,
All I’ve sought or hoped or known.
Yet how rich is my condition!
God and heaven are still my own.

2. Let the world despise and leave me,
They have left my Savior, too.
Human hearts and looks deceive me;
Thou art not, like them, untrue.
O while Thou dost smile upon me,
God of wisdom, love, and might,
Foes may hate and friends disown me,
Show Thy face and all is bright.

3. Man may trouble and distress me,
’Twill but drive me to Thy breast.
Life with trials hard may press me;
Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
Oh, ’tis not in grief to harm me
While Thy love is left to me;
Oh, ’twere not in joy to charm me,
Were that joy unmixed with Thee.

4. Go, then, earthly fame and treasure,
Come disaster, scorn and pain
In Thy service, pain is pleasure,
With Thy favor, loss is gain
I have called Thee Abba Father,
I have stayed my heart on Thee
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather;
All must work for good to me.

5. Soul, then know thy full salvation
Rise o’er sin and fear and care
Joy to find in every station,
Something still to do or bear.
Think what Spirit dwells within thee,
Think what Father’s smiles are thine,
Think that Jesus died to win thee,
Child of heaven, canst thou repine.

6. Haste thee on from grace to glory,
Armed by faith, and winged by prayer.
Heaven’s eternal days before thee,
God’s own hand shall guide us there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission,
Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days,
Hope shall change to glad fruition,
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

:)

How Richard Wurmbrand Spent Three Years of Solitary Confinement with Christ

Richard Wurmbrand (1909-2001), whose many years of imprisonment for the gospel included three years in solitary confinement, talks about how he spent his time:

Wurmbrand went on to write Tortured for Christ and to found Voice of the Martyrs.

  

 

| PRINTABLE VERSION

 

 

 

View Comments (5) Post Comment

Copyright © 2013 by the author listed above. Used by permission.

 

 

Shane and Shane "Though You Slay Me"

On Reading Well
A Meditation on C. S. Lewis’s
Experiment in Criticism, pages 100–101

Would you attain an author’s sense?
   Or only what you see?
Perhaps your sight is beautiful,
   And sees more truth than he.

Or maybe not. How would you know,
   Since you are blind to his?
You only pass the test you wrote,
   And fail the author’s quiz.

Are you content with that? Just that?
   To see and not to find,
To make a window on the world
   A mirror of your mind?

How vain, how foolish this! How small!
   Do you not live by growth?
What then? An author’s sense, or yours?
   Will not the wise say, Both!

Why You Can Trust Your Bible

Why You Can Trust Your Bible

WOW WOW WOW!!!

I Wonder If Sunday School Is Destroying Our Kids

Several years ago I met with a woman distraught by her son’s rejection of Christianity.

She said, “I did everything I could to raise him right. I taught him to be like the ‘heroes of faith,’ with the faithfulness of Abraham, the goodness of Joseph, the pure heart of David, and the obedience of Esther.”

She wondered why he rejected Christianity.

I wondered why it took him so long.     

Here is how we destroy the gospel message

Look at almost any Sunday school curriculum. You’ll find:

• Abraham was faithful, and God made him the father of a nation. So be faithful like Abraham.
• Joseph was a good little boy (unlike his “bad” brothers), and God made him Prime Minister of Egypt. So be good like Joseph.
• David had a pure heart (unlike his brothers), and God made him King of Israel. So have a pure heart like David.
• Esther was an obedient girl. God made her Queen of Persia and she saved God’s people. So be obedient like Esther.
• Finally, if we fail to be good, Jesus will forgive us (a “P.S.” tacked onto the end).

What’s so bad about these Sunday school lessons?

Nothing really. Except that they lie about God, they lie about these “heroes of the faith,” they lie about the Bible, and they lie about the gospel. Apart from that, they are pretty good. Oh, they also create “younger brother” rebels and “older brother” Pharisees.

Is the gospel our central theme, or is it a “PS” tacked onto the end?

The gospel storyline

The message of the gospel—the entire storyline of scripture—is God’s loving pursuit of people who run from him as fast as they can and who live lives unworthy of his love.

That’s why it’s called grace.

But our Sunday school lessons teach us to be good little boys and girls, and God will love us and use us. It’s the total opposite of the gospel. It’s a counterfeit of the worse kind.

The inside out of the gospel

The wonder of the gospel is not the love of the beautiful; it’s when Beauty kisses the Beast.

The Beast isn’t loved because he has changed; the Beast is changed when he is loved. Joy doesn’t come when he’s loved for his beauty; joy overwhelms him when he is loved in his hideousness.

If the Beast were loved for his beauty, it would be an unbearable burden. Any day he might be scarred, and soon he will certainly be a wrinkled old man.

So why do we burden our children with the unbearable load of “being good little boys and girls like the heroes in the Bible”? We wouldn’t load a pack mule with the burdens we place on our children.

There’s gotta be a better way

Let’s teach the wonder of the gospel. Let’s show our kids that God loves us … simply because he loves us. In our beastliness. That he loves us before we are good.

That his love isn’t vague sentimentality, but it cost him his most precious treasure to turn us into his prized possession; that the storyline of the Bible is God’s Search and Rescue mission to find the dying Beast and kiss him into joyous life.

• How Abraham was an idol worshiper and God loved him and pursued him;
• How Joseph was a narcissistic boy and God loved him and pursued him;
• How David was a murdering adulterer and God loved him and pursued him;
• How Esther had sex outside of marriage with a non-believer and God loved her and pursued her.

Our heroes weren’t loved because they were good; they were good because they were loved.

We may believe in the innocence of youth, but our children know better. They see the children in the schoolyard (and they see us at home!). They don’t need the counterfeit gospel of pack-mule-moralism; they need the kiss of the Beauty.

Maybe we do too. Besides, it’s what the Bible in fact teaches