Sunday, January 16, 2011

we have to teach people what to believe

The church isn't doing its job if it only teaches people how to live and not also what to believe. We have to equip people to think critically and correctly.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

two of the hardest questions i've ever been asked

my professor, Gregg Allison, asked our class these two questions:

Are you willing to go anywhere, say anything, do anything, and give up everything regardless of the cost for the sake of Jesus Christ?

If you knew that your suffering was God's best for you and you knew that you could not have His best in any other way, would you be willing to suffer for the sake of His honor?

he cautioned us not to answer too quickly.

a God who is in no way mysterious is in no way divine

i was talking to (debating with) a friend this weekend about God. we were talking about the various and often frustrating challenges involved in believing in God. he brought up some valid criticisms and, after a pretty long dialogue, i made this comment:

"i don't have answers for a lot of the stuff you bring up. some if it i'll never have an answer for. i'm not sure i'd want to worship a God who was totally answerable."

after the conversation was over, that thought kept ruminating in my mind.

i think part of what makes God worthy of worship is the mystery surrounding Him. my wife ashley makes a good point that mystery is an indicator that God is bigger than us. there will always be a gap between us as finite creatures and Him as the infinite Creator.

without mystery, there is no worship. i think christians should be more faithful in developing our own critical grounds for believing the Gospel (1 Peter 3:15), but we should also acknowledge and stand in awe of the mystery that makes God, God (Romans 11:33).

many of us want a God with no mystery. i say a God who is in no way mysterious is in no way divine.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

a God who feels pain

a few days ago, ashley and i were at the pediatrician with ava. she was getting her 4month checkup, which unfortunately included...vaccinations. yep. if you're a parent, you're already feelin' me.

this wasn't her first time. i was at work when she got her first shot, but right afterward, ashley called me from the doctor's office so that i could listen in on what sounded like a monster metamorphosis as ava was being introduced to pain. so i was dreading the prospect of actually seeing her experience it.

i even said to ash: "i can almost feel the pain."

and then i reflected on that for a moment. i've been guilty in the past of thinking that God is removed from our pain because of His infinite knowledge. in other words, sometimes i've thought that he doesn't waste time feeling our pain, not because He doesn't care, but because He knows that what we're going through is for our good and only temporary. but I had that same knowledge about Ava's pain and yet it didn't stop me from grieving for her, hurting with her. i knew that she'd be smiling again in a matter of minutes and i even knew that looking back on it, she would see good in it. but my heart couldn't help hurting with her...simply because she was hurting.

how much more does God know our pain? He has infinite knowledge (Isaiah 46:9-10), well beyond ours (Isaiah 55:9), yet he is intimately aware of how we feel (Hebrews 4:15) and He cares (1 Peter 5:7).

God's infinite knowledge should bring us great confidence (because He's ordained how it'll all work out) but his ability to empathize should bring us great comfort.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

george muller on the importance of scripture meditation

"While I was staying at Nailsworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost, though now, while preparing the eighth edition for the press, more than forty years have since passed away. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man may be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit. Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as a habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed in the morning.

Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord. I began, therefore, to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord's blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give myself toprayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer. When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me, that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, and intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, very soon after, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.

The difference then between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events, I almost invariably began with prayer, except when I felt my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I read the Word of God for food, or for refreshment, or for revival and renewal of my inner man, before I gave myself to prayer. But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often, after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even an hour, I only then begin really to pray. I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father, and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it!) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for his inner man. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time, except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow. Now what is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God; and here again not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.

I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow-believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways than I had ever had before; and after having now above forty years tried this way, I can most fully in the fear of God, commend it. How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon one!"

Excerpt from the Autobiography of George Müller