My brother Joe has a strong desire to teach in the inner-city public school system. This video helped me to dream with him. Praise God for teachers like this. Even though Lindsay (the teacher in the above film) isn’t necessarily teaching the gospel to her students, she is gospel teaching. She is striving to do all she does as a teacher from a gospel life. These students are better equipped to understand the gospel because of her influence. They can understand concepts like unconditional acceptance, sacrificial love, unmerited favor, and loving discipline; concepts that formerly had no meaning to many of them. When a student now hears that God fully accepts them, regardless of any of their works, by faith alone; when they hear that God loves them more than any human has ever loved them, they can say, “God loves me and accepts me even more than Miss Lindsay.” Let it be God. Let it be that Lindsay’s students go to embrace the gospel, being welcomed by you in Christ, through faith alone. May many gospel teachers like this saturate the schools in our nation.

Today I have a post on the Desiring God Blog celebrating the birthday, the Bible, and the God of Charles Spurgeon.

Psalms 119:91 By your appointment they [heavens and earth] stand this day, for all things are your servants.

All things… the Middlemist Red Flower, 11688 San Ysidro Drive, wasps, clouds, fortune cookies, eBay, Johnny Cash, the billiard hall down the street, public radio, 3M, green olive pizza, stars, thermometers, MTV, my 3rd grade science text book, Freemasonry, the television show Alf, sweetened condensed milk, placemats and Walt Disney are all servants of God. They are not servants in the same way that the Apostle Paul or C.S. Lewis are servants of God, but they serve the ultimate purposes of God nonetheless. They only exist by his appointment, and they only don’t exist at any given time and at any given place, by his appointment. Marvel!

“One of the greatest misconceptions of heaven is that it is static, unchanging, and immutable, as if to say that all we get we get all at once, at the beginning. The idea many have is that we are transformed at its inception as much as we ever will be. No. But to think that the happiness of heaven is unchanging minimizes its glory…

The basis for knowing this to be true is the biblical reality of God’s inexhaustible plenitude.

We must never forget that even in heaven only God is immutable or unchanging. WE are ever subject to greater transformation and improvement. But it is always a change from one stage of glory and knowledge and holiness to the next higher stage of glory and knowledge and holiness. It is one thing to be free of imperfection, but another to experience perfection perfectly. We will be perfect in heaven from the first moment we arrive in that we will be free from defect, free from sin, free from moral corruption and selfishness. But that perfection is finite, because we are finite. It is alway subject to expansion. There is change, but always for the better!

Heaven is not simply the eradication of earthly sin and imperfection. To say that in heaven I will no longer hate God is not the same as loving him perfectly. My love can be free from corruption and selfishness without being as perfect and intense as is possible. To say that my love for God is absolutely perfect and cannot be improved upon implies that I know everything that can be known of him and that I know it in exhaustive detail.”

- Sam Storm; Joy’s Eternal Increase, pages 173-175

Our children, Hosanna Faith Lacine and Hope Avniela Lacine, were dedicated to the Lord on February 21st, 2010.

Dedication to God; Hosanna and Hope Lacine from Jeff Lacine on Vimeo.

Here is a song by John Newton that I heard before for the first time at Together 4 The Gospel Conference, this week.  Let it sink deep.

I Asked The Lord

I asked the Lord that I might grow in faith and
love and every grace, might more of
His salvation know and seek more
earnestly His face

Twas He who taught me thus to pray, and He I
trust has answered prayer, but it has
been in such a way as almost
drove me to despair

I hoped that in some favored hour at once He’d
answer my request and by His
love’s constraining pow’r subdue my
sins and give me rest

Instead of this He made me feel the hidden
evils of my heart and let the
angry pow’rs of Hell assault my
soul in every part

Yeah more with His own hand He seemed intent to
aggravate my woe, crossed all the
fair designs I schemed, humbled my
heart, and laid me low

“Lord, why is this,” I, trembling, cried; “wilt Thou pur-
sue Thy worm to death?” “Tis in this
way,” the Lord replied, “I answer
prayer for grace and faith.”

These inward trials I employ from self and
pride to set thee free, and break Thy
schemes of earthly joy that though may’st
find thy all in Me.

One reason the Christian should have peace: God does all their works for them. “O LORD, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our works” – Isaiah 26:12. Do you believe it?

John Piper’s latest Taste and See article is a meditation on 1 Corinthians 12, and it really moved me.  I will share an excerpt of the article below, then some further observations.  You can read the whole article here.

Here is an excerpt:

God may intend to give us the blessing… through the spiritual gifting of another believer. And the reason we don’t receive the blessing is that we don’t avail ourselves of the power God intends to channel through the gifts of his people.

For example, the gifts Paul mentions include wisdom and healings and miracles. This implies that God intends that sometimes wisdom and healing and other sorts of miracles come into our lives through other believers ministering to us. If this were not true, there would be no point in spiritual gifts. They are one way God brings about the “common good” of the church.

If we pray and pray for some change we want to see, but we never consider seeking the ministry of a fellow believer, we are like the eye that says to the hand, “I have no need of you” (1 Corinthians 12:21). So in your small groups (which is the most natural place for such ministry to happen), seek the fullness of God’s “good” (1 Corinthians 12:7), and minister to each other—and seek to be ministered to—in this way.

This is astonishing biblical truth.  Verse 22, tells us that even the parts which appear to be weaker are “indispensable”.  Indispensable really?  Maybe indispensable in the sense that God loves them and we should too.  Nope.  The context of 1 Corinthians 12 shows us that every part of the body is indispensable in the sense that we have need of them.

You mean I have need of that Christian man in my church who always smells terrible, constantly asks for prayer, and doesn’t know how to form complete sentences?  You mean I have need of that dispensationalist lady who is always talking about the end times and doesn’t follow common social mores?  You mean I need that guy who is barely 4 weeks clean (again) and thinks he is a pastor of some kind, always preaching to me like I’ve never read the bible before?

I know these people need me, but I need them?  Yes.  I need them.  The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”  On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable…  God’s ways are not my ways.  What blessings of God have I been missing out on from effectively saying to the feet “I have no need of you”?  What deliverance from sin might I have if I sought out more prayer from the brothers and sisters in my sphere, or leaned on them for help?  What grace is there available that I have not laid hold of?

God has told us in his word that there is something that is indispensable for fruitful walking in the grace of Christ.  He has told us of a special key to unlock helpful resources of grace untold – indispensable riches!  May we lay hold of these indispensable means’ of grace before us.  Lay hold my dear brothers and sisters and walk fruitful in Christ Jesus as never before.  Eagerly and humbly seek ministry from God through the church.

Passover was the day in which the Jews celebrated their release from slavery in Egypt, and it was customary for the Romans to release and pardon one Jewish prisoner every year at this time. The Jews themselves chose which prisoner the Romans were to pardon. Jesus had been imprisoned during Passover, without charge, set to be crucified. The Jews chose to release Barabbas, the brute murderer, instead of Jesus. Here is the story of Barabbas, and the story of you and me…