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…

Each entry was assigned a random number and the drawing was done using a random number generator.  There was a separate drawing for each book.  Here are the winners of the 2mites.com Easter Giveaway:

1.  Trevor Maitland – Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl, by N.D. Wilson

2.  Darlene Taylor – The Meaning of the Pentateuch, by John Sailhamer

3.  Matthew Lanser – John Calvin: A Heart For Devotion, Doctrine & Doxology, edited by Burk Parsons

4.  Michael Littell – Finally Alive, by John Piper

Congratulations!  You should receive your book within 2 weeks.  Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest, and keep your eyes open for more chances to win.

Last day to enter the 2mites.com Easter Giveaway. 4 winners, 4 excellent books, no cost to enter.  Click here to learn how to enter (takes 2 minutes).  Tomorrow is the drawing!

Here is the link to his letter to the church

Here is the video of him sharing with the church about his leave:

I thank God for him.  Yes, as an apprentice/student in his seminary I am going to greatly miss his instruction and leadership over the coming 8 months.  However, he is teaching me something through his actions that can’t be absorbed in a lecture, and this is exactly the reason I have come to sit under him for pastoral training.

All too often a pastor is resistant when his elder team begs him to step down for a season to examine his own heart and relationships.  It is a genuine grace from God when a pastor is perceptive to his own sin and honest enough to take initiative in stepping down from public ministry for a season.

I love to listen to good live music.  The energy of a tight band and a poetic singer who becomes a part of their music.  It is a beautiful experience.  There is something in the air that elicits a response from me, especially if there is a groove.  My heart rises up into my throat and sinks into my belly at the same time, my knees bend, my body sways, my head nods, and my feet fight my inhibitions and often get the best of me.  When I go away from a great musical experience I talk about it with my friends and family, all the while knowing I can’t capture the magic of those moments in words.  I remember great musical moments with fondness and desire.  This is a good and proper way to respond to good music.  Yet, we are not to respond merely in this way to the proclaimed word of God.

your people who talk together about you by the walls at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.’  And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it… And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. (Ezekiel 33:30-32)

Saying “amen!” out loud or in our hearts, will not do.  Feeling the amen deep within our beings will not do.  Thinking about a sermon and allowing it to lift our spirits, and looking forward to more times of sermonic bliss with desire, simply will not do.  It is not God’s desire that the preaching of his word merely elicits a response of momentary emotion.  Rather, God desires that preaching elicits a doing that flows from true faith.  The amens, the feelings, and the lifting of our spirits is not bad.  No, quite the contrary.  Yet if our disposition does not change, our faith does not increase and our lives are unaffected, then our experience was another exercise in hypocrisy which is only useful for quenching genuine affection for God and inoculating us to the preaching of his word.

The 2mites.com Easter Giveaway is less than 1 week away, click here to enter!

Propositions are important, but they depend on the stories out of which they arise for their power, meaning, and application.  Imagine having all the propositions of faith but none of the stories.  They would be true, but we wouldn’t know what to do with them.

Propositions are shorthand for story.  They stand in for stories that we don’t have the time to tell.  And the Bible doesn’t ask us to choose between proposition and story.  They are both there, and they need each other.

Propositions serve as a check on story, clarifying how they ought to be interpreted, and stories serve as a check on propositions, keeping them from being shallow, inert, or legalistic.  So we need them both.  But take warning: never let your propositions get far from the stories out which they came.

- Dan Taylor, “The Life-Shaping Power of Story”

A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate.  When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story.  The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experience meaning, the purpose of making statements about the meaning of a story is only to help you to experience that meaning more fully.

- Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners (p. 96)

(HT: Joe Rigney)

The Story of Zac Smith from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

(HT: Justin Taylor)