This is an excellent piece from Tullian Tchividjian on gospel centered ministry.  Here is an excerpt:

Since Jesus secured my pardon and absorbed the Father’s wrath on my behalf so that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” how does that impact my longing for approval, my tendency to be controlling, and my fear of the unknown?

In other words, how does the finished work of Christ satisfy my deepest daily needs so that I can experience the liberating power of the gospel every day and in every way?

If you’re a preacher, then God has called you to help others make the connection between Christ’s finished work and their daily life. To do this, we must unveil and unpack the truth of the gospel from every biblical text we preach in such a way that it exposes both the idols of our culture and the idols of our hearts.

(HT: Vitamin Z)

In this article Marvin Olasky interviews Anthony Bradley, a black minister who grew up in the United Methodist Church.  It’s a worthy read.

Is it good to “live in the moment”?  This phrase has been used in at least two different ways, and my response is determined by the meaning intended by the phrase “live in the moment.”

Sometimes what is meant by the exhortation to “live in the moment” is the synonymic exhortation: wherever you are, be all there (Jim Elliot).  Or more simply, be present.  When you are taking a walk in the city, notice the grains in the cement beneath the rubber of your shoes.  Enjoy the diverse smells. Take interest in the contours of every face.  Be aware of the moves of your heart and mind.  Look at the dead, barely existent flower, piled beneath the October snow, and be the first to notice its bloom in late April.  Feel the cold winter air turn to heat as it moves from your teeth, over the top of your tongue, down the back of your throat, and into your lungs on every inhale.  See the shape of the steam dissipate after it touches your lips with every exhale, and follow the invisible trail of your breath up into the sky until it is indistinguishable from the clouds.  Be amused by the way people shape their words, and look at the eyes behind those words.  Yearn to get inside a heart through grasping to understand the propositions, the feelings, the joys, the pains, concealed or equivocated in every syllable formed through the thoughtless synchronization of lips, tongue and larynx.  Yes.  In this case, if you are not living in the moment, you are not living at all.

God governs every square inch of the universe, every thought and every feeling.  His glory is on display.  You may be the only sentient being, apart from God himself, to ever to see the ant that just crossed the sidewalk in front of you with a whole kernel of corn on its back.  Did you thank God for that moment when his glory was on display for an audience of two?  Or were you too busy speculating about the stock market to notice that little six-legged creation lifting 20 times its body weight.  Oh how much more there is to feel and see in this world than ants, as a revelation of the majesty of God!

However, sometimes what is meant by the exhortation “live in the moment” is to ride every wave of impulse to see where it leads.  Discover the destination of your desires.  Lend the current love of your heart every devotion without any thought for tomorrow.  What you feel now is the most real thing in existence, for tomorrow may never be.  Every move should be an ultimate end in itself, leading you through the most direct route to gratify every “appetite or inclination of nature that is agreeable in itself, and not merely for the sake of something else” (Jonathan Edwards words concerning a different subject).  Let the world move you, not only in the sense of ‘inspire awe’, but also in the sense of ‘dictate your every move’.  No.  In this case, if you are living in the moment, you are not living at all.

There are chief ends that are of a much higher satisfaction and splendor than what can be achieved in the moment. In this case, lesser inferior joys are the enemy of greater superior joys.  A man who has been married for 50 years will tell you that marriage has been for his joy, though a man who has been married for 5 years might say that it is mostly about commitment and sacrifice.  Yet, the man will not taste the joy of knowing the mysterious (and today, mostly elusive) 50 year marriage if he has not been committed through the 5.  Even more than this shadow of marriage is the reality of living in light of the kingdom of God.  We dance to the beat of a drummer largely unheard.  We endure momentary affliction for the prize of God.  We recognize that our feelings and inclinations are often poor indicators of reality in light of the unchanging word of God, which promises pleasures forevermore.

The ultimate and most satisfying reality, the reality of the Kingdom of God, includes this moment, but also transcends this moment.  If you live with only the moment in mind, you will miss it.  If you live, not recognizing the beauty of God displayed in the moment, you will miss it.

Unfortunately, this is truth is not universally allowed and maintained by such as call themselves christians, anymore.  Not by a long shot.

“It is evident, by both scripture and reason, that God is infinitely, eternally, unchangeably, and independently glorious and happy; that he stands in no need of, cannot be profited by, or receive anything from the creature; or be truly hurt, or be the subject of any sufferings or impair of his glory and felicity from any other being. I need not stand to produce the proofs of God’s being such a one, it being so universally allowed and maintained by such as call themselves christians.”

- Jonathan Edwards, The End For Which God Created The World

…because i love God.

DugDownDeep_Carnahan.mov from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

“Does anyone fault [a man who loves his wife] for noting her every like and dislike? Is it clinical for him to desire to know the thoughts or longings of her heart?” Or to study her every move? Or to learn the language she writes her memoirs in?

read it.

Hebrew 3:12-14:

12a Take care, brothers, 12b lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13a But exhort one another every day, 13b as long as it is called “today,” 13c that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

This passage begins in 12a with an imperative command to “Take care!” or “watch!”  The reason for the command is given in the the second half of verse 12: so that there won’t be of us that have an evil, unbelieving heart, which would lead to apostasy.

The writer does not leave us in the dark as to how we are to apply the command and avoid this gravest of all dangers.  Verse 13 gives us the manner by which we are to “take care”:  exhort/encourage one another every day.

The writer also gives us a temporal condition for this command: as long as it is called today.  This condition comes from the previous context of Hebrews 3:7 which draws from Psalm 95:7.  By pointing to the Psalmist’s use of the word “today”, the writer does two things.  First, he highlights contemporary relevance, giving an all inclusive condition, emphasizing that we are to do this all the time.  Second, the writer looks forward to the consumation of all things, the beginning of tomorrow, when fates are finally sealed and the battle for souls is over, emphasizing that we are to do this while we still have time.

For good measure, verse 13c brings our attention once again to what is at stake and why we are in need of such a demanding program.  The writer reminds us that this strict perscription of daily exhortation/encouragement serves a very important purpose:  so that none of us will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

How do these warnings of apostasy find congruence with other biblical passages which give us assurance that none of God’s children will be lost or fall away?  The next verse, verse 14, gives us significant help with this apparent dillemma.  The ultimate evidence that we have become sharers in Christ, is that we hold our original confidence firm to the end. Moreover, it seems that this the ground for the previous commands.

Ponder the significance of this.  If we come to share in Christ and are a children of God, he will cause us to hold fast to our original confidence in the gospel.  God does this through providing means of grace in our lives to counteract the self-decieving, heart-hardening sin that would otherwise lead us away from God.  The means of grace highlighted in this passage is the church, not merely as an institution or formal assembly, but as honest friends and encouragers, brothers and sisters battling for each others sanctification and perseverence.  God has designed that our salvation is confirmed, that our sanctification is worked out, and that our perseverence is realized in authentic community, in which we live and die together in the gospel of Christ.

On Page 76 of N.D. Wilson’s Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl (my favorite book of the year):

In Virginia, there lived a man named Roy Sullivan.  He was struck by lightning seven times.  I’m told rough odds of this happening are out of 1.6 x 10 to the 25th (sixteen septillion).  Which is like one man winning a state lotto four times, though the luck is of a different stripe.  Find me the simplest explanation.

Did Roy believe in God?  Did he like Him?

In 1983, at the age of 71, he killed himself.  The lightning had nothing to do with it.  Rumor was (according to Reuters) that he’d been jilted in love.

And on page 86:

After the fourth time Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning, he allegedly told a reporter that a higher power was trying to kill him.

That’s ridiculous.  A higher power was not trying to kill him.  That would have been easy.  Every last one of us is bagged in the end.  The more impressive trick is striking someone with lightning seven times and keeping them alive.

or is it about gospel? Read This.  I’ll let you know what I think about the book after I read it.

(HT: Vitamin Z)

Better abolish pulpits than fill them with men who have no experimental knowledge of what they teach… People go to their place of worship and sit down comfortably, and think they must be Christians, when all the time all that their religion consists in, is listening to an orator, having their ears tickled with music, and perhaps their eyes amused with graceful action and fashionable manners; the whole being no better than what they hear and see at the opera – not so good, perhaps, in point of aesthetic beauty, and not an atom more spiritual.

- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Minister’s Self-Watch