31 December 2012
24 December 2012
11 December 2012
04 December 2012
26 November 2012
05 November 2012
17 October 2012
16 October 2012
Hopes & Dreams For Gilead: The Fellowship Of Fellow Workers
“Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus …”
Romans 16.3
Growing up, my family rarely took family vacations. In fact, I can only remember two times when my family took to the road with the sole intention of leaving everything behind for a week of rest and relaxation. Consequently, I have few family memories of beaches, shopping trips, and theme parks. To some, this would imply that our family probably suffered a lack of connection or fellowship. With the benefit of hindsight, I can honestly say that we did not. My brothers, my Dad, and I spent more time together than most families that I knew; it was just that the time we spent together was spent working. Whether it was getting up early to make doughnuts, framing a house in the summer heat, or chopping firewood for the winter, we got to spend a fair amount of time together. I realize now that those times were really quality times. When you work with someone, you get to know them in a different way. Common work brings people together. It is a form of fellowship. You could say that "the family that works together stays together."
The last chapter of Romans is packed with expressions of Paul’s appreciation for people to whom he had grown close as a result of working with them: “Mary has worked hard for you”; “Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ”; “Greet those workers in the Lord”; “Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord”. These were obviously people who were close to Paul’s heart, and that closeness was the result of laboring together shoulder to shoulder in the service of Jesus. His fellowship with them was a working fellowship. They had shared the joys, hopes, challenges, and triumphs of striving to share the gospel … and it had brought them together.
As I watched our church family gather for our Gilead Outreach (G.O.) night, I saw brothers and sisters working together in the Lord: strengthening, encouraging and even challenging one another with our presence. Similar scenes are commonly repeated in our fellowship through work such as Good News Club, Java For Jesus, mission trips, VBS, small group outreach, worship ministry, nursery, and Sunday school. It is time to labor for our Lord because 1) the night is coming when no man can work and 2) we know that nothing we give to Jesus will ever go to waste. Besides … our Father has a family vacation in store for us after all of our work here together is done.
20 September 2012
Hopes & Dreams For Gilead: A Time Of Sowing
"... whoever sows
sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap
bountifully." 2 Corinthians 9.6
One of the basic principles of Christian living is that abundant reaping must be preceded by abundant sowing. Abundant fruit is rarely the result of meager planting. We do not see the finishing touches placed upon a new house unless we have first taken the time to make provision for the foundation. We reach retirement only after having faithfully labored for many years. The small and tedious work must necessarily precede the joyous outcome of that work. This principle applies to the work of the gospel. Gilead exists to bring glory to God by bringing people to Jesus and bringing blessing to people. It is one of our greatest joys as Christians to see people brought to Jesus and to see them give Him the glory for their salvation. That is a day of reaping for us ... seeing people place their lives in the service of the Lord ... seeing new believers baptized into the fellowship of God's family. That is a day of reaping for us, but those days of reaping must be preceded by faithful days of planting.
In light of this truth, I am asking you to join with me for the next three Sunday evenings as we seek to do some intentional planting in the community that surrounds our church. I know that we are a church that longs to reap and so must we continue to be a church that labors to sow. October 14th will be our Fall Family Hayride. We have always enjoyed this event as a family in the past. This year, I want us to be intentional to invite people outside of our church family to join us that night. To help toward that end, I am asking you to join me in a time of prayer and planning on Sunday night September 30th. That night we will prepare to distribute information to our community about the Hayride event and pray for God's favor as we go. On Sunday night, October 7th, we will go and distribute door hangers in the areas that we have designated. These three nights are not really a time for reaping. They are a time for sowing. Let's sow abundantly!
04 September 2012
29 August 2012
07 August 2012
09 July 2012
06 July 2012
21 May 2012
What Does Religious Freedom Mean At Vanderbilt?
The link below is to an article written by one of my fellow Vanderbilt alumni, Bryan McGraw. Bryan and I were both in the Baptist Student Union together and have observed the university's enforcement of a new non-discrimination policy for religious student organizations with dismay. It is a good rebuttal to the misguided thinking that has informed the University Administration's pursuit of this policy.
http://www.capitalcommentary.org/religious-freedom/pity-school-vanderbilt-and-cultivation-indifferent-pluralist
http://www.capitalcommentary.org/religious-freedom/pity-school-vanderbilt-and-cultivation-indifferent-pluralist
23 April 2012
16 April 2012
John Dickson: The Easter Story - Reasons To Believe
This video is an interview with evangelist John Dickson who heads the Australia-based Centre For Public Christianity. He explains his reasons for believing the truth of the resurrection as well as what implications he feels that it has for our lives.
John Dickson: The Easter Story - Reasons To Believe
This video is an interview with Evangelist John Dickson who heads up the Australia-based Centre For Public Christianity. He explains his reasons for believing the truth of the resurrection.
26 March 2012
13 February 2012
10 February 2012
“A Place Of Healing” by Joni Eareckson Tada
I have long considered Joni Eareckson Tada to be one of my heroes of the Christian faith. It is common for Christians to wonder how their faith would fare under the weight of a devastating tragedy. Would we say, “Though He should slay me, yet I will serve Him” or would we rather “curse God and die.” Joni has for several decades given us a contemporary glimpse into the struggles of trying to faithfully serve the Lord in the face of enormous challenges. Most readers will be familiar with the story of how Joni lost use of her arms and legs as the result of a teenage diving accident. In the over forty years since that tragic day, Joni has sought to serve the Lord faithfully through writing, painting, speaking, and ministering to the needs of other disabled persons. As a result, she has tremendous insight into the working and will of the Lord for His people. A Place Of Healing is Joni’s latest book and as the subtitle suggests, it is an attempt to wrestle with the mysteries of suffering, pain and God’s sovereignty. In the book, she reveals the ironic fact that she has for some time suffered debilitating pain that has hindered her and challenged her far more than her paralysis. Despite having asked difficult questions of the Lord before, the new enemy of chronic pain has motivated her to take up her pen and record how she has sought the Lord in the midst of this new struggle. The result is one of the most searching and inspiring books that I have read in some time. Through the ten chapters of the book, Joni shares the thoughts and reflections that have been brought powerfully home to her through her pain. The middle chapters of the book ponder questions such as: “What benefit is there to my pain?”, “How can I go on like this?”, “How can I bring God glory?”, and “How do I regain my perspective?” The book is chock full of testimonies, personal encounters and compelling illustrations that bring the deep biblical truths with which she is wrestling to life. The book is 215 pages long.
Here are some select quotations:
“You can’t teach suffering from a textbook. Sharing about suffering is like giving a blood transfusion … infusing powerful, life-transforming truths into the spiritual veins of another. And you can’t do that with words only.” (p. 25)
“Here at our ministry we refuse to present a picture of ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, because we deal with so many people who suffer, and when you’re hurting hard, you’re neither helped nor inspired by a syrupy picture of the Lord … when your heart is being wrung out like a sponge, when you feel like Morton’s salt is being poured into your wounded soul, you don’t want a thin, pale, emotional Jesus … You want a battlefield Jesus.” (p. 31)
“We have gilded the real Jesus with so much ‘dew on the roses’ that many people have lost touch with Him … a sugar-coated Christ requires nothing from us – neither conviction nor commitment … it’s an image that lacks truth and power.” (p. 31)
“To this point, as I pen this chapter, He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me.” (p. 35)
“The Bible simply doesn’t teach that God will always heal those who come to Him in faith. He sovereignly reserves the right to heal or not heal, as He sees fit.” (p. 45)
“He is the one who chooses the tools He will use to perfect His workmanship … Am I to tell Him which tools He can use an which tools He can’t use in the lifelong task of perfecting me and molding me into the beautiful image of Jesus?” (p. 67)
“It isn’t the hurts, blows, and bruises that rob us of the freshness of Christ’s beauty in our lives … it is the careless ease, empty pride, earthly preoccupations, and too much prosperity that will put layers of dirty film over our souls.” (p. 86)
“When you find yourself in chronic agony, life gets reduced to hours rather than days – and sometimes minutes and seconds … I need to know that God’s concern and care for me is literally breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat, moment by moment.” (p. 101)
“People suffering from debilitating injuries … aren’t your standard musical instruments … it takes special skill to bring music out of a broken instrument, and the one who does deserves recognition and glory. God is that one.” (p. 103)
“So many have tried to get me to say that my accident forty-three years ago was never part of God’s plan. That my paralysis was never His intention … I know differently. It was all planned long ago, and God brought it about in His perfect faithfulness. And because He allowed it and permitted it, because He has walked me through every moment of it, his plan has been marvelous for Joni Eareckson Tada.” (p. 197)
A Place of Healing is a book that will stretch you, encourage you, and touch you. The truth is that even those of us who do not suffer with paralysis or chronic pain have occasions to wonder how God could possibly use some of the challenges of our lives to accomplish something good. This book will aid the sensitive reader in gaining insight into that question.
07 February 2012
23 January 2012
17 January 2012
10 January 2012
02 January 2012
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