hoo boy... Convicting

HT to JT

I confess I have had mornings like that and then stepped into the pulpit... it's sad, it's wrong, and I take full responsibility. May God have mercy on me to love my family better, and not just Sunday mornings... and thanks be to God through the Lord Jesus Christ that His grace abounds to cover far more than bad mornings.

Ask and You Shall Receive...

Me No Speak - You Watch, Listen... Run 'Way

Surpised by ... Hip Hop?

I have not listened to rap music in quite some time. I was seriously into in my last year or two of High School (think Special Ed, Heavy D, and just on the scene gansta rap NWA... wow). I got back to my Rock roots in college, but rap was not off the table, and I still listen to some of my favorite tracks every once in a while (protect ya neck - Wu-Tang - clean version of course), but hip hop has not been on my radar very much at all in the last few years. Even the Christian Rap I had heard in recent years, while decent in content has not really grabbed my attention musically.

Now, because of my exit from the rap music scene, I apparently have missed out on a few really good Christian Rap artists. I could not list them here, but here is something I came across through JT's Blog (where else?) that I really like.

Enjoy this track from Lecrae - I just bought the album on iTunes. (Thanks to the Siebolds!)

If you have given up on Rap for one reason or another, you might want to peek in again. The 1:16 Clique is probably the first place you should look, which includes Lecrae, Trip-Lee and others.
(Romans 1:16)

There is a short written interview and a longer video interview with Lecrae here.

The 2:4 Principle

Below I am just going to repost Justine Taylor's recent blog.

I have posted before on this and similar topics - but again, in my opinion, what Piper and Welch are getting at is the biggest obstacle to really engaging in the life of the church, and therefore, really accessing the Christian experience. I've said it before, Life in Christ IS life in the church. There is no other place to learn to be who we are called to be, or better place to actually try to live it out.
Anyone who is in the church that does not have this mindset will be continually disappointed, and hurt, and lonely - never satisfied with any body of believers they join, no matter what is available for them in the church. But enough from me, here is the post:



John Piper's latest sermon, The Mind of Christ: Looking Out for the Interests of Others, is well worth your time. Here's an excerpt:

Why do Christians walk through life feeling a humble sense that we owe service to people, rather than them owing us? The answer is that Christ loved us and died for us and forgave us and accepted us and justified us and gave us eternal life and made us heirs of the world when he owed us nothing. He treated us as worthy of his service, when we were not worthy of his service. He took thought not only for his own interests but for ours. He counted us as greater than himself: “Who is the greater,” he said, “one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves” (Luke 22:27).

That is where our humility comes from. We feel overwhelmed by God’s grace: bygone grace in the cross and moment-by-moment arriving grace promised for our everlasting future. Christians are stunned into lowliness. Freely you have been served, freely serve.

So the crucial relational mark of the culture of our church should be Philippians 2:4: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” This is the “mind” or the “mindset” that we should have in life together. This is the relational atmosphere where God will grant wisdom for the perplexing work of living in this world.

I was reminded of a quote from Ed Welch’s book, Running Scared:Fear, Worry, and the God of Rest (pp. 184-185), which I've excerpted here before:

Which do we really need—to give love or to receive it? We resist the question because we want to say both.

Yet Scripture seems to favor the imbalance. Not that we aspire to have our friend or spouse love us less, but that “in humility [we] consider others better than [our]selves” (Phil. 3:4). When the kingdom of God is ruling our hearts, we aspire more to serve than to be served, honor more than to be honored, and love more than be loved. This doesn’t mean that we don’t care about being loved; it simply means that we always want to outdo others in love.

Do we run the risk of a lopsided relationship? Absolutely. That is the relationship we have with God—he always loves first and most. . . . Throughout Scripture God is the one who loves more than he is loved. He always makes the first move. He advertises his extravagant affection for us even when we are indifferent or opposed to him.

When Jesus Christ, God incarnate, walked the earth, the pattern continued. Through his life Jesus was rejected by his people and misunderstood by his disciples. At the most difficult point of his life, he was betrayed, denied, and abandoned. But through it all his love was unwavering. In this, he established the pattern for true humanness. This is the way we were intended to be. This is life in the kingdom. It wants love, but it wants even more to love others deeply. Its treasure is to grow in the fruits of the Spirit, foremost of which is to love others.

This is Greg again: If we as a people, in our churches, in our marriages, in any other relationship we find ourselves in... If we could really live this out we would be far more content, far more at peace, and far more in tune with the life that God would like for us to live. We'd probably suffer a lot more too - another positive.

People Will Get Mad at You if You Do it Right

Here is an interesting clip from an interview with Tim Keller on the Pastor and his family.




This is probably one of the hardest aspects of being a pastor. I can see it from my own perspective, just starting out as a husband (our 4 year anniversary is Thursday) and as a Father (Abby turns 2 in November) - but I can also see it through the eyes of my mentor, who is much further along in his life and ministry.

I hear how others 'get mad' - both at myself and at him - when the balls drop, as they are bound to do. But Mr. Keller is right... if you are doing it right - not to say that I do, or that my mentor does - but if you are doing it right, people are going to get mad at you.

And it is so incredibly difficult to balance your calling as a husband and as a father, with that of your calling as a pastor - the shepherd of God's people... We want to be all things to all people - we are called to be that - but there is an order and a priority of the three which comes from God. And as angry as your people may get at you for doing it the right way - by not doing so you are disqualifying yourself from making the congregation happy anyway...

May as well have them mad at your for a good reason...

This is one of many reasons why it is so important to have a wise and strong session.

HT: Unashamed Workman

Finger Painting... Oh Yeah

These speak for themselves...

You Know You are Too...

I Would Be Remiss...

If I made several posts today and did not add an Abby post...

Here are a couple of vids of she and I playing with a lollipop and talking with mommy...

In the next video, when I ask "Who made you?" - It sounds like she is saying Da-ddy, (which is not entirely wrong) but she is in actuality saying "God Did".
:-)

Until next time...

Tidbits to Share

If you haven't found or been pointed to "First Importance" let me be the one to send you that way. I recommend you add it to your feed-reader, if you have one... and if you don't... shame on you for wasting so much time! (said the man on his third blog post of the day...)

Anyway, I just wanted to share two of the more recent postings I thought were excellent:

“We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor. Otherwise he is not a Christian. He lives in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love. By faith he is caught up beyond himself into God. By love he descends beneath himself into his neighbor.”

- Martin Luther, On Christian Liberty (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2003), 62.

“A man is not saved because he believes in Christ; he believes in Christ because he is saved.”

- Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Philadelphia, PA: P&R Publishing, 1965), 101.

The Story of Stuff

Ok, anyone who knows me knows that I hate the huge "green push" that has been going on in our society as of late. I don't hate it because I want to destroy the planet - but I hate it because of the arrogance and presumption and fear-mongering behind the most vocal 'greenies' out there. Do I believe global warming exists? Well, sort of, but not in the way it is being portrayed in the media. Do I believe that we can do something about it? Well, not exactly. I do however believe that we ought to be better stewards of what God has given us - and so in that vein, I am more 'green' than people might expect.

It is in that regard that I share this with you... 'big ups' to This Desert Life for alerting us to its existence.

I recommend watching this video with your propaganda detectors firmly in place. There is plenty to go around in this video, particularly in the first two sections of the video. It's not that I deny the premises in and of themselves, but the drama is a bit over the top and the numbers only tell half the story.

That being said, the sections on distribution and consumption are very, very good, and the last section to a lesser degree - a bit more fear mongering than I think is appropriate... but overall this is a helpful bit of info, something I think people should watch, though with a certain level of caution.

To the dismay of my wife, it does bolster my desire and my argument to have the cable shut off in our home (I really just don't want to pay for it)... however, that is not a hill I am willing to die on. There are much bigger fish to fry.

Enjoy, and do feel free to leave your thoughts.

PS - If I may point out ONE major nit-pick in the very beginning of the film - our narrator says passionately that "it is the governments job to TAKE CARE OF US" - I have to firmly jump ship right there... this is not and never has been the job of the government, and this is the major reason why we are in such dire straights economically as a nation... but that's enough about that for now.

OK, This May Be a Little Selfish...

But is anyone else discouraged by the fact that the majority of Reformed Christian Conferences worth going to are always held in middle America or some other far away place?

PCRT is held in Philadelphia, and that's great. But there are all these other great gatherings I'd love to go to, Like New Attitude, Together for the Gospel, Resolved, Desiring God and the most recently announced (as far as I know) The Gospel Coalition...

I would have loved to go to any one of these, but they are all so far away that the travel makes it impossible. The church could never afford to send me, and I surely could not afford to send myself... I suppose I will have to be content with downloading the audio after the fact. At least it's free! For that I truly am thankful.

But I think these conferences should do what our GA does, and rotate the location every year. That way more people who want to go are able to at least every few years. That would be great. Not to confuse a conference with the Church - it is not the same... but that's an entirely different post for another day.