Biblical Productivity

I have really been enjoying C.J. Mahaney's blog posts on Biblical Productivity, specifically the latest of this series dealing with Roles, Goals, and Scheduling. Check it out, if you've got time.

On Great Quote, One Sad Quote

"Christianity is the only major religion to have as its central event the humility of its God."

- Bruce Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, p. 3

via Take Your Vitamin Z

"The most eminent American universities have become centers where sexual license and depravity are praised and the only conduct that meets with official rebuke is open disapproval of immorality" (Harold O.J. Brown, The Sensate Culture, p. 207).

via Blog and Mablog

An Ironic Thought

Seth Ward shared something that would be very tragic:

Wouldn't it suck (for the Calvinist) if, at judgment day, all the predestined were the Arminians, even though the Calvinists turned out to be right???

I Love Hymns

We sang a bunch of hymns this weekend at small group and it was wonderful. I had this beauty swimming around in my head for a couple days:

Praise ye the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise him, for he is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to his temple draw near,
join me in glad adoration.

Praise ye the Lord, who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth,
shelters thee under his wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires e’er have been
granted in what he ordaineth?

Praise ye the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee!
Surely his goodness and mercy here daily attend thee;
ponder anew what the Almighty will do,
if with his love he befriend thee.

Praise ye the Lord, who with marvelous wisdom hath made thee,
decked thee with health, and with loving hand guided and stayed thee.
How oft in grief hath not he brought thee relief,
spreading his wings to o’er shade thee!

Praise ye the Lord, O let all that is in me adore him!
All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before him!
Let the amen sound from his people again;
gladly for aye we adore him.

Jesus Knows

When I am estranged
When I don't fit in
When no one cares
When I'm alone

Christ Jesus knows all
He knows what's in man
He knows me best
He knows my worst

And I am a chief
Of sinners that is
From what I know
I am the worst

Yet still in my sin
I read this in awe:
"Christ died for us"

Church On Saturday

It always freaks me out when I get home after church on Saturday. I start thinking about work tomorrow...

Blog Comment Success

I can help but share this. Whenever you say or do something that others really appreciate or resonate with, it makes you feel really good. I had a moment like that today. I posted the second comment, and people actually quoted me later on. They liked what I said. My comment = validated.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this sounds completely ridiculous, but I don't care.

The Gospel!

I'm on a DG kick right now. Here's Pastor John Piper again, speaking the Gospel! Oh man, I love hearing this news!

via Timmy Brister

Swords Are For Killing

Pastor John Piper shares a good word about the sword of the Spirit over at the DG blog:

In New Testament times swords were not for digging, shaving, or whittling. They were for killing. The only reason Peter cut off Malchus’s ear was that he missed (John 18:10).

But Herod didn’t miss: “He killed James the brother of John with the sword” (Acts 12:2).

Many saints have felt the full force of the sword: “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword” (Hebrews 11:37). So it was and will be: “If anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain” (Revelation 13:10).

That’s what swords are for. So when Paul calls the word of God the “sword of the Spirit” in Ephesians 6:17, he is serious—something must be put to death. And it is not people. Christians don’t kill people to spread our faith; we die to spread our faith.

The link in Paul’s mind is given in Romans 8:13.

If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

The word of God is the sword of the Spirit. The Sword is for putting to death. And by the Spirit we put to death our sinful deeds. So I conclude that the way we kill our sins is with the Spirit’s sword, the word of God.

All temptations to sin have power by lying. The are “deceitful desires” (Ephesians 4:22). They tell us that the pleasure of the sin is worth it. The killing blow against these lies is the power of God’s truth. Hence the sword of the Spirit, God’s word, is the weapon to use.

As John Owen said, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” That is what swords are for, especially the Bible.

What Movies Are You Watching?

An article on the reformation 21 website had a paragraph that was particularly striking to me:

I am also struck by how Christian talk of cultural engagement has coincided with a watering-down of Christian standards of behavior and, ironically, thought. I have lost count of how many times I have been told in recent years that Christians should be able to watch any movie, providing they do so with a critical, Christian eye. There are several obvious problems with that kind of statement. For a start, such a categorical, sweeping statement has little, if any, scriptural or exegetical foundation and indeed seems not to take any account of texts such as Mt. 5: 27-30, Eph. 5: 1-3, Phil. 4: 8, etc. Second, even those making the case rarely mean exactly what they say: ask them if Christians can therefore watch child pornography, and none that I have spoken to have been prepared to go that far, except in the necessary cases of those professionally involved in the detection and prosecution of paedophile crime. No, Christians shouldn't watch child porn, they'll say; but the problem, of course, is that definitions of what is and is not pornography, even child pornography, are changing all the time and are driven, by and large, by the wider culture which increasingly mainstreams such material. Witness the new Kate Winslet movie, involving a sex scene between her character and a fifteen year old boy. Specious distinctions involving the actual age of the actor notwithstanding, it is arguably child pornography. Frankly, there are films rated PG-13 today which my grandparents would have considered as porn. Is the standard of what is and is not obscene set by biblical truth or by cultural accommodation? Talk of `Christians can watch anything as long as they do it critically' is as daft, unbiblical, soft-headed, ill-thought-out, and confused as anything one is likely to come across. In fact, I have a suspicion that for some it might simply function as a rationalization for watching whatever they like and not having to feel guilty about it, the Christian voyeur's equivalent of the `I only do screen nudity and sex when the script demands it' excuse of so many `serious' actresses whose bank balances have been boosted by the occasional flash of on-screen flesh.

What an excuse for a Christian to use! "It's ok to watch this terrible stuff because I am resisting the ideas it represents". That's simply not true. This article was convicting primarily because I saw Grand Torino yesterday and I honestly should have left. The racism was so terrible that it would have been better for our souls to not have watched it. I feel guilty because during the movie I was led to ask my friend if she wanted to leave, but I didn't speak up. Praise God that this is a godly grief that is leading me to repentance, but it is still a grief. May I be more faithful to Gods leading going forward.