Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 2:11

Isaiah 58:1-12

“Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God. 3 ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. 4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? 6 “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? 8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, 10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. 11 And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12 And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. 2 For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. 8 So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

Luke 9:56-62

And they went on to another village. 57 As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” 59 And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” 60 But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.” 61 Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.” 62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

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Sunday, August 19, 2007 at 0:55

Another teacher, Joel Osteen, said: “It’s not enough to just read it. It’s not enough to just believe it. You’ve got to speak it out. Your words have creative power. One of the primary ways we release our faith is through our words. There is a divine connection between you declaring God’s favor and seeing God’s favor manifested in your life. And some of you are doing your best to please the Lord. You are living a holy consecrated life, but you’re not really experiencing God’s supernatural favor. And it’s simply because you’re not declaring it. You’ve got to give life to your faith by speaking it out.”

Some teach that this power comes with a special choice. This is similar to the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” doctrine by charismatic, that with special prayer and the decision you get gifts of power. It is different than the charismatic thinking in that most charasmatics still let God be Lord, where WF uses this new power to control the world around them. TD Jakes: “Scripture teaches that receiving Christ as your personal Savior does not necessarily make you a son of God, but if you choose to do so, the power (authority) and right to do so is present. … Just being saved does not make you a son of God, …only those who are willing to be led by the Spirit actually realize and manifest the sonship of God.”[23] This is a two level salvation! In comparison to Gal 3:26 and Romans 8:1-4, all who are saved are sons of God. And to be baptized with the Spirit is imply to be saved and part of the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:13) (this is where charismatics go wrong).

(source: http://darksidedk.livejournal.com/6538.html)

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Thursday, August 16, 2007 at 23:49

I don’t know what happened tonight, but I couldn’t speak as smoothly as I wanted to.

I think I’m developing a fear of large groups and new people…

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Sunday, August 12, 2007 at 11:00

Matthew 5:14-16

14“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

A Christian in the world cannot be hidden. The Christian life is a public life and cannot be hidden from view of the world. We, as people called by God, are in full view of the world. The world is in direct conflict with what we believe. In all of its philosophy, there is nothing in it that we can follow, nothing that we can agree with. Christ does not build bridges. He is a polarizer that divides and consecrates His people from the rest of the world. He calls His disciples to come. Who are we as the disciples of Christ? Who are we called to be? We are fishers of men, the salt of the earth and the lights of the world.

This is our identity. We are sinners, saved by the grace of God who sent His Son to die for us. We have believed this since the day we repented of our sins and trusted the LORD that He is our saving grace. How much do we believe it? How much do we believe that the grace that we’ve received is ours bought for us by the blood of Christ? How much does our faith cause a functional belief in Christ’s work? Are we keeping the light of Christ bright in our lives? Is that work in our lives evident in the way we act, talk, and think? We are the salt of the world. Every action in our lives must be salty. What is salt? It is flavourful, useful, and necessary. In the same way, we are meant to be salty in the world. We are necessary in this world, which is filled with every sinful deed, yet we, as the followers of Christ, are here, by the grace of God, to season the earth with the knowledge and grace of God. We are meant to be useful, to do good on this earth. We are meant to be, in ourselves, all these things, all seasoned with the salt of the work of God in us. This is no joke or passing metaphor. This is the truth and that cannot be debated. It is a warning from Christ. If we lose this quality of us, the savoury quality, void of spiritual vigour, who are we? No, we must act as men and women of Christ acting upon His authority and seasoning in our own lives to move in this earth and do His good work.

In my own life, I have been convicted of this. After summer conference, I was so convicted of my own helplessness and depravity. God showed me that even if I learn all there is to know, it means nothing if I do not love Him. It means nothing if I do not show love to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. I cannot flit back and forth from old habits. Every day, every morning, I must humble myself before God and die to myself. This was the battle cry of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who lived a short life, but one that was filled with an urgency to teach the gospel and spread the message of Christ, even in the oppression of the Nazis. Because I am so blessed in this peaceful country, it is easy for me to forget the urgency of believing on Christ and doing His good work. I forget! I do! I am a bad man and there is nothing that I can do to change that. As long as I live in this body, I am still grappling with my sinful nature. However, this fact does not exclude me from anything that Christ has called me to do. By the authority that He has, I can go out into the world and do His work on His authority alone.

A city on a hill cannot be hidden. We are a church that cannot be hidden. What was really impressed upon me at Summer Conference was the fiery passion of Nouhoum that encouraged us to be connected to our Church. This is our church. Look around you. All who believe in Christ and attend this church are part of it. We must be connected to our church. So many times it is so easy to get caught up in petty arguments. I’ve heard stories of churches breaking up over so many insignificant things that are not even at all related to the gospel that we believe. No, this is our church and we must love it as Christ is our foundation. We must love our Church that has been established by Christ. We must strive to keep the unity in the body and love one another. Our blessing to the fellowship of believers begins in our personal lives. When we begin to take personal responsibility in our own devotional lives, we, in turn, bless our church because we bring to the church the work of Christ in our own lives, thus encouraging one another and quickening each other’s faith. What are we doing as a church to impact our community, inwardly and outwardly? I pose this question to you today and ask you, sitting in your pew, what are you doing? Are you chasing after things in the wind?

Leafing through the book that I was given on my baptism day, I was reminded of this story in John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life:

I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader’s Digest, which tells about a couple who ‘took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.’ At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn’t. Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life – your one and only precious, God-given life – and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: ‘Look. Lord. See my shells.’ That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. Over against that, I put my protest: Don’t buy it. Don’t waste your life!

What are we doing? How are we living?

Ecc. 11:9 - Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

Live life to the fullest, and know that for all that you do, it will be asked of you from your Creator, how did you live the life given to you by God?

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Friday, August 10, 2007 at 1:03

Unless the Lord Builds the House

A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.

127:1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

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