May | 2014 | Craig T. Owens

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The Love Of God (book review)

May 6, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

As I have often said, Oswald Chambers challenges me to think more deeply and broadly like few others can. This collection of books (there are six of them in this one volume) under the heading The Love Of God is no different.

And thinking is what this collection of books is all about. This is a series of lectures and sermons which caused me to rethink not the various biblical doctrines I have learned, but the application of those doctrines to my daily life. This is just what Oswald Chambers had in mind. For one set of lectures, Chamber wrote this introduction—

“The object of these studies is to stimulate thinking along Christian lines. So many among us have a good spiritual experience, but have never thought things out on Christian lines. It is just as true that a man may live a Christian life without thinking it as that a man may think the Christian life without living it; but to combine the two means that great help may be rendered during times of confusion, turmoil and tension like the present. Bear in mind that Christian growth is based on the regeneration of a man’s soul through Redemption.” (emphasis in his original)

If you want to have your thinking stretched, this is the book for you!

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Bible study, book review, critical thinking, God's love, Oswald Chambers. 2 Comments »

Links & Quotes

May 5, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Here are the links to some interesting reading I found today.

“It is right and inevitable that we should be much concerned about the salvation of those we love. But we must be careful not to expect or demand that their salvation should conform to some ready-made pattern of our own.” —C.S. Lewis

Well, this is interesting. Follow your tax dollars to the countries that are enemies of America.

[PHOTOS] An accurate recap of the tragedy in Benghazi, and the cover up of that terrorist attack…

…and here’s why the media is now covering up the cover up of Benghazi: [INFOGRAPHIC] The relationship between the media and the Obama administration.

“What we practice, not (save at rare intervals) what we preach, is usually our great contribution to the conversion of others.” —C.S. Lewis

“What a bondage it is when the child of God is sold under sin, held in chains by satan, deprived of his liberty, robbed of his power in prayer and his delight in the Lord! Let us watch that we come not into such bondage; but if this has already happened to us, let us by no means despair. But we cannot be held in slavery forever. The Lord Jesus has paid too high a price for our redemption to leave us in the enemy’s hand. The way to freedom is, ‘Return unto the Lord your God.’” —Charles Spurgeon

[VIDEO] A good reminder from John Maxwell: Find a friend that you can edify today.

Checkmate

May 5, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

I recently re-read C.S. Lewis’ book Miracles (you can read my full book review by clicking here). As you may have noticed, after reading and reviewing books on this blog, I also like to share some quotes that caught my attention. Doing this with Lewis is difficult, because in order to get the context of a particular quote, I think I would have to cite almost a full page or more. So over the next few weeks I plan to share some quotes from Miracles that require not as much context, or I will provide a bit of background to set the stage.

Lewis called the Incarnation of Jesus the grandest miracle of all. Here he discusses how God didn’t have to scramble to create an alternative plan because satan tempted Adam and Eve to sin, and thus need a Savior, but that God used satan’s own strong point to defeat him.

“So much for the sense in which human Death the result of sin and the triumph of satan. But it is also the means of redemption from sin, God’s medicine for Man and His weapon against satan. In a general way it is not difficult to understand how the same thing can be a masterstroke on the part of one combatant and also the very means whereby the superior combatant defeats him. Every good general, every good chess player, takes what is precisely the strong point of his opponent’s plan and makes it the pivot of his own plan. Take that castle of mine if you insist. It was not my original intention that you should—indeed, I thought you would have had more sense. But take it by all means. For now I move thus … and thus… and it is mate in three moves. Something like this must be supposed to have happened about Death. … Jesus tasted death on behalf of all others. He is the representative ‘Die-er’ of the universe: and for that very reason the Resurrection and the Life. Or conversely, because He truly lives, He truly dies, for that is the very pattern of reality. Because the higher can descend into the lower He who from all eternity has been incessantly plunging Himself in the blessed death of self-surrender to the Father can also most fully descend into the horrible and (for us) involuntary death of the body.”

For other quotes from this book see Miracle Or “Cheating”?, Miracles And Nature, Christianity And Pantheism, Correcting The Pantheist, Absolute Fact, The Central Miracle, and The Miracle of Freewill.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: C.S. Lewis, Calvary, chess, death, Incarnation, Jesus Christ, miracles, quotes, redemption, salvation. 1 Comment »

Steppin’ Up

May 5, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Here’s a really simple true-false quiz for you. Anyone who has ever been in church should be able to handle this one simple question. Are you ready? Your one question is—True or False: The Bible contains the Word of God?

The answer is FALSE! The Bible doesn’t contain the Word of God, the Bible IS the Word of God.

It is inerrant = without error.
It is infallible = without mistake.
It is universally applicable regardless of age or culture.

The worldview which dominates today is usually one of pragmatism. That means people do what feels right to them in the moment, and then they determine the rightness or wrongness of their decision based on the outcome. In other words, if they like how things turned out they must have done something right, and if they don’t like the results then they must have done something wrong.

Christians, however, need to see the short-sightedness of this. The Apostle Peter shows the contrast between how accurate God’s Word is and how false teachers want to “exploit you with stories they have made up” (see 2 Peter 1:20-2:3), and how destruction is the end result for those with a pragmatic worldview.

It is by no means an easy thing for Christians to discipline themselves to have a consistent biblical worldview. It’s easy to simply reject something because it doesn’t appear to be “churchy” or receive something because it’s been done in the church for years. The hard work comes in this:

Using the Bible for everything (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Allowing the Holy Spirit to form the mind of Christ in you (1 Corinthians 2:10-16).
Then using what you’ve learned to redeem things for God’s glory (2 Corinthians 10:5).

This week I’d like to give you the same challenge I gave my congregation: How can you STEP UP your involvement in the Word this week?

Do you need to read the Bible more?
Do you need to read the Bible better?
Do you need to meditate more on what you’ve read in the Bible?
Do you need to re-look at some things you’ve automatically rejected or received?
Do you need the Holy Spirit to overhaul your worldview?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: apostle Peter, Bible, Christian, counter-cultural, culture, God's glory, God's Word, Holy Spirit, inerrant, infallible, pragmatism, Scripture, video, worldview. 2 Comments »

Links & Quotes

May 4, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Here are the links to some interesting reading I found this weekend.

“The dominant model of how speech works is that it is planned in advance—speakers begin with a conscious idea of exactly what they are going to say. But some researchers think that speech is not entirely planned, and that people know what they are saying in part through hearing themselves speak.” Check out more of this fascinating report You Don’t Always Know What You ’re Saying.

A balanced approach is vital. “Beware any teacher or preacher who has little use for doctrine or church history.” —T.M. Moore

“Lastly, as the best advice I can give, seek more of the Spirit of God, for this is the way to become Christ-like. Vain are all your attempts to be like Him till you have sought His Spirit. Take the cold iron, and attempt to weld it if you can into a certain shape. How fruitless the effort! Lay it on the anvil, seize the blacksmith’s hammer with all your might; let blow after blow fall upon it, and you shall have done nothing. Twist it, turn it, use all your implements, but you shall not be able to fashion it as you would. But put it in the fire, let it be softened and made malleable, then lay it on the anvil, and each stroke shall have a mighty effect, so that you may fashion it into any form you may desire. So take your heart, not cold as it is, not stony, as it is by nature, but put it into the furnace; there let it be molten, and after that it can be turned like wax to the seal, and fashioned into the image of Jesus Christ.” —Charles Spurgeon

John Stonestreet has a timely reminder in his commentary Race And Redemption.

A great piece on euthanasia: What Happened To Switzerland?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Charles Spurgeon, Christlike, church history, doctrine, ethics, euthanasia, Holy Spirit, John Stonestreet, medical science, quotes, redemption, T.M. Moore. Leave a Comment »

Ian & Larissa

May 4, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

I first became aware of this amazing love story two years ago, and this story has continued to astound me! I am so excited to hear about the book that will be coming out soon. In the meantime, you can keep up with Ian & Larissa Murphy by checking out their blog, and you can help pay for Ian’s physical therapy by buying one of his paintings.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: agape, love story, marriage, video. Leave a Comment »

Links & Quotes

May 3, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Here are the links to some interesting reading I found this weekend.

“The Holy Spirit does not belong to you. Are you charismatic? He is bigger than your signs and wonders event. Are you Reformed? He will not be limited by your theology.” —R.T. Kendall

“The worst thing that can happen to a man is to succeed before he is ready.” —Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Where is the outrage in the American mainstream media?! Kidnapped School Girls In Nigeria Sold As Child Brides.

“It’s funny that many secularists believe that Christian myths about Jesus evolved over time until they were written down generations later. This is the thesis in Bart Ehrman’s latest book. It’s not accurate. It’s funny because there are things believed by some of the same secularists that actually are myths that evolved over time to create the impression that Christianity is a science stopper and anti-intellectual. One of these myths is about the scientific revolution that was purportedly initiated by Copernicus and the supposed subsequent opposition from the church to his heliocentric theories.” Read more of this eye-opening post: Copernicus And The Scientific Revolution.

Disney’s Peter Rummell shares how the Imagineers keep the great ideas coming.

“The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden— that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.” —C.S. Lewis

“When sin is pardoned, our greatest sorrow is ended, and our truest pleasure begins. Such is the joy which the Lord bestows upon His reconciled ones, that it overflows and fills all nature with delight. The material world has latent music in it, and a renewed heart knows how to bring it out and make it vocal.” —Charles Spurgeon

Poetry Saturday—Failure

May 3, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

What is a failure? It’s only a spur

To a man who receives it right,

And it makes the spirit within him stir

To go in once more and fight.

If you never have failed, it’s an even guess

You never have won a high success.

What is a miss? It’s a practice shot

Which a man must make to enter

The list of those who can hit the spot

Of the bull’s-eye in the centre.

If you never have sent your bullet wide,

You never have put a mark inside.

What is a knock-down? A count of ten

Which a man may take for a rest.

It will give him a chance to come up again

And do his particular best.

If you never have more than met your match,

I guess you never have toed the scratch. —Edmund Vance Cooke

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Edmund Vance Cooke, failure, hard work, lifelong learner, poetry, success, work ethic. Leave a Comment »

7 Quotes From “The Ministry Of God’s Word”

May 2, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

The Ministry Of God’s Word by Watchman Nee is a MUST READ for all pastors, preachers and evangelists. You can read my book review by clicking here. Over the next few Fridays, I’m going to share some powerful quotes from this book.

“In incarnation … the Word instead was dressed in Man; therefore it had human feeling, thought and opinion, though it remained God’s Word. … In this do we find a great principle of the Bible: that it is possible for the Word of God to be unimpaired by man’s feeling. The presence of human feeling does not necessarily ruin God’s Word; it does so only when such feeling is inadequate. Herein lies a tremendous problem. The great principle is that human elements must not be of such a nature as to hinder God’s Word.”

“God will work in man until his human elements do not damage God’s Word. … The Holy Spirit so operates in man, so controls and disciplines him, that the latter’s own elements can exist without impairing God’s Word; on the contrary, they fulfill it.”

“To be the one who delivers God’s Word we must be pruned and refined. God has to lay aside those whose human makeup contains many uncleannesses, fleshly things, and matters condemned by God. Others He has to bypass because they have never been broken before God, or their thoughts are not straightforward, or their lives are undisciplined, their necks stiff, their emotions untamed, or they have a controversy with God.”

“We need to be daily disciplined. Any defect in us will defile the Word and destroy its power. … The greatest difficulty we confront in preaching the Word is not whether the subject is proper or the phraseology correct, but whether the man is right.”

“God chooses men to be His ministers in order that His Word may carry a human flavor.”

“The Bible is not a collection of devotional articles; it is men performing or living out the Word of God.”

“God puts His Word in us that we may meditate on it, feel after it, be afflicted by it, or rejoice in it, before the Word is released by us. … Thus the ministry of the Word is not the mere delivery of sermons we memorize. We must allow the Word to come to us, to drill and to grind us, until it flows out with—yes, our personal elements in it—and yet not spoiled or corrupted in the least. The Lord wishes to use us as a channel of living water.”

Posted in Pastoring. Tags: Bible, discipline, evangelist, feeling, God's Word, Holy Spirit, Incarnation, Jesus Christ, pastors, preaching, purity, quotes, Watchman Nee. Leave a Comment »

Thursdays With Oswald—The Spirit Of Antichrist

May 1, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

The Spirit Of Antichrist

The spirit of antichrist is that spirit which “dissolves by analysis” the Person of Jesus—“someone unique, but not what the New Testament claims.” To preach the Jesus of the Gospels at the expense of the Christ of the Epistles is a false thing, such a false thing that it is antichrist to the very core, because it is a blow direct at what Jesus said the Holy Spirit would do, viz.: expound Him to the disciples, and “through their word” to innumerable lives to the end of Time.

If I say, “Of course God would never convey a right interpretation of Himself through a handful of men like the disciples,” I am casting a slur on what Jesus said, telling Him that His reliance on God’s promise of the Spirit was without justification; that His basis of confidence on the Holy Spirit’s revelation of Himself to the disciples was misplaced.

From Conformed To His Image

The spirit of antichrist is any thought that diminishes God’s Word, or diminishes the Person of Jesus Christ. But I don’t want to spend my time trying to spot the counterfeit, antichrist teachings. I want to know the Original—the Authentic—so well, that I can easily spot the antichrist forgeries.

This means that I must study all of the Bible. I cannot exclude the Old Testament; nor can I choose the Epistles and ignore the Gospels, or vice versa. As I study, I must rely on the Holy Spirit’s help. He breathed on the men that wrote the inspired Word, so He is the only One Who can breathe on my heart and mind the truth of the Word as I study it.

If the spirit of antichrist was already being discussed in the New Testament, and again by Oswald Chambers 100+ years ago, how much more prevalent must it be now! I must know the Authentic Word and the Authentic Christ so well that I can immediately identify the masquerading antichrist.