“The message that needs to be shouted from the houses of high finance is this: Secular man, you are not nearly hedonistic enough! Quit being satisfied with the little 5 percent yields of pleasure that get eaten up by the moths of inflation and the rust of death. Invest in the blue-chip, high-yield, divinely insured security of heaven. Devoting a life to material comforts and thrills is like throwing money down a rat hole. But investing a life in the labor of love yields dividends of joy unsurpassed and unending: ‘Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. [And thus] provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.’ (Luke 12:33)” —John Piper
This is sadly funny: there are churches (and other organizations) around the globe who think they can be completely transformed without making any changes!
We are two weeks into our series called Aliens and Strangers, in which we are looking at the book of 1 Peter on how Christians are to live as citizens of Heaven. I have greatly appreciated John Piper’s teaching called “Look At The Book,” where the Scripture is front-and-center.
Pastor Piper has just begun a series on 1 Peter as well. Here is his introduction to this book—
If you are in the Cedar Springs area and don’t have a home church, I would love for you to visit us this Sunday morning. If you cannot make it in person, please tune-in via Periscope (search for @craigtowens) at 10:30am.
Christians are not citizens of Planet Earth. Our citizenship is in a place called Heaven, and yet we are traveling on Earth during our present lifetime. So the question is: How is a citizen of Heaven supposed to act while visiting Earth?
The Apostle Peter was one of the most active disciples of Jesus. During Christ’s first visit to Earth, Peter is recorded as speaking more than all of the other disciples combined. And not surprisingly, Jesus speaks more words directly to Peter than He does to all of the other 11 disciples combined. Peter got a lot of training!
With that background, Peter gives us invaluable instructions in his first letter to the church. He calls Christians things like: strangers in the world, chosen people, peculiar people, and aliens and strangers in the world. He tells us travelers not only how to behave while traveling on Earth, but why we should travel in a God-honoring way.
I will be continuing to teach through these fascinating themes of Peter’s instructions for aliens and strangers this Sunday. If you don’t have a home church in the Cedar Springs area, I would love to have you join us. If you cannot join us in person, we will be broadcasting each message live on Facebook.
I am excited to rejoin this journey of discovery with you!
Here are the sermons we have addressed in this series:
“May the Lord increase your hunger and your thirst to see the face of God. And may He grant your desire through the gospel of the glory of Christ, Who is the image of God.” —John Piper
Chuck Colson said, “It seems that everywhere—from Tennessee to Tokyo—religion is being permeated by a consumerist mentality.” Read more (or take a listen to Chuck’s broadcast) on Gimmie That Hot-Tub Religion.
My friend and mentor, Tom Kaastra, has an amazing new website called The Basics of Life—Help for your spiritual journey. Do yourself a favor, check out the site, and then subscribe so you can receive his wisdom each time he publishes something new.
From Planned Parenthood’s own annual report, prenatal services—which have decreased—amount to 18,684 services. Out of the total 10,590,433 services then, pre-natal care accounts for less than 1 percent. For pregnant women who come to Planned Parenthood, 94 percent of them have an abortion. (h/t Live Action)
David Wilkerson says there is a command from Jesus that far too many Christians ignore: “The King has told us to bind up the devil and cast him out of the banqueting hall. In short, we’re to rise up and take serious action against satan’s attacks on Christ’s Body.” Read more here.
“The Law of God encodes the mind and will of God. Only by reading, meditating on, studying, and obeying the Law of God could God’s people obtain all that He had promised them and all that He was resolved to do by bringing His eternal reign to bear on earth as it is in heaven. The prayer of God’s people should thus ever be, ‘Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer’ (Psalm 19:14).” —T.M. Moore
“Either he is a bad child, or he has got a bad father, that does not want to go home. Now, we have got a good and blessed Father, and I hope He has made us His true children, and we want to see His face; we long for the time when we shall no longer be under tutors and governors, but shall come home to enjoy the inheritance. Brethren, we are also laborers. It would be a strange thing if the laborer did not wish to achieve the end of his toils. It would indeed be a strange thing if, industrious though he be, he did not prefer the end of his toils to the beginning. It would be contrary to nature, and I think contrary to grace, if the husbandman did not long for the harvest, and if he that toils did not desire to receive the reward.” —Charles Spurgeon
“The fruit of the tree of knowledge is still being eaten by man, and still infusing its poison. Love of knowledge is the professed starting-point. But in the pursuit of this, God is not acknowledged as the teacher, nor the Bible as the infallible textbook. Speculation abounds; inspired trammels are flung off; pride of intellect operates; man worships his own mind; every day brings forth some novel opinion; revelation is thrust down from its high position; every form of error gets vent; till God gives men over to a reprobate mind, and sends them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. ‘They will not endure sound doctrine,’ but are ‘carried about with every wind of doctrine.’” —Horatius Bonar
Seth Godin says, “Just because a thing can be noticed, or compared, or fretted over doesn’t mean it’s important, or even relevant.” Read more of his post Compared To…
[VIDEO] Jefferson Bethke talks about encountering the God who suffers—
[VIDEO] Bobby Conway has some encouraging words for those fighting an addiction to pornography—
“Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and obey it.” (Luke 11:28)
There are a lot of things we want to call “blessed.” Sometimes we almost use that word as a lucky charm: “I was blessed by…” or “Isn’t a blessing that….”
As Jesus is speaking, someone interrupts Him to say His mother is blessed. Jesus didn’t disagree, but He went back to why Mary was blessed—she heard God speak and she obeyed Him.
All the blessings I could ever need are listed in God’s Word. All I have to do to receive those blessings is obey.
As Jesus goes on, He makes clear that reading and obeying what the Word says will ensure “that the light within you is not darkness” (v. 35). This, then, will make me a better witness for Christ, as the result of this inner light appears outside too: “as when the light of a lamp shines on you” (v. 36).
Does this “lamp that shines on you” look like a halo? Perhaps. But a life that shines with the blessings of God—which come from obedience to His Word—is unmistakable and irresistible! That sounds like a halo to me!
This morning I shared some cool thoughts on Luke 10:1-3—
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of Him to every town and place where He was about to go.He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.”
Are you following me on Periscope? My username is @craigtowens. If you subscribe, you can see these types of broadcasts live. But, not to worry, I have uploaded it here as well…
John Bradford, when he saw a convicted criminal on his way to the gallows said, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” He also said to those who questioned his deep emotional response when preaching, “You blame me for weeping, but how can I help it when you will not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are on the verge of destruction?”
Isn’t a humble, empathetic rescuer going to be more effective in reaching those staggering to their eternal demise than one who stands aloof, saying, “You got yourself into this mess”?
Resh (Psalm 119:153-160) shows us our posture: It signifies a head bowed; it means we are confidently humble. Confident that God delivers us, defends us, redeems us, preserves us, and saves us (vv. 153-154); but humble enough to know that we could never have earned this!
We have to have this confidently humble posture in order to be effective as His holy rescuers. We grieve for those who are without God because of what they face—
“Salvation” is only gibberish to the wicked because they’ve never looked it up in Your dictionary. (v. 155, MSG)
They don’t know His compassion is great (v. 156), nor how great is Your tender mercy and loving-kindness (AMP).
They become the foes who persecute Christians (v. 157). How they will grieve on Judgment Day, if they don’t repent!
Their actions are loathed (not them as a person!). What God said of the Israelites who went into captivity will be true for those who don’t accept Jesus before they die—Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices. (Ezekiel 6:9, emphasis added)
Tears and humility will keep us in the proper position to reclaim these lost treasures for our King!
I read something really cool in my personal devotional time this morning, and I took to Periscope to share it live. (Are you on Periscope yet? Check it out, and please consider following me at @craigtowens.)
Please take a look at the well-known stories in Luke 8, and then listen to what the Holy Spirit was showing me this morning about F.E.A.R. = False Evidence Appearing Real. The verse I really focus on is Luke 8:37.
“Sing, O heavens! and rejoice, O earth! Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” —George Whitefield
“Health for sick humanity! Medicine for a diseased world! A Physician for a dying race! Such are the messages which we bring. All of them overflowing with God’s great love to sinners.” —Horatius Bonar
This is sadly funny: there are churches (and other organizations) around the globe who think they can be completely transformed without making any changes!
Craig T. Owens 