Links & Quotes

Instead of trying to get out of the difficult place quickly, try to learn what you can get out of the difficult place.

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Fight The New Drug shares, “Young people don’t have to go looking for harmful content online anymore—it can find them through social media, gaming platforms, algorithms, or even someone they trust. And sometimes, what begins as an ordinary online interaction can escalate into something much more serious.”

“God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.” —C.S. Lewis, in A Grief Observed 

“Temptation feeds on curiosity. It tells me what I don’t have and what I should have by giving me comparisons. … Sin is so shortsighted. It only lives in the moment. It never bothers to ask if it’s worth it. Sin doesn’t think that far ahead. It makes you think only as far as forgiveness. Sin says, ‘Go ahead, God will forgive you,’ but it leaves out some very important facts: You can be forgiven and still pay the consequences of breaking trust, losing your marriage, and even devastating your children. You can be forgiven of sin, but not free of the consequences.” —Tim Dilena, in Chapter by Chapter on 2 Samuel 11 

Wow, is this a powerful and important message for anyone struggling with temptation. Succinctly put: we never sin alone. In this post, T.M. Moore writes, “The first step along the way of escape is to remember that we never sin alone. We might think we can ‘get away’ with some little secret sin, but we are part of a community of the faithful; we are members of the Body of Christ. If I introduce infection to one of my fingers, or poison to my tongue, sooner or later my whole body is going to feel the consequences. It’s the same thing with sin. Any time we rebel against the Lord we plant a seed of disobedience and corruption in our own souls. Like dandelions, the seeds of rebellion can waft through all our thoughts, feelings, priorities, words, and deeds and take root in ways we cannot predict, and may not be able to control. Sooner or later, someone will feel the impact of our sinfulness, whether by some sin of commission or omission on our part.”

“The nearer your communion with Christ is, the more will you be permitted to know of Him. Our perceptions of Christ, if they are true, will be spiritual; and in proportion as our spiritual life is in a right condition, shall we be able to know more and more of Him.” —Charles Spurgeon 

John Piper writes, “All of you have been wronged at one time or another. Most of you, probably, have been wronged seriously by someone who has never apologized or done anything sufficient to make it right.” Then he shares the encouraging truth in this posts: Justice will be done.

Links & Quotes

Here’s a good piece of advice for first-time vision-casters: Be prepared for a quiet initial response. Greg and I discuss this in a full length podcast AND in our book Business by the Book—What the Bible says about a CEO’s vision-casting.

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T.M. Moore wrote, “The apostle Paul promised that, whenever we are faced with temptation, God will provide a way of escape, so that we can bear up and grow through temptation into greater maturity in the Lord (1 Corinthians 10:13). We are practicing self-control when we search for that way of escape and direct our steps toward it: ‘I thought about my ways, and turned my feet to Your testimonies. I made haste, I did not delay to keep Your commandments’ (Psalm 119:59, 60).” Read more about the necessity of self-control in this post.

“Character doesn’t make you a leader; it protects you as a leader.” —John Maxwell 

“Hard words are an evidence of the weakness of the cause which they are used to support. Hard arguments softly put, are the really effective weapons, but it takes some of us a long time to learn this; and generally, in our younger days, we wear away our own strength by the violence with which we use it.” —Charles Spurgeon 

One of the leaders in my school shared this: “Numerous researchers have studied the use of wait time by teachers. Pausing for just 3-5 seconds after a question has been shown to produce higher-level thinking and answering. This is true both of classroom questioning and individual conversation. Slow down during conversation today and see what happens!” Previously, I shared an important lesson I learned about slowing down. 

Proving My Claims

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Whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did. (1 John 2:6) 

If I claim…
…I have fellowship with Jesus
…I know the truth
…I am done with sinning
…I live in the light

Then I must think, speak, and act like Jesus. 

To prove my claims I must show that…
…I know the Truth and live in it
…I quickly confess and repent of sin
…I know His commands and obey them
…I know His love and I love others

There is no better proof for my claims than Christlikeness! 

As Charles Spurgeon said,

“When we try to be, in every respect, what God’s Word tells us we ought to be, then may we know that we are in God; but if we walk carelessly, if we take no account of our actions, but do, after a random fashion, whatever comes into our foolish hearts, then have we no evidence at all that we are in God.” 

The proof of our claims is self-evident. John uses the phrase “this is how we know” 8 times in this letter, and he uses the word “know” another 35 times! 

It’s not enough for me to verbally make the claims, but people should hear the words of Jesus in my mouth, see His compassion in my actions, and know His love fills my heart and informs my mind. 

I’ll say it again: There is no better proof for my claims than Christlikeness. I know it, everyone who sees or hears me knows it, and, most importantly, Jesus knows it. 

Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. (1 John 3:18-19 NLT) 

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Links & Quotes

Psalm 99 lists four different ways saints come to worship before God’s throne. The Old English spelling is “worthship” because God is worth all of the praise we can lift to Him—especially when we think about the sins He has forgiven 🙌🏻

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“True love hates that which is unlovely. It is inevitable that a man, who is full of love, should feel intense indignation against that which is contrary to love. Hence the apostle says, ‘If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.’” —Charles Spurgeon, commenting on 1 John 4:18-20 

Christians aren’t supposed to be “lone rangers” but in community with other saints. T.M. Moore wrote, “Our Christian friends can be a very helpful resource for improving our conversational skills, if we will take the time to talk about spiritual things. As iron sharpens iron, we may expect that, by engaging often in conversations with other believers, over matters of the highest moment, our conversational skills will improve steadily over time. We might even have some fun.”

The social conditions that led up to the Prayer Revival of 1857, in many ways, mirror those in America today. Check out a short history lesson about spiritual revivals. 

“And, in yet another sense, handing everything over to Christ does not, of course, mean that you stop trying. To trust Him means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.” —C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity 

A young man in the middle school where I serve asked to read a copy of my book When Sheep Bite. Nearly every day on his lunch break, Nick would come into talk with me about what he read, and share some insights he had gleaned. He wrote the most sincere and straightforward endorsement that I have ever received.

Links & Quote

You are the most effective evangelist in the areas where you already operate everyday. You can tell the story of Jesus better to your family members, coworkers, and friends than an outside can. Keep shining brightly for Jesus! 

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“They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or no bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. They keep on replying, ‘But I tell you the man broke a most solemn promise.’ Exactly: that is precisely what you have to forgive. (This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart—every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) The difference between this situation and the one in which you are asking God’s forgiveness is this. In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s we do not accept them easily enough.” —C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory 

T.M. Moore tells us, “Conversations can build relationships; thus, Christians should be actively involved in seeking to start and maintain conversations with many people, especially those we encounter each week…. But the Christian conversationalist does not engage others merely for the sake of conversation, as though conversation were an end in itself.”

“Information never fights fear. Revelation does.” —Tim Dilena 

“Saints find themselves at home in the next life, not in this one.” —J. Stephen Lang 

“Do not imagine that there is any love to your souls in the heart of the preacher who preaches smooth things, and who flatters you with his ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace. No, the highest, deepest, most heaven-inspired love is that which searches and tries the heart that there should be any deception there.” —Charles Spurgeon 

Links & Quotes

Keep putting in the effort. If someone in your organization doesn’t see your work ethic and your leadership capacity, someone outside your organization will. Your hard work will be rewarded! 

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“Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. … Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.” —C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory 

“O child of God, as thou wouldst fear to drink poison, as thou wouldst flee from a serpent, dread sin!” —Charles Spurgeon 

“We pray in Jesus’ Name not just by ending our prayer with that default phrase, but by making sure our requests line up with what He teaches and what will glorify both Jesus and His Father. When we pray this way, we can know that Jesus will do what we have asked, and He will do it by His Spirit at work within us.” —T.M. Moore 

Links & Quotes

The terms used in the New Testament for followers of Jesus aren’t typically the same terms we use today. As Christians, we need to ask ourselves, “Is my life showing the biblical definition of what it means to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior?”

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“The trouble is that what we call ‘asking God’s forgiveness’ very often really consists in asking God to accept our excuses. What leads us into this mistake is the fact that there usually is some amount of excuse, some ‘extenuating circumstances.’ We are so very anxious to point these out to God (and to ourselves) that we are apt to forget the really important thing; that is, the bit left over, the bit which the excuses don’t cover, the bit which is inexcusable but not, thank God, unforgivable. And if we forget this, we shall go away imagining that we have repented and been forgiven when all that has really happened is that we have satisfied ourselves with our own excuses.” —C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory 

“There is a place for anger. Without it, we would become passive against injustice. Anger helps us turn away from accepting blame that does not belong to us. It allows us to gain needed emotional distance from the one who hurt us. But anger requires safeguards. In this psalm, David had two: (1) He told his anger to God. … (2) He let God handle the execution of anger.” —Dr. George O. Wood, in A Psalm in my Heart

T.M. Moore speaks to the church in this post called Equipped For Good Works. A couple of comments that especially caught my attention: “A local church grows as it increases in the likeness of Jesus Christ” and “Churches grow as individual church members grow in zeal for good works, and do good to others at every opportunity, beginning within the household of faith.”

“I believe that the prophesies in the Revelation, and in the books of Daniel and Ezekiel are very much of this character, and that, while it is quite right to watch for and expect the coming of the Lord, we shall spend our time more profitably in preaching the doctrines of the gospel than in meditating upon the mysterious prophecies of the Word. They will be understood when they are fulfilled, but we do not think they will be fully understood before that time.” —Charles Spurgeon 

The name of God is an important topic. Dr. Kaspars Ozolins writes, “What, then, is the actual name of Israel’s God? In biblical Hebrew it is represented by a sequence of four consonants, the famous tetragrammaton: YHWH. This name occurs a total of 6,828 times in the Old Testament.” Learn more about this name in this post.

This year marks the 500th anniversary of the printing of the Tyndale Bible. This is an important event in Christian and world history. Check out this short overview of how this Bible came to be, and its impact that is still being felt today.

Links & Quotes

Jesus is still telling His story, and He wants to tell it through your life! See John 21:25, 14:12 and check out this encouraging sermon.

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“The only person who dares wake up a king at 3:00 a.m. for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access.” —Timothy Keller

Abdu Murray addressed an audience about what it means to be human, and how modern culture has “began to under-spiritualize and over-psychologize what it meant to be human.” I found his history lesson and applications to be quite fascination.

T.M. Moore is presenting a series of posts about the use of our time. “The only time we ever have is the present moment, supplied as an act of free grace by the eternal God and His Word. He has a purpose for the time He gives us: to know Him, enjoy His Presence and blessings, do His work, express His glory, and spread His grace in every moment of our everyday Christian lives. … Time is precious. We can make better use of it than we do.”

“Remember that you can never be really whole till you are holy, for holiness is spiritual sanity; it is the curing of the mind and heart from the disease which sin brought upon them.” —Charles Spurgeon 

“What we call ‘being in love’ is a glorious state, and, in several ways, good for us. It helps to make us generous and courageous, it opens our eyes not only to the beauty of the beloved but to all beauty, and it subordinates (especially at first) our merely animal sexuality; in that sense, love is the great conqueror of lust.” —C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity 

“A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.” —Winston Churchill 

Links & Quotes

Greg and I both have a confession to make. But these confessions also show that all of us should be continually evaluating and growing. Don’t stop short! 

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T.M. Moore wrote, “I’m persuaded that one reason the work of personal evangelism has fallen on hard times in our day is that the people of God are simply fearful of the task. We find no joy in bearing witness to Jesus. Instead, we’re afraid that others won’t receive us kindly, that they’ll lash out or, worse, talk about us to others. We fear we might mess up the Gospel presentation and permanently offend someone. We fear the questions and challenges others might pose, that we might not be able to answer them. We’re afraid of being laughed at, yelled at, or dismissed as foolish or deceived or mad.”

“Do not be satisfied, dear brethren and sisters in Christ, with the grace that you already have. Be thankful for it, but ask for the divine multiplication of it; regard the grace which you have already received as being like the boy’s loaves and fishes, and expect that Christ will continue to multiply it for you and for thousands of others round about you: ‘Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.’” —Charles Spurgeon, commenting on 1 Peter 1:2 

“Come to Me with a teachable spirit, eager to be changed. A close walk with Me is a life of continual newness. Do not cling to old ways as you step into a new year. Instead, seek My face with an open mind, knowing that your journey with me involves being transformed by the renewing of your mind.  … Give yourself fully to this adventure of increasing attentiveness to My presence.” —Sarah Young, in Jesus Calling [she formed this quote from Romans 12:2; Jeremiah 29:11]

“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” —M. Scott Peck 

Clinton Manley gives us two bad excuses that people give for either not reading their Bible or not applying what they did read. He says, “God woos us to His word with unblushing promises of reward; take hold of them.”

“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.  One word of truth outweighs the world.” —Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Geneticists have found a single-cell pond ciliate that uses its RNA to send unexpected signals to the cell. “Surface-level study may make cells seem like simple chemistry, but deeper study reveals coded instructions, used by molecular tools and monitored by timing controls. Those tools operate as part of a larger biological network. This detailed process reflects sound engineering principles.” Even this tiny creature shows the flawless design of our Creator.

The Heavy Responsibility Of Pastoring

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. Check out the video content in this post by clicking here. 

Even Charles Spurgeon—a man called “the prince of preachers”—recognized the heavy responsibility of God’s call on someone to serve as a pastor. 

Here are the two Spurgeon quotes I shared in the video—

“Oh, what a solemn thing it is to be a preacher of the everlasting gospel! It is an office so high that an angel might covet it, but one that is so responsible that even an angel might tremble to undertake it.” 

“Pray for us who preach, not merely to a few, but to many of our fellow-creatures, that we may be the means, in the hand of God, of blessing to our hearers.” 

The best resource a pastor can tap into is prayer, and I would suggest that the first person a pastor should pray for is himself. This is where my book Amen Indeed can be a huge blessing. This is a book that helps pastors turn the Scriptures into prayer. 

Pick up your copy of Amen Indeed here. 

If you are a pastor who has been wounded in your ministry work, you may also want to check out my book When Sheep Bite. 

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