Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“Every deadly calamity is a merciful call from God for the living to repent.” —John Piper

“Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.” —C.S. Lewis

“I ask you, dear Christian friends, to come nearer to it [the blood Jesus shed on the Cross] this morning than ever you have been. Think over the great truth of substitution. Portray to yourself the sufferings of the Savior. Dwell in His sight, sit at the foot of Calvary, abide in the presence of His Cross, and never turn away from that great spectacle of mercy and of misery. Come to it; be not afraid. You sinners, who have never trusted Jesus, look here and live! May you come to Him now.” —Charles Spurgeon

“Our most pressing obligation today is to do all in our power to obtain a revival that will result in a reformed, revitalized, purified church. It is of far greater importance that we have better Christians than that we have more of them.” —A.W. Tozer

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“This is the wisdom of God: Purchase the day! Purchase the hour! Purchase the moment! Spend whatever it takes to buy each hour and harness it in the chariot of your highest, eternal goal—the glory of God.” —John Piper

“Yet let the love of righteousness suppress this thirst for ambitiousness…. For this is a great enemy to our faith, if the desire of glory have more room in our hearts than he fear or love of our God….” —Augustine

“No, there is no merit in late hour prayers, but it requires a serious mind and a determined heart to pray past the ordinary into the unusual.” —A.W. Tozer

Frank Viola has funny cartoon asking what if 21st-century Americans lived in Christ’s day?

Detroit Tigers fans, this is a great story about how George Kell won the batting title on the last day of the season.

Scary, scary stuff: China is building up their military specifically to confront the USA.

An interesting look into the minds of voters in the millennial generation.

Good news: the abortion rate in the US is declining. Bad news: our abortion rate continues to rank near the highest quartile among Western nations.

Nearly 500 NFL players were cut this past week, as the NFL teams got down to their 53-man roster. The media, however, is obsessed with just one player: Michael Sam. Can you say, “agenda”?

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“Sleep is a daily reminder from God that we are not God.” —John Piper

Mark Atteberry says, “One way to tell how you’re doing in the Christian life is to count your ‘except you’ moments.” Read more of his post entitled Except You.

Some interesting facts about stem cell research.

Augustine died on this day in 430 A.D. Here are 15 memorable quotes from the Bishop of Hippo.

The way Christians cared for the sick, the elderly, the young and the poor was counter-cultural in the ancient Roman world. Check out The Witness Of Christian Compassion.

Who really believes Lois Lerner’s IRS computer lost all her emails? Probably no one! Now we hear that her devices were intentionally wiped clean.

“One of the ways the Spirit helps us change is by teaching us that God is merciful with our inadequate notions of Him and is willing not only to commune with us, but also bless others in spite of our flawed conceptions. Paul reminds us, ‘for our knowledge is imperfect…but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. … For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood’ (1 Corinthians 13:9-12). So we may be relieved that our walk with God has been authentic and people have been blessed by our ministry even if we have had flawed ideas about God and His ways.” —John Piper

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & watching from today…

“James has in his mind a picture of people who use prayer to try to get from God something they desire more than God [James 4:2-4]. He calls these people—men and women—‘adulteresses.’ Why? Because in his mind God is like our Husband who is jealous to be our highest delight. If we then try to make prayer a means of getting from Him something we want more then we want Him, we are like a wife who asks her husband for money to visit another lover.” —John Piper

“The greatest outward troubles and calamities that we meet with…must needs appear very little things to the misery which we have deserved.” —Jonathan Edwards

“Our Enemy is a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade. Or only like foam on the sea shore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are ‘pleasures for evermore.’ Ugh! Don’t think He has the least inkling of that high and austere mystery to which we rise in the Miserific Vision. He’s vulgar, Wormwood. He has a bourgeois mind. He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least—sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it’s any use to us. We fight under cruel disadvantages. Nothing is naturally on our side.” —C.S. Lewis, Screwtape writing to Wormwood in The Screwtape Letters. (In case you didn’t know, The Screwtape Letters are letters from an older demon [Screwtape] to his young apprentice demon [Wormwood]. So the “Enemy” in their correspondence is God.) 

Since I just reviewed Beyond IQ, I have been reading more about the workings of the human brain. This post—How To Rewire Your Brain For Greater Happiness—is interesting. Even though they are quoting scientific findings, everything they have “discovered” was already in the Bible!

Philip Nation has a great list of how God reveals Himself in every book of the Bible.

I love John Piper’s latest project called Look At The Book, which shows Piper teaching the Scripture. Check out this video—

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“Moses’ aim in knowing God’s ways is so that he may know God Himself. ‘Let me know Your ways that I may know You’ [Exodus 33:13]. … This is the great passion of our lives: to know God Himself by grace, and to make Him known by grace.” —John Piper

“However deep the mystery, however many the paradoxes involved, it is still true that men become saints not at their own whim but by sovereign calling.” —A.W. Tozer

“A thousand years of remorse over a wrong act would not please God as much as a change of conduct and a reformed life.” —A.W. Tozer

“To think that before the hills were formed, or the channels of the sea were scooped out, God loved me; that from everlasting to everlasting His mercy is upon His people. Is not that a consolation?” —Charles Spurgeon

As our kids get ready to go back to school, Kevin Belmonte has a great reminder why teachers deserve our thanks.

God is willing to let His name be mocked just to wake up the church and give one last trump to the world.” Read more in David Wilkerson’s post: Please Say It Isn’t So.

“It’s easy to forget who is the servant and who is to be served. The tool of distortion is one of satan’s slyest. When the focus is on yourself, you worry that your co-workers won’t appreciate you or your leaders will overwork you. With time, your agenda becomes more important than God’s. You’re more concerned with presenting self than pleasing Him. You may even find yourself doubting God’s judgment. … Guard your attitude. If you concern yourself with your neighbor’s talents, you’ll neglect your own. But if you concern yourself with yours, you could inspire both!” —Max Lucado

Watch out! It won’t be long until this is true in America: British Christians forced to hide beliefs.

Jonah Goldberg asks: If “evil” doesn’t apply to ISIS, then what does?

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading and watching from today…

“Too much of our Christian witnessing is unconvincing because we have not been convinced. We are ineffectual because we have not yet capitulated to the Lord from glory.” —A.W. Tozer

“Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. Thus a man easily comes to console himself for all his other vices by a conviction that ‘his heart’s in the right place’ and ‘he wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ though in fact he has never made the slightest sacrifice for a fellow creature. We think we are kind when we are only happy: it is not so easy, on the same grounds, to imagine oneself temperate, chaste, or humble.” —C.S. Lewis

“So think this way. Not: I must have faith and love so as to be worth God’s favor; but rather: God’s favor is free and it is infinitely worth trusting. Walking worthy of that favor means walking by faith because faith is the one thing that agrees with (and fits) our bankruptcy and God’s infinite worth.” —John Piper

“We are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years light behind us are already in death’s hand.” —Seneca

An interesting discovery about a Neanderthal skeleton.

[VIDEO] Ken Davis is hilarious! Check out his take on frog-faced Christians.

Links & Quotes

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Some great reading & watching from this weekend…

TOMORROW is our annual United Service in Cedar Springs. I have the privilege of sharing the Word this year. Stoked!

“You that have ability, and have talents, devote yourselves to God’s cause. Give yourselves up to his ministry. I would to God there were more of those who are successful in professions, men who either in medicine or law would attain eminence, who would consecrate their talents to the ministry….” —Charles Spurgeon

“There is a reason why Jesus not only calls us to simplicity and brevity, but also to persistence and tenacity [in prayer]. The demand for prevailing prayer exposes those who pray in a passing away, as if they are just trying to cover all their bases. They are not looking to God as their only hope. They are trying God out alongside other resources. Such praying does not prevail.” —John Piper

“Above all, grieve not the Spirit. Quench not the Spirit. Vex not the Spirit. Drive Him not to a distance, by tampering with small bad habits and little sins. Little jarrings between husbands and wives make unhappy homes; and petty inconsistencies, known and allowed, will bring in a strangeness between you and the Spirit. … The man who walks with God in Christ most closely, will generally be kept in the greatest peace. The believer who follows the Lord most fully and aims at the highest degree of holiness will ordinarily enjoy the most assured hope, and have the clearest persuasion of his own salvation.” —J.C. Ryle

Amazing discoveries! Life under Antarctic’s ice.

A great reminder from Steve Lindeman, the newest pastor in Cedar Springs: Rules.

[VIDEO] John Maxwell talks about the advantages of endurance.

I love Sarah Palin’s classy response to Richard Dawkins’ crude and insensitive tweet.

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & viewing from today…

As the fellowship I grew up in celebrates its 100th anniversary, I love reading quotes like this: “Worldwide, 95% of Assemblies of God adherents lived outside the United States in 2013. In the U.S., over 41% of Assemblies of God adherents were non-white. In the U.S., the white constituency has decreased by 34,922 over the past ten years, while the number of non-white constituency has increased by 433,217.

An excellent post for unmarried people, and the friends who care about them: 4 Lies Single People Need To Stop Believing.

[VIDEO] Millions of dollars in “humanitarian aid” for the Palestinian people has been hijacked by Hamas to build tunnels into Israel for their terrorist schemes.

“God’s sovereignty means that His design for us cannot be frustrated. Nothing, absolutely nothing, befalls those who love God and are called according to His purpose, except what is for our deepest and highest good (Romans 8:28; Psalm 84:11).” —John Piper

“Since God does in fact address man in His Word, He obviously regards him as addressable in spite of the fact that man as a sinner closes his ears and heart to Him.” —Karl Barth

Your gift makes you a servant, not a master.” Read more in: Use Your Knowledge To Serve Others.

“In a time when everything in the world seems to be vanity, God is depending on us to proclaim that He is the great Reality, and that only He can give meaning to all other realities.” —A.W. Tozer

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & watching from today…

“The nearer our souls draw to God the larger our love will grow, and the greater our love the more unselfish we shall become and the greater our care for the souls of others. Hence increased spiritual experience, so far as it is genuine, brings with it a strong desire that others may know the same grace that we ourselves enjoy. This leads quite naturally to an increased effort to lead others to a closer and more satisfying fellowship with God.” —A.W. Tozer

[VIDEO] What a good sport! Assembly of God General Superintendent Dr. George O. Wood is “interviewed” by comedian Michael Jr.

“There is in the life and teachings of Jesus a relentless tendency toward simplicity. There is a steady impulse toward living at risk, and with a kind of abandon to the Father’s care that looks foolish to the well-off world. There is an unsettling otherworldliness that made Jesus and His first followers radically useful in this dead-end world. There is a freedom from things and for the Kingdom that thrills the heart of His disciples. Lord, give us this freedom.” —John Piper 

“Jesus asks you not to lead; He Himself has gone before; He calls you to no labor which He has not Himself already accomplished. … I know the proud flesh wants to serve Christ, by striking out new paths. Proud man has a desire to preach new doctrine, to set up a new Church, to be an original thinker, to judge, and consider, and do anything but obey. This is no service to Christ. He that would serve Christ must follow Him; he must be content to tread only in the old footsteps, and go only where Christ has led the way.” —Charles Spurgeon

“Preserve, then, my sons, that friendship ye have begun with your brethren, for nothing in the world is more beautiful than that. It is indeed a comfort in this life to have one to whom thou canst open thy heart, with whom thou canst share confidences, and to whom thou canst entrust the secrets of thy heart. It is a comfort to have a trusty man by thy side, who will rejoice with thee in prosperity, sympathize in troubles, encourage in persecution.” —Ambrose

Don’t be deceived: Fifty Shades Of Gray is pornography! Here’s how to fight it.

[VIDEO] The Bible Project has these helpful, artistic videos that give you a big-picture-view of a book of the Bible. Check out what they have already done with Genesis.

Revival

I heart my churchAs I consider the Pentecostal heritage in which I was raised (and our fellowship’s 100th anniversary), I’ve been thinking about revival. Here are a few quotes I have been pondering…

“As a historian, three things increasingly impress me about awakenings in church history: first, that they really do occur, and—from medieval, monastic revivals through classic evangelical awakenings to modern Pentecostal renewal—they really have brought great benefit to the church. Second, revivals tend to exaggerate, so that along with the real benefit often come increased problems like exalted opinions of one’s self in God’s general design. Third, most of the circumstances that have made a permanent difference in spreading the Gospel and deepening the church’s understanding of the Gospel have taken place in ordinary church settings rather than revivals.” —Mark Noll, historian

“Love for people doesn’t merely say, ‘Here’s the seed, take it or leave it.’ Love pleads, love persuades, and love prays. Love prays until its dying breath for that wonderful, ordinary work of the Spirit to save one here and one there, month after faithful month. And love prays for that extraordinary outpouring of the Spirit that we call revival. … Let us pray without ceasing and labor without sparing for the greatest blessing on this day’s sowing, that it would be blessed with reaping, and that it would be a part of God’s plan to bring extraordinary seasons of harvest and holiness to the church and to the nations.” —John Piper

“You often find people in the world are more desirable, easier to get on with, than people in the Kingdom. There is frequently a stubbornness, a self-opinionativeness, in Christians not exhibited by people in the world. If there is to be another Revival it will be through the readjustment of those of us on the inside who call ourselves Christians.” —Oswald Chambers

What do you think?