Not A Glory-Stealer

Not A Glory-StealerNot to us, Lord, not to us but to Your name be the glory, because of Your love and faithfulness. (Psalm 115:1)

  • You are Love; I struggle with selfishness.
  • You are Faithful; I can be fickle.
  • You are Just; I am short-sighted.
  • You are Mercy; I can be petty.
  • You are Grace; I keep score.
  • You are Forgiveness; I remember hurts.
  • You are Perfection; I am flawed.
  • You are the Potter; I am a pot.
  • You are God; I am man.

Not to me—not ever to me—be any glory, but all to You. I extol You both now and forever more. Despite my flaws, may no one ever be able to say of me that I tried to steal Your glory.

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“If evangelical Christianity is to stay alive it must have men again—the right kind of men. It must repudiate the weaklings who dare not speak out, and it must seek in prayer and much humility the coming again of men of the stuff of which prophets and martyrs are made.” —A.W. Tozer

“Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.” —C.S. Lewis

“I believe the biggest reason why families are being redefined today is not because of liberal vs. conservative ideology. It’s because we had to embrace a new ‘community’ when the nuclear family exploded. Traditional families have been broken, yet people still want to be in a ‘family,’ even if it’s temporary. Sadly, this family thing often fails. Whether in a home, a team, a dorm, a company, a gym or a church, we tend to walk away rather than work at difficult relationships. We’re like porcupines—we tend to hurt each other when we get close.” Read more of the outstanding post from Tim Elmore: How Eating Alone Costs More Than You Think.

A great post to cut through the mis-information: Myths About Roe v. Wade.

“According to some research, over half of women who have abortions do so under pressure, while those who resist can face violence and death. …The Center for Disease Control lists homicide as a leading cause of death among pregnant women.” Here are more facts contradicting the pro-abortion crowd’s rhetoric.

Good stuff: 8 Things Every Healthy Marriage Has.

[INFOGRAPHIC] Ten Evidences For Creation.

[INFOGRAPHIC] Facts on illegal immigrants.

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from this weekend…

“I do not agree with a big way of doing things. What matters is the individual. If we wait till we get numbers, then we will be lost in the numbers and we will never be able to show that love and respect for the person.” —Mother Teresa

For anyone struggling with an addiction to pornography, this sounds like a helpful book: 10 Lies Men Believe About Pornography.

According to Cosmopolitan magazine, if you are pro-life political candidate you are automatically disqualified from getting support from any “enlightened” woman.

Obama & ISIS[INFOGRAPHIC] This is scary … do you know how much money ISIS makes every day from selling the oil they have captured?

“It is right to pour out our whole soul before Him that careth for us. But it is good, likewise, to unbosom ourselves to a friend, in whom we can confide.” —John Wesley

“That is always the way with a truly healthy Christian; God’s grace is externally manifested. There is the inner life within, it is active, and by and by when it is in a right state, it saturates everything. You talk with the gracious man, he cannot help talking about Christ; you go into his house, you will soon see that a Christian lives there; you notice his actions and you will soon see he has been with Jesus. He is so full of sap [Psalm 104:16] that the sap must come out. He has so much of the divine life within, that the holy oil and divine balsam must flow from him.” —Charles Spurgeon

“O God, of Thy goodness give me Thyself, for Thou art enough for me, and I may ask nothing that is less and find any full honors to Thee. God give me Thyself!” —Lady Julian

“Yes—at first one is sort of concussed and ‘life has no taste and no direction.’ One soon discovers, however, that grief is not a state but a process—like a walk in a winding valley with a new prospect at every bend.” —C.S. Lewis

A great post from Dave Barringer for married couples: Faking Your Death.

“Christianity is the only world religion whose primary source documents are in a language other than the founder of the religion. In other words, the New Testament texts are not in Aramaic, but in Koine Greek. … This makes a vitally important theological statement which so dramatically contrasts, for example, with Muslims who maintain that the Qur’an is untranslatable and that the Word of Allah can be conveyed truly and fully only in Arabic. For, at the very outset of the Christian message, the translatability of the gospel is enshrined in our primary source documents.” —Dr. Timothy C. Tennent, President of Asbury Theological Seminary, The Translatability Of The Gospel

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“One doesn’t realize in early life that the price of freedom is loneliness. To be happy one must be tied.” —C.S. Lewis

“The Savior looks at sin through the glass of compassion; we often look upon it through the lens of Pharisaic pride.” —Charles Spurgeon

“The longer the answer is delayed and the more effectually you pray, the more important He becomes and the less important the answer becomes.” Read more from David Wilkerson in his post Power In Prayer.

I always enjoy Tim Elmore’s insights into the youth mindset. Check out his post 4 Meta-Beliefs of Generation iY.

I think it is quite comical that so-called serious scientist says that a certain level of CO2 gas is “symbolic,” and how they extrapolate data with no regard to past data nor any mitigating future events. All in all, “climate change” proponents are more philosopher than they are scientist.

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & watching from this weekend…

“Our mistake is that we want God to send revival on our terms. We want to get the power of God into our hands, to call it to us that it may work for us in promoting and furthering our kind of Christianity. We want still to be in charge, guiding the chariot through the religious sky in the direction we want it to go, shouting ‘Glory to God,’ it is true, but modestly accepting a share of the glory for ourselves in a nice inoffensive sort of way. We are calling on God to send fire on our altars, completely ignoring the fact that they are our altars and not God’s.” —A.W. Tozer

Eric Metaxas has a great take on depression in his post Depression And Black Dog Beliefs.

[VIDEO] I’m not a huge Duck Dynasty fan, but this short quote from Phil Robertson is pure gold!

Paleontologists has found the bones of a huge dinosaur called Dreadnoughtus, that was bigger than a 737 airplane! It sounds a lot like what God described to Job.

Earth has a new address. Our home supercluster is called Laniakea (for the Hawaiian word meaning immeasurable heaven).

Whether you are a Detroit Tigers fan or not, this is a great story about teammates and friends.

“We are atheists in this matter of prayer compared to the early church. Many today look upon secret prayer as hard work and boring, so they do it only occasionally. Can you imagine a husband and wife living in the same house, hardly ever speaking and yet in public speaking as if they were intimate? So some treat our blessed Lord! Prayer, hidden secret prayer, is the mightiest weapon God has given His people; yet it is neglected, disdained, and seldom used.” —David Wilkerson

“Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return.” —Emmanuel Swedenborg

“Now if God be wisdom, as truth and Scripture testify, then a true philosopher is a lover of God.” —Augustine

God’s Longing

God's LongingHere’s what God says about you and me: “I long to redeem them” (Hosea 7:13). The prophet Hosea has a front row seat, watching God pursue and woo His people, and Hosea records for us God’s longing passion.

The placement of God’s declaration—I long to redeem them—is a wonder to me. It’s right in the middle of a catalogue of His people’s sins. God says:

  • Your kings fall because they don’t call on Me (Hosea 7:7).
  • You don’t realize how weak and powerless you’ve become because you won’t pray to Me (7:9-10).
  • You try to rule yourselves without consulting Me (8:4).
  • You disregard My laws as if they were irrelevant (8:12).
  • You no longer pay attention to My prophets who are calling you back to Me (9:7).

And still in the midst of all this comes, “I long to redeem them.” Astounding!

God tells us what we need to do—

Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes and showers righteousness on you. (10:12)

The alternative?

BUT you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors…you will be completely destroyed. (10:13-15)

What will you choose: To seek God OR to depend on your own strength?

God LONGS to redeem you, but you have to ask Him to do so.

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“The book of Acts is the account of holy men and women seeking the Lord’s face. From beginning to end, it tells of how prayer moves God. Whether in the Upper Room, in prisons, in some secret house hiding from authorities, or in Simon’s house on a street called Straight— they prayed! In the morning and sometimes all night, they prayed without ceasing. Cornelius prayed always and Peter prayed on rooftops. By the seashore, in the temple, or in the desert, they called upon the Lord continually. They spent hours and days shut in with God, until they received dear, detailed guidance. And what incredible specifics God gave them.”  Read more of David Wilkerson’s post Seeking The Face Of The Lord.

Chuck Colson on the value and testimony in doing good work.

“For of Him, besides these benefits whereof we have spoken partly such as are left to the administration of nature and bestowed both upon good and bad, we have a particular bounty of His love peculiar only to the good. For although we can never yield Him sufficient thanks for our being, life, sense, and understanding of Him, yet for that He has not forsaken us when we were involved in sin, when we turned away from His contemplation, and were blinded with love of black iniquity; for that He has sent us His Word, His only Son, by whose incarnation and passion for us we might conceive how dearly God esteemed us, and by that singular sacrifice be purged from our guilt, and by the illumination of His Holy Spirit in our hearts, tread down all difficulties, and ascend to that eternal rest, and ineffable sweetness of His contemplation—what heart, how many tongues, can suffice to return sufficient thanks for this last benefit.” —Augustine

“Self-righteousness is terrible among God’s people. If we feel that we are what we ought to be, then we will remain what we are. We will not look for any change or improvement in our lives. This will quite naturally lead us to judge everyone by what we are. This is the judgment of which we must be careful. To judge others by ourselves is to create havoc in the local assembly.” —A.W. Tozer

Tim Elmore on this generation’s Nomophobia. And check out his newest book 12 Huge Mistakes Parents Can Avoid.

Read this (even if you don’t think you need to): 4 Signs You May Be Addicted To Busyness.

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 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.

Don’t Forget The Most Important Thing

Pastor JoshPastor Josh continued the Boating Lessons series yesterday, which Pastor Tom began last week. What a great word Josh brought us! Here are my “raw notes” just as I took them during his message.

Boating Lessons—part 2 (Psalm 103:1-5; Matthew 8:23-27)

How many of us have been in a storm where we felt out of control or distant from God? When we are in the midst of that storm, we must remember Who’s in the boat with us.

Jesus challenged the disciples, “Have you forgotten Who I am?” They had seen Him heal leprosy (8:1-4), heal paralysis (8:5-13), raise up the sick and set the demon-possessed free (8:14-17). But now they were more focused on the situation than on the Savior.

One symptom of forgetting Who God is: complaining (the disciples asked Jesus, “Don’t You care about us?!” [Mark 4:38]).

The storm is part of God’s process to change us and to bring glory to God—Be strong, courageous, and firm; fear not nor be in terror before them, for it is the Lord your God Who goes with you; He will not fail you or forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6).

Don’t forget Who’s in the boat … He never leaves us. The most important thing is not the storm rocking the boat but Who is in the boat with me!

I might feel like I have no control, but I must remember that Jesus is in the boat with me and He has all control!

Storms may come “without warning” to me (Matthew 8:24), but remember God Who is in my boat is All-Knowing and He’s never taken by surprise. 

Pastor Josh closed his message the same way I’d like to close this post: in prayer. If you are in the midst of a storm—or if you feel like God is distant—this is the best time to cry out to Him in prayer. The Holy Spirit can remind you of Who is in the boat with You. He will never leave you nor forsake you!

Please join us next Sunday as Pastor Tom and Pastor Josh continue this series.