Tim Challies on Should Christians embrace evolution?- What Christians hope for in preaching. This was an eye opening article based on a study of 10,000 persons who attend church and what they hope to get from preaching.
- 11 books every leader needs to read according to Al Mohler.
- D.A. Carson and John Piper on How to teach the Bible confidence.
- How boys become Christians men.
- Ron Edmondson on how he accomplishes so much. I agree with him on this secret, helps a ton.
- A warning to women from a woman concerning marriage.
- The New York Times on How the deficit got this big.
- Titus 2 is not just a woman’s to do list.
- Justin Taylor on It only takes one generation for a church to die.
- Beware of romantic pornography. So true.
- 9 things your pastor wants to say to you but won’t.
- Steven Furtick on Ambition vs. Arrogance.
- Kevin DeYoung on biblical manhood. Helpful stuff here, a good preview to our next series at Revolution.
- Jeff Vanderstelt on Gospel fluent thinking.
- 25 ways to engage your neighbors. As we challenge people at Revolution to be on mission, this is a big part of it.
- Motherhood, sacrifice, and worship.
Archives
All posts for the month July, 2011
We cannot find God without God.
We cannot reach God without God.
We cannot satisfy God without God – which is another way of saying
that all our seeking will fall short unless
God starts and finishes the search.
The decisive part of our seeking is not our
human ascent to God, but his descent to us.
Without God’s descent there is no human ascent.
The secret of the quest lies not in our brilliance
but in his grace.
-Os Guinness, Long Journey Home
So excited about Saturday at Revolution. After 3 weeks off from preaching, I get to preach. We will be continuing our series The Story of God and looking at the book of Jonah.
One of the things we have seen over and over in this series is how God pursues broken people. How he uses those who are stubborn, judgmental, hypocritical. How he goes after them, loving them, pursuing them, showing how far his grace really does reach.
One of the questions I’ve been asked a lot from people at Revolution in this series is how much God’s grace covers. The answer is most clearly given in the book of Jonah. In Jonah, we see a man just like many of us. Intolerant, self-righteous, thinking he is not in need of grace, rebellious, not doing what God tells him to do, being spiteful when God gives grace to people not named Jonah, and yet, Jonah is one of the few people in the Old Testament who is given a second chance. Imagine, after all of that, God gives him a second chance to understand his grace, to be forgiven, to be rescued and changed.
I’ve been looking forward to this sermon this whole series because the book of Jonah is one of my favorite stories in the Bible because Jonah reminds me so much of me. It really is my story, and the story of many others who walk in the doors of Revolution each week.
This Saturday, we will see a God who pursues rebellious, broken people. Who showers grace on those who do not deserve his grace, but instead deserve his wrath. We will see a man who judges God after God has given him grace when he deserves judgment. In short, we will look in the mirror of our own lives, see our hearts and how God responds.
It promises to be a powerful night.
So, do whatever you have to do to be at Revolution this week (and bring someone with you, you never know how a simple invite can make an eternal difference). An easy way to invite someone is to send them an e-vite.
Remember, we meet at 4:15 & 6pm at 6620 E 22nd St.
Don’t forget to mark your calendars for our next series starting August 20th called The Vow. This is a series you will not want to miss one week of.
See you Saturday.
Salvation is entirely of God. It is God-sourced in its planning, in its execution, and in its application; it’s also from God in how it’s sustained in the human heart, and in how it’s ultimately perfected in our eternal state. Salvation belongs to the Lord. -Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Here is a helpful talk on Christian dating and courting from Mars Hill Church. Definitely worth the time if you are dating or single.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading about health, leadership and how a leader or pastor finishes well. So many things can keep a leader from finishing well. Whether it is health failure, a moral failure or poor leadership. Enter Tim Irwin’s book Derailed. While the book is about CEO’s of large companies and how they derailed their leadership, the applications for pastor’s are very clear.
Irwin defines derailment as our jobs have gone off the rails – we cannot proceed in our present jobs just as a derailed train cannot continue on its intended path.
To be clear, derailment is not a lack of success, they are different things.
Each leader that Irwin profiles failed in one or more critical areas, and derailment comes from a failure in authenticity, self-management, humility or courage.
In the book he profiled Bob Nardelli, Carly Fiorina, Durk Jager, Steven Heyer, Frank Raines and Dick Fuld. For each of these leaders though, derailment didn’t just happen. It was over an extended period of time, for some, you could see derailment coming at previous jobs. They each lacked a self-awareness and others-awareness. They each saw themselves as bigger or more important than their company, that they are the reason for the success of the company and no one or nothing else. They miss the signs that are clear to those around them and finally, when confronted with derailment, they rationalize their actions.
Based on these profiles, Irwin lays out 3 tests leaders should take to see where they stand in terms of derailment:
- Does the leader have a strong moral/ethical guidance system that functions well in ambiguous situations?
- Does the leader make decisions just for expediency?
- Does the leader handle adversity with grace?
These 3 questions show clearly if a leader is prone for derailment or not as it reveals our character and derailment is all about character.
All in all, this was a great book. A fast read, one definitely worth reading if you are a leader.
When we are angry, we know we are on to something that matters, that really counts. What anger fails to do, though, is tell us whether the wrong is outside us – our spouse or our child or our God has done something wrong, and we are angry. That is what Jonah did, and he quarreled with God. But when we track the anger carefully, we often find it leads to a wrong within us – wrong information, inadequate understanding, underdeveloped heart. If we admit and face that, we are pulled out of our quarrel with God into something large and vocational in God. -Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant
