Super-Spirituality

An excellent word from the convergent charismatic Calvinist Sam Storms:

"...Is this not precisely the grounds on which so many today build their reputations and undergird their authority? False and self-serving leadership that ultimately works to enhance the person's fame and fortune is almost always the result of allowing people to think one has a unique and privileged relationship with God, one that is unavailable to ordinary believers. It is frequently, if not most times, grounded in the claim to supernatural experiences, whether angelic visitations or third heaven translations or having heard the voice of God with a clarity and force beyond what any average Christian might experience.

Let me say it as forcefully as I can: Beware of all such claims to a superior or "super" spirituality! Beware of any suggestion that one has special knowledge or insights unavailable to others! Beware of those whose only credentials are the visions they have allegedly seen or the angels with whom they have allegedly conversed (cf. Col. 2:18)! [I say this as one who believes in the gift of prophecy, visions, and angelic encounters.]

On the other hand, genuine, godly leadership that warrants your allegiance is built on character, not charisma. It is grounded in virtue, not visions. Its appeal is the centrality of Christ, not displays of power or heightened states of ecstasy. And at the heart of such authentic authority is the faithful proclamation of a cross-centered, Christ-exalting gospel, which is to say, a preaching of "Jesus Christ as Lord" and "ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake" (2 Cor. 4:5).

All of us, at some point or other, will have to "look at what is before our eyes" (v. 7a) and pass judgment on the legitimacy of claims to spiritual authority. What criteria shall we employ? Upon reading the following words of Charles Spurgeon, I think I now know:

'I have not the slightest desire to suppose that I have advanced in the spiritual life many stages beyond my brethren. As long as I trust simply to the blood and righteousness of Christ, and think nothing of myself, I believe that I shall continue to be pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ, that this joy will be in me, and that my joy will be full.'"

Source: Email list, 05-29-08.

Is this the Sacrifice of Praise you Bring to God?

Free will or the sovereignty of God? How does this relate to the "sacrifice of praise?"

Let's let a dead man speak, and much to our weak contemporary ears that love tolerance and overtly irenic conversation, this is one forceful dead man. Here is the Puritan John Owen, speaking of those who place free will and God's sovereignty on equal footing:

"And so at length, with much toil and labor, they have placed an altar for their idol in the holy temple, on the right hand of the altar of God, and on it offer sacrifice to their own net and drag; at least, 'nec Deo, nec libero arbitrio, sed dividatur,' — not all to God, nor all to free-will, but let the sacrifice of praise, for all good things, be divided between them."

Source: A Display of Arminianism. AGES Software

The Cross the Climax of Your Joy

The unparalleled Charles Spurgeon:

"To the godly heart there is a brighter light on Calvary than anywhere else beneath the sun. He who often resorts to Golgotha, if his spirit be right, must be wise....He who would know hoe? he may get his sin forgiven, must resort to the cross. There, and there only, is seen the way by which sin can be pardoned and the sinner accepted with God; and he who, finding pardon there, would seek to be useful to his fellow-men and bring them into the like condition, must himself keep near that cross, that he may speak much of it, and, in the power of it, may be able to persuade and to prevail with the sons of men. Abide at the gross, beloved; there is no air so healthy and quickening as that which is breathed there. There was the birthplace of your hope, there its native air; there must be on earth the climax of your joy. Live upon a crucified Savior as you live by a crucified Savior."

Source: Sermon: "A Plea from the Cross", AGES Software

Keith Green

Love it!

Delays & Demons

Jack Miller:

"Actually delays are great because they often reveal the power of indwelling sin. We are flying high, then comes a postponement of our hopes, and we end up with an irritable spirit which shows an alarming degree of self-independence and reliance on human capacities. What we fail to see is that reliance on people, their capabilities, their keeping their promises, is a demonic faith, a cooperation in heart with the powers of darkness. We join the enemy, Satan, when we fail to rely on the promises of God to move on our behalf. In brief, our impatience often has a Devilish, earthly side to it, which reveals that we have unconsciously forgotten that trusting Christ is more important than doing things for Christ." (p. 151)

The Heart of a Servant Leader

It is 90 Today

I love it. The warming of the globe is definitely occurring here today and tomorrow. For that I am thankful:

"REDWOOD COAST-MENDOCINO COAST-NORTH COAST INTERIOR- UPPER TRINITY RIVER- MENDOCINO INTERIOR- 256 PM PDT THU MAY 15 2008

...UNSEASONABLY HOT TEMPERATURES EXPECTED INTO THE WEEKEND...

A VERY STRONG HIGH PRESSURE WILL PERSIST OVER THE AREA THROUGH FRIDAY. HIGH TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO REACH THE LOWER 70S TO LOWER 80S AT THE COAST AND MID 90S TO 104 IN THE INLAND AREAS. A GRADUAL COOLING TREND WILL BEGIN THIS WEEKEND AS HIGH PRESSURE BEGINS TO WEAKEN OVER THE REGION." (Text Source)

(Image Source)

Matt Chandler Interview

I want to encourage you to check out pastor Matt Chandler's interview with pastor Mark Driscoll on the resurgence web-site. I have been blessed by his message's most the past few years and wanted to point you again (as I have before) to listen to him preach. If you want his sermons hit my link on the right of the page.

Heaven and Earth Will Be United

NT Wright:

"As Christopher Rowland has insisted, the end of Revelation offers an ultimate rejection of a detached, other-worldly spirituality in favour of an integrated vision of new creation in which 'heaven' and 'earth', the twin halves of created reality, are at last united. Always intended for one another, they are by this means to be remade, and to become the place where the living god will dwell among his people forever."

(p. 470, The Resurrection of the Son of God)

The Danger of Goal-Seeking

Jack Miller in one of his soul-nourishing letters writes about the danger of being goal-driven in life:

"However, there is a danger in this goal-seeking. We must remember that the process of reaching the goals is at least as important as the goals themselves. In that process we are called by the Spirit to walk in intimacy with Christ, to enjoy Him and His people. I think this fellowship also includes enjoying the common things of life--really seeing the world like the simple thing of a human friendship, a good relationship with a parent, and even something as ordinary as enjoying a ballgame. I think it also includes building a good relationship with your children."

(p. 234-235, The Heart of a Servant Leader)

Something Knows

One of my favorite living literary authors is Cormac McCarthy. His wrestlings with death and God I find quite compelling in his books. I do not embrace his view but his ability to deal with death's poignancy and wrestle with the mammoth reality of God or the reality of no God is compelling nevertheless. The following comes from The Crossing in his masterful work The Border Trilogy:

"Men do not turn from God easily you see. Not so easily. Deep in each man is the knowledge that something knows of his existence. Somethings knows, and cannot be fled nor hid from. To imagine otherwise is to imagine the unspeakable. It was never that this man ceased to believe in God. No. It was rather that he came to believe terrible things of Him." p. 148

Gospel Effects

"Those who were weak are now strong; those who were unaware of God’s love are now grasped by it; those who were sinners are now accounted such no longer; those who were unrighteous are now righteous; those facing wrath are now rescued from it; those who were enemies are now reconciled and, once more, rescued." NT Wright

(Source: "Redemption from the New Perspective")

Cyclonic Prayer

Pray for the people of Myanmar.

What could happen if the prayers of God's people tore throughout the earth for Myanmar with cyclonic ferocity?

(Image Source: NY Times)

Lift

This is a great Radiohead song I had not heard before. Quality isn't perfect, but imperfect quality with Radiohead is still quality.

Life is a Mission

"Life is a mission, not a career." Stephen Covey

Amen.

(Source: p. 158, The Leader of the Future)

The Best Things in Life

Unbelievable. Few things in life are better then this...

Finding Pride in Your Leadership

"Do you want to know the best way to find out if pride is affecting your leadership?
Ask."
Bill Hybels

(Source: p. 190, Courageous Leadership)

How Shall We Escape?

"If disregard for the Mosaic law was appropriately punished, unconcern for the gospel must inevitably be catastrophic." William L. Lane (p. 37, 47A, Word Biblical Commentary)

"...how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?" Heb. 2:3

Exemplary Leaders

"Exemplary leaders have a passion for something other than their own fame and fortune. They care about making a difference in the world." (p. 116)

My two cents:

• Exemplary leaders have a passion for someone else: Jesus.
• Exemplary leaders have a passion for someone else: the whole world.
• Exemplary leaders care about making a difference in the world because the message of Jesus has made a difference in the world, and when practiced and proclaimed makes the difference again.
  

Source: The Leadership Challenge

Vacillation in Difficult Scriptures is Unbelief

It's important as a mature Christian to have an opinion, more important conviction, on the difficult things of Scripture. This isn't just personal opinion, but it's clearly what the apostle Peter is getting at in his second letter.

"...our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures." (3:15-16)

Notice that it is the "unstable" one's who "twist" Paul's letters and the "other Scriptures." This unstability in the Greek can refer to vacillating. Vacillation is going from one opinion to the next and never ever having conviction. Continual indecision on biblical matters is not a sign of humility, but rather unstability and even ignorance, and leads to the twisting of the Scriptures. The Scriptures get twisted when accompanied by an ignorant and unstable attitude toward them. The Scriptures are always meant to be united with faith (Hebrews 4:2), and if there is no understanding there will be no faith in what God has said. This then leads to using the Scriptures wrongly by one's ignorance and vacillation. Ignoring and vacillating with the difficult themes of Scripture is a faith issue. Vacillation is unbelief. Peter then, is encouraging the believer here to become stable by going into the hard things and come out steady and deeply rooted in the truth. If not, one becomes susceptible to error and false teaching and because one is constantly vacillating one can eventually be "carried away" (v. 17).

"You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability."

Next, Peter says because I've told you this, because I've said that Paul and the Scriptures can be difficult and can be easily twisted and never believed: you must believe! You must seek for stability and replace ignorance with knowledge and vacillation with conviction. Do it for the sake of Jesus. Do it because you want to know Jesus more and receive more grace (v. 18).

Yes, all this should be qualified with the equally biblical truth that humility before the text and a realization of the difficulty of understanding the deep things of God is always to be the attitude of God's people. But indecision, laziness, and apathy in coming to resolution is the opposite of growing in knowledge and grace and is not humility but prideful ignorance (v. 18).

Therefore let's not be vacillating people in our pursuit of understanding doctrine--even the hard things of Scripture. Do not remain ignorant and unstable as a Christian. Become a "growing" Christian. Do it for Jesus' glory, as the end of 2 Peter in the context of these very things reminds us:

"To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen." (v. 18)

Jesus is Better

Jesus is better. This is one of the main points of the Letter to the Hebrews and really to the whole story of God throughout the Bible. The arrival of Jesus on the scene in Nazareth, his death, and the vindication of Him as Savior and Lord in resurrection has proclaimed to the world that God has spoken in Jesus and no person, place, thing or idea is better. God has done what is best for the world and what is best is Jesus.

• "Jesus is the guarantor of a better covenant." Hebrews 7:22
• In Jesus "a better hope" has been introduced. (7:19)
• The covenant Jesus brings to mankind is better then Moses' covenant because it is "founded on better promises." (8:6)
• Jesus blood "speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." (12:24)

Trusting Jesus is always God's best for us. Sadly, we often turn to other things. We exchange what is better for what is not. Anytime we seek something else beside Jesus we opt for less. If we do our theology with someone/something else at the center we've chosen less. If we live life for the approval of someone/something else we've downgraded. If we seek forgiveness and wholeness in another system of belief or world-view we turn from what is better to what is worse.

Can you say Jesus is better then ________? Fill-in-the-blank. We should be saying that and believing it. For anytime we say_________ is better then Jesus either in our doctrine or our practice we've not truly listened to God and seen what He has given.

God's word to you today is: Jesus is better.