“Idols tend to be good things that become god things and then turn into bad things.”
Mark Driscoll – Idolatry
Reply
Category Archives: Don’t Waste Your Life
Matt Chandler – The Gospel is for those who perishing & those who are saved
Is Jesus my treasure?
No, Mr. President…
The Gospel Coalition
My dear friend Matt Childers was in Chicago this past few days to be a part of this.
Even though I wasn’t there, add my name to the list, gentlemen.
The Gospel IS God’s power!
A Corrective Tract for the Prosperity Gospel
from desiringgod.org:
Mark 8:34-36 If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
William Wilberforce and the unwasted life
Wilberforce on the Wasted Life
May 17, 2008 | By: Lukas Naugle
In 1797, William Wilberforce wrote A Practical View of Christianity in which he addressed the defective nature of the Christianity many middle and upper class people in England professed. Here is an excerpt that sounds as if it could have been written about today. It makes plain that affluence has a consistent effect on Christians in every age.
Yet thus life rolls away with too many of us in a course of shapeless idleness. Its recreations constitute its chief business…amusements are multiplied, and combined, and varied, to fill up the void of a listless and languid life; and by the judicious use of these different resources, there is often a kind of sober settled plan of domestic dissipation, in which with all imaginable decency year after year wears away in unprofitable vacancy. Even old age often finds us pacing in the same round of amusements which our early youth had tracked out. (99)
Individually, let’s pray, plan, and live in such a way that no one could use his words to describe our lives:
“shapeless idleness”
“listless and languid”
“domestic dissipation”
“unprofitable vacancy”
Collectively, let’s pray, plan, and live so that affluent American Christianity does not devolve into
a system of decent selfishness…a system scarcely more to be abjured for its impiety, than to be abhorred for its cold insensibility to the opportunities of diffusing happiness.
The Greatest thing I’ve seen in some time…
Difficult Economic Times and Missions
from Desiring God,
Bad Times Are Good for Missions
October 26, 2008 | By: John Piper
Category: Commentary
I believe the Lord brought this word to mind in one of our prayer meetings on Friday:
The worst of all times is the best of all times for missions.
We were praying over Lamentations 3. Those were the worst of times for Israel. But in that moment they were given the best of promises,
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (3:22-23)
Today marks the close of Missions Focus at Bethlehem. So we were praying for missions. That is when this word came: The worst of all times is the best of all times for missions.
Such words do not have intrinsic authority the way Scripture does. They must be tested. Here is the truth I hear in those words.
During an economic downturn we are more dependent on God. That is the most fertile soil for creating missionaries.
During an economic downturn unreached people around the world do not expect you to come, but to look out for yourself. So they may more likely see your risk as love rather than exploitation.
During an economic downturn those who need Christ around the world may be less secure in earthly things and more ready to hear about eternal life.
During an economic downturn people at home may be wakened to the brevity of life and the fragility of material things, and so may become more generous not less. And when they give under these circumstances, it will make Christ look all the more like the all-satisfying Treasure that he is.
And so it may well prove to be that the worst of all times is the best of all times for missions.