Category: Christianity

Spurgeon’s words still ring true: God is at the bottom of it all

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And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

— Ezekiel 11:19-20

Charles Spurgeon, the great preacher from the 19th century was saved when he was 16. His recounting of how it came to be is good to remember for all of us:

I can recall the very day and hour when I first received those truths (of election and effectual calling) in my own soul—when they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron, and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown on a sudden from a babe into a man—that I had made progress in Scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God.

One week-night when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher’s sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, “How did you come to be a Christian?” I sought the Lord. “But how did you come to seek the Lord?” The truth flashed across my mind in a moment—I should not have sought him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that he was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, “I ascribe my change wholly to God.”

The Man Comes Around: Johnny Cash and the Mars Hill series

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As part of their Rebel’s Guide to Joy series, the folks at Mars Hill Church in Seattle put together this short bio of Johnny Cash. Today would have been his 77th birthday and it is good to remember a man on this day who saw the fallenness of his own nature and came to Christ.
Click on the image to see the bio of Johnny Cash
Click on the image to see the bio of Johnny Cash

We are all terrorists before God

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“… After the blast, there’s this inferno of fire moving from the rear to the front.  And so this terrorist rolls out of the car waking up from the incredible heat and he starts to roll away. I’m just thinking to myself, there’s enough time for me to save this guy’s life but other thoughts are coming like what if he has a pistol, or he’s got a knife or he somehow tries to wrestle me and I don’t make it? I’m not going to risk my life for my enemy so I just decided to watch him die. The car bomb erupts and the blast rips him apart and after the dust settles I jump off my tank and I sprint over to where his body is and I see crimson just filling the sand. …”

In yet another powerful video from I Am Second, Chris Plekenpol describes how God can exist amidst terror and war and how his experiences in Iraq helped him see that we are all like terrorists before God.

Click on the image to view the video of Chris Plenkenpol as he describes his experience in Iraq.
Click on the image to view the video of Chris Plekenpol as he describes his experience in Iraq.

Being second is a good thing, just ask Jason Castro

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This past weekend, my wife and I had the opportunity to help at a youth retreat that our two children attended with other kids from our church’s youth group. Like most events involving teens and preteens, there was a lot of activity, food, laughter and little sleep.

But the important part of the weekend, the meat in the sandwich, were a series of lessons we did together about how to put Jesus Christ first in our lives. Now, these are church kids and youth group kids, so this is a message that shouldn’t be unfamiliar to them. But, they’re just like us adults in that a simple message can often get confused when you’re living in the everyday world of U.S. culture.

So, it was very helpful when our youth pastor, Mat Ingram, went over passages like the story of the rich, young ruler in Mark 10:17-27 or how we will reap what we sow as it talks about in Galatians 6. It was good to sit there knowing all these kids were hearing these things without the distractions of everyday, normal teen life bearing in on them.

Along with the messages, we would also watch testimonies from various people called “I am second.” The idea was that instead of striving to be the most important person in their lives, these people had seen the light and made Jesus No. 1 in their life. It was good for these kids — all of us, really — to see that everything this world has to offer is never going to be as satisfying as what Christ has to offer us.

Here is what Jason Castro, of American Idol fame, had to say about being second to Jesus Christ:

Lots of people in life have their ideas of what’s real and what’s not and sometimes they think faith isn’t real and I feel bad for them. But there were times on the show when I wouldn’t laugh at a joke and they were like, “Are you really that religious?” And I would tell them, “I just don’t think it’s that funny. I don’t think it’s right or something to laugh about it.” It is a challenge to stand up for what’s right, especially when it’s not cool, but being cool is overrated. Cool is a joke, cool is a perception and I don’t think it’s real. What is real? God is real, God is cool. I wish more people knew the real God and how cool it really is. Just imagine something bigger than you like your dad when you were a kid, you just want to know about him, and he can do so many things you can’t, and there’s something very cool about that.

Click on the image to see video of Jason Casto explaining why he is second.
Click on the image to see video of Jason Castro explaining why he is second.

And there are more great testimonies of the way God does great things for humble people, including Darrell Waltrip, Brian Welch (formerly with Korn), Greg Ellis and Stephen Baldwin.

The Pursuit of God in Corporate Worship: questions and answers

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As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.” — Psalms 42:1-4

What does worship as the Body of Christ mean to you? What does it mean to God? Is He indifferent? Pastor John Piper, in a seminar from September 2008 at The Bethlehem Institute, explores some of these questions and more.

Click on the image to view the video
Click on the image to view the video

What are the basics for the gospel?

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For those in protestant circles, many have had the opportunity to share their testimony before they were baptized. When you think about it and, if you’ve ever heard one given, it often starts with the person and how they came to faith. But that isn’t the whole story, whether they realize it or not.

In this message to a Children’s Desiring God conference, John Piper explains that it goes much further than an individual’s own life if you want to explain how they were saved. It’s obvious, really, if you believe what the Bible says. Since no one saves himself, you can’t tell your story without going back to the Person who saved you, namely Jesus Christ. And, if you do that, it effects what kind of person you will be and how you live your faith.

Good news on heaven: There’s plenty to look forward to

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Because we are small-minded, big-headed and have a too-small view of God, there is an idea that people sometimes hold that heaven will be boring. Think about it, that feeling that you’ve been there, seen it all and now are looking for the next big thing. Only, the problem is that there is no next thing because heaven is it. Somehow, there are people who are willing to risk an eternity in hell because they believe that heaven will somehow be unsatisfying.

After all, doesn’t Paul say in I Corinthians 13:12: “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known”? Yes, but we shouldn’t assume that just because we will be made perfect we will know everything there is about God. John Piper, as part of an article at the Desiring God blog, gives an explanation, based on other passages:

What Paul means [in I Cor. 13:12] is not that I will know exhaustively the way God knows me, but rather I will know accurately the way God knows me. The point is not that I won’t have limits to what I know, but rather I won’t have mistakes in what I know.

God is infinite and therefore inexhaustible in the complexity of his glory. His created universe, as the Hubble telescope shows, is big. His thoughts toward us are countless. And his ways are beyond finding out.

Part of what makes “eternal life” satisfying (and not boring) forever is that it will take an eternity for perfect, finite creatures like us to know God fully. He is perfect and infinite. We will be perfect and finite. He will enjoy increasing revelation of himself, and we will enjoy increasing jubilation in him—forever.

So, this idea that eternity in heaven can’t match up to a lifetime of sin and an eternity of punishment in hell doesn’t cut it.

Who saved you? And how?

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PreacherIf all of us are so depraved that we cannot come to God without being born again by the irresistible grace of God, then it is clear that the salvation of any of us is owing to God’s election. Election refers to God’s choosing whom to save. It is unconditional in that there is no condition man must meet before God chooses to save him. Man is dead in trespasses and sins. So there is no condition he can meet before God chooses to save him from his deadness. We are not saying that final salvation is unconditional. It is not. We must meet the condition of faith in Christ in order to inherit eternal life. But faith is not a condition for election. Just the reverse. Election is a condition for faith. It is because God chose us before the foundation of the world that he purchases our redemption at the cross and quickens us with irresistible grace and brings us to faith. – Dr. John Piper, in “What We Believe About the Five Points of Calvinism“