All the English Standard Version (ESV) daily reading plans are now being offered as podcasts. Or, if you don’t want to wait for a podcast to arrive but would like to listen on your own, you can buy the ESV in a download to put on your iPod or MP3 player. Either way, you need to get into your Bible — for your own good.
As a believers in Jesus, we are not immune to suffering in our lives? Because we crave comfort in our lives, this causes confusion? “Why would God do this to me?” is usually the conversation we have in our heads or maybe with others. After all, isn’t God love? What does the Bible, God’s word spoken to us, say about suffering?
Today in my devotions I read Romans 5, where it says:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
This past week, in Sunday school with 6- and 7-year-olds, we were talking about God’s glory and what it means. That is a hard thing to wrap your mind around even as an adult. The way we explained it was like a box of treasure that holds things too wonderful to imagine. So, in thinking about the passage above, the hope of one day seeing God’s glory and what that holds gives us a joyful hope. And that hope is produced through our suffering. In the end, something we dread, suffering as a believer in Christ, produces something that brings us hope and peace in God.
I am very excited about the release of the upcoming ESV Study Bible. One of the promising features is that, for those who purchase it, they will receive the online study Bible for free. See the video:
“True faith involves trusting the evidence that God has amply provided in and through His Word.”
The folks at Ligonier Ministries have graciously provided the August issue of their devotional online. Click on the image below to see it.
John Piper, on the Desiring God blog, writes about the aftermath of the Lakeland revival and the need for discernment:
Charismatics will not be the only ones who follow the Antichrist when he rises. So will the mass of those who today in thousands of evangelical churches belittle the truth of biblical doctrine as God’s agent to set us free (John 8:32).
Discernment is not created in God’s people by brokenness, humility, reverence, and repentance. It is created by biblical truth and the application of truth by the power of the Holy Spirit to our hearts and minds. When that happens, then the brokenness, humility, reverence, and repentance will have the strong fiber of the full counsel of God in them. They will be profoundly Christian and not merely religious and emotional and psychological.
The common denominator of those who follow the Antichrist will not be “charismatic.” It will be, as Paul says, “they refused to love the truth.”
The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)
Our test for every Lakeland that comes along should first be doctrinal and expositional. Is this awakening carried along by a “love for the truth” and a passion to hear the whole counsel of God proclaimed?
The English Standard Version Study Bible will be released on Oct. 15. The word of God is powerful, and this version I believe will be a tremendous tool to help many understand it better. The following video details some of this version’s awesome features and also includes some endorsements.
You can learn more about the ESV Study Bible at its Web site. Among the things you can find there are explanations into what went into this particular edition and free downloads of sample books and chapters in the new ESV Study Bible. And, for those who order a print version, you can get a free online version of the ESV, which features resources not available in the print edition.
UPDATE: The person who posted this online did so illegally. Like others who linked, I was unaware of this. My apologies. Rather, go here to see this awesome book.
What this book is about:
The Christian church has a long tradition of systematic theology, that is, studying theology and doctrine organized around fairly standard categories such as the Word of God, redemption, and Jesus Christ. This introduction to systematic theology has several distinctive features:
– A strong emphasis on the scriptural basis for each doctrine and teaching
– Clear writing, with technical terms kept to a minimum
– A contemporary approach, treating subjects of special interest to the church today
– A friendly tone, appealing to the emotions and the spirit as well as the intellect
– Frequent application to life – Resources for worship with each chapter
– Bibliographies with each chapter that cross-reference subjects to a wide range of other systematic theologies.
AMAZING GRACE AT AMAZON: Amazon.com has put the 2007 theatrical release of “Amazing Grace” on sale. It was a great movie and a definitely worth checking out.
WHY STUDY CHURCH HISTORY? Tim Challies, author of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment and one of the most disciplined bloggers out there, has come up with seven reasons why you should study church history.
WHAT BIBLICAL MANLINESS LOOKS LIKE: Phil Johnson over at Pyromaniacs lays it on the line when it comes to being a man:
Biblical manliness is about authentic character. It’s not about bravado, and it’s not about boyishness. Going out into the woods with a bunch of other men, putting on war paint, making animal noises, telling scary stories around a campfire, and then working up a good cry might be good, visceral fun and all, but that has nothing to do with the biblical idea of manliness.
Read the rest here.
WORSHIPING SUMMER: John Piper offers some good counsel about how not to let the pleasures of summer turn you from worshiping God instead:
Don’t let summer make your soul shrivel. God made summer as a foretaste of heaven, not a substitute. If the mailman brings you a love letter from your fiancé, don’t fall in love with the mailman. That’s what summer is: God’s messenger with a sun-soaked, tree-green, flower-blooming, lake-glistening letter of love to show us what he is planning for us in the age to come—“things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man, God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Don’t fall in love with the video preview, and find yourself unable to love the coming reality.
As if the book wasn’t good enough, Alex and Brett Harris are now providing a study guide (for free!):
If you’re like us, talking with others about what you’re reading helps you decide what you think and how to respond to what a book is saying. This chapter-by-chapter study guide is intended to help you do just that.
Use it for personal study, if you wish, but we think it works best in a group. And the best group is one where you’re surrounded by others who care about the same things you do and are ready to put truth into action.
Don’t feel you have to process every question. It’s not a test, and as often as not, there’s no one right answer. Also, don’t let our questions limit what you ask or where you go. Ask God to direct your thoughts and decisions. And ask Him for courage — lots of it. Because big ideas are weak ideas if we’re not willing to let them shape how we think and live.
So use this study guide to zero in on the ideas, choices, and actions that seem most promising and helpful to you and your friends. Then expect great things to happen in your lives as you do hard things for the glory of God!
Your Fellow Rebelutionaries,
Alex and Brett
Both my son and daughter are reading through it and I look forward to going through the study guide with them. Thanks, Alex and Brett, for a great book and resource. Keep the mission!
A lot about what it means to have a tender heart for God. Consider David in Psalm 51:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. “Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.
What has led David to this lowly state of remorse? Turn back to 2 Samuel 11:2-5 to see where it started:
It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. . . . Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”
And not only does David do this, he compounds his sin by bring Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, back from battle so he can sleep with his wife and thus cover up David’s sin. It doesn’t work and so David has Uriah killed in battle. It is only when the prophet Nathan confronts him that David repents.
And what is God’s response? “The Lord has taken away your sin; you shall not die.” (2 Kings 12:13). From here, John Piper picks up the story and why it matters that we should care why God answers in this way:
And, Piper goes on to show that David’s response to his sin is a good example for us to follow. Piper lays out four ways in his sermon, “A Broken and Contrite Heart God Will Not Despise.”
Rockstanding 
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