Tonight at church, we had the opportunity to celebrate one of God's gifts to our church. The gift is one of our elders and his family. Hearing about how God has used this man made this a wonderful evening! I think he would definitely qualify as a great man. However, what strikes me as most compelling is the legacy he is leaving. His family is top notch. All seven members have characteristics that make them great people. It is astounding to see how God has used Tim to lead his family in excellence.
While there are so many things that could be said, I think the most important one is this: He has taught his family to pursue Christ and disciple others. Another great man helped me to realize that teaching your children is not enough. You have to teach them to teach others, especially their own children. The Bible calls this discipleship, equipping others to pursue Christ and to use their Spiritual giftedness. God's glory is at stake in the lives of our grandchildren. If we do not teach our children to teach their children to pursue Christ and disciple others, another generation will live without knowing the joy that is found in Christ! When we enjoy Him, He is most glorified. There is no doubt in my mind that Tim's children understand this.
Many men leave a legacy to be remembered. Few men leave a legacy and children who leave a legacy that is worth remembering. My guess is that Tim is one of those men. Praise God for His work in Tim's life! The world is a better place with him in it.
9.30.2007
9.24.2007
Thoughts on God
Well, it has been an eventful weekend. Hannah was sick Friday night. She vomited well into the night. It was her first bout with the flu so she was kind of scared. She came through very well, though, and is doing fine. Then Bekah caught the bug on Saturday. She vomited a time or two, but not as bad as Hannah. Then, Saturday night, Benjamin caught the bug. He too was up until about 2am vomiting. It is quite impressive to see a toddler's whole body shake as he dry heaves. The poor guy didn't sleep too well.
Three down and one to go! The bug hit me on Sunday night at church. I could feel the churning in my stomach at about 7pm. However, I did not vomit until about 9:45pm. I think the worst part is when your body is beginning the process. I could feel a dull ache in my stomach, but I did not puke until about five minutes later. That five minutes was horrible. Thankfully, it only happened about five or six times that night. By about 2am I was finished vomiting. It was not what I consider fun. Then their is the achy and weak feeling. It still has not completely gone away.
While it was a rough weekend for our family, it was nothing compared to John Piper's weekend. You can read about it here. I cannot imagine the pain they are feeling. I often wonder what it would be like to endure such tragedy. Then I just thank the Lord that He has not seen fit to put me through such a thing.
My under-shepherd sent an email regarding Piper's tragedy. He also talked about the baptism we witnessed Sunday night. It was a testimony of a life transformed, a recounting of God's work from death to life. In Sharon's baptism we see the need for our Savior. In the death of Piper's granddaughter, we also see the need for our Savior.
While it may be difficult to understand, we can rest in the knowledge that God is righteous. Because God is righteous, all of His works are righteous. His righteous works declare the glory of His Name. What a glorious name it is. While we cannot know God's purpose in the death of a baby, we do know that He allowed it. Therefore, He must have a purpose in it. Knowing God is at work in every situation is comforting. It humbles me to think of the Pipers and this tragedy. It is encouraging to know that the Righteous God is at work in even the most incomprehensible of circumstances.
Three down and one to go! The bug hit me on Sunday night at church. I could feel the churning in my stomach at about 7pm. However, I did not vomit until about 9:45pm. I think the worst part is when your body is beginning the process. I could feel a dull ache in my stomach, but I did not puke until about five minutes later. That five minutes was horrible. Thankfully, it only happened about five or six times that night. By about 2am I was finished vomiting. It was not what I consider fun. Then their is the achy and weak feeling. It still has not completely gone away.
While it was a rough weekend for our family, it was nothing compared to John Piper's weekend. You can read about it here. I cannot imagine the pain they are feeling. I often wonder what it would be like to endure such tragedy. Then I just thank the Lord that He has not seen fit to put me through such a thing.
My under-shepherd sent an email regarding Piper's tragedy. He also talked about the baptism we witnessed Sunday night. It was a testimony of a life transformed, a recounting of God's work from death to life. In Sharon's baptism we see the need for our Savior. In the death of Piper's granddaughter, we also see the need for our Savior.
While it may be difficult to understand, we can rest in the knowledge that God is righteous. Because God is righteous, all of His works are righteous. His righteous works declare the glory of His Name. What a glorious name it is. While we cannot know God's purpose in the death of a baby, we do know that He allowed it. Therefore, He must have a purpose in it. Knowing God is at work in every situation is comforting. It humbles me to think of the Pipers and this tragedy. It is encouraging to know that the Righteous God is at work in even the most incomprehensible of circumstances.
9.22.2007
Real Men 1.2
Well, some things in life make you look stupid. My last blog offered me an opportunity for that! It is times like these that really devalue some of the great things in life. So, after listening to the sermon Men at Work, I blogged about Real Men. The preacher listed three main points for men to remind them of their calling before God. He used the letters I.R.S. to help us remember what separates men from effeminate men. 'Initiative', 'Responsibility', and 'Sacrifice.'
Well, somewhere in the TruThseeker translation, the 'Sacrifice' became Service. Now, while service is admirable and required, right and true, it was not the point given by the preacher. Thankfully, the preacher alerted me to this unspeakable blunder, correcting some grammatical anomalies in the process. To 'Da Preacha': Thank You.
However, I must write about 'Sacrifice.' One key to being a real man, that is, a godly man, is sacrifice. It is the most unbelievable of callings. God makes man. As man traverses life, he takes a wife and makes a family. Being the God-ordained head of the house, the man must sacrifice his own life, his wants, his desires, for the family. He cannot simply charge forward, living life with no regard for their well-being. He must care for, nurture, and love them. Love takes sacrifice.
Our great example, illustrate the preacher, is found in The Lord Jesus Christ. He creates man, who in turn chooses to disobey his Creator. Christ then sets aside His glory, the glory He had with the Father, and becomes a man in order to save man. Christ dies at the hands of sinful man, for His joy, for His creation, for the sins of all who believe. So, Christ sacrificed His glory and His life to provide life for His bride.
While it is true that Christ came to serve, I do enjoy the word sacrifice much more. It requires more of the one giving the sacrifice. It is a giving up of something valuable in order to give to someone else. The great ones sacrifice. The great ones do what it takes, taking initiative and assuming responsibility, sacrificing for the good of others. Christ did that, not only for our salvation, but also for the glory of God! Is there anything more worthy?
So, perhaps we can adjust the acronym. Maybe I.R.S.S. would be an appropriate reminder. However, based upon how this sermon has impacted me, I think I.R.S. would be the better way to go. I think the preacher would agree. A further audit would provide greater confirmation.
Well, somewhere in the TruThseeker translation, the 'Sacrifice' became Service. Now, while service is admirable and required, right and true, it was not the point given by the preacher. Thankfully, the preacher alerted me to this unspeakable blunder, correcting some grammatical anomalies in the process. To 'Da Preacha': Thank You.
However, I must write about 'Sacrifice.' One key to being a real man, that is, a godly man, is sacrifice. It is the most unbelievable of callings. God makes man. As man traverses life, he takes a wife and makes a family. Being the God-ordained head of the house, the man must sacrifice his own life, his wants, his desires, for the family. He cannot simply charge forward, living life with no regard for their well-being. He must care for, nurture, and love them. Love takes sacrifice.
Our great example, illustrate the preacher, is found in The Lord Jesus Christ. He creates man, who in turn chooses to disobey his Creator. Christ then sets aside His glory, the glory He had with the Father, and becomes a man in order to save man. Christ dies at the hands of sinful man, for His joy, for His creation, for the sins of all who believe. So, Christ sacrificed His glory and His life to provide life for His bride.
While it is true that Christ came to serve, I do enjoy the word sacrifice much more. It requires more of the one giving the sacrifice. It is a giving up of something valuable in order to give to someone else. The great ones sacrifice. The great ones do what it takes, taking initiative and assuming responsibility, sacrificing for the good of others. Christ did that, not only for our salvation, but also for the glory of God! Is there anything more worthy?
So, perhaps we can adjust the acronym. Maybe I.R.S.S. would be an appropriate reminder. However, based upon how this sermon has impacted me, I think I.R.S. would be the better way to go. I think the preacher would agree. A further audit would provide greater confirmation.
9.20.2007
Playing for Keeps
During a busy life, amidst a busy season, embedded in a hectic week, and climaxing an eventful day, a defining moment can be lost in the rigors of living. When something of significance occurs, that is, something of lasting significance, it can often be lost in the shuffle. However, there is deep value in recognizing these gold nuggets, mining them from the deep veins in the mountains in which they are hidden.
As you meditate on the idea of mining truths of worth from the mountains of life, linger for a moment over the satisfaction enjoyed upon securing said nugget of gold. While the gold has value, the personal value of a gold nugget is increased when requiring intense industrious effort to obtain. Likewise, when you recognize a valuable lesson from the trials of life, a truth to set your heart upon, its value increases.
Last night was a reminder to me of the value of knowing Christ. What is ultimately at stake in life? What are we created to do? We are ... to give glory to God. That is, we are alive, we exist, to glorify God. Therefore, every moment of every hour of every life is for the glory of God. What a great reminder to live like it! We must play for keeps!
Many times I hear of people who are "full of life." They seem to grab life by the horns and live life to the fullest. How much more should a child of God live to enjoy the Living Christ! We must live as if our lives, and more importantly God's glory, depended upon it! We must fight sin as if our last breath were at stake! Our life is more than mere existence, it is the battleground of eternity. As the armies of life and death collide on the frontiers of our own existence, battling for supremacy, how we live life reflects the army in which we are serving. Not only is this true, but also the intensity of our fight describes how seasoned we are as fighters. We must fight as if the battle depends on us! We must fight as if we make the difference between winning and losing, knowing that Christ is the one working through us!
The crazy thing is, Christ has already won the war! Death is a defeated foe! As a Christian, I am fighting a dieing enemy! As if that were not enough to get me excited, though I am fighting on the battle field, my home is in Heaven! I am seated in the heavenlies! As I fight, I should be longing for life at home! Can there be a better way to fight? I am fighting a dieing foe, while yearning for eternity!
Do not be deceived, the foe is strong. He will not die quietly. However, he is dieing! Our Captain has not only taught us to fight, but has also given us a Helper to fight for us! We are guaranteed victory! Therefore, let us fight joyfully, defending the Name of our God! Let us fight like we love Him with all of our being! After all, we are playing for keeps, fighting for life!
As you meditate on the idea of mining truths of worth from the mountains of life, linger for a moment over the satisfaction enjoyed upon securing said nugget of gold. While the gold has value, the personal value of a gold nugget is increased when requiring intense industrious effort to obtain. Likewise, when you recognize a valuable lesson from the trials of life, a truth to set your heart upon, its value increases.
Last night was a reminder to me of the value of knowing Christ. What is ultimately at stake in life? What are we created to do? We are ... to give glory to God. That is, we are alive, we exist, to glorify God. Therefore, every moment of every hour of every life is for the glory of God. What a great reminder to live like it! We must play for keeps!
Many times I hear of people who are "full of life." They seem to grab life by the horns and live life to the fullest. How much more should a child of God live to enjoy the Living Christ! We must live as if our lives, and more importantly God's glory, depended upon it! We must fight sin as if our last breath were at stake! Our life is more than mere existence, it is the battleground of eternity. As the armies of life and death collide on the frontiers of our own existence, battling for supremacy, how we live life reflects the army in which we are serving. Not only is this true, but also the intensity of our fight describes how seasoned we are as fighters. We must fight as if the battle depends on us! We must fight as if we make the difference between winning and losing, knowing that Christ is the one working through us!
The crazy thing is, Christ has already won the war! Death is a defeated foe! As a Christian, I am fighting a dieing enemy! As if that were not enough to get me excited, though I am fighting on the battle field, my home is in Heaven! I am seated in the heavenlies! As I fight, I should be longing for life at home! Can there be a better way to fight? I am fighting a dieing foe, while yearning for eternity!
Do not be deceived, the foe is strong. He will not die quietly. However, he is dieing! Our Captain has not only taught us to fight, but has also given us a Helper to fight for us! We are guaranteed victory! Therefore, let us fight joyfully, defending the Name of our God! Let us fight like we love Him with all of our being! After all, we are playing for keeps, fighting for life!
Real Men
I had the opportunity on Thursday to listen to a sermon on godly men and their work. The preacher encouraged Christian men in the church to get off their hindquarters and get busy being men (that is a TruThseeker paraphrase). Instead of relaxing on our Stratford sectionals and in our La-Z-boy recliners while spending the day watching college football and accruing unneeded fat calories, we should invest in things of the Kingdom for the glory of the Father. I must think that this issue should be very taxing to some men in the church.
In order to help men remember to work, the preacher gave the acronym I.R.S. The ‘I’ stands for Initiative. Godly men, real men, take initiative. They do not wait to be directed but rather, upon finding problems, take it upon themselves to find the solution. They do not need to be micromanaged nor babysat. They recognize that their work is, by all accounts, payable to the Father as a good work He planned beforehand.
The ‘R’ stands for responsibility. Personally I think that responsibility is the root of the ‘IRS’ tree. If godly men were not responsible, they would not take initiative. Rather, they would be ungodly men, seeking the satisfaction of self, waging war against the dual threat of boredom and a sore buttocks. As they levy the tax of entertainment against the laziness of their slothful day, they are storing up judgment for themselves which is, by all accounts, receivable upon the glorious coming of the Lord.
The preacher is talking to Christians, not to unbelievers. However, this magnifies the atrocity. It uncovers how we, children of God, have embezzled His glory and invested it in the god of Self. Instead, we should admit that we have sinned on a cosmic level. We should seek repentance in Christ and live by the Spirit.
Having done that, we have arrived at the ‘S’ – Service! There is perhaps no better fruit of Spiritual immaturity than lack of service. If God prepared for us good works that we should walk in them, then we should walk in them! What does it say about the church when men, the God-ordained leaders, will not obey their Savior?
What example have we set for the next generation? We have young men who will spend hours exercising their thumbs on video game control pads, but will not even work hard enough to sweat when a service opportunity arises. In fact, they will not even notice the opportunity! We have young men who do not know how to work! We have invested our assets in ourselves and the return on that investment is the bankruptcy of our youths.
In order to help men remember to work, the preacher gave the acronym I.R.S. The ‘I’ stands for Initiative. Godly men, real men, take initiative. They do not wait to be directed but rather, upon finding problems, take it upon themselves to find the solution. They do not need to be micromanaged nor babysat. They recognize that their work is, by all accounts, payable to the Father as a good work He planned beforehand.
The ‘R’ stands for responsibility. Personally I think that responsibility is the root of the ‘IRS’ tree. If godly men were not responsible, they would not take initiative. Rather, they would be ungodly men, seeking the satisfaction of self, waging war against the dual threat of boredom and a sore buttocks. As they levy the tax of entertainment against the laziness of their slothful day, they are storing up judgment for themselves which is, by all accounts, receivable upon the glorious coming of the Lord.
The preacher is talking to Christians, not to unbelievers. However, this magnifies the atrocity. It uncovers how we, children of God, have embezzled His glory and invested it in the god of Self. Instead, we should admit that we have sinned on a cosmic level. We should seek repentance in Christ and live by the Spirit.
Having done that, we have arrived at the ‘S’ – Service! There is perhaps no better fruit of Spiritual immaturity than lack of service. If God prepared for us good works that we should walk in them, then we should walk in them! What does it say about the church when men, the God-ordained leaders, will not obey their Savior?
What example have we set for the next generation? We have young men who will spend hours exercising their thumbs on video game control pads, but will not even work hard enough to sweat when a service opportunity arises. In fact, they will not even notice the opportunity! We have young men who do not know how to work! We have invested our assets in ourselves and the return on that investment is the bankruptcy of our youths.
9.06.2007
The Vanity of Exercise
This past Sunday our youth pastor was teaching us about how stupid it is to worry when God has promised to care for all of our needs. You can listen to that greatness here. He mentioned Psalm 90:10 which reads:
I suppose we cannot relate to the actual length of time in 1000 years. So, let me translate this into something more understandable. All of our exercising gives us 17 hours 31 minutes and 12 seconds of more life every year! That is 2 minutes and 53 seconds of more life every day! Now this is ironic! A person will work out for 30 - 60 minutes multiple times per week in order to gain 2 minutes and 53 seconds more of life per day? What is wrong with this picture?
So the average human being will gain 55 days, 11 hours, 31 minutes, and 12 seconds of life over an average lifespan if they exercise everyday. If it were up to me, I would just die early.
Now, I must give some perspective here. First of all, I am talking about longevity of life, not quality of life. Exercising definitely makes you feel better. Although, if your motivation for exercise is to live longer you may now be quite discouraged. Of course, God decides when we die so it really is a moot point.
Second, this does not take into account any other technological advantages that may lend to this life extension.
Third, exercise is also a stewardship issue. We must take care of the bodies God has so graciously given us. So, from that perspective, exercise in not in vain.
Fourth, answering a question posed earlier, the problem with this picture is sin. Not only does sin KILL, it makes the possibility we have of reversing its affects, that is saving ourselves from death, diminish all of the way to zero!! We have no hope of beating sin and surviving death apart from Christ!
While Christ is the answer to longevity of life, He is also the only Source to quality of life! He alone provides joy, the highest quality of life, because He is the source of Joy! While exercise makes you feel better, Christ actually makes you better. Exercise is deceptive, I guess, but it is beneficial.
Keeping this in mind, let us exercise to the glory of God, trusting His grace to make it valuable.
10 The years of our life are seventy,He also pointed out that all of our worrying about our life has yield an average age of death of 76 years! So, assuming that we use 70 years for an average length of life at the time of David's writing of this Psalm and if we assume it was written about the year 1000 BC, we can find the rate at which our life is increasing. Life expectancy has skyrocketed 6 years in the last 3000 years! That translates into 2 more years of life in every millennium!
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span [1] is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
I suppose we cannot relate to the actual length of time in 1000 years. So, let me translate this into something more understandable. All of our exercising gives us 17 hours 31 minutes and 12 seconds of more life every year! That is 2 minutes and 53 seconds of more life every day! Now this is ironic! A person will work out for 30 - 60 minutes multiple times per week in order to gain 2 minutes and 53 seconds more of life per day? What is wrong with this picture?
So the average human being will gain 55 days, 11 hours, 31 minutes, and 12 seconds of life over an average lifespan if they exercise everyday. If it were up to me, I would just die early.
Now, I must give some perspective here. First of all, I am talking about longevity of life, not quality of life. Exercising definitely makes you feel better. Although, if your motivation for exercise is to live longer you may now be quite discouraged. Of course, God decides when we die so it really is a moot point.
Second, this does not take into account any other technological advantages that may lend to this life extension.
Third, exercise is also a stewardship issue. We must take care of the bodies God has so graciously given us. So, from that perspective, exercise in not in vain.
Fourth, answering a question posed earlier, the problem with this picture is sin. Not only does sin KILL, it makes the possibility we have of reversing its affects, that is saving ourselves from death, diminish all of the way to zero!! We have no hope of beating sin and surviving death apart from Christ!
While Christ is the answer to longevity of life, He is also the only Source to quality of life! He alone provides joy, the highest quality of life, because He is the source of Joy! While exercise makes you feel better, Christ actually makes you better. Exercise is deceptive, I guess, but it is beneficial.
Keeping this in mind, let us exercise to the glory of God, trusting His grace to make it valuable.
A time for blogging
Well, it has been about 3 months since my last blog. I wanted to apologize for my laziness in posting over the summer. Although the summer has been full, it has been no excuse to cease writing out my meditations. My wife pointed out that blogging seemed to help me spiritually as I am forced to wrestle with the majesty of His Majesty. So, it is time to reenter the blogosphere. As we start this new school year, I am committed to again share my thoughts with the world! Lord willing, there will be something worth sharing. If not, thanks for humoring me!
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