Click the link below to listen to an interview done with Dan Dumas (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) recently on the Inner Revolution podcast:
---> http://www.glorybooks.org/inner-revolution/
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Tim Chester, Closing the Window: Steps to Living Porn Free (Downers Grove: IVP, 2010), 17-35:
Chester expounds on the above twelve reasons when explaining the first of what he calls five key “ingredients in the battle against porn”:
I recently watched a conversation between Dr. Albert Mohler and Cal Thomas at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary called God & Politics. The conversation was both helpful and informative. You can watch the entire video recording here. One of the things that has bothered me with the upcoming Presidential election is the apparent lack of clear and thorough thinking on the behalf of evangelicals in regards to who they will vote for when that time comes. It scares me that many 'evangelicals' are happily standing behind Trump and others like him who claim to be Christian, but clearly are not in what they believe and how they live. I agree with Dr. Mohler when he said, "I'm concerned that we are going to discover evangelicals don't know how to think carefully and faithfully about these questions (who should a Christian vote for, what is a Christian's commitment to politics, etc.)." Watch the video below to hear more about what Mohler said concerning Trump and the upcoming election: What is the greatest tool for evangelism you and I have? Read the words of J.C. Ryle from his book Holiness:
"We must be holy, because this is the most likely way to do good to others. We cannot live to ourselves only in this world. Our lives will always be doing either good or harm to those who see them. They are a silent sermon which all can read. It is sad indeed when they are a sermon for the devil's cause, and not for God's. I believe that far more is done for Christ's Kingdom by the holy living of believers than we are at all aware of. There is a reality about such living which makes men feel, and obliges them to think. It carries a weight and influence with it which nothing else can give. It makes religion beautiful, and draws men to consider it, like a lighthouse seen afar off. The day of judgment will prove that many besides husbands have been won 'without the word' by a holy life (1 Pet. 3:1). You may talk to persons about the doctrines of the gospels, and few will listen, and still fewer understand. But your life is an argument that none can escape. There is a meaning about holiness which not even the most unlearned can help taking in. They may not understand justification, but they can understand charity. I believe there is far more harm done by unholy and inconsistent Christians than we are aware of." In short, the greatest tool for evangelism you have is your personal holiness. This past week I attended the Together for the Gospel conference that is held in Louisville, KY at the Yum! Center. Nearly 10,000 men and women packed the place to sing, hear preaching, and be mutually encouraged by the work of the Gospel (not to mention all of the free books!). As I was standing and singing the songs being played, I was encouraged to look around and see 18-30 year olds rejoicing and singing the hymns that were being played. In an age of theologically-watered down music in the Christian music world, seeing some college guys with fitted caps on worship through hymns reminded me that people want to sing songs that express deep truths of the Bible that exalt Christ. What were some of the hymns that were sung? Click here and get the complete list. While you're at it, watch this video below for a little taste of what I experienced at T4G: I just got done reading James Allen's As A Man Thinketh. The book itself (more like a pamphlet) was a thought-provoking read that I don't recommend to glean Biblical wisdom on the thought life, but I do recommend it to stir yourself to think about the principal that your life will reflect your thoughts. What I want to do in this post is to do a 'spin-off' of Allen's book. In the same way that your life will reflect your thoughts, your internet history reflects your heart. How? Three ways: Your Internet History Tells A StoryYour internet history tells a story. Maybe a story of bitterness and pain. Maybe a story of greed and want. Maybe a story of grace and perseverance. Whatever it may be, understand that what you looked up on your computer (tablet, phone, etc.) this week tells a story about you. Are you looking for something to fulfill you? Are you longing for pleasure? Are you living to get more 'stuff'? With every entry into the URL bar, you are writing a story. Your Internet History Is A MirrorThe sites that you have been on, the words you have searched, the things you have clicked on all act as a mirror. They show you yourself. For the person constantly looking to buy more stuff that they don't need, they are met with the stark reality that their spending and desire for things is out of control. For the person who clicks on the porn site, they can't help but realize they are a slave to their own desires. For the one who can't stop looking at social media, they know deep down they are addicted. Our internet history's show us ourselves. Who does your internet history say you are? Your Internet History Shows You Your HeartAt the end of the day, your internet history reveals your heart. It shows what you desire, treasure, and long for. It shows what you delight in, want, and think about. Think about what you looked up yesterday. Are the sites you visited glorifying to God and revealing a red hot passion for God? Or are the sites you are looking up showing that something is better than God? Friends, there is hope. Place your faith in Christ. Look to Him to be the all-satisfying joy in your life. Surround yourself with people who want the same thing and confess your shortcomings. Make it your aim to seek after Him with your whole heart (119:1-2). Let's have our internet history's reflect the glory of God and His greatness.
I recently was talking with a dear brother about some current cultural issues. Inevitably, the conversation lead to us talking about the state of the church. He said, "I just don't get why God would allow false teachers into this church to wreak havoc among His people." Great question. Why does God allow Judas' among His people? Why does He allow men to lead churches who are in it for the money and the notoriety? If He is sovereign and in control of everything, why doesn't He just stop it? Allowance Is Not EndorsementGod allowing things to happen is not God placing his seal of endorsement on what He is allowing. God allows Adam and Eve to fall in the Garden of Eden, but yet Psalm 5:4 says He takes no pleasure in wickedness. God allowing corrupt teachers and leaders in the church today does not mean God is in anyway approving of their behavior. It is evident God is against discord and false doctrine (Matt. 7:15, 2 John 1:10-11, Col. 2:8, 2 John 1:7). So why then, does He allow it? "The scariest place to be is at a comfortable church. A church that is too driven to be dependent, too comfortable to find need, too busy to pray, and too strong to be weak." What Was Meant For Evil, Turns Out For Our GoodAs I've said before, God works through means. He establishes the ends, but He gets to those ends through means. If you are in Christ, your end is Christlikeness (Rom. 8:28-29, 1 John 3:2). Everything that God allows into our lives is a means meant to make us into His image. This means that even the seemingly bad things work out for good (Gen. 50:20). So God allows confusion, chaos, and discord in the church for this purpose: to make us more like Christ. Here is what Calvin said: "God gives Satan free reign to sow confusion in his church. At the same time his aim is to keep us humble, and to prompt us to pray for deliverance from all that would cause us to stumble or would lead the world to ruin. We would soon drift into indifference if we thought the world was getting better and better: we would cease to value prayer or look to God for aid." What is Calvin saying? That God allows confusion and chaos to drive us to our knees and dependency on God. What this tells me is that the scariest place to be is at a comfortable church. A church that is too driven to be dependent, too comfortable to find need, too busy to pray, and too strong to be weak. Friends, when we find error in the church, we should cling to our Father and pray that we would walk in the Gospel light (Ps. 119:1-2). Or as Calvin says, "Our attitude should be: 'Alas! The same could have happened to us, except that God wonderfully preserved us by His grace!'" May the confusion and chaos God allows drive us to treasure Him and His grace more than ever before.
I recently read Ray Ortlund's book Supernatural Living for Natural People: The life-giving message of Romans 8. I recommend the book to you. In it, he offers insight to Romans 8:32 and answers the question: How can I feel loved by God? I love his answer. Read below: "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" Romans 8:32 "Do you see something else here in verse 32? Paul just takes it for granted that God's greatest gift of love to us is his Son. We do not take that for granted. We do not prize Christ as God prizes Christ - the greatest gift of love that could possibly be given. What gifts do we want from God? We want a new job, a new car, a new marriage, whatever. And when God does not give us what we want, we feel unloved and we pout and complain. But the problem is not a failure in God. The problem is that we have devalued Christ. "The problem is that we have devalued Christ. We have arranged our affections so that, to us, a new job is more to be desired, more to be sought after, more to be rejoiced over, than possessing the Son of God." We have arranged our affections so that, to us, a new job is more to be desired, more to be sought after, more to be rejoiced over, than possessing the Son of God. But Paul could write Romans 8:32 because his affections were so arranged that he gladly suffered the loss of all things that he might gain Christ (Phil. 3:7-8). If we want to feel loved by God, we must repent that we have disrelished God's greatest gift and plead with him that from the heart we would esteem Christ above all else. That way, having him, we know we already have God's best. We know he is going to throw in everything else we need to enjoy his greatest gift fully. And that is when we stop feeling sorry for ourselves and start to feel loved."
As a college student, I often get the urge among the hours of tedious studying, and piles of thick, dense textbooks, to take a break and indulge in literature that was not written for the classroom. And being a book nerd, I often find myself buying nearly every book that catches my eye! Yesterday afternoon, this book just happened to be the original “The Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum. The story of the woodman caught my attention and reminded me of the way many Christians fight sin. This metal, heartless, funny character has a story that seems to be beyond belief. Being a woodman by trade, this man decided that he would build a house and get married to a particular girl. So the next day, he began vigorously to chop wood for his new home. However, because of a spell placed on his axe by a witch, he accidentally chopped his arm clean off! Coincidentally though, he knew a metalworker that was able to build a new arm to replace the old one. The next day, the woodman began to chop wood once again, but accidentally chopped off his other arm! Luckily, the metalworker had another arm made out of tin that he was willing to sell to the woodman. This trend continued until every single part of the woodman’s body was made out of tin including his chest! Having no chest meant he had no heart, which meant that he could no longer love the girl he was pledged to be married to. Now, we may think “How could the woodman do that?” “Doesn’t he have enough sense to notice what is bound to happen?” However, think about your own Christian life. Is there a sin that you struggle with? Is there a sin that you cannot seem to, no matter how hard you try, find a means of escape? Let me make a daring suggestion: Maybe you are, although sinking in sin, still finding yourself out in the woods chopping your axe at the same old trees that are resulting in your loss of limbs. Maybe you are, although increasing your addiction to sin, finding yourself home alone, or on a computer without a filter, or in a car alone with a girl, or driving home from work on the route that takes you near a bar. Maybe you are finding yourself talking to others that gossip, or conversing with those at work that tell dirty, impure jokes. Maybe you pray every day to be delivered from sin, but are not taking the necessary measures that God has given you by his grace to be free from that sin! This is what the tin man did. He hated losing limbs, but found himself every day out in the field chopping wood until he wasn’t recognizable any longer. There are three ways in which we can prevent becoming like the tin man in our Christian lives: 1. RepentanceIn 2 Corinthians 7:9, Paul says “Yet I am happy, not because you are sorry, but because your sorrow led to repentance.” In the fight against sin, many people mistake being sorry as repentance. However, Paul says here that sorrow is simply a road that is meant to lead to repentance. John Macarthur said that “It is impossible to talk about seeking after God without talking about repenting and turning from Sin.” If you are seeking to grow closer to God today without repentance, you will not accomplish your goal. If you are attempting to conquer that besetting sin without first repenting to a Holy God, your attempts to grow in relationship with him will be in vain. 2. AccountabilityGalatians 6:1-2 tells us to “Carry each others burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Biblical Accountability is very important. However in the church today, being accountable is simply thought of as a last second resort in the fight against sexual sin. Yet, if you are a Christian attempting to grow in holiness, and you are not accountable to other men, you are not living a biblical life. Are you accountable to what you look at on the computer? Are you accountable with your time? Are you accountable with your money? With your words? Biblical Accountability is important in the life of the church, in the life of a family, and in the fight against sin of any sort. "If you want to conquer the big besetting sins in your life, it is going to take bigger and more drastic changes in the discipline of your every day to conquer those frustrating sins." 3. Radical MeasuresIn Matthew 5, Jesus exclaims “If your right eye causes you to stumble, cut it out and throw it away.” The Messiah obviously isn’t telling you to literally take out a knife and cut your own eye out. However what he is telling you to do is just as drastic. He is commanding you to take drastic measures to ensure that you are turning from your sin, and pressing on in holiness. What kind of drastic measures are you taking today to ensure that the sin you are struggling with does not befall you once more? If you are struggling with gambling, are you unaccountable with your time? If you struggle with sexual sin, do you have a computer that is unfiltered? If you want to conquer the big besetting sins in your life, it is going to take BIGGER and MORE DRASTIC changes in the discipline of your every day to conquer those frustrating sins. I think we have all seen the image above at some point. Reason being, everyone can relate to it. We all love leaders and hate bosses. We love people who lead us forward by service and despise bosses who sit on their throne and command others. But the question we must ask is how can I be a leader, not a boss? Three ways: 1. Don't Lead Someone Into Something You Wouldn't Do YourselfWhen someone is trying to lead you to do something they wouldn't do themselves, you know it. The result of you knowing this is a lack of motivation and passion to carry out what your assignment. Let's not be those people. Always be willing to do whatever you're leading your people into. Personally, I will never ask someone to do something that I would not be willing to do myself if that person were not able to carry out the task in the last minute. A boss will make commands that they themselves would never follow when a leader will make commands that they themselves would follow. 2. Constantly Remind Yourself Of Your Own BrokennessConstantly remind yourself of how messed up you are. Seriously. Sit back and think about all the ways you fall short. Why? So that you remember you are not much different than those under your leadership. A boss will think of themselves as in a separate category above everyone else. A leader will recognize that they are broken just like everyone else. This changes how they relate to their people and lead their people forward. 3. Model The Greatest Leader To Ever LiveLearn from Jesus. He was meek and bold. Tender and firm. Grace and truth. He came not to be served, but to serve those around Himself by giving His life for those that would trust Him by faith (Philippians 2). The best leaders are those that are most like Jesus. Keep your eyes on Christ and be like Him.
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About MeI am a Husband to Clarissa, Pastor at Liberty Baptist Church, reader of many books, and tweeter at @brad_merchant. Archives
July 2016
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