Support a Millennial

This is a hoot!  

Ease and Mammon (II)

The great missionary God used in China, Hudson Taylor, once returned to London, England on a furlough in an effort to recruit people to aid in the Gospel outreach to China. To do so he was visiting various congregations and at one point, on one given Lordsday, he broke and couldn't take the whole Christian "thing" that had grown up all around him. Here's what he wrote concerning this one particular worship gathering...

"At that moment it seemed to worsen the situation. As the full congregation rose to sing the last hymn, I looked around ... pew upon pew of prosperous merchants, shopkeepers, visitors; demure wives in bonnet and crinolines, scrubbed children trained to hide their impatience; the atmosphere of smug piety sickened me. I seized my hat and left, unable to bear the sight of a congregation of a thousand or more Christian people rejoicing in their own security, while millions are perishing for lack of knowledge. I wandered out on the sands alone, in great spiritual agony."

How 'bout you (and me!) ?  Playing it safe, passive and comfy, or are you living out the strenuous, cruciform life for Messiah's glory and love of neighbor?

A List of Companies that Support Planned Murderhood

The Daily Signal has produced a handy list of 38 large corporations that support Planned Parenthood either directly or through matching employee contributions.  This list came directly from PP's website, though they have now removed that list as of 7/23/15.

I encourage you to completely stop supporting these companies in any and all ways possible. We must be willing to be inconvenienced so we can defeat this demon, and switching companies is a paltry effort to exert when considering that babies are being fattened up in the wombs of thousands of women only to be harvested for PP's bank account!

Remember too, some of these corporations like Pepsi own many other companies as well (see Pepsi link for all it's assets).

Here they are:
Adobe
American Cancer Society
American Express
AT&T
Avon
Bank of America
Bath & Body Works
Ben & Jerry’s
Clorox
Converse
Deutsche Bank
Dockers
Energizer
Expedia
ExxonMobil
Fannie Mae
Groupon
Intuit
Johnson & Johnson
La Senza
Levi Strauss
Liberty Mutual
Macy’s
March of Dimes
Microsoft
Morgan Stanley
Nike
Oracle
PepsiCo
Pfizer
Progressive
Starbucks
Susan G. Komen
Tostitos
Unilever
United Way
Verizon
Wells Fargo

Wild, Smelly and Ignored

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."  
(Letter of James 1.27)

I'm afraid we Christians -- I'm including myself -- have the "keep oneself unstained from the world" part of this verse nicely corralled and locked-up into the Easy Pen of our lives (or we think we do), but the "visit orphans and widows in affliction" part is still wild, smelly and ignored over in a dark corner somewhere...

Christopher Columbus a Gospel Crusader

"Not long after his heroic first journey, Columbus confessed that commercial, imperial, and colonial interests were of only minor concern to him....Instead, he was inspired and driven by altogether different aspirations and another, still higher, royal commission:

""It was the Lord who put it in me to sail from here to the Indies.  The fact that the Gospel must be preached to so many lands, that is what convinced me.  Charting the seas is but a necessary requisite for the fulfillment of the Great Commission of our glorious Savior.""

       -- excerpt from The Last Crusader: The Untold Story of Christopher Columbus                         by George Grant

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This is an excellent, readable and engaging history of a great man.  I highly recommend.

Radical Disciples

I'm not entirely familiar with who David Platt is, but this guy is hitting a homerun on this video.

Family of Christ, we are THE disciplers of the nations.  Or, as Platt says here "There is no Plan B..."

A Wonderful Tool for Evangelism

The Good Book Company out of the UK has fashioned a wonderful "curriculm" for hospitality evangelism that you need to look into.  It's called Christianity Explored and it takes a group of unbelievers through the Gospel of Mark.  It is created for a once-a-week meeting for seven weeks.  It is comprised of workbooks for all in the study, a leader's manual, and an excellent DVD for weekly viewing during the study.    

     I've been able to put this study to use recently because in God's kindness my family and I have befriended two women and a young boy from China that are staying in our neighborhood. They are here taking classes, and teaching Chinese here at NNU in Nampa for this year and the next.  We initially had them over for dinner and asked if they'd like to go through this study, and found that one professes to follow Jesus but is personally struggling, while the other knows nothing but is very interested for she and her son.  So, we've been going through this weekly together and it's been very cool.  The material is super and it lets the the Bible's Good News tell the Good News.  Really well done. I highly recommend.

Those Stumbling to the Slaughter

Follower of Jesus...

"Rescue those who are being taken away to death.  Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter."  (Proverbs 23.11)

Clear your throat, my friends, and announce the Good Tidings of King Jesus, for every day is a day of worship.

Go.

Mission Work to Your Neighbors

"Jesus didn't run projects, establish ministries, create programs, or put on events.  He ate meals.  If you routinely share meals and you have a passion for Jesus, then you'll be doing mission."

- Tim Chester, from his book A Meal with Jesus

The Sacred Ordinariness of Sharing Meals

"It's good to be reminded that the table is a very ordinary place, a place so routine and everyday it's easily overlooked as a place of ministry.  And this business of hospitality that lies at the heart of Christian mission, it's a very ordinary thing; it's not rocket science nor is it terribly glamorous.  Yet it is the very ordinariness of the table and of the ministry we exercise there that renders these elements of Christian life so important to the mission of the Church...

       Most of what you do as a community of hospitality will go unnoticed and unrecognized.  At base, hospitality is about providing a space for God's Spirit to move.  Setting a table, cooking a meal, washing the dishes is the ministry of facilitation: providing a context in which people feel loved and welcomed and where God's Spirit can be at work in their lives.  Hospitality is a very ordinary business, but in its ordinariness is its real worth."

- Simon Holt, quoted in A Meal with Jesus by Tim Chester

Are We Heralding Jesus' Good News?

"Jesus' teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day.  However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect.  The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones.  We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people.  The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church.  That can only mean one thing.  If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did."

- Tim Keller, from his book Prodigal God

Gospel by Deed (no. 2)

Declaring God's Gospel of grace and kingship through deed is one of the non-negotiable essentials to the cross-bearing life of Christians and the Trinitarian Church.  Here is an excerpt from Jonathan Edwards' soul-shaking, idol-smashing little book entitled Christian Charity.  This section below is found at the end of the book where pastor Edwards endeavors to answer some of the common objections against helping others financially. I particularly was, and have been, haunted by Edwards' third answer to the stated objection which I've placed in italics. I hope you find it as challenging as I have.  

                                                                                                 
OBJECTION 6. Some may object from their own circumstances that they have nothing to spare; they have not more than enough for themselves.

I answer---
       First, it must doubtless be allowed that in some cases persons, by reason of their own circumstances, are not obliged to give to others. — For instance, if there be a contribution for the poor, they are not obliged to join in the contribution, who are in as much need as those are for whom the contribution is made. It savors of ridiculous vanity in them to contribute with others for such as are not more needy than they. It savors of a proud desire to conceal their own circumstances and an affectation of having them accounted about what they in truth are.

       Second, there are scarcely any who may not make this objection, as they interpret it. There is no person who may not say, he has not more than enough for himself, as he may mean by enough. He may intend, that he has not more than he desires, or more than he can dispose of to his own advantage; or not so much, but that, if he had anything less, he should look upon himself in worse circumstances than he is in now. He will own, that he could live if he had less. But then he will say he could not live so well. Rich men may say they have not more than enough for themselves, as they may mean by it. They need it all, they may say, to support their honor and dignity, as is proper for the place and degree in which they stand. Those who are poor, to be sure, will say, they have not too much for themselves. Those who are of the middle sort will say, they have not too much for themselves. And the rich will say, they have not too much for themselves. Thus there will be none found to give to the poor.

       Third, ....

Gospel by Deed (no.1)

       As disciples of Jesus we are encouraged to be content in this life if we have food and shelter (1st Timothy 6:7-9) knowing that God is aware of our needs and will somehow, someway provide for those basic needs (Matthew 6:30-34). While this teaching from Scripture can be a great source of assurance to a believer, I think it can also be a clarifying standard for Christians in determining who truly are the materially rich and poor in our society.

        I say that because I think many Christians are led to believe that this declaration found in 1st Timothy ("If we have food and covering with these we will be content") is just for Christians as though there is one material standard for Christians and then quite another for the world.  On the contrary, this is the Creator’s rich/poor line, or the poverty line, for His image-bearers which He has given first to His priests, the mobile tabernacles -- i.e. Christians -- to model and communicate to the nations as the true assessment for evaluating who is in corporeal need and who isn't.

       In other words, the rich/poor line isn't -- as our US government would have us believe -- $30,000 a year, two cars and a 2000 square-foot home. Rather, the standard is this:  Does one have food, clothes and shelter?

       So, for example, if a person has clothes and a home but no food, then they're poor according to Christ; or another, if they have food and clothes but no shelter, then they're poor. But if they have both food and covering, then they're materially rich and should be content; and Christians should be giddy to love and disciple our neighbors in this standard of material wealth, and thereby worship God and bring glory to His name through our deeds of mercy.  

Eternity Depends on Talking to One-another

"Our families, our schools, our congregations, not to speak of our cities at large, our land, our world, might well send us daily to our knees; for the loss of even one soul is terrible beyond conception!  Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered the heart of man, what a soul in hell must suffer forever.  Lord, give us bowels of mercies!   What a mystery!  The soul and eternity of one man depends upon the voice of another!"

Horatius Bonar - Scottish pastor and hymn writer (Not What My Hands Have Done) 1808-1889, this is an excerpt from his book Words to Winners of Souls 

Give Us Tears to Weep for the Unsaved

"He that saved our souls has taught us to weep over the unsaved.  Lord, let that mind be in us that was in You.  Give us your tears to weep; for, Lord, our hearts are hard toward our fellows.  We can see thousands perish around us, and our sleep never be disturbed; no vision of their awful doom ever scaring us, no cry from their lost souls ever turning our peace into bitterness."

Horatius Bonar - Scottish pastor and hymn writer (Not What My Hands Have Done) 1808-1889, this is an excerpt from his book Words to Winners of Souls