Category Archives: Pastoring

How to fight your fears.

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How shall we fight our fears?

Pastor John Piper gives five steps that are not always easy: A.P.T.A.T.

  1. Admit honestly — I can do nothing without Christ.
  2. Pray. (“God, help me not to be afraid. Please help me! Jesus, be near me.”)
  3. Trust. (In what? Preach the Gospel to yourself on this specific fear.)
  4. Act in obedience to God’s word.
  5. Thank God for whatever good comes.

“By the work of the Holy Spirit, God defeats temptation by awakening joy through belief in the word of God which is at work in us. And that word is most centrally the good news that Christ died for us so that all the promises of God are Yes in him.”

This is how we live.

—John Piper, sermon “The Word Is At Work In You,” video excerpt posted as A Tool To Help You Live.

 

Why today matters » National Global Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

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Today, January 11th, is National Global Human Trafficking Awareness Day (NGHTAD), as set forth by a resolution passed by the US Senate on June 22, 2007, to mark January 11th as a day of awareness and vigilance for the countless victims of Human Trafficking across the globe.

As I write this, and as you read it, we are mostly free. Mostly free to do whatever we want. I say “mostly,” because we are limited in part by our circumstances, and our natures. Many others are not free at all, being oppressed by those stronger than them.

While we might think real freedom is being able to do whatever we want, true freedom is wanting to do what God wants. God wants to set the world right again, and in Jesus this is coming true. He somehow has chosen His people to be part of it. So we join with the Creator in breaking down the walls of injustice and embodying the life of Jesus as He sets the captives free. Though all will be made right on the last day, we do not have to wait for heaven to see justice breaking in. Continue reading →

 

Inside or Outside.

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A follow-up on yesterday’s post. Here’s the context for Jesus’ words on what really defiles us:

14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”

17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

—Mark 7:14-23 (NIV)

 

My 7 Daily Sins (& yours too).

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“Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” —Mark 7:15

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Seven Deadly Sins:

  1. Lust
  2. Pride
  3. Greed
  4. Gluttony
  5. Envy
  6. Sloth
  7. Wrath

These are seven categories of sin; ways we creatively disobey God. But they don’t just reside “out there” in the world. They live in us.

The seven deadly sins aren’t just things we do—they’re who we are every day. Author Jared C. Wilson’s study Seven Daily Sins examines the good news that Christ offers a way to deal with these sins once and for all.

The bad news is we carry around sin inside of us every day.

The good news is, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we can not only identify our daily sins … but kill them.

Let’s stop managing our sin and start experiencing freedom in Christ.

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” —Romans 7:24-25

 

How to not give up.

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There are no quick fixes. While it is tempting to find a drive-thru, feel good solution and “just do it,” we know life is far more complex for using simple methods to get a new you by Friday.

“Christian life does not arise spontaneously in us. The truth of the gospel cannot always be reached through a process of reasoning. We need to meditate long on the words of Jesus. It is only through familiarity and association with the Gospels that we begin slowly to learn to live like him.” 1

How do we not give up?

By staring at the one who never gave up, who was joyfully obedient to God His Father until the very end. And then follow in His steps.

If I invite Jesus into my life — which is a mess — I will become discouraged when He doesn’t change me as quickly as I want, or provide the comfortable life I envisioned. (Many “try” Jesus and conclude He doesn’t work. Because Jesus spoke mostly about the Kingdom of God and invited us to flee from the kingdom of self, He offers a better way than this.)

But if I respond to Jesus, who invites me into His life, I will place Someone at the center who can effectively navigate the twists and turns of life.

Know this: out of His great strength, He can make you and me whole. Will you surrender?

I can think of no greater ambition this year than studying the life of Jesus and being changed into His image. Of course not everyone will be changed as they read, for not all have faith. To really know God, we must really know Jesus.

An invitation: Pick up one of the Gospels this month, reading it through five times. With each thoughtful time through your mind will be awakened to the sheer awesomeness of this man. He will surprise, invite, confront, challenge, and inspire you. (And so much more. Like Aslan, Jesus is very good, but He is far from safe.)

  • Mark is the shortest, looking at the pattern and purpose of His life, for those on the go. You can read it through in one sitting. (The clear outline: Who is Jesus » why did He come » What does it mean to follow Him?)
  • Matthew gives us a healthy does of Jesus’ words, confronting our half-baked ideas about God, self and others. He fulfills the longings of the people around Him, but never in the way they assumed He would.
  • Luke examines the evidence for Jesus and brings us accounts from numerous eye witnesses.
  • John helps the right-brained (visual, artistic) learner envision Jesus as God come in the flesh. God in a Bod is better than we imagined.

Of course, those are not exactly the groups to which the Gospel writers made their arguments, but a simple way to approach which one to start with, based on how you’re wired.

Each writer was making an argument about Jesus, not just collecting the facts about Him.

  • To the Romans » Mark portrays Jesus the Servant
  • To the Jews » Matthew sets forth Jesus the King, promised for centuries to the rescue His people and the world
  • To the Gentiles » Luke (the only Gentile writer of a NT book) portrays Jesus the Man
  • To the Greeks » John shows what ultimately reality looks like as Jesus is the Son of God

If you’re curious why there are four Gospel accounts, Ray Stedman gives us a helpful reminder why:

“There is a reason for this, designed deliberately by the Holy Spirit. We make a mistake if we think these four Gospels are four biographies of the Lord. They are not biographies at all, they are character sketches, intended to be different, intended to present different points of view. Therefore, they constitute four distinct views of our Lord and of his work.

The Gospel of Matthew is written to present Christ as the King. The Gospel of Mark presents His character as a servant. The Gospel of Luke presents Him as the Son of Man — as man in His essential humanity. The Gospel of John presents Him as the Son of God, that is, His deity, and there you find the greatest claims for Jesus being God.”

—Ray C. Stedman, introduction to Mark, Adventuring Through the Bible

Who’s with me?

I’ll be reading through Luke five times in January. How about you?

Let’s meditate long on the words of Jesus.

  1. José A. Pagola, Following in the Footsteps of Jesus: Meditations on the Gospels for Year A. Translated by Valentine de Souza, S.J. Miami: Convivium, 2010, page 23. ↩
 

Starting with Knowing God.

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As we seek to shape our minds with truth, especially as we begin a new year, good books are vital. During the month of January you may download the audiobook for J.I. Packer’s Knowing God for free.

I think you’ll thoroughly enjoy it and be challenged.

Packer writes in the 2005 preface:

“Late in life I have learned the right word to describe what I am up to in Knowing God. That word is catechising; I am an adult catechist. The catechist’s job is to spell out the truths, and the response to them, that constitute a Christian’s identity, and to apply this directly to people’s lives as evangelist, pastor, counsellor [sic], trainer, and encourager, according to the bearing of the truth itself upon them. Just as one of Moliere’s characters rejoiced to find he had been speaking prose all his life, so I rejoice to discover that I have been a catechist all my life, though I hardly knew it till recently. Knowing God is a catechism — maybe a catechism plus.”

 

[in]complete love: the ruts where we get stuck.

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“I will heal their backsliding.”
—Hosea 14:4

I talk with backsliders all the time. Most don’t notice their rut or direction, and almost as many don’t really care. It usually their closest loved ones who seek out a pastor for advice and encouragement.

I also find that when people strongly desire change (circumstantially), but are not willing to change themselves, they are in the throngs of many dangers. At least one of those is how we creatively find ways to meet our heart longings in ways that can slowly (or quickly) destroy us. Our poor decision-making accumulates over time, for very few people wake up one day and say “I want to run from God and make a mess of my life.” Little by little we get stuck in a rut of our own choosing, not recognizing the warning signs, and sometimes ignoring them. When confronted by loved ones, we minimize, deny, deflect, distract or minimize our issues, numbing the pain while making it worse.

Consider the analogy of a muddy road:

God’s people let themselves drift. We fall into backsliding gradually, a process unfolding over time. This is no surprise, for apart from the grace of God we remain children of Adam our entire lives. We can never shake off our old nature completely; it clings to us with the tendrils of countless sinful tendencies.

The life of God’s child is illustrated in a frequent scene in rural Michigan [or Central Oregon, where I grew up] during the winter weeks of heavy snow. The lanes and smaller roads, many of them unpaved, become muddy and nearly impassable. Looking down these after a snow, at first only one set of tracks appears. As each subsequent vehicle follows the same tracks, the ruts grow increasingly deeper, until someone finally becomes stuck and can go no further.

Similarly, God’s children are prone to follow the tracks of their muddy human nature, following those tracks wherever they lead. The further they go, the deeper they sink into the ruts, step by step, one thing leading to another until they get stuck. What are these ruts believers are so inclined to fall into? I can enumerate at least these six:

  1. Coldness in prayer
  2. Indifference under the Word
  3. Growing inner corruptions
  4. The love of the world
  5. Declining love for believers
  6. Man-centered hopes

—Joel R. Beeke, Getting Back in the Race: the cure for backsliding

Backsliding is always an issue of love. Our heart longs for something, usually a legitimate need, yet we somehow invent illegitimate ways to meet those needs. (Such as when a teenage girl desires affection from her father but goes with a vastly incomplete substitute: a boyfriend.) When we’re bored with God and His good will for us, we seek out alternative routes to travel. Killing sin isn’t about never getting in a rut; it’s about finding the desire to run to God, and seek help, when we get stuck.

For more on backsliding see:

Every day I talk to a potential backslider. Myself. (You do too.) Preach the Gospel to yourself each and every day. Teach yourself to love God and His good news.

Image credit: “Bad Road” by National Library of Scotland

 

Wisdom: How do I protect my kids from consumerism and envy?

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As a father or two little ones, and a pastor to a few more, I appreciate Ken’s wisdom and grace as he responds to this urgent question (as a father and pastor):

Ken Wytsma, President of Kilns College and Pastor of Antioch Church in Bend, OR, talks about the effects of American consumerism and envy on children. [via :redux]

 

What Drives Us? Preference?

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I’ll be re-posting and completing an unfinished series asking the question “What drives us?”  We’ll look into why we do, think and feel the way we do. Can’t promise it will be epic, but it has been a long-time in coming. (This one is a re-post, following up from previous ones looking at Perfection, Protection & Apathy. More to come, as well as a parallel series in the new year, [in]complete.)

—

The core idea is this: we either make our decisions based on God’s promises in the Gospel, or on something else. What is that something else? What drives us? What motives lie beneath the surface?

The idea came to me while meditating on the difference between guilt as a motivator and curiosity, joy, passion, etc…. and for context I must say I was driving. In fact, over a two-minute drive home my mind was flooded with a list of a dozen words that start with “P,” and all describe why we do what we do. I couldn’t pause and jot down notes quick enough. In a future post I will share the scriptural background, and how these motivations interrelate. Plus, how I have used these categories in pastoral counseling.

So, what drives us?

Consider this one relatively easy to identify: our preferences.

Situation … response:

When all is well in my life …When trials enter my life …When I am criticized, I …My relationship with God is …MotivationWhen I sin …I trust…My greatest strengths/ weaknesses are…My identity is found in …
I feel like my relationship with God couldn’t be better.I try to move on to a better situation.Am sometimes hurt, and move on to other people, places or things.A high priority, but doesn’t necessarily impact every square inch of my life.PreferencesI am actually probably more aware of others’ failures than my own.in those who meet my needs and wants.s: my ability to make wise choices
w: those (morons) around memy refined tastes and desire
  • When all is well in my life … I feel like my relationship with God couldn’t be better.
  • When trials enter my life … I try to move on to a better situation. (I strong desire my circumstances to adapt to my needs and comforts.)
  • When I am criticized … I am sometimes hurt, and move on to other people, places or things.
  • My relationship with God is … a high priority, but doesn’t necessarily impact every square inch of my life.
  • Motivation: Preferences (maintaining personal freedoms and comforts).
  • When I sin … I am actually probably more aware of others’ failures than my own.
  • I trust … in those who meet my needs and wants.
  • My greatest strengths/weaknesses are …
    • [strength]: my ability to make wise choices;
    • [weakness]: those (morons) around me.
  • My identity is found in … my refined tastes and desires.

What is the antidote to living a preference-driven life?

Meditate on Jesus, who though He was rich became poor for us, setting aside His comforts to meet our deepest true needs. He is not only our Example, He is the perfect sacrifice for our sinful nature. He lived the life we should have lived, but haven’t, and died the death we should die, but don’t have to. Meditate on His love and grace; prepare to be amazed.
Continue reading →

 

The Path (as a podcast).

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I turned a featured post, The Path, into a podcast episode:

Imagine there is a pathway before us. Those who are faithfully following Jesus daily by faith are walking straight ahead, empowered by grace. Those who fall into the ditch on the left are self-absorbed or apathetic, while those who fall into the ditch to the right desire to follow but are over-stressed and overwhelmed. Jesus walked the path perfectly for us, and invites us to join Him, walking in His steps. A meditation on following Jesus (Galatians 5:16 & Hebrews 12:1-2).