"The Legitimacy of Preparation"

"I urge you to view your time of preparation as a calling in its own right. We live at a time when education is regarded in such a utilitarian way that it's legitimacy finally depends on its being a ticket to a job. In recent years I have seen pathetic examples of parents putting so much pressure on students to know exactly what job they expect to enter upon graduation that the students could not possibly avoid feeling guilty about taking time for an education. 

Parents and advisors to young people need to stop making students feel guilty about being in a period of preparation. When God calls people to a task, he also calls them to a time of preparation. This preparation time, moreover, is as important as the performance of the task. 

What should we say about the hours it takes to prepare for a sermon or Sunday school class or lecture or term paper or ball game or recital? Is this time and effort some how ignoble? Does God turn his head the other way when a person prepares? Jesus did not begin his earthly ministry until the age of thirty, living until that time as an obscure carpenter in an out-of-the-way village. We might protest: Think of all the people he could have preached to and healed between the ages of twenty and thirty. 

Moses spent forty years of his life being educated in the court of Pharoah, receiving the best education his day afforded. Then he spent forty years in Midian, from a human point of view rotting away in exile, but actually being prepared for wilderness survival, the skill he needed to lead the Isrealites from Egypt to the Promised Land. According to Galatians 1:17, Paul, upon his conversion, did not at once become an evangelist. Instead, he spent three years in Arabia and Damascus being instructed in the gospel. 

Learning, in whatever form, is the student's calling. It is the arena within which you display good stewardship or lack of it. Several years ago I entered my office to find the following letter that had been slipped under my door:

     I do not know where to begin, except I am preparing for the next test. I tried reading late into three 

     successive evenings and found myself moving in and out of consciousness. I fell behind early after the

      first exam. This year I am heavily involved in the community. I am trying to wean myself from college 

     life (not studying). College is just a transition period (a period of preparation). This term I have four 

     reading courses, 20-30 hours in a ministry, a job, and meetings almost every night, and two speaking 

     engagements a week. 

What was this person's problem? An inadequate view of the student's calling. And where did he get it? From his pastor, his family, some of his fellow students, and a general atmosphere that denigrates the idea of intellectual preparation for one's eventual vocation in life. 

During your college years, being a student is your vocation. That occupation involves more than studying, but studying is by definition its major ingredient. Why not look up the word student  in the dictionary?"

- Leland Ryken

from: http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Arts-Christian-Jeffry-Davis/dp/1433523949/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364578981&sr=8-1&keywords=liberal+arts+for+the+christian+life

The Gospel and The Holy Spirit

"As a Reformed theologian I would argue that the gospel cannot be reduced to either justification or election. The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners by placing them in a right relationship to God through his substitutionary sacrifice on the cross and by engrafting them into the righteousness of Christ by the purifying work of his Spirit. This gospel needs to be received in faith and repentance and demonstrated in a life of lowly service, faith working through love. It also needs to be manifested in the practice of the spiritual gifts, which both build up the church and empower the church to reach the spiritually lost for the gospel. The life of the Christian should be one of unstinting devotion to Jesus Christ in the freedom that comes to us through the outpouring of the Spirit, whose generosity is evidenced in the proliferation of spiritual gifts and an abundance of fruits of love and obedience.

A theology firmly rooted in the mainstream Reformation will also insist that the Spirit establishes the believer in a mystical union with Jesus Christ through personal faith and repentance, sealed by the rite of baptism. The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ's Sonship, not an immanent, all-pervasive World Spirit that abides in the inner recesses of nature and humanity. The Spirit calls us not to a life of unceasing introspection but to one of sacrificial service grounded in faith in the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not the core of the soul (as in an ahistorical mysticism) but the Son of God confronting us from without by his Spirit, engaging us in personal dialogue with him. We who appeal to the Bible and celebrate the Reformation affirm not a universal Spiritual Presence that can be tapped into by prescribed repetitions but a personal, living God who remains hidden until he makes himself known in Jesus Christ. We affirm not a God who is waiting to be discovered in the depths of our being but a God who takes the initiative by confronting us as Master and Teacher, Lord and Savior. We affirm a God who does not remain distant from us but who reaches out to us by his Spirit, calling us to mission in the world in the name and for the sake of Jesus." 

- Donald G. Bloesch

from: http://www.amazon.com/The-Holy-Spirit-Christian-Foundations/dp/0830827552/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1364408096&sr=8-2&keywords=the+holy+spirit+donald+bloesch

"Well done..."

"And then, when I had thought it over, I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade, 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant.' With that, a good deal of what I had been thinking all my life feel down like a house of cards. I suddenly remembered that no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child--not in a conceited child, but a good child--as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised. Not only in a child, but even in a dog or a horse. Apparently what I had mistaken for humility had, all these years, prevented me from understanding what is in fact the humblest, the most childlike, the most creaturely of pleasures--nay, the specific pleasure of the inferior: the pleasure of a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator. I am not forgetting how horribly this most innocent desire is parodied in our human ambitions, or how very quickly, in my own experience, the lawful pleasure of praise from those whom it was my duty to please turns into the deadly poison of self-admiration. But I thought I could detect a moment--a very, very short moment--before this happened, during which the satisfaction of having pleased those whom I rightly loved and rightly feared was pure. And that is enough to raise our thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him who she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex forever will also drown her pride deeper than Prospero's book. Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself; 'it is not for her to bandy compliments with her Sovereign.' I can imagine someone saying that he dislikes my idea of heaven as a place where we are patted on the back. But proud misunderstanding is behind that dislike. In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised." 

- C. S. Lewis

from: http://www.amazon.com/Weight-Glory-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060653205/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364010352&sr=1-1&keywords=the+weight+of+glory

God-centered

"Sometimes people who are saturated with the centrality of man--whether their own selves (which Ellis calls 'me-ism') or their own kind (ethnocentrism)--do not feel that God's God-centeredness is a loving thing. How can God be loving if he does everything to display his own glory?

Well, what I have come to see is that God's commitment to the exaltation of his own glory is the essence of his love. Here is one place to see it--John 11:1-6:

     Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who 

     anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the 

     sisters sent to him, saying, 'Lord, he whom you love  is ill.' But when Jesus heard this he said,'This illness

     does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God so that the Son of God may be glorified  through it.' 

     Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus . So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed 

     two days longer in the place where he was. 

Notice three amazing things:

     1) Jesus chose to let Lazarus die. Verse 6: 'When he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer

     in the place where he was.' There was no hurry. His intention was not to spare the family grief but to 

     raise Lazarus from the dead. 

     2) He was motivated by a passion for the glory of God displayed in his own glorious power. Verse 4: 

     'This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified 

     through it.'

     3) Nevertheless, both the decision to let Lazarus die and the motivation to magnify God were expressions 

     of love for Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Verse 5: 'Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and 

     Lazarus...so...he stayed...where he was.' 

Oh, how many people today--even Christians--would murmur at Jesus for callously letting Lazarus die and putting him and Mary and Martha and others through the pain and misery of those days. And if they saw that this was motivated by Jesus's desire to magnify the glory of God, many would call this harsh or unloving. What this shows is how far above the glory of God most people value pain-free lives. For most people, love is whatever puts human value and human well-being at the center. So Jesus's behavior is unintelligible to them. 

But let us not tell Jesus what love is. Let us not instruct him how he should love us and make us central. Let us learn from Jesus what love is and what our true well-being is. Love is doing whatever you need to do to help people see and savor the glory of God forever and ever. Love keeps God central. Because the soul was made for God."  pgs 250-251

-John Piper

from: http://www.amazon.com/Bloodlines-Cross-Christian-John-Piper/dp/1433528525/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363889213&sr=1-1&keywords=bloodlines+john+piper

Postmodernism's Attack On The Character Of God - Open Theism, Prosperity Gospel, & Emergent Church

(Make sure to scroll down and check out the lists of teachers that propagate these aberrant beliefs. I would also encourage praying and researching the teachings of these people yourselves. It's very important to measure all teachings up to the authority of Scripture.)

"Next, I strongly believe that the doctrine of God is also crucial to our time. An accurate understanding of God as he declares himself in Holy Scripture, as the God who reveals himself to us by his divine attributes and properties, which attain the apex of his self-disclosure in Christ, is all but lost and despised in our culture. Postmodernism, with its relentless promotion of anti-foundationalism, is increasing its sinuous and sinister penetration into the church and is particularly being manifest in the teachings of Open Theism, Prosperity Gospel, and to some degree the emergent church. While it is true that each of these deviations has its own peculiarities, they all have this one common pervasive thread: foundationally they are all attacks on the character of God. Not only do they distort the divine attributes depicted in Scripture, but they also too often discard the historical church's understanding of them, most of which are captured in the creeds and confessions faithfully handed down to us by our forefathers. 

About two decades ago the prevalent aspect of this ungodly assault on God and on Scripture was framed by the question, 'Has God said?' Like the serpent's words to Eve in the garden of Eden, seducing her to believe his demonic lies rather than the truth of the Word of God, the aberrant teaching of yesteryear constituted a frontal attack on the very authority of God. Today, this attack continues with the addition of a few subtle twists. In this scenario, God is still speaking, but he is speaking different words , so to speak. To the Open Theists, God speaks not on the basis of ultimate, absolute, and perfect knowledge but on the basis of knowledge that is limited, one that is contingent upon and conditioned by man's actions in history. To the Prosperity and Word-Faith proponents, God's Word is not his condemnation of man for sin and his provision of his eternal Son as his only acceptable, propitiatory sacrifice for sin, but a promise of the good life, health, and wealth, with some tidbits of spirituality tossed in for good measure. As one of the more visible proponents of this false teaching has written, we can and we must live our best life now. Where the emergent church advocates are concerned, a new 'conversation' is being undertaken in a very fluid and continuously emerging environment sometimes called a village. In this milieu, what is of utmost importance is not the objective propositions enshrined in Scripture and received and cherished by the historical church but a decentralized interfaith dialog aimed at achieving a widespread ecumenism, driven by an incentive to build the kingdom by reaching the world through the process of storytelling. 

The point is that all of these distortions blatantly reject the centrality of the gospel message as it is reflected in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Modern 'reasoning' holds that, in order to meet the demands of the modern culture, God must speak a new word in new ways. The essence of these renegade doctrines is a concentrated assault on God, whose word is forever settled in heaven (Psalm 119:89) and who continues to speak to his chosen covenant people by his Word and Spirit. From Genesis to Revelation, his message is the same. He offers salvation by grace alone through faith alone in the sinless life of the God-man, Jesus Christ alone."   pgs 102-103

- Michael Leach

from: http://www.amazon.com/Glory-Road-Journeys-African-Americans-Christianity/dp/1433505843/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363716535&sr=8-1&keywords=glory+road%3A+the+journeys+of+10+african+americans+into+reformed+christianity

Word Faith/Prosperity Gospel Teachers

Joel Osteen

Joyce Meyer

T. D. Jakes

E. W. Kenyon

Kenneth Hagan

Benny Hinn

Emergent Church Teachers

Dan Kimball

Rob Bell

Brian McLaren

Donald Miller

Doug Pagitt

Neil Cole

Michael Frost

Alan Hirsch

Open Theism Teachers

Richard Rice

Gregory Boyd

Peter Wagner

Clark Pinnock

John E. Sanders

Thomas Jay Ooord

The Difference Between Prejudice and Probability Judgments

"Now here is my point: there is a fine line between legitimate probability judgments and sinful prejudice. It is a real line. God sees it even when we don't. And my concern in this chapter is to plead with you not to let the legitimacy of probability judgments function in your heart as a subtle self-justification for sinful prejudice. 

To say what I am saying is very risky. It's risky because there will be some people who read this, and, in the hardness of their hearts, they will take my words about generalizing and probability judgments and use them as a cloak for their own prejudices. I know that. 

But I take that risk because there is another group of people--most who are reading this book, I hope--who deep down know we already use this self-justification. We don't have names for it. We don't work at it. It just comes naturally, and it feels so legitimate. I am pleading with born again people--real saints with remaining corruption in our hearts--I am pleading that you read this and say, 'Yes, thank you for helping me see the subtlety of my own sin. I must put this to death.'

Three Indications Of A Good Heart

I draw this chapter to a close with five indications of a sinful disposition toward other groups and three indications of a good heart, as we struggle with the line between inevitable generalizations and sinful prejudice. By 'good heart,' I mean the heart that has received Christ, knows forgiveness, and is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, even though it is not yet perfect (Philippians 3:12-13). We have a sinful disposition when:

     We want a person to fit a negative generalization (accurate or inaccurate) that we have formed about a 

  group.

     We assume that a statistically true negative generalization is true of a particular person  in the face of    

  individual evidence to the contrary. 

     We treat all the members of a group as if all must be characterized by a negative (or positive)   

  generalization.

     We speak negatively of a group based on a generalization without giving any evidence that we 

  acknowledge and appreciate the exceptions . 

     We speak disparagingly of an entire group on the basis of a negative generalization without any personal 

  regard for those in the group who don't fit  the generalization. 

The evidence for a good heart in relationship to others would, of course, be the renunciation of those five traits. But more positively this good heart...

...desires to know people and treat people for who they really are as individuals, not simply as a representative of a class or a group. If this were not so, Jesus could never be recognized for who he really is. Do you desire--really desire--to know people and treat people as individuals not merely as samples of their group?

...is willing to take risks to act against negative expectations and belittling stereotypes when dealing with a person. Paul said,'Love...believes all things, hopes all things' (1 Corinthians 13:7). I think he meant that loves strives to believe and hope for the best, not the worst.

...is ready, like Nathaniel [John 1:43-51], to repent quickly and fully, when we have made a mistake, and judge someone wrongly. 

God, Help Us

Our hearts are deceitful still. And corruption remains. We must constantly lean on the gospel of the forgiveness of sins through Jesus (Colossians 2:13-14). We must persistently conform our minds to Christ in the gospel (1 Corinthians 2:16) and adjust our walk to be 'in step with the truth of the gospel' (Galatians 2:14). We must continually 'put to death...what is earthly' in us because we have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3, 5). 

May the Lord give us absolute honesty with ourselves and with him. May he expose every remnant of sinful prejudice. May we never use the legitimacy of generalizing to cloak the sin of prejudice. May the glory of Christ shine in our lives. God, help us." pgs 222-224

- John Piper

from: http://www.amazon.com/Bloodlines-Cross-Christian-John-Piper/dp/1433528525/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363654691&sr=8-1&keywords=bloodlines+john+piper

Israel and "the End Times"

"Ever since the occupation of Palestine by the Jewish settlers in the early 1900s and the establishment of the modern state of Israel after the war of 1947-48, the land and state of Israel have figured prominently in some end times scenarios. Often these views are based on interpretations of Old Testament prophecies about the land of Israel that take no account of how such texts are related to Christ in the New Testament. That is, they skip happily off the pages of Ezekiel and the land in the twentieth century, without reference to what the New Testament teaches about the fulfillment of Old Testament hopes in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

In the Old Testament, of course, the promise and gift of the land form a major part of Israel's faith. Paul reminds us that all Old Testament promises have their 'Yes and Amen' in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20). Whether Gentiles or Jews, believers in Christ constitute the spiritual seed of Abraham and are heirs to the covenant and promise (Galatians 3:26-28; cf. Romans 4:11-12). But that promise made to Abraham had the land as a major constituent. If all the great themes of Old Testament faith and ritual converge typologically on Christ, where does the land fit in?

The New Testament gives no special theological place to the land of Palestine, simply as territory . The land as a holy place  has ceased to have relevance for Christians.The vocabulary of blessing, holiness, promise, gift, inheritance, rest, and so on is never used of the territory inhabited by the Jewish people anywhere in the New Testament as it so frequently is in the Old. All these 'landed' realities were transferred to Christ himself (just like the sacrifices, the priesthood, the temple, and the kingship).

Paul's teaching on the new status of the Gentiles in Christ (Ephesians 2:11-3:6) is rich in Old Testament land imagery. Gentiles, before coming to Christ, were 'excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise'; that is, they had had no share in the land-kinship membership of Israel (2:12). But through the cross of Christ, Gentiles 'are no longer foreigners and strangers [landless dependants], but fellow citizens with God's people and members of his household' (2:19). This speaks of permanence, security, inclusion, and practical responsibility (cf. 3:6). This is exactly what 'being in the land' meant of Old Testament Israel. But now that same security is enjoyed by all in Christ--believing Gentiles as well as believing Jews. What Israel had through their land, all believers now have through Christ. Now Christ himself takes over the significance and the function of that old land-kinship qualification. To be 'in Christ ' carries the same status and responsibilities as to be 'in the land '. 

The writer to the Hebrews wanted to reassure Jewish believers in Jesus that they had lost nothing of their great inheritance, but rather had it all the more richly and eternally in Christ. Look at what he tells them 'we have  ': We have  the land--described as 'the rest', which even Joshua did not finally achieve for Israel, but into which we can enter through Christ (Hebrews 3:12-4:11). We have  a high priest (4:14, 8:1, 10:21). We have  an altar (13:10). We have  a hope through the covenant (6:19-20). We have  confident access into the Holy Place, so we have the reality of tabernacle and temple (10:10). We have  come to Mount Zion (12:22).

We have  a kingdom (12:28). Indeed, according to Hebrews, the only thing we do not have  is that here we have no earthly territorial city (13:14). In the light of all the other positive 'haves', this clear negative stands out all the more significantly. There is no 'holy land' or 'holy city' for Christians. We have no need of either. We have Christ. 

We must also point out that nowhere at all does the New Testament build any of its teaching about the future of either Christians or Jews or the world around future events involving a renewed independent state of Israel in the land (in New Testament times, of course, there was no state of Israel; Judea and other parts of the land were subject parts of the Roman Empire. There had been no independent state called Israel on that soil since the fall of Samaria to the Assyrians in 721 BC). Of course, Paul does indeed talk about God's continuing love for the Jews and speaks of them being 'grafted back' into their original olive tree, through faith in Jesus. But it is a categorical mistake to simply equate what the New Testament teaches about Jewish people in general with the modern state of Israel alone. 

Now, of course, it is not surprising that many Jews  have a deep attachment to the land of their ancestors, or that they continue to hold to a territorial understanding of the land promise to Abraham, since they do not accept the fundamental Christian premise that, as Paul says, 'what God promised our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus' (Acts 13:32-33). One has to say, though, that not all Jews have by any means supported the establishment of the state of Israel or approve of its continued actions over the past half century, and many sincere Jews reject Zionism politically and theologically; moreover many are dismayed by the behavior of Israel socially and militarily. 

But no single land or city on earth has a special or holy significance for Christians . The centre of our faith is not a place but a person, the person of Jesus the Messiah. And he is Lord of all the earth and will return to claim the whole earth. 

Some 'end times' scenarios predict a localized return of Jesus to Jerusalem, or the rebuilding of the temple there, or the last great battle of Armageddon literally fought in the land of modern Israel. These sensational predictions (some of which casually entertain scenarios involving massive  loss of life) enter into popular Christian fiction and folk religion. But they also affect powerful political agendas, and that makes them more potentially insidious. They give a privileged place in God's alleged final agenda for world history to the modern state of Israel on the basis of some questionable interpretations of Scripture. This, then, leads those who endorse such views to an unbiblical suspension of any prophetic critique of the oppressive policies and practices of that state. 

For some Christians, the modern Israeli state is excused from any moral or international accountability because it is 'fulfilling prophecy.' Such an attitude of blind 'support for Israel' stands in jarring contrast to the words of most of the actual biblical prophets themselves, and even of Jesus. It has always seemed strange to me that anybody who dares voice criticism of the modern Israeli state is quickly accused (by some Jews and Christians alike) of anti-Semitism. Yet, by that standard, Jesus, Paul, and the prophets would all have to be put on the same charge--which is wildly ridiculous, since all of them profoundly loved their own people, yet spoke the most trenchant words of prophetic accusation against idolatry, oppression, and racist nationalism within Israel itself. In fact, it is clear that Jesus point-blank refused to accept the agenda of Jewish territorial and political nationalism of his own day and spoke out against it. It is hard to see how he could endorse its modern equivalent."  pgs 167-170

- Christopher J. H. Wright

from: http://www.amazon.com/God-Dont-Understand-Reflections-Questions/dp/0310275466/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363462038&sr=1-1&keywords=the+god+i+don%27t+understand

God's Guidance

"Though the Bible never uses the word guidance , it does talk about a Guide. You may seek guidance, but God desires to give something better: Himself. The point I am making is a profound one. It is more than a play on words. 

And deep in your heart it is a guide, even more than guidance, that you want. Which would you prefer to have while driving in heavy traffic through a strange city, a complicated set of instructions from someone one the sidewalk or a kindly stranger who says, 'Look, I'm on my way there right now. If you'll let me hop in, I'll show you the way'? If you are a new student on a large campus, dizzy and bewildered by the complexities of registration, it is help from the fellow student who is willing to take you round the counts, not the campus map or the written guide book. 

Horoscopes fail not only because they are vague, inaccurate and sometimes evil, but because they are impersonal. There is no on to discuss matters with, no one to take your hand. For you as a Christian, guidance is meant to be an aspect of your ongoing relationship with God. He wants you to know him. Being guided by him is part of that. 

Already you must have perceived that there are at least two elements in guidance that are inseparable in experience: direction and support. I may inquire for Smith Street. On the surface I am requesting a set of directions. But beneath the surface I am anxious. I am lost. My uncertainty about where I am, whether I can get where I want to in time, whether I can understand and follow directions accurately all make me crave reassurance. It will sound foolish if I say, 'Are you sure I am going to be able to get there all right?' Yet if I were a child, and not a man, that is just what I might say. 

'My sheep hear my voice,' says Jesus, 'and I know them, and they follow me' (John 10:27). It is not only direction but also the reassurance of his presence that is promised. 'My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest' God told Moses (Exodus 33:14). 

'How very infantalizing,' some of my psychiatric colleagues would respond. 'The Christian seems to be reduced to perpetual dependency. He never becomes mature enough to take responsibility for his personal decisions. Not only does he have to be told what to do but he needs someone who will hold his hand while he does it.'

Dependency: Yes. Infantalization: No. Like all human beings you are basically dependent, you were created to be so. Man was never meant to have the kind of maturity which makes him independent of God. Through all eternity you will bow the knee to him and rejoice over the sweet comfort of his presence. 

But you will mature. Although maturity and the capacity to be independent are related, they are not synonymous. As you mature both the kind of relationship you have with God and the type of guidance you will require of him will change. You will grow more loving and trusting. You will more often know, without needing to ask, what he would have you do because you will know him and that manner of his thoughts. 

In order to understand how this can be so, you must grasp two things about the nature of divine guidance: First, God has an overall goal for your life; second, God's goal is a moral goal. His plan for you has less to do with geography than with ethics. His supreme object is to make you like his Son (Romans 8:29). Whether the process of making what he wants of you involves travel, money, joy, pain or whatever is secondary. His goal is to make you holy, and the kind of guidance he will give you will reflect this. 

It is precisely at this point that you may have problems. Usually when we want guidance, we have in the back of our minds some overall objective toward which we are striving. I may ask you to direct me to Smith Street, but my real object is to find a certain doctor who can cure me of cancer. Similarly I may want to know whether I should apply for job A or job B, but in the back of my mind I am really struggling with vague goals which have to do with happiness, 'success' or even money. 

Thus when we ask God for guidance, we may have one goal in mind while he has another. We may not therefore be interested in the kind of guidance he has to offer.

It is not that the two kinds of goal (geographical and moral) are unrelated. Geography and ethics go together. Generally when I want to decide between Chicago and New York, there will be some moral aspect to my decision. Perhaps I promised to go to New York, but it will be more financially rewarding to go to Chicago. And if I may put it this simply, God is less worried about whether I make a mistake about the geography than about the morality. It matters less that I wind up in the wrong city than that I make a wrong moral choice."   pgs 154-157

- John White

from: http://www.amazon.com/The-Fight-Practical-Handbook-Christian/dp/0877847770/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362720457&sr=8-1&keywords=john+white+the+fight 

The Toxic Root of Bitterness

"As I have traveled around the world meeting numerous Christians, I have become aware that many have long struggled to forgive other people who have wronged them. I believe it's only through relationship with Jesus Christ that we can start to walk in the freedom that comes from a life of forgiveness.

Unforgiveness soon becomes bitterness, and nothing will choke the streams of living water that are meant to flow from your life more than a root of bitterness. The root can grow so large that a person's whole personality is twisted and deformed by it. 

The first step for anyone to become whole in Christ is to accept responsibility for their own sins and failures. There is no point in blaming anyone else, regardless of what terrible things have happened to us. When someone hurts us, our natural response is to pull back and withdraw. We are created in such a way that we want to avoid pain. But then something takes place that requires us to make a vital decision. When we pull back from a person who has caused us pain, we must decide whether or not to let bitterness into our heart. 

Bitterness is what happens to you when you will not forgive. Bitterness is to hold on to an injustice that has been done to you. The Bible indicates that when a Christian is destroyed by bitterness, it not only ruins them, but it ruins other people as well: 'See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many' (Hebrews 12:15). A bitter person tends to spread the poison in their heart to others around them. Friendships often break up through bitterness, and then mutual friends are forced to choose sides, which leads to more trouble and pain.

Bitterness is a toxic root that grows in the garden of your heart if left unchecked. Usually we do not see the root, just the surface problem. Many people spend a lot of time and effort trying to beautify the outside of their lives, pulling up the surface weeds when really they need to go below the surface and dig up the root. 

The verse in Hebrews about a root of bitterness starts by saying, 'See to it that no on misses the grace of God' (12:15). Another translation talks about 'pulling back ' from the grace of God. Bitterness does exactly this. It causes a person to pull back from the grace of God. 

The first time I was arrested for the gospel in China was very difficult. Somehow in my heart I thought that as a servant of God I was entitled to special treatment in prison. I did receive special treatment, but not the kind I was hoping for! I was severely beaten until my whole body was covered in blood and bruises, and much of my hair was torn from my scalp. 

For a time I harbored bitterness against the men who had done this to me, but the gracious Lord Jesus taught me that there is absolutely no point in withholding forgiveness towards anyone, regardless of what they have done. Unforgiveness would only achieve two things. First, it would harden my heart and cause a root of bitterness to take hold, and second, my relationship with Jesus Christ could be damaged. I came to realize that self-righteousness had risen up in my heart. In effect, I was saying to God, 'Everybody else should get what they deserve, but don't we have a special relationship, with grace for me?' 

It doesn't work like that. 

Jesus taught, 'Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy' (Matthew 5:7). God wants us to forgive others of their offences as He has forgiven us of our sins and offences. In fact, Jesus ties our  forgiveness to whether or not we are willing to forgive others. He said, 'For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins' (Matthew 6:14-15).

There is only one way to dig out the stubborn root of bitterness from our hearts. 

It is to forgive."   pgs 32-34

- Brother Yun

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Water-Teachings-International-Bestselling/dp/0310285542/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362685622&sr=8-1&keywords=living+waters+brother+yun

"Fear Of The Future" Part One

 "Then there are other things which emerge as you consider the case of the people who fear the future. You will find that they are always concerned about the nature of the task confronting the Christian. They have a very high conception of the Christian cause (if we may judge by the things they say), they have an exalted idea of the Christian life. These people realize that it is not an easy thing to be a Christian, that it is not just a matter of being converted and then lying on a bed of roses for the rest of your life. No, they see it as a high calling, a fight of faith; they see the exalted character of the life; they see it means following Christ. They read their New Testament and--invariably they are intelligent people--they are aware of the greatness of the task and of the calling. But that in turn tends to depress them because they are equally aware of their own smallness. In other words they have a fear of failure. They are afraid of letting down the cause. They say: 'I like the gospel. I believe my sins are forgiven. I want to be a Christian, but I am so afraid I will fail. All is well while I am in meetings or in the company of Christian people, but I have to live and I know myself and my weakness, I know the greatness of the task and I know the difficulties.' They are afraid of failure; they do not want to let God down and the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church on earth. Who are they to live the Christian life? The greatness of the task and their acute awareness of their own deficiencies and needs oppresses them. Or it may be that they just suffer from a kind of general fear of the future, while they cannot put their finger on anything in particular. You ask them if they are afraid of any one special thing and they do not know, but they have this general fear, this apprehensiveness with regard to the future, of things that may happen, of things they may be called upon to suffer. I have often had to deal with such people. I remember a lady telling me: 'Well, yes, I do believe, but I do not know that I can call myself a Christian.' When I said: 'Why can't you?' Her reply was something like this: 'I have been reading about people in the past and people in the present who are being persecuted for Christs' sake, and I have tried to imagine myself having to face that position.' She had a little boy of three at the time and she said: 'You know, if it really became a question of denying my faith or giving up this boy I do not know what I would say; I do not think I would be strong enough; I doubt if I would have the courage to put Christ first at all costs or perhaps to suffer death if necessary'. And she therefore thought she had no right to call herself a Christian. Now she had never been, and indeed might never be, put to such a tests, but she was conscious of the possibility and it was depressing her. Such spiritual depression is due to fear of the future--often imaginary fears. 

We must not stay with these descriptions thought we could multiply the cases. The remarkable thing is that it is possible for such things to grip us as to paralyse us completely in the present; such people are very often in danger of being so absorbed and gripped by these fears that they really become ineffective in the present.  There is not doubt at all that that was the essence of the trouble with Timothy (2 Timothy 1:7). Paul was in prison and Timothy began to wonder what was going to happen to him. What if Paul were to be put to death? How could he, Timothy, face alone the difficulties that were arising in the Church and he persecution that was beginning to show itself and in which he Timothy himself, might be involved? So Paul had to be quite firm with him: and he tells him that he must not be ashamed of him and his suffering--'Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but be thou partaker of he afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God'. Fear of the future was undoubtedly the essence of Timothy's trouble. 

The question for us is, how are we to deal with the condition; how is it to be treated? Once more I cannot think of any better way than to adopt the procedure we adopted with our previous problem. There are certain preliminary general considerations before we become to the precise teaching of Scripture. So I would lay down certain propositions. The first thing here again is to discover, and to know exactly where to draw the line between legitimate forethought and paralyzing forethought. Now it is right that we should think about the future, and it is a very foolish person who does not think about it at all. But what we are always warned against in Scripture is about being worried about the future. Take no thought for the morrow,' means 'Do not be guilty of anxious care about the morrow'. It does not mean that you do not take any thought at all, otherwise the farmer would not plough and harrow and sow. He is looking to the future, but he does not spend the whole of his time wondering and worrying about the end results of his work. No, he takes reasonable thought and then he leaves it. Here again the whole question is where to draw the line. Thinking is right up to a point, but if you go beyond that point it becomes worry and anxiety and it paralyses and cripples. In other words, although it is very right to think about the future; it is very wrong to be controlled by it. The difficulty with people who are a prey to these fears is that they are controlled by the future, they are dominated by thoughts of it, and there they are wringing their hands, doing nothing, depressed by fears about it. In fact, they are completely governed and mastered by the unknown future, and that is always wrong. Now that is a fundamental proposition and the world has discovered it. It has told us not to cross our bridges until we get to them. Put that into your Christian teaching, for the world is right there, and the Christian must accept that wisdom. Don't cross your bridges until you come to them. Indeed, many Scriptural statements to the same effect have become proverbial--'take no thought for the morrow', 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof'. Certainly the New Testament raises that concept and puts it in its spiritual form. But it is true on the lowest level--'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof'. That is sound common sense. As we saw before, it is a waste of time to be concerned about the past which you cannot affect; but it is equally wrong to be worried about the future which at the moment is obscure. 'One step enough for me.' Live in the present moment to the maximum and do not let your future mortgage your present any more than you should let that past mortgage your present. 

Now let us go on to what the Apostle says. He raises the reasoning to a higher level and gives us specific teaching of a two-fold character. First of all, it is a reprimand, and secondly it is a reminder. Now both these are absolutely vital and essential. The first thing he does is to reprimand Timothy. He turns on him and says: 'For God hath not given us the spirit of fear'. Now that is a reprimand. Timothy at the moment was guilty of the spirit of fear, he was gripped by it; so Paul reprimands him--'God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind'. The principle, the doctrine here, is that our essential trouble, if we suffer from this particular manifestation of spiritual depression, is our failure to realize what God has given us, and is giving us, in giving us the gift of the Holy Ghost. That was really the trouble with Timothy as it is the trouble with all such Christians. It is a failure to realize what God has done for us, and what God is still doing in us. In fact, we can employ words which our Lord once used in a slightly different connection. In answering James and John who wanted to call fire from heaven to consume certain of the Samaritans, He said: 'Ye know not what spirit ye are of'. Now that is what Paul is saying to Timothy. There it was negative, here it is positive. The Apostle has to tell Timothy to stir up the gift of God. 

Our fears are due to our failure to stir up--failure to think, failure to take ourselves in hand. You find yourself looking to the future and then you begin to imagine things and you say: 'I wonder what is going to happen? And then, your imagination runs away with you. You are gripped by the thing; you do not stop to remind yourself of who you are and what you are, this thing overwhelms you and down you go. Now the first thing you have to do is to take a firm grip of yourself, to pull yourself up, to stir yourself, to take yourself in hand and to speak to yourself. As the Apostle puts it, we have to remind ourselves of certain things. And as I understand it, the big thing that Paul is saying in effect to Timothy is: 'Timothy, you seem to be thinking about yourself and about life and all you have to do as if you were still an ordinary person! You are a Christian, you are born again, the Spirit of God is in you. But you are facing all these things as if you are still what you once were, an ordinary person.' And is not that the trouble with us all in this connection? Though we are truly Christian, though we believe the truth, though we have been born again, though we are certainly children of God, we lapse into this condition in which we again begin to think as if none of these things had happened to us at all. Like the man of the world, the man who has never been regenerated, we allow the future to come to us and to dominate us, and we compare our own weakness and lack of strength with the greatness of the calling and the tremendous task before us. And down we go as if we were but our natural selves. Now the thing to do, says Paul to Timothy, is to remind yourself that we have been given the gift of God's Holy Spirit, and to realize that because of this our whole outlook upon life and the future must therefore be essentially different. We must think of suffering in a new way, we must face everything in a new way. And the way in which we face it all is by reminding ourselves that the Holy Spirit is in us. There is the future, there is the high calling, there is the persecution, there is the opposition, there is the enemy. I see it all. I must admit also that I am weak, and that I lack the necessary powers and propensities. But instead of stopping there I must go on to say: 'Yes, I know it all, but----' And the moment I use that word 'but' I am doing what the Apostle wants me to do. I say: 'But--but the Spirit of God is in me; God has given me His Holy Spirit'. The moment I say that the whole outlook changes. In other words, we have to learn to say, that what matters in any of these positions is not what is true of us but what is true of Him. Timothy by nature was weak and the enemy was powerful, and the task was great. Yes, but he must not think of himself alone or of he situation in terms of himself--'God hath not given us the spirit of fear. He hath given us the Spirit of power'. So do not think of your own weakness; think of the power of the Spirit of God. It is when we begin to do that that we balance our doctrine and see the whole position clearly..." pgs 96-101

- Martyn Lloyd Jones

from: http://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Depression-Its-Causes-Cure/dp/0802813879/ref=wl_mb_hu_m_2_dp

A Loving God's Anger

"God is love. Love is God's being, nature, and character. God acts with faithful love in all the he does (Psalm 145:17; or, perhaps toward all that he has made). Everything in the universe calls forth God's love and is the object of it. There is nothing in the whole created universe that God does not love, with one single exception.  

Only one thing in the universe arouses God's anger, and that is--evil. Why? Because the very essence of evil is to resist, reject, and refuse the love of God. Evil is in essence rebellion against God's love. Evil seeks to frustrate all the good purposes that God's love seeks to achieve for his creation, and that makes God angry. What sort of God would he be if he were not angry with everything that tries to wreck his good creation?

It is precisely because God loves the world so much that he is angry against all who defy the goodness of what God wants for his world. If God didn't love the world, he wouldn't be angry with evil. If God were not angry with evil, he could not really claim to love the world. Anger is the totally justified reflex of love when it is betrayed and frustrated. Would you want to be loved by a God who was not  angry against evil?

Miroslav Volf is a Christian theologian from Croatia. He says that he used to hold to the fashionable view that dismissed the wrath of God, that the idea of an angry God was somehow incompatible with the love of God. But then war came to his country. Terrible atrocities were done. Then he thought--if God is not angry at such injustice and cruelty, then he is not a God worth worshiping. Only if God is angry against such evil is he worth loving, or being loved by us. 

     I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. Isn't God love? Shouldn't divine love be beyond wrath? God

  is love, and God loves ever person and every creature. That's exactly why God is wrathful against some of

  them. My last resistance to the idea of God's wrath was a casualty of the world in the former Yugoslavia, the

  region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were

  displaced. My  villages and cities were destroyed, my  people shelled day in and day out, some of them

  brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Or think of Rwanda in the last

  decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God

  react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandfatherly fashion? By refusing to condemn the

  bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators' basic goodness? Wasn't God fiercely angry with them? Though

  I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God's wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel

  against a God who wasn't  wrathful at the sight of the world's evil. God isn't wrathful in spite of being love. God

  is wrathful because  God is love.

A few years ago my wife and I sat round our table with a woman in great distress. Her husband was behaving in inexplicably hurtful ways and it was throwing their marriage into a turmoil of contradictory messages. She was visibly and expressly angry indeed with him for his unconscionable behavior. But then she cried through her tears, 'But I do love him so much. I just want him back.'

That's it, isn't it? That's totally understandable and justified. Love and anger go together when love comes up against wickedness. If she had not loved him so much, she would not have been so angry with him for what he was doing. If she had not been angry at all at his behaviour, it would have meant she did not really love him but was indifferent. Her anger and love were simultaneous emotions within the same breast, toward the same person. Why, then, do we say they are contradictory in God?...

...The wonderful paradox, which lies beyond our understanding, is that the cross was simultaneously the outpouring of God's anger and the outpouring of God's love. For in his love for us, God was absorbing, in Christ, his anger against sin. For that reason, two of the lines in Stuart Townend's wonderful hymn 'In Christ Alone' could be modified to a greater biblical fullness of meaning. Townend wrote,

          ...till on that cross as Jesus died

        the wrath of God was satisfied.

It would be equally biblical and truthful and probably better to sing, 

        ...till on that cross as Jesus died

        God's wrath and love were satisfied. "

- Christopher J. H. Wright

from: http://www.amazon.com/God-Dont-Understand-Reflections-Questions/dp/0310275466/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362261494&sr=1-1&keywords=the+god+i+don%27t+understand