The Girl In Chains
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Don’t Be Busy
Every so often, there comes a time in the life of a Christian where they can feel bland; where they feel like they aren’t really radical, or not really ‘on fire’ for God. This can tend to come on when life gets very busy, when life seems to be overwhelming.
Busyness is a joy killer, busyness is a peace-killer, busyness robs you from making the right decisions.
‘For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.’ – Romans 8:14
If we are lead by the Spirit we will begin a life long process that involves you releasing control over all areas of your life to God (that’s not easy). So when the busyness comes, when people try and rush you, when you have 3 exams in 2 days and cannot see away around it you can find rest in God. Like the Psalmist said, ‘Be still in the presence of the LORD’.
When the enemy comes, and he will at some point. You don’t have to worry about stress, you don’t have to worry being too busy, you don’t have to worry about losing your peace.
We have been made by God. We are sons/daughters of the creator of the universe. That carries some swagger. That carries some power. We are fully allowed to invite God in to every area of our lives and have Him rule. We are able to ask Him for help when we feel stuck. We are able to ask Him for peace when stress is around.
Be like Joshua in the Bible. When anointed to lead the Israelites in to the promise land his command from God was to, ‘Be Strong and Courageous!’.
Christopher Hitchens | RIP (1949-2011)
Waking up this morning was just like any other friday until I checked the news. That is when I read that Christopher Hitchens had died. This saddened me immensely. He was to me and will always be a unique gentleman. His intellectual prose and incisive personality will always be remembered. It seemed that he could speak at length about any topic given; Hitchens personality was as magnetic as they come.
In his memoirs Hitchens showed off his wit, passion, and most of all his independence. Although Hitchens was liberal he would never be confined to that stereotype. His untamed personality would never allow anyone to box him in to anything.
Hitchens was a self-declared atheist from what seemed to be very early on in his life. But even that did not stop him from becoming friends with people who held contrasting ideologies. Even though his hate for religion was purposeful and determined that did not stop him from making statements like this about the King James Version of the Bible,
“An unbeliever argues that our language and culture are incomplete without a 400-year-old book—the King James translation of the Bible. Spurned by the Establishment, it really represents a triumph for rebellion and dissent. Accept no substitutes!”
Hitchens had what seemed to be a sincere friendship with Pastor Doug Wilson an avowed Calvinist. The co-wrote the book ‘Is Christianity Good for the World?’. This is a fantastic book to read that will challenge your opinion on God no matter what side to currently stand.
Was his skepticism the victor? I pray not. Although I disagreed with some of his claims against religion and God I still have prayed that just like the thief on the cross he is in eternity with Jesus right now. I gave my prayers to God, asked they he might be saved in the hope of one day meeting him in paradise.
I will finish with a quote from Danny Burk,
“Nevertheless, we may never have any evidence this side of glory that the light finally broke through to Hitchens. Would we be surprised in heaven to find out that it did?”
Rest in peace Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)
A Passion to Preach | Knowing Your Identity in God.
God Made Me For a Reason
In an era where you can watch and listen to the ‘best’ preachers around the world; were you can find thousands of blogs, websites, and videos around the globe in seconds. When you get up to speak at a church or small group or just chatting with your friends; it is so easy to slip in to being someone else, talking like your favourite speaker, or even praying for people like you see ‘that guy’ pray. Why do we choose to imitate instead of just simply admire someone doing what their called to do?
Searching for the Spotlight
Look, I want to be honest, I am 22. I am not this guy who has preached for 30 years. I am not the guy who has spent more time with God then all my friends. I am not even that seems to speak wisdom every time he opens his mouth. I am the guy who is trying to find my identity. I am the guy who is trying to learn to be a good husband. I am the guy who still love attention a bit too much sometimes. I am the guy that speaks before I think sometimes and I can dig a whole for myself but wont admit it because I am proud and stubborn. So please don’t think I have life sorted, please think I am a young man trying to discover my Identity in God and learn from what ever I can.
I know if I am not spending time with God and being accountable I can so easily fall in to christian plagiarism. At one point I was listening to 6 podcasts a week from around the world whilst also going to 2 services on a Sunday. So that is 8 messages that I was taking in; 8 different styles; 8 differently methods, and at least 8 different things to challenge myself with. So when it came time for me to share to my small group or to preach; I would have a lot of different styles going through my head. I could switch from being like Bill Johnson, to Matt Chandler, to Mark Driscoll, to John Piper, to John Arnott, to Heidi Baker in one talk. I could affectively plagiarise all those guys hard work and yet still find my identity in what I was saying.
Finding Your Identity In God
Trying to be like someone else robs you of your God-given Identity. Trying to be like anyone else will rob you from being who God created you to be. I am all up for admiring someone, but when that admiration turns to imitation or idolization you have moved from being who God created you to be, to just being a mimic act.
Robert Murray McCheyne said this about preaching,
“Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two: your life preaches all week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry. Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your words, from God.”
This is the call to all believers who wish to be a preacher or in some time of ministry where your message leads and guides a body of people.
Passion
The Apostle Paul said this, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.” Grace just isn’t there for when you mess up. Grace is there for to help you through the good and the bad times. Grace is there to help you grow in understanding. When Paul said he ‘worked harder than any of them’. It wasn’t because of his sheer discipline in life. It was by the grace of God he was able to do it.
Our Call
Our calling a believers in Jesus is to be unique beings but to have the same purpose; to see Jesus come. The Psalmist said,
“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.”Power
God knows you. God knows me! We must find our daily love our daily identity from God. If you’re not regularly reading the bible… get some accountability and get reading. Find Him in everything you do. Fight sin by clinging to Christ. The Holy Spirit is in us. We have His power. Now the word primary use of the word ‘power’ in the New Testament is all about ‘freedom to choose’. The power of the Holy Spirit is so best displayed in us when we make a choice to accept his power in our life.
Be yourself. That’s the way God made you. Admiring a person is fine. But don’t find your identity in them or what they say. Find your value, find your meaning, find your identity in God.
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What is Revival?
What Does Revival Look Like?
The word itself means to restore, to bring back to life, to strengthen, to invigorate. Revival is the spark of a paradigm shift that transforms a culture. Does the word revival still mean the same thing today in our western culture as it did to the early church in Acts 2? Does it mean the same thing to the underground church in China currently? I would say no, and this is why.
Catch Phrase Culture
Revival has become a catch phrase that people use hype something up. People use it to make it seem like it is ‘the business’ or the next best thing. It’s become something that is no longer a paradigm shift, revival no longer means complete restoration or rebirth. Where as true revival is something that is life changing. Something that is restores you back to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Something that has no social boundaries, that every man, women, and child can grasp and will strengthen them to leave their old lifestyle and cling on to this new one. Genuine revival will start not with the government or a ruling body of power, but it will start in the hearts of the regular people.
Genuine Revival
Ray Ortlund brings a healthy reminder of what a genuine revival looks like by saying, “Revival is a gift from heaven. We don’t work it up. God sends it down.” When we see that this is not man-made, that this is something that God gives us, we are forced to look at it completely differently.
Terry Vigro wrote this about revival,
“Here’s a classic example of a genuine spiritual revival that eventually changes society itself. Bills passed in the Legislature won’t ultimately change society; you can’t legislate a nation into righteousness. What can change a nation is a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit saturated and grounded in the gospel.”
Because the term revival has been used so much. You have a dig very deep to start finding early references of real revivals (yes there is such a thing). While I was reading up on some ‘revivals’ in early history I have found some work that Jonathan Edward’s wrote on revival in an essay entitled The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God. Jonathan Edwards broke down positive and negative signs of a revival. Positive signs, proofs that God must be at work. A revival is always imperfect, because we complicate it. But we can still know that God is there too. The devil not only won’t, but can’t produce these outcomes:
- People lovingly raise their esteem of the biblical Jesus, displayed in the gospel.
- The movement pushes back against sin and Satan’s hold on people’s lives.
- People revere the Bible with a settled conviction that it is God’s truth.
- People receive and are helped by sound theology, even though it means they have to change.
- People grow in love for Christ and in loving humility toward one another.
Edwards taught that when spiritual power moves through a church with this impact, the Holy Spirit has done it. This is revival. We should receive it with enthusiasm.
Then we have the negative signs. That is, what’s going on in a church may or may not be of God. We just can’t be sure. Edwards listed nine negative evidences:
- What’s stirring in a church is new, unprecedented, surprising.
- People are emotionally aroused, trembling and weeping, even passing out.
- It attracts attention and causes a public stir.
- People have intense experiences, and spiritual things become vividly real.
- What draws people in is the example of others.
- The people involved misbehave at times, even get weird.
- Satan mixes in his delusions.
- Some of the people involved fall into bad doctrine and sin.
- The preachers scare people with their portrayal of God’s wrath and hell.
Edwards believed that a movement marked by these negative signs is not necessarily disqualified as true revival. But we need to know more.
While asking some friends about what they thought revival was, I began to see that we can see this disconnect between what revival is and how in some cases it has hurt people more than re-invigorating them.
What does Revival mean to you? Here is some of the response I received.
“a vague and over used word that the church likes to use and bears very little relevance to the world around us.”
“the result of successful cpr”
“the word ‘revival’ is over used & over rated!”
“Couldn’t describe what I’ve never seen”
“It’s a ‘coming back’, possibly stronger than before”
“Jesus came that we would have life, and life to the full. Revival is a reset, back to that..”
“Re-invent, Re-create, Re-ject, Re-pair, Re-cycle, Re-store, Re-gain, Re-define, Re-appraise, Re-fresh…there’s lots of ‘re’ words that are cool & loaded with meaning!!!”
“A waking up. Hearts waking up to God’s love.”
Re-Birth of Revival
I don’t think we need to ditch the word revival. But, maybe if we start using it a bit more strategically, and a bit less haphazardly. Timothy Keller describes what a genuine revival looks like when it comes down to it’s essentials characteristics:
- Extraordinary prayer
- Recovery of the grace-gospel.
- Renewed individuals
- The gospel on the heart in counseling
- Instituted means of grace
If you would like to read the article you can find it here.
So, what shall we say then? I still believe in revival, I still pray that God would meet His people in such a way that their lives are never the same.
Despite Revival being a taboo word right now, our prayers need to be filled with faith and hope that God’s divine power would fill HIs people. If we have been hurt by a ‘revival’ or we feel the word is over used; lets begin to pray that Christ would change that. Revival is can be a cliché if not used correctly. Lets be that change.
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Review | Transforming Mission by David J. Bosch
Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission by David J. Bosch
Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission is a in-depth study on missiology (mission) from the New Testament to what can now be described as mission in a post-modern world. David Bosch is a great writer, very intelligent, and is very good at explaining multiple sides of one story while still keeping true to his own beliefs.
About David J. Bosch
David Bosch was professor of Missiology and a lecturer at the University of South Africa from 1971 to 1992, after working as a missionary in the Transkei province since 1957. Amongst other roles he had been that of general secretary for the South African Missionary Association, editor of the Missionalia journal and chaired various national Christian assemblies in South Africa. He died from a tragic road accident on April 1992. He was married to Annemarie Elisabeth.
The Book is split up into three sections whilst covering five major paradigm shifts throughout history. The three sections are:
- New Testament Models of Mission
- Historical Paradigms of Mission
- Toward a Relevant Missiology
This Book is what I like to call a ‘fountain on knowledge’. I have never read a book that is as in-depth while also covering thousands of years of church history. Transforming mission is not a ‘light read’, you are going to want to take your time to understand what he is trying to say.
One of his main points is that mission is everything within the right context so Bosch defines what exactly he means when he talks about mission. David writes,
“Mission is, quite simply, the participation of Christians in the liberating mission of Jesus, wagering on a future that verifiable experience seems to believe. It is the good news of God’s love, incarnated in the witness of a community, for the sake of the world” P.519
However, the underlying argument tends towards agnosticism about the possibility of an agreed meaning for the word and concept of mission. This is explicit early in the book:
“Ultimately, mission remains indefinable. . . . The most we can hope for is to formulate some approximations of what mission is all about.” P.9
First, he argues that the Bible itself does not offer a single mission theology but several, and he distinguishes the approaches of Jesus, Matthew, Luke-Acts, and Paul. Consequently he suggests that it is impossible to build a single biblical theology of mission on which to base contemporary practice. There is a lot of debate whether that is right or wrong but I would view that as a caution when reading this book.
Bosch’s approach has been influential, but it moves towards a relativist and subjectivist approach to mission. This is essentially due to his pessimism about the possibility of a unified biblical theology of mission. However, while the diversity of the biblical testimony cannot be disputed, but by having a sceptic view about the basic unity of its witness, either with respect to mission or anything else. You could argue that the Bible offers a fundamentally unified picture of the mission of a God who, from Adam’s first act of sin, pursues rebellious people to redeem a people, a purpose whose realization is portrayed in John’s vision of “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb”(Rev 7:9). That mission he now carries out through his church as it makes disciples of Jesus Christ.
Despite my concerns I would highly recommend Transforming Mission by David Bosch. It is a key reading in most missiological studies and Bosch challenges a lot of preconceptions about mission and gives valuable reflections and answers.
Review: How to Read the Bible for All its Worth
How to Read the Bible for All its Worth.
Gordon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart have written a fantastic book! My brief description would be something like:
“Understanding the Bible is accessible, and it’s meant to be understood by anyone and everyone and this book gives you some very good insights into grasping the meaning of scripture and how we apply in to our modern-day.”
I have both read the paperback copy and listened to the audio book and have really been amazed at how Fee & Stuart are able to approach topics like Hermeneutics, Translation, and Covenant Law in an easy to understand way. When i first grabbed this book I wasn’t to sure about the strong emphasis around find a good translation and understanding why everyone needs to know how to interpret the bible even if they are new believers; but soon after reading they won me over!
This book if for anyone who is wanting to know more about the back round to the Bible. How to figure out what a passage means, and how the old and new covenant relate to each other.
I did however find that Fee & Stuart would push the TNIV translation over most others and found it a bit pushy at times. I am unsure if they were on the counsel for the TNIV but would not be surprised to find out that they were.
Over all I would say this is a must read for christians and is a great resources for wherever you are in your walk with Jesus.
Joshua Generation: Challenging Statement
I have recently wrote a blog for www.joshgen.co.uk and thought I would share it here as well.
Relationship and The Heart of God.
Last week at JoshGen we had a great time of encountering god! Worshiping Him is something that we really put an emphasis on. During Lloyd’s preach he said something that really challenged me. “You can have read your bible, but still not know Jesus.”
That Statement is powerful and needs a bit of unpacking. Matthew 7:22-23 – On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’
Hard Truth…
That is scary! But it does show you that having a life where you engage in a relationship with God, outweighs the fact that you can cast a demon out, or prophecy in Jesus’ name. This is revolutionary, this means that your right standing with God has nothing to do with your acts of service and how much you have done; but more to do with your heart and if you engage with God in your heart and in your life. If you can start to do that then when God asks you to do something, when the Holy Spirit moves in a new way, you want nothing more than to do it! You want nothing more than to be with Him where He is.
So for those of you who may have struggled with that statement, for those who just didn’t get it, I hope this can bring some ease to your hearts and minds.
If you have any questions let me know, and like always if you have any comments or other thoughts about this, feel free to post.
Chris
Update: Promises vs. Godly Wisdom
The Battle In My Mind
During my facilitation this week in my Intro to the Bible and Hermeneutics course and we were looking at the Wisdom and Poetry books of the Bible; which are: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Psalms, Lamentations, and Ezra.
We were looking at how you contextualize those books of the Bible and we were discussing some interesting ideas that I thought would be a cool to see what other people’s opinions are. So, here is the idea. Lets take the book of Proverbs; when it says a wise quote or cool saying that seems great to us (Great riches are in the house of those who are right with God, but trouble is what the sinful will receive Prvbs 15:6). Is it a promise of just Godly Wisdom?
If I feel stirred by this passage and feel like it is truth for me and what I am doing. Is that a promise? It challenged me.
I have never thought of that before, that it’s wisdom and not a promise. That it isn’t something that is going to happen necessarily. I wanted to see what you thought?
Reading List – Term 1
Term 1 Reading List:
Here are the list of books that I am working my way through this first term and my thoughts so far on them.
- How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth – Gordon Fee & Douglas Stuart
- How to Read the Bible Book by Book – Gordon Fee & Douglas Stuart
- Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (American Society of Missiology) – David Bosch
I am then reading on average 3-5 readers which can be anywhere from a chapter of a book to over one hundred pages per session.
Thoughts so far:
Both of the how to read the bible books are very interesting in their approach to reading the bible. I had heard mixed reviews before about the way they interpret the bible. But as far as I can tell they’re both very thorough in their own approach and they are very good a making complicated terminology very simple. David Bosch’s book on the other hand is a very in-depth and very academic approach to see how the mission of the church has changed from biblical times to modern-day. I would like to say I understand what he is saying but that would just be a lie… While I am reading I am taking notes and I am looking in my dictionary and thesaurus just to understand. I have been told by some of the second year students that it does get easier.
So that is where I am at with my reading so far.
Once again ask any questions you may have, and I will do my best to answer.
