All Great

Saw this post from the Gospel-Driven Church Blog and thought it was great play on the word great!

What is the message of the gospel?

That the greatest good (God) offers the greatest action (love) to the greatest need (wrath-owed sinners) by sending the greatest treasure (Jesus) in the greatest invitation (to everyone) into the greatest life (everlasting).

How is this not exciting?

Self Denial has an end in mind

When Paul was willing to suffer for Christ, he showed the nations that Christ is more precious than comfort and security and prosperity. In other words, the infinite value of the wisdom of God is revealed not in Paul’s prosperity but in Paul’s pain - in his prison. That’s where it shines because this is the wisdom of the cross and we are called to pick up our crosses and display to the demons, that we treasure Christ more than any human comfort. 

-- John Piper
Lausanne Address at Cape Town 2010

Being part of the faith community but not really embracing God

    But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.   (Matthew 3:7-10 ESV)

The Pharisees came looking but not repenting or being baptized.  There are always those who are on the fringes of the work of God, even religious types, who come but never really embrace God by repenting or fully embracing what he is doing.  Religious people will read this and automatically think that this does not apply to them.  That itself is a symptom of 'Phariseeism!'  Beware of the power of indwelling sin to deceive us!  Do not be left out of what God is doing in our body at this time - individuals are giving themselves to Christ, God is drawing new people to our body, and we started the Sanctuary remodel this week.  We had several faithful individuals who were diligently working to make the gym into a place of worship for us.  Lets come and embrace what God is doing in our midst!

David

Means & Mission

We must not over-focus on technique, or clever approaches. We dare not say we will accomplish this task because we have the money and the technology. It will be accomplished only because of the greatness of the gospel, the lordship of Christ, and the glory of God in the face of Christ, with authentic, transformed, joyful lives.  -- Lindsay Brown - Lausanne Address at Cape Town 2010

Dynamic Wealth Report - Investment Insight You Can Profit From

If every American spent money the way the US government does they would be bankrupt many times over. If those same individuals exposed their spending habits to most of us, we would say they were insanely foolish. The US government is giving $4 billion a year to subsidize American cotton farmers at a time when cotton is at all time highs. We are also giving $150 million to Brazilian cotton farmers to help them compete with US cotton farmers!

Dynamic Wealth Report - Investment Insight You Can Profit From

What are you believing God to do?

God is looking for those with whom He can do the impossible-- what a pity that we plan only the things that we can do by ourselves. -- A. W. Tozer

Too often many of us Christ followers shrink our expectations of God down to bite size pieces so that we end up not living a life of faith. God becomes manageable and we belittle him with small minded thinking. May God rip the roofs off of our unbelief.

Are you a cross bearer?

Jesus hath many lovers of His heavenly Kingdom, but few bearers
of His Cross. He hath many desirous of consolation, but few of
tribulation. Many love Jesus so long as no adversities befall
them. -- Thomas à Kempis

5 Ways To Get the Most Out of a Sermon

5 Ways To Get the Most Out of a Sermon | The Resurgence

Suffering

For Christ’s sake we Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering. I don’t want you to choose between these two truths. Christ doesn’t want you to choose between pouring your life out for the alleviation of unjust human suffering now and the pouring out your life to rescue the perishing from everlasting suffering, which is 10 million times worse than anything anybody will ever experience here. I don’t want you to choose between these two. Christ is calling us to pull these together.

-- John Piper
Lausanne Address at Cape Town 2010

Why Sacramento Shouldn't Expect a Bailout

This is a great article in the WSJ about the state of California. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. Polls show that the citizens of California are dissatisfied with their politicians and legislature; if so why do they keep re-electing them back in? Then they want the US government to bailout them out! Stop the insanity!

Allysia Finley: California Is the Lindsay Lohan of States and Sacramento Shouldn't Expect a Bailout - WSJ.com

Concerning our salvation . . .

I can contribute nothing to my own salvation, except the sin
from which I need to be redeemed.  -- William Temple

re: Do not waste your life!

The tragedy of life and of the world is not that men do not know God; the tragedy is that, knowing Him, they still insist on going their own way.      -- William Barclay

The Epitome of Government Insanity!

Faith and Love

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. (2 Thessalonians 1:3 ESV)

Paul frequently links faith and love together, particularly in the Pastoral Epitles.  Evidence of a growing faith is a growing love for others.  When Paul mentions faith he is generally talking about two things.  First is the content of our faith, doctrine or theology.  Theology is a growing understanding of who God is and his ways ways as described in the bible.  Theology sometimes gets a bad rap but whether we admit it or not we all are arm chair theologians who espouse a theology.  Theology is important because it determines the way we think about God which determines our affections, and thus our choices.  A growing faith also means a growing trust in God because of who we understand him to be and what he promises to be for us. 
It is out of this growing faith that love for others grow.  At one point Paul even says faith works through love (Gal 5:6) and he means much more than warm fuzzy feelings for others.  He means loving our neighbors as ourselves or sacrificially denying ourselves for the sake of others.  We see this exemplified in the life of Christ who gave himself for us and we see this also exemplified in the radical acts of sacrificial giving in the early church.  I also see this in our body. 
 I see our elders serving our body tirelessly.  I see our trustees spending lots of time and energy working on our building remodel.  I see our children's ministry workers, especially the leadership, working with all their might to teach our children to 'Desire God' more than life itself.  I see our Youth Director and his staff sacrificing their time and energy to minister to our youth and reach out to others.  I see several very busy mothers sacrificing time and energy to help out in our office in the absence of a secretary.  And lastly, I saw dozens of our people helping out in little and large ways to make the annual Harvest Carnival another smashing success with over 600 people coming through our doors this past Halloween.  I can gladly pray as Paul did, giving thanks for you all because your faith is growing abundantly and your love for one another is increasing!

Let me me encourage you to continue to prayerfully read the Word and let the Spirit of God shape your understanding of God and his ways so that your love will abound increasingly!