Don’t love the church because. . .

Josh Harris reminds us of why we shouldn’t love the church and why we should:

Do you love the church? Romans 12:10 tells Christians to “Love one another with brotherly affection.”

The affection and love we’re to have for fellow-Christians is to be based on the work of Jesus Christ for us. It’s not about elitism, it’s not because Christians are better than anyone else, it certainly isn’t because Christians are necessarily more lovable. We love the church because we love the Savior who redeemed the church.

Acts 20:28 tells us that Jesus obtained the church with his own blood. Is this what your love for the church is based on? If it’s anything less than it won’t last.

• Don’t love the church because of what it does for you. Because sooner or later it won’t do enough.
• Don’t love the church because of a leader. Because human leaders are fallible and will let you down.
• Don’t love the church because of a program or a building or activities because all those things get old.
• Don’t love the church because of a certain group of friends because friendships change and people move.

Love the church because of who shed his blood to obtain the church. Love the church because of who the church belongs to. Love the church because of who the church worships. Love the church because you love Jesus Christ and his glory. Love the church because Jesus is worthy and faithful and true. Love the church because Jesus loves the church.

Read Full Post »

Walking through life as ghosts

Trevin shares this astute observation on life today:

“Adam McHugh’s book, Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture, is well worth reading. (I have a review coming soon.) I found this section to be a good critique of technology’s ability to simultaneously connect and disconnect us from other people:”

Ours is an overstimulated culture, and an insidious side effect is that our inner worlds are atrophying. As our world becomes more and more driven by external stimulation and our lifestyles mirror the dizzying speed of our technology, we focus outward at the expense of the inward. We take leaps and bounds in one direction but drift from another, which can have the effect of alienating us from ourselves, others and God.

My wife and I recently witnessed the disorienting nature of technology at a local movie theater. The next day, perhaps ironically, I recorded my reflections on my blog:

There were three people in the rows in front of us who had their cell phones open during the entire movie. They were text messaging and surfing the Internet and otherwise annoying people. As I saw those cell phone screens open during the movie, I observed that the people using them were not fully committed to being anywhere during those two hours. They were physically sitting in the theater, even sitting with others who accompanied them, but their minds and hearts were scattered all over the place. They were not fully present, in terms of their attention, to the visual and auditory experience in front of them, they were not fully present to their friends and family that they were sitting next to, and they were not geographically present to the people they were text messaging. They had a hand and foot in several different places that were disconnected, leaving them as some sort of radical amputees. They were everywhere and they were nowhere.

Aside from how piercingly bright a cell phone screen can be in a dark movie theater and how bizarre it is to text message during an intense and complex spy movie. I got to thinking about how handheld technology affects our sense of personal identity. So many people walk through their lives as ghosts, not fully present to anything, gliding through places and around people but not really seeing or experiencing or being seen or experienced.

Read Full Post »

Guard your heart!

Fathers who want to call their sons to pursue wisdom need to urge them to guard their hearts–if they want to follow the example of Solomon in Proverbs (see Proverbs 4:23).  I am preaching about this on Sunday and found this quote full of exhortation:

“Is your heart right? Then be humble and watchful. You are not yet in heaven, but in the world. You are in the body. The devil is near you, and never sleeps. Oh, keep your heart with all diligence! Watch and pray lest you fall into temptation. Ask Christ Himself to keep your heart for you. Ask Him to dwell in it, and reign in it, and garrison it, and to put down every enemy under His feet.”–J. C. Ryle

Read Full Post »

Self-pity

Anyone who thinks he deserves to have life unfold as he pleases is bound to be frustrated and discontent much of the time. People who don’t get their own way in life begin to feel resentful and sorry for themselves. Self-pity is a powerful, negative attitude that gives rise to many, many excuses for sin. People fall into Satan’s trap of giving themselves “permission” to sin to compensate for the difficulties and trials they’ve had to bear. Self-pity is a direct rejection of God’s control. It is saying, “I don’t like what you’ve done in my life, and I absolutely will not be content. I can’t change it, so I’ll just be angry and miserable.”

(John A. Younts, Everyday Talk: Talking Freely and Naturally About God With Your Children [Wapwollopen, PA: Shepherd Press, 2004], 140). (HT:  Purple Cellar)

Read Full Post »