The Next Story

That’s the title of the new book by Tim Challies due out April 5th.  For everyone 200 people who pre-order the book before April 5th, the price drops $1.  If you order it now and the price drops after you order it, you will get the lower price.  So load up your Kindle if you have any interest to how Christians ought to think about technology!

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The angry person is the last to know

This is one article by Ed Welch we should all read

“The problem with anger is that those who don’t have the problem take it to heart; those who are angry are confident in their right-ness and over time can become massively, utterly, completely deluded, blind and (this is no exaggeration) can feel quite good about themselves after bludgeoning someone close them, as if they have set the world aright. Arrgghh. I hate anger.”

. . . .If you believe you have a problem with anger, if you have confessed that to others, and if you have a ruthless agenda for putting this monster to death, then you are in the advanced course of sanctification and please feel free to teach the rest of us. For the rest of us, here are a few questions:

1. Do you stretch and enlarge the category of anger so it includes you? I know a man who doesn’t think he is angry even though every hour or so he threatens to rip off someone’s head. His narrow definition of anger? An angry person actually rips off someone’s head. Since he only wants to rip off someone’s head, he isn’t angry.
2. Have you enlarged the spectrum of your anger by filling in some of the details from the Sermon on the Mount? (Matthew 5:21-22) For example, at one extreme is murder, at the other is our internal muttering, “what a jerk.” What’s in between? Of course, everything on this spectrum is murderous.
3. In the last six months have you confessed your sin of anger, to both God and the injured person?
4. In the last six months have you asked those closest to you, “When have you seen me angry in the last few weeks?” When will you ask them? Is the real cause of your frustration/anger usually something or someone other than you? Do you understand the real cause is not “THEM” and is really “I WANT and I’m not getting what I want”? (James 4:1-10)
5. Do you know that Jesus was never angry because of something done to him? Do you care?
6. Are you ever wrong? Angry people, against all the odds, are nearly always right.
7. “Do you have a right to be angry?” This is God’s patient question to Jonah.

Keep reading.

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My sister’s favorite hymn

My sister Diane who died and instantly entered heaven three weeks ago yesterday said this was her favorite hymn. I am going to have a hard time getting through it next time it is sung in church I think.

Day by day, and with each passing moment,
Strength I find, to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day what He deems best—
Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.

Every day, the Lord Himself is near me
With a special mercy for each hour;
All my cares He fain would bear, and cheer me,
He whose name is Counselor and Power;
The protection of His child and treasure
Is a charge that on Himself He laid;
As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,
This the pledge to me He made.

Help me then, in every tribulation
So to trust Thy promises, O Lord,
That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation
Offered me within Thy holy Word.
Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,
E’er to take, as from a father’s hand,
One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,
Till I reach the promised land.

–Karolina W. Sandell-Berg

 

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Hell will not freeze over

Russell Moore explains why hell is forever and Randy Alcorn explains why no innocent people will go to hell in comprehensive article.

 

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Praying for this Sunday

Joe Thorn on what to pray for this Sunday at your church:

When you pray for the church, what do you seek? In all of our praying for the church I believe we should be praying for more of the ordinary operations of God’s Holy Spirit. We do not need God to do somethingstrange; something that he has never done before. What we need is for God toconvict men and women of their sin, draw them to Jesus, and cause them to be born again. We need God to sanctify his people by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the word. We need God to unify his people around the Gospel and the mission he gave to the church. We need God to do what he has promised he would do. We need more of that. And more of God’s ordinary work is a good definition of “revival.” Revival is not so much God doing some thing new, but God doing something old. It is God doing more of what he has always done.

As we pray for our churches and our worship gatherings this weekend, let’s pray that God would do what he always does, but in greater measure.

 

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