Would you allow a Murderer and an Adulterer to Pastor your Church?

By Tim Challies and found here:

There are not too many stories from the life of Jesus that made their way into all four of the biblical accounts of his life. Each of the authors writes for a different purpose or to a different audience and this leads them to different emphases. Yet one of the stories that each of them tells is Peter’s denial of Jesus. Peter’s darkest moment, his greatest shame, was included by all four of the gospel writers. Isn’t it interesting that in an account of the life of Jesus, all four of them veer for a little while into Peter’s life.

This raises two questions in my mind: How did the gospel writers know the details of this story and why do they all make mention of it? This story could so easily be the stuff of tabloids, meant to bring shame to Peter, to cause people to doubt his faith, to doubt that he could be a worthy leader in the early church. Why would all of the authors risk bringing further shame on this man?

All of the disciples were present when Jesus foretold that Peter would deny him, so there were many witnesses to that part of the story, but they had long since taken flight when Peter actually swore and called down judgment on himself if he was one of those men who knew Jesus. His darkest moment happened in the dark of night and he was the only witness to the whole account. How, then, did the gospel writers know what Peter had done? It seems clear that Peter must have told them. Even while this story must have caused him to blush in shame, he humbly told it to point to the Lord’s grace. Even today, two thousand years later, we rarely think of Peter without thinking of him as the man who sinned and was restored.

Why then did all four of the gospel writers include this story in their accounts of the crucifixion? At least in part because Peter’s fall and restoration was a crucial story of the power of the gospel, that even a man who betrayed Jesus, a man who turned away from Jesus at the most hurtful time, could be restored. The gospel could save even a man like Peter.

This makes me ask, Is my gospel big enough to account for a man who three times denied that he knew the Lord? Is it big enough to account for a man who spent all of those years with Jesus, only to desert him in the end? Is it big enough to allow a man like this to be a leader in the church? Is your gospel big enough for all of this?

What if David lived in our day and what if he was a leader in this little segment of the Christian world when he committed adultery and murder. Would your gospel be big enough to say that even a man like that could be forgiven and restored? I am not talking about things done before a person comes to know the Lord, but things done by those who profess faith, by those who have been given light, who see God for who he is.

Preoccupied

By Robert McGee:

It is important to understand that fruitfulness and growth are the results of focusing on Christ and desiring to honor Him. When growth and change are our primary goals, we tend to be preoccupied with ourselves instead of with Christ.  “Am I growing? Am I getting any better? Am I more like Christ today? What am I learning?” This inordinate preoccupation with self-improvement parallels our culture’s self-help and personal enhancement movement in many ways. Personal development is certainly not wrong, but it is misleading—and it can be very disappointing—to make it our preeminent goal. As we grasp the unconditional love, grace, and power of God, then honoring Christ will increasingly be our consuming passion…The only One worthy of our preoccupation is Christ, our sovereign Lord, who told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.”

....without Sin

I can say that I cannot pray without sin — I cannot preach without sin — I can do nothing without sin; and as one expresses it: my repentance needs to be repented of, and my very tears to be washed in the precious blood of my dear Redeemer. Our best duties are as so many splendid sins. Before you can know you are at peace with God, you must not only be made sick of your original and actual sin, but you must be sick of your righteousness, of all your duties and performances. There must be a deep conviction before you can be brought out of your self-righteousness; it is the last idol taken out of your heart. The pride of our heart will not let us submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But if you never felt that you had no righteousness of your own, if you never felt the deficiency of your own righteousness, you cannot come to Jesus Christ. There are a great many now who may say, “well we believe all this,” but there is a great difference between talking and feeling. Did you ever feel the need of a dear Redeemer? Did you ever feel the want of Jesus Christ, upon the account of the deficiency of your own righteousness? And can you now say from your heart, “Lord, thou mayst justly damn me for the best duties that ever I did perform?” If you are not thus brought out of yourself, you may say to your heart “Peace! Peace!” but there is no peace.”  - George Whitfield

Knock, man!

And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.  

Luke 11:5-8

“See the man at midnight.  Imitate that man.  Act it all alone at midnight.  Hear his loud cry, and cry it after him.  He needed three loaves.  What is your need?  Name it.  Name it out loud.  Let your own ears hear it. . . . The shameful things you have to ask for.  The disgraceful, the incredible things you have to admit and confess.  The life you have lived.  The way you have spent your days and nights.  And what all that has brought you to.  It kills you to have to say such things even with your door shut.  Yes, but better say all these things in closets than have them all proclaimed from the housetops of the day of judgment.  Knock, man!  Knock for the love of God!  Knock as they knock to get into heaven after the door is shut!  Knock, as they knock to get out of hell!”
         
-Alexander Whyte, “The Man Who Knocked At Midnight,” in Lord, Teach Us To Pray

A Prayer for Times When Sufficient Grace Doesn’t Feel Sufficient

From Scotty Smith:

“… There was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ”My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Cor. 12:7-9

Dear heavenly Father, the Apostle Paul’s story stirs up my already stirred up heart. Though I’ve experienced the toxic shame of my own failures, the emotional assault of betrayal, the soul-pillaging pain of loss and heart-depleting episodes of depression that make heaven look like my only option… nonetheless, I know myself to be an amateur in anguish, a tenderfoot in trauma, a mere suckling in suffering.

Compared to many sufferers that I know, quite honestly, Lord, you have every right to judge my whines, complaints and moans as those of a spoiled brat. But you are far too merciful and gracious to do so. You take my sin and my pain seriously, so seriously you gave Jesus for me, and I will forever praise you.

But today, I join many of my brothers and sisters, in bringing before you our friends and family members who are in the vortex of chronic suffering—a downward spiral of misery that mocks the notion of your mercy; that calls into question the sufficiency of your grace; that doesn’t make heaven look good, but invisible.

Father, give us your heart for the suffering. Give us wisdom, give us strength, give us kindness. For those whose physical pain is increasingly unbearable, we cry out for the power of Jesus to fall.

Unashamedly, unreservedly, we ask you to bring relief, Father. By the means of supernatural intervention, please calm the nerve endings. By the means of common grace, please give physicians wisdom to know what medications, and what doses, would be best in each situation.

Father, for those who are suffering fresh emotional trauma, and those who are just beginning to deal with heart wounds long since buried, bring the grace, truth and power of the gospel to bear. Help us enter the emotional chaos not as fixers, but as listeners; not as tamers of the whirlwind, but as those who follow Jesus into the storm; not as those who fear our inadequacy, but as those who own our weakness. When our friend’s emotional pain triggers our’s, help us to stay present, focused and caring.

Father, for those who are suffering mental and spiritual anguish—for friends who simultaneously feel like Job and Job’s wife… counting loses and cursing heaven, don’t let us be like “Job’s friends.” Better to sit in awkward silence, than to offer cliché, rules and formulas. Better to be a quiet, living epistle of mercy than to spout Scripture verses like unwrapped band-aids. We believe this, help our unbelief. Free us from timetables and the need to make it better.

Father, when we ourselves begin to ask, “How long, O Lord?” When we wonder, silently and out loud, “How much is too much?” When we begin, or continue to doubt, your mercy and might, make the cross of Jesus clearer and dearer. O, for the Day when Jesus finishes making all things new. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ suffering and triumphant name.

Perhaps I am stronger than I think

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”  And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.  

                      Luke 17:5-6

Perhaps I am stronger than I think.

Perhaps I am even afraid of my strength, and turn it against myself, thus making myself weak.  Making myself secure. Making myself guilty.

Perhaps I am most afraid of the strength of God in me.
 
Perhaps I would rather be guilty and weak in myself,   than strong in Him whom I cannot understand. 
                      
 - Thomas Merton (from Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours)

The Man Who Knocked At Midnight

Luke 11:5-8
Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread;  a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’  I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

“See the man at midnight [described in Luke 11:5-8].  Imitate that man.  Act it all alone at midnight.  Hear his loud cry, and cry it after him.  He needed three loaves.  What is your need?  Name it.  Name it out loud.  Let your own ears hear it. . . . The shameful things you have to ask for.  The disgraceful, the incredible things you have to admit and confess.  The life you have lived.  The way you have spent your days and nights.  And what all that has brought you to.  It kills you to have to say such things even with your door shut.  Yes, but better say all these things in closets than have them all proclaimed from the housetops of the day of judgment.  Knock, man!  Knock for the love of God!  Knock as they knock to get into heaven after the door is shut!  Knock, as they knock to get out of hell!”

-----Alexander Whyte, “The Man Who Knocked At Midnight,” in Lord, Teach Us To Pray

Can't Sleep?

For those like me who sometimes cannot sleep, I love these verses from Psalm 4 and the commentary that follows:

6 Many, LORD, are asking, “Who will bring us prosperity?”
Let the light of your face shine on us.  

7 Fill my heart with joy
when their grain and new wine abound. 

8 In peace I will lie down and sleep,
for you alone, LORD,
make me dwell in safety.

G. Campbell Morgan (British Bible Scholar) points out that David finds safety in solitude with God.

“The thought of the word alone is ‘in loneliness,’ or as Rotherham renders it ‘in seclusion’; and the word refers to the one going asleep. This is a glorious conception of sleep. Jehovah gathers the trusting soul into a place of safety by taking it away from all the things which trouble or harass . . . the tried and tired child of His love is pavilioned in His peace.” 

God wants us to BOTHER him?

Matt Chandler on Prayer:

Does God want you to be miserable?

From Jon Acuff:

When people talk to me about geography in Nashville, I do one of two things:

1. I nod my head and pretend I know what part of the city they are referring to.
2. I tell them, “I don’t know where that is. We just moved here.”

Neither one of those two responses is entirely true. Pretending I know is not true and saying we just moved here isn’t true. We’ve lived here for 18 months. So why don’t I know my way around town yet?

Because I kissed geography goodbye when I was a kid.

I decided a long time ago that I didn’t have room in my head for street names or directions or addresses. I realized I had limited real estate in my brain and essentially told geography, “Kick rocks chump.”

Would it be fair to say that, as a young boy, I predicted a future in which we would all have handheld GPS units? Is the term “visionary” one we should use to describe me? Tough to say, but the reality is that years ago I bid adieu to both geography and math.

As a writer, math is my Achilles’ heel. The mere mention of numbers makes me cringe. I am approximately one year away from not being able to help my 8-year-old with her math homework. I hate math.

Which is why I used to think God would call me into the mission field to teach calculus.

My fear was that, if I gave God my life, if I turned over all my hopes and dreams to him, he would instantly make me train to become a “mathlete.” I’d have to get an abacus and complicated calculator and spend my days doing things I hated to do.

Why?
Because I thought that’s how God did things.
And I’m not the only one who thinks that way sometimes.

I do a joke when I speak to church groups. I say, “Every Christian knows that the first thing God does if you give him your life is make you move to Africa to become a missionary. You’ll go zero to hut in about 4.2 seconds.” And folks laugh, but there’s a crazy truth behind that joke. If we think the first thing God will do to us if we come close to him is the worst thing we can imagine, then we serve the worst God ever.

If you’re not wired to be a missionary in Guam, if nothing about that feels at all like what God has uniquely created you to do, why would he immediately call you to that task if you trusted him with your life?

That’s an extreme example, but you’d be surprised how often I saw that happen last year. Because I wrote a book about closing the gap between your day job and your dream job, a lot of people have talked with me about figuring out what they’re called to do.

And it’s amazing how many people think being a Christian means doing the opposite of what you’re passionate about.

A chaplain told me that one of his college students came to him and said, “I’m conflicted. I really want to serve the Lord, but I love film making. I don’t know what to do.”

That word “but” is such a beautiful trick by the enemy. That young man felt alive and filled with joy when he made films. In those moments, though, he couldn’t imagine that God was happy about that, or enjoyed him making films or could be served and glorified through film making.

He didn’t say, “I really want to serve the Lord, and I love film making.” He said, “I really want to serve the Lord, but I love film making.”

I don’t know how exactly we got here. I think, in some ways, it’s an extreme over-correction to the prosperity gospel. When you talk about how good God is, people can’t wait to say, “He’s not an ATM machine in the sky who magically gives you whatever you want?” But who ever said that? Who said that a life filled with the joy of God was devoid of hardship or never full of moments where you must mourn as loud as you dance?

I’m sad for a culture where there is serving God on one side, and on the other side of that is joy. Where those two things are believed to be separate. Where we are forced to take our individual talents, put them under our bed, apologize about them and try to fit the handful of “serving opportunities” that match our definition of Christian.

I think back to the conversion of Paul.

Do you remember before he became a Christian? When he was called Saul?

He was a bold, powerful, vigilant persecutor of believers. And then God met him on the road to Damascus and turned him into a quiet, meek bookkeeper who spent his remaining days in a cave alone transcribing ancient texts.

Not at all! God turned him into a bold, powerful, vigilant promoter of belief.

He didn’t squelch what was inside Paul. He didn’t ignore the talents he himself had placed there. If anything, he called them out in deeper, louder, more beautiful ways. He showed Paul what it really meant to be Paul!

Maybe you will be a missionary. Maybe that’s the call you will get. But if it’s not, please don’t for a second believe that God wants you to be miserable. That he wants to call you into an adventure where your true gifts will shrivel up and die. That his chief aim is to make sure you never experience joy in his presence.

Because that’s not the kind of God who would ever love you enough to send his son to die for you.