The love challenge

David Murray, an American pastor set this monthly love challenge to his church and I think it is a good challenge for all of us too.

 

Love Challenge 1: Pray for one family

What better way to love someone than to pray for them? As well as praying generally for your church, pray for specific and special needs in your church family, and for one other family in particular. Use the church directory or membership list to select one family to pray for regularly in the next 30 days.

Love Challenge 2: Speak to one person

We all have our favorite people and our favorite places to sit and stand in church. Why not sit somewhere different, exit through a different door, or stand in a different place and risk meeting a different person! Just once a month, do something different that will make you speak to someone you don’t usually speak to.

Love Challenge 3: Encourage one person

You appreciate many people in your church family, but have you ever told them that? Have you ever highlighted one of their gifts or graces and told them how thankful to God you are for them? Again, not asking for a lot here, but just once a month, go out of your way to find one person and encourage them.

Love Challenge 4: Carry one burden

Speak to someone who is suffering in your church and ask them how they are. It may be someone who is ill, someone struggling with a wayward child, someone who’s struggling financially. As you listen to their story, express concern, and feel sympathy, a strange thing happens – the sufferer’s pain reduces slightly as you take some of it into your own mind, heart, and soul. Although you walk away heavier, they walk away lighter.

Love Challenge 5: Visit one person

Perhaps start with the seniors, the sick, and those with special needs, but select one person in your church to visit once in the next 30 days. If you can’t do it in person, you can “visit” by phone.

Love Challenge 6: Give one gift

Share your abundance with those who lack. There are people and families in your church who cannot afford to buy a book, go out for a meal, go on vacation, or even buy all the groceries. $10 gets them a book, $20 gets a couple a meal at Applebees, $50 gets them a day camping, $100 would make a huge difference to their family grocery budget. Give as the Lord as prospered you.

Love Challenge 7: Forgive one person

Is there someone you’ve fallen out with? A strained relationship? Whether you are the offender, they are, or you both are, make one attempt to reconcile with them. If you can’t make progress in reconciliation, at least speak to them, express interest in them, and show affection towards them.

Love Challenge 8: Welcome one person

Different people visit your church every month – vacationers, friends and family of church members, strangers, seekers, church-hoppers, etc. Don’t leave it to others to welcome them. Take the initiative, go out of your way to show that you’re glad they came, exchange contact details, etc.

Love Challenge 9: Share one meal

Once a month invite someone, a single, a couple, or a family to share a meal with you in your home. Don’t make it fancy or complicated (or you won’t do it again) but simple, informal, and do-able. The focus should be the fellowship not the food.

Love Challenge 10: Relegate one preference

There are some things in church life and the Christian life that are a matter of biblical principle. These things we cannot let go of, we cannot demote, we cannot dismiss. Other things are a matter of personal preference – clothing, hobbies, sports, education choices, etc. When we make our preference equivalent to principles we inevitably erect barriers between us and others, we put others down and puff ourselves up. Search your life for one preference that you’ve turned into a principle, relegate it, let it go, and watch your relationships improve.

Gospel Finances

As you know if you have been keeping up to date with the blog recently I am enjoying working my way through the book GOSPEL by JD Greear and the latest chapter on handling our finances through a Gospel framework was particularly challenging and pertinent.  So I thoughts I would put the headlines here so you can feel the challenge too .

 

 

The Gospel Generosity Matrix:

1. God gives excess to some so that they can share with those who have less
2. Jesus’ radical generosity toward us serves as a model and a motivation for our radical generosity.
3. The Holy Spirit must guide us as to which sacrifices we, personally, are to make.
4. God DOES enjoy in our enjoyment of His material gifts
5. God, not money, should be our primary source of beauty and security
6. wealth-building can be wise

 

Greear, then makes the great point that we all we want to know is how much a Christian should give, a tithe, more?  Well I think he is right that this stems from our hearts that  love laws to follow so we can earn God’s acceptance, the reality really is a challenge of the heart and it is that he tackles with the following questions:

 

• What does your spending show that you delight in?
• What does your savings show you find security in?
• Whose kingdom are you building?

Please if you find the above helpful or challenging, then please get the book, it is very practical and challenging.

God Bless

Jim

Prayer for the Lukewarm Heart - Jon Bloom

Hi folks,

Here is an interesting post from Jon Bloom over at Desiring God, Very challenging:

O Infinitely Passionate Father, 

You have created me with the capacity for deep affections — to love, to loathe, to desire, to delight, to excite, to grieve, to laugh, to enjoy, to fear, to be depressed, to be thankful. And you made me this way that I may glorify you by finding you my Supreme Satisfaction and the Fountain of everything delightful. 

But I confess that my affections for you are often grievously tepid while my selfish interests steam.

• I am bold to defend my own honor and reputation and often timid to defend yours.

• I am quick to satisfy my bodily appetites and often slow to feed my soul with the Bread of Life.

• I squander moments devoted to communing with you while carefully protecting moments devoted to banal entertainment.

• I am distracted from speaking with you by books that need straightening, email that needs answering, and a bald spot in the yard that needs seeding.

I am easily and foolishly concerned with worldly success and prosperity while languid and unmoved about the greater things of another world! 

And I know that my errant affections are most offensive to you when I hear of the infinite height, depth, and length, and breadth of your love for me in Christ Jesus,

• Of your giving your infinitely dear Son to be offered up a sacrifice for my sins,

• Of the unparalleled love of the innocent, holy, and tender Lamb of God, manifested in his dying agonies, bloody sweat, loud and bitter cries, and bleeding heart,

• And all this to redeem an enemy like me from deserved, eternal burnings, and give to me unspeakable and everlasting joy and glory,

• And my response is cool, lethargic, and indifferent.

O gracious Father, thank you that your Son’s great sacrifice is so great and so sufficient that it pays even for such sins of erroneous affections! 

But, my affectionate Father, I am humbled to the dust that I am not more affected at what affects you! I repent of being “slothful in zeal”! No more, Father! Make me boil in spirit as I serve you (Romans 12:11)! To be moved by your glorious gospel and precious promises (2 Peter 1:4) is why you gave me affections! Nothing in earth or heaven is greater or more important. 

Today, I take to heart your Son’s warning: “Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm… I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15–16). Merciful Father, make me hot! Whatever it takes, whatever it costs me, give me the Spirit-salve for my heart-eyes (Revelation 3:18) so that I may see what is Real, believe what is True, treasure what is Valuable, and forsake what is worthless. 

In the name of Jesus, your glorious Son, the Pearl of Great Price, amen. 

This prayer was inspired by and adapted from a portion of Jonathan Edwards’s book,Religious Affections (the last three paragraphs of Part 1).

You can Find the original post here. 

10 of those – Plains Evangelical Partnership

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The ‘10 of those’ vision is to help local churches and Christian organisations by providing quality Christian resources at prices they can afford. Their resources are consistent with the Word of God as we understand it and all generated money is used to further resource the church with quantity goods, seeking to equip the church and reach the world.

Plains Evangelical is pleased to be part of this vision and enter into partnership with ‘10 of those’. What that means in practice is that you will be able to buy books from the Plains Evangelical Church Bookshop at unbeatable prices and as you buy you will be helping support the wider ministry of Plains Evangelical. And no….you don’t have to buy 10 of the books, but if you do there will be major discounts for you! You can visit the bookshop here

Tell your friends and enjoy great books at great prices and support the ministry of Plains Evangelical at the same time!

Performance Treadmill

Hi


I thought I would share some thoughts that have been of great release to me in my Christian walk and also just as challenging.

The easiest way to summarise it is I have been trying to work through the following Question,

How am I going to live in a God Pleasing and Glorifying way today?

I know that if we were all to be asked do we want to live that way today we would in the blink of an eye say darn right or maybe Amen or yes even. However that is a totally different question to How am I going to do that! I have to say that with the help of a nice wee book called Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges, I have become aware of danger of what he Calls the "Performance Treadmill".

Bridges looks at the 3 stages of our Christian lives, Salvation, Life after salvation and then life in eternity, or if you want the theological terms, Justification, Sanctification and Glorification. He makes the point that we all sound Evangelical Christians would agree that we are both saved by Grace and enter in to heaven by grace but how do we live our lives between the 2?

It is Bridges premise that we our natural sinful predisposition to legalism often ends up with us trying to earn our growth in God, or blessings, or even answers to prayer. That well known feeling to us all I am sure, of when we have been "good" and read our bibles daily and prayed and even put out the bin for the next door neighbour we have this sense of invincibility that God is soooo pleased with us and will surely be itching to shower blessings on us. However, just as familiar I am sure is the feeling of woe that comes with giving in to that so familiar temptation and how we want to hide from God and feel unworthy or of no use to Him at all, until, that is, we are "good again for a while, and there you have it, you are on the performance treadmill.

Bridges has a good way of helping us check our hearts, and suggests that we think of the following scenario, if we have fallen to that old familiar sin that is our battle, and then in the next minute had the perfect opportunity to witness for God to our long time friend, would we do so with gusto and faith or would we maybe even pass it up due to our failure before God and His disapproval with us. If you can relate to this then as Bridges says you better check you are not living on the performance treadmill.

Well, how do we live our lives between Salvation and Heaven? How do we live today for the glory and pleasure of God? Well it is the answer to that question that has been so liberating and challenging to me recently, you live it by the same faith in God's Grace that Saved you, and that you believe will see you through to Heaven. You look to eternity and then look to your heart, feel that faith that believes that by the Grace of God you will one day spend eternity in heaven, it is that same Faith you are to live for Christ today. Believing that by the Grace of Jesus Christ and the grace for today he supplies you can live for Him.

I now wake up and each morning look at the day ahead and acknowledge that I am bankrupt before a holy God, and that even the good things I would attempt are as filthy rags, I then throw myself on His grace believing that through the cross Jesus' grace will enable me to be more like Him the same way I throw myself on His grace for the forgiveness of my sins and for my Hope of eternity with him.

Why don't we this Easter resolve to live in the power of God's Grace. Gal 2:20-21

Jim

A Tip From Paul Tripp

I was listening to a nice little podcast by Paul Tripp today.  Paul Tripp is a well known biblical counsellor.  He was sharing about the importance of knowing who you are, what makes you tick etc. 

So Paul Tripp's tip of the day is:

Treasure: know the treasure that you are seeking in life.  We all have a treasure in our lives that we seek, hoping that when we have whatever the treasure is it will give us meaning and fulfilment in life.  Of course as Christian we must battle to have Christ as our treasure, that only in HIM we will find the joy, meaning & Satisfaction that we crave.

Identity: Where do you get your worth?  What makes you feel good about yourself?  Is it your job?  Is it your kids? Is it your looks?  Is it your wealth? Is it might even be your church or how religious you are.  However, we must only find our identity in Christ.  In 2 Peter Chapter 1 Peter reminds God's people that they have failed to add godly attributes to their faith for they have forgotten who they are, that they have forgotten they have been cleansed from their sins.  Folks if we do not get our Identity vertically we will horizontally, looking for our self worth in all the wrong things that we find in this life.

Potential: How do you measure your potential? Do you measure it by your track record?  How you have achieved or failed in the past?  Do you measure your potential by how big your problems are?  If that is how you are measuring your potential then you have forgotten your Identity.  Our potential is not about horizontal things of life, but in who we are in Christ, Like Peter said God has given us EVERYTHING we need for life and Godliness.  Therefore, in the midst of that crisis or hurt or even success or joy, remember that you have all you need to deal with your current situation with Godliness, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

You can here the audio this came from here.

 

God Bless
Jim.

The Trouble With Envy

Here is an excellent excerpt from an article with Paul Trip:

1. Envy is a window on the true treasures of our heart. Oh sure, we would all like to think that we love God above all else. We all want to believe that his plan is more important to us than anything we would plan for ourselves. We would like to assume that what God promises us is more precious to us than anything we could ever set our eyes on. But envy reveals that these things are not yet completely true to us. Envy reveals that there is still a war of treasure raging in our hearts. Envy exposes the fact that the treasures of this physical, created world still have a powerful ability to seduce, tempt and side-track us. Envy tells us that we still look for satisfaction to things that do not have the organic capacity to satisfy the craving of our hearts. Who or What you envy tells you what you treasure.




2. Envy is a window on how easily and consistently we forget. We do have the amazing ability to stand in front of a closet that is bulging with clothes and say that we don't have a thing to wear. We do have the capacity to stand in front of a refrigerator filled with food and say there is nothing to eat. And we do have the ability to stand in the middle of lavish blessing and feel as if we are poor and needy. The sin of forgetfulness is one of the root sins of envy. We forget that, in God's grace, we have been given what we could not earn, achieve, or deserve. We forget that the Creator of all things and the Controller of all that is, is our Father and he is not only able to meet all our needs, he is willing to do so. Envy forgets blessing and in forgetting blessing assumes poverty and in assuming poverty gives way to hunger and this feeling of hunger tempts us to look to and long for what simply will not satisfy.



3. Envy is a window on the war within. Envy is a reminder. Envy is a warning. Envy is the sounding of an internal alarm. Envy tells you that you must not live with a peace-time mentality. Envy tells you that this is not the time to chill and relax. Envy reminds you that there really is a war that is still raging for the rulership of your heart. Envy calls you to be a humble and disciplined soldier. Envy calls you to examine your heart and interrogate your desires. Envy calls you to live watchfully and prayerfully. Envy warns you to reject assessments of arrival. To the degree that you crave what you Father has not chosen to given you, to that degree you heart is still out of step with him. The fight still goes on.



Now, maybe after reading this you're thinking, "Wow, Paul, that was really discouraging!" Here's what you and I need to remember. Our Savior walked on this earth where the war of envy rages, but he was envy free. Why? Not because he had it all, but because he was willing to forsake it all for you and for me. Think about this; rather than wanting all that was his right as God, Jesus was willing to forsake it all so that the battle for our hearts could and would be finally won. He walked away from glories our minds are to small to conceive in order to deliver to us these glories that our minds are to small to conceive. He was not propelled by envy. No he was propelled by love and that love is the most powerful reason for hope in the universe. So, we can affirm the struggle. We can confess when envy yanks us off his pathway. And we can know for sure that there will be a day when envy is no more and we will live forever in the kingdom of his love, fully and completely satisfied.

Gospel Living

Here is a quote that I came accross the other day.  It is from a book by Jerry Bridges & Bob Bevington called 'The Bookends Of The Christian Life'. 

Much Blessings

Jim  

"Faith involves both a renunciation and a reliance. First, we must renounce any trust in our own performance as the basis of our acceptance before God. We trust in our own performance when we believe we've earned God's acceptance by our own good works. But we also trust in our own performance when we believe we've lost God's acceptance by our bad works--by our sin. So we must renounce any consideration of either our bad works or our good works as the means of relating to God.

Second, we must place our reliance entirely on the perfect obedience of the sin-bearing death of Christ as the sole basis of our standing before God--on our best days as well as our worst."