Good Advice

A few months before his death at age twenty-nine in 1747, David Brainerd, the missionary to the Indians in New England, wrote to a young ministerial candidate, "Give yourself to prayer, to reading and meditation on divine truths: strive to penetrate to the bottom of them and never be content with a superficial knowledge."*

What great advice not only for a young ministerial candidate but for all of God's people.  How much more rich our lives would be, how much more the cause of Christ would advance, how much more glory would God receive if His children actually practiced this.

Striving along side you to be less content,

Ryan


*Taken from The Pleasures of God by John Piper

Be Still

"Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth" (Psalm 46:10). I was reminded in my reading this morning of God. He truly will be exalted. No matter the turmoil around me, He is still in control and He will be exalted. I love the New American Standard version of this verse that says, “Cease striving.” There is a great rest knowing that God is unassailable and His purposes will stand. The challenge I see is to keep before me my purpose: to know Him and to glorify Him by enjoying Him. He is my “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.” Oh how easy it is to look at the tumult and not look to Him with eyes of faith. He will be exalted. Be still.

How Not to Waste Your Life: Three Keys, Part 3

We've been looking at 1 Thessalonians 2:17-20 and discussing three keys to not wasting your life.

1 Thessalonians 2:17-20 But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.

The third key in this series is this:

Anticipate the Coming of Your Lord

Here is Paul’s great motivation. He lived in the reality that Jesus is going to come back.

But why is he calling the Thessalonian people his hope and joy and crown of boasting? Shouldn’t that be the Lord and not people? The picture here is that when Jesus comes back it won’t be just Paul and Jesus there but also these fellow Christians that God had used Paul to reach. It’s like Paul is saying, “When I see the Lord Jesus you are going to be my boast, you are going to be my joy, you are going to be the fulfillment of my hope.

Do you see this? This is our eternal reward: it is going to be the presence of people that we were responsible to lead to Christ, those that we influenced by our lives and our words and our praying. This is a call for us to spend our money, and time, and energy to reach people and love them and share the Good News of Jesus Christ crucified and raised from the dead, to share that with them. Look how he repeats this in v. 20, For you are our glory and joy. He’s saying, “You are it. You are what we live for in the presence of the Lord.”

Is it any wonder that Paul was successful. He lived in light of eternity. He live in the constant awareness that he would stand before God at His coming and he wanted to take as many with him as possible. He loved people, he understood his enemy, and he anticipated the coming of his Lord.

If you could begin to put those things into your life you will unlikely reach the end of your time saying, “I’ve wasted it.”

How Not to Waste Your Life: Three Keys, Part 2

How can we reach the end of our lives and not say, "I've wasted it! I've wasted it!"? In this series I'm exploring three keys that Paul speaks of in 1 Thessalonians 2:17-20, But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.

The first key we looked at was the need to genuinely love people.

Key #2: Understand Your Enemy
If you are going to be used of the Lord and not waste your life then you will come under satanic attack. I think that often in our culture we forget the reality and seriousness of spiritual warfare.

But how does satan hinder? The Bible shares many of his methods:
* He is the father of lies – so he lies and distorts the truth – Jn. 8:44
* He tempts believers – 1 Thes. 3:5
* He snatches the Word away – Matt. 13:
* He harasses, like he did to Job
* He disguises himself as an angel of light – 2 Cor. 11:14
* He accuses believers before God’s throne – Rev. 12:10
* He shakes up and distresses a life, like he did as he “sifted” Peter – Lk. 22:31
* He causes disease – Lk. 13, 16
* He possesses – Matt. 8:28
* He devours – 1 Peter 5:8
* He kills, he’s a murderer – Jn. 8:44
He has countless ways he can hinder and harm believers. Martin Luther said it well in a hymn, “For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe. His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.”

Satan is all about attacking the church and church leaders. We saw this in Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5). And we read about it all over in Revelation in regards to the churches listed there in chapters 2 & 3.

Think about the scandals we hear about in regards to church leaders. Not that long ago we heard of an evangelical pastor who was caught hiring a male prostitute and buying drugs from him. And we know that Jesus said to Peter, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat (Lk. 22:31). And so here is satan focusing on Peter. And we know that Paul was given a thorn in the flesh that he describes as, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited (1 Cor. 12). Satan is always after church leaders.

And what does Satan want to do? Look at your text: he wants to hinder the progress. Hinder was a military term for tearing up roads or digging trenches to impede an enemy’s progress. Paul says that Satan is breaking up the road in front of him, “He has dug a bunch of trenches and I can’t get there.”

What are we do do?
Now, we have to ask ourselves, does this mean that Satan is too powerful? Should we run in fear? I mean why doesn’t Paul just say, “Satan I bind you!” Well to put it simply: because that’s not biblical. What we see in Scripture is that though Satan is opposing us, he is controlled by the providence of God. He can only do what God allows him to do and in the end even his hindrances serve God’s purposes. Paul’s thorn was used by God to show Paul’s weakenss and God’s strength. So here we have Satan successfully hindering Paul from going to Thessalonica but this could only happen because this fit in with God’s plans for the work that God had for Paul. James tells us, submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (Js. 4:7). No binding, just get close to God and try not to give in to the devil’s attacks.

So far we’ve seen our need to love genuinely people and to understand our enemy so that we will not waste our lives. Paul gives one other key, and we'll look at in the next post.

Until then, keep your eyes on Christ!

-Ryan

How Not to Waste Your Life: Three Keys, Part 1

John Piper relates the following story in his book, "Don't Waste Your Life"

For me as a boy, one of the most gripping illustrations my fiery father used was the story of aman converted in old age. The church had prayed for this man for decades. He was hard and resistant. But this time, for some reason, he showed up when my father was preaching. At the end of the service, during hymn, to everyone’s amazement he came and took my father’s hand. They sat down together on the front pew of the church as the people were dismissed. God opened his heart to the Gospel of Christ, and he was saved from his sins and given eternal life. But that did not stop him from sobbing and saying, as the tears ran down his wrinkled face – and what an impact it made on me to hear my father say this through his own tears – “I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!” (DWYL pg. 12).

At some point in time we will realize what really matters in life. This will be either while we still live and can do something about it or it will be right after we die and see the reality of the after-life. I hoping for me and you that we won’t reach the end of our time here and say with this old man, “I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!”

So what are we going to do? How can we gain the perspective and passion to live life to the fullest? I think we see this in the apostle Paul and we are going to look at a simple text that can give us some clues for not wasting our lives.

1 Thessalonians 2:17-20 But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.

Key #1 - Genuinely Love People
The key in this first post is a call for us to love people. Paul loved the Thessalonians – truly, genuinely loved them, and he makes this clear over and over again in this text. This is in stark contrast to the Jews and false teachers who must have been questioning his love since he was still gone. Paul had only been there a few weeks before the Jews became jealous and formed a rioting mob and drove he and his companions out of the city (Acts 17).

He obviously had not wanted to leave. Look how he describes it, since we were torn away from you . The word used is the term for being orphaned. Paul was their spiritual father, or even earlier had described his care for them as (v. 7) But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. And here it’s like he had been ripped away from his children leaving them as orphans. That would break any parent’s heart.

Now what was Paul looking for? I mean, he said he endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face. He really longed and worked to be with them. Did he just want to come hang out and enjoy their company? No it wasn’t just friendship. In chapter 3 verse 10 he says, as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith. He deeply cares for them and wants to see that they are helped in their walks with God. He doesn’t want them to fall away from the truth. what you see here is Paul genuinely loving, and genuinely concerned for these brothers and sisters in Christ.

What about us?
What we see for us is our need to genuinely love others. Do you really care about people? Are you seeing people around you as eternal souls that will either spend eternity with our Lord or away from His goodness, forever in His anger? For us to not waste our lives, we need to love others to the point that we are willing to sacrifice our time, money, and comfort to see them walking with Jesus Christ.

This is the first key to not wasting your life from our text in 1 Thessalonians. In the next two posts we'll look at the other two keys in the text; those of understanding your enemy and eagerly anticipating the coming of your Lord.

Until then keep your eyes on Christ,

-Ryan