AmazonMP3 Daily Deal - Oscar Peterson - Night Train

This is another jazz classic and a great "entry level" jazz record for new listeners. $1.99

Will Heaven Be Boring?

John Piper:

"...when I was a child one of my greatest fears was that heaven would be boring. There would be no surprises and no growth in knowledge with accompanying increase of joy."

I have often felt like this when contemplating heaven. I greatly appreciate John Piper's response.

Compassion International and Christian Artists Who Get Money From Them

I'm sure many of you have been to Christian music festivals that are sponsored by Compassion International or World Vision or been to a Christian concert where there was a pitch for one of these organizations. Shaun Groves who works with Compassion was recently asked this question:

I have a friend who is totally against everything that Compassion and World Vision do. Why? Because she’s convinced that music artists get “kickbacks” for every child they manage to get sponsored. Is this true? Can you clear this up to put her mind at ease?

I think he gave a really good answer.

And yes it is true, they do get kickbacks (for the most part I think).

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Nickel Creek's debut record - $2.99

Mohler on Adoption

Al Mohler has a good post today on churches and adoption. Click here.

8 Inspirational Football Locker Room Speeches

Football season is right around the corner. If these clips from the Art of Manliness blog don't get you pumped, I don't know what will. Great stuff.

Brett McKay:

So in honor of the opening of the football season, and the great lessons all men can learn from this great game, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most inspiring football locker room speeches from both film and real life. The speeches we chose are not only inspiring for men about to hit the field, they’re motivating for those men who wish to walk out the door each day to school or work, ready to take on the world. Success in football requires heart, pride, and teamwork. Success in life requires the same.

Click here to watch.

Greg Koukl On Obama's "Above My Pay Grade" Comment

Greg Koukl breaks this down really well. Please think this through. Greg brings up some very good points showing that Obama's comments here are completely incoherent.

Things like:

If we don't know what it is, we err on the side of sucking it brains out with a vacuum or pulling it apart? If we don't know what it is, why in the world do we have fetal homicide laws? If Obama wants to reduce abortions like he says he does, then the next question has to be, WHY? If it's not wrong to kill whatever "it" is in a woman's uterus, why limit that constitutional right? He is speaking out of both sides of his mouth here. Can we not see that? He is trying to straddle the fence but checks his brain at the door for the sake of political expediency.

Again, I am not posting this because I give one rip about politics, because I honestly don't. But caring for the weak and defenseless is a HUGE thrust of Biblical ethics thus abortion has to be on the front burner.

My Biblical Ethics professor, David Jones, says this in this lecture:

We (pro-life persons) don’t have to establish the burden of proof. Pro-choice people have the burden of proof. If human life is held at some point to be valuable, but not from conception when a new biological organism comes into being, then the burden of proof falls on those who would say that we can inflict death at some point. They have to show that the point when you would inflict death is not arbitrary but is grounded on something in reality.

Don't drink the Kool-Aid on this one folks. I also greatly appreciate Greg's comments about adoption in the first video. Please watch him break it down for us.






(HT: Carlos)

(Deep Sigh) - More of the Best in Christian Sub-Culture

From the FoxNews.com story:

For Christians who've always wanted to dabble in "Guitar Hero," but can't bear riffing to songs like "Cheat on the Church," "Cowboys From Hell" or "The Number of the Beast," finally, there's a video game for you.

Orphans vs. American Dream

Dr. Anthony Bradley:

America has nearly 115,000 orphaned kids in foster care waiting to be adopted. Some wonder how this is possible in a country with Christian families. Surely, there are 115,000 missional families in America, right? Missional families, for example, embrace the redemptive mission of God and practice "true religion" in their local communities (James 1:27). Missional Christians in America could eliminate the foster care system tomorrow if we would stop "shootin' up" with the American Dream (heroine) in order to get high on a lame life lived for the sake of comfort and ease.

Rest the rest of this very important post.

Daniel Renstrom - At The Cross

We are teaching this song this weekend in church. You might want to consider it for your church: Daniel Renstrom - At The Cross

You can find it here: AmazonMP3 or

Click here for the chord chart.

The Studying Christian

Mark Driscoll with a good post on why Christians should study. He writes:

In following Jesus’ command to love God with “all our mind,” the Christian life is supposed to include regular times of study and learning. The goal of such study is to have what Paul called “the mind of Christ” so that we can live the life of Christ by the power of the Spirit of Christ. Therefore, this month we will examine the contemplative spiritual discipline of study and the correlating active spiritual discipline of obedience.

Read the whole post.

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Jesus Wants To Save Christians - A Review

Ben Witherington provides an extremely extensive review Rob Bell and Don Golden's forth coming book, "Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile".

The Need For Church Planting in the U.S.

Click here to watch a powerful video on why we need to be planting churches in the US.

It took a little bit to load on my computer, so if it doesn't start up right away give it a minute or two.

She's happily married, dreaming of divorce

I can't begin to describe how sad this article makes me feel. The fact that this is from Oprah.com/CNN.com should not be minimized. Oprah's influence is paramount in many circles of our culture. May the church rise up with the gospel that causes us to crush our own selfishness and show a much brighter picture of marital happiness and sacrifice. There is much to say about this article by way of diagnosis, but I'll leave that to you. Here is a choice excerpt:

To be sure, there will be throngs of angry women who will decry me for plunging a stake into the heart of holy matrimony. "My husband is my lifeline," I've heard said (and that's bad news for the aorta). "My husband and I never fight" is another marital chestnut -- again, bad news (not to mention a big fat lie), since according to the experts, the strongest relationships are the ones in which people can continually agree to disagree. "My husband is my best friend," others will aver.

No. Your husband is not your best friend. Your best friend is your best friend. If your husband were your best friend, what would that make your best friend -- the dog? When a woman tells me that her husband is her best friend, what I hear is: I don't really have any friends.

But if self-delusion is your particular poison, well, then that's fine too. Just make sure that when you phone your life-order in, you say, "One self-delusion, please," as opposed to "One perfect marriage." Fantasy, as we all know, doesn't deliver.

Because in the end, that's basically what it's all about: getting your order right. Our day comes down to choices -- and it's finally dawning on the long-term wives of the world that divorce may be the last-standing woman's right to choose. We can admit that our marriages aren't lambent, lyrical ice-dancing routines and still decide to push on together to the final flying sit spin. We also realize that divorce is an alternative that's fully within reach, be it now or later or never. The more readily we acknowledge the solid utility of marriage (as one friend's husband put it, "I'm essentially a checkbook and a sperm bank -- but I'm okay with that!"), the more ably we can splinter the box of marital fantasy that makes us feel stuck, trapped, obliged. One eloquent swing of the ax and happiness is thrust firmly back into our own hands.

SCC on Focus On The Family

The ABBA Fund Blog:

Steven Curtis Chapman discusses the recent loss of his adopted daughter
Maria Sue and describes how faith in God has helped his family cope
with the tragedy.

The God of All Comfort (Part 1 of 3)
The God of All Comfort (Part 2 of 3)
The God of All Comfort (Part 3 of 3)

Does God Care About Social Justice?

As most of you have probably figured out by now, I have been reading Christopher Wright's, The Mission of God. In the current chapter I am in he is discussing the exodus narrative and how some people tend to fall off into separate ditches of interpretation surrounding this narrative.

One would be the spiritualized interpretation that would go like this: In the exodus, God rescued his people from oppression in Egypt and conversely in the cross God has rescued his people from the oppression of sin.

The other ditch would be the politicized interpretation that basically says that we can see God passionately moved to justice on behalf of his people and thus we should be concerned about social justice as well.

Dr. Wright affirms that both of these views are important and clearly found in the exodus narrative, but most people tend to emphasize one over the other. In speaking to the first interpretation, I appreciate what he writes here:

This spiritualizing way of interpreting the Bible, and the missionogical implications that go with it, requires us to imagine that for generation after generation, century after century, the God of the Bible was passionately concerned about social issues - political arrogance and abuse, economic exploitation, judicial corruption, the suffering of the poor and oppressed, the evils of brutality and bloodshed. So passionate, indeed, that the laws he gave and the prophets he sent give more space to these matter than any other issue except idolatry, while the psalmists cry out in protest to the God they know cares deeply about such things.

Somewhere, however, between Malachi and Matthew, all that changed. Such matters no longer claim God's attention or spark his anger. Or if they do, it is no longer our business. The root cause of all such things is spiritual sin, and that is now all that God is interested in, and that is all that the cross dealt with. A subtle form of Marcionism underlies this approach. The alleged God of the New Testament is almost unrecognizable as the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel. This alleged God has shed all the passionate priorities of the Mosaic law and has jettisoned all the burdens for justice that he laid on his prophets at such cost to them. The implications for mission are equally dramatic. For if the pressing problems of human society are no longer of concern to God, they have no place in Christian mission - or at most a decidedly secondary one. God's mission is getting souls to heaven, not addressing society on earth. Ours should follow suit. There may be an element of caricature in the way I have sketched this view, but it is not unrepresentative of a certain brand of popular mission rhetoric.

It will be clear that I find such a view of God and of mission to be unbiblical and frankly unbelievable, if one takes the whole Bible as the trustworthy revelation of the identity, character and mission of the living God. But to repeat, I do not reject or reduce the terribly serious spiritual realities of sin and evil that the New Testament exposes, or the glories of the spiritual dimension of God's redemptive accomplishment in the cross and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. I simply deny that these truths of the New Testament nullify all that the Old Testament has already revealed about God's comprehensive commitment to every dimension of human life, about his relentless opposition to all that oppresses, spoils, and diminishes human well-being, and about his ultimate mission of blessing the nations and redeeming his whole creation. Deriving our own missional mandate from this deep source precludes the kind of spiritualized reductionism that can read the exodus narrative, discern one vial dimension of its truth and yet bypass the message that cries out from its pages as loudly as the Israelites cried out in their bondage.

-Dr. Christopher Wright, The Mission of God, p. 280,281

Mozilla Ubiquity

My friend Bryan says Mozilla Ubiquity is "The best thing to hit the web since Google"



Looks pretty cool.

Pelosi and Church History

Mike Aquilina:

By now you know that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a botch of Christian history this week when she discussed abortion in light of her “ardent” Catholic faith. Newsman Tom Brokaw asked her how she would advise Senator Barack Obama regarding the beginnings of human life: “I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. And Senator–St. Augustine said at three months.”

…The early Church left clear paper trails on very, very few issues, but abortion is certainly one of them. It is condemned by the Didache, the so-called Epistle of Barnabas, the apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter; by Clement of Alexandria, Athenagoras, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Hippolytus, Origen, and Cyprian. And that partial list takes us only to the middle of the third century. Those witnesses emerged from ancient Syria, Egypt, Rome, Greece, Samaria, and North Africa. So, as the Vincentian Canon puts it, abortion was condemned always and everywhere and by all. There is no exception in the ancient Christian record, and this is one of those moral teachings that set Christians distinctly apart from the pagan world. If there were Nancy Pelosis in the world before the discovery of California, everyone — pagan or Christian — recognized that advocates for the “choice” of abortion were extra ecclesiam, outside the Catholic Church.

I’ve addressed the issue of abortion and the Fathers before. You’ll find an excellent patristic catena here.

(HT: James Grant)

Abortion Is About God

Quote of the Day

"Four years after tossing his bronze medal in a bag and later misplacing it, Dwyane Wade stepped off a flight from Beijing on Monday with his gold medal where it will be for the foreseeable future -- around his neck. 'I've seen a bronze medal before, and it looks nothing like a gold,' Wade said. 'When I put it around my neck, to feel how heavy it is -- if I hit somebody with it, it'll hurt. I can get used to it. I'm going to get used to it. I'm going to have it on for a while.'"

Found here.

If You Could Ask God One Question

Dan Phillips over at Pyromaniacs reviews "If You Could Ask God One Question" by Paul Williams and Barry Cooper.

I have used this small and simple book a bit in evangelism and have found it very helpful. At Desert Springs we are starting a class called Christianity Explored that is intended for those investigating Christianity. This class is based on the material found in this book. You might want to consider using this at your church.

Bob Kauflin: Singing and Preaching

Michael Guglielmucci Follow-Up Letter

Here is a follow up letter read by Michael Guglielmucci's father addressing his confession of faking cancer for the past 16 months. My heart breaks over this situation but know that healing can truly begin now that truth has come to light.

There are so many lessons that we could learn from this situation. May we be sobered to fight sin with all our might.

Donald's Prayer

Click here to read Donald Miller's prayer at the DNC tonight.

100 Push-Up Challenge - Accomplished

It only took me 10 weeks instead of the proposed 6, but I finally did it. 100 pushups. Never thought I would get there. You should really consider giving this a shot if you want a good workout in about 5-10 minutes, 3x a week.

Who Gets the Credit for Redeem Team's Success?

Jason Whitlock credits much of the Redeem's Team success to the "work" put forth by the Bling Team of 2004. He has an interesting point...

Gee, I Wonder Who The Democrats Are Trying To Cater To?

Yahoo News:

At the first official event Sunday of the Democratic National Convention, a choir belted out a gospel song and was followed by a rabbi reciting a Torah reading about forgiveness and the future. Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun who wrote "Dead Man Walking," assailed the death penalty and the use of torture. Young Muslim women in headscarves sat near older African-American women in their finest Sunday hats. Four years ago, such a scene would have been unthinkable at a Democratic National Convention. In 2004, there was one interfaith lunch at the Democratic gala in Boston.

Read the rest.

Election and Mission

"If we allow our doctrine of election to become merely a secret calculus that determines who gets saved and who does not, we have lost touch with the original biblical intention. God's calling and election of Abraham was not merely so that he should be saved and become the spiritual father of those who will finally be among the redeemed in the new creation (the elect, in another sense). It was rather, and more explicitly, that he and his people should be the instrument through whom God would gather that multinational multitude that no man or woman can number. Election is of course, in the light of the whole Bible, election unto salvation. But is first of all election into mission."

-Dr. Christopher Wright, The Mission of God, p. 263, 264

AmazonMP3 Daily Deal - Steely Dan - Aja

$0.99 - This is a classic. Amazing musicianship. Some legendary tunes.

Missions From Your Living Room

Tyler Kenney has a great post for those of us who live in college towns:

You should consider inviting an international student to live with you. Perhaps you have an extra bedroom in your house, or maybe there’s space in your apartment opening up soon.

Why not purposefully seek to fill it with some of the most respectful, cultured, and eager-to-learn folks around?

This kind of initiative in the heart of one of my roommates caused our apartment-family to grow this past year, adding a pair of delightful Saudi Arabian young men. Now I'm only more convinced of the idea.

Here’s why I’m persuaded:

• God loves the foreigner (Deuteronomy 10:18) and calls me to love him too (Leviticus 19:34).
• Trying to pronounce Arabic words fosters my humility.
• Ahmed and I often have extended conversations about true religion.
• My news-media-based knowledge of Muslims is supplemented with and corrected by first-hand experience. We are very similar in our desires, our depravity, and our need for a Savior.
• Mohammed knows how to make kabsa, and he’s generous with it.
• I can play an active part in reaching the nations from my own living room.
• It exposes my other friends and family to all the above.

Opposition

With watching two weeks of the Olympics, I have been thinking a bit about opposition. The essence of competition is defeating the opponent. The Olympic athletes practice hour after hour, day after day and year after year to ensure that no one will successfully oppose them.

The Bible speaks about opposition:

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

This has to be one of the scariest verses of the Bible.

Here is an understatement for you: You don't want God on the opposing team. You will lose. Is this not the testimony of the whole Bible? Cain, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Uzziah, the list goes on and on. God opposed them in their pride and it did not end well for them.

May this warning be enough for me today to forsake the pride that so easily wells up in my heart and pursue humility. If there is anything that I know I need, it's grace.

Brant Post on the Obama/Abortion Issue

Brant weighs in on the Obamania and abortion. I found his comment here from his own comment section to be insightful:

"I won't be punching a ballot (or touching a screen) for anyone who asks, effectively, "What is truth?" when it comes to basic who-gets-to-be-recognized-as-human issues. "It's above my pay grade," Obama says. "Don't know." So we'll err on the side of, literally, pulling babies apart."

Read the whole post. Brant is hardly a right wing wacko so I find his perspective refreshing.

If the issue of when life begins is so far "above his pay grade", then you would think that Obama would be agnostic on abortion and not the most extreme abortion proponent that anyone can find. I just can't trust a guy like this who doesn't have the gumption to be honest and say, "I don't think life begins until a baby is outside of the womb, that is why I think we have the right to kill it". At least be honest and own up to what you obviously believe by your voting record.

Collective Investment in the Kingdom

ThinkChristian.net:

I love it when people take the Bible seriously:

The challenge began in April. The Rev. Jeff Greenway used $67,000 loaned by some church families and distributed $50 to adults and $10 to children, challenging them to use their talents to turn the money into something larger.

The $117,500 ultimately collected was enough to repay the families who provided the startup money, while generating $50,500 more for charity. That amount is being divided and distributed to four causes to help people locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

...

At the Reynoldsburg church in April, congregant Karen Howald sat and listened, and accepted the $50 inside an envelope.

“The thing that ran through my mind was, ‘The only thing I can do at my age is make a pie,’ ” the 81-year-old recalled this week.

So the pie lady, as she is known, got to work in her kitchen, making the crust by hand, as she always does, and baking 58 pies, which she sold for $10 each. She wound up donating $500, after she kept $80 for her expenses. Her blackberry pies were the most popular.

So many congregants came up with so many products that the church held a bazaar every Wednesday night.

There, services including financial consulting, golf caddying and calligraphy were up for sale. So were products such as homemade chicken pot pies, hand-knit baby hats and painted birdhouses.

A churchwide yard sale brought in thousands of dollars more, as church members sold clothes, toys and housewares, said Dave Stoffel, who organized it.

For Stoffel, who has belonged to the church for 12 years, the fun and rewarding part of the pastor’s challenge was watching people dream up ways to raise money and learning the congregation’s talents.

“It was so neat to see people proud of what they had made,” Stoffel said this week. “It really gave the congregation a chance to really be involved with each other.”

Do you think your church would go for something like this? I would be open to giving it a shot.

Why Obama Really Voted For Infanticide

My critics could say that recently this blog has turned into the Obama Abortion blog, but that's ok, these types of posts will cease in time but this issue is too big of a deal to not post about it.

Again, if you are voting for Obama, please explain this one to me. The senate floor transcript is right there. It's not like this is right wing spin. Forget the rest of the article if you want and just read the transcipt exerpt. If this is not the most backwards thing you have ever read, please give me a good explanation. I just don't know what it could be. I am open to correcting myself here, just provide an explanation.

Olympic Wipeout Phunnies

One a lighter Olympic note... The best gymnastics wipeouts.

It's been a brutal Olympics for Chinese Christians

Read about it here.

(HT: Doug W.)

AmazonMP3 - $5 Friday

The Very Best Of The Beach Boys: Sounds Of Summer - $5




Weezer (Red Album) - $5




Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique - $5

The Spirituality of Exercise

Michael Kelley has a good reflection on "The Spirituality of Exercise". He sums up:

But I wonder - is America’s growing waistline linked to its lazy spirituality? Is our “church indulgence” linked to our food indulgence? Is God just as displeased with both? Maybe we all need to go on a diet - a full person one.

Read the whole thing.

Missional Margin

Timmy Brister:

During this summer, I have been teaching on what I have called “everyday evangelism.” At the beginning of the summer, I addressed the reasons why we do not evangelize. Along with fear of rejection, perhaps the greatest reason why we do not evangelize as we should is simply because we are too busy. Hybels recognized twenty years ago that we needed to slow down to be with God, and I am recognizing today that we need to slow down to be with the lost.

While staying at a hotel earlier this year, I took a long look at this door hanger. The more I looked at it, the more I realized it was something that could not only be found on the front door of my room, but as a billboard to my life. “Please do not disturb.” No thank you. I don’t want to be bothered by you. Has anyone informed you that it’s my life? I have got things to do, places to go, more important people to meet (people like me). You are an interruption not welcomed, a nuisance to my already overly stressed schedule. Please just leave me alone and stay out of the way.

I know that sounds harsh and a bit overdone, but you get my point. For the most part, this commentary could be said of our lives. This door hanger could be hung around our necks. The more important we think we are, the less time we will have for people, especially people who are not like us. The busier we become, the less we think of the lives, hurts, and needs of people around us–you know, the people we glance at and then look the other way. Whether intentional or accidental, the agenda of our lives is dictated by matters of urgency and prioritized by things most important to us. The result is that little if anything is left over. After all is said and done, we simply hang up the sign that says, “Please do not disturb.”

Read the rest of his very important post.

More Talk About the Infant Born Alive Protection Bill

I am no Hannity fan, so don't paint me with the right wing brush, but this seems very troubling to me. Click here for the story or watch the video interview with a nurse who worked with some of these infants that were born alive.

I'll ask it again and see if I can get any takers from those of you who would vote for Obama. Here is how it would breakdown:

Pro-infanticide president (trump card issue no matter what I would assume) = never get my vote, yet...

Pro-abortion president = will get my vote

If this is you, then you are obligated to point out the difference between abortion and infanticide. Does that make sense? Any takers?

Charismatic Crack-Up - Final Thoughts

Dan Edelen has posted his conclusion to his series on "The Charismatic Crack-Up". You can find it here.

AmazonMP3 Daily Deal - Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra - $1.99

Speaking of jazz... Here is some classic big band jazz for very cheap.


Tommy Dorsey And His Orchestra - Golden Era - $1.99

ABQ People - Come Out This Saturday Night

This Saturday night - Brickyard Pizza on Central
7-10pm
Great food
Great music
Great people
A raffle for a brand new car (or maybe not)

Zach Nielsen - Piano
Michael Glynn - Bass
Doug Cardwell - Drums

Click here for directions to Brickyard Pizza.

And So It Begins...

It's official now. Today we sent in our initial adoption application to All God's Children International. We had to wait a bit to send it in because the initial application fee was a little steep. We move forward by faith not know what we are getting ourselves into, but trusting in Him who holds all things together for our good. Hopefully we'll be able to add another picture to these three below in about 18-24 months. We'll keep you posted as the journey progresses.

McCain or Obama? Let your hype be limited

Shaun Groves with a good reflection for all those who put too much hope in the next president:

And The Government Will Be On His Shoulders

Sad News from Australia

I few days ago I did a post about the new Hillsong recording. In passing I mentioned the song, "Healer". The short of it is that the author of the song has terminal cancer and then wrote this powerful song about God being his Healer.

Sadly, it turns out he was lying about the whole thing. 300,000 youtube hits later, with thousands of people inspired, it was all a fake. He does not have cancer.

We need to pray for this man and his real healing from some very serious sin issues in his life.

I was just listening to a White Horse Inn Podcast this morning and they reminded the listeners that our hope is not in a subjective experience tied to a mortal man, but to the historical and factual message of Jesus' death and resurrection that is unchanged in the face of man's subjective experiences.

I pray that the people who listen to the new Hillsong record and all those in Australia who have been impacted by this man's ministry will have put more hope in the historical facts of the gospel and not the personal experience produced by this man.

Recycling - A Myth?

Anthony Bradley has an interesting post on recycling. As a family, we recycle probably because we have been told to do so. I would be lying if I said I knew anything about the recycling process. Dr. Bradley's closing comment:

"Recycling is emotional, not environmental."

Check out his post. What do you think?

Rick Warren on Obama’s “above my pay grade” comment

James Grant:

Rick Warren was interviewed by Beliefnet on the recent Saddleback Summit with McCain and Obama. The interviewer asked specifically about Obama’s response to the abortion question:

Dan Gilgoff: When you asked Obama about when life begins, he punted, saying “It’s above my pay grade.” Should someone running for the highest office in the land have a clear answer to that, or is that kind of ambivalence acceptable?

Rick Warren: No. I think he needed to be more specific on that. I happen to disagree with Barack on that. Like I said, he’s a friend. But to me, I would not want to die and get before God one day and go, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t take the time to figure out” because if I was wrong, then it had severe implications for my leadership if I had the ability to do something about it. He should either say, “No, scientifically, I do not believe it’s a human being until X” or whatever it is or say, “Yes, I believe it is a human being at X point,” whether it’s conception or anything else. But to just say “I don’t know” on the most divisive issue in America is not a clear enough answer for me.

Read the whole interview.

Sam Storms on Adoption

At the Together for Adoption blog there is a great interview with Sam Storms about adoption from a theological and physical point of view. He was asked this question:

"Why do you think it’s true that those who have been adopted by earthly parents often display unusual insight into vertical (spiritual) adoption?"

I greatly appreciated his response and his story of Janie:

I think we have to begin with the fact that to be the recipient of such marvelously unsolicited love from people not one’s biological parents must be a tremendous thrill. I’ve sensed this time and again from one young lady who was adopted at birth. Her appreciation for having been adopted into God’s family is understandably immense. She seems to rejoice in this glorious spiritual truth on a level yet unattained by most of us. I have learned much from her as she has shared with me her thoughts on the subject.

Janie’s biological mother already had four children and for reasons of her own felt compelled to give up her fifth for adoption. From the moment Janie entered her new home she began to learn about the kind of love God has for His adopted children.

The love her new parents had for her could hardly have been greater had she been their natural born child. Nowhere is this better seen than in the saying Janie’s new mom kept on her noteboard. It read:

“Not flesh of my flesh,

Nor bone of my bone,

But still miraculously my own.

Never forget for a single minute,

You didn’t grow under my heart

But in it.”

It’s a bit difficult for me to explain how Janie must feel, so I asked her to put it in her own words. After doing so it only confirmed what I said earlier about adopted children often having special appreciation for this spiritual truth.

“Being adopted,” explains Janie, “gives me an unusual ability to understand my adoption into God’s arms. My parents had no idea whether I would be a boy or girl. They wanted me regardless of my gender. God also loves us irrespective of gender. Knowing that they loved me before I was born deepens my gratitude that God knew me and chose me before the foundation of the world!”

“My adoptive parents chose to ignore my impoverished past. The fact that my natural mother was on welfare didn’t diminish their love for me. Likewise, God knows our wicked past, our spiritual impoverishment, down to the smallest disgusting detail. Yet He loves us anyway! To have been twice adopted and loved in this way goes beyond any words in my vocabulary.”

Janie brought me a copy of the Final Adoptive Decree and pointed out a fascinating and instructive paragraph. It states that “for all intents and purposes whatsoever, the said child is and is hereby declared to be in the same relationship to the Petitioners [the adoptive parents] as if born to them by natural birth, and remaining in such relationship as if the child were their own . . .”

What this means, among other things, is that Janie is legally as much a child of these parents as any other born to them by natural means. She is a co-heir with all others in that family. We, too, are co-heirs with Christ our brother. The good news is, whereas this earthly adoptive decree is stamped and notarized by the state, our “Spiritual Adoptive Decree” is sealed with the blood of Christ and signed by the God who cannot lie!

Whereas sometimes the love of earthly parents falters and even fails, the love of our Heavenly Father is immutable. No one in heaven or on earth can challenge the eternal legality of what God has done for us in making you and me His beloved children.

Janie also pointed out yet another statement in the decree which says that “the rights of all other persons, if any they have, to the care, control and custody of said child be and the same are hereby forever and finally terminated . . .” If you can’t get beyond the legal language, listen to how Janie explains it.

“These words can be used to describe God’s adoption of me into His family. When I was adopted by my earthly parents, my old identity was terminated. Legally speaking, anyway, I became a new and different person. I became Mary Jane Fox. When I was adopted by my Heavenly Father I also left behind my old self and was reborn with a new identity, a clean slate, a fresh start.”

I rejoiced with Janie and her husband when they celebrated the birth of their first child. At one point Janie said, “She is so fragile and vulnerable! She stumbles and falls and whines and often makes such a mess of things. But that’s the way we are with God. Every day I stumble and fall and mess things up, but my Father is there to pick me up. He comforts me when I’m down. I complain and get into trouble. Yet, He gently corrects me and loves me in a way that overshadows even the best of earthly affections.”

Earthly, adoptive love, is unspeakably special. Yet such sacrifice and passion, for all its beauty, for all its wonder, pales before the brilliant light of God’s love for us, one-time spiritual orphans. “Behold! Behold! What manner of love the Father has for us, that we should be called the children of God. And that’s exactly what we are!” (1 John 3:1-2).

Click here to read the whole interview.

"Death By Love" - Free Sample Chapter

You can get a free chapter from Mark Driscoll's new book, "Death By Love" by clicking here.

Be Prepared

"Budget and plan for an ordinary span of years, but in spirit be packed up and ready to leave at any time. This should be part of our daily devotional discipline. When the Lord comes, he should find his people praying for revival and planning world evangelism - but packed up and ready to leave nonetheless. If Boy Scouts can learn to live realistically in terms of the motto "Be prepared" for any ordinary thing that might happen, why are Christians so slow to learn the same lesson in relation to the momentous event of Christ's return?"

-J.I. Packer, Growing In Christ, p. 69

The Christian and Old Testament Law

Thabiti Anyabwile answers this important question: “How should a Christian relate to Old Testament laws?”

There is a ton to say here and books have been written on this subject, but I think his brief response below. Read the short article to see his answers fleshed out. This is crucial information for understanding how to read the Bible. He writes:

We should relate to Old Testament laws like Christians! That is to say, we relate to the Law in a few ways:

1. Acknowledging that Christ has fulfilled the Law for us.

2. Remembering we are not antinomians (lawless people with no moral code).

3. Using the Law evangelistically.

Bob Kauflin - Style of Music

Cleansing The Charismatic Crack-Up

Dan Edelen (a charismatic) has an interesting series of posts called, Cleansing the Charismatic Crack-Up. Check them out:

Part 1
Part 2

Al Mohler Q and A Videos

New Attitude Blog:

Al Mohler is now available in bite-sized pieces. We’ve just posted individual videos for each of the questions Al Mohler answered at Na 2008.

SEE THE VIDEOS

We’ve also listed (generally) what each video covers in case you’re looking for help with a specific topic (ex: Bible vs. other “holy books”, postmodernism’s effects, art and culture).

I have listened to all these and found them very helpful.

AmazonMP3 Daily Deals

Some great music here today for very cheap that you might want to check out:



"1994's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy ignited Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan's ascent to international superstardom. The new legacy edition of that album adds some rare extras, including an alternate version of the hit "Possession," which you can download free through August 25."

Listen now - I just got it and it's very cool. Solo piano of that song. Nice.




New David Crowder Band live record - (AmazonMP3 or )




New Keane single - (AmazonMP3 or )




New Goo Goo Dolls record (AmazonMP3)



New Anberlin Single - Feel Good Drag - (AmazonMP3 or )




New Casting Crowns Live - (AmazonMP3 or )



Ben Folds new single - "You Don't Know Me" (featuring Regina Spector) - (AmazonMP3)



Miles Davis - Miles Smiles - $5.94 - (AmazonMP3)




John Coltrane - My Favorite Things - The whole record for $0.99!!! - (AmazonMP3)