…If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness and all perfection, he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing. Could you therefore work miracles, you could not do more for yourself than by this thankful spirit, for it heals with a word speaking, and turns all that it touches into happiness.
…though it be the noblest sacrifice that the greatest Saint can offer unto God, yet is it not tied to any time, or place, or great occasion but is always in your power and may be the exercise of every day. For the common events of every day are sufficient to discover and exercise this temper and may plainly show you how far you are governed in all your actions by this thankful spirit.
...we’ve given our people 3 simple questions to shape their gospeled living, and I share them with you in hopes they will help you clarify how you’ll live as gospel people in the coming year.
1. Who will be our Family? As we recalibrate this fall, with whom are you committed to living your Family identity? You need a primary community, a group of Jesus people to whom you commit yourself. Who will you be with regularly for the sake of sharing and celebrating Jesus, in both intentional gathered times (DNA, dinners, etc.) and in the everyday stuff of life?
2. Where and to whom are we called as a Missionaries? In this recalibration through Ephesians, we’ve seen that Paul hammers the truth that every person who has miraculously gotten in on the grace party has done so for the purpose of extending the invitation! Who will you pursue for the sake of sharing the good news of the gospel by praying for, serving, and speaking God’s grace to them?
3. In what ways will we be Jesus’ Servant? There are needs around us that we’ve been given grace to meet – works that Jesus destined us to walk in! – that will make much of Him. What is he asking you to surrender (time, money, comfort, etc.) this fall so you can bring good news to your neighborhood or network, and in what ways will you do so?
In the end, we’re simply saying the message of Ephesians: Be who you are. God is rescuing a family to himself, and sending them to be servant missionaries all across our city. As elders and equippers, our job isn’t to convince our people to do something for God; rather, we have the high calling of reminding our people of all that the Father has given them in the gospel – “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places!” – so that they’ll be free to live as the people He saved them to be – “to the praise of his glorious grace!”Read the rest.
Risky Gospel fits in the "new radicalism" genre, but it's pretty different than kindred titles. Here are three distinguishing features from Radical, Crazy Love, Not a Fan and others (I support and recommend all three, and Kyle Idleman wrote the foreword to RG):
1. I focus a great deal on the God-rooted goodness of the so-called "ordinary Christian life." Other books have stirred overseas-minded people up in different and helpful ways; I want to enfranchise all believers. I want them to see that they can lead a big, God-glorifying life in the suburbs, the country, the urban core. They can drive an SUV; they can buy Venti two-shot light-foam Caramel Macchiatos at Starbucks; they don't have to quit their job, but can keep working at their vocation, whether that means barista in Brooklyn, stay-at-home mom in Des Moines, financial planner in Chicago, pastor in Bangor, Maine, or most anything in between. I want to infuse "ordinary," everyday Christianity with gospel purpose.
2. Evangelicals are sometimes indifferent to institutions--the home, the church, the public square, etc. In Risky Gospel, I make a strong case for "building" and strengthening institutions. Chapters 5-9 are all about taking dominion and building something awesome: a godly home, a God-glorifying career, a stronger local church. In an age that shows hostility to the gospel, we need institutions more than ever. Young evangelicals are especially tempted to be overly mystical, non-committal, and indifferent to larger works. I'm winsomely going after them in the book so that they'll see how satisfying and important involvement in home, church, work truly is!
3. I ground this call in the gospel and in our identity as "more than conquerors" in Christ (Romans 8:37). I'm tired of "miserable worm" Christianity. I'm tired of hearing believers mope about how defeated and weak they are. I wrote this book for believers who want a bigger, stronger, thicker faith. They can see where they want to go, but they don't necessarily know how to get there. The best way to go from A to B is to know who we are in the power of the Spirit. Chapters 2-4 give this foundation. Jesus deals death to sin. Jesus makes us alive. Jesus makes us more than conquerors. We're all sinful. But we're fundamentally a "new creation." I celebrate and apply this reality in Risky Gospel.Get the book here.
A friend recently told me that what’s down in the well comes up in the bucket. When we find ourselves spouting off in anger or gossip or slander it’s not because we were just caught up in the moment; it’s because that’s what down in our hearts. We are only showing off what’s been down in there the whole time:Read the rest.
“How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. A good man produces good things from his storeroom of good, and an evil man produces evil things from his storeroom of evil” (Matthew 12:34-35).
Today, if you want to do a little introspection, then don’t start with the heart; it might just be lying to you. Start with the tongue. Continue with the wallet. Then move onto the gospel where we will find the only true power to not change our words or our spending habits, but the heart that is behind them both.
(HT: T-Wax)1. When you have no idea what to sayProverbs 17:28: "Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent."2. When you're wrongly accused1 Peter 2:23: "When he was reviled, he did not revile in return."
Isaiah 53:7: "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth."3. When you're madProverbs 25:28: "Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control."4. When you're confused about lifeLamentations 3:25–28: "The Lord is good for those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord . . . Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; let him put his mouth to the dust—there may yet be hope."5. When you wouldn't want someone else to find out you said itLuke 12:3: "Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops."6. When you don't really mean itProverbs 3:28: "Do not say to your neighbor 'Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it,' when you have it with you."7. When you can't stop yearning for the good old daysEcclesiastes 7:10: "Say not, why were the former days better than these? For it is not from wisdom that you ask this."8. When you have a lot to do and you don't like itPhilippians 2:14: "Do all things without grumbling or complaining."9. When the timing is wrongProverbs 25:11: "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in setting of silver."10. When you don't have anything to say that gives grace
Ephesians 4:29: "Let no corrupt talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear it."
Sometimes, evangelical Christians do more harm than good on Facebook.
Under the veil of “taking a stand” for our values, I fear we are letting loose all kinds of dishonoring, uncharitable speech. We need to stop.Read the rest.
Twenty years ago, The New York Times ran a full-page ad for Columbia University. It advertised seven fields of study in which a person can get a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies: American, Ancient, East Asian, Islamic, Jewish, Medieval and South Asian Studies. Richard John Neuhaus spotted this ad and wrote an editorial about it, asking, “Where is Christian Studies?” He pondered four possible reasons and then settled with this one:“Nervousness is caused by the awareness that there are an awful lot of people who really believe in Christianity. The university is a cosmopolitan space where ‘religious traditions’ can be subjected to critical examination but are not to be taught as though they might be, well, you know, true. Even in religious studies departments, faculty members who are Hindus, Buddhists, and believers in Mystical Crystals can quite openly profess their faith. Muslims and, usually, Jews can, too. Nobody raises a question about their ‘proselytizing.’ Not so with Christians. The fear is that Christianity might be taken altogether too seriously. The absence of Christian Studies in the Columbia program, it turns out, is not an insult to Christianity. Those of the other faiths, however might have reason to be offended.”I think Neuhaus was right. We see his theory working itself out in universities everywhere whose religious life groups are being told by administrators that proselytizing at an event cannot be done unless the people who are being proselytized have come to the event knowing that there will be an attempt to convert them. Just wondering ... which religious groups are they concerned about?At the same time, we see that even atheists are hungering for something deeper, though they would not agree that the “what” they are seeking is actually a Who. Some of you may have seen the article in the Times-News recently about Atheist Mega-Churches on the rise. Here’s an excerpt: “It looked like a typical Sunday morning at any megachurch. Several hundred people, including families with small children, packed in for more than an hour of rousing music, an inspirational sermon, a reading and some quiet reflection. The only thing missing was God.” One of the founders, Sanderson Jones, “got the inkling for the idea while leaving a Christmas carol concert six years ago. “There was so much about it that I loved, but it’s a shame because at the heart of it, it’s something I don’t believe in,” Jones said. “If you think about church, there’s very little that’s bad. It’s singing awesome songs, hearing interesting talks, thinking about improving yourself and helping other people — and doing that in a community with wonderful relationships. What part of that is not to like?’”A man named Saul in the first century made it his aim to destroy the church, to put an end to the Christians’ proselytizing once and for all. Let me ask you something. Why was Saul persecuting the church? Was it because the church sang awesome songs, heard interesting talks, and got together to think about how to improve themselves and help others? No. Saul knew the church perhaps better than we did. He knew that if they were right, and that Jesus really was the Messiah and that salvation comes not through works of righteousness but by grace through faith, then his whole life was a pile of rubbish. That’s what he wrote later, after his conversion to Christianity: “Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
I drove five hours in the rain, one way, to see The Scoring Machine score three points.
Can I get my toll money back?
Jack Taylor of Grinnell College scored three points, total, in the Pioneers' 88-79 win over Wartburg on Wednesday night. The two games before he'd scored 71 and 109, which is 61 points per game the hard way.
Taylor did have three assists, two steals and two guys (sometimes three) draped on him every second of the game, including bathroom breaks. It was one year to the day after he scored 138 in one game, the all-time college record. He came up only 135 short.
Thirty-five field goals last game. Zero this time.
"I can't remember the last time I didn't have a field goal," he said afterward. "Maybe ... never?"
Maybe this will shut up all the buzzkill columnists who say Grinnell's program is a sham and an embarrassment and an obscenity to college basketball.
"Of course it's a sham," says Grinnell's irrepressibly fun head coach, Dave Arseneault Sr. "We're as surprised as anybody. It's a sham in the sense of we really emphasize having fun. Everybody else takes sports so seriously. We're just having fun."
It's more than just fun, even when Taylor is clamped down. It's basketball and madness thrown into a Pyrex beaker, shaken up and spilled out on a Division III basketball court.
Tell me this isn't fun:
1. During practice, every player has to shoot 100 3s, while music blares.
2. During games, Arseneault is miffed if they don't get a shot off every 12 seconds, preferably a 3, Taylor or no Taylor.
3. "I get yelled at if I don't shoot," Taylor says. How many coaches ever do that?
4. Fifteen Grinnell players got in the game Wednesday night, 12 for double-digit minutes. Most teams are lucky to get their 15th guy on the floor once a year.
5. Grinnell's pregame locker room ritual is a bizarre Buddhist-style chant, followed by a song about Yao Ming, followed by everybody slamming each other off each other's lockers.
6. Arseneault doesn't even sit anywhere near the team. He watches three feet from the far end of the bench, sometimes with his granddaughter on his lap. His son, Dave Jr., does the coaching. The manager does all the substituting. Yes, the manager.
7. Grinnell (3-0) presses full-out, full-bore, all the time, which is why it subs five guys at a time every 35 seconds, like a hockey team. If it can't get a new line in, the manager holds up a fist, which means "Foul somebody."
8. The banners showcasing Grinnell's 18 national scoring titles are five times bigger than any of their Midwest Conference Championship banners. "OK, maybe I made those a little big," Dave Jr. says.
9. The Grinnell student body cheers wildly when the opponent dunks. As one fan in a wig told me: "We don't get to see many dunks."
10. Before Arseneault Sr. happened on his "system" that everybody in the country seems to think is the end of civilization, Grinnell had 27 straight losing seasons. Since the 1993 season, when Aresenault installed his current style of play, they've only had four losing seasons. "We wanted to make our gym a place people wanted to be," Arseneault said. After Taylor's 109 points on Sunday, 50 new recruits sent in their tapes.
Which would Arseneault rather have -- fun or wins?
"Oh, fun, by FAR," he says with a huge laugh.Read the rest. It's quite refreshing.
A small internet-based Chinese talk show has stolen- frame for frame!- the Conan Show’s opening, and it’s a source for comedic gold. But’s what happened next that makes the sketch Mbird-worthy:
Da Peng, the offending host, apologizes sincerely for ripping off the opening credits, and not only does Team Coco extend forgiveness, but they give Da Peng a spiffy new show opener as a gift. Too cool.
As I’m reflecting on this incident, it seems there were only two ways it could have played out. Either the law gets involved, or there’s grace. It’s either cease and desist letters from lawyers, or it’s comedic gold. Both of these methods solve the fundamental issue of plagiarism, but only one of them allows for comedy, friendship, and relationship to thrive. So kudos to Conan O’Brien for an international act of grace; not just wiping the slate clean, but giving away the candlesticks too!
1. People Aren’t Singing Much During the ServiceRead the rest for his explanations.
2. Long Time Church People Are Unsettled
3. Irregular Attendance is Regular
4. Your Tidy Categories Are Falling Apart
5. You’re Getting Surprisingly Candid Questions
6. Everyone’s Tolerance For Hypocrisy is Plummeting
7. You See Real Life-Change
Dear Friends,I’m excited to announce that our Advent ebook is newly revised and ready for December 2013 — and free of charge. It’s called Good News of Great Joy.As you know, Advent is just around the corner. It starts the fourth Sunday before Christmas — this year, that’s December 1 — and is a season of preparation for Christmas Day.A year ago, the team here at Desiring God did a deep dive into our thirty-plus-year reservoir of sermons and articles, and selected brief devotional readings for each day of Advent. Now we’ve slightly revised the ebook to have it optimized for 2013. Our hope is that God would use these readings to deepen and sweeten your adoration of Jesus this Advent.Many contacted last year to ask for permission to print these devotionals not only for private use, but to share with friends and family — even their whole local congregation. We love that impulse to spread the joy, and gladly encourage you do so. Also, to serve as many as we can, we’re working with Amazon to make available a print-on-demand option, which should be ready in just a few days. We’ll make sure to announce it when that’s available, and update this post — you can check back here to see.These daily devotionals correspond to the daily readings in our devotional app Solid Joys, which is available for free download in iTunes and Google Play, as well as online (also in Korean, both online and for Android). If you find short daily reflections like these helpful, we hope you’ll consider using Solid Joys once Advent is done.Our prayer is that this eBook would help you keep Jesus as the center and greatest treasure of your Advent season. The candles and candies have their place, but we want to make sure that in all the Christmas rush and hubbub, we adore Jesus above all.December is an important time for us at Desiring God. We give most of what we have away for free. This is possible because lots of thankful people help us make that happen. It would make us really glad if you would pray about how you might be involved in supporting our mission as this year comes to a close.For Christ and his kingdom,John Piper
with David Mathis, Executive EditorTo download Good News of Great Joy, click on the following format options:
- Download eBook as a PDF file.
- Download eBook as an EPUB file formatted for readers like the Nook, Sony Reader, and Apple iBooks (iPad, iPhone, iPod).
- Download eBook as a MOBI file formatted for Kindle applications (this option works well on some mobile devices, and not so well on others).
Note: To load the eBook on a mobile device it may be necessary to view this blog post from within your device and then to click the download option.
