“How do I need to become more honest and less impressive, so that the only reason people pay attention to me is the power of Christ resting upon me?”

If I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth.  But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. 
2 Corinthians 12:6

Ray Ortlund:

God had given the apostle Paul an amazing spiritual experience — apparently, some kind of guided tour of heaven.  If Paul had wanted to “wow” the rest of us, he easily could have.  But for fourteen years he told no one about it, quietly keeping it to himself, wonderful though it was.  He didn’t exploit his remarkable experience to enhance his ministry. 

Paul was deeply secure in Christ.  He was content for people to perceive him and rate him on the basis of what they themselves could observe in him – not what he could claim, even rightly claim, but the ordinary human realities they could see and hear.  It was the fraudulent “super-apostles” (2 Corinthians 11:5) who trotted out their big-deal-ness.  Moreover, Paul really wasn’t impressive in some ways that typically count in this world.  He deliberately chose not to be.  He did have the power of Christ resting upon him.  But even that came out most clearly in his weaknesses.  And as I said, Paul was okay with people reaching their own conclusions about all this.  He didn’t groom an image.  He wouldn’t stoop to it.  The reality of Christ was too significant. 

I wonder if the apostolic approach to clout satisfies us today.  I hope so.  But sometimes I wonder.  So much of this is down in our motives.  That makes it impossible for anyone to judge.  Who can see another person’s heart?  But whatever looks like self-promotion, even if the claims are true and accurate — it just doesn’t pass the whiff test. 

Rather than justify the accepted patterns of gathering attention to oneself, maybe we should scrutinize more radically the conversation going on in our heads.  Maybe we should be asking, “How do I need to become more honest and less impressive, so that the only reason people pay attention to me is the power of Christ resting upon me?” 

My own thoughts keep returning to our need for revival — an outpouring of divine power to purify the church and compel the attention of the world.  I have to wonder what there is about me right now, the Ray Ortlund who currently exists, that inadvertently counteracts the power of God?  I wonder what changes I need to make, to become “a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work” (2 Timothy 2:21)?  Whatever those changes are, I expect they will decrease, rather than increase, my impulses toward all forms of self-importance.

Weakness is One of Our Core Values

Holy Trinity Church:

• Weakness implies dependence on the Holy Spirit. Ministry is not simply a matter of best practices. It is a spiritual enterprise. As Francis Schaeffer said, “And as Christians, we too must comprehend something of our need for spiritual power. If we think we can operate on our own, if we do not comprehend the need for a power beyond our own, we will never get started" (No Little People).
• Weakness implies devotion in prayer. When we comprehend that we are weak, we turn away from pride and self-sufficiency to our true source of power. A prayerless life is a life that fails to recognize my true condition.
• Weakness implies a willingness to suffer. The illusion of strength and an unwillingness to suffer go together. Weak people, it seems, are less surprised by suffering. Ajith Fernando writes, “In a world where physical health, appearance, and convenience have gained almost idolatrous prominence, God may be calling Christians to demonstrate the glory of the gospel by being joyful and content while enduring pain and hardship.”

(HT:  DashHouse)

The First Step in Mission: "Do Nothing"

J.D. Greear:

I’ve always thought that Jesus gave a very odd “first step” to completing the Great Commission: “Do nothing until the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” With millions of people waiting to hear the gospel, he told the only ones who knew anything about it to sit and wait until he had sent them something mysterious from above. That meant they were not to write books. They were not go out and try to make converts. They were to do nothing. 

Why? They were to do nothing until the Spirit came because they truly could do nothing effectively until he did. Jesus had promised that he would build his church, and he could accomplish more in one moment through his Spirit than they could accomplish in 10,000 lifetimes through all their expertise. 

Do you live with that sense of dependence on the Holy Spirit? Do you really believe that you can do nothing without him? As a parent, as a spouse, as a friend, as a witness? 

The book of Acts tells the mind-blowing, earth-upturning story of what a group of people filled with the Holy Spirit can do. We’re still reeling today from that first Christian century. New Testament scholars have pointed out that the book of Acts has really been given the wrong title. Rather than “The Acts of the Apostles,” many say it should probably be “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.” (Note that the original book had no title. It was assigned later, so suggesting a change is not like suggesting we edit Scripture!) They say that because even a quick read of Acts reveals that the Spirit of God is the primary actor. He guides, speaks, and moves. The disciples are simply trying to keep up. At their best, they are merely conduits of this mighty rushing wind. At their worst, they are obstructions.

Read the rest.


Books by J.D. Greear:

• Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved
• Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary
• Breaking the Islam Code: Understanding the Soul Questions of Every Muslim

More of the Holy Spirit is Often Not Glamorous

The more the Holy Spirit works, the more Christians will be used in battle, and the more they are used, the more there will be personal cost and tiredness. 

It is quite the opposite of what we might first think. 

People often cry out for the work of the Holy Spirit and yet forget that when the Holy Spirit works, there is always tremendous cost to the people of God-weariness and tears and battles.

- Francis Schaeffer, No Little People, p. 73

(HT:  JT)

Brownies Pianos and the Sufficiency of Spirit

Do You Have The Holy Spirit?

Here is a great Biblical guide to answer that question:

Aaron Armstrong:

Look at the fruit of your life.

• Do you want to obey Jesus—and do you strive to do so? (Matt. 7:15-18)
• Do you love others—especially those who are unlovely? (Matt 5:43-48)
• Are you seeing increased evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in your life? (Gal. 5:22-23)
• Do you have a growing hatred of evil and love for what is good? (Rom. 12:9)
• Are you increasingly generous with your time, talents and treasure? (Matt 6:19-24)
• Are you increasingly aware of your own sinfulness and need of God’s grace? (1 Tim. 1:15-16)

He adds a helpful qualification:

What we all need to recognize is that apart from the Spirit’s work within us, the answer to all of these questions is going to be a resounding “no.” It’s impossible to do any of them without the Spirit at work, bringing life into what was dead. So perhaps we ought not to worry so much about whether or not we lack the Spirit. Instead, let’s examine the fruit of our lives and see what is revealed.

Read the rest.

"We tend to preach the Gospel as if it’s only about the forgiveness of sins."

Darrell Bock:

We tend to preach the Gospel as if it’s only about the forgiveness of sins. But, in fact, the whole point about having your sins forgiven is to reconnect you to God so that you can live the life He’s designed you to have. So, the gift of the Spirit is the enabler in that. And that was the missing dimension in the Hebrew Scriptures in the Old Testament and the Mosaic Covenant, is that God was working with the law, but, He wasn’t working inside the heart. So, He promised a New Covenant in Jeremiah. He says, “I’m gonna put the law in your heart, I’m gonna bring it inside of you. That’s the Gospel and that is the message of Acts 2. I say, “Preach it!”

Get Dr. Bock's new book on Luke and Acts here.

His other books here.  

"Here then is how the Spirit makes us wise..."

Here then is how the Spirit makes us wise. On the night before he died, Jesus told his disciples that he would send the Holy spirit and ‘when he, the Spirit of truth, come … he will glorify me …’ (John 16:13-14). The Spirit does not make us wise in some magical kind of way, giving us little nudges and insider tips to help us always choose the best stock to invest in. Rather, he makes Jesus Christ a living, bright reality, transforming our character, giving us new inner poise, clarity, humility, boldness, contentment, and courage. All of this leads to increasing wisdom as the years go by, and to better and better professional and personal decisions. 

- Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavour: Connecting Your Work to God’s Plan for the World, 212.


Books by Tim Keller:

• The Prodigal God  
• King’s Cross 
• Gospel in Life: Grace Changes Everything 
• The Reason for God  
• Counterfeit Gods  
• Generous Justice

A Gospel-Movement in a City

Tim Keller:

Can we produce a gospel city movement? No. A movement is the result of two sets of factors. Take for example, a garden. A garden flourishes because of the skill and diligence of the gardener and the condition of the soil and the weather. The first set of factors---gardening---is the way we humanly contribute to the movement. This encompasses a self-sustaining, naturally growing set of ministries and networks, which we will look at in more detail below.

But the second set of factors in a movement---the conditions---belong completely to God. He can open individual hearts ("soil") to the Word ("seed") in any numbers he sovereignly chooses. And he can also open a culture to the gospel as a whole ("weather"). How does God do this? Sometimes he brings about a crisis of belief within the dominant culture. Two of the great Christian movements---the early church of the second and third centuries and the church in China in the twentieth and twentieth first centuries---were stimulated by crisis of confidence within their societies. The belief in the gods of Rome---and belief in orthodox Marxism in China---began falling apart as plausible worldviews. There was broad disaffection toward the older "faiths" among the population at large. This combination of cultural crisis and popular disillusionment with old ways of belief can supercharge a Christian movement and lift it to greater heights than it can reach in a culture that is indifferent (rather than hostile) to Christians. There can also be catastrophes that lead people of a culture to look to spiritual resources, as when the Japanese domination of Korea after 1905 became a context for the large number of conversions to Christianity that began around that time.

In short, we cannot produce a gospel movement with the providential work of the Holy Spirit. A movement is an ecosystem that is empowered and blessed by God's Spirit.

What is the ecosystem that the Holy Spirit uses to produce a gospel city movement?

Read the rest for his rationale.

Tim's book, Center Church, releases tomorrow. Reserve your copy today.

When We Say “Gospel,” Do We Really Mean “The Spirit?”

Trevin Wax:

My point is to make this truth explicit rather than implied – to show the Spirit is the actor and the gospel is the instrument. In other words, to make the relationship front and center again.

Why does this matter? Because the point of knowing more about God is that we would know God more. The point of reflection on the gospel is relationship with the God of the gospel.

All this talk about being constantly reminded of the gospel and refreshed in the gospel is another way of saying we need the Holy Spirit to bring to mind the good news of Jesus and what He has done. (According to John 17, that is one of His roles.) So yes, we need to be refreshed by the Spirit as He once again applies the truth of the gospel to our wayward hearts.

Here’s my concern: If we lose the personal connection to the Holy Spirit, we miss the intimacy God wants with His people as well as the power God intended us to have.

So, by all means, let’s be all about the gospel. But let’s make sure that whenever we talk about the gospel, we have the God of the gospel in mind. He is the unchanging substance behind our changing terminology.

Read the rest.

Defining "Fruitful"

I needed to read this today.

Bill Clem:

In John 15, Jesus talks to his disciples about what bearing fruit really means. In this passage, Jesus is basically saying that his commandment is to abide in him, not to bear fruit. He is instructing them to be plugged in relationally to him, rather than running around doing a lot of works in an effort to please him. Bearing fruit, then, is what Jesus promises as the result of abiding in him.

Fruitfulness in parenting, for example, does not look like having obedient children who follow all the rules and are well-behaved. Fruitfulness in parenting comes when your kids see an example of godly living as you live in Christ—when your kids fall in love with the Jesus in whom you’re abiding. And you can’t control that, it is the fruit that the Holy Spirit bears out because you are abiding in him.

Money quote: "The truth is that if what you do can be done whether or not God shows up, that’s not spiritual fruit."

Read the rest.


Books by Bill Clem:
Disciple: Getting Your Identity from Jesus

Our Real Problem

“The central problem of our age is not liberalism or modernism, nor the old Roman Catholicism or the new Roman Catholicism, nor the threat of communism, nor even the threat of rationalism and the monolithic consensus which surrounds us [nor, I would add today, postmodernism or materialistic consumerism or visceral sensualism or whatever]. All these are dangerous but not the primary threat. The real problem is this: the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually or corporately, tending to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than of the Spirit. The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them.”

- Francis A. Schaeffer, No Little People, page 66.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)

Piper and Meyer Talk Succession Plan

Originally, I thought this video would be boring and I chose to skip it. Then I got a text from my my buddy and he insisted that I watch it.  I did.  I would encourage you to heed my buddies advice.  It is deeply encouraging on a variety of levels.

Evidence of God's Spirit at Work in our Times

Ray Ortlund with a very encouraging post that I heartily agree with.  He writes:

I was ruined at 19. I saw the Holy Spirit come down and change the subject on the streets of L.A. to Jesus. It was known as “the Jesus Movement” — from around 1969 to 1972. I thought this was just how ministry was done, this is what to expect. All my life since I have prayed and labored to see breakthrough spiritual power of that magnitude.

I am seeing it. We are seeing it. But this time, it’s better. The Jesus Movement was more like a power surge. Kaboom. It came, it went. Much good was done. But it was too soon over. This time, however, we’re planting churches, forming coalitions and networks, building websites, writing books of lasting value, and much more. This time, it’s built to last. This is thrilling.

These advances are pouring out of a broad renewal in the biblical gospel. Union with Christ crucified and risen, regeneration, justification by faith alone, sanctification by grace, the church as ground zero for the purposes of God, and so forth — robust gospel doctrine is being run up the flagpole through The Gospel Coalition, Together for the Gospel, Acts 29, Sovereign Grace Ministries, Reach Records, and so forth, and a new generation is saluting. I see this as evidence of God’s power in our midst. And here’s the cool thing. It’s not as though a human committee met in a hotel conference room somewhere to mastermind the progress of the past decade. God has done this himself. And it’s no stunt. He has a plan, and he’s working his plan. He is creating conditions for an even better future, if we will steward his blessing wisely.

How can we do that? How can we live in such a way that, twenty years from today, we won’t be regretting how we handled our historic opportunity? What can we do, within our limitations, not to squander what God is giving us but to parlay it into even more?

Read the rest for his exhortations on how we move into the future with such blessing.


Check out Ray's books here:
Proverbs: Wisdom that Works
Isaiah: God Saves Sinners
A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans
God's Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery
When God Comes to Church: A Biblical Model for Revival Today

The 5 Marks of a Gospel Movement on a Local Church

J.D. Greear writes well on the evidences of the Spirit in the local church.

1. Evangelistic effectiveness AND doctrinal depth (Acts 2:41-42, 47)
2. Gospel-centered churches are characterized by the presence of God. (Acts 2:43)
3. Gospel-centered churches are characterized by fervent, faith-filled prayer (Acts 2:42)
4. Gospel-centered churches are characterized by empowered members. (Acts 8:1, 28:15)
5. Gospel-centered churches are characterized by extravagant generosity. (Acts 2:45)

Read the post.

Lone-Ranger Christians

Timmy Brister:

Lone-ranger Christians are at best disobedient and dysfunctional. They are disobedient because numerous commands of Scripture require us to be in regular contact with other believers (“one another” commands). They are dysfunctional because the needs they have are not being met by the God-ordained means of gifts of the Holy Spirit through each member of His body. Perhaps what exists behind of this is a denial of neediness–a determination of making it by self-determination and independence. Sadly, this state of existence is far too common in the church today.

God knows what we need before we ask Him. God has made provision through the distribution of the Spirit’s gifts through the work of ministry when each member is equipped and working properly. As we have our needs met through the ministry of others, we are also meeting the needs of others by the gifts given to us for their good.

Read the rest.

The Mosque on the Mount

Jon Bloom:

On the ancient temple mount in Jerusalem there stands a mosque.

Observant Jews see a profaning of their most holy place and plead with YHWH to remove their disgrace. Observant Muslims see Allah’s favor, a sign that the true religion sits in ascendency.

The world sees a centuries-old religious/political drama being played out on the edge of a knife, with diplomats delicately working like a bomb squad to avoid an explosion.

But most miss the real significance of the mosque on the mount.

Read the rest.

The Big Red Tractor

The Big Red Tractor from Jacob Lewis on Vimeo.