I’ve decided this Lent to give up online shopping for forty days.
Since I have Amazon Prime, I constantly make random impulse buys: pens, notepads, headphones, guitar accessories, and as many as a dozen books at a time. I get at least one shipment per week.
Since I also decided to cut my life in half, this will be helpful.
Here’s to no more impulse buying.
What are you giving up?
You cracked open your journal, busted out your favorite pen, and finally opened your Bible.
Five sentences later, you have no idea what you just read.
Confusion, frustration, resignation: But the pastor made it so easy. It was better when he told it.
And the final excuse: At least I tried.
It’s happened to all of us, from rookies to veterans, when we catch the excitement of digging into Scripture and come out cold. Most of us will conclude the Bible is too hard, that we’re not mature enough, that we need to be spoon-fed, that something’s wrong with me, that we’ll try it again later. And with each pass at reading, we grow more bewildered.
Every pastor with the best of intentions is yelling at you to read your Bible, but they forget to tell you how.
Of course the simplest way would be to turn to Genesis and just rip right through it. But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a little help in reading Scripture. If you genuinely want to read the Bible but have had some false starts, here are some ways to dig into the Greatest Truth in the universe.
Based on our research, I also worry that some of the Christian community’s teaching on abstinence focuses too much on the personal, individualist benefits of delaying sex until marriage. I am certainly not questioning the motives of those who urge the next generation toward sexual purity but I do wonder if some of the methods reflect a mindset influenced by individualism. ‘Save yourself for marriage and have fantastic sex with one partner, the way it’s meant to be. Sex as God intended will blow your mind. Be safe; avoid the risks of STDs and an unwanted pregnancy. Think about your future.’ Much of the abstinence messaging, however well-intended, capitulates to culturally cultivated individualism: sex is about me.
– David Kinnaman
An article about youth ministry by Brian Cosby at The Gospel Coalition.
Excerpt:
“All too often, youth programs have turned to entertainment-driven models of ministry in order to bring in youth. Success has become the name of the church-growth game. The devastating effects, however, are not only seen in the number of youth leaving the church after high school, but also in a spiritually and theologically shallow worldview among many American teenagers. The irony is that these same teens actually want to grow and learn hard truths. They want to know how to think about suffering, how to pray, and why Jesus had to die.
If there’s anything a youth pastor knows—even after only a few months in ministry—it’s that fatigue and feelings of burnout come with the task. The constant pressure from parents, youth, church leadership, the senior pastor, and even his own family can wear a minister out very quickly.”
Continue Reading at The Gospel Coalition
Read Related:
– Young People: Not So Young
– Question: Youth Ministry Struggles
– How To Lose God In Ten Days
– When Pastors Just Want To Quit
– Book Review: Speaking To Teenagers
– Book Review: You Lost Me
themichaelwchen asked:
Hello 
Thank you for the follow! I have a question that I hope you may be able to shed a bit of light on. Actually, it’s a question that my friend asked me and I’ve been a bit torn on how to answer. Does God create disease and natural disasters? If so, why? If not, why doesn’t He stop them? I would appreciate your response greatly! -In Christ, Michael
Please first know that we tiny little human beings with our 3 lb. brains and stupid idol-craving hearts couldn’t possibly answer the huge question of planetary problems. The Bible (not surprisingly) doesn’t say much about it, except that disaster and disease will happen. In other words, God doesn’t need to defend Himself since He’s God.
But I’ll try to provide some biblical and logical reasons here. Please note that to an unbeliever, these answers will sound stupid. But the Bible told us that would happen, even when Jesus died, and believers will reason it out through His Spirit. So I’m not here to convince anyone, but rather humbly see things from God’s point of view.
We should not assume that the tough questions of a hostile professor are at the root of lost faith. Rather in many instances, I believe the Christian community has failed to disciple its science-inclined students to become responsible, intelligent, capable, resourceful, and faithful followers of Christ. We need to do a better job stewarding the intellect of this generation.
– David Kinnaman
Anonymous asked:
I’m so confused… what is the Holy Spirit?
Don’t you mean the Holy Ghost?
I kid. Good old King James, you know.
Let’s see:
- The Holy Spirit is God.
- The Holy Spirit is not a part of God or from God or inside God.
- The Holy Spirit is in a loving Trinity-Community with Jesus the Son and God the Father. One God, three persons.
- If you ask me how God can be one God but three persons, my head might explode. Since I’m guessing you don’t want that, we’ll leave that a mystery.
“God did not die for man because of some value He perceived in him. The value of each human soul considered simply in itself, out of relation to God, is zero. As St. Paul writes, to have died for valuable men would have been not divine but merely heroic; but God died for sinners. He loved us not because we were lovable, but because He is love.”
– C.S. Lewis
“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”
– Karl Barth
“Does the church have the courage to become relevant by becoming biblical?”
– David Wells
“Examine yourself: Does it lie within your power right now to weep over the spiritual destruction of the people on your street? Such tears come only through a profound work of God. If we want this work of God in our lives and in our churches, there will be agonizing prayer: ‘God, break my heart!’”
– John Piper
“The hijacking of the concept of morality began, of course, when we reduced Scripture to formula and a love story to theology, and finally morality to rules. It is a very different thing to break a rule than it is to cheat on a lover. A person’s mind can do all sorts of things his heart would never let him do. If we think of God’s grace as a technicality, a theological precept, we can disobey without the slightest feeling of guilt, but if we think of God’s grace as a relational invitation, an outreach of love, we are pretty much jerks for belittling the gesture.”
— Donald Miller
“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”
— Francis Chan
“For me to not trust God is crazy, because His fingerprints are all over my story from top to bottom.”
— Jeremy Lin
Never use cultural ‘relevance’ as an excuse for sin. God’s standard of righteousness does not change.
– Wesley Hall
