For the Love of God-Don Carson (December 19)
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A young friend of mine, Christopher Morley, has a passage in one of his recent essays which caught my eye in a newspaper and arrested my attention. It was as follows:
"In every man's heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibration of beauty. I can imagine no more fascinating privilege than to be allowed to ransack the desk of a thousand American business men, men supposed to be hard-headed, absorbed in brisk commerce.
Read more: William Penn Lecture 1918 Religion As Reality, Life And Power Delivered at Race Street...
It has been a long time since I have written anything. I have spent most of my days developing new friendships and trying to explain to them their need for Jesus. I wish I could tell you a bunch of stories of lives that have changed as a result. I wish I could tell you that hundreds have repented and are now serving the Lord faithfully. Instead, I'm pretty sad as very few of my new friends are ready to ditch their lives to follow Jesus. Some are not convinced they need to repent. Others are not convinced He is worth it.
The following is an excerpt from Francis Chan and David Platt's book, Multiply, about discipleship. A link to the online version is below.
Committing Your Life to the Church
First, let's make sure that we are not guilty of belittling God's church in any way. It's not a social club; it's not a building, and it's not an option. The church is life and death. The church is God's strategy for reaching our world. What we do inside the church matters. We tend to equate church life with events and programs. But these are not what make a church. Programs are helpful to the extent that they facilitate the life and mission of the church, but we can't equate well-attended events with the health of the church.
Read more: Multiply-an excerpt from Francis Chan & David Platt's new book
"I approach the next matter with great hesitation, and a sense of utter unworthiness. I suppose we all fail at this next point more than anywhere else; that is in the matter of prayer. Prayer is vital to the life of the preacher. Read the biographies, and the autobiographies of the greatest preachers throughout the centuries and you will find that this has always been the great characteristic of their lives. They were always great men of prayer, and they spent considerable time in prayer. I could quote many examples, but I must refrain as there are so many, and they are well known. These men found that this was absolutely essential, and that it became increasingly so as they went on.
Read more: On Prayer, from Preaching and Preachers, by Martyn Lloyd-Jones