Life2gether

As we approach a new year, I’ve been thinking a lot about this post by Jonathan Dodson.  He begins by quoting Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) on why it is so important that we slow down.

If you are wise therefore you will show yourself a reservoir and not a canal. For a canal pours out as fast as it takes in; but a reservoir waits till it is full before it over flows, and so communicates its surplus…We have all too few such reservoirs in the Church at present, thought we have canals in plenty. – Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on Song of Songs

I encourage you to read the rest of this much needed exhortation.

Josh Harris:

Here’s the truth: you and I know how to abide. When there’s someone in our life that we know we can’t live without, we know how to stay close to them. We talk to them. We listen to them. We don’t go on long vacations away from them. We remember to call. We do the things that please them. We give up other things and relationships to prioritize them.

That’s what Jesus tells us to do this in John 15. If you want to abide in Jesus, listen to his words. Read his Bible. Let his words live in you. Let his words and his gospel shape your thinking. Talk to him. Pray. Seek to love what he loves. Ask him to do the things that he loves. Abide in his love by keeping his commandments. Obey him even when it’s costly.

Abiding isn’t complicated. The secret to abiding is simply being desperate for Jesus. The secret to abiding is believing that apart from Jesus you can do nothing.

Read the whole thing …

As a daddy of two daughters, I appreciated Dave Bruskas’ words below:

This has been my strategy [for raising my daughters]: I will be a man, a husband, and a dad shaped by repentance rather than religion.

My daughters have seen my tears when I have sinned against God, against their mom, and against them. They have forgiven me too many times to count. They know I’m not perfect. They know I am a work in progress and have a front row seat to my failures. They get to see and feel that I love Jesus, am crazy about their mom, and enjoy them. And that seems to be enough.

Read the whole thing …

As Francis Chan started his message at the recent DG conference he shared two questions he asks himself as he prepares to speak:

1.  Am I worried about what people will think of my message or what God will think of it?

2. Do I genuinely love the people I’m about to speak to?

Tim Chester gives this little challenge from his book, Gospel-Centred Church:

Start playing around with this principle:  ’If you wouldn’t do it as a family, then you shouldn’t do it as a church.’  It does not always work.  Families do not submerge members under water and they do not recruit new members–although good families are welcoming and inclusive.  But give it a try and see where it takes you.  Then have a go with: ‘If you do it in a family, then you can do it as a church.’

What comes to your mind?  Eating, serving, sharing, sacrificing …

These are such sweet words from Jonathan Edwards in his sermon, The Excellency of Christ:

It could not have been conceived, had it not been so in the person of Christ, that there could have been so much in any Savior, that is inviting and tending to encourage sinners to trust in him.  Whatever your circumstances are, you need not be afraid to come to such a Savior as this.  Be you never so wicked a creature, here is worthiness enough; be you never so poor, and mean, and ignorant a creature, there is no danger of being despised; for though he be so much greater than you, he is also immensely more humble than you.  Any one of you that is a father or mother, will not despise one of your own children that comes to you in distress; much less danger is there of Christ despising you, if you in your heart come to him.

Sometimes we separate preaching and counseling as two distinct parts of pastoral ministry.  But good, gospel-centered preaching is a means of soul care to believers as Lloyd Jones makes clear in this quote below:

The preaching of the Gospel from the pulpit, applied by the Holy Spirit to individuals who are listening, has been the means of dealing with personal problems of which I as the preacher knew nothing… D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

My pastor, Tony Rose, models this well.  You can listen to his radio broadcast on 94.7 FM/900 AM at 6:00 PM. or go here for past broadcasts.

This is a good word from J.C. Ryle (one of my favorite dead pastors):

Our Lord experienced everything that belongs to man’s nature – except only sin. As man He was born an infant. As man He grew from infancy to boyhood. As man He yearly increased in bodily strength and mental power, during His passage from boyhood to adulthood. Of all the sinless conditions of man’s body – its feebleness as a child, its growth, its regular progress to maturity – He was in the fullest sense a human being. We must rest satisfied with knowing this. To pry beyond is useless. To know this clearly is of much importance. An absence of settled knowledge of it has led to many wild heresies.

One comforting, practical lesson stands out, something we should never overlook. Our Lord is able to sympathize with humanity in every stage, from the cradle to the grave. He knows by experience the nature and temperament of the child and the youth and the adult. He has stood in their place. He has occupied their position. He knows their hearts. Let us never forget this in dealing with young people concerning their souls. Let us tell them confidently that there is One in heaven at the right hand of God who is exactly suited to be their Friend. He who died on the cross was once a youth Himself and feels a special interest in youth, as well as in adults.

Adapted from The Gospel of Luke by J.C. Ryle (Chapter 2).

Paul Tripp, from his new book on marriage called, What Did You Expect:

“His grace purposes to expose and free you from your bondage to you. His grace is meant to bring you to the end of yourself so that you will finally begin to place your identity, your meaning and purpose, and your inner sense of well-being in him. . . . To add to this, he designs circumstances for you that you would have never designed for yourself. All this is meant to bring you to the end of yourself, because that is where true righteousness begins. He wants you to give up. He wants you to abandon your dream. . . . He knows there is no life to be found in these things.”

(HT: Walt Mueller)

This is a great reminder when caring for people’s souls:

“Though we are all Christians together, we are all different, and the problems and the difficulties, the perplexities and the trials that we are likely to meet are in a large measure determined by the difference of temperament and of type. We are all in the same fight, of course, as we share the same common salvation, and have the same common central need.  But the manifestations of the trouble vary from case to case and from person to person.  There is nothing more futile, when dealing with [a] condition, than to act on the assumption that all Christians are identical in every respect. They are not, and they are not even meant to be.”

~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure

(HT: Eric Schumacher)