Bible study series: week 4: Gossip and Silence

Gossip and Silence

Ephesians 4:29: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

Bible study series: week 3: The Heart and Solitude

The Heart and Solitude

Verses about the Heart:

Proverbs 4:20-24 reminds us to keep the words of God's wisdom "in the midst of your heart," and that from there "they are life to those who find them, and health to all their whole body." (vs. 21-22 NAS) Then comes the exhortation, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life." (vs. 23).

Bible study series: week 2: Pride and Secrecy

Pride and Secrecy

We all know that Pride is a deep issue of the heart that we all struggle with. Here are some verses about pride and humility, followed by a description of the spiritual discipline of secrecy from the book: Spirit of the Disciplines, by Dallas Willard. Then there are some thought questions to think about.

Bible study series: week 1: Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Disciplines

A few years ago, I did a bible study series with one of my small groups addressing different issues of the heart and a relevant spiritual discipline to help "train" that issue of the heart. We started with a vision for our small group and an article by Dallas Willard called: How the disciple lives naturally comes out of who the disciple is. It was an awesome and fruitful series, so here is week number one and the following posts will be weeks 2-6.

Goals/ things to think about for Bible study this year:

What does it mean to be a Christian?

What does it mean to be a Christian? On one hand, there are some simple and basic answers. But on the other hand, there are some profound, complex aspects to the internal and external outworking of what it means to be a Christian (as an individual and community/church). In a sense, it takes a lifetime to increasingly live into and come to an experiential knowledge of what it means to be a Christian--a believer in and follower of Jesus. Here are a few thoughts on what it means to be a Christian.

A few months ago Tom came to see that things were not quite right in his life. In his honest, quiet moments, he felt alone, lost, broken, superficial, and empty inside. He did not know what was truly real about God, himself, reality, and life after death, and he did not know what a truly good, significant life looked like.

What am I to do with the Bible?

What to do with the Bible

by rev. w. h. pike

THE Bible is wonderful because it gives us a knowledge of God, of men, of the Universe, and of Redemption. No other book can be compared to it in this respect, but it not only informs us about these important truths, but it also tells us what we are to do with it. We have within the Bible itself instruction as to our attitude toward it

We are exhorted to:

How shall I Study My Bible?

How Shall I Study My Bible?

by frederic w. farr, d. d.

PEOPLE are always asking, how shall I study the Bible? What is the best method? There is no short cut, no royal road, no magic method. Say to such an inquirer, “Read the Bible over and over again—not once, nor twice, nor thrice, but many, many times.” And that is all any one can do. Read it until you become familiar, cognizant of its contents, until you are so familiar with your Bible, be it Bagster or Oxford, that you can close your eyes and visualize the passage by locating it upon a particular page just where it belongs.

In riding upon a railroad train, you hear the trainmen call out the stations, and you refer to your time card to verify the call as each station is passed, and you wonder at the trained memory of the man who can repeat that long list of way stations without a mistake, and you ask him how he ever does it, and he smiles and replies that he has done it so long it is automatic, done without thought and without effort; and so the best product of Bible study becomes spontaneous and involuntary. You have read the Bible so frequently, so thoughtfully, so earnestly, so prayerfully that it comes to you without direct effort on your part where to locate a passage and you label it instinctively. And when the facts of Scripture are all in your head and heart, you can safely trust the Holy Spirit to interpret those facts, and you need not that any man teach you, and therefore the only thing to seek and to secure is to become familiar with the contents of the Word—thoroughly cognizant of all the facts of Scripture, and read them so often that you see them on the page where they occur, even with closed eyes. In that way, a man with one book, if that book be the Bible, has a large and liberal culture and an education that will serve manifold purposes in solving the problems and bearing the burdens and discharging the duties of daily life.

The Kingdom of God and one of the strongest apologetics for the Christian faith: the fact that Christianity even started

I have been dramatically impacted by learning about what the Kingdom of Heaven actually means, and our ultimate hope of what heaven is according to Scripture. So without further adieu, let us dive in to unpacking four questions: 1. What does the "Kingdom of Heaven," mean, (a frequently used term by Jesus and his followers)? 2. What was the first century Jewish expectation for the anticipated Messiah, and what did they think His Kingdom coming to earth would look like? 3. What really happened to Jesus and why did Christianity start? 4. What is our hope and mission as Christians right now? (Now there are volumes and volumes of books written on each of these questions, so I am merely trying to touch the surface of these questions).

I. What is the Kingdom of Heaven?

The Kingdom of Heaven is the real place where God is King, where He reigns, and where His will is always done--his people, in his place, under his benevolent rule. The Kingdom of Heaven is the place where God's subjects obey the laws, statutes, and principles of the government established by Him. It is a real place right alongside the physical reality, but is hidden by a veil from our sight at the present time. Even though we cannot presently see this dimension of reality, it is the more real reality of the two, for it is the dimension where God and all that is eternal dwells. As CS Lewis says, "we are not physical bodies with a soul, we are souls with a physical body." The intangible essence of our personality and personhood that fills our body is the more real and primary part of us than our bodies, just as the heavenly reality is more real than the physical reality, even now. The heavenly dimension precedes and will outlast the physical.

Test yourself in your regard for the Word of God

This post piggy backs off of a previous post titled submission. I am concerned on how we view and approach the Word of God. Here I have given a few verses and questions to test ourselves in.

Joshua 1:7-8: "Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."

Questions: Are you careful to obey the Word? Do you believe that the Bible has the best and wisest things to say about the most important topics of human existence? Do you believe that aligning yourself to the teachings of Scripture bring life, peace, a life that flourishes, and success (not success in a worldly sense but success in God's eyes: being conformed to his image, growing in faith, and growing to love Him and others more)?

On knowing and discerning God's will

I wanted to compile two helpful things I have read on this question, because it is a very common question, especially amongst college students! So here it goes:

Blog post by John Ortberg:

I was at commencement at a Christian college this weekend, and it reminded me of the question millions of young people are asking this time of year.
We never grow out of that question: Who is operating out of a wisdom surplus?
But the vast majority of people start at the wrong place.
When I finished college, I desperately wanted to know what I should do next. Find a job? Go to grad school? Where? In what field?
I prayed until I was exhausted (and God was probably a little tired of it too). I was ready to do whatever. Just send me a postcard. Put it in sky writing. But I would have gotten more clarity with a Magic 8 ball.
For a good reason.
Which I did not understand for many years. And its this:
God’s main purpose for you is not what you do. Its who you become.
If I always told my kids what do to–wear these clothes, take this job, marry this person–they might do what I say. Their circumstances might even turn out OK.
But they would not grow into excellent persons.
To grow into an excellent person, you have to make choices,

A short thought: Reading the Word afresh

What if we had never grown up learning about Christianity from other people, and the first introduction we had to Christianity and to the person of Jesus was reading through the entire New Testament in one sitting. What would be the overall sentiment and impressions we would come away with? What would be the main topics and themes that would emerge the strongest? I want to think about this question more and try reading the Bible with this fresh perspective and (as best I can) without presuppositions or biases, and with an open mind and heart. I think I might be surprised.

Submission

I have been thinking a lot lately about the theme of submission in several different ways. First and foremost, submission to God. I find that one of my favorite things to meditate on and realize is that God is God and I am not. His ways are so much higher than my ways, and His thoughts are so much higher than my thoughts. For me to say, "God would not do this or that (even when it is clearly in His Word) because that is unfair or unequal" is basically me judging God, putting myself in the place of Him, subjecting God to my opinions, belittling him, and saying my ways are higher than his ways. How utterly wicked this is!

Some good news of the good news

I recently went through an unnecessary dry season in my walk with Christ. The reason I say unnecessary is because I could have come to Him in brokenness and need way sooner, begging Him for the power of His Spirit to overcome my sin and defeated life. He would have met me in an instant. But instead, I wallowed in my defeat and discouragement, buying into the lies of the enemy that I was unworthy and unfit to even come to God, and that I was doomed to a life of mediocrity in my faith. I am glad to say that God provided me with the right reminders at the right time on the baptism (immersion, filling) of the Holy Spirit and the prerequisites to receive Him. He also opened my eyes to so many verses of the New Testament that I have known on a head level, but now feel like I am coming to know in a deep way in my heart.

A new look at suffering and the hope we can have in the midst of it

I was reading in Philippians 3 the other day, and a phrase in verse 10 caught my eye in a really fresh, new way. Verse 10-11 reads: "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

The whole verse was really powerful to me, but particularly what I highlighted jumped out to me and made me ponder it. Anytime I see the word suffering in the New Testament I usually immediately think of physical pain or losing my loved ones. The New Testament writers really embraced suffering in a way that I really desire to be able to, but usually feel so far from, and even a little bit afraid of. For the relatively small amount of suffering I have experienced, I have seen God's goodness, faithfulness, presence, and sovereignty so clearly! I know His grace is sufficient for everything we go through, and this helps me in thinking about suffering.

A Short Thought on Self Control and Discipline

We live in a culture that screams to us at every corner, “you are justified in having all of your desires met, and if you don’t have them met, something is wrong.” Thus, our desires can easily come to master us, keeping us in bondage and often escalating out of control. On this topic, Dallas Willard states, “desire itself is not bad, but desire is not meant to master our lives. It isn’t that desires or feelings are overwhelming, but they are overwhelming if you concede to them time and time again.” In contrast,

A good exercise: Who do you want to BE??

We spend so much time in our lives (and culture) focusing on what we want to DO with our lives. This is a prevailing question young people ask themselves as they navigate their way through college and their twenties (and even thirties and forties and fifties too:) It is interesting though, that who we are to our core so significantly impacts what we do, how we do it, what we say, how good or bad our relationships are, and how we live out our Christian faith and life on the whole. Who we are matters so much more at the end of the day than what we do, because who we are is the stuff of eternal value when we stand before King Jesus one day. So why don't we spend more time truly caring about and thinking about who we want to be and what the true condition of our heart is despite what others see or think of us? Someone once asked me to do an exercise where I was to write down the answer to two questions: Who do you want to be? And what is at stake if you are not each of those things? After going through this exercise, it was quite illuminating all that was at stake if I did not possess each character quality that I genuinely desired to be. The following was one example, and I want to challenge you to do this exercise too!

Repentance prepares the way for the Lord

I have often wondered how to explain the fullness of the gospel to a new or not yet believer because it is sometimes hard to properly explain or understand the union of the following three truths:

1. We are saved ONLY by grace through faith in Jesus

2. Repentance (turning from sin and idols) is a necessary and integral part of coming to Christ for the first time (salvation) and walking with Jesus for a lifetime.

3. It is not legalistic or preaching "works salvation" to say that repentance and grace go together.

I feel like my spirit knows how to understand these truths together without becoming legalistic or without preaching works salvation, but it has often felt hard for me to explain it to others without feeling like I am speaking out of both sides of my mouth. Especially when sharing the gospel with a seeking person, I love to share about the uniqueness of righteousness and merit with God being rooted in grace, not works. This sets Christianity and the person of Jesus apart from every other religion in the world! 

Top 14 most influential sermons to me this past year in no particular order

This was really hard for me to narrow down bc I have heard so many awesome sermons in the past year:) But here they are:

When bad things happen

A very common question that I hear from people of all stages of faith, life, and age is: "why does God allow evil and suffering to happen?" Someone asked me this question a few days ago and I honestly just totally blanked on most of the answers that I have ever heard in response to that question. But what did pop into my mind was something along the lines of the following thoughts:

We can't really know why, but what can we know about God in the midst of a broken world based on the authority of the Word of God and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus?

From Indwelling Life, To True Worship, To Christ Centered Mission

Three things I desire for followers of Christ found in John 4

3 key verses in John 4:

1. (v13-14): Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
2. (v. 23-24): Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
3. (v. 31-34): Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about...My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work."

So a brief summary of a progression of faith that can be gathered from these verses is: from being filled with the wellspring of life to worshiping God in spirit and truth to doing the will of the Father.