Discipleship (Page 25)
The Valley of Vision
This is a beautiful little book of edited Puritan prayers and devotions. Consider this: ‘Destroy in me every lofty thought, Break pride to pieces and scatter it to the winds, Annihilate each clinging shred of self-righteousness Implant in me true lowliness of spirit, Abase in me to self-loathing and self-abhorrence, Open in me a fount of penitential tears, Break me,…
What is a Healthy Church Member?
This little book is fresh out of the 9 Marks school and is a useful little book that I have been taking my church members through every month. Chapters include: being an expositional listener, a biblical theologian, gospel saturated, genuinely converted, a biblical evangelist, a committed member, a seeker of discipline, a growing disciple, a humble follower and a prayer…
Complete Surrender
How healthy are our spiritual lives really? And what immediately comes to mind when I ask that question? What is the measuring rod we use to divine our spiritual health? We have read the Bible this morning? Check. We have prayed to God for friends and family? Check. Maybe we have listened to some Christian music? Check. So, we feel all spiritual today. It is a good day.…
Soul Sadness
I have just read an interesting quote. ‘A Pharisee who does nothing but focus on avoiding sin is still concentrating on sin, which makes him or her just as obsessed with sin as the person who voraciously lives in it. Both are consumed by sin – one to avoid it, the other to live in it. Both lack the joy, peace and freedom of life in Christ.’ (p88.…
Thirsting For God (2)
Some time ago I posted on a book I have been reading by Gary L Thomas called: ‘Thirsting For God’. This is the second part of a review of my findings thus far. Consider this long, but interesting quote. ‘Replacing a vice with a virtue can be used to change our social environments. I once worked in a grocery store….and the backbiting and slander…
Thirsting for God!
I am reading a new book – Thirsting for God – by Gary L Thomas. The subtext is ‘Spiritual refreshment for the sacred journey’. It sounds painfully emergent and uber cool and comes with a big fat recommendation from one Mark Driscoll. The problem is that it seems to have elicited a very caustic response from within the ‘conservative…
Respectable Sins!
I have been reading this book as a devotional aid for some time now. It is written by Jerry Bridges and you can buy it here from Amazon. The subtext is ‘Confronting The Sins We Tolerate’. It is 21 ‘easy to read’ chapters long and Jerry deals with issues such as: ungodliness, anxiety, frustration, anger, unthankfulness, pride, lack of self control,…
Parenting 101
My Thanks to my mate Steve Utley (my second favourite charismatic after CJ Mahaney – all he needs to do is send me 21 books and he will go back up the pecking order!) for posting this on Facebook. I suppose I better mention Andy Constable for sending me half of it in an email in an attempt to make himself appear more humorous and cutting edge than he really is! As…
Is it our job to make the gospel less offensive?
Consider this quote from Tim Keller: ‘ The church has got to become such that every part of its life is hospitable to people who are not believers or don’t know what they believe. So they can come into the groups and into worship, into virtually everything we do and not feel confused or…
Preaching, Family & Getting Our Priorities Right
I spent a couple of hours this morning in a meeting with R Kent Hughes and various pastors from Scotland. He spoke very eloquently on the subject of his pastoral experience and his belief in ‘expository’ preaching. RKH has written numerous books and we as a church have been using…