MOOD SWINGS

Lately I've had  minor emotional swings I'm not sure I can account for. 

Nothing crazy, but it made me think of the toll ministry takes on you.  I used to think I just shook things off quickly, but now the load of things left undone, and the sense of more coming, and the things done less excellently than I would like or should have allowed, all walk the halls of my mind haunting me by playing a sustained saddening theme.

Or is it the impending sense of things that will change soon in the greater family and life? Am I ready for the One who will all things SHAKE to shake even these small things up?

I do not know, but I do know that sleep, exercise, friendship, quality time with family, and pursuit of the right things, and the right feeding of the mind with God's Word, along with ample doses of music that provides sacred fuel, all are necessary to keep the balance.  All of these cleanse me for service and restore life and elasticity.

Anyway, I'm struck by the funny line:  The difference between God and you is that God never thinks He is you!

And the other one:  I'm not much, but I'm all I think about....

Lord have mercy!

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER

 Being a pastor on Saturday night is excruciating.  I've read, prayed, and meditated on my text, which happens to be on the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and Matthew 12:22-32.  I'm a bit short of pop culture references (something I'm trying to work hard at to cloth the timeless truths of the gospel in ways all can grasp and remember) , but the subject matter itself should hold interest for everyone, since everyone needs forgiveness, and the idea of an unforgivable sin would put us in a debt that we cannot pay. 

The thing is, I know tender consciences, even some with organically induced depression, or different kinds of OCD are vulnerable to such sermons.  So, I've been encouraged to find a few gems of assurance and grace in this text.  For one thing, the Lord mentions the wide ranging and helpful categories of forgiveness in this text more than the blasphemy.  He also makes no judgment or final pronouncement on the Pharisees who knew better but still accused Jesus of being an instrument of Satan.  He's warning them against going too far.  Were they standing on the precipice?  It appears so.

The counsel that if you're concerned about this sin it's a sure sign you haven't committed it, lines up with scripture. 

Also, it's not sin against the Holy Spirit, which I've committed more times than can be counted.  It's not resisting the Spirit, or quenching the Spirit, or even vexing the Spirit (do a KJV search on vexing God).  I've never had a day go by without some of these.  No, it's not a sin against the Spirit, it is Blasphemy against the Spirit.  And it seems to be long pattern that puts you in a certain kind of condition which cauterizes your conscience and faculty of being able to return to God and accept grace. 

I'm going to emphasize tomorrow, as absolutely loudly as I can, that wherever Jesus speaks of sin, He always speaks of mercy and forgiveness.  In this case, it's in the very next breath. 

Lord Jesus, Thank you for pursuing my forgiveness, while never soft pedaling sin.

Thank you for forgiving me for all the times I've insulted and resisted the Holy Spirit.

Help me preach in the right tone and balance to bless your people tomorrow.

WHY I'M DOING THIS XANGA WEBLOG THING!

Yesterday I preached on being salt and light.  In the sermon on the Mount Jesus presents his kingdom not as an isolated entity against the world, but as an in breaking force to the world.  Moses came down from the mountain with legislation that required physical separation, reinforced ethnic and racial identity and distinction from the world.  Jesus decentralizes all of that, and calls us to what Martyn Lloyd-Jones termed “cellular infiltrationâ€.  As salt, we get into all the places that are rotting and need preservation.  As light, we get into the dark places.  And if you’ve surveyed much of the web it can be pretty dark.

That’s in a nutshell why I’ve opened up a web log. 

I want to be a part of infiltrating this world in however small a way with salt and light.  C.H. Spurgeon, in his famous  lecture on open air preaching challenged pastors to move beyond preaching to their congregations, and to set up preaching stations out in public meeting places, prisons, universities, and town squares.  While I’m not planning on limiting this web site to preaching material, it’s a way of drawing up a wider venue for the Word.

However, there are particular dangers that participating on a blog presents.  Some are  pretty obvious, and others are more subtle.  I want to develop what I think those are in another post. 

For now, let me close with a quote from one of the most eloquent and faithful preachers around.  “The salt of the earth does not mock rotting meat. Where it can, it saves and seasons. And where it can’t, it weeps.†(John Piper)

Some of My Favorite Quotes about the GOSPEL:

Sinclair Ferguson:  “The glory of the gospel is that God has declared Christians to be rightly related to Him in spite of their sin.  But our greatest temptation and mistake is to try to smuggle character into His work of grace.  How easily we fall into the trap of assuming that we only remain justified so long as there are grounds in our character for justification.  But Paul’s teaching is that nothing we do ever contributes to our justification.â€

“George Whitfield and John Wesley may have preached the gospel better than I, but they could not preach a better gospel† C. H. Spurgeon

“Preach the gospel to yourself everyday because you forget it every day.† Martin Luther

“When I understand the gospel, I understand that there is nothing I can do to make God love me less, or to obligate God to love me more. †   Jerry Bridges

John Owen: “The Holy Spirit’s role in our sanctification is one in which He works in us not against us, with us not without usâ€.

“This same faith, if vital enough to embrace Christ, is also vital enough to ‘work by love’ to ‘purify our hearts’.  This is the connection between justification and sanctification by faith.   The very faith which embraces the gift of justification becomes an inevitable and divinely powerful principle of obedience†  R.L. Dabney*

Yes, I know Dabney was a racist, and that is a serious sin, but I also mess up and have my blind spots, and I do love this quote.  Besides, Luther was anti-semitic, and my only hero is Jesus!

The Moving of the Holy Spirit Starts with Us!

"The Holy Spirit will move them by first moving you. If you can rest
without their being saved, they will rest too. But if you are filled with an agony for them, if you cannot bear that they should be lost, you will soon find that they are uneasy too. I hope you will get into such a state that you will dream about your child or your hearer perishing for lack of Christ, and start up at once and begin to cry, 'God, give me converts or I die.' Then you will have converts."—Charles Spurgeon, The Sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon Volume 22, London:Passmore & Alabaster, 1876, 143-144.

This is one of the most convicting truths about evangelism.  Much of the indifference we encounter is because non-believers do not perceive that the gospel is an important much less urgent matter.  I need to let this quote sink in deeply.