Winning Ways: Too Busy Not to Pray

Are you "reviewing the dailies" with God?

Pastor John Ortberg was struck by an article from cinematographer Bob Fisher about the need for movie crews to spend some time every day reviewing the film that was shot the day before. Before rushing into the next day's production, reviewing the previous day's work enables filmmakers to spot little mistakes while they can still be corrected, and they can celebrate what is going right.

Ortberg recommended that we take a few moments to "review the dailies" with God, too. How are you doing in that important work? Do you have a daily Bible reading routine? A place and time to pray and briefly reflect?


I have a love-hate relationship with the writings of Anne Lamott, but Andree Seu alerted me to an absolutely beautiful Lamott story of a friend whose two-year-old inadvertently locked himself in his room while they were on vacation. It illustrates why we need that regular time of prayer and Bible study. As Seu recounts it:

The Mom struggled vainly to get the door unlocked -- trying a few keys she knew weren't the right ones, phoning around to get the landlord. Finally someone was reached and on the way, but there was still a frightened little boy to deal with as they waited for rescue, and his reasoning and verbal skills being minimal, he would not understand the nearness of his deliverance.

So Mom got the bright idea to get down on her knees on her side of the door and slip her fingers underneath in the inch or so gap between door and floor, and she asked the unconsolable child to do the same. He would not be able to see his mother's face until the savior bearing keys arrived, but the feel of her presence through her fingertips while they waited provided some comfort and sense that everything would be alright.

This is like our relationship with God. For now we are bereft of his full presence, for reasons not entirely clear. But he holds out his fingers and I hold out mine, as we touch through his Word and his Spirit every morning. Like Anne says, "It isn't enough. And it is."

We are often very much like frightened, confused children. Through prayer and Bible reading, let God give you that "touch" from the other side, reassuring us that everything's going to be okay as we wait for deliverance.

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Links to Your World, Tuesday October 30

"It is hard to overstate just how popular Austin has become in the American psyche. When I travel and tell people where I’m from, I almost invariably hear that it is either the coolest town they have ever visited or the place they most want to go on their next vacation. It consistently ranks near the top on lists of where to live, whether you’re a college student, recent graduate, single, young family or retiree." That's Richard Parker for the NYT, in an article where he worries that Austin is losing what makes the town so beloved.

 

Is Texas losing its twang?

 

How to Share Your Faith: There's an App For That

 

"Deep reflections on the origins of human life and on God’s providence in the face of evil are hardly to be expected on the campaign trail. But Mourdock’s claims, rather than evincing yet another front in the “war on women,” approach a significant truth: human life is profoundly and even transcendently special, even when, as is too often the case, it is the result of wicked and wrongful acts. Its inviolability rests in that specialness, its sanctity, or dignity, and is not obviated by the distorted choices of men." From Christopher O. Tollefsen, Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina, in The Public Discourse. Read the rest.


 

Hear, Hear: "President Obama is the most radically pro-abortion president we’ve ever had....Not only is he pro-abortion rights at every stage of pregnancy, he also once supported the right of doctors to kill live human infants who survived an abortion attempt. Moreover, Obama’s HHS mandate requires Christians and other pro-life persons to pay for abortions." Denny Burk.


 

"My big beef in this whole thing is not so much that pro-life candidates are asked tough questions. Abortion is a super tough topic and one deserving of tough questions. What chaps my hide is that reporters are incapable of asking any tough questions of pro-choice candidates." Mollie has more at GetReligion.


 

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Photos from My Indonesia Trip

Here are some photos from my Indonesia trip. I was there for 2 weeks serving with Advance International, which provides pastoral training in under-resourced areas of our world. My responsibility was to teach the book of Isaiah.

Phil Walker, president of Advance, is standing with me and my translator, Hurbert:

Photos of the seminary in Manado:

A welcome dinner break following my morning session:

Lokon, one of three active volcanoes in the Manado area. This one shot up smoke and ash the Sunday before our arrival, but was quiet during our stay:

On Saturday we traveled to Tondano, about an hour’s drive from Manado, up in the mountains. A bit cooler—mid 80s instead of the mid 90s we experienced at sea level in Manado. We were treated to fish drawn from this fish farm and cooked over charcoal:

 

 

 

On Sunday I returned to Tondano to preach at Immanuel Baptist Church.

 

 

On Wednesday we were treated to fish at a local restaurant. Here is dinner being pulled up from the nets:

On Thursday we celebrated with graduates of the Manado seminary. Here is Phil and Hubert at the opening message:

Seven Book Reviews

I had a chance to complete a number of books during my 2-week trip to Indonesia. Limited access to internet and TV channels in an unfamiliar language will give you that opportunity.

Before leaving for Indonesia, I went to the public library to check out Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester. Krakatoa is a volcano in between Java and Sumatra, so it seemed a fitting book for my trip. Fascinating account, not only for describing the actual eruption but also for fitting the event into the cultural context of the late 19th century. You should get it in the audiobook version, as I did. The author’s entertaining storytelling is made all the more enjoyable by listening to him read his book to you.

 

J. Mark Bertrand has a hit on his hands with his Roland March mystery series. I got through all three books in the series: Back on Murder, Pattern of Wounds, and Nothing to Hide. Bertrand’s homicide detective, Roland March, is not a Christian but is surrounded by those who are, and so the conversations on faith that he occasionally gets into come across as quite natural. In other words, if “Christian fiction” has the reputation of being a thinly veiled gospel tract, Bertrand’s storytelling breaks that mold. March’s experiences with the imperfect process of justice on earth leaves him wondering: "If there's anything in religion I want to believe,” he says to himself in one of the books, “it's that the dead and disembodied will rise again before the cosmic judge, that the zero-sum game will give way to the balance scales of an unblinded justice...which is more than I can do.” What made the books particularly interesting for me was their setting. March is a Houston homicide detective, and Bertrand has put his stories in lots of familiar Houston scenes for me. Even the subject of the missing persons investigation in Book One is a student at my old high school, Klein, and she lived in Greenwood Forest, my wife’s family’s subdivision, and was abducted at Willowbrook Mall, where most of our shopping still takes place on visits back home.

 

 

 

 

In The Prague Cemetery Umberto Eco invents a story to explain history’s most notorious invention, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a forgery that has been used to fuel anti-Semitism down to our own day. The book was tiresome and I was glad to be done with it.

 

 

 

 

I enjoyed Bradley Wright’s Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...and Other Lies You've Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media. He wants us to take a second and skeptical look at the fear-mongers who, with poor use of statistics, announce the soon-coming collapse of Christianity in the West.  Particularly he skewers my least-favorite research firm, the Barna Group, but he finds plenty of additional examples of those who mishandle data. He does this with just the right amount of humor (For example, on the way to rejecting the Barna claim that Christians really are no different than the general population when it comes to sexual misbehavior, he says, “Let me interject that there is a crucial difference between extramarital sex and extra marital sex.” I’ll have to use that one in a sermon sometime.)

 

Finally, pick up a copy of Timothy George’s Amazing Grace: God's Pursuit, Our Response. This is a re-release of a book that served as the annual Doctrine Study for Southern Baptists about 10 years ago. It is an irenic look at the basic points of Calvinism and the role of Calvinism in Baptist life. It is a quick read, and it will give you a deeper appreciation for an issue that often flares up in Baptist circles today.

Winning Ways: How to Guard Against Sexual Sin

Doctors have five questions they ask to make sure your physical heart is in good shape. I have five questions to make sure your spiritual heart is in good shape.


In the Ten Commandments, God tells us that adultery is out of bounds. And in Matthew 15, Jesus said that adultery starts in the heart. To Jesus, our heart is that core of who we are, that inner life from which our every action flows.


Just as tragedies result from unchecked physical hearts, tragedies result from unchecked spiritual hearts, too. When a cardiologist determines the risk of physical heart failure, she asks five questions: How high are your triglycerides? How high is your cholesterol? How high is your blood pressure? Are you a heavy smoker? Do you come from a family with heart problems?

When checking your spiritual heart for risks of adultery, you need to ask at least five questions, too.

What are you allowing into your mind? This is a question about your fantasy life.

Are you letting yourself become physically and emotionally detached from your marriage partner? This is a question about how hard you work to make your marriage a joy.

Do you have any boundaries? This is a question about your self-discipline.

Are you accountable to someone? This is a question about your discipleship.

What is the reading on your emotional meter? This is a question about your self-indulgence.

You and I need to practice a little spiritual cardiology on ourselves. We need to ask these five questions of ourselves from time to time to determine just how at risk we are of a spiritual heart failure that could lead to adultery.

We'll investigate these questions in greater depth this Sunday, October 28. Join us @ 10! It's part of our series, "God's Perfect 10."

Craft Show. The annual youth fund-raiser is here! Join us Friday and Saturday, October 26-27! Be sure to get a lunch or dinner. The food is great and the proceeds go to youth activities!

MissionsMunch. Join us for lunch on Sunday, October 28, following small-group ministry. Brian McKanna and his family will be with us. They serve in a strategic country. Tickets are required and can be purchased after service on Sunday or at the church office during the week.

 

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Links to Your World, Tuesday October 23

Here's the Like-A-Hug, a vest which is connected to your Facebook account. Basically, whenever a friend in your Facebook account “likes” a photo, video or status update, the vest will inflate inwards, letting you feel a virtual hug.

 

"[Lance] Armstrong's many sins are now public. He sacrificed his integrity, he bore false witness, and he caused others (his teammates) to stumble into the same substance abuse that fueled his victories and enabled the idolatry in the first place. He gained the world, for a time, and seemed to forfeit his soul....[But] there is forgiveness for the likes of Lance Armstrong, as reprehensible as his transgressions are. I wish Lance had repented years ago and come clean, but even today there is hope for him in the Cross. Even though Armstrong will have lost his reputation, his Tour de France victories, his well-cultivated image as a hero, and perhaps even his money, he still has a chance, in Christ, to lose everything. And in doing so, he might gain the most valuable prize of all" (article).

 

Hear, Hear: "Christianity in America isn't dying, cultural Christianity is. I am glad to see it go." Ed Stetzer.

 

This is a nice article on the Gaithers, at least til the last paragraph where they take a slap at the music that's been written since their contributions. That was tacky. Until then, though, it's a worthy interview, and you should read it to gain a better appreciation of the music that built a lot of music programs in the 1970s and 80s.

 

Nails on a chalkboard? That's only the fifth-worst sound in existence, according to researchers from Newcastle University, who endured the most spine-tingling sounds to determine the five worst offenders to the human ear. (story)

 

Amy Simpson: "Why do we perpetuate this stigma, joke about people with mental illness, titillate ourselves with terrifying images of them, mock them sadistically, or pretend they don’t exist? Somewhere in ourselves, we all know we see in them a reflection of who we could be—and that, I think, is what really scares us. By dehumanizing people with mental illness, we distance them from ourselves and our experiences and make ourselves feel safer."


 

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Winning Ways: Healing the Violence of Our Hands and Heart

A few years ago a Sarasota, Florida, father lost his temper and punched a referee during his 7-year-old son's flag football game.


It gets worse. The punch came after he felt the official ignored his complaints that the game was getting too rough.

Oh, I'm not done. You see, the man was also a mentor for the public school's anti-violence campaign.

You can't make this stuff up.

In any study of the Ten Commandments, it's probably the Seventh Commandment against murder that we think we're the least likely to break. But in Matthew 5 Jesus took that prohibition deeper into the heart. He said, "You've heard it said, 'Don't murder.' But I say, 'Don't get angry. In fact, don't even allow the tiniest seed of contempt for another to lodge in your heart."

It's the violence we commit in our hearts that needs addressing, not just the violence we commit with our hands.

The whole nation gasped in shock and disbelief at the theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, a couple of months ago. Jesus seemed to think a similar horror and grief should rise up in us when we discover that contempt for others lies within us.

Of course, this realization should result in two things. For one, it should drive us toward the righteousness Jesus commands. But it should also open us desperately to the righteousness Jesus provides. None of us can say we've lived up to Jesus' definition of holiness. Thankfully his merciful sacrifice covers even this violence of heart and hands.

Let's get together this week and look at this convicting truth. I expect to be back from Indonesia Sunday, thoroughly jet-lagged but thoroughly ready to worship with my Hillcrest Family. See you @ 10!

"Two Christian Visions for America." I recommend you attend this forum Sunday, October 21, at 1:30pm at the University Christian Church. Dr. Richard Land and Dr. Gary Dorrien will present different views on the role of government. Information at uccforums.org.

MissionsMunch. Join us for lunch on Sunday, October 28, following small-group ministry. Brian McKanna and his family will be with us. They serve with our International Mission Board in a strategic country. Tickets are required and can be purchased after service on Sunday or at the church office during the week.

 

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Winning Ways: What Honoring Parents Can Do For You

The instruction to "honor your father and mother" in the 10 Commandments isn't just for kids. What can observing this command do for you as a grown-up?


That's the question Hillcrest adults will be exploring this Sunday. Yes, we'll continue the "God's Perfect 10" sermon series even though I'm halfway around the world.

By the time you read this, I should be in Manado, Indonesia. I am serving with Advance International, an organization in partnership with our International Mission Board. Advance pairs teachers with under-resourced areas of the world to train local pastors. I appreciate your prayers for a safe and fruitful trip.

While I am away from you this Sunday, however, I will be up on the screen during the service. My eldest son, a film school graduate, has prepared a video presentation of my teaching on the Fifth Commandment. It was a fun morning capturing the footage at Auditorium Shores with the Austin skyline in the background. We hope you'll like the presentation this week.

The Fifth Commandment can help us in every stage of adulthood.

Young adults: You will start out life more successfully by honoring your parents. To "honor" doesn't mean to blindly agree with everything Mom and Dad say. It does mean to recognize that wisdom didn't show up for the first time with your generation. There are people who love you, who have more life experience than you, and their guidance can preserve you from a lot of regret.

Parents: Expecting your kids to honor you isn't about your ego but about their well-being. Notice the Fifth Commandment is the only one with a promise: We honor our parents "so that you may live long and that it may go well with you" (Deuteronomy 5:16). You increase the odds that your kids "live long" and that things "go well" with them if you'll build an expectation of honor in your home.

Adults with Elderly Parents: Earlier in life we honor our parents by paying attention to their words but as we get older we honor our parents by paying attention to their needs. Paul that we "put our religion into practice" by doing this, and he warned us sternly against any neglect in this area (1 Timothy 5:4, 8).

Join the Hillcrest Family this Sunday @ 10 to learn more about how honoring parents can still help you into adulthood.

 

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Winning Ways: A Day to Fully Rest in the Work Christ Has Done

Without constant help, we will always think of our relationship to God as something we earn or maintain by our own efforts. It's the default setting of the human heart.

Thank God for Sundays.

I bet you've never thought of it before, but Sunday is meant to be our "reset button" whenever we fall into performance-based living. Sunday is a "day off" in a much, much deeper way than most of us tend to think when we use that phrase.

We're told to "keep the Sabbath" in the fourth of God's 10 Commandments. How should we do that? Some Christians insist that the Old Testament commandment to rest and worship on Saturday is still in force. Many Christians insist that all the Old Testament commandment to rest and worship on Saturday has been transferred to Sunday because of Christ's resurrection.

But the Old Testament Sabbath-rest was really designed to point to the true rest from our performance-based living (see Hebrews 4). Jesus restored our relationship to God through his atoning death on the cross, and as we trust that his work accomplished our reunion with God, we truly enter into rest.

In the New Testament, we see the first generation of believers meeting on Sunday, which they called "The Lord's Day." It wasn't their day of physical rest, and in the Greek and Roman rhythms Sunday was not a day off. But it was their day to remember their spiritual rest in Christ. By gathering when they could, and by celebrating the gospel through sermons, songs and communion, they remembered God's grace again and again each week.

I hope you get some physical rest each Sunday. I'm grateful that our culture still allows us that time off. But regardless of physical rest, you "keep God's Sabbath" by trusting the finished work of Jesus on your behalf!

And that's why each Sunday is a "reset button." The songs and testimonies, the sermons and communion--it's all meant to remind you of what God has accomplished for your salvation. Christianity isn't about what we try to do for God but about what God has done for us in Jesus. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened," Jesus said in Matthew 11, "and I will give you rest."

Reset with us this Sunday. See you at 10 a.m.!

 

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Links to Your World, Tuesday October 2

According to this WSJ piece, get ready for a slew of big-budget films based on Bible stories.

 

"What is the single most important year of an individual’s academic career? The answer isn’t junior year of high school, or senior year of college. It’s third grade....It’s the year that students move from learning to read — decoding words using their knowledge of the alphabet — to reading to learn....Third-graders who lack proficiency in reading are four times more likely to become high school dropouts." Annie Murphy Paul explains for Time magazine.

 

"I’m describing this because I want you to see how it sneaked up on me. Mental illness is like this." A woman's account of her diagnosis.

 

As a pastor I'm sometimes asked how Christians should think about psychiatric medication. Here's a good answer.

 

Are cell phones diminishing the ability of adults to give proper supervision to very young children? The WSJ explores.

 

Funny pics of world's worst dad.

 

Household spending on cell phone usage is up, even as other household spending is down: "Americans spent $116 more a year on telephone services in 2011 than they did in 2007, according to the Labor Department, even as total household expenditures increased by just $67. Meanwhile, spending on food away from home fell by $48, apparel spending declined by $141, and entertainment spending dropped by $126."

 

Sounds like the making of a quirky film: Hong Kong mogul offers $65 million to the man who can woo his gay daughter away from her lesbian girlfriend.

 

"While he has donated as much money to evangelical causes as anyone alive, Green is more humbled by the memory of his parents’ putting their last dime on the collection plate. His father was a small-time preacher who bounced from one tiny congregation to another, eventually landing at a church of just 35 attendees in Altus, Okla., a speck of a town amid a sea of cattle ranches and cotton fields. The family subsisted on hand-me-down clothes and food donations from the congregation, going weeks without having meat to put on the table–but that didn’t stop Green’s mother from donating to the church." From a Forbes story on David Green of Hobby Lobby, one of America's wealthiest men and the evangelical world's biggest philanthropist.


 

"Links to Your World" will return in a couple of weeks.

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"As man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may be"

Why most Christians do not include Mormonism as just another Christian denomination:

He leaned in closer to me and continued in a lower voice,“If you were to see God right now [Jospeh] Smith says, right now, you would see a being just like you, the very form of a man. The great secret is that, through heroic effort and striving, God was a man who became exalted and now sits enthroned in the heavens. You see, God was not God from all eternity, but became God. Now, the flip side of this claim is that if God is an exalted man, then we, too, can become exalted. The prophet says to the company of the saints something like, ‘You have to learn how to be gods. You have to inherit the same power and glory as God and become exalted like him.’ Namely you can arrive at the station of God. One of our early leaders summarized the King Follett sermon with the words, ‘As man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may be.’ ”

Simon Critchley for the Opinionator column in the NYT. The whole thing is worth your time to read.

Objecting to the Mormon view of God and of our destiny, by the way, in no way indicates who I'm voting for. In November, American citizens are hiring a Commander in Chief, not a Pastor in Chief. And objecting to this view in no way indicates who I will or will not build friendships with. But it's important to understand how very, very different our Mormon views are of God--and thus how very, very different are our views of the destiny we're meant for.

 

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What's Fundamentally Behind Your Marriage Issues--And the Solution

One consequence of the Fall in Genesis is found in male-female relationships (and particularly in the context of marriage). According to Genesis 3:16 (NIV84), "To the woman he said..., 'Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you'."

One way of understanding that verse, and a popular one, is that the woman's brokenness is seen in her inordinate attachment to her husband, and the man's brokenness is seen in his will to dominate his wife.

You can immediately see who the sympathetic character and who the ogre is in this interpretation, right? And the idea of brokenness-as-inordinate-attachment fits nicely with our culture, where the worst thing imaginable is whatever interferes with one's autonomy.

But there's a better way to understand the verse. A way that helps us understand the fundamental clash between men and women (or, more particularly, between husbands and wives). The rare Hebrew word we translate "desire" in Genesis 3:16 shows up again in the very next chapter, 4:7, where Cain is warned, "Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it."

So, sin "desires" Cain as the woman "desires" her husband after the fall. It's not a romantic word, and it's not a word depicting weak, inordinate dependency. Rather, it has to do with possessing, dictating, and controlling.

So, our brokenness shows up in marriage in this way: each seeks to control, possess, and dictate to the other. That's why Ephesians 5:33 speaks directly to the very impulses unique to men and to women. The man is to sacrificially love his wife (rather than "rule" her), and the wife is to "respect" her husband (rather than take over him).

The Gospel Coalition recently published a defense of these 2 views of Genesis 3:16. Based on what I've just written, its no surprise that I find Claire Smith's view more defensible.


 

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"I need a warrior that will break my rebellion and will refuse not to have my heart"

A previous generation of youth ministers liked to extend the invitation of salvation by saying, "This is your call. God's a gentleman, who won't invade your life unwillingly. You have to make up your own mind."

Mike Leake wants you to know that, when it comes to Christ's offer of salvation and life-change, Jesus isn't an aloof "gentleman" who offers and then steps back to let you make your own dumb decision. No, but he is a passionate warrior, not afraid to interfere and intervene.

Thank God.

According to Leake, this is good needs for the being-converted, not just the need-to-be-converted. Here's a portion:

I’ve been dealing with quite a bit lately. The Lord has chosen this season in my life to open up old wounds and to go into deep dark places in my soul that I never wanted light to shine. Yet he’s doing that. He’s tearing me to pieces and making me feel things and think about things and remember things that I never wanted to. He’s…dare I say it…forcing me to be authentic and honest.

And...as He is opening up these dark recesses in my heart there are times when I’m shaking my fist at God and screaming at Him to leave me alone!

And I guess a gentleman would do just that. He’d let me deal with things on my terms and not his. When I scream out “leave me alone” He would listen and just wait for me to heal and wait until I am ready for this barrage of somewhat unwanted emotions. He’d allow me to keep things in the dark and never actually address them.

But Jesus isn’t merely a gentleman. He’s a devoted lover. He’s a faithful friend. He’s the Lord of the universe and He’s staking claim on my soul. I don’t need a gentleman, I need a warrior. I need a warrior that will break my rebellion and will refuse not to have my heart. I need love. I need a God that will overcome my stubborn rebellion with His relentless love.

...

It’s not a gentleman Jesus that’s asking my permission before opening every door. It’s a warrior that is the Lord whose saying, “Mike, we’re going to deal with this stuff”. And he’s ripping and tearing. He’s healing and comforting. He’s proving Himself to be both Lord and Savior.

I’m glad Jesus is so much more than gentleman.

Good stuff. Read the rest.

 

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