Today I want to inform you of a book that every born again Christian should have on their shelf. This book should be read carefully and often. It is probably one of the most convicting books that I have ever read that was not primarily written to pastors. This book will change the way that you view God, yourself, and your relationship with God. There are some big words in it so prepare yourself to break out a dictionary if necessary. There are some extremely deep truths dug up and exposed within it, so prepare to read and re-read certain chapters. There are 369 pages, so go ahead and complain. This is not an easy read that you are going to breeze through in a few days (at least not for most people). This is a book that will drive you to the Word, to your knees, and to your thinking chair. Don’t let all that scare you. This book is very readable and I can’t think of anyone who couldn’t handle it. It just will not be as easy to read as Max Lucado.
The book is based upon the premise that our chief duty in life, as believers, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. The way that we can best do that is by obeying Psalm 37:4 which calls us to delight ourselves in the Lord. It is a serious book about being happy in God. This book was written over 20 years ago and has been edited several times through the years. I read an earlier edition that a friend loaned me about 6 years ago. I returned his copy after being unable to complete the book because I was so convicted. I talked to another friend in Pascagoula and asked him if he had ever heard of this book. He stated that he had and had tried to read it, but had gotten so convicted he couldn’t finish it either. A few years ago I mustered up the courage to go and buy the 2003 edition. It is a powerful book and I challenge you to buy it, read it, re-read it, and study it. If you can make it through it without being convicted you are either in much better spiritual condition than I am or you missed something somewhere!
In this book you will read about conversion, worship, love, the scripture, prayer, money, marriage, missions, and suffering all from a perspective that you have probably never heard. You will be challenged to make God the chief object of your affection. I believe this book will change your life. Are you ready for the title? It is…Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist by John Piper. John MacArthur calls Desiring God “A soul stirring celebration of the pleasures of knowing God…A must read for every Christian and a feast for the spiritually hungry.” If you are spiritually hungry, get this book. Of course, there are some things in it that may be hard to swallow. There are some things in it that you might not need to swallow. Bring along your Bible, test what Piper has to say by the Word of God, and try not to let your ingrained traditions root out the unchanging truth of God’s Word. Open your mind, open your Bible, and open Desiring God, and get ready to have your world turned upside down.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The Reformed Pastor
Have you ever blown it? Have you ever failed God and just plain blown it? If not, then you should be writing this instead of me because I blow it all the time. I get so disgusted with myself! Here I am, pastor of Cleary Baptist Church, proclaiming the Word of God week after week and I can’t get through a week without blowing it! It never fails that after I fall flat of my face, I despise myself. It is almost as though I hate myself (or at least my flesh). I think to myself, "If God is as disgusted with me as I am disgusted with me, he doesn’t want to hear from me." Let’s get real! How many times do we go to God confessing the same old sin that we confessed yesterday, or last week, or last month? Don’t you think he gets tired of hearing the same thing over and over again? How long will his patience last? At least those are some of the questions I ask myself. I don’t know about you, but there are times when I contemplate just throwing in the towel. There are times when I consider giving up altogether. I am tempted to say, "God there is no way that I will EVER be able to live the Christian life." In fact, I felt that way today. In fact, I prayed those words today and do you know what I sensed God said in reply? You are right Kevin. You will never be able to live the Christian life. Adam couldn’t do it. Noah couldn’t do it. Moses couldn’t do it. David, a man after my own heart, couldn’t do it. No one in all of history has been able to live the Christian life except one, and his name is Jesus. If there is any hope, it is found in the life of Christ alone! Maybe what we need to do is to just give up! Maybe what we need to do is just let Jesus live in and through us. Maybe that is the only way we will ever live the victorious Christian life.
Here is my predicament. I love the thought of Jesus living in and through me, because I know that I cannot do it. I am willing to give up trying to work my way to the top, so to speak. My problem is that I am still in the flesh. I identify with the Apostle Paul’s word in Romans 7:14-25, "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin" (ESV).I don’t know about you, but that is me in a nutshell! The flesh is wrestling with the Spirit almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And when I blow it, like I so often do, I wonder, "How long is God going to put up with this?" I know His mercy endures forever (Ps 136), but come on! There has to come a point in time where God just says, "10,000,000,000,000 strike! Your out!" That is where I was this morning. Then God spoke to me through His word. Hebrews 4:14-16 says, "let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (ESV). God says to all of those who seem to blow it so often, "Hold on to your faith. We don’t have a Savior who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses." Thank God! "Draw near to the throne of grace WITH CONFIDENCE, because it is there AND ONLY THERE that we will find the mercy and grace that we so desperately need. In other words, hang in there, keep the faith, and know that God is a God of holiness and purity, but also sympathy and mercy and grace and love and understanding and on and on the list could go. The time to worry is not when you feel miserable for your sin! The time to worry is when you no longer worry. Until next time….Stay pure.
Here is my predicament. I love the thought of Jesus living in and through me, because I know that I cannot do it. I am willing to give up trying to work my way to the top, so to speak. My problem is that I am still in the flesh. I identify with the Apostle Paul’s word in Romans 7:14-25, "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin" (ESV).I don’t know about you, but that is me in a nutshell! The flesh is wrestling with the Spirit almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And when I blow it, like I so often do, I wonder, "How long is God going to put up with this?" I know His mercy endures forever (Ps 136), but come on! There has to come a point in time where God just says, "10,000,000,000,000 strike! Your out!" That is where I was this morning. Then God spoke to me through His word. Hebrews 4:14-16 says, "let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (ESV). God says to all of those who seem to blow it so often, "Hold on to your faith. We don’t have a Savior who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses." Thank God! "Draw near to the throne of grace WITH CONFIDENCE, because it is there AND ONLY THERE that we will find the mercy and grace that we so desperately need. In other words, hang in there, keep the faith, and know that God is a God of holiness and purity, but also sympathy and mercy and grace and love and understanding and on and on the list could go. The time to worry is not when you feel miserable for your sin! The time to worry is when you no longer worry. Until next time….Stay pure.
Monday, February 18, 2008
The Reformed Pastor
Why did I choose to call my blog "the reformed pastor?" It all began with a love of the Puritans. When most people think of the Puritans they immediately think of the Salem witch trials and solemn looking men in all black. That is a very unfortunate misconception, to say the least. The Puritans were theological giants, and reading the works of Puritan pastors will take you deeper in your faith, will challenge you more, and will stretch you farther than virtually any of the best sellers of the 21st century. The Purpose Driven Life, the Left Behind series, and the latest Max Lucado contribution cannot compare to the great Puritan works like "The Mortification of Sin" by John Owen, "The Doctrine of Repentance" by Thomas Watson, and "A Call to the Unconverted” by Richard Baxter. Reading the works of the Puritans will not only change your opinion of them, but will change the depth of your spirituality as well.
One of the Puritans that I have been introduced to over the years is a man by the name of Richard Baxter. Sadly, I never heard of him until I had already been in ministry for 10 years. Sadly, I have asked every single one of my pastor friends if they have heard of him and none had. I would venture to say that you have probably never heard of him either. Richard Baxter was pastor of the church at Kidderminster in England for two years before the civil war between the Parliament and Royalists broke out (1641-1642) and another fourteen years after the war (1647-60). Baxter spent two years in the army as a chaplain but in February 1647, his health (which he had suffered with for virtually his entire life) collapsed, and he was no longer able to remain in the army. Upon his return to Kidderminster, revival broke out. The church at Kidderminster grew dramatically under his leadership. Baxter wrote in his autobiography, "We were fain to build five galleries after my coming thither. When I came thither first there was about one family in a street that worshipped God and called on his name, and when I came away there were some streets where there was not passed one family in the side of a street that did not so." God used Baxter’s pastoral ministry in a mighty way. He used and is using his writing ministry in even greater ways.
Baxter was scheduled to preach to his fellow pastors in Worcestershire, but due to his ill health was unable to deliver his message. He therefore wrote the manuscript which became The Reformed Pastor (Today we would call it The Revived Pastor). In this work he presented a stirring appeal to be reformed, or revived, in life and practice. He was concerned to see a spiritually renewed, revived ministry that would be used of God to bring greater spiritual vigor to the churches.
I read a copy of Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor and without a doubt placed it on my top-ten list of books. It challenged me personally and pastorally. J.I. Packer, in his book A Quest for Godliness, wrote "The words of Baxter's Reformed Pastor have hands and feet. They climb all over you; they work their way into your heart and conscience, and will not be dislodged." That is what happened to me when I read the book. I went out and bought myself a personal copy of the book and have made it a goal to read it each year and to take our staff through its pages as well in the near future (they will be so excited). Anyway, there you have it. That is why my blog is called, The Reformed Pastor. You can be sure you will hear more out of the Puritans, and maybe even Richard Baxter in the future. Until then…stay pure.
One of the Puritans that I have been introduced to over the years is a man by the name of Richard Baxter. Sadly, I never heard of him until I had already been in ministry for 10 years. Sadly, I have asked every single one of my pastor friends if they have heard of him and none had. I would venture to say that you have probably never heard of him either. Richard Baxter was pastor of the church at Kidderminster in England for two years before the civil war between the Parliament and Royalists broke out (1641-1642) and another fourteen years after the war (1647-60). Baxter spent two years in the army as a chaplain but in February 1647, his health (which he had suffered with for virtually his entire life) collapsed, and he was no longer able to remain in the army. Upon his return to Kidderminster, revival broke out. The church at Kidderminster grew dramatically under his leadership. Baxter wrote in his autobiography, "We were fain to build five galleries after my coming thither. When I came thither first there was about one family in a street that worshipped God and called on his name, and when I came away there were some streets where there was not passed one family in the side of a street that did not so." God used Baxter’s pastoral ministry in a mighty way. He used and is using his writing ministry in even greater ways.
Baxter was scheduled to preach to his fellow pastors in Worcestershire, but due to his ill health was unable to deliver his message. He therefore wrote the manuscript which became The Reformed Pastor (Today we would call it The Revived Pastor). In this work he presented a stirring appeal to be reformed, or revived, in life and practice. He was concerned to see a spiritually renewed, revived ministry that would be used of God to bring greater spiritual vigor to the churches.
I read a copy of Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor and without a doubt placed it on my top-ten list of books. It challenged me personally and pastorally. J.I. Packer, in his book A Quest for Godliness, wrote "The words of Baxter's Reformed Pastor have hands and feet. They climb all over you; they work their way into your heart and conscience, and will not be dislodged." That is what happened to me when I read the book. I went out and bought myself a personal copy of the book and have made it a goal to read it each year and to take our staff through its pages as well in the near future (they will be so excited). Anyway, there you have it. That is why my blog is called, The Reformed Pastor. You can be sure you will hear more out of the Puritans, and maybe even Richard Baxter in the future. Until then…stay pure.
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