Discipline in Studying

In 1829, twenty-four year-old George Muller, famous for his faith and prayer and orphanages, wrote: 

"I now studied much, about 12 hours a day, chiefly Hebrew...[and] committed portions of the Hebrew Old Testament to memory; and this I did with prayer, often falling on my knees... I looked up to the Lord even whilst turning over the leaves of my Hebrew dictionary" 

[Quoted in Piper's Brothers, We are Not Professionals, pg 86]

Awe of God and our Ministry

 

Awe of God is one of the things that will keep a church from running off its rails and being diverted by the many agendas that can side-track any congregation. Awe of God puts theology in its place. Theology is vitally important, but whatever awe of theology we have is dangerous if it doesn’t produce in us a practical awe of God. Awe of God puts the ministry strategies of the church in their proper place. We don’t put our trust in our strategies but in the God of awesome glory, who is the head of the church we are endeavouring to lead well. Awe of God puts ministry gifts and experience in their proper place. We cannot grow arrogant and snug about our gifts, because unless those gifts are empowered by the glorious grace of God we serve, they have no power to rescue or change anyone. Awe of God puts our music and liturgy in proper place.  Yes, we should want to lead people in worship that is both biblical and engaging, but we have no power to really engage the heart of the people without the awesome presence of the Holy Spirit, who propels and applies all we seek to do. Awe of God puts our building and property in their proper place. How a building is constructed, maintained and used is a very important issue, but building have never called or justified anyone, only a God of awesome sovereign grace is able to do so. Awe of God puts our history and traditions in their proper place. Yes, we should be thankful for the ways God has worked in our past, and we should seek to retain the things that are a proper expression of what he say is important, but we don’t rest in our history; we rest in the God of glory, who is the same yesterday, today and forever! 

We must be committed to do anything we can do be that generation that commends God’s works, his glory, to the next generation so that they may be rescued and motivated by a glory bigger than the typical catalog of glories they would choose for themselves. 

Now, it is very hard to preach and shape the ministry of the church this way if familiarity has produced a blindness that has effectively robbed you your awe of God. It is very difficult in ministry to give away what you do not possess yourself. In ways of which you are not always aware, your ministry is always shaped by what is in functional control of your heart. If you are motivated by the awe-inspiring experience of having the esteem and respect of the people around you, you will do ministry in a way that is structured to get that respect, even though you probably aren’t aware of it. If your heart is ruled by the awesome power that comes from controlling the people and situations around you, you will work your ministry to be in control. If your heart is ruled by fear of man than by fear of God, you will build a ministry that erects wall of protection around you and builds a moat between your public persona and your private life. If you heart is more moved by the awe-stimulating experience of being theologically right than by an awe of God, who lives at the center of all that theology, you will be a theologically right than by an awe of God, who lives at the center of all that theology, you will be a theology gate-keeper who do not pastor messy people well. If your heart is ruled more by envy over the awe-inspiring ministry of another than by an awe of the God who has called and gifted you, you will minister out of a debilitating dissatisfaction with the situation and location of your calling. 

Remember again the ministry you are doing is never just shaped by your gifts, knowledge, skills and experience.  It is always also shaped by the true condition of your heart. This is why it is important to acknowledge that local church ministry is one big glory war. In every situation, location, and relationship of your ministry there is war going on for what glory will magnetise your heart and, therefore, shape your ministry. There is a war going on between the awe of God and all of the awe-inspiring things that are around you that God created. Awe of God will capture you and your ministry, or you will be captures by some kind of created awe. Remember, any glorious thing in creation was given that glory by God so it would function as a finger pointing you to the one glory that should rule your heart – Him.

 

(quoted from: Paul Tripp - Dangerous Calling) 

Love Always Leaves Room for the Other to Decide

If we want isolation, despair, and the right to be our own god, God graciously grants us that option. If we insist on using our God-given power and strength to make the world in our own image, God allows us that freedom; we have the kind of license to do that. if we want nothing to do with light, hope, love, grace & peace, God respects that desire on our part, and we are given a life free from any of those realities. the ore we want nothing to do with all God is, the more distance and space are created, if we want nothing to do with love, we are given a reality free from love.

If, however, we crave light, we're drawn to truth, we're desperate for grace, we've come to the end of our plots & schemes and we want someone else's path, God gave us what we want.
If we have this sense  that we've wandered far from home, and we want to return, God is there, standing in the driveway, arms open, ready to invite us in.
If we thirst for shalom,and we long for the peace that transcends all understanding, God doesn't just give, they're poured out on us, lavished, heaped, until we're overwhelmed. It's like a feast where the food and wine do not run out.

These desires can start with the planting of an infinitesimally small seed deep in our heart, or a yearning for a better, or a gnawing sense that we're missing out, or an awareness that beyond the routine and grind of life there's something more, or the quiet hunch that this isn't all there is. It often has its birth in the most unexpected ways, arising out of our need for something we know we do not have, for someone we know we are not.

And to that, that impulse, craving, yearning longing, desire - God say yes. Yes, there is water for that thirst, food for that hunger, light for that darkness, relief for that burden. If we want hell, if we want heaven, they are ours. that's ho love works, It can't be forces, manipulated, or coerced. it always leaves room for the other to decide.

God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins.

Rob Bell, [Love Wins]

Graffiti Kl (XXVII)

Graffiti KL (XXVI)

Jelatek riverbank

Reading The Bible

When we read the Bible, then, we need to learn to pay attention to the understandings of reality which permeate the text. Unless we do this, we may fail to discern what is in fact present to the text & to the church. For the believing community is always confronted by the text as summoning it to make a new decision about perspective.
Thus one main reason why we read scripture is so that we may not settle easily for any other notion of life, forgetting who we are and the understanding of life that we have confessed and embraced. Informed by the Bible, we are invited to live in faithful response to this faithful covenant partner. Such a possibility is not guaranteed by Scripture study, but it is peculiar to our faith tradition and provides us with a context for living quite different from the reigning alternatives. In other words, one of the most important gifts the Bible can give us is the frame of reference for our lives. Given that frame of reference, we are still left with major decisions to make about our world, our freedom, and our responsibility. But scripture reading can provide us with resources & images enabling us to understand, embrace and respond to life in terms of the vitality of being in history with a covenantal partner who speaks newness in a world which always seems fatigued & exhausted.
(Walter Brueggemann, The Bible Makes Sense)

Graffiti KL (XXV) - KUL Sign Festival 2012