Josh recently pointed the following post out to me from a blog called, Lifetogether.  Let’s try and apply this in the coming week.

We’ve all been there before as parents.  Your child has been told what to do and doesn’t do it.  You’re tired and irritated.  You have no patience left in your parenting tank.  And so, you yell at your child (and perhaps even discipline your child) in anger and frustration.  But what good does it do?  Even though you took charge of the situation, your heart feels empty and frustrated and so does  your child’s.

Let’s rewind the tape.  Your child has been told what to do and doesn’t do it.  Instead of reacting in anger, you acknowledge the fact that you are tired and lacking in patience.  So before speaking to your child, you speak first to God.  Just a simple prayer asking Him something like,

“Father, I need your help right now.  I need your Spirit to give me patience and wisdom to talk with my child.  I can’t do it on my own.  I need you and my child needs you.  Without you, Jesus, I can do nothing.  So be with me now as I go.  Open up my heart and my child’s heart to you.”

With a simple prayer such as this one, we take our parenting out of our hands and put it into God’s hands.  We admit we cannot parent on our own.  And so we pray a simple prayer of dependence … a simple prayer of reliance … a simple prayer of surrender.

This is the prayer we parents rarely pray.  But I wonder how it would change us, and I wonder how it would change our families.

Erik at the Irish Calvinist blog recently posted the following on the tendency to use God- Oh what a subtle and deadly danger!

The situation is bleak.  The battlefield is filled with dead Jews.  The enemies are rejoicing.  Hope seems to be gone.  The Philistines had just mowed down 4,000 men of Israel in an ancient border skirmish.

In terms of redemptive history this is not a real good time for the people of God.  The priest is impotent, he cares more for his sons and family then God and his glory.  The sons are called ‘worthless’ by God (1 Sam. 2.12).  By in large the people seem like fairly self-dependent comfortable proud religious folks who are still breathing the fumes from God’s faithfulness in previous generations.  They do not seem to know or truly love God.

And here we are on the battlefield. What is the response to such a slaying?  Would their consciences be slayed?  Would repentance grow from a heart exposed for self-dependent idolatry?  No.

And when the troops came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has the LORD defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD here from Shiloh, that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.” (1Sa 4.3)

Notice they do not look inward for something that has provoked God to wrath but quickly look outward for something to secure their blessing.  They want to grab God like a genie lamp, march him out on the battlefield, rub him a couple of times and watch him perform.  This is much like the religious people around Jesus during his ministry.  Everyone was always asking for food, health, political success, favor, etc.  But Jesus came to break people down to make humble servants not compliment self-righteous folks who want worship.

We see this today, “Jesus come heal me!” “Jesus, make me rich!” “Jesus, give me all that I ask!”  “Jesus, be my servant!”

Forbid it that we ever act like a divine sports agent, marching God around so that we can get our flesh tickled and our lusts gratified.

We are to be people who have a permanent bruise on our chest from our violent, tear filled cries for mercy.

By the way, in case you forgot how the story ended, the Philistines routed the Jews again.  This time they took down 30,000 men of war, including Eli’s two ‘worthless’ sons.  Furthermore, the ark of the covenant was captured by the enemy.  Eli then finds out about this and when he hears about the ark, he falls over backward and dies.  Phineas’ wife gives birth to his son and then dies.  But not before naming him, with tragic appropriateness, “Ichabod” for the glory has departed.

When the glory of God departs it is because the glory of self has eclipsed it.

It is far better for me to pray for brokenness than it is to whistle for God to come in and win me some glory.

Here are some recent quotes I’ve enjoyed from the blog, “Of First Importance.”  Isn’t it amazing how we can never stop dwelling on, writing on, and rejoicing in the gospel!?

“The cross is not simply a lovely example of sacrificial love. Throwing your life away needlessly is not admirable — it is wrong. Jesus’ death was only a good example if it was more than an example, if it was something absolutely necessary to rescue us. And it was. Why did Jesus have to die in order to forgive us? There was a debt to be paid — God himself paid it. There was a penalty to be born — God himself bore it. Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering.”

- Timothy Keller, The Reason For God (New York, NY: Dutton, 2008), 193.

“The gospel shows us that God is far more holy and absolute than the moralists’ god, because he could not be satisfied by our moral efforts, even the best! On the other hand, the gospel shows us that God is far more loving and gracious than the relativists’ god. They say that God (if he exists) just loves everyone no matter what they do. The true God of the gospel had to suffer and die to save us, while the god of the relativist pays no price to love us.”

- Timothy Keller, “Being the Church in Our Culture” (2006)

“God requires two things of us: punishment for our sins and perfection in our lives. Our sins must be punished, and our lives must be righteous. But we cannot bear our own punishment, and we cannot provide our own righteousness. Therefore, God, out of His immeasurable love for us, provided his own Son to do both. Christ bears our punishment, and Christ performs our righteousness. And When we receive Christ, all of his punishment and all of his righteousness is counted as ours.”

- John Piper, This Momentary Marriage (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2009), 46.

Over the years I have had a number of conversations with people wondering whether they should go ahead in pursuing the Christian disciplines when they don’t feel like it.  Some would say without qualification that “yes, of course you should.”  Others would say that would be hypocritical or legalistic.  I found the following post from the blog Vitamin Z to be helpful on this.

Helpful post here from Michael Kelley:
Many times I think we have the tendency to avoid personal discipline in our lives because we see it as a kind of legalism. And it’s true, in a ideal situation, we would always wake up in the morning hungry to read the Word of God. We would excitedly thumb through our Scripture memory cards in anticipation of adding a new Scripture to our minds. We would happily order our lives, and we would do so because we “feel” like it.

After all, aren’t we supposed to love God? And isn’t the emotive quality of love very important? The answer is yes to that question, but we don’t live in a world if ideals.

The truth is that most mornings, I don’t feel like getting out of bed, so I don’t. I don’t feel like memorizing Scripture so I don’t. I feel I’d like to indulge in sin so I do. If I waited to feel like doing all this stuff. I’d never do anything, or I’d always do everything.

But how do you do those things without becoming a legalist? We know we need to do them, regardless of how we feel, but it’s so easy to slip into the pattern where we hold up our personal discipline as a score card for God.

Enter faith.

Faith is how you choose good and discipline without becoming a legalist. We must choose for faith to trump our feelings. We read even when we don’t feel like because we choose to believe God will speak to us. We obey even when we don’t feel like it because we believe that the pleasures of God are better than the pleasures of earth. We believe that God, in His faithfulness, will bring along our feelings. So we act in faith.

When we act in faith, we are trusting rather than achieving. We are humble rather than proud. We are acknowledging our weakness and trusting our feelings to follow. In this, we make little of ourselves and much of God.

So maybe – just maybe – I will get out of bed in the morning. Not because I feel like it, cause I won’t. But I’ll swing out my legs in faith, trusting that God will bring along what I lack in time.

Recently the guys over at The Blazing Center blog posted on the love God’s diverse people are called to have for one another.  Helpful stuff (kind of made me think about the theme the ladies came up with for the women’s retreat- I♥church).

When I was in college, I looked down on pretty much everyone who wasn’t like me.

As an art major, I disdained business majors, because they were so uncreative all they could do was crunch numbers (I sure love them now though, especially when it comes to me getting a paycheck).  I looked askance at all other majors actually.  I even looked down on other art majors.  I was a painting major, so I sneered at pottery majors, who weren’t creative enough to paint, so they made pots out of mud in the basement of the art building.  Sculpture majors were a rung up the ladder, like a caterpillar might be above a garden slug.  Yep, I was disgustingly arrogant.

Then Jesus rescued me.

Jesus puts unlikely characters together.  He joins us to people we’d never choose for friends.  I’m sure lots of those in our church wouldn’t have chosen to live their life with the likes of me, as likable as I fancy myself to be.  But Jesus gives believers his own affection for each other.

For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus (PHP 1.8).

In the church artists love businessmen.  Athletes love computer geeks.  Geeks love hunters.  Hunters love musicians.

This kind of tender care for others is supernatural.  It’s not the natural affection of friends or lovers but the very affection of Jesus Christ for his blood-bought people.

Let’s pray for this kind of love for our brothers and sisters.  Before you go to the Sunday meeting or care group, ask Jesus to give you his own affection for the saints.  Before you meet with that brother who offended you, ask Jesus to fill your heart with tender concern for him.  Before you get together with that sister who can’t seem to overcome her sin remember you’re about to meet with someone Jesus yearns for.

Here is the third and final quote from the chapter on pastoral care from “Total Church.”  The authors are seeking to make the point that the church community is the God-designed ideal place for building marriages and dealing with difficulties in marriage.

1. The Christian community provides the context in which we learn what it means to be persons-in-community…The church is a great context in which to learn what it means to live in relatiosnhip with others.  It is the location in which my self-preoccupation will be confronted.  This happens as I hear the Bible being taught.  It happens as I am encouraged and rebuked by my brothers and sisters who take responsibility for my godliness.

2.  The Christian community provides the best6 context in which marriages can flourish.  In the contemporary context, marriage is sometimes little more than “plural individualism.”  In the church we find practical support structures.  In the church we find people who are committed to our marriage.  They know from God’s word what godly marriage involves and will help us live that out.

Here is the second quote that I had wanted to share from “Total Church.”  What is said below is certainly not easy but it is illustrates clearly what each of us needs to be preaching to ourselves and what we need others to be speaking into our lives.

Often we can speak the precious promises of the gospel in ways specific to someone’s needs.  Here, for example, are four key life-changing truths about God.

• He is sovereign
• He is majestic
• He is good
• He is gracious.

Consider someone who is anxious.  They may be anxious because:

• They doubt God’s sovereign control over their future.
• They fear someone’s disapproval more than they fear our majestic God.
• They doubt that God’s intentions toward them are good.
• In their guilt they doubt God’s gracious forgiveness.

Or consider someone who is persistently worn-out.  They may be worn out:

• trying to manage their lives because they doubt God’s sovereignty.
• trying to win other people’s approval because they fear other people more than they fear our majestic God
• pursuing material possessions because they do not look for satisfaction in our good God
• trying to prove themselves instead of trusting the justification that is ours by grace through the finished work of Christ.

Before you stop reading don’t miss two other comments the authors make in the midst of this discussion-

In each case they may well affirm these truths in a creedal sense.  But in the pressures of the moment they lack faith in a functional sense.

…our own experience reminds us that the struggle to believe the truth is a life-long, daily struggle.