Dietrich Bonhoeffer: When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
Nabeel Qureshi: I had to give up my life in order to receive His life. This was not some platitude or cliché. The gospel was calling me to die.
Author: Jojo Agot
Pastor at Victory. Faculty and adviser at Every Nation Leadership Institute (ENLI). MA in Theology and Mission at Every Nation Seminary.
Doctrine
Doctrine isn’t dry and boring. It isn’t for arguing. It’s for knowing God and living life to the fullest.
Lordship, Anyone?
One important point that was brought home to my heart while preparing for my preaching on the Lordship of Christ from Colossians 1:15-20 last week:
We have no problem with a powerful God who can create universes and thrones and big stuff but we have a problem with a God who demands obedience and encroaches on our personal space. We like the idea that God is good and big and powerful because it benefits us in some ways. What we don’t like is when that God starts demanding obedience from us. Human tendency is to try to get the benefits of God without having to commit to obedience.
Why Let Them Suffer?
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was (John 11:5-6 ESV).
Unbelievable.
He loved them so He let them face death and grief on their own while he was just a few miles away. He could have come and saved Lazarus right away. He could have come and gave them comfort. He could have come and fulfilled his role as a friend. He didn’t.
Why would God do this? Why would he allow us to face pain and suffering?
The answer was given in verse 4: “It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Did you catch that? His glory supersedes our comfort and happiness. John Piper has been heralding this for years. Our happiness is not God’s number one priority. His glory is.
Digital Pastors
Andy Schmitz on digital pastors (and people who prefer digital churches):
Can a preacher disconnected from a local church—in fact, completely oblivious of it’s existence—defend that flock from false teaching? Can he fend off the wolves? Can he shepherd the flock, exercise oversight, or rule well?
When God Seems Silent and Uninvolved
The place Dothan is mentioned only twice in the Bible, first in Genesis 37 where Joseph was sold to a caravan of Ishmaelites, and second in 2 Kings 6:13 where Elisha and his servant were surrounded by Syrian army. The events surrounding these two accounts are interesting in that one of them involves the seeming total silence of God and the other involves a fantastic story of miraculous deliverance.
In Genesis 37, Joseph was thrown into the pit by his brothers and was later sold as slave to the Ishmaelites. He was later sold to the household of Potiphar in Egypt. We know the rest of the narrative about how God used Jospeh’s terrible experience to deliver the entire Hebrew race from starvation in the seven years of famine that came afterwards. Where was God when all these were happening? Why didn’t He intervene? How could he be absent when one of His children was suffering?
Jojo Agot 