I once heard a pastor unwittingly verbalize this problem well. My brother Tedd and I were at a large Christian life conference listening to a well-known pastor speak on family worship. He told stories of the zeal, discipline, and dedication of the great fathers of our faith to personal and family worship. He painted astounding pictures of what their private and family devotions looked like. I think all of us felt it was very convicting and discouraging. I felt the weight of the burden of the crowd as they listened. I was saying to myself, “Comfort us with grace, comfort us with grace,” but the grace never came.
On the way back to the hotel, Tedd and I rode with the speaker and another pastor, who was our driver. Our pastor driver clearly felt the burden and asked the speaker a brilliant question. “If a man in your congregation came to you and said, ‘Pastor, I know I’m supposed to have devotions with my family, but things are so chaotic at my house that I can barely get myself out of bed and get the children fed and of to school, I don’t know how I would ever be able to pull off devotions too,’ what would you say to him?” (The following response is not made up or enhanced in any way.) The speaker answered, “I say to him, ‘I’m a pastor, which means I carry many more burdens for many more people than you do, and if I can pull off daily family worship, you should be able to do so as well.’” There was no identifying with the man’s struggle. There was no ministry of grace. With little compassion or understanding he laid the law down even more heavily.
As I heard his response, I was angry, until I remembered that I had done the very same thing again and again. At home, it was all too easy for me to meet out judgment while I was all too stingy with the giving of grace. This unique category identity as pastor not only defined my relationship with others, but it was also destroying my relationship with God. Blind to what was going on in my heart, I was proud, unapproachable, defensive, and all too comfortable. I was a pastor, so I didn’t need what other people need.
To be clear, at the conceptual, theological level, I would have argued that all of this was bunk. Being a pastor was my calling, not my identity. Child of the Most High God was my cross-purchased identity. Member of the body of Christ was my identity. Man in the middle of his own sanctification was my identity. Sinner, and still in need of rescuing, transforming, empowering, and delivering grace was my identity.
I didn’t realize that I looked horizontally for what I had already been given in Christ, producing a harvest of bad fruit in my heart, ministry, and relationships. I had let my ministry become something that it should never be (my identity), and I looked to it to give me what it could never give (inner sense of well-being).
Great thoughts here for any young mom’s struggling through the journey of raising children. Here’s an excerpt:
I have not seen a proper Christ-centered focus in the Christian community when it comes to motherhood. We’re so wrapped up with encouraging mothers to love their children and delight in them (which we should do appropriately) that we neglect THE WOMAN’S SOUL. Ladies you have eternal souls, you belong to Jesus, not to your children. Make your lives revolve around Christ, not your children. I believe you will find that when we focus on Christ, our parenting will harmonize around him. You will be able to love and serve your children better.
My friend, Sean Higgins, has really been bringing it on his blog lately. Here’s an excerpt from his latest post on “Punching Entitlement in the Face”:
Thanks keeps the imperishable in mind while enjoying the perishable. Thanks fights dualism which says only the spiritual matters…
For us, thanks enables us to receive what He gives, even to seek provision from Him with a dependency that honors Him rather than with an self-referential expectancy. It is hard to be grateful and demanding at the same time. Pride buys entitlement a drink and sits down to commiserate. Thanks punches entitlement in the face (in the right way).
This Fall our church is going to go through a study in Home Groups called Resolving Everyday Conflict. The study is put out by Peacemaker Ministries and I believe is one of the most important studies that any Christian will ever do.
That’s why I was so excited to see that Resolving Everyday Conflict is Christian Audio’s free book of the month this month. That means that if you go to www.christianaudio.com right now, you can order and download a copy of Resolving Everyday Conflict for free.
Paul Tripp has a great description of gentleness in his book War of Words as he writes about interpersonal ministry, he says:
Gentleness treats others with tenderness, speaking in a way that is soft and mild. Proverbs tells us that harsh words create problems rather than solve them (Prov. 15:1). Gentleness means that I don’t damage the very person I am seeking to help. Gentleness doesn’t mean compromising the truth. Rather, it means keeping the truth from being compromised by harshness and insensitivity.
USA Today has a couple of articles they put up recently about pastors who are losing their faith and turning to atheism for hope. Here are a couple of excerpts:
Mike Aus, 48, pastor of a Houston Lutheran congregation of 150 people, found The Clergy Project last year after years of solitary doubt. The day before MacBain’s appearance at the convention, he announced his atheism on MSNBC’s Up With Chris Hayes.
After addressing the convention — which also greeted him enthusiastically — he said he felt like a burden had been lifted upon connecting with The Clergy Project.
"The most important thing to me was knowing I wasn’t alone," he said. "It was that fundamental sense of community with people who were experiencing the same things I was. It let me know it was not the end of the road, that there was life after this calling."…
Aus’ congregation, unaware of his change of heart until learning about it on television — on Palm Sunday, no less — decided to disband. Their final service was Easter Sunday.
"I went from God loves everybody to God saves everybody to God is in everybody," he said. "When you come from where I come from … it’s not too long before you are" at the American Atheists convention.
His new beliefs — kept secret from friends, family and his congregation — were put to the test when a friend in crisis asked him to pray with her.
"I could not do it," he said, as the hall grew quiet. "At that moment my conscience outweighed everything else in my life. … No matter how much I loved her, I knew the best hope for her situation was a good medical staff and I wasn’t going to pretend there was anything better for her than science and reason."
His heart, he said, was "absolutely, totally broken." He described gazing at himself in a mirror and realizing "that if I could not pray for her that I would never pray for anyone or anything ever again."
The irony of both of these articles is almost too much to comprehend. What you really have here is the story of two wolves in shepherds’ clothes (Acts 20:28-30), ripping apart the body of Christ in their pursuit of fame (notice how the second pastor had his “coming out” on MSNBC).
What I find especially fascinating is the second pastor’s statement about how he came to atheism. It serves as a powerful reminder of the slippery slope of modern liberalism, which takes you from “God loves everybody to God saves everybody to God is in everybody” and before too long you end up with an American atheist pastor.
The truth is that God does love all men (John 3:16), but the proof of His love is the death and resurrection of His Son (Acts 2:22-24) who calls all men to repent of their sins and find forgiveness (Acts 2:38). The truth is that outside of Christ there is no hope for this life and especially not for the life to come, even for atheist pastors.
My friend Sean Higgins has some great thoughts here on the sin of hard heartedness. Here’s an excerpt:
Hardheartedness is a signal sin in the Bible. As Jonathan Edwards described,
Now by a hard heart is plainly meant an unaffected heart, or a heart that is not easy to be moved with virtuous affections, like a stone, insensible, stupid, unmoved, and hard to be impressed. (Religious Affections, 46)
A hard heart isn’t necessarily missing truth; gathering up more truth often makes a heart more stiff, not more soft. A hard heart is unteachable, unmovable, and often unashamed about it. Maybe worst of all, a hard heart is unaware of its condition–it has no sensitivity to its own hardness. Here is a short list of other dangers that come with hardheartedness.
First, hardheartedness prohibits love for God. There can be no warmth from a stone, no affections from a brick. Yet without love for God, there can be no relationship with Him. Hard hearts are dead cold.
Second, hardheartedness prevents teachability. There can be no interest from a calcified heart, no curiosity from old concrete. Yet without teachability, there can be no humility and no learning about Him, His requirements, or His way of salvation. Hard hearts are oblivious.
Mark & Grace Driscoll recently released the book Real Marriage. The reviews have been pouring in over the last couple of months and the overall consensus on the book is decidedly negative. Heath Lambert recently published what I believe will be the definitive review of Real Marriage in the Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. What Lambert chronicles in this review is nothing short of shocking when you consider that this is a book from an evangelical pastor. You can read the review online for free in this month’s edition of the Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Here’s Lambert’s conclusion:
I want to be clear: I have nothing against Mark Driscoll and his wife. Instead, I am thankful for (what I have been told is) a clear witness to the gospel in Seattle. Having said that, I am deeply disturbed by this book on marriage. This book will hurt people. It is going to create confusion in marriages, trouble in the sexual relationships of married couples, turmoil in individuals struggling with all manner of difficulties, and questions about the nature of marriage from God’s perspective.
When I first received the advance review copy my wife and I agreed to read the book together. I was further along that she, and ultimately asked her to stop reading it. I could not imagine asking her to process all the bad material in the book when there are so many other things she might read that would be beneficial. I pray that you too will spare yourself, those you love, and those in your ministry the many troubles of Real Marriage by focusing on a Christian book on marriage that is more helpful.
The first time I heard Mark Driscoll speak, I cried. To be very hones, I also cried when I read this book on marriage. Unfortunately, my tears in each case were for very different reasons. My initial tears were full of joy over a man who so clearly desires to spread the gospel of Jesus. More recently my tears are full of sadness over the message of a book that has strayed so far from the intentions of its authors and will bring pain to many real marriages.
I think the take away here is that Real Marriage is a book that’s best to avoid. Instead, you might want to take a look at Dave Harvey’s, When Sinners say I Do or Paul’s Tripp’s What Did You Expect.
You can find another well written review of Real Marriage from one of Mars Hill’s former women’s ministry directors here.
Well, we’re over 25% done with 2012 so I thought it might be interesting to take a brief look at my resolutions from the beginning of the year and give myself a grade on how I’m doing so far.
My first resolution for 2012 was to do a lot more blogging. I think, on the whole, I’m doing pretty good at this but I have been feeling very convicted lately that I need to do even better. Hopefully, you’ll be seeing even more content here at Shepherds Notes in the near future.
My second resolution was to exercise at least 30 minutes a day. This is the one resolution that I can give myself an A+ on. I have been extremely faithful and I can testify that it has made a huge difference in my energy level, my enthusiasm and my overall health.
My third resolution for 2012 was to eat healthier. I’d have to give myself a C- on this one so far. I have lost some weight (mainly due to the walking I’m sure), but I would like to see myself do a whole lot better.
My fourth resolution was to finish reading through Calvin’s Institutes this year. Alas, I do not think this one is going to be possible. My reading list has just grown to a ridiculous scale lately. I think I’m going to have to modify this resolution down to finishing the first volume of Calvin’s institutes and then I can work on volume 2 in 2013 and 2014.
My fifth resolution was to keep on my journaling. Alas, this one has fallen off entirely as well. I think I may give it another go though and try journaling once a week, recapping the week instead of each individual day.
So, I guess if I grade myself on a curve I might end up with a C on my resolutions. Maybe by the end of the year I can raise it up to a C+ or a B .
.