Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Things God taught me through Mike Raiter: Doing good is not in vain if no-one becomes a Christian
Aiming to bless people is a perfectly legitimate aim, and I can enjoy the doing of it and take great pleasure in having done the Father's will and having done a good job at it, all whether or not someone becomes a Christian because of it. This is reflected in all of Matthew 25, but particularly in the parable of the sheep and the goats. (Jesus takes how we treat his brothers personally (Thanks David Cook for the phrase)).)
How cool is our God? He's the one who does the saving, and yet by no means does the worker lose his reward. He's the God who saves us with no desert on our part, and yet the God who will give to each as he deserves, and there is no partiality.
Things God taught me through Mike Raiter: Judgement Day Integrity
I ought to live each minute of each day in such a way that if God came back in an hour, I'd be able to give an account to God for my actions. For such an accounting will be asked.
A new distinction
After being asked "What did you learn on the weekend?", I've decided that I don't like the phrase for some reason. In my head, it implies that I did not know the piece of information prior to the weekend, but I may want to share something that God had hit me with during that time that I already knew intellectually. I don't think 'reminded of' is strong enough either. It doesn't capture that thing that God does when he instructs you by His powerful marrow-dividing Word.
Hence, my new question to ask people.
"What were you taught?"
Perhaps I'll refine or come up with a better phrase soon. Maybe,
"What did God teach you?"
which is more personal, and I've used plenty of times before, but for some reason at the moment I like the first one. I'm trying to work out why, as I think it's actually inferior, when objectively looking at it. Perhaps it's the sound of 'being taught' that has the right connotations in my head.
Preaching evaluation
I'm just wondering whether my new criterion for evaluating my preaching is a good one. It's one that only the preacher can apply to his/herself. Thoughts from the floor?
In reading this post on Izaac's blog, it made me realise something of what I was mentally doing when I preached my last sermon. I let go the whole exegesis process, and found myself only evaluating the content and delivery of the sermon. My new criterion was this:
How well did that sermon match up to what I know I could have preached?
Musings/reasonings:
I'm the only one who knows what God's word did to me when I was studying it. No-one else experienced that hard work, that wrestling with the Scriptures and that particular wielding of the Word by Holy Spirit. So really, no-one else knows what it is that I could have said. Or how I could have said it. The power with which I could have genuinely spoken those words is known to none, but myself. (And our sovereign God, of course!) The results of my exegesis determine the max quality of the talk that I can give, so how close to that max did I get?
Monday, January 25, 2010
Tired out and stirred up
Well, we're back. It was the most intense weekend I've had for a very long time. I essentially didn't stop from the time we got there on Friday morning to the time we left Sunday evening.*
I think the weekend was a success. There was a great vibe around the place, and people both had a lot of fun and also were massively challenged by the Scriptures. It was really great to read the txt messages that came in and see how young people were wrestling with the difficulties that God's word was putting their framework under.
There is definitely room for improvement, though. I really think that 2011 can be even better, and with Al Stewart preaching the start's already been made.
More thoughts to come.
*Not entirely true. I did formally resign from the committee for a period of 10 minutes to go for a swim on Sunday afternoon.
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