I have been invited to be a break out speaker at a conference on campus tonight. I will be speaking on the topic of missions to primarily business majors. Please pray that the things go well and that God changes students’ hearts about the needs of the unreached. Thanks.
Awake and Go!: James O. Fraser
James O. Fraser was a missionary among the Lisu of southern China. He is a great example of persistence and faithfulness. Check this short biography out.
“Praying without faith is like trying to cut with a blunt knife-much labor expended to little purpose.”
- James 0. Fraser.
Is it about what we don’t do? Is it about not drinking, smoking, abstaining from TV and movies? Or is it more about what we do? Is it about exuding the fruit of the Spirit like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.
I for a long time I would have defined holiness with what I didn’t do, but I now feel that that line of thinking is very incomplete.
So tell me, what does it mean to be holy?
Rocketboom offers an update on the situation in Uganda since the ceasefire. They also have a short interview with Senator Edwards about his recent trip there. Click the image to check it out.
Does any of this news give you more hope for the situation there?
Edit: Fixed the Link
Awake and Go! Global Prayer Network
Awake and Go!.com and is an amazing resource for missions and revival history. Formerly watchword.org, David Smithers has relaunched his old website with a great new look. His articles and mini-biographies are a great way to learn about some of the great movements of God from the past 400 years. Be sure to check it out.
Christianity Today’s 50th anniversary issue arrived in my mailbox the other day featuring this list. You can check it out online at the link above. Thanks to Travis at Stepping in Faith for bringing to my attention that the list was also online.
I’ve read numbers 44, 43, 37, 36, 32, 21, and part of 9. If you didn’t believe me earlier that the ” The Gospel of the Kingdom” was a great and very important book, you can now take Christianity Today’s word for it. They listed as #44 on their list of influential books.
However, I am sad that Left Behind was appropriately added to the list. A book that should be considered entertainment has shaped much of our theology about the end times and placed an overemphasis on Israel over all other peoples.
What books have you read on the list? Which ones did you like and did you dislike any of them? There are many on the list that I hope to read in the future. If you are looking for encouraging testimonies of Christians I can highly recommend “God’s Smuggler” and “The Cross and the Switch Blade.” I read part of “Through the Gates of Splendor” which is #9 on the list (WHOOP!!!). I read all of “Shadow of the Almighty”, but I might need to go back and read all of Elisabeth Elliot’s other classic.
On a humorous note, notice that the Bible was left completely off the list 
.
Believing Jesus » Why Legalism is so Sinful
Ben Arbour did us all a great service transcribing these great words by Dr. Piper. Thank you Ben. This concept is extremely key. Ben is writing some great stuff over there, so please check him out. Here are Dr. Piper’s words. I am not blockquoting it to make it easier to read.
——–
If You Want to Love, You Must Die to the Law
If you want to be a loving person, the way to pursue it is to die to the Law and to pursue a vital, all-satisfying union with Christ. Romans 7:4 says, “You also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.” Notice the exchange: die to the law and belong to the one who was raised from the dead, that is, Jesus. This leads, Paul says, to bearing fruit for God. And the preeminent fruit of the Christians life is love. Therefore the key to love is to die to the law and embrace Jesus Christ by faith as the Savior and Treasure of your life.
But this does not mean that the Law aimed at something other than love, Romans 13:10 says, “Love is the fulfillment of the law” (NASB). So it seems that death to the Law means something like: Stop using the Law unlawfully. That’s the way Paul talks in 1 Timothy 1. There are folks who want to be “teachers of the Law” but “they do not understand…what they are saying” (verse 7). What are they doing wrong?
Paul explains in 1 Timothy 1:5 that “the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and good conscience and a sincere faith.” So Paul’s gospel ministry aims at the fruit of love. People who love from “sincere faith” are in sync with the gospel.
Where does this love come from? He says it comes “from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” In other words, the way to pursue love is by focusing on the transformation of the heart and the conscience and the awakening and strengthening of faith. Love is not pursued first or decisively by focusing on a list of behavioral commandments and striving to conform to them. That is what we must die to.
Then in 1 Timohty 1:6-7, Paul describes some men who don’t understand this and yet are trying to use the Law for moral transformation. They are making a mess of it. He says, “Some men, straying from these things [that is, from heart, the conscience, and faith], have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand…what they are saying.” So their error is a misuse of the Law. They are trying to teach the Law, but they are turning aside from matter of the heart and conscience and faith. And so they are not arriving at love.
Is then the Law at fault? No. Paul absolves the Law, by saying in 1 Timothy 1:8, “But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully.” The “lawful” use of the Law is to use it as a pointer to the gospel of the risen Christ, which awakens love. Paul confirms this in verse 9 by saying, “Law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless, rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners.” What does he mean? He means that the Law does not need to do its job for those who are united to Christ by faith and are bearing the fruit of love. It needs to do its job by confronting sinners with the fact that their lives are contrary to the gospel and that they must pursue “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” and belong to the one who was raised from the dead.
Paul says, with a sweeping statement in verses 10-11, that the Law is for pointing out, and convicting people of, “whatever is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God.” This is very significant. Notice the connection between the Law and the gospel here. Who is the Law for? It is for “the lawless, rebellious, the ungodly and sinners,” that is, for those whose lives are not “according to the glorious gospel.” That is, for those who do not love. For love is the aim of Paul’s gospel (verse 5). The point is that the Law does not produce lives that accord with the gospel. Used lawfully, the law sends us to the gospel. That’s the point of Romans 7:4 – you must die to the Law [as a way of producing the fruit of love] and be united to Christ by faith “so that you might bear the fruit [of love] for God.”
In other words, according to 1 Timothy 1:5-11, the Law is meant to accuse and convict people of breaking the gospel! “The law is for…whatever is contrary to…the glorious gospel” (verses 10-11). The law of commandments is not the first and decisive means of fruit-bearing for the Christian. Rather the Law brings us to Christ so that, as Romans 7:4 says, “you might be joined to…Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit [of love] for God.” Oh let us embrace the risen Christ!
Life is too brief to waste it romancing the Law of commandments. That marriage will not bear the offspring of love. Make haste to Christ. Let the Law be, not the wife, but the humble matchmaker between you and Jesus. Don’t fall in love with, and don’t hate, the humble go-between. Die to the Law. Belong to the living Christ.
Open the eyes of our hearts, Father, to see the precious and limited role of Your Law in bearing the fruit of love in our lives. Lead us into deep and personal union with Jesus. Let this relationship with the living Christ transform our minds and wills so that we want what He wants and hate what He hates. Make us, by this union, radically loving people. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.
RSS