Another Great Luther Quote

It’s the supreme art of the devil that he can make the law out of the gospel. If I can hold on to the distinction between law and gospel, I can say to him any and every time that he should kiss my backside. … Once I debate about what I have done and left undone, I am finished. But if I reply on the basis of the gospel, “The forgiveness of sins covers it all,” I have won.

What this church needs is a slick ad campaign

I’ve always had an aversion to marketing. I feel dirty advertising the church. Perhaps that’s because much advertising is manipulative and dishonest. But some advertising is surely necessary. We’ve always had a yellow pages ad. We don’t want to misrepresent ourselves and tell people that if they come to our church they’ll get the full service experience that will satisfy their felt needs like they’ve never been satisfied before. But we do need to at least let people know we exist. And there surely are some people out there looking for a church like ours who haven’t found us yet. How can we get the word out to those people? Creative ideas, anyone? Help!

My journal was lost, but now is found

I lost my journal, but after a week of retracing my steps I retrieved it yesterday in the lost and found at Kinko’s. I was very happy to have it back and I read through it again and I noticed a connection between two answered prayers.

On July 3rd, 2006 I prayed Psalm 42:9 “I say to God, my rock: Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” I acknowledged that the enemy of my soul was too strong for me and I asked for deliverance.

On April 4th, 2008 I was reading John 14:14 “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” So I asked him again for deliverance from the enemy.

On both of these occasions I experienced, in a manner that I cannot explain, an assurance that my prayer had been heard and answered and on both occasions a season of marked progress in the pursuit of holiness followed.

I feel I must share this with you because in the past I have preached that I have found the word to be much more useful than prayer in the battle to resist temptation. This is true to a point. When face to face with temptation it helps me to quote a short memorized verse. Praying in that moment I find too amorphous to be very helpful.

And yet the two most memorable experiences of deliverance over the past two years were occasioned by believing prayer. So I re-commend the practice to you. Go ask him for something.

I Was Really Scared

Sunday morning I woke up with chest pains. Nothing severe, I didn’t worry much about it. Monday they were a little worse and they occasionally radiated to the shoulder and jaw. Hmm. I looked online for heart attack symptoms. Some of them fit, but some of them didn’t. For example, it was worse when I bent over and laid down. Heart attacks are supposed to hurt the same regardless of posture. So I continued not worrying…much. I assumed it probably had something do with my asthma, perhaps some upper lung congestion. But I hadn’t had any trouble breathing recently, and my inhaler offered no relief. Tuesday morning it hurt again and my wife insisted I make an appointment with the doctor.

When I called and described my symptoms to the nurse she told me to go to the ER. “What?!” I said. “Heart attacks feel like an elephant is standing on your chest. This feels like a medium-sized rabbit is standing on my chest. And I’ve felt the same dull ache for two days straight. Heart attacks aren’t like that.” “Umm, actually yes, they can be,” she said. Still, I talked her out of making me go to the ER and she made a 10:30 appointment for me that morning.

The doctor looked me over and ordered me an ECG which determined that I wasn’t having a heart attack. It’s a viral inflammation of the chest wall and I’m approved to play in the father-son soccer game tonight with Patrick. I’m feeling good now, but for a couple of hours yesterday I was really scared. It will be interesting to see how much the insurance company pays per second for that less than sixty second test.

I Get Up, I Get Down

My day began yesterday with my heart being strangely, (very strangely), warmed by this song. Anyone want to take a stab at interpreting the lyrics in the comments, go for it.

Then I went to the Champaign Public Library to study Psalm 37. At the men’s retreat last month I challenged everyone to set aside two hours in the next month to study at one sitting with nothing but a Bible, pen, and paper. Yesterday was my two hour study session and it was very satisfying. Thanks be to God, but thanks be also to the architects of the Quiet Study Room at the new library. If you haven’t tried reading your Bible yet in there, I highly recommend it. Ahh, the light.

As for the fruits of my study, it was really just a deepening of the lessons I shared in this earlier post. If God commands us to be anxious for nothing, then there really is nothing to be anxious about. My wife and I have decided to declare all out war on our anxieties and, by God’s grace, we will spend the rest of our days delighting ourselves in rab shalom, abundant peace. (Ps 37:11).

Anybody else put in their two hours yet this month? Maybe we should set a time to get together and talk about it.