A Life Prayer for My Son

Heavenly Father, perfect Father, I pray for my unborn son. My deepest prayer is that you would give him a new heart and a spiritual birth that he may come to know you and love you. I pray that he would learn the gospel and never stop learning it.

I pray that from his earliest days you would put in his heart an insatiable thirst for the eternal. I pray that you would stamp eternity deeply in his heart, so that he might never be satisfied with the things of this world, but always know and feel that he is made for something – Someone – so much greater.

Jesus, would you capture his heart, his soul, his entire being? Be his greatest treasure. Make of him a passionate worshipper and abandoned follower of you.

Spirit: know him, draw him, unveil his eyes, regenerate him, fill him, seal him, lead him, teach him, walk with him, and bear much fruit in him.

Father I pray that you would give him the heart of a lion, and the spirit of a lamb; courage, boldness, passion, and zeal, with tenderness, gentleness, love and humility.

I pray that he would come to love, cherish, and serve the women in his life. Prepare for him a godly wife who will be well-suited for him and who will relentlessly point him to you and spur him on to know you more.

I pray that you would protect him from the evil one.

And I pray that you would give me the grace to accept your will in how and when you will answer these prayers; and much grace to shape him in these ways through my influence.

Lord Jesus, he is yours completely and yet he is ours as well – may you be pleased to use our fumbling efforts as parents to shape a young man after your own heart, for your fame and glory.

Amen and amen – may it be.

What Is It that Gives LIFE to Plain, Scriptural Preaching?

This is a question I’ve been asking for some time now. What makes some preaching spiritually stimulating and life-giving while other preaching on the same text expounding the same truth is stale and cold? Aside from the simple answer that sovereign work of God through the Holy Spirit to dwell and empower however He pleases, I found a helpful answer in Revival and Revivalism by Iain Murray.

“The Princeton leaders had consciously faced the key question: What was it that gave life to plan, scriptural preaching? And their united answer was, it was preachers knowing and feeling in their own experience the realities of which they spoke.

“True Christianity cannot exist without real communion with God, and neither can true preaching. So while the technical aspects of public speaking were not ignored, this was not where the emphasis lay. ‘It is an easy thing to make a noise in the world,’ said [Samuel] Davies, ‘to flourish and harangue, to dazzle the crowd and set them agape; but deeply to imbibe the Spirit of Christianity, to maintain a secret walk with God, to be holy, as he is holy – this is the labour, this is the work.’”

To that I would add that the more direct and specific the speaking and application is, the more powerful it is. General truth to general people is generally powerless; but powerful truth explained and incisively applied to a specific group of people with boldness and force, and into the specifics of their lives and hearts, tends to be more transformative. Sermons that could be preached generically to any church at any time are not nearly as powerful and attention-keeping as sermons that are meant for THIS church at THIS time. When the preacher is speaking about some truth or idea ‘out there,’ it takes real work to maintain focus on that, but when he is speaking about some truth and then boldly applies it to your life, your heart, your spiritual walk, your weaknesses, and even more so if he is speaking out of personal experience, it is almost impossible to stop listening, because each word is so timely and relevant. We need bold and fearless preaching that isn’t afraid to call people to repentance, to turning away from specific idols and sins, and then to putting real active faith in Jesus in those areas of our lives.

Lord send your fire down on our measly altars, they are just wet stones and wood without it. We want and need so desperately for our words and deeds to be drenched in the power of your Spirit. We thirst, and come to Jesus the Quencher and Giver of life and power.

Gospel-obedience… not white-knuckled obedience

“Long-term, sustained, gospel-motivated obedience can only come from faith in what Jesus has already done, not fear of what we must do. To paraphrase Ray Ortlund, any obedience not grounded in or motivated by the gospel is unsustainable. No matter how hard you try, how “radical” you get, any engine smaller than the gospel that you’re depending on for power to obey will conk out in due time.” – from http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2010/12/09/does-the-gospel-scare-you/ by Tullian Tchividjian

Looking at our Culture’s Heroes

Everywhere I look in recent popular movies and novels, protagonist men and women are portrayed as highly efficient experts at life. Just look at the main characters of most new bestsellers, blockbuster hits, or hit TV shows. You’ll have seen it elsewhere perhaps but I’ve noticed it constantly in Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton novels, and in Dan Brown to a lesser extent. Think Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, that girl in Alias, Sherlock Holmes, Tony Stark, James T. Kirk, ad nauseum. Emotionally stable, calm and collected in crisis situations, young professionals who are at the cutting edge of their field. Sometimes they are depicted in a moment of weakness to show you their human side, but more often than not that in itself is part of their expertise – to feign weakness and throw everyone else off-balance. You get the distinct impression that these people truly, really, totally have got their lives together. They are happy, fulfilled, satisfied, and want for nothing. We always seem to be looking at the apex of human development and achievement. Each one is gifted, smart, beautiful, quick-witted, funny, and efficient.

 

I think we see in these heroes the embodiment of our culture’s values. And in the missing pieces we see the areas of life that our culture doesn’t value.

 

The accomplished life then is measured in how much one can accomplish professionally. Thus working all day and all night and running on little or no sleep are badges of honor. But ultimately these portrayals are the wishful thinking of a culture which worships professional success by the sacrificing of stable long-term relationships such as marriage or children.

 

The truth is that these heroes are uni-perspectival. They manage to showcase the perfected professional, but in doing so they are doomed to be one-dimensional characters. And they are. A full-orbed understanding of humanity would see potential measured in all spheres of life.

Thoughts on Typical Churches from Richard Lovelace, Part 3

Continuing from the last two posts…

“Their religious lives, however, do not satisfy their consciences at the deepest level, and so there is a powerful underlying insecurity in their lives. Consciously they defend themselves as dedicated Christians who are as good as anybody else, but underneath the conscious level there is a deep despair and self-rejection. Above the surface this often manifests itself in a compulsive floating hostility which focuses upon others in critical judgment. Thus a congregation of Christians who are insecure in their relationship to Christ can be a thorn bush of criticism, rejection, estrangement, and party spirit. Unsure in the depth of their hearts what God thinks of them, churchmembers will fanatically affirm their own gifts and take fierce offense when anyone slights them, or else they will fuss endlessly with a self-centered inventory of their own inferiority in an inverted pride.”

Thoughts on Typical Churches from Richard Lovelace, Part 2

“Sometimes with great effort [churchmembers] can be maneuvered into some active role in the church’s program, like a trained seal in a circus act, but their hearts are not fully in it. They may repeat the catchwords of the theology of grace, but many have little deep awareness that they and other Christians ‘accepted in the beloved.’ Since their understanding of justification is marginal or unreal – anchored not to Christ, but to some conversion experience in the past or to an imagined present state of goodness in their lives – they know little of the dynamic of justification. Their understanding of sin focuses upon behavioral externals which they can eliminate from their lives by a little will power and ignores the great submerged continents of pride, covetousness and hostility beneath the surface. Thus their pharisaism defends them both against full involvement in the church’s mission and against full subjection of their inner lives to the authority of Christ.”

Thoughts on Typical Churches from Richard Lovelace, Part 1

I’ll try and post a few paragraphs this week from Lovelace’s chapter “Renewal of the Local Congregation” in Dynamics of Spiritual Life. This is a major book for me, and I’ll be drawing from it a lot. I am planning on writing a thesis paper for my undergraduate theology degree on the fundamental principles that he puts forth in this book.

In this section he is outlining the goal of seeing congregations revitalized by God, but first sets out to paint a picture of the typical congregation. This was written around 1979, but it might as well have been written last year.

“In most cases what [pastors] confront is a style of living very unlike the spiritually vibrant mission station described at the end of Acts 2. The “ultimate concern” of most church members is not the worship and service of Christ in evangelistic mission and social compassion, but rather survival and success in their secular vocation. The church is a spoke on the wheel of life connected to the secular hub. It is a departmental subconcern, not the organizing center of all other concerns. Churchmembers who have been conditioned all their lives to devote themselves to building their own kingdom and whose flesh naturally gravitates in that direction anyway find it hard to invest much energy in the kingdom of God. They go to church once or twice a week and punch the clock, so to speak, fulfilling their ‘church obligation’ by sitting passively and listening critically or approvingly to the pastor teaching.”

1984… and the Gospel

Ever since we moved into our new apartment here in Cambridge, we’ve been reading a lot more. I think it has to do with how comfortable and at-home we feel here compared to the place we were in for the summer. Knowing we were only there 3 months made it really hard to feel settled. And it was dark with small windows and cold floors – not exactly the kind of place that lends itself to quiet, comfy evenings on the couch with a book.

I just finished reading the political classic 1984 by George Orwell. If you’re not familiar with it, check out the wikipedia article, which aptly describes it as a “dystopian novel about the totalitarian regime of a socialist Party.” As far as politics go, I am a self-labeled cotton-headed ninnymuggins, so I don’t have much to say about Canadian politics or “how an offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design,” nor how a “worldwide regime controlled by an unelected corporate elite is implementing a planetary carbon tax system that will dominate all human activity and establish a system of neo-feudal slavery.“

Anyways, one thing that struck me was the part where the main character, Winston Smith, first has a sexual encounter with Julia. Any such relationship is strictly forbidden in that society. He asks her if she has done this sort of thing before, and she says that she has done it many times. Orwell writes, “His heart leapt. Scores of times she had done it: he wished it had been hundreds – thousands. Anything that hinted at corruption always filled him with a wild hope. Who knew, perhaps the Party was rotten under the surface, its cult of strenuousness and self-denial simply a sham concealing iniquity.” Winston then tells Julia, “I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.”

Now why does he hate purity and goodness? Does he have a devil-like hatred of purity and goodness, where his soul is so distorted and evil that he just hates anything which is right and good? I don’t think so. All through the book he deeply rejoices in all kinds of things which are truly good and right – the beauty of nature, the song of a bird, a good cup of coffee. No I think the reason he hates purity and goodness is because of the hypocritical veneer of purity and goodness that the “Party” had.

I couldn’t help but see the parallels between this and some Christian environments. When Christian ‘righteousness’ is represented, taught and demanded by a hypocritical leadership, those under that leadership grow sour to such ‘righteousness.’ Having been exposed to a diseased version of righteousness, they then become allergic to anything which smells of it. Can we be surprised by statements like “I hate purity, I hate goodness!” when the only supposed purity and goodness they have seen has been the impure, bad version of it. Likewise, can we be surprised when scores of people are turned off of Christianity when some of the most prominent and well-known leaders of Christianity turn out to be living lives so crazily out of line with the most basic teachings of Christianity. From the extreme examples like evangelical super-pastors in sex scandals and Catholic priests involved in systemic child sexual abuse to the more mundane hypocrisy of legalistic church-folk, it all contributes to this effect.

The world of 1984 is a world run by the legalistic elder-brother (of Jesus’ parable in Luke 15) where younger-brother tendencies are illegal and punished by death. The problem is that the younger brothers can see through the fake facade of the elder brothers. Without the gospel, all the state-enforced morality in the world can never produce an ounce of true goodness. Without the gospel, the elder brother is lost in his morality, religion, and self-righteousness; and the younger brother is lost in his immorality and rebellion. The sad part is when the younger brothers reject Christianity because they only know the Christianity of the elder brothers – and who the heck wants that?

Once again, the gospel breaks through every human system and offers the only true hope for humanity.

Watching Out for the Wrong Thing

“The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.”

This short paragraph in letter 25 of the Screwtape Letters made me realize that I often watch out for the wrong thing, or guard against the extreme that I am in the least danger of falling into. For example, I am by nature a bit timid and reserved. I don’t like confrontation at all. If I’m honest with myself I’m far more often a coward than a bully, and yet I am usually far more worried about not being ‘too bold’ or ‘too forceful’ than being a coward. The error I’m likely to fall into is lack of boldness and yet I usually guard against excessive boldness. This seems backwards.

Likewise, in my spiritual life I tend to avoid structure, discipline, and rigid plans. I like my freedom. I guess I tell myself I’m guarding against legalism, but let’s be honest, I am far more likely to fall into laziness and complacency than ritualistic legalism. On top of that, one of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit is “self-control” (Gal. 5:23).

I think this is true corporately as much as it is individually. In some churches, worship times seem to be emotion-free.

“Leave your affections at the door please.” Worship is more of a cognitive assent to propositional truths. They say they are guarding against emotionalism, but let’s be honest – their danger is not emotionalism but intellectualism. The opposite is true of other churches of course. It seems that when there are two groups who emphasize opposite ends of a given spectrum, the effect is to polarize both towards extremes as they react against the other, which frankly leaves each one worse off than before.

We all land at different places on a number of continuums like this. I find it helpful to zoom out a little bit and gain some perspective on the whole.

My Testimony (in 3 minutes)

This is what I read before the church on July 25th when I was baptized.

Hi, my name is Phil Cotnoir, and I was born and grew up in a loving Christian family. As I grew older and continued attending church and youth group, I came to the conclusion that I was a Christian, but just not a very good one. This is because I never read my Bible or prayed by myself at home. It’s not that I hated God or the Bible, I just found video games and sports far more interesting. I see now that my desire to live a good Christian life was not the result of the Holy Spirit moving in my heart, but it was due to the fact that in my family and church social group, that was the expectation. On a purely social level, it was expected and rewarded to act like a Christian, and so I did. It was out of self-interest, not out of my love for God.

As I grew older and went to High School, I began to struggle with and eventually became addicted to pornography. I was truly a slave to this sin, and I continued to be in slavery to it until Jesus – the Son – set me free, and then I became free indeed. But I am getting ahead of myself. This part of my life was hidden. I was one person at church and at home, and quite another at school with my friends, and then quite another still alone in the darkness of my private thoughts and life. It was during this time that I was baptized the first time. I wanted to get baptized because, again, that is what people my age were expected to do, and my brother was getting baptized, so I did too.

Things started to turn around in the Spring of 2003. I was driving home from school, when after a moment of inattention I plowed my car into the back of an SUV, making it roll over three times on the highway. By God’s grace no one was hurt even though both vehicles were totaled. I started to really ask myself if I was sure I was saved. What if I had killed someone? What if I had died? Over the next few months God revealed to me that I was not a true Christian.

On the night of September 21, 2004, God chose to open my eyes. I realized for the first time the depth and weight of my sin, as well as the holiness of God. I knew these things before, but that night they became incredibly real to me. I remember being overwhelmed with how sinful, rebellious, and proud I was – and I knew that if I died in that moment, and stood before God in all of his blazing perfection, I would have nothing to say for myself. All my good works seemed like straw next to the mountain of my guilt – and even my good works had been done for my glory, not God’s. Yet I was a very good person in everyone’s eyes. So if you think your good works will appease God, I feel compelled to tell you that you are incredibly mistaken. Like me, you don’t realize the depth of your sin OR the intensity of God’s holiness.

But as I realized these things, I suddenly felt how desperately I needed a Savior. And that is when I really understood why Jesus had to die on the cross. Nothing short of death was needed to pay for my sins; and nothing short of Christ’s perfect life was needed to clothe me and make me able to stand before God.

Since that night God has radically renovated the inner parts of my life. The next day I remember thinking “So this is what it feels like to ‘walk in the light.’” By God’s grace alone, I have been brought from darkness to light, and from death to life.

For the past 5 years I haven’t been sure whether I should get baptized again or not. But after Pastor John made it abundantly clear at the last baptism that if you came to Christ after you were baptized, that you needed to be baptized again, I decided to go through with it. So that is why I am here. Oddly enough, my Dad also came to know Christ after being baptized, in fact he was already a deacon and treasurer when he was born again. He was baptized a second time as well. I guess it’s something of a family tradition now…

In conclusion, I just want to say: We have such a wonderful, powerful, precious and beautiful Lord and Savior in Jesus Christ. I implore you to put all your hope and trust and faith in Him today.