"Judged"

“But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court.  In fact, I do not even judge myself.  For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.  It is the Lord who judges me.  Therefore, do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.  Then each one will receive his commendation from God.”  1 Corinthians 4:3-5

"My brother pastor, tomorrow you will preach and lead.  You want to be found faithful.  But by whose standards of faithfulness are you to be judged?  Whose opinion finally counts?

"You desire to please everyone in everything you do (1 Corinthians 10:33).  But not even the great apostle Paul succeeded in that desire.  The Corinthians put him under intensely negative scrutiny.  I hope everyone in your church thinks you’re wonderful.  If you are faithful to Christ, you are.  But some might find fault with you.  Should you listen for whatever wisdom might be embedded even in unwise criticisms?  Sure.  But don’t let anyone but Christ define you.  Maintain your objectivity as his servant.  Take the criticisms to him, therefore, looking honestly at his Word and humbly at yourself, and let him be your judge.  But don’t freak out.  Paul considered human criticism “a very small thing.”

"What others think of you does not determine who you are and what you’re really worth.  What you think of yourself doesn’t even determine that.  You serve the Lord Christ.  Be set apart to him alone, and he will commend you.  And with his strong assurance strengthening your heart, you can love your critics more than they expect to be loved."

-- Ray Ortlund, Jr.

30 Reasons Why It Is a Great Thing to Be a Pastor

Good, Bible-based insight from John Piper...

Letting God's Story Re-Write Our Story

"Does Christ come merely to improve our existence in Adam or to end it, sweeping us into his new creation? Is Christianity all about spiritual and moral makeovers or about death and resurrection — radical judgment and radical grace? Is the Word of God a resource for what we have already decided we want and need, or is it God’s living and active criticism of our religion, morality, and pious experience?

"In other words, is the Bible God’s story, centering on Christ’s redeeming work, that rewrites our stories, or is it something we use to make our stories a little more exciting and interesting?"

— Michael Horton
"Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church"

Seeking to Become Holy, Not 'Holier Than Thou'

"How do we become holy without becoming ‘holier than thou’?

"By actually becoming actually holy.

"Holiness and holier-than-thou-ness aren’t parallel phenomena. They run on different tracks. If someone is growing in arrogance, pride, and self-righteousness, by definition they are not growing in holiness.

"The problem arises in equating holiness with religious behavior. Holy people do obey God, of course. But the character of holiness, in which the Spirit does his progressive sanctifying work in our hearts (and therefore in our thoughts, speech, and actions), produces qualities of humility, gentleness, kindness, and self-control. Any arrogant fool can abstain from certain sins or give to charity and what-not. The Pharisees certainly did that, and all our legalistic contemporaries do too. But that is not real holiness. That is moralistic separatism or some such thing.

"Therefore, it is impossible to become both holy and holier-than-thou. To grow in one, is to atrophy in the other.

"But I am grateful that while I still struggle with a variety of sins, most especially the root sin of pride, I have God’s promise that he will complete the work he began in me, and that Jesus is both the author and the perfecter of my faith."

-- Jared C. Wilson

Friendship and Fellowship

Many talk about "community" and "koinonia." But what do these consist of, if not God-established, Christ-focused, Spirit-empowered friendships?

Friendship is one of the primary means of grace the Lord uses to keep church members growing in grace and bound to one another—like the sinews between muscles. Friendship helps church members to fight sin and spur one another on to love and good deeds. After all, friendship is a bond of mutual affection, trust, and commitment; and two individuals will most quickly influence one another within the context of such affection and trust.  Likewise, we’ll take greater care in encouraging those whom we love. That’s what friendship affords.

Our culture is not one that provides great encouragement for the nurture and development of deep, long-lasting, satisfying friendships. Such friendships take time and sacrifice, and the busy world of the early twenty-first century West, as a rule, is far more interested in receiving and possessing than sacrificing and giving.

For the Christian, true friends are those with whom one can share the deepest things of one’s life. They are people with whom one can be transparent and open.  They are people to whom one can "unburden [one’s] whole soul." And in the course of conversation about spiritual things the believer can find strength and encouragement for living the Christian life.   Spiritual conversation with friends is "one of the best helps to keep up religion in the soul.  It is, in a sense  a means of grace, one of the ways that God the Holy Spirit keeps Christians in fellowship with the Savior.

Friendship is a fragile treasure that can be easily lost or neglected in the unpredictable business of life if both people in the friendship do not give it the attention it needed. As the American preacher Haddon Robinson has recently noted, "Even strong friendships require watering or they shrivel up and blow away."

And so the author of the Book of Hebrews writes, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (Heb.10:24-25).  In writing this way, he is calling on them to look outside themselves and focus their attention on their brothers and sisters in Christ.

Because of everything Jesus has done, and because of everything that he is, Christians are to stir one another up to love and good works.   And notice that he says we are to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.”  He’s telling us, in other words, to think about it!

A Christian ought to plot, plan, conspire, contrive, and design how he might stir his brothers and sisters to good works—something he simply cannot do unless his life is tightly intertwined with theirs.
In this way, the genuinely committed Christian friend can fulfil what the writer of Proverbs had in mind when he observed,  “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

-- from the "9Marks" Ministry Newsletter

Amusing Ourselves to Death

“…What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with [the silly and superficial]. 

"As Huxley remarked in “Brave New World Revisited,” the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In "1984," Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In "Brave New World," they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”

-- Neil Postman, “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”  (Penguin Books)

A Personal, Practical Statement of Faith

My Morning Statement of Faith

I believe that today:

1.  God is sovereignly directing my life as I yield myself to Him, and that He loves me unconditionally, and I love Him and put Him first in my life.

2.  Christ is my Lord and Master, and I seek to abide in Him and do His will immediately and exactly.

3.  The Holy Spirit is my friend, teacher and guide, Who will open and close doors today and fill me with Himself to make me an effective servant.

4.  I now commit my wife and family to the Lord, Who loves them as well as those others I love.  They too are in His sovereign care.

5.  I step out in bold faith and relax in the Lord, and enjoy this day given to me by Him.  I trust Him to use me today.

-- Ray Ortlund, Sr.

It is Still Either-Or

"I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of dissevering power’—or else not. It is still ‘either-or’. If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell." -- C. S. Lewis, "The Great Divorce"

"A sure sign that Satan is losing...."

“Leaving the first kind of fiery darts — enticing and alluring temptations — we now proceed to the second kind, those that fill the Christian with fear.  It is only the power of faith that can quench these fiery darts.

This is Satan’s weapon held in reserve.  When alluring temptations fail, he opens his quiver and shoots these arrows to set the soul on fire, if not with sin then with terror.  When he cannot carry a soul laughing to hell through the deception of pleasurable temptations, he will try to make him go mourning to heaven by this amazing attack.  It is a sure sign that Satan is losing.

The arrows he shot at Job were of this kind.  When God let the devil practice his skill, why did Satan not tempt Job with some golden apple of profit or pleasure or some other enticement?  Surely the high testimony God gave about Job discouraged him from these methods.  Satan had no tactic left but this.”

-- William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armor (London, 1964), II:91.  Paraphrased.
HT: Ray Ortlund, Jr.

Your Fundamental Orientation

"And until you get this right – that your relationship to God will be the primary source of your life’s meaning, identity, security and joy – then nothing else further down the line in your Christian life (your worship, relationships, growth, ministry) is going to work. This fundamental orientation must be in place, or everything ‘after it’ goes wrong too, and we remain stuck in our agitation and anxiety." -- Paul Duncan

The Futility of Idolatry

"So long as you continue to look to something or someone other than God to be your primary source of meaning, identity, security and joy, you will inevitably be frustrated and disappointed, and you will carry your discontent and agitation with you into every relationship and situation, corrupting them all to one degree or another, because your idol will never be able to give you what only a primary devotion to God can provide." -- Paul Duncan

God is never a means to a higher end

True Christianity cannot be treated like one of many self-improvement strategies, a ‘spiritual fitness’ plan to be combined with strategies for physical, financial and career development too – but all, ultimately, for self-centered ends. For real Christianity is the end of the self-centered life, and authentic devotion to Christ re-defines and controls every other and lesser devotion and goal.

On the pages of the New Testament...

“On these pages you will find the living Christ, and you will see Him more fully and more clearly than if He stood before you, before your very eyes.”

-- Erasmus’ preface to his Greek New Testament, quoted in Earl D. Radmacher, editor, "Can We Trust The Bible?" (Wheaton, 1979), page 92.

Hardwired for Glory

"As I have written before, human beings are hardwired for glory. That’s why we’re so attracted to glorious things. We love the glory of a great painting or a beautiful piece of music. We love the excitement of an athletic contest or a feat of daring. We love the sleight of hand of a great magician or the sizzle of a well-seared steak. We love the glory of a moment of success or the recognition of the people around us. We’re attracted to the glory of wealth or the beauty of the human body. We’re very powerfully oriented to glory, and because we are, we live in pursuit of   it. Animals are not like this. Rhinos don’t celebrate the size of their horns. Deer don’t gather for the bi-annual long-jump contest. Birds don’t envy one another’s feathers. Animals don’t have this glory orientation, because they weren’t made for God in the way that we are. Human beings are hardwired for glory because they were hardwired for God. The glory orientation that’s inside of every person is meant to drive us to   God.


"Here’s the problem. When God created the world, he dyed it with his glory. The created world really is glorious because God made it that way. But the created world is not in possession of ultimate glory, the kind of glory that can satisfy your heart. The glory of the created world is sign glory. All the glory of the created world is meant to be a sign that points us to the only glory that will ever give rest and peace to our hearts, the glory of God. We were designed to live for that glory. But we lose sight of the fact that the sign isn’t the thing; it is there to point us to the thing, and in forgetting this, we ask the sign to do for us what it cannot   do. In this way, life this side of eternity really is one big, unceasing glory battle. There could be no bigger issue than this, than what glory will rule your heart, and in ruling your heart, control your thoughts, desires, choices, words, and behavior. Sinful human beings in functionally denying the existence of God will stop at the sign, won’t care about what the sign points them to, and will ask of the sign what it will never be able to give. And that created thing with all its glory will not be their savior; no it will prove to be a cruel and inglorious master that takes much, but gives very little of what they were really seeking...."

-- Paul David Tripp "Sex and Money: Pleasures That Leave You Empty and Grace That Satisfies" (Kindle Locations 256-264). Crossway. Kindle Edition. 



Tripp, Paul David (2013-04-30). Sex and Money: Pleasures That Leave You Empty and Grace That Satisfies (Kindle Locations 247-254). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

Your Heart Is Fickle

'You need to admit that this side of eternity your heart is fickle. I get uncomfortable in those worship-service moments when we are singing, “You are my all in all,” You’re my priceless treasure,” ‘With all my heart I love you,” or “I adore you.” I often stop singing and think, “Really? Do I?” Does love of God rule my heart unchallenged? Does it? Is God at the center of my affections, the focus of my greatest joys? Really, is he? I think we seriously underestimate the fickle nature of our sinful hearts. We quickly switch loyalties. We rapidly trade affection for one thing for another. We all too easily give way to our love. We willingly abandon commitments we forcefully made. We fail to do what we promised. We abandon our dreams for what we think would be a better dream. Our hearts will only ever be truly loyal and stable when our hearts are sin-free. As long as sin lives inside of us in some way, we’re all sadly shopping for a better, more satisfying master, denying the glory of the Master that by grace we’ve been given.'

-- Paul David Tripp, "Sex and Money: Pleasures That Leave You Empty and Grace That Satisfies" (Crossway).