from an email February 2006
Truth is, the modern church is not designed to do what Jesus did: reach men with the good news. (pg viii)
You cannot have a thriving church without a core of men who are true followers of Christ. (pg 8)
Dream for a moment. What would church be like if the majority of the worshippers were men? Not just males taking up pew space, but strong, earthy men who were truly alive in Christ. Men who were there not just to please their wives, to fulfill religious tradition, or to go on a power trip, but men who were there to rock their world. Can you even imagine what that would feel like? Imagine what such a church could accomplish for the kingdom of God! Impossible you say? Just read the book of Acts. The church was like this once; it can be so again. (pg 9)
This book is not a perfect plan to bring men back. Rather, I hope it is the match that ignites thousands of conversations and millions of prayers about a problem we’ve ignored far too long. (pg 10)
God made men for adventure, achievement, and challenge, and if they can’t find those things in church, they’re going to find them somewhere else. (pg 11)
Women are the target audience of today’s church... culture of today’s churches [is] a culture that values safety over risk, stability over change, preservation over expansion, and predictability over adventure. (pg 14)
Studies show that men and young adults tend to be challenge oriented. (pg 18)
Now try this on: be dangerous. What if that were our message to men? If churchgoing held the prospect of risk, adventure, and daring, you’d have an abundance of men, teenagers, and young adults signing up. That’s precisely what we find in the persecuted church today. It was also the situation in the early church when Christians were routinely stoned, beaten, or fed to hungry lions. When it’s dangerous to be a Christian, men are more likely to count themselves in. (pg 21)
Every congregation needs a generous helping of both the feminine spirit and the masculine spirit. You see this balance in the churches that are growing today. A masculine concern for quality, effectiveness, and achievement pervades everything they do. Yet they are supportive, nurturing, and tender with people. (pg 25)
Challenge can’t come just from the pulpit. (pg 33)
We can preach and teach until we are hoarse, but men will not mature in Christ until we rediscover discipleship...A number of America’s most dynamic churches are discipleship based. Every member is expected to be a part of a discipleship group, and participation runs 70 to 90 percent. Seek out these churches, and observe their model. (pg 35)
So how can we make men feel needed again?
TELL THEM! Do they know how important they are? (pg 40)
The church and the Titanic have something in common: it’s women and children first. The great majority of ministry in Protestant churches is focused on children, next on women, and then, if there are any resources left, on men.
What’s wrong with the women-and-children-first focus of today’s church? After all, men aren’t very interested. Why should Christians knock themselves out to minister to men? Simple. Because Jesus did. Jesus did not focus His ministry on children, or women for that matter. Jesus’ approach was men first.
I know I lost a lot of you with that last sentence. Some of you may have thrown the book across the room. Before World War III breaks out, let me say that Jesus loved women and children. He welcomed women and children. He blessed women and children. He made it clear that they were equal in every way to men – perhaps even greater than men (“whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew 18:4]). Women were among His most faithful followers; children were among His greatest joys.
But Jesus did not focus His ministry on women and children. Nor did He command us to. His example is clear; if we want to change the world, we must focus on men. Not to the exclusion of women and children – however, the spiritual development of men must become our top priority. (pg 43)
Here’s an oft-quoted statistic in men’s ministry circles: when a mother comes to faith in Christ, the rest of her family follows 17 percent of the time. But when a father comes to faith in Christ, the rest of the family follows 93 percent of the time. (pg 47)
John Eldredge reminds us, “Christianity isn’t a religion about going to Sunday School, potluck suppers, being nice, holding car washes, sending our secondhand clothes off to Mexico – as good as those things might be. This is a world at war. Something large and immensely dangerous is unfolding all around us.” (pg 48)
Philip Yancey notes, “I have watched a pattern time and again: a church starts off with high ideals, generates aflurry of activity, and then gradually tempers its vision, settling for something far less than ideal.” Women stay loyal because of the relationships they’ve developed, but the less relational men fall away. Men need vision – not just relationships – to stay motivated in church. (pg 56)
Men don’t follow programs; they follow men. The movies men love often feature an inspirational coach, commander, or teacher. Men are dying for a leader. Every man, regardless of his age, needs another man to look up to and say in his heart, “I want to be like him”. (pg 59)
Howard Hendricks of Dallas Theological Seminary sees two kinds of people in the church: the pillars and the caterpillars,. The pillars uphold the church with their prayers, their work, and their donations. They build the kingdom of God by the sweat of their brows. The caterpillars crawl in on Sunday morning, sing a few songs, listen to a sermon, and crawl out again, not to be seen for a week. (pg 64)
In other words, there are between 11 million and 13 million more born again women than there are born again men in the country. (pg 66)
Women are doing the leg work of evangelism today and fulfilling the Great Commission while men sit on the sidelines. (pg 66)
This may be the hidden tragedy of the gender gap: without men shouldering their share of the ministry load, women are feeling trapped, overworked, and underappreciated. (pg 69)
Men want to devote themselves to something that’s effective, not something that’s going to make them busy. Men are achievement oriented and have little tolerance for a team that always plays defence and never plays offense. (pg 72)
So how can a church attract risk takers? By taking risks! Pursue outrageous, God-given visions. Develop ministries that are dangerous. Send people on foreign mission adventures. Tell the stories of men who jeopardized everything for Christ. Start with the stories of the martyrs. Scores die every day for Christ, yet their stories are rarely told in Western churches. (pg 75)
A growing church is a risk-taking church. (pg 76)
Church services aren’t much fun. They’re usually very serious affairs. Laymen who try to liven up the service with humorous announcements or silly skits might draw a stern rebuke or an angry letter from a longtime member. (pg 76)
We need dangerous men in the church. Jesus attracted dangerous men. (pg 77)
Men are not able to check their testosterone at the church door. (pg 82)
How can we help men? Create friendly, physical competition for men and boys. Next time you’re planning a conference or retreat, be sure to include lots of physical movement and activity. Go beyond standing and sitting for singing. Let men move around. They’ll love you for it. (pg 83)
A boy may attend church his entire life and never have a male teacher. (pg 91)
When stressed, women run to community, but men isolate themselves. (pg 92)
A church that wants to involve men will offer more project-based ministry opportunities. Projects have a clear objective and an exit point. They’re exciting to men. They also involve the four elements of male engagement: plan, work, celebrate, rest. (pg 94)
Men have an easier time finding God outdoors. If you want to reach men, move as much of your church’s ministry as possible outdoors. (pg 95)
Warfare is still imprinted on the male psyche. (pg 96)
“The Christian faith is in no way pacifistic. The peace that will be ushered in by our great Prince will be a peace purchased with blood. As our Lord sacrificed Himself in this war, so much His followers learn to do.” Douglas Wilson (pg 96)
Did Christ intend for men to give up their masculinity to follow Him? Is giving up one’s manhood part of the cost of following Jesus Christ? No, and no again! Christ did not come to make men more feminine; He came to restore them to real manhood. (pg 111)
I’m convinced that there are a million unchurched men who would attend a worship service this weekend if they just didn’t have to sing. (pg 116)
Rick Warren points out that visitors actually hate all this attention: “Ironically, the way many churches welcome visitors actually makes them feel more uncomfortable than if they’d just been left alone ... one reason large churches attract so many visitors is because newcomers like being able to hide in a crowd.” (pg 117)
Pastors, Christians teachers, and even Christian books feed this rivalry by inviting women to imagine themselves married to Jesus. Woman readers, if you imagine your relationship with Jesus as a rapturous love affair, I must warn you: you are on dangerous ground for two reason: (1) You are not the bride of Christ. According to the Bible, there is only one bride of Christ: the church (all believers collectively throughout time and throughout the world). Individual believers are not brides of Christ. (2) Your husband will never measure up to your fantasy. He cannot satisfy you if you harbour an image of Christ as your lover or husband. (pg 121)
By keeping out-of-date traditions alive, we may be unintentionally driving men away. (pg 126)
Men love technology.... Why is it important to embrace new technologies in church? George Barna reports that among those under fifty, “Information conveyed through the use of technology often has a higher degree of believability than does information coming directly out of a speaker’s mouth.” Younger men will believe what they see on a screen more readily than what they hear from a live person. Churches that want to reach men are using the Internet. Men want information before they commit to something, and a user-friendly Web site allows visitors to check out a church from a safe distance. Many of these sites offer sermon downloads (text, audio, and streaming video), places for members to connect, contact information, activity calendars, and extensive information on ministry offerings. (pg 127)
Your church doesn’t necessarily need to put a computer in every pew, but it shouldn’t run from technology either. Technology is neither good nor evil; it is merely a tool that can help men (and women) understand the gospel. (pg 128)
When men think of church, excellence and quality are often the last two words that come to mind. (pg 128)
A church that really cares for tone-deaf Tanya will gently direct her away from the choir into an area where she’s more gifted. (pg 129)
Christ has become, as John Eldredge put is, “Mister Rogers with a beard. Telling me to be like him feels like telling me to go limp and passive. Be nice. Be swell. Be like Mother Teresa.” Christians have just accepted the nonmasculine Jesus (pg 133)
Liberal churches have re-created Christ as a benevolent Teacher who is always gentle, tender, and accepting. This Christ would never offend anyone, never judge anyone, and of course, never send anyone to hell. If this Christ were a radio station, His slogan would be “all tenderness, all the time”. There are two problems with this view of Jesus: (1) it’s not accurate, and (2) no man wants to follow a feminized man. Men are looking for a real man to follow: dynamic, outspoken, bold, sharp-edged. They want a leader who is decisive, tough and fair. (pg 134)
Jesus Christ is the most courageous, masculine man ever to walk the earth. But we’ve turned Him into a wimp. (pg 135)
Use term FOLLOW not saved, don’t use “sharing”, use KINGDOM of God not family of God,
Then we have the ever-popular “intimacy with God”. When men hear the word intimacy, the first thing that comes to mind is sex. Those dirty-minded guys! But guess what? Whenever the words passionate and intimate appear in the Bible, they always refer to sex or lust. More than once, I’ve been exhorted by a prominent men’s minister to “have a love affair with Jesus.” Time out! With the spotlight on homosexuality in the church, why do we increase men’s doubts by using the language of romance to describe the Christian walk? (pg 137)
Why are Christians always going on retreats? What kind of army is always retreating? Why don’t we advance now and then? (pg 138)
Compare these 2 hymns:
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, VS
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle, see His banners go!
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
He lists other contemporary songs with “Jesus I am so in love with you”, “You’re altogether lovely... altogether wonderful to me”, “Oh Lord, you’re beautiful” etc.
We can’t go back to “Onward Christian Soldiers”. But no one has composed masculine praise songs to take its place. Songwriters, please fashion some songs that speak of battle, strength, and victory. Imagine Christ as our Commander, Coach or Scout, not our Boyfriend. (pg 140)
Men’s ministry so of the falters for this simple reason: its actually women’s ministry for men. (pg 140)
Men are just as emotional as women; they just express themselves differently. So if a church welcomes feminine displays of emotion such as crying, hugging, and hand holding, it’s time to welcome masculine displays such as applause, shouts, fist pumping and high-fives. (pg 141)
Men are also reluctant to volunteer for ministry positions because they can’t act like men. Men take risks in ministry, which can earn them a rebuke. (pg 144)
If you want your church to attract men, you must put a high priority on developing leaders, especially male ones. (pg 151)
Churches need dynamic leaders at every level. The pastor can’t do it all, nor should he. (pg 155)
Whenever possible, put men in leadership positions (pg 156)
The fact is, women will follow a man, but few men will follow a woman unless they are forced. (pg 157)
Many people think the church asks too much of its members. In reality, it asks too little. (pg 161)
“People do not resent being asked for a great commitment if there is a great purpose behind it.” Rick Warren (pg 161)
There is a kind of high-octane man who will not follow unless he sees danger ahead. Jesus knew this. So did Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, who posted this advertisement in 1913:
Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.
More than five thousand men applied for twenty-six slots. Precisely the kind of men who are missing in today’s church! If we want aggressive, bold, greatness-seeking men, we must do what Jesus did and promise suffering, trial, and pain. But today’s Christianity is marketed like Tylenol; it’s the antidote to suffering, trial, and pain. We’ve turned Jesus’ approach on its head! (pg 162)
In a typical year, just one new person comes to faith in Christ for every eighty-five churchgoers. (pg 164)
Men want a pastor who is firm in his convictions (pg 170)
Let men learn through personal discovery (pg 175)
Make men think! (pg 175)
Let men learn by hands-on experience (pg 176)
Let men learn through object lessons (pg 176)
Men need dialogue, give-and-take, a chance to argue (pg 177)
“Men enjoy and value argumentation” (pg 177)
Men need simple, one-point lessons (and sermons) (pg 177)
It’s often more effective with men to make one point thrice than to make three points once. Pastors and teachers, why not break your teaching into smaller bits so men can more easily digest what you’re saying? Break your message into a five-minute Scripture lesson, a five-minute object lesson, and a ten-minute sermon with other elements in between. (pg 177)
Men need great stories (pg 179)
If we want our young men to be courageous followers of Christ, we must tell them stories of people following Christ courageously. We used to tell the stories of martyrs and missionaries to our boys. Now we don’t. Young men see Christianity as a religion, not an adventure. (pg 179)
The words “strong” and “strength” appear 561 times in the NKJV, while “weak” and “weakness” show up just 83 times. (pg 180)
The top 10 questions today’s men are asking:
1. What is true manliness?
2. What is success? The real bottom line of life?
3. How do I deal with guilt feelings?
4. What is male sexuality? Is purity possible for the modern man?
5. How can we nurture family life?
6. What is Christian leadership? How is it developed?
7. What are the basic disciplines of the Christian man?
8. What ministry skills need to be developed? How?
9. What is biblical business conduct?
10. What is integrity? How is it developed? (pg 181)
Man-friendly churches work hard to minimize dead space between proceedings. (pg 186)
It’s no sin to consider people’s feelings, but if you allow feelings to become the primary consideration when making decisions, you are following something other than Christ. (pg 194)
Here’s another example of the damaging [female] velvet veto (based on a true story): Eric planned a night of paintball for the church’s fledgling men’s group. But two prominent women heard about it and complained to the pastor. “How is paintball remotely Christian?” asked one woman. “It shows support for violence” said another. “What message are we sending to our boys?” The pastor knew a time bomb when he saw it. He asked Eric to find something else for the men to do. They met at the church and studied 1 Timothy. (pg 194)
The men who are watching you don’t care how saintly you are. They don’t care about your traditions. Nor do they care how busy for God you are. They want to know two things: (1) Does Christianity really work? And (2) Is it really the power of God unleashed on earth, or is it just religious activity? As men see the power of the Spirit working through your life, they will be drawn. (pg 200)
Pastors, I know you’ve heard it a million times, but here it is again: you are not the minister. Your people are. You are the coach. (pg 205)
Stagnant churches ask, “How can we minister to our people?” Life-giving churches ask, “How can our people change the world?” (pg 206)
Bruce Wilkinson says God’s people “are expected to attempt something large enough that failure is guaranteed ... unless God steps in.” (pg 206)
Nothing brings a man to church or to a ministry event like a personal invitation from a man he respects. (pg 210)
Men’s ministry provides guy-oriented events to which men can invite their unchurched friends (pg 210)
I used to build structures. Now I build men and raise up sons. (pg 218)
Sunday, September 13, 2009
The Journey Home (Bill Bright)
from an email in November 2004
In keeping with my tradition I have compiled some quotes... quite a few actually (sorry its so long).. from the book I have just finished reading. If any of you are not familiar with the life of Dr. Bill Bright after reading this summary I’m sure you will be encouraged and challenged!
Bill Bright was born October 19, 1921 (pretty close to my birthday eh! :) and before he died, at 81 years of age, of pulmonary fibrosis on July 19, 2003 he wrote numerous books, began the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ and wrote this autobiography. I hope his life and testimony encourage you as much as it did me!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“When I asked him how I could pray for him, his unhesitating question would be this, ‘Bob, pray that I will never leave my first love.’ His footprints even to the end lead to his first love. I said, ‘Bill, what’s the best thing that’s happened to you today?’ He said, ‘I had a great phone call.’ I said, ‘Bill, who was it?’ He said it was the President. I said, ‘Bill, that’s incredible.’ With a pause and a slight chuckle he said, ‘It was, it was an honor, but Bob, when you are preparing to meet Who I’m going to meet, even a call from the President fades by comparison.’”
- Dr. Robert E. Reccord (President, North American Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention)
“I’ll never forget him sitting at that table when all of us were talking with these bright, profound theological thoughts, and Bill Bright was saying, ‘I just want to stand before the Lord someday and not have failed to lead every single person I could to Christ.’ That’s courage. That’s Bill Bright. That’s the essence of the man. He had selflessness, which ought to be emulated by every single Christian servant and worker. He never put himself first.”
- Charles W. Colson (Founder, Prison Fellowship Ministries)
“I think Bill Bright was one of the most focused people I ever knew. He had one goal in life, to share the good news of Jesus Christ with as many people as possible, and by every means possible. His vision, his single-mindedness and his dedication were a constant example to me and to countless others whose lives he touched across the world. He loved everybody, and I learned a great deal from him. Many times Bill would call me on the phone or come to see me just to encourage me in the work of the Lord. He always left me with a Scripture verse, and I knew he was always praying for me... The Great Commission has never been rescinded and the spiritual needs of the world have never been greater. May the memory of Bill’s life challenge each of us to a deeper dedication to Christ and a greater zeal to spread His word to the ends of this earth as long as God gives us life.”
- Billy Graham (World-Renowned Evangelist and Author)
“Bill Bright’s faith and desire to share Christ was so much on the forefront of his mind; he was so captivated by hiss calling to reach others for Christ that it became contagious. You simply couldn’t be around Bill without walking away with a greater desire to share Christ. Many people, including myself, so often think of evangelism as a task to accomplish. But Bill never looked at it that way. To Bill, evangelism was just a way of life.”
- Josh McDowell (Author of the bestseller Evidence That Demands a Verdict)
“Bill Bright believed in a big God, so he had big dreams and took big risks. God honoured that faith over and over again. So much of Saddleback’s ministry was shaped by the personal influence of my dear, dear friend, Bill Bright. Bill taught me that complete obedience, dependent faith, and simple tools can change the world. Millions of people now have faith in Christ because of The Four Spiritual Laws, the Jesus film, and The Spirit-filled Life booklet. In the early years of Saddleback, Bill was one of the few Christian leaders who understood our strategy, and I will always be grateful for his loving support and how he believed in me when I was just a kid. Bill Bright, along with Billy Graham, was one of the two Giants for God who towered over the 20th Century.”
- Rick Warren (Pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life)
“Although the board of directors of Focus on the Family, to whom I am accountable, established a firm policy many years ago that prohibited my agreeing to write forewords and endorsements, this request had to be seen as an exception. Indeed, Bill’s life was exceptional in every regard. He was giant among men. There is no one I admired and loved more than Dr. Bright, who was perhaps the most influential Christian leader to live since the first century A.D. His passion for worldwide evangelism resulted in literally millions of people coming to personal relationships with Jesus Christ.”
- Dr. James C. Dobson (Founder and Chairman, Focus on the Family)
__________________
God does heal. Physicians and surgeons can help.... Faced with cancer these men sought healing and it came. But not everyone is healed with extended life on this earth. Why is that? Why do some receive healing and others die? Our sovereign God has the answer in His will and His timing, and I trust Him. His ways are perfect.”
George Washington, the victorious general of the American Revolutionary War, the father of our country, and our first president, is my favourite person in all of history apart from biblical characters. He knew our Lord Jesus and always seemed to rise to the call of duty. During my first visit to Mount Vernon, his beautiful home on the Potomac, the guide took me to his bedroom and motioned to a chair at the end of his bed. Washington knelt there for an hour every morning and evening to read his Bible and pray. As he lay dying, he ordered that a tablet over the door of his tomb be inscribed with the promise of Jesus in John 11:25: “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Washington’s last words were to his physician: “Doctor, I have been dying a long time; my breath cannot last long – but I am not afraid to die.”
Some may deride my life as that of “another Bible-thumper”. I do not thump the Bible; I rather let it thump me.
If we do not rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us and also saturate ourselves with God’s truth – His holy, inspired, inerrant truth – then our holy life will not fly.
His holy Word has never failed me and never will.
Abraham Lincoln stated, “I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us through this Book.”
God walks with us through pain rather than protects us from it.
We are, after all, Christians, Christ-ones, and if there is not some crisis between us and the anti-God world system, then we really should be surprised.
Most Christians do not know or fully realize that the adversary of our lives is Satan and that his main tool is our flesh, our old nature. Let us name the scoundrel within – it is the self, the ego. The old self rebels against God and will twist and turn anything and anyone to try to preserve itself.
Since I opened my life to the living Lord in 1945, I have been in love with Him. But let there be no mistaking it, I love Him not because I think it is a good idea and the right thing to do. No, my best motives are not worthy of His love. I love Him because He first loved me, and He still does love me, and He will love me forever and ever.
Many people say, “I’ve never heard God speak.” Could it be they are so busy and the world they are in is so loud, they simply cannot hear God? As I write this, I am in a room with a television, a radio, a telephone, a fan, a CD player, and a DVD player. Guess what? None of them is on.
Set goals so big that unless God helps you, you will be a miserable failure.
I am all for being culturally sensitive and doing things wisely, decently, and orderly. But the church can get so caught up in man-centered managing and political correctness that it forgets to envision what God can do. Our main duty as believers is to proclaim the good news of Jesus through evangelism and discipleship.
Whether you have twenty years left, ten years, one year, one month, one day, or just one hour, there is something very important God wants you to do that can add to His kingdom and your blessing. He has called you to this hour. He has prepared you for this task. This is your destiny.
But as long as I am here, as long as I have breath, I will serve the Lord.
There is no such thing as a disobedient, happy Christian; and there is no such thing as an unhappy, obedient Christian.
The empty tomb destroys religions and glorifies Jesus of Nazareth as the Creator-God and Saviour of the world.
After the close of World War II, Konrad Adenauer, the chancellor of a new Germany, was asked the question: “Do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ?” Adenauer said, “I believe it is the only hope for mankind.”
I found we need not be timid where the Scripture is bold.
All our journeys here on earth are only trails leading to our real home, heaven. Charles Spurgeon once prayed, “May we live here like strangers and make the world not a house, but an inn, in which we sup and lodge, expecting to be on our journey tomorrow.”
I was never personally motivated by fear of hell, but I came to realize that I had not given hell the proper emphasis, as did our Lord Jesus. He spoke more of hell than of heaven, and that should be reason enough for His followers to be candid about the awful option. I do not believe God sends people to hell. It is a place, Jesus said, that was created for the devil and his angels. The unforgiven sins of people will send them to hell. As theologian Wayne Grudem puts it, “The devil’s characteristic has been to originate sin and tempt others to sin,” and that sin, without Christ’s saving grace, will cause us to be residents of hell.
The Bible refers to hell 167 times. But never forget, there is a cross at the entrance to hell. The only way a person can go there is to push the cross aside and deliberately reject God’s love and forgiveness.
It has been my privilege in these dying days to pray with three nurses, one doctor, and four aides as they prayed receiving Christ as their personal Saviour and Lord.
Enthralled in the presence of the living Lord and Saviour, we can expect to engage in the most glorious worship service of all time. No one has any sense of an “order of service”. No one is conscious of any worship “style”. The Father has set matters in order. The Son is the focus of all eyes. The Spirit prompts the singing of songs. From the lips of sinners saved by amazing grace, from followers of all the ages, come Hosannas to the King of kind and Lord of lords, seated at the right hand of the Father.
In keeping with my tradition I have compiled some quotes... quite a few actually (sorry its so long).. from the book I have just finished reading. If any of you are not familiar with the life of Dr. Bill Bright after reading this summary I’m sure you will be encouraged and challenged!
Bill Bright was born October 19, 1921 (pretty close to my birthday eh! :) and before he died, at 81 years of age, of pulmonary fibrosis on July 19, 2003 he wrote numerous books, began the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ and wrote this autobiography. I hope his life and testimony encourage you as much as it did me!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“When I asked him how I could pray for him, his unhesitating question would be this, ‘Bob, pray that I will never leave my first love.’ His footprints even to the end lead to his first love. I said, ‘Bill, what’s the best thing that’s happened to you today?’ He said, ‘I had a great phone call.’ I said, ‘Bill, who was it?’ He said it was the President. I said, ‘Bill, that’s incredible.’ With a pause and a slight chuckle he said, ‘It was, it was an honor, but Bob, when you are preparing to meet Who I’m going to meet, even a call from the President fades by comparison.’”
- Dr. Robert E. Reccord (President, North American Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention)
“I’ll never forget him sitting at that table when all of us were talking with these bright, profound theological thoughts, and Bill Bright was saying, ‘I just want to stand before the Lord someday and not have failed to lead every single person I could to Christ.’ That’s courage. That’s Bill Bright. That’s the essence of the man. He had selflessness, which ought to be emulated by every single Christian servant and worker. He never put himself first.”
- Charles W. Colson (Founder, Prison Fellowship Ministries)
“I think Bill Bright was one of the most focused people I ever knew. He had one goal in life, to share the good news of Jesus Christ with as many people as possible, and by every means possible. His vision, his single-mindedness and his dedication were a constant example to me and to countless others whose lives he touched across the world. He loved everybody, and I learned a great deal from him. Many times Bill would call me on the phone or come to see me just to encourage me in the work of the Lord. He always left me with a Scripture verse, and I knew he was always praying for me... The Great Commission has never been rescinded and the spiritual needs of the world have never been greater. May the memory of Bill’s life challenge each of us to a deeper dedication to Christ and a greater zeal to spread His word to the ends of this earth as long as God gives us life.”
- Billy Graham (World-Renowned Evangelist and Author)
“Bill Bright’s faith and desire to share Christ was so much on the forefront of his mind; he was so captivated by hiss calling to reach others for Christ that it became contagious. You simply couldn’t be around Bill without walking away with a greater desire to share Christ. Many people, including myself, so often think of evangelism as a task to accomplish. But Bill never looked at it that way. To Bill, evangelism was just a way of life.”
- Josh McDowell (Author of the bestseller Evidence That Demands a Verdict)
“Bill Bright believed in a big God, so he had big dreams and took big risks. God honoured that faith over and over again. So much of Saddleback’s ministry was shaped by the personal influence of my dear, dear friend, Bill Bright. Bill taught me that complete obedience, dependent faith, and simple tools can change the world. Millions of people now have faith in Christ because of The Four Spiritual Laws, the Jesus film, and The Spirit-filled Life booklet. In the early years of Saddleback, Bill was one of the few Christian leaders who understood our strategy, and I will always be grateful for his loving support and how he believed in me when I was just a kid. Bill Bright, along with Billy Graham, was one of the two Giants for God who towered over the 20th Century.”
- Rick Warren (Pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life)
“Although the board of directors of Focus on the Family, to whom I am accountable, established a firm policy many years ago that prohibited my agreeing to write forewords and endorsements, this request had to be seen as an exception. Indeed, Bill’s life was exceptional in every regard. He was giant among men. There is no one I admired and loved more than Dr. Bright, who was perhaps the most influential Christian leader to live since the first century A.D. His passion for worldwide evangelism resulted in literally millions of people coming to personal relationships with Jesus Christ.”
- Dr. James C. Dobson (Founder and Chairman, Focus on the Family)
__________________
God does heal. Physicians and surgeons can help.... Faced with cancer these men sought healing and it came. But not everyone is healed with extended life on this earth. Why is that? Why do some receive healing and others die? Our sovereign God has the answer in His will and His timing, and I trust Him. His ways are perfect.”
George Washington, the victorious general of the American Revolutionary War, the father of our country, and our first president, is my favourite person in all of history apart from biblical characters. He knew our Lord Jesus and always seemed to rise to the call of duty. During my first visit to Mount Vernon, his beautiful home on the Potomac, the guide took me to his bedroom and motioned to a chair at the end of his bed. Washington knelt there for an hour every morning and evening to read his Bible and pray. As he lay dying, he ordered that a tablet over the door of his tomb be inscribed with the promise of Jesus in John 11:25: “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Washington’s last words were to his physician: “Doctor, I have been dying a long time; my breath cannot last long – but I am not afraid to die.”
Some may deride my life as that of “another Bible-thumper”. I do not thump the Bible; I rather let it thump me.
If we do not rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us and also saturate ourselves with God’s truth – His holy, inspired, inerrant truth – then our holy life will not fly.
His holy Word has never failed me and never will.
Abraham Lincoln stated, “I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us through this Book.”
God walks with us through pain rather than protects us from it.
We are, after all, Christians, Christ-ones, and if there is not some crisis between us and the anti-God world system, then we really should be surprised.
Most Christians do not know or fully realize that the adversary of our lives is Satan and that his main tool is our flesh, our old nature. Let us name the scoundrel within – it is the self, the ego. The old self rebels against God and will twist and turn anything and anyone to try to preserve itself.
Since I opened my life to the living Lord in 1945, I have been in love with Him. But let there be no mistaking it, I love Him not because I think it is a good idea and the right thing to do. No, my best motives are not worthy of His love. I love Him because He first loved me, and He still does love me, and He will love me forever and ever.
Many people say, “I’ve never heard God speak.” Could it be they are so busy and the world they are in is so loud, they simply cannot hear God? As I write this, I am in a room with a television, a radio, a telephone, a fan, a CD player, and a DVD player. Guess what? None of them is on.
Set goals so big that unless God helps you, you will be a miserable failure.
I am all for being culturally sensitive and doing things wisely, decently, and orderly. But the church can get so caught up in man-centered managing and political correctness that it forgets to envision what God can do. Our main duty as believers is to proclaim the good news of Jesus through evangelism and discipleship.
Whether you have twenty years left, ten years, one year, one month, one day, or just one hour, there is something very important God wants you to do that can add to His kingdom and your blessing. He has called you to this hour. He has prepared you for this task. This is your destiny.
But as long as I am here, as long as I have breath, I will serve the Lord.
There is no such thing as a disobedient, happy Christian; and there is no such thing as an unhappy, obedient Christian.
The empty tomb destroys religions and glorifies Jesus of Nazareth as the Creator-God and Saviour of the world.
After the close of World War II, Konrad Adenauer, the chancellor of a new Germany, was asked the question: “Do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ?” Adenauer said, “I believe it is the only hope for mankind.”
I found we need not be timid where the Scripture is bold.
All our journeys here on earth are only trails leading to our real home, heaven. Charles Spurgeon once prayed, “May we live here like strangers and make the world not a house, but an inn, in which we sup and lodge, expecting to be on our journey tomorrow.”
I was never personally motivated by fear of hell, but I came to realize that I had not given hell the proper emphasis, as did our Lord Jesus. He spoke more of hell than of heaven, and that should be reason enough for His followers to be candid about the awful option. I do not believe God sends people to hell. It is a place, Jesus said, that was created for the devil and his angels. The unforgiven sins of people will send them to hell. As theologian Wayne Grudem puts it, “The devil’s characteristic has been to originate sin and tempt others to sin,” and that sin, without Christ’s saving grace, will cause us to be residents of hell.
The Bible refers to hell 167 times. But never forget, there is a cross at the entrance to hell. The only way a person can go there is to push the cross aside and deliberately reject God’s love and forgiveness.
It has been my privilege in these dying days to pray with three nurses, one doctor, and four aides as they prayed receiving Christ as their personal Saviour and Lord.
Enthralled in the presence of the living Lord and Saviour, we can expect to engage in the most glorious worship service of all time. No one has any sense of an “order of service”. No one is conscious of any worship “style”. The Father has set matters in order. The Son is the focus of all eyes. The Spirit prompts the singing of songs. From the lips of sinners saved by amazing grace, from followers of all the ages, come Hosannas to the King of kind and Lord of lords, seated at the right hand of the Father.
The Jesus I Never Knew (Philip Yancey)
an email from January 2006
Over the Christmas break I was able to finish a couple books I had been reading... this one called “The Jesus I Never Knew” by Philip Yancey and then I finished “Let The Nations Be Glad” by John Piper too. But that little summary of the Piper book I’ll send out sometime later this week.
I really liked “The Jesus I Never Knew”. It showed me a side of Jesus and His life that sometimes I have failed to consider. The chapters were broken down as follows: His Birth, Background (Jewish), Temptation, Sermon on Mount, Miracles, Death, Resurrection, Ascension and Kingdom.
Listen to what these 2 “big-wigs” had to say about the book:
“Yancey’s flair for honest, vivid, well-informed down-to-earthness gives piercing power to these broodings on the gospel facts about Jesus Christ. In a day when novel ideas about Jesus are all the rage, Yancey’s pages offer major help for seeing the Savior as he really was.” – J.I. Packer
“There is no writer in the evangelical world that I admire and appreciate more.” – Billy Graham
Something that was really interesting too was the research he did:
Before beginning the book I spent several months in three seminary libraries – one Catholic, one liberal Protestant, one conservative evangelical – reading about Jesus. (pg 20)
This quote jumped out at me too because the victorious, warrior Jesus is pictured as in Revelation is seldom taught in our upbringing today.
Jesus, I found, bore little resemblance to the Mister Rogers figure I had met in Sunday school, and was remarkably unlike the person I had studied in Bible college....Two words one could never think of applying to the Jesus of the Gospels: boring and predictable. (pg 23)
Does anyone else listen to (or listened to) Audio Adrenaline... I never knew where they got one of their quotes / songs from.. but now I know :)
Underdog. I wince even as I write the word, especially in connection with Jesus. It’s a crude word, probably derived from dogfighting and applied over time to predictable losers and victims of injustice. Yet as I read the birth stories about Jesus I cannot help but conclude that though the world may be tilted toward the rich and powerful, God is tilted toward the underdog. (pg 39)
These next quotes talk about Jesus’ birth and upbringing:
As I got to know Jesus, the realization sank in that he probably did not spend his life among Jews in the first century merely to save Americans in the twentieth. Alone of all people in history, he had the privilege of choosing where and when to be born, and he chose a pious Jewish family living in a backwater protectorate of a pagan empire. (pg 50)
We know that Jesus was raised in poverty: his family could not afford a lamb for the sacrifice at the temple and offered instead a pair of doves or two young pigeons. ~ see Luke 2:24 and Lev 12:6-8 (pg 59)
This one’s pretty blunt too... but needs to be said (I love the hymns :p)
I know that among many Christians an emphasis on future rewards has fallen out of fashion. My former pastor Bill Leslie used to observe, “As churches grow wealthier and more successful, their preference in hymns changes from ‘This world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through’ to ‘This is my Father’s world’.” (pg 111)
Something else this book taught me and made me question was this...
Somehow we have created a community of respectability in the church, I told my class. The down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome. How did Jesus, the only perfect person in history, manage to attract the notoriously imperfect? And what keeps us from following in his steps today? (pg 148)
Jesus was the friend of sinners. They liked being around him and longed for his company. Meanwhile, legalists found him shocking, even revolting. What was Jesus’ secret that we have lost? (pg 149)
How hard it is to remember that the kingdom of God calls me to love the woman who has just emerged from the abortion clinic (and, yes, even her doctor), the promiscuous person who is dying of AIDS, the wealthy landowner who is exploiting God’s creation. If I cannot show love to such people, then I must question whether I have truly understood Jesus’ gospel...From Jesus I learn that, whatever activism I get involved in, it must not drive out love and humility, or otherwise I betray the kingdom of heaven. (pg 245)
Ironically, our respect in the world declines in proportion to how vigorously we attempt to force others to adopt our point of view...For this reason, I must say in an aside, I worry about the recent surge of power among U.S. Christians, who seem to be focusing more and more on political means. (pg 246)
When I ask a stranger, “What is an evangelical Christian?” I get an answer something like this: “Someone who supports family values and opposes homosexual rights and abortion.”... Jesus did not say, “All men will know you are my disciples ... if you just pass laws, suppress immorality, and restore decency to family and government”, but rather “... if you love one another”. (pg 247)
We give lip service to “hate the sin while loving the sinner” but how well do we practice this principle? (pg 259)
As you can probably tell... that chapter and 14 pages on “the Kingdom” caught me and really made me think. What is the proper balance that a Christian is to have between politics and “the Kingdom”... I’m not sure?!?! But I do know that I have a far way to go.
Something else that was interesting that I hadn’t really thought about was...
If Easter Sunday was the most exciting day of the disciples’ lives, for Jesus it was probably the day of Ascension. He the Creator, who had descended so far and given up so much, was now heading home. Like a soldier returning across the ocean from a long and bloody war. Like an astronaut shedding his spacesuit to gulp in the familiar atmosphere of earth. Home at last. (pg 226)
And finally this quote hit me too!
Then out of nowhere this wise woman asked a question that has always stayed with me. “Philip, do you ever just let God love you?” she said. “It’s pretty important, I think.” I realize with a start that she had brought to light a gaping hole in my spiritual life. (pg 269)
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)
Over the Christmas break I was able to finish a couple books I had been reading... this one called “The Jesus I Never Knew” by Philip Yancey and then I finished “Let The Nations Be Glad” by John Piper too. But that little summary of the Piper book I’ll send out sometime later this week.
I really liked “The Jesus I Never Knew”. It showed me a side of Jesus and His life that sometimes I have failed to consider. The chapters were broken down as follows: His Birth, Background (Jewish), Temptation, Sermon on Mount, Miracles, Death, Resurrection, Ascension and Kingdom.
Listen to what these 2 “big-wigs” had to say about the book:
“Yancey’s flair for honest, vivid, well-informed down-to-earthness gives piercing power to these broodings on the gospel facts about Jesus Christ. In a day when novel ideas about Jesus are all the rage, Yancey’s pages offer major help for seeing the Savior as he really was.” – J.I. Packer
“There is no writer in the evangelical world that I admire and appreciate more.” – Billy Graham
Something that was really interesting too was the research he did:
Before beginning the book I spent several months in three seminary libraries – one Catholic, one liberal Protestant, one conservative evangelical – reading about Jesus. (pg 20)
This quote jumped out at me too because the victorious, warrior Jesus is pictured as in Revelation is seldom taught in our upbringing today.
Jesus, I found, bore little resemblance to the Mister Rogers figure I had met in Sunday school, and was remarkably unlike the person I had studied in Bible college....Two words one could never think of applying to the Jesus of the Gospels: boring and predictable. (pg 23)
Does anyone else listen to (or listened to) Audio Adrenaline... I never knew where they got one of their quotes / songs from.. but now I know :)
Underdog. I wince even as I write the word, especially in connection with Jesus. It’s a crude word, probably derived from dogfighting and applied over time to predictable losers and victims of injustice. Yet as I read the birth stories about Jesus I cannot help but conclude that though the world may be tilted toward the rich and powerful, God is tilted toward the underdog. (pg 39)
These next quotes talk about Jesus’ birth and upbringing:
As I got to know Jesus, the realization sank in that he probably did not spend his life among Jews in the first century merely to save Americans in the twentieth. Alone of all people in history, he had the privilege of choosing where and when to be born, and he chose a pious Jewish family living in a backwater protectorate of a pagan empire. (pg 50)
We know that Jesus was raised in poverty: his family could not afford a lamb for the sacrifice at the temple and offered instead a pair of doves or two young pigeons. ~ see Luke 2:24 and Lev 12:6-8 (pg 59)
This one’s pretty blunt too... but needs to be said (I love the hymns :p)
I know that among many Christians an emphasis on future rewards has fallen out of fashion. My former pastor Bill Leslie used to observe, “As churches grow wealthier and more successful, their preference in hymns changes from ‘This world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through’ to ‘This is my Father’s world’.” (pg 111)
Something else this book taught me and made me question was this...
Somehow we have created a community of respectability in the church, I told my class. The down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome. How did Jesus, the only perfect person in history, manage to attract the notoriously imperfect? And what keeps us from following in his steps today? (pg 148)
Jesus was the friend of sinners. They liked being around him and longed for his company. Meanwhile, legalists found him shocking, even revolting. What was Jesus’ secret that we have lost? (pg 149)
How hard it is to remember that the kingdom of God calls me to love the woman who has just emerged from the abortion clinic (and, yes, even her doctor), the promiscuous person who is dying of AIDS, the wealthy landowner who is exploiting God’s creation. If I cannot show love to such people, then I must question whether I have truly understood Jesus’ gospel...From Jesus I learn that, whatever activism I get involved in, it must not drive out love and humility, or otherwise I betray the kingdom of heaven. (pg 245)
Ironically, our respect in the world declines in proportion to how vigorously we attempt to force others to adopt our point of view...For this reason, I must say in an aside, I worry about the recent surge of power among U.S. Christians, who seem to be focusing more and more on political means. (pg 246)
When I ask a stranger, “What is an evangelical Christian?” I get an answer something like this: “Someone who supports family values and opposes homosexual rights and abortion.”... Jesus did not say, “All men will know you are my disciples ... if you just pass laws, suppress immorality, and restore decency to family and government”, but rather “... if you love one another”. (pg 247)
We give lip service to “hate the sin while loving the sinner” but how well do we practice this principle? (pg 259)
As you can probably tell... that chapter and 14 pages on “the Kingdom” caught me and really made me think. What is the proper balance that a Christian is to have between politics and “the Kingdom”... I’m not sure?!?! But I do know that I have a far way to go.
Something else that was interesting that I hadn’t really thought about was...
If Easter Sunday was the most exciting day of the disciples’ lives, for Jesus it was probably the day of Ascension. He the Creator, who had descended so far and given up so much, was now heading home. Like a soldier returning across the ocean from a long and bloody war. Like an astronaut shedding his spacesuit to gulp in the familiar atmosphere of earth. Home at last. (pg 226)
And finally this quote hit me too!
Then out of nowhere this wise woman asked a question that has always stayed with me. “Philip, do you ever just let God love you?” she said. “It’s pretty important, I think.” I realize with a start that she had brought to light a gaping hole in my spiritual life. (pg 269)
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)
Passion and Purity (Elisabeth Elliot)
from an email March 11, 2004
Its my tradition after I finish a really good book to summarize its contents and pass it on to some of my Christian friends who i feel would benefit from reading some phrases from the book...
The other weekend I was at home and went to the Christian book store. I was looking for Every Young Man's Battle but it wasn't there so i picked up Passion and Purity... it's a book by Elisabeth Elliot (wife of the late Jim Elliot .. missionary to the Aucan Indians in the 1950's)
I thought it was excellent... 42 short 3-5 page chapters (which I liked because I could pick it up during the day or before bed and just read 1 or 2 at a time quickly)
Now most of you are probably like... Dave you don't have a girlfriend so why are you reading a book about "Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control"... well .. I figure there's always time to learn right!
The book was cool too because it was really honest.. like they struggled with stuff and had to commit it to God's hands but I love the last quote that i put at the bottom of this email... they waited and were given the prize.
~~~~~~~
Pg 21-22
If you were single, you had not been in bed with any man. If you were to be permanently single, you were never going to be in bed with any man.
Even a hundred years ago anybody who quite seriously believed that and acted on it would be seen as an oddity by many people. Perhaps we were in the minority. I can't be sure about that. Certainly the majority professed to believe that sexual activity was best limited to husband and wife whether or not their private lives demonstrated this conviction. Now, however, at the beginning of the 21st century, time have changed, they tell us. For thousands of years society depended on some semblance of order in the matter of sex. A man took a wife in some regularly prescribed manner and lived with her according to recognized rules. He "messed around" with other men's wives only to his peril. A woman knew that she possessed a priceless treasure, her virginity. She guarded it jealously for the man who would pay a price for it - commitment to marriage with her and with her alone.
Somehow we've gotten the idea that we can forget all the regulations and get away with it. Times have changed, we say. We're ''liberated'' at last from our inhibitions. We have "freedom". We can in fact "have it all and not get hooked" Women can be predators if they want to as well as men. Men aren't men unless they've proved it by seducing as many women as possible - or as many men, for we now choose according to "sexual preference". We can go to bed with those of the opposite sex or those of our own. It doesn't matter. A mere question of taste, and we all have a "right" to our tastes. Everybody's equal. Everybody's free. Nobody is hung up anymore or needs to deny himself anything. In fact, nobody ought to deny himself anything he wants badly - it's dangerous. It's unhealthy. It's sick. If it feels good and you don't do it, you're paranoid. If it doesn't feel good and you do do it, you're a masochist.
Pg 45
The speaker was one of the daughter of the famous missionary to Africa C. T. Studd. She told of her father's last hours. He lay on his cot, gazing around the little hut and at his few possessions. "I wish I had something to leave to each of you," he said to the handful of people present, "but I gave it all to Jesus long ago."
Pg 54
The only way to build a house on the rock is to hear the Word (I couldn't have heard it if all I listened to was my feelings)
Pg 160
In one of Jim's letters he wrote .... I am willing that "my house on earth be emptier", but not unless "His house be fuller"
Pg 174
(After becoming engaged and preparing for a small wedding in the fall Jim writes...)
March 22 - "How shall I tell you, darling, after all I've said carelessly about your features, that now I think them all wonderfully framed? I know when it comes time for me to see them all I will remark with Solomon, "Behold, thou art fair, my love." To me it is satisfying already to know that they are promised me, and only wait God's time for unveiling. Do you know how anxious I am?
Pg 178
We were married in Quito on October 8, 1953. The McCullys and Tidmarshes were our witnesses. Others came to see us off at the airport and to throw rice at us. At the El Panama hotel, overlooking the Pacific coast of Panama, I picked up the phone shortly after we arrive. "Mrs. Elliot?" said a polite voice. I was stunned. Mrs. Elliot! It was only the front desk, inquiring if all was satisfactory in our room. We went down to dinner and as we dawdled over coffee and dessert, savoring the luxurious atmosphere and enjoying the music of a dance band, Jim looked across the candles at me. "I can hardly believe we've got a bed waiting for us!" he said.
The verse given to us for that day was Isaiah 25:9, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him." It was unspeakably worth the wait.
Its my tradition after I finish a really good book to summarize its contents and pass it on to some of my Christian friends who i feel would benefit from reading some phrases from the book...
The other weekend I was at home and went to the Christian book store. I was looking for Every Young Man's Battle but it wasn't there so i picked up Passion and Purity... it's a book by Elisabeth Elliot (wife of the late Jim Elliot .. missionary to the Aucan Indians in the 1950's)
I thought it was excellent... 42 short 3-5 page chapters (which I liked because I could pick it up during the day or before bed and just read 1 or 2 at a time quickly)
Now most of you are probably like... Dave you don't have a girlfriend so why are you reading a book about "Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control"... well .. I figure there's always time to learn right!
The book was cool too because it was really honest.. like they struggled with stuff and had to commit it to God's hands but I love the last quote that i put at the bottom of this email... they waited and were given the prize.
~~~~~~~
Pg 21-22
If you were single, you had not been in bed with any man. If you were to be permanently single, you were never going to be in bed with any man.
Even a hundred years ago anybody who quite seriously believed that and acted on it would be seen as an oddity by many people. Perhaps we were in the minority. I can't be sure about that. Certainly the majority professed to believe that sexual activity was best limited to husband and wife whether or not their private lives demonstrated this conviction. Now, however, at the beginning of the 21st century, time have changed, they tell us. For thousands of years society depended on some semblance of order in the matter of sex. A man took a wife in some regularly prescribed manner and lived with her according to recognized rules. He "messed around" with other men's wives only to his peril. A woman knew that she possessed a priceless treasure, her virginity. She guarded it jealously for the man who would pay a price for it - commitment to marriage with her and with her alone.
Somehow we've gotten the idea that we can forget all the regulations and get away with it. Times have changed, we say. We're ''liberated'' at last from our inhibitions. We have "freedom". We can in fact "have it all and not get hooked" Women can be predators if they want to as well as men. Men aren't men unless they've proved it by seducing as many women as possible - or as many men, for we now choose according to "sexual preference". We can go to bed with those of the opposite sex or those of our own. It doesn't matter. A mere question of taste, and we all have a "right" to our tastes. Everybody's equal. Everybody's free. Nobody is hung up anymore or needs to deny himself anything. In fact, nobody ought to deny himself anything he wants badly - it's dangerous. It's unhealthy. It's sick. If it feels good and you don't do it, you're paranoid. If it doesn't feel good and you do do it, you're a masochist.
Pg 45
The speaker was one of the daughter of the famous missionary to Africa C. T. Studd. She told of her father's last hours. He lay on his cot, gazing around the little hut and at his few possessions. "I wish I had something to leave to each of you," he said to the handful of people present, "but I gave it all to Jesus long ago."
Pg 54
The only way to build a house on the rock is to hear the Word (I couldn't have heard it if all I listened to was my feelings)
Pg 160
In one of Jim's letters he wrote .... I am willing that "my house on earth be emptier", but not unless "His house be fuller"
Pg 174
(After becoming engaged and preparing for a small wedding in the fall Jim writes...)
March 22 - "How shall I tell you, darling, after all I've said carelessly about your features, that now I think them all wonderfully framed? I know when it comes time for me to see them all I will remark with Solomon, "Behold, thou art fair, my love." To me it is satisfying already to know that they are promised me, and only wait God's time for unveiling. Do you know how anxious I am?
Pg 178
We were married in Quito on October 8, 1953. The McCullys and Tidmarshes were our witnesses. Others came to see us off at the airport and to throw rice at us. At the El Panama hotel, overlooking the Pacific coast of Panama, I picked up the phone shortly after we arrive. "Mrs. Elliot?" said a polite voice. I was stunned. Mrs. Elliot! It was only the front desk, inquiring if all was satisfactory in our room. We went down to dinner and as we dawdled over coffee and dessert, savoring the luxurious atmosphere and enjoying the music of a dance band, Jim looked across the candles at me. "I can hardly believe we've got a bed waiting for us!" he said.
The verse given to us for that day was Isaiah 25:9, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him." It was unspeakably worth the wait.
Let The Nations Be Glad (John Piper)
an email from January 2006
Well everyone... just like I promised here’s the second of my book summaries. I figured Sunday afternoon was a good time to sit down and ponder over what this book has been teaching me. I read “Let The Nations Be Glad – The Supremacy of God in Missions” by John Piper in first year too but it was such a good book that we as a Servant Team at Campus Crusade decided to read and discuss it together as a small group.
The book starts off with quite the start! Listen to this...
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. (pg 17)
As Piper continues he makes numerous references to many of the missionaries who have gone on before us.
William Carey, the father of modern missions, who set sail for India from England in 1793, said this: “though I were deserted by all and persecuted by all, yet my faith, fixed on the sure Word, would rise above all obstructions and overcome every trial. God’s cause will triumph.” (pg 20)
Amen!!! God’s cause WILL triumph!!
John Dawson, a leader in Youth With A Mission [has said] “Don’t wait for a feeling of love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of a compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God.” (pg 42)
There will always be people who argue that the doctrine of election makes missions unnecessary. But they are wrong. It does not make missions unnecessary; it makes missions hopeful. John Alexander, a former president of InterVaristy Christian Fellowship, said in a message at Urbana ’67 (a decisive event in my own life), “At the beginning of my missionary career I said that if predestination were true I could not be a missionary. Now after twenty some years of struggling with the hardness of the human heart, I say I could never be a missionary unless I believe in the doctrine of predestination.” (pg 55)
A couple quotes of John Piper’s that he mentions in most of his books are these:
The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever. (pg 28)
God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. (pg 31)
He then moves on to talk about the role of prayer in the life of the Christian saying:
Life is war. That’s not all it is. But it is always that. Our weakness in prayer is owing largely to our neglect of this truth. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief. It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den... The one who gives the power gets the glory. (pg 45)
Prayer is not a domestic intercom to increase the temporal comforts of the saints. (pg 67)
Then he chooses to turn his attention to the sufferings of the church and the persecution that we will have to endure.
So we must not water down the call to suffer. We must not domesticate the New Testament teaching on affliction and persecution just because our lives are so smooth. (pg 76)
God uses the suffering of his missionaries to awaken others out of their slumbers of indifference and make them bold. (pg 90)
The point is that an $80 000 or a $180 000 salary does not have to be accompanied by an $80 000 or a $180 000 lifestyle. God is calling us to be conduits of his grace, not cul-de-sacs. Our great danger today is thinking that the conduit should be lined with gold. It shouldn’t. Copper will do. No matter how grateful we are, gold will not make the world think that our God is good; it will make people think that our god is gold. That is no honor to the supremacy of his worth. (pg 102)
This next story made me think and really put the New Testament parable about the old widow giving her offering a new perspective.
A church in Haiti was having a Thanksgiving festival, and each Christian was invited to bring a love offering. One envelope from a Haitian man named Edmund held $13. That amount was three months’ income for a working man there. Stanford Kelly was as surprised as those counting a Sunday offering in the United States might be to get a $6 000 cash gift. He looked around for Edmund but could not see him. Later Kelly met him in the village and questioned him. He pressed him for an explanation and found that Edmund had sold his horse in order to give the $13 gift to God. But why hadn’t he come to the festival? He hesitated and didn’t want to answer. Finally, Edmund said, “I had no shirt to wear.” (pg 103)
The next few points were some things that we as a Servant Team with Campus Crusade really liked :)...
It is a stunning New Testament truth, that since the incarnation of the Son of God, all saving faith must henceforth fix on him. (pg 111)
Shouldn’t every denomination and church have some vital group that is recruiting, equipping, sending and supporting Paul-type missionaries to more and more unreached peoples? (pg 196)
Can anyone say “WIN, BUILD, SEND!” :)
Now he is commissioning Spirit-filled messengers to preach to them, and he is speaking through these messengers with power, and calling the lost effectually to faith and keeping them by his almighty power. (pg 153)
And the final comments that John Piper makes were about how the church should operate in regards to missions.
Charles Hodge is right that “the solemn question, implied in the language of the apostle, ‘how can they believe without a preacher?’ should sound day and night in the ears of the churches.” (pg 154)
There are only two ways for us to respond to the truth we have been considering about the supremacy of God in missions. We must either go out for the sake of his name, or we must send and support such people who do. (pg 235)
God is not glorified when our missionaries are simply a name on the back of the church bulletin or a line item in the budget. Sending is something to be done diligently. (pg 236)
If you love what Jesus Christ came to accomplish, you love missions. (pg 208)
I hope that this encouraged and challenged you as much as it did me! Let’s not just be the type of people who see our missionaries as only a name in the bulletin, but let us be zealous senders!!! And may we also consider the role that we play in advancing His kingdom here on earth...
Well everyone... just like I promised here’s the second of my book summaries. I figured Sunday afternoon was a good time to sit down and ponder over what this book has been teaching me. I read “Let The Nations Be Glad – The Supremacy of God in Missions” by John Piper in first year too but it was such a good book that we as a Servant Team at Campus Crusade decided to read and discuss it together as a small group.
The book starts off with quite the start! Listen to this...
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. (pg 17)
As Piper continues he makes numerous references to many of the missionaries who have gone on before us.
William Carey, the father of modern missions, who set sail for India from England in 1793, said this: “though I were deserted by all and persecuted by all, yet my faith, fixed on the sure Word, would rise above all obstructions and overcome every trial. God’s cause will triumph.” (pg 20)
Amen!!! God’s cause WILL triumph!!
John Dawson, a leader in Youth With A Mission [has said] “Don’t wait for a feeling of love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of a compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God.” (pg 42)
There will always be people who argue that the doctrine of election makes missions unnecessary. But they are wrong. It does not make missions unnecessary; it makes missions hopeful. John Alexander, a former president of InterVaristy Christian Fellowship, said in a message at Urbana ’67 (a decisive event in my own life), “At the beginning of my missionary career I said that if predestination were true I could not be a missionary. Now after twenty some years of struggling with the hardness of the human heart, I say I could never be a missionary unless I believe in the doctrine of predestination.” (pg 55)
A couple quotes of John Piper’s that he mentions in most of his books are these:
The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever. (pg 28)
God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. (pg 31)
He then moves on to talk about the role of prayer in the life of the Christian saying:
Life is war. That’s not all it is. But it is always that. Our weakness in prayer is owing largely to our neglect of this truth. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief. It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den... The one who gives the power gets the glory. (pg 45)
Prayer is not a domestic intercom to increase the temporal comforts of the saints. (pg 67)
Then he chooses to turn his attention to the sufferings of the church and the persecution that we will have to endure.
So we must not water down the call to suffer. We must not domesticate the New Testament teaching on affliction and persecution just because our lives are so smooth. (pg 76)
God uses the suffering of his missionaries to awaken others out of their slumbers of indifference and make them bold. (pg 90)
The point is that an $80 000 or a $180 000 salary does not have to be accompanied by an $80 000 or a $180 000 lifestyle. God is calling us to be conduits of his grace, not cul-de-sacs. Our great danger today is thinking that the conduit should be lined with gold. It shouldn’t. Copper will do. No matter how grateful we are, gold will not make the world think that our God is good; it will make people think that our god is gold. That is no honor to the supremacy of his worth. (pg 102)
This next story made me think and really put the New Testament parable about the old widow giving her offering a new perspective.
A church in Haiti was having a Thanksgiving festival, and each Christian was invited to bring a love offering. One envelope from a Haitian man named Edmund held $13. That amount was three months’ income for a working man there. Stanford Kelly was as surprised as those counting a Sunday offering in the United States might be to get a $6 000 cash gift. He looked around for Edmund but could not see him. Later Kelly met him in the village and questioned him. He pressed him for an explanation and found that Edmund had sold his horse in order to give the $13 gift to God. But why hadn’t he come to the festival? He hesitated and didn’t want to answer. Finally, Edmund said, “I had no shirt to wear.” (pg 103)
The next few points were some things that we as a Servant Team with Campus Crusade really liked :)...
It is a stunning New Testament truth, that since the incarnation of the Son of God, all saving faith must henceforth fix on him. (pg 111)
Shouldn’t every denomination and church have some vital group that is recruiting, equipping, sending and supporting Paul-type missionaries to more and more unreached peoples? (pg 196)
Can anyone say “WIN, BUILD, SEND!” :)
Now he is commissioning Spirit-filled messengers to preach to them, and he is speaking through these messengers with power, and calling the lost effectually to faith and keeping them by his almighty power. (pg 153)
And the final comments that John Piper makes were about how the church should operate in regards to missions.
Charles Hodge is right that “the solemn question, implied in the language of the apostle, ‘how can they believe without a preacher?’ should sound day and night in the ears of the churches.” (pg 154)
There are only two ways for us to respond to the truth we have been considering about the supremacy of God in missions. We must either go out for the sake of his name, or we must send and support such people who do. (pg 235)
God is not glorified when our missionaries are simply a name on the back of the church bulletin or a line item in the budget. Sending is something to be done diligently. (pg 236)
If you love what Jesus Christ came to accomplish, you love missions. (pg 208)
I hope that this encouraged and challenged you as much as it did me! Let’s not just be the type of people who see our missionaries as only a name in the bulletin, but let us be zealous senders!!! And may we also consider the role that we play in advancing His kingdom here on earth...
Journey To The Nations
email from the summer of 2004
Man… I love summers!!! So much more free time to relax and dig into some sweet books. I’d encourage all of you to continue to stay in the Word and to add an extra Christian book or 2 over this summer time. God has blessed many people with many different stories and challenges that each and everyone of us would be better off if we knew their stories and experiences. I actually just finished this “old school” book my mom had sitting on our family bookshelf at home. Its from the 70s or 80s and I guess she picked it up at a missions conference she was at back then. The book is called “Journey to the Nations - A Study for World Christians” and each of the 10 or so chapters was a segment / essay taken from different writers. It was good! It didn’t really matter that the book was from the 80s, the message is still the same! God continues to search this earth for labourers who will stand up and be counted as His… people who will be consumed by the call of the Great Commission and go out and preach it to the ends of the earth!
Well .. enough of me… here are some quotes I thought were good.
~~~~~~~~~
“We desire men who believe in eternity and live for it” – J. Hudson Taylor
“If Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be, then no man has any right to give himself completely to anyone but Christ nor to anything but prayer” – A. W. Tozer
“We need to become global Christians with a global vision for we have a global God” – John Stott
“History is not a random flow of events. For God is working out in time a plan which he conceived in a past eternity and will consummate in a future eternity.” – John Stott
“The saint who advances on his knees never retreats.” – Jim Elliot
“If God calls you to be a missionary. Don’t stoop to be a king.” – Jordan Grooms
“God’s real people have always been called fanatics” – C. T. Studd
“C. H. Spurgeon was converted at the age of 14. When he was 19 they built him a tabernacle seating 5000 which he packed twice a day – that’s 10 000. How? He waited on God. He got alone with God. He studied … and he prayed.” – Leonard Ravenhill
“I can give you one simple reason why we don’t have revival in America. Because we’re content to live without it. We’re not seeking God – we’re seeking miracles, we’re seeking big crusades, we’re seeking blessings.” – Leonard Ravenhill
“Can you imagine … (a) one-third of a university’s student body coming to Christ in a single year? (b) 50% of those new believers going into full-time Christian work following graduation? (c) more than 20 000 students eventually serving Christ overseas due to the influence of a few of these students?
Imagine it, because it all happened! It began in the early 1800s at schools like Amherst, Dartmouth, Princeton, Williams and Yale where up to half the students turned to Christ.” – J. Edwin Orr
“There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer.” – A. T. Pierson
“Our willingness to sacrifice for an enterprise is always in proportion to our faith in that enterprise” – Samuel Zwemer
“Great victory has never been possible without great sacrifice. If the winning of Port Arthur required human bullets, we cannot expect to carry the Port Arthurs of the non-Christian world without loss of life. Does it really matter how many die or how much money we spend in opening closed doors, and in occupying the different fields, if we really believe that missions are warfare and that the King’s glory is at stake? War always means blood and treasure. Our only concern should be to keep the fight aggressive and to win victory regardless of cost or sacrifice. The unoccupied fields of the world must have their Calvary before they can have their Pentecost.” – Samuel Zwemer
“Where are today’s C. T. Studd’s, William Carey’s, Hudson Taylor’s and Livingstone’s? Stand up and be counted.” – Ralph Winter
Man… I love summers!!! So much more free time to relax and dig into some sweet books. I’d encourage all of you to continue to stay in the Word and to add an extra Christian book or 2 over this summer time. God has blessed many people with many different stories and challenges that each and everyone of us would be better off if we knew their stories and experiences. I actually just finished this “old school” book my mom had sitting on our family bookshelf at home. Its from the 70s or 80s and I guess she picked it up at a missions conference she was at back then. The book is called “Journey to the Nations - A Study for World Christians” and each of the 10 or so chapters was a segment / essay taken from different writers. It was good! It didn’t really matter that the book was from the 80s, the message is still the same! God continues to search this earth for labourers who will stand up and be counted as His… people who will be consumed by the call of the Great Commission and go out and preach it to the ends of the earth!
Well .. enough of me… here are some quotes I thought were good.
~~~~~~~~~
“We desire men who believe in eternity and live for it” – J. Hudson Taylor
“If Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be, then no man has any right to give himself completely to anyone but Christ nor to anything but prayer” – A. W. Tozer
“We need to become global Christians with a global vision for we have a global God” – John Stott
“History is not a random flow of events. For God is working out in time a plan which he conceived in a past eternity and will consummate in a future eternity.” – John Stott
“The saint who advances on his knees never retreats.” – Jim Elliot
“If God calls you to be a missionary. Don’t stoop to be a king.” – Jordan Grooms
“God’s real people have always been called fanatics” – C. T. Studd
“C. H. Spurgeon was converted at the age of 14. When he was 19 they built him a tabernacle seating 5000 which he packed twice a day – that’s 10 000. How? He waited on God. He got alone with God. He studied … and he prayed.” – Leonard Ravenhill
“I can give you one simple reason why we don’t have revival in America. Because we’re content to live without it. We’re not seeking God – we’re seeking miracles, we’re seeking big crusades, we’re seeking blessings.” – Leonard Ravenhill
“Can you imagine … (a) one-third of a university’s student body coming to Christ in a single year? (b) 50% of those new believers going into full-time Christian work following graduation? (c) more than 20 000 students eventually serving Christ overseas due to the influence of a few of these students?
Imagine it, because it all happened! It began in the early 1800s at schools like Amherst, Dartmouth, Princeton, Williams and Yale where up to half the students turned to Christ.” – J. Edwin Orr
“There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer.” – A. T. Pierson
“Our willingness to sacrifice for an enterprise is always in proportion to our faith in that enterprise” – Samuel Zwemer
“Great victory has never been possible without great sacrifice. If the winning of Port Arthur required human bullets, we cannot expect to carry the Port Arthurs of the non-Christian world without loss of life. Does it really matter how many die or how much money we spend in opening closed doors, and in occupying the different fields, if we really believe that missions are warfare and that the King’s glory is at stake? War always means blood and treasure. Our only concern should be to keep the fight aggressive and to win victory regardless of cost or sacrifice. The unoccupied fields of the world must have their Calvary before they can have their Pentecost.” – Samuel Zwemer
“Where are today’s C. T. Studd’s, William Carey’s, Hudson Taylor’s and Livingstone’s? Stand up and be counted.” – Ralph Winter
God's Smuggler (Brother Andrew)
from an email September 2, 2004
I hope you all had an awesome summer… I think we’re all some what sad and happy to see it over. I’m really pumped about my second year at Mac but I’m also a bit nervous to see how stuff works out and how I’m gonna spend my time.
I was able this past month to get into a classic book written by Brother Andrew that a staff worker from Campus Crusade had given to me. “God’s Smuggler” was originally written in like 1967 but they’ve added a prologue and epilogue about what he’s doing today. Basically ‘Brother Andrew’ is his code name because he was smuggling Bibles into closed countries back in the 50’s and 60’s. The book was awesome… the first few chapters of the book were background and weren’t as interesting but the last 10 chapters I was hooked… the Los Angeles Times were right when the said “Tension builds page by page in this remarkable true document… more thrilling than a spy story with its numerous near escapes and mounting climaxes of danger.”
Listen to part of what the back of the book says!!!
As a boy, Brother Andrew dreamed of being an undercover spy working behind enemy lines. As a man he found himself working undercover for God. His was a mission filled with danger, financed by faith, supported by miracles. Told it was impossible to minister behind the Iron Curtain, Brother Andrew knew that nothing was too hard for God. Crossing “closed” borders, he prayed, “Lord, in my luggage I have Scripture I want to take to Your children. When You were on earth, You made blind eyes see. Now, I pray, make seeing eyes blind. Do not let the guards see those things You do not want them to see.” And they never did.
Here’s a few other quotes from the book… it had everything! Adventure, love, excitement, and emotion. Its definitely one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. I guarantee you that the last quote listed below will cut to your heart and stir a thankfulness within you for the freedom we have in Canada and His perfect Word which we possess!
Pg 43 - “The rest of the house was asleep. I lay on my back with my hands under my head staring at the darkened ceiling and all at once, very quietly, I let go of my ego. With a new note in the wind yelling at me not to be a fool, I turned myself over to God – lock, stock and adventure. There wasn’t much faith in my prayer. I just said, “Lord, if You will show me the way, I will follow You. Amen.” I was as simple as that.”
Pg 69 “I turned through the gate at the [Bible college]. Above me was the reminder “Have Faith In God.” That was it! It wasn’t that I needed the security of a certain amount of money, it was that I needed the security of a relationship [with God].”
Pg 114-115
“Hello”, said the driver. “I believer I know who you are. You’re the Dutch missionary who is preaching tonight.”
“That’s right.”
“And this is the Miracle Car?”
“The Miracle Car?”
“I mean the car you pray for each morning.”
I had to laugh. I had mentioned the prayer in a previous meeting; the word had obviously gone on ahead. “Yes”, I admitted, “this is the car.”
“Mind if I take a look at her? I’m a mechanic.”
“I’d appreciate it.” I had put gas in that engine, and that was literally all since I had crossed the border. The mechanic went around to the rear and lifted the hood over the motor. For a long time he stood there, just staring.
“Brother Andrew,” he said at last, “I have just become a believer. It is mechanically impossible for this engine to run. Look. The air filter. The carburetor. The sparks. No, I’m sorry. This car cannot run.”
“And yet it’s taken us thousands of miles.”
The mechanic only shook his head. “Brother,” he said, “would you permit me to clean your engine for you and give you a change of oil? It hurts me to see you abuse a miracle.”
Gratefully we followed the man to his village. We pulled behind him into a little courtyard filled with pigs and geese. That night while we preached he took the engine apart, cleaned it piece by piece, changed the oil and by the time we were ready to leave the next morning, presented us with a grinning new automobile. God had answered our prayer.
Pg 120 – “Lord,” I said one morning, “I’ve got to pray just one more time about this bachelor life You plan for me. Now I know about those children You promise the desolate, but Lord You also promise the desolate a home!” I quickly found the verse in Psalm 68, as though to refresh His memory: “God gives the desolate a home to dwell in.” It isn’t that I don’t thank You for this room above the tool shed, Lord. Just because it’s dark and dank and mildewy and – doesn’t mean I’m not grateful. But, dear God, it is not a home. Not really. A home is where there’s a wife and children – real ones.
Pg 157-158 – Petroff and his wife lived in this single room… “I’ve heard,” I said “ that both Bulgaria and Rumania are desperately in need of Bibles. Is that so?”
In answer, Petroff took me over to his desk. On it was an ancient typewriter with a sheet of paper in it, and next to the typewriter a Bible open to Exodus.
“Three weeks ago I was extremely lucky,” said Petroff. “I managed to find this Bible.” He showed me a second volume on the small dining talbe. “I got it for a good price too. Only a month’s pension. The reason it was so cheap is that the books of Genesis, Exodus and Revelation have been cut out and -”
“Why?” I interrupted.
“Who knows? Perhaps to sell. Or perhaps to make cigarettes with the thin paper. At any rate I was lucky enough to find it and have the money to purchase it. Now all I have to do is fill in the missing parts from my own Bible – and I have another complete book! I ought to be all finished in another four weeks.”
“And what will you do with the second Bible?”
“Oh, give it away.”
“To a little church in Plovtiv,” said his wife, “where there’s no Bible.”
I wasn’t sure that I understood. No Bible in the entire church?
“Certainly,” said Petroff. “And there are many such churches in this country. You’ll find the same in Rumania and in Russia. In the old days only the priests had them; ordinary people couldn’t read. And since communism, it’s been impossible to buy them. It’s not often I have a piece of luck like this.”
My sense of excitement mounted. I could hardly wait to show Petroff the treasure I had waiting for him in my car.
That night I drove up to the apartment, checked the street to make sure it was empty, and then took inside the first of many, many cartons of Bibles I was to deliver to this many over the years. Petroff and his wife watched me put the box on their one table, their eyes wide in frank and open curiosity.
“What’s that?” Petroff asked.
I lifted the top and took out a Bible. I put it in the trembling hands of Petroff and another into the hands of his wife.
“And – and in the box?” Petroff asked.
“More. And still more outside.”
Petroff closed his eyes. His mouth was working hard to control the emotion he was feeling. But two tears rolled slowly out from between his closed lids and fell on the volume in his hands.
I hope you all had an awesome summer… I think we’re all some what sad and happy to see it over. I’m really pumped about my second year at Mac but I’m also a bit nervous to see how stuff works out and how I’m gonna spend my time.
I was able this past month to get into a classic book written by Brother Andrew that a staff worker from Campus Crusade had given to me. “God’s Smuggler” was originally written in like 1967 but they’ve added a prologue and epilogue about what he’s doing today. Basically ‘Brother Andrew’ is his code name because he was smuggling Bibles into closed countries back in the 50’s and 60’s. The book was awesome… the first few chapters of the book were background and weren’t as interesting but the last 10 chapters I was hooked… the Los Angeles Times were right when the said “Tension builds page by page in this remarkable true document… more thrilling than a spy story with its numerous near escapes and mounting climaxes of danger.”
Listen to part of what the back of the book says!!!
As a boy, Brother Andrew dreamed of being an undercover spy working behind enemy lines. As a man he found himself working undercover for God. His was a mission filled with danger, financed by faith, supported by miracles. Told it was impossible to minister behind the Iron Curtain, Brother Andrew knew that nothing was too hard for God. Crossing “closed” borders, he prayed, “Lord, in my luggage I have Scripture I want to take to Your children. When You were on earth, You made blind eyes see. Now, I pray, make seeing eyes blind. Do not let the guards see those things You do not want them to see.” And they never did.
Here’s a few other quotes from the book… it had everything! Adventure, love, excitement, and emotion. Its definitely one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. I guarantee you that the last quote listed below will cut to your heart and stir a thankfulness within you for the freedom we have in Canada and His perfect Word which we possess!
Pg 43 - “The rest of the house was asleep. I lay on my back with my hands under my head staring at the darkened ceiling and all at once, very quietly, I let go of my ego. With a new note in the wind yelling at me not to be a fool, I turned myself over to God – lock, stock and adventure. There wasn’t much faith in my prayer. I just said, “Lord, if You will show me the way, I will follow You. Amen.” I was as simple as that.”
Pg 69 “I turned through the gate at the [Bible college]. Above me was the reminder “Have Faith In God.” That was it! It wasn’t that I needed the security of a certain amount of money, it was that I needed the security of a relationship [with God].”
Pg 114-115
“Hello”, said the driver. “I believer I know who you are. You’re the Dutch missionary who is preaching tonight.”
“That’s right.”
“And this is the Miracle Car?”
“The Miracle Car?”
“I mean the car you pray for each morning.”
I had to laugh. I had mentioned the prayer in a previous meeting; the word had obviously gone on ahead. “Yes”, I admitted, “this is the car.”
“Mind if I take a look at her? I’m a mechanic.”
“I’d appreciate it.” I had put gas in that engine, and that was literally all since I had crossed the border. The mechanic went around to the rear and lifted the hood over the motor. For a long time he stood there, just staring.
“Brother Andrew,” he said at last, “I have just become a believer. It is mechanically impossible for this engine to run. Look. The air filter. The carburetor. The sparks. No, I’m sorry. This car cannot run.”
“And yet it’s taken us thousands of miles.”
The mechanic only shook his head. “Brother,” he said, “would you permit me to clean your engine for you and give you a change of oil? It hurts me to see you abuse a miracle.”
Gratefully we followed the man to his village. We pulled behind him into a little courtyard filled with pigs and geese. That night while we preached he took the engine apart, cleaned it piece by piece, changed the oil and by the time we were ready to leave the next morning, presented us with a grinning new automobile. God had answered our prayer.
Pg 120 – “Lord,” I said one morning, “I’ve got to pray just one more time about this bachelor life You plan for me. Now I know about those children You promise the desolate, but Lord You also promise the desolate a home!” I quickly found the verse in Psalm 68, as though to refresh His memory: “God gives the desolate a home to dwell in.” It isn’t that I don’t thank You for this room above the tool shed, Lord. Just because it’s dark and dank and mildewy and – doesn’t mean I’m not grateful. But, dear God, it is not a home. Not really. A home is where there’s a wife and children – real ones.
Pg 157-158 – Petroff and his wife lived in this single room… “I’ve heard,” I said “ that both Bulgaria and Rumania are desperately in need of Bibles. Is that so?”
In answer, Petroff took me over to his desk. On it was an ancient typewriter with a sheet of paper in it, and next to the typewriter a Bible open to Exodus.
“Three weeks ago I was extremely lucky,” said Petroff. “I managed to find this Bible.” He showed me a second volume on the small dining talbe. “I got it for a good price too. Only a month’s pension. The reason it was so cheap is that the books of Genesis, Exodus and Revelation have been cut out and -”
“Why?” I interrupted.
“Who knows? Perhaps to sell. Or perhaps to make cigarettes with the thin paper. At any rate I was lucky enough to find it and have the money to purchase it. Now all I have to do is fill in the missing parts from my own Bible – and I have another complete book! I ought to be all finished in another four weeks.”
“And what will you do with the second Bible?”
“Oh, give it away.”
“To a little church in Plovtiv,” said his wife, “where there’s no Bible.”
I wasn’t sure that I understood. No Bible in the entire church?
“Certainly,” said Petroff. “And there are many such churches in this country. You’ll find the same in Rumania and in Russia. In the old days only the priests had them; ordinary people couldn’t read. And since communism, it’s been impossible to buy them. It’s not often I have a piece of luck like this.”
My sense of excitement mounted. I could hardly wait to show Petroff the treasure I had waiting for him in my car.
That night I drove up to the apartment, checked the street to make sure it was empty, and then took inside the first of many, many cartons of Bibles I was to deliver to this many over the years. Petroff and his wife watched me put the box on their one table, their eyes wide in frank and open curiosity.
“What’s that?” Petroff asked.
I lifted the top and took out a Bible. I put it in the trembling hands of Petroff and another into the hands of his wife.
“And – and in the box?” Petroff asked.
“More. And still more outside.”
Petroff closed his eyes. His mouth was working hard to control the emotion he was feeling. But two tears rolled slowly out from between his closed lids and fell on the volume in his hands.
Experiencing God (Henry Blackaby)
I figured I should finish up my book and send out a summary before exams hit...so that’s what I did! I started “Experiencing God” by Henry Blackaby a while ago and I picked it up off and on. It’s a “National Best-Seller with over 4 000 000 sold” and I thought it was really good, and as you’ll see below it had some great, short, sweet one line Biblical truths!! I trust that each of you are growing to know our Lord and Saviour more and more and experiencing Him in a more intimate way with each passing day! “We love Him, because He first loved us!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here’s a bit of a quote I thought I’d share... Henry Blackaby is a solid man!
He has served as the president of the Canadian Baptist Theological College and Canadian Southern Baptist Conference. – pg 307
Because of the effect of Experiencing God in so many people’s lives, I have regularly been asked to speak to the national and global leadership of Focus on the Family, Campus Crusade, and nearly all of the various national prayer organizations – pg xviii
So here we go:
You cannot depend on human traditions, your experience, or the experience of others to be accurate on God’s will and ways. Experience and traditions must always be examined against the teaching of Scriptures. – pg 6
I said, “Father, don’t ever let me look at circumstances and question Your love for me. Your love for me was settled on the cross. That has never changed and will never change for me.” – pg 16
God Himself pursues a love relationship with you. He is the One who takes the initiative to bring you into this kind of relationship. – pg 79
Jesus said to those who were His disciples: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you... You are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world” (John 15:16,19). Didn’t Peter choose to follow Jesus? No. Jesus chose Peter. Peter responded to the invitation of God. God took the initiative. – pg 87
God did not create you for time; He created you for eternity. – pg 89
You never find God asking persons to dream up what they want to do for Him...The pattern in the Scripture is that we submit ourselves to God and we wait until God shows us what He is about to do, or we watch to see what God is doing around us and join Him. – pg 104
Jesus is the head over the body, the church. Oh, that we would discover the difference when we let God be the Head of that body. He will accomplish more in six months through a people yielded to Him than we could do in sixty years without Him. – pg 105
Understanding what God is about to do where you are is more important than telling God what you want to do for Him. – pg 107
God is far more interested in accomplishing His kingdom purposes than you are. – pg 117
I love that one!!! God is in control!!! He’s got a way bigger and better plan than I could ever dream up or imagine... and its so good to know that its all gonna be accomplished!
If you are not keeping a spiritual journal or diary, you need to. – pg 172
Blackaby just lays this one out!!! Its not really a command from the Bible but its definitely something I’d strongly encourage too!
I never deny any experience that a person has had, but I always reserve the right to interpret it according to what I understand in the Scripture. – pg 187
In making a decision, the greatest difficulty may not be in choosing between good and bad, but in choosing between good and best. – pg 196
Until you are ready to make any adjustment necessary to follow and obey what God has said, you will be of little use to God. – pg 236
Most of our churches have not learned how to pray together. The greatest untapped resource that I know of is the united prayer of God’s people. – pg 259
[In Acts 16:6-10 we see that] God, not Paul, was going to reach the Gentiles. – pg 267
I don’t know why... but when I read this last night I underlined it reminding myself once again that God is the One who was and is reaching the Gentiles! Not me, you or Paul, but God! :)
You are completely dependent on God for the knowledge and the ability to accomplish His purposes. – pg 271
Here’s a few quotes at the end of the book by a couple other godly men:
It’s better to be still and do nothing with God than to be busy and do much without Him. – Max Lucado
Whenever I enter a contract with anyone, they usually ask me to sign on the bottom line. What that usually means is that I have agreed to the terms and conditions of the contract. Like the contractor, we too often give God a full page of activities we are going to do for Him and ask Him to sign off on it. Instead, God gives us a blank sheet of paper for us to sign on the bottom line, demonstrating our trust in Him and His will for our lives. The question is not “Will God sign off on what we want to do?” but rather “Will we trust God to do what He wants done?” – Tony Evans
And I’ll close with this quote... I want to encourage you all, wherever you’re at, to set “faith barriers” (even for this summer). Think of something that you know you can’t accomplish without the intervention of God... write it down, pray about it and watch what God does!
Believers never outgrow the experience of being scared half to death by the assignments God gives them. But that is His loving way of leading you closer to Him – always putting your next assignment just out of reach, requiring a dimension of faith that lies just beyond the last point of your trusting. – pg 300
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here’s a bit of a quote I thought I’d share... Henry Blackaby is a solid man!
He has served as the president of the Canadian Baptist Theological College and Canadian Southern Baptist Conference. – pg 307
Because of the effect of Experiencing God in so many people’s lives, I have regularly been asked to speak to the national and global leadership of Focus on the Family, Campus Crusade, and nearly all of the various national prayer organizations – pg xviii
So here we go:
You cannot depend on human traditions, your experience, or the experience of others to be accurate on God’s will and ways. Experience and traditions must always be examined against the teaching of Scriptures. – pg 6
I said, “Father, don’t ever let me look at circumstances and question Your love for me. Your love for me was settled on the cross. That has never changed and will never change for me.” – pg 16
God Himself pursues a love relationship with you. He is the One who takes the initiative to bring you into this kind of relationship. – pg 79
Jesus said to those who were His disciples: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you... You are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world” (John 15:16,19). Didn’t Peter choose to follow Jesus? No. Jesus chose Peter. Peter responded to the invitation of God. God took the initiative. – pg 87
God did not create you for time; He created you for eternity. – pg 89
You never find God asking persons to dream up what they want to do for Him...The pattern in the Scripture is that we submit ourselves to God and we wait until God shows us what He is about to do, or we watch to see what God is doing around us and join Him. – pg 104
Jesus is the head over the body, the church. Oh, that we would discover the difference when we let God be the Head of that body. He will accomplish more in six months through a people yielded to Him than we could do in sixty years without Him. – pg 105
Understanding what God is about to do where you are is more important than telling God what you want to do for Him. – pg 107
God is far more interested in accomplishing His kingdom purposes than you are. – pg 117
I love that one!!! God is in control!!! He’s got a way bigger and better plan than I could ever dream up or imagine... and its so good to know that its all gonna be accomplished!
If you are not keeping a spiritual journal or diary, you need to. – pg 172
Blackaby just lays this one out!!! Its not really a command from the Bible but its definitely something I’d strongly encourage too!
I never deny any experience that a person has had, but I always reserve the right to interpret it according to what I understand in the Scripture. – pg 187
In making a decision, the greatest difficulty may not be in choosing between good and bad, but in choosing between good and best. – pg 196
Until you are ready to make any adjustment necessary to follow and obey what God has said, you will be of little use to God. – pg 236
Most of our churches have not learned how to pray together. The greatest untapped resource that I know of is the united prayer of God’s people. – pg 259
[In Acts 16:6-10 we see that] God, not Paul, was going to reach the Gentiles. – pg 267
I don’t know why... but when I read this last night I underlined it reminding myself once again that God is the One who was and is reaching the Gentiles! Not me, you or Paul, but God! :)
You are completely dependent on God for the knowledge and the ability to accomplish His purposes. – pg 271
Here’s a few quotes at the end of the book by a couple other godly men:
It’s better to be still and do nothing with God than to be busy and do much without Him. – Max Lucado
Whenever I enter a contract with anyone, they usually ask me to sign on the bottom line. What that usually means is that I have agreed to the terms and conditions of the contract. Like the contractor, we too often give God a full page of activities we are going to do for Him and ask Him to sign off on it. Instead, God gives us a blank sheet of paper for us to sign on the bottom line, demonstrating our trust in Him and His will for our lives. The question is not “Will God sign off on what we want to do?” but rather “Will we trust God to do what He wants done?” – Tony Evans
And I’ll close with this quote... I want to encourage you all, wherever you’re at, to set “faith barriers” (even for this summer). Think of something that you know you can’t accomplish without the intervention of God... write it down, pray about it and watch what God does!
Believers never outgrow the experience of being scared half to death by the assignments God gives them. But that is His loving way of leading you closer to Him – always putting your next assignment just out of reach, requiring a dimension of faith that lies just beyond the last point of your trusting. – pg 300
Case for a Creator (Lee Strobel)
from an email August 7, 2004
Mass email #90894 (or so it seems)… I use the 15-30 minutes it takes to summarize the book kinda as a recap so I remember what I read.
I was at a Christian bookstore back in July and found this new book by Lee Strobel. He is the author of the famous “Case for Christ” and “Case for Faith” books that I really liked. Sometimes the chapters were a bit long but overall the message and content were awesome! So when I saw “Case for a Creator” I was pumped! As I read through the book in the first few chapters he said something along the lines of “This book is not written to settle the Christian argument about an old or young earth”. So when I saw that I was like “ok.. that’s cool” … but as I kept reading I was kinda disappointed a bit case he definitely took the old earth side of the argument. Other than that I definitely recommend the book though. If you want something scientifically based its good. I’ve never read it but Michael Behe’s “Darwin’s Black Box” is supposedly really good too. My personal favourite about the creation / evolution debate is “The Battle for the Beginning” by John MacArthur. On the back of that book is this quote “Defending the authority of Scripture from the very first verse”
The structure of Lee Strobel’s books and the Case for a Creator is that Lee goes to different scholars and asks them tough questions... here’s my little summary:
I’ve never studied Bio but I do know (as was mentioned in this book) that a 4-cylinder, 2L, block engine maxes out at about 9000 rotations per minute. In Case for a Creator the author interviews a man (Michael Behe) who is a biology big wig and he describes the bacterial flagellum (I have no clue what it does .. lol .. but I do know its impressive) The “flagellum’s propeller can spin at 10000 rpms…not only that the propeller can stop spinning within a quarter turn and instantly start spinning the other way at 10000 rpms.”… “Howard Berg of Harvard University called it the most efficient motor in the universe. It’s way beyond anything we can make, especially when you consider its size.” Get this… this super fast motor is approximately 1/100 000th of an inch!!!
Another of the guys the author interviews said this about the transitional fossils Darwinists have been searching for over the past years… “the intermediates have remained as elusive as ever”… to which I respond… “duh… there aren’t any!!!”
Listen to this argument one of the scholars / philosophers proposed … see if you agree with each of the statements:
#1 Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
-even renowed skeptic David Hume didn’t deny this
#2 The universe had a beginning
-its funny because 50 yrs ago atheists attacked this premise because they didn’t think the universe had a “starting point” but now scientifically its proven there is a start so they have to attack the first premise… lol… embarrassing
Therefore, the logical conclusion is
#3 That the universe has a cause
Another chapter was on “the evidence of astronomy”. Did you know… “it would take a star with the highly unusual properties of our sun – the right mass, the right light, the right distance, the right orbit, the right galaxy, the right location – to nurture living organisms on a circling planet. Numerous factors make our solar system and our location in the universe just right for a habitable environment. What’s more, the exceptional conditions that make life possible also happen to make our planet strangely well-suited for viewing and analyzing the universe and our environment. All of this suggests our planet may be rare, if not unique, and that the Creator wanted us to be able to explore the cosmos. Harvard-educated astrophysicist John A. O’Keefe of NASA said, “It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in.”
This email wouldn’t be done without Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
Its definitely cool that tomorrow at church we’re singing “God of Wonders”… when I was up at Fair Havens last week just looking up into the sky at night seeing all the stars reminded me once again of the great God we serve! I’m going to see Niagara Falls again tomorrow with relatives from Norway who are here visiting and just other things that have come up remind me of our Creator and his workmanship! :)
It was super cool at the end of Case for a Creator, cause Lee Strobel writes about a couple (2 doctors) who did an investigation similar to his. They came to the conclusion that there was a Creator and then investigated the Bible and Jesus’ claims. After committing there lives to Christ and becoming Christians they prayed the bold prayer asking God to send them wherever He desired. Viggo and Joan ended up spending 33 yrs in poverty-wracked Bangladesh where they founded Memorial Christian Hospital. From atheist skeptics to missionaries! So good!!!
The little Sunday School song is true:
“My God is so big! So strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do!”
Mass email #90894 (or so it seems)… I use the 15-30 minutes it takes to summarize the book kinda as a recap so I remember what I read.
I was at a Christian bookstore back in July and found this new book by Lee Strobel. He is the author of the famous “Case for Christ” and “Case for Faith” books that I really liked. Sometimes the chapters were a bit long but overall the message and content were awesome! So when I saw “Case for a Creator” I was pumped! As I read through the book in the first few chapters he said something along the lines of “This book is not written to settle the Christian argument about an old or young earth”. So when I saw that I was like “ok.. that’s cool” … but as I kept reading I was kinda disappointed a bit case he definitely took the old earth side of the argument. Other than that I definitely recommend the book though. If you want something scientifically based its good. I’ve never read it but Michael Behe’s “Darwin’s Black Box” is supposedly really good too. My personal favourite about the creation / evolution debate is “The Battle for the Beginning” by John MacArthur. On the back of that book is this quote “Defending the authority of Scripture from the very first verse”
The structure of Lee Strobel’s books and the Case for a Creator is that Lee goes to different scholars and asks them tough questions... here’s my little summary:
I’ve never studied Bio but I do know (as was mentioned in this book) that a 4-cylinder, 2L, block engine maxes out at about 9000 rotations per minute. In Case for a Creator the author interviews a man (Michael Behe) who is a biology big wig and he describes the bacterial flagellum (I have no clue what it does .. lol .. but I do know its impressive) The “flagellum’s propeller can spin at 10000 rpms…not only that the propeller can stop spinning within a quarter turn and instantly start spinning the other way at 10000 rpms.”… “Howard Berg of Harvard University called it the most efficient motor in the universe. It’s way beyond anything we can make, especially when you consider its size.” Get this… this super fast motor is approximately 1/100 000th of an inch!!!
Another of the guys the author interviews said this about the transitional fossils Darwinists have been searching for over the past years… “the intermediates have remained as elusive as ever”… to which I respond… “duh… there aren’t any!!!”
Listen to this argument one of the scholars / philosophers proposed … see if you agree with each of the statements:
#1 Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
-even renowed skeptic David Hume didn’t deny this
#2 The universe had a beginning
-its funny because 50 yrs ago atheists attacked this premise because they didn’t think the universe had a “starting point” but now scientifically its proven there is a start so they have to attack the first premise… lol… embarrassing
Therefore, the logical conclusion is
#3 That the universe has a cause
Another chapter was on “the evidence of astronomy”. Did you know… “it would take a star with the highly unusual properties of our sun – the right mass, the right light, the right distance, the right orbit, the right galaxy, the right location – to nurture living organisms on a circling planet. Numerous factors make our solar system and our location in the universe just right for a habitable environment. What’s more, the exceptional conditions that make life possible also happen to make our planet strangely well-suited for viewing and analyzing the universe and our environment. All of this suggests our planet may be rare, if not unique, and that the Creator wanted us to be able to explore the cosmos. Harvard-educated astrophysicist John A. O’Keefe of NASA said, “It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in.”
This email wouldn’t be done without Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
Its definitely cool that tomorrow at church we’re singing “God of Wonders”… when I was up at Fair Havens last week just looking up into the sky at night seeing all the stars reminded me once again of the great God we serve! I’m going to see Niagara Falls again tomorrow with relatives from Norway who are here visiting and just other things that have come up remind me of our Creator and his workmanship! :)
It was super cool at the end of Case for a Creator, cause Lee Strobel writes about a couple (2 doctors) who did an investigation similar to his. They came to the conclusion that there was a Creator and then investigated the Bible and Jesus’ claims. After committing there lives to Christ and becoming Christians they prayed the bold prayer asking God to send them wherever He desired. Viggo and Joan ended up spending 33 yrs in poverty-wracked Bangladesh where they founded Memorial Christian Hospital. From atheist skeptics to missionaries! So good!!!
The little Sunday School song is true:
“My God is so big! So strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do!”
Boundaries (Henry Cloud and John Townsend)
Part of taking responsibility or ownership, is knowing what is our job and what isn’t. (pg 25)
Just as homeowners set physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries for our lives to help us distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn’t. (pg 25)
You need to depend on others to help you set and keep boundaries. (pg 37)
When God said that even in his perfect new universe, it wasn’t “good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18), he wasn’t talking about marriage. He was talking about relationship. (pg 64)
This is a crucial point. We all need more than God and a best friend. We need a group of supportive relationships. The reason is simple: having more than one person in our lives allows our friends to be human. To be busy. To be unavailable at times. To hurt and have problems of their own. To have time alone. (pg 111)
For marriage to work, the spouse needs to loosen her ties with her family of origin and forge new ones with the new family she is creating through marriage. This does not mean that husbands and wives shouldn’t have a relationship with their extended families. But they do need to set clear boundaries with their families of origin. Many marriages fail because one partner fails to set clear boundaries with the family of origin, and the spouse and children get leftovers. (pg 125)
The periodic bailouts from his parents cut into Terry’s self-respect. And Sherry felt as if she couldn’t spend any money without consulting her in-laws, since they contributed the funds. (pg 126)
“Children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children” (2 Cor. 12:14) (pg 129)
Indeed the Bible teaches that adult children should take care of their elderly parents. “Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God” (1 Tim. 5:3-4). It is good to feel grateful to our parents and to repay them for what they have done for us. (pg 129)
Let’s define friendship as a non-romantic relationship that is attachment-based rather than function-based. In other words, let’s exclude relationships based on a common task, like work or ministry. Let’s look at friendship as comprising people we want to be around just for their own sake. (pg 137)
The key here is that the other person is not responsible for our limits; we are. Only we know what we can and want to give, and only we can be responsible for drawing that line. If we do not draw it, we can quickly become resentful. (pg 155)
When you need time away, tell your spouse (pg 159)
The Proverbs 31 wife has a life of her own; she is out doing many things. The same is true of her husband. They have their own time for doing what they like and for seeing their own friends. Many couples have trouble with this aspect of marriage. They feel abandoned when their spouse wants time apart. In reality, spouses need time apart, which makes them realize the need to be back together. Spouses in healthy relationships cherish each other’s space and are champions of each other’s causes. (pg 160)
Just as homeowners set physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries for our lives to help us distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn’t. (pg 25)
You need to depend on others to help you set and keep boundaries. (pg 37)
When God said that even in his perfect new universe, it wasn’t “good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18), he wasn’t talking about marriage. He was talking about relationship. (pg 64)
This is a crucial point. We all need more than God and a best friend. We need a group of supportive relationships. The reason is simple: having more than one person in our lives allows our friends to be human. To be busy. To be unavailable at times. To hurt and have problems of their own. To have time alone. (pg 111)
For marriage to work, the spouse needs to loosen her ties with her family of origin and forge new ones with the new family she is creating through marriage. This does not mean that husbands and wives shouldn’t have a relationship with their extended families. But they do need to set clear boundaries with their families of origin. Many marriages fail because one partner fails to set clear boundaries with the family of origin, and the spouse and children get leftovers. (pg 125)
The periodic bailouts from his parents cut into Terry’s self-respect. And Sherry felt as if she couldn’t spend any money without consulting her in-laws, since they contributed the funds. (pg 126)
“Children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children” (2 Cor. 12:14) (pg 129)
Indeed the Bible teaches that adult children should take care of their elderly parents. “Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God” (1 Tim. 5:3-4). It is good to feel grateful to our parents and to repay them for what they have done for us. (pg 129)
Let’s define friendship as a non-romantic relationship that is attachment-based rather than function-based. In other words, let’s exclude relationships based on a common task, like work or ministry. Let’s look at friendship as comprising people we want to be around just for their own sake. (pg 137)
The key here is that the other person is not responsible for our limits; we are. Only we know what we can and want to give, and only we can be responsible for drawing that line. If we do not draw it, we can quickly become resentful. (pg 155)
When you need time away, tell your spouse (pg 159)
The Proverbs 31 wife has a life of her own; she is out doing many things. The same is true of her husband. They have their own time for doing what they like and for seeing their own friends. Many couples have trouble with this aspect of marriage. They feel abandoned when their spouse wants time apart. In reality, spouses need time apart, which makes them realize the need to be back together. Spouses in healthy relationships cherish each other’s space and are champions of each other’s causes. (pg 160)
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