The Theology of Lauren Daigle! “Look Up, Child!”

I think I’m in love. No, not with Lauren Daigle, but with her music! I’m deeply moved by her songs and think anyone who has ears and a brain and a heart ought to be as well. What I want to do in this series of posts is listen to and think about the theology her songs present. Comments welcome!

My comments:

Okay. Okay. These lyrics are a bit repetitive. But, sometimes that’s exactly what I need! When “darkness seems to win,” “when the world is crumbling,” “when all I feel is doubt” — that’s when I need to be reminded to look past myself, past the circumstances surrounding me!

He’s not threatened by war or the storm or our suffering. And the great thing about being a Christian is that He calls our name and He bids us to do one thing: to LOOK UP, CHILD!

Any comments?

 

The Theology of Lauren Daigle! “You Say!”

I think I’m in love. No, not with Lauren Daigle, but with her music! I’m deeply moved by her songs and think anyone who has ears and a brain and a heart ought to be as well. What I want to do in this series of posts is listen to and think about the theology her songs present. Comments welcome!

My comments:

What’s most important in life? Knowing the Lord — and listening to what He says. About Himself. About you and me.

If the real God of the Bible exists, then it is in Him that we find our worth, our identity!

What’s the place of our belief? If we don’t believe what He says, we are calling God a liar and are missing out on the truth itself.

I’ve been reading the gospel of John with a few friends. Here’s an assignment: read the gospel of John in a Bible you don’t mind marking up. And circle every use of the word “believe.” You’ll be astounded!

Any comments?

 

The Theology of Lauren Daigle! “First!”

I think I’m in love. No, not with Lauren Daigle, but with her music! I’m deeply moved by her songs and think anyone who has ears and a brain and a heart ought to be as well. What I want to do in this series of posts is listen to and think about the theology her songs present. Comments welcome!

My comments:

A.W. Tozer put it this way: “We have been snared in the coils of spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him, we need no more seek Him.” The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

How do we “keep Him” “first”? We bring our hearts to Him before we bring our needs. We purpose to KNOW Him. We LOOK for Him “in every season” (especially in the hard ones). We are vigilant in watching for the things “that come before.” And we TREASURE Him — above all things.

I’ve been greatly helped here by the writings of John Piper. He admonishes us to treasure the Lord above all things, famously stating that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Any comments?

 

The Theology of Calvin . . . and Hobbes (Priorities)

 

The Theology of Calvin . . . and Hobbes (Priorities)

 

Developing a 2020 Vision for the Lord (Part 6 – Conclusion)

Friends: We are thinking about the incredible possibility that awaits us as we anticipate a brand new year — 2020. The expression “2020” reminds me of my first eye exam in high school — when I memorized the eye chart before going to the doctor’s! (I don’t know why). As we face this new year, we have the opportunity to focus on several priorities for our lives.

First, we can commit ourselves to becoming more like the Lord Jesus, Second, we want to focus on the truth that we are not to be conformed to this world. Third, we need to have a deep desire to get into God’s holy Word! Four, we would deeply care about the salvation of those around us. Five, we should desire to use our gifts to build up God’s people in the local church.

Those are a lot of priorities for this upcoming New Year! If you and I commit ourselves to becoming like the Lord Jesus, we are opening ourselves up for significant change! If we choose not to be conformed to this world, we will have to become much more vigilant in recognizing “the world, the flesh, and the devil” and their influence on us. If we decide to get much more serious about getting into the Word of God, time and our priorities will wage war against us! If we begin to deeply care about the lostness of people around us, we will find opportunities everywhere to sow the seeds of the gospel. And we will realize that we desperately need the local church and we will choose to use our gifts to encourage other believers.

Would you pray this prayer with me? “Lord of Eternity, You know this New Year — 2020 — provides a great opportunity to grow in Your grace and make significant progress in our becoming more like the Lord Jesus. Help us, Lord! Left to ourselves this year will barely surpass the mistakes we made last year. Help us, Father, by Your grace to make this year different. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

 

 

 

Developing a 2020 Vision for the Lord (Part 5)

Friends: We are thinking about the incredible possibility that awaits us as we anticipate a brand new year — 2020. The expression “2020” reminds me of my first eye exam in high school — when I memorized the eye chart before going to the doctor’s! (I don’t know why). As we face this new year, we have the opportunity to focus on several priorities for our lives.

First, we can commit ourselves to becoming more like the Lord Jesus, Second, we want to focus on the truth that we are not to be conformed to this world. Third, we need to have a deep desire to get into God’s holy Word! Four, we would deeply care about the salvation of those around us. If we believe the gospel is true, then every person is headed either to heaven or to hell. Do we think about that truth as we meet people, engage with our co-workers and neighbors, and come in contact with total strangers?

A fifth priority challenges us this new year: We should desire to use our gifts to build up God’s people in the local church. Every believer in Christ has at least one spiritual gift that is to be used to encourage the people of God. We learn about our spiritual gifts in Romans 12, I Corinthians12, Ephesians 4, and I Peter 4.

May I ask you a few questions, dear blog-reader? (1) Do you know what your spiritual gifts are?  (2) Are you using your gifts to serve the local church?  (3) Would you mind leaving a comment at the end of this post specifying which gift you have?

And may I ask you to pray this prayer with me? “Lord of All Gifts, would You use me this year to honor You and to build up the Body of Christ, the local church? Father, make me aware of how I can serve others. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

 

 

 

Developing a 2020 Vision for the Lord (Part 4)

Friends: We are thinking about the incredible possibility that awaits us as we anticipate a brand new year — 2020. The expression “2020” reminds me of my first eye exam in high school — when I memorized the eye chart before going to the doctor’s! (I don’t know why). As we face this new year, we have the opportunity to focus on several priorities for our lives.

First, we can commit ourselves to becoming more like the Lord Jesus, Second, we want to focus on the truth that we are not to be conformed to this world. Third, we need to have a deep desire to get into God’s holy Word!

May I suggest a fourth priority for each of us in 2020? And it is that we would deeply care about the salvation of those around us. If we believe the gospel is true, then every person is headed either to heaven or to hell. Do we think about that truth as we meet people, engage with our co-workers and neighbors, and come in contact with total strangers?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this issue. It’s the reason I recently wrote Unlike Jesus: Let’s Stop Unfriending the World. In that book I make the case that we are to be friends of sinners like Jesus was. And I challenge each excuse that many of us give for having only Christian friends, listening only to Christian music, and eating only Christian casseroles. [I’d be glad to send you a copy for around my cost, about $10 with shipping. Just let me know.]

Would you pray the following prayer with me? “Lord, I want this new year, 2020, to be different as I engage with lost people around me. Open my eyes, Father, to opportunities to share You with them, beginning with a bit of explanation about how I was lost. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

 

 

 

An Illustration of DEVOTION!

You may have heard the story about the young check-out girl at a local Wal*Mart. She seemed bored with her job, somewhat unfriendly to the customers, and was always looking at her watch to see how much longer she had to be at work.

Her supervisor took her aside and said, “Becky Anne,” (she was a Southern girl), “you don’t seem too interested in your job here at Wal*Mart. You don’t seem real motivated to contribute to our philosophy, but I’m not going to fire you right now. I want to ask you a few questions. Are you ready?” “Yessir,” Becky Anne said.

“Becky Anne, let’s imagine that you had the power to hire any one of the following three guys you see working in a rock quarry. You interview the first guy and ask him, ‘What are you doing?’ He says, ‘I’m moving these stupid rocks. Boy, are they heavy!’ You interview the second guy, ‘What are you doing?’ He says, ‘I’m moving this pile of dumb rocks so I can get enough money to make my truck payment.’ You go to the third guy and ask him, ‘What are you doing?’ He says, ‘I’m helping to build a cathedral!’

Which of those three guys would you hire, Becky Ann?” Becky Ann thought hard for a few seconds and then said,

“The cute one, I guess!”

[Acts 2:42 says the early Christians devoted themselves to the four priorities listed there. Are we today marked by that kind of devotion?]

 

Some Thoughts about Church Membership – Part 5

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to pray about it!”  How often have you said (or, at least, thought) those words?  I’m embarrassed to say that one of my weakest Christian disciplines is . . . PRAYER!

We’re thinking about the issue of church “membership.”  I’ll be preaching at Cedarcroft Bible Chapel in New Jersey the two Sundays of September 30th and October 7th.  The elders have asked me to draft a proposal about a more strategic process of church membership.

As we look at the early church, we don’t uncover ancient church membership roles, but we do find specific principles and priorities which marked those believers.  They were not mere attenders.  They were dedicated to four specific goals which they consistently practiced.  We learn of their deepest concerns in Acts 2:41-42.  Here’s the text for our consideration.

We have seen their emphasis upon biblical doctrine and their concern for genuine fellowship with one another. We’ve also considered the great value they placed on worship (“the breaking of bread”).  Let’s notice their fourth priority which is —

Priority #4: Passionate about Prayer

This fourth priority makes me extremely uncomfortable. I am not a prayer warrior. I am not a prayer conscientious objector. I am not even a prayer pacifist. I would classify myself as a pathetic, prayerless Christian who has much to learn – and much more to put into practice – about prayer.

This was not my professor.

When I was a first-year Bible college student, one of my professors gave a wonderful lecture on the Christian discipline of prayer. He was not a real approachable teacher, but I gathered my courage about me, caught up to him after class, and said, “Mr. __, I really appreciate what you said about prayer. In fact, I’m going right over to the bookstore and buy a large spiral notebook and I’m gonna’ start studying all the prayers of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation!” He looked at me and said, “Hmmpf. I think you’d be better off just praying.” And then he walked off. But he was right.

Why do I find prayer so difficult? Part of my problem is that prayer seems to me to be passive, a last resort alternative, the farthest thing from being proactive that I can think of. Maybe I do need to study biblical prayers, for I would soon learn that the prayers of God’s people have stopped the rain (Elijah, James 5:17-18), opened prison doors (Peter, Acts12:12ff), prevented God from wiping out a nation (Moses, Num. 11:1-3; 21:7; Deut. 9:23-29), kept God from dispensing justice to some incredibly foolish counselors (Job 42:7-9), etc.

If I look at prayer as speaking with my Best Friend, I become comfortable and ready to share my deepest secrets with Him. If I look at prayer as passing on my burden for a lost loved one, I find relief and assurance that He loves my unsaved relative more than I ever could. If I look at prayer as a reporting in for duty, I find that I become submissive to His guidance and ready to get into the battle. If I look at prayer as the means by which my life receives order and calmness, I find its effects far better than any medication our overdosed world can sell over the counter or by prescription. If I look at prayer as a primary vehicle of praising God, then I can do what ought always to be done: worship the One who gave His Son for my sins.

My problem, and yours too I suspect, is that I look at prayer wrongly. I either view it in a cosmic vending machine way (we insert prayers as if they were coins, pull the handle, and wait for God to deliver our selection), or in a monastic grit-your-teeth discipline way (we pray because God commands us to – that’s all the reason we need), or as something religious to do when all our efforts at solving a problem have had little success (“Well, we’d better call God into this mess! We’ve done everything humanly possible!”). We seem to have God on speed dial, but His only number is 911.

When I fail to spend significant time conversing with the God I cannot see, part of my problem may be that I am walking by sight, and not by faith! The Christian life demands that we talk to Someone we cannot see, Someone who normally will not audibly speak back to us, Someone whom we must believe is there, especially when all evidences of His presence seem to be missing. We are to walk by faith, meaning that we take His promises in His written Word seriously. His Word says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15). I either believe that passage of His Word – or I don’t.

Can we talk? Sometimes my problem is that I don’t believe. I don’t always believe that He has my best interests at heart. I don’t always believe that He cares about my needs. I don’t always believe that He answers my prayers. I don’t always believe that prayer works. But in my saner moments, I must acknowledge that unbelief is sin, that I had better be careful in how I define “my best interests,” that I often don’t have a clue about how my “needs” ought to be met (or even what my real needs are), that I am sometimes so out of it spiritually that I wouldn’t know an answer to prayer if it came up and bit me on my….

The first Century Christians devoted themselves to prayer. They gave themselves to systematic, strategic, heart-changing, energizing communication with the Creator. Prayer is God’s gift to straighten out a messed-up Christian like me. What do you think? Am I alone in this struggle? (from the book DocWALK: Putting into Practice What You Say You Believe, pp. 170-172). (to be continued)