Colin and Nicki are moving on

Sunday 26th July is a special day for a few reasons. My husband and I will be joining Uptown Church in Charlotte, which is only the second church I have regularly attended in my life. For over thirty years before that I attended, and since the age of eighteen, was a member of, Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh. And speaking of Charlotte Chapel, on Sunday morning, Colin Adams (Nicki's husband) will preach his last sermon there before moving to Northern Ireland to become pastor of Ballymoney Baptist Church.

I was thinking about Colin and Nicki, and how much they will be missed in Edinburgh. Colin is an extremely gifted preacher and I have been challenged many times under his ministry. I was thinking which of Colin's sermons stands out most in my mind and the one that I immediately thought of was a sermon on Psalm 16 which was entitled "Take refuge in God". You can listen to it here - it will be well worth your time.

Nicki has been such a great example of biblical womanhood, and has been a mentor to many women (even setting at least one of them up with their future husband!). She has also been tireless in offering hospitality to other people of all ages. She is a devoted Mum and a inspiration to me as I struggle with the daily reality of life with small children. I certainly miss our weekly coffee dates at the soft play centre!

They will be missed in Edinburgh, but as a new chapter opens for them, I am sure that God will use them in their new church. And life is like that. With each new opportunity God brings, there will be sadness at what we leave behind. Yet God is sovereign and will use our new situation to mould us and conform us to the likeness of Christ. Our surroundings may change, but our God does not.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

From Jeremiah Burroughs

A great quote from The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (which I'm slowly making my way through!), for when we are struggling for contentment in the circumstances God has put us in:

The difference between what a godly man has and a wicked man, is this: a godly man is as a child in an inn, an inn-keeper has his child in the house, and provides his diet, and lodging, and what is needful for him. Now a stranger comes, and he has dinner and supper provided, and lodging, but the stranger must pay for everything. It may be that the child's fare is meaner than the fare of the stranger; the stranger has boiled and roast and baked, but he must pay for it, there must come a reckoning for it. Just so it is: many of God's people have only mean fare, but God as a Father provides it, and it is free of cost, they need not pay for what they have, it is paid for before; but the wicked in all their pomp, and pride, and finery: they have what they ask for, but there must come a reckoning for everything, they must pay for all at the conclusion, and is it not better to have a little free of cost, than to have to pay for everything? Grace shows a man that what he has, he has free of cost, from God as from a Father, and therefore it must needs be very sweet.

He saw the first time

I all too easily get discouraged when a task I have just completed soon needs to be done again. The washing, the dirty dishes, meals; I'm sure you can add your own list. So I found this quote from Helen Roseveare very helpful. She is describing her time at WEC mission headquarters, where she went in preparation for going to the Congo as a mission doctor.

I was told to go and wash the cement floor of the toilets and bathroom on the women candidate's floor. I found a bucket and a brush, and set to...I scrubbed out the first toilet and started on the second. A candidate entered the first with muddy shoes. The floor was still wet. When she left, I returned and did the first again. Meanwhile, someone else entered the second. This continued for some little time with a rising sense of frustration. I'd never get them clean! I'd fail, my very first day in training, to achieve the task I was set. Tears pricked at my eyes. I scrubbed on, muttering, 'Devil, get out of here! Devil, get out of here!'

Someone came in, and standing still a moment watching me, heard my muttered comments. She laughed and startled me. 'Now I understand why our cakes are all burnt today!' she exclaimed. 'We're in the kitchen underneath, and you're sending the devil down to us!' She left amused. But there was another quiet spectator, Elizabeth, who was in charge of the candidates and who had given me this task. After a short pause, she gently asked me why I was so upset. I explained the cause of my frustration. 'For whom are you scrubbing this floor?' she replied. 'Why for you, of course; you sent me here.' I've never forgotten her answer. 'No, my dear. If you are doing it for me, you may as well go home. You'll never satisfy me. You're doing it for the Lord, and He saw the first time you cleaned it. That now is tomorrow's dirt.'

From Give Me This Mountain by Helen Roseveare.

How do I look...when I'm hearing from God's Book?

In preparation for the children’s talk on Sunday, I’m looking at Acts 20 where Eutychus falls asleep and then out the window through one of Paul’s lengthy sermons. At first glance, this appears to be a slightly humorous story, however on closer inspection, it has a serious message for child and adult alike. I’ve been challenged to consider the different ways we respond to God’s Word while it’s being taught. As a sneak preview, here are 5 responses:

1. Boredom
2. Anger
3. Laughter
4. Falling asleep
5. Careful listening

We’re not given much information about poor Eutychus. We don’t know the state of his heart or if he was overtired and run down. We do however, know the state of our own hearts and more seriously still, we’re told this in Hebrews:

‘For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double- edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.’ Hebrews 4v12-13

So, next time you have God’s Word open, ask yourself this question:
What kind of listener am I?

There is a day

Maybe this is the end of a challenging week for you or maybe you just need a reminder of the hope we have in Christ. Anyway, watch this video of the song "There is a day" by the UK band Phatfish. It's just made my day!

Craving and grumbling

I was reading Numbers 11 recently as part of working through the excellent Gentle Rain on Tender Grass by Sharon James. In this chapter, the Israelites are grumbling against God about the manna he has provided for them and harking back to their captivity in Egypt (where they had all the cucumbers they could eat, apparently!). As a result of their complaining and ingratitude they were judged severely. This also tied in with a John Piper sermon I just listened to on John 13:31-35. Part way through he talked about how we must lay aside our feelings of "entitlement" in order to love like Christ.

All of this has reminded me again how easily it is to slip into an "entitlement syndrome" where I feel things should happen in a certain way, to a certain timetable of my choosing. When things don't go that way, often my first response is to grumble to God, just like the Israelites did.

We are in the middle of planning a very big move from Scotland to the USA, and there is a lot to do. When things don't seem to be working out to plan, or when the headlines are yet again full of financial disasters I'm finding it hard not to default to grumbling. But as Sharon James says,

If our hearts crave after things that the Lord has not yet provided, there is only one thing to do: pray.

She then quotes from the Imitation of Christ:

What you should feel and say when you meet something you would like: 'Lord, if this is your will, let it happen like this. Lord, if you see that this will help me and do me good, then grant that I may use it to the honour of your name. But if you know that it will harm me and not advance my soul's salvation, then take the desire away.' You cannot find complete satisfaction in any temporal gift, because you were not created to find your delight in them. Even if you possessed all the good things that God has created, you could not feel happy and glad; all your gladness and happiness rests in the God who created those things.

The gift of the present

As much as I love my job, one of the benefits of being a primary school teacher is definitely the 7 week holiday period of the summer! Being the kind, ‘looking out for others’ type of person that my mothers is, she had offered to take some children from church to the movies, so I tagged along too. As well as being really funny and full of impressive martial arts, one of the lines in Kung Fu Panda stuck in my mind.

Without spoiling the movie, Po’s wise master encourages him with these words,

Yesterday is history...tomorrow is a mystery...today is a gift...so that’s why it’s called the present.

This got me thinking; firstly about yesterday. Yesterday has gone. Things have been said, things have been done, things have been thought. They are all in the past now. Have I taken time to think back and learn from the mistakes I’ve made? Have I confessed the sins of yesterday? Then I started thinking about tomorrow. Things might be said, things might be done, things might be thought. They are all in the future. Am I worrying instead of trusting? Am I going to make wise choices today that might influence tomorrow? Only God, the immortal, invisible one, knows what will happen tomorrow.

James wisely writes,

Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.' (James Ch 4v14-15)

So I started thinking about today. A gift? Is that really how I appreciate each precious present day? Or do I continually look back and dwell on past regrets? Do I continually look forward and long for what has not yet come? Or do I really thank God that today I have air in my lungs, today I have a job to go to, or in my case a holiday to rest and use wisely for Him? Ask yourself these questions and if you go and see Kung Fu Panda, listen out for those carefully placed words and thank God for the present...it is a gift!

The Debt We Owe is the Gospel of Grace

I'm beginning to daily wade my way through Piper's sermon series on Romans. The following quote is the nuts and bolts of today's message which exhorts us to share the gospel of grace not just with unbelievers, but within the body of Christ.

Grace came to us absolutely free and unconditional from God when he called us to himself and loved us as his own. This grace makes us debtors to everyone who, like us, needs grace, because not to share the grace we received would imply that we qualified for it and they don't; and that would nullify grace. And what we share is the gospel of this great free grace. This is how we pay our debt to others: freely we received, freely we give.

Hindrances to Self-control

Over-eating? Gossiping? Spending money? Lustful thoughts? Anger? Lydia Brownback at The Purple Cellar posts about 5 things that prevent us from being more self-controlled in these areas, and more. I found this very helpful and would encourage you to visit her site and read more fully about the 5 hindrances below.

1. Competing desires
2. Wrong Motives
3. Failure to understand the destructive power of overindulgence
4. Failure to know ourselves
5. We think self-control should be easy because we are Christians.

Don't Waste Your Life - Don't become a Chamois!

If you're thinking about, approaching, or in your retirement you should watch this clip. If you're not quite there yet (like me), ask ourself this question: how and what are you planning for your future?

Fear not men but let God be your fear

The title is a quote from one of Samuel Rutherford's letters written to one of his parishioners in the mid 1600's. I don't know about you but I certainly still need to be reminded of this truth today in 2008. I've been reminded of it today in a couple of ways.

First, our pastor Peter Grainger continued our series in the book of Acts today with a sermon entitled "The First Megachurch". His third point dealt with the account of Ananias and Sapphira and the "great fear" of God that swept through the early church as a result of these events (Acts 5:11). Peter quoted from Richard Longnecker's commentary on Acts:

…while we may be thankful that judgement upon deceit in the church is not now so swift and drastic, the incident stands as an indelible warning regarding the heinousness in God’s sight of deception in spiritual and personal matters.

You can listen to the whole sermon here. As Peter was preaching, it occurred to me how often I don't fear God as I should, but instead spend far too much energy focussing on sinful fears based on material worries and anxieties about family or what others think of me. In his excellent book Running Scared, Ed Welch shows us that the antidote to the fears that cripple us is a proper fear of God:

If you really want to fight fear, learn to fear Someone who captures your attention in such a way that your other fears suddenly seem pedestrian and unimportant...Can you hear the echo of the Sermon on the Mount? After Jesus reasoned with us about our worries and anxieties, he gave us the premier anti-anxiety treatment: "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness" (Matt 6:33). You treat worries by pursuing what is even more important. Fear still reveals our allegiances, this time in a positive way. If we have a mature fear of the Lord, it means that we value and revere him above all else. That's how we fight fear with fear.

So by earnestly seeking to live in reverent fear of God, I counter the sinful fears that so often clog up my life and distract me from serving him as I should. Or to put it another way, when my life is full of worry and fear, it probably means that I am not fearing God as I should.

He who fears the LORD has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge (Proverbs 14:26)

Radical Heavenly Mindedness!

Over the past week I've been keeping an eye on the various talks given at the Together for the Gospel Conference. While ironing yesterday I listened to John Piper's address: How the Supremacy of Christ Creates Radical Christian Sacrifice.

As usual, Piper really messes with your soul in this talk, stripping back all that we hold dear in this life and challenging us to live risk-taking sacrificial lives for Christ. Speaking from various texts in Hebrews, Piper looks at why the early Christians joyfully accepted the plundering of their property as they risked visiting their brothers and sisters in prison. He asks: "What created this lifestyle of risk by visiting other Christians in prison?" He answers: "It was their amazing emotional persuasion that what they were about to inherit in the great reward was so superior in its value that it made the loss of their present possessions as nothing to them... they knew they had an abiding possession - it was profound heavenly mindedness concerning the infinite value of this great reward."

I believe he was exactly right when he went on to challenge those of us who have bought into the argument that to be so heavenly minded means that we are no earthly good. For these early believers, their focus was on the great reward, they were so heavenly minded that their witness was of supreme good on earth. To be radically heavenly minded means we are truly free from this world. We don't care about taking risks for Christ. We gladly sacrifice all that we have for his glory.

There was so much in this talk! I haven't even begun to relay Piper's exposition of the "great reward" - for this you need to take time to listen here!

Apart for the Gospel

Perhaps many of you will resonate with this article when your spouse has the opportunity to attend a Christian conference, or even his pastoral work takes him away from home for a few days. Often, in my own experience I struggle when my husband heads off for the weekend with work, or takes some time away to attend a pastor's retreat or conference. I pretty much, all of the time, get quite negative, withdraw into myself and begin to feel the weight of being home with three kids on my own.

Although I know that my husband and others are profiting immensely from their time away, sadly I'm not focused on seeing this as a time of potential for gospel living and growing while we're apart. Unfortunately I'll all too often find myself battling resentment, that yet again it's not my chance to get away. Apart for the Gospel reminded me that in times like these, this is my opportunity to show forth the gospel in a unique way.

HT: Girltalk

Fighting Bossiness

Noel Piper recently posted a great article on the Desiring God blog about fighting bossiness . This is something that I can certainly relate to and maybe you can too. She writes

I feel very comfortable telling people what to do, speaking as if I know what’s best. Others call it bossy. My fight for self-control in this area has two parts—reminding myself who God is and then preaching that to myself.

You can read the rest of her article here.

Happy New Year!

The young people of Charlotte Chapel enjoyed a Hogmanay party, bringing in the New Year with a ceilidh, followed by first-footing throughout the night. We began the festivities however with a service of reflection, looking back on God’s goodness over the past year and looking forward with anticipation to all that God is going to do in the year to come.

As well as some singing and time of prayer, Adam McNinch shared a challenging word with us about change. He began by highlighting some of the world’s most popular New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Lose weight
2. Get fit
3. Stop smoking
4. Stop drinking
5. Save money

However, as important as it is to look after our bodies and be wise with our money, it is much more important to identify areas of a spiritual nature that we need changed in our lives. Laziness, pride and gossip are but a few of the sinful characteristics he listed.

So many of us have failed to keep our resolutions before January is over because we think the changing is all down to us and our efforts! Praise God that He is the one at work within us by His Holy Spirit transforming us into the likeness of Christ. (2Cor 3v18) However this is not an excuse to sit back and expect change to just come about in our lives.

Adam went on to challenge our devotion to change in comparison with our devotion to meeting a deadline at school, university or in the workplace. How often do we stay up working late to finish a pressing piece of work, yet fail to put in time and effort to read the Bible and pray? Was it not Paul who prayed day and night for the Thessalonians? (1 Thess 3v10) How often have we fasted with a friend over a habitual sin, fully committed and earnest that God will bring about change in our lives? All too often, we are those who give up with little effort, writing ourselves off as unchangeable! Instead – let us find accountable partners who we can prayerfully share our desire to change with and regularly encourage and challenge each other.

So as we go into the New Year, let’s get our priorities right! Let us be excited about change and long for God to continue to pour more of his grace into our lives.

"A Fatal Mistake"

If you're filling up the MP3 player for another week's commuting I can recommend that you download the sermon given today by Nicki's husband Colin. He was preaching from chapters 42 and 43 of Jeremiah, expounding story of Jeremiah's journey to Egypt with a remnant of the Israelites after the Babylonian invasion. It challenges us about how easy it can be to live contrary to God's will, even as a Christian and how difficult it can be to repent. You can listen to it here.

Rachel's Fighting for Joy!

I mentioned on Saturday that we are glad to have Rachel Sprott join us here at the blog. Today I'm posting on her behalf a book review of John Piper's When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy. Here's what Rachel has to say about it.

I was intrigued by the title of John Piper’s book - ‘When I don’t desire God - How to fight for joy.’ Having enjoyed one of his best known works, ‘Desiring God’, I am compelled to agree with Piper that, ‘God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.’ However, after reading the blurb on the back of this book, I was gripped by the urgent question John asks, "What do you do when you discover the good news that God wants you to be content in him, but then find that you aren’t?"

This deeply challenging book, questions the root of our pursuit of joy. Are we merely pursuing joy and not God himself? Is it joy in God we’re after, or joy in his gifts?

As I read this book, I found myself increasingly aware that fighting for joy is a battle. Fighting for joy may seem a vague and airy fairy concept but Piper puts it so well. He describes it as a fight to see. The world screams at us to prefer its pleasures, to marvel at the media and to desire its delights.

Jesus demands for himself: ‘Prefer my light, like my fellowship, want my wisdom, run to my refuge, be glad in my grace. Above all, delight in me as a person.

Among the many excellent chapters of this book, the role that the Word and Prayer have in our fight for joy, are just two key areas in which Piper provides extremely helpful insights. As I reflected on my reading of this book, there is no doubt that for me, the most challenging point he expresses comes from his Father who passed away earlier this year. I am grateful for his words.

A few days ago I called my eighty-five-year-old father and said, “Daddy, I am writing a book on how to fight for joy. What one thing comes to your mind from sixty years of ministry as to what Christians could do to increase their joy?” Almost without hesitation he said, “Share their faith.”

In my own limited experience, there is nothing quite like the rewarding, joy-filled experience of telling someone about Jesus. John builds on his Father’s words in such a challenging way that he when I read them, they pierced deep into my heart,

Joy in Christ thrives on being shared. That is the essence of Christian joy: It overflows or dies. Millions of Christians live with a low-grade feeling of guilt for not openly commending Christ by their words. They try to persuade themselves that keeping their noses morally clean is a witness to Christ. The problem with this notion is that millions of unbelievers keep their noses morally clean. Christians will-and should-continue to feel bad for not sharing their faith.

Christ is the most glorious person in the world. His salvation is infinitely valuable. Everyone in the world needs it. Horrific consequences await those who do not believe on Jesus. By grace alone we have seen him, believed on him, and now love him. Therefore, not to speak of Christ to unbelievers, and not to care about our city or the unreached peoples of the world is so contradictory to Christ’s worth, people’s plight, and our joy that it sends the quiet message to our souls day after day, this Saviour and this salvation do not mean to you what you say they do. To maintain great joy in Christ in the face of that persistent message is impossible.

May we be those who enjoy Christ so much that talking of Him with those around us, increases our joy and brings Him glory. As we battle to love Him as our greatest treasure, may we be encouraged by this reminder,

Christ is supremely glorious and supremely valuable. Therefore he is worth the fight.

Love the skin you're in?

You may be familiar with the latest advertising campaign from Dove beauty products, the "Campaign for Natural Beauty". Amongst other things, they are encouraging women to throw off society's expectation that women should be a certain dress size and strive to look a certain way. The slogan of the campaign is "Love the skin you're in". I don't disagree with the sentiment that women should be happy with how they are and not spend an inordinate amount of time and money in an attempt to conform with how the models in magazines and on billboards look. However, I suspect that what lies behind the slogan (as well as a team of shrewd marketing experts) is a belief that self-love is the key to happiness in life.

But that is not a biblical view of love, or of our purpose in life. John Piper puts it well in his book Don't Waste Your Life:

For most people, to be loved is to be made much of. Almost everything in our Western culture serves this distortion of love. We are taught in a thousand ways that love means increasing someone's self esteem. Love is helping someone feel good about themselves. Love is giving someone a mirror and helping him like what he sees.

This is not what the bible means by the love of God. Love is doing what is best for someone. But making self the object of our highest affections is not best for us. It is, in fact, a lethal distraction. We are made to see and savour God- and savouring him, to be supremely satisfied, and thus spread in all the world the worth of his presence. Not to show people the all-satisfying God is not to love them. To make them feel good about themselves when they were made to feel good about seeing God is like taking someone to the Alps and locking them in a room full of mirrors.

Discerning What Pleases God

This past week, John Piper, among others, has been speaking at the New Attitude conference on the theme of discernment. I am particularly looking forward to downloading the following talks on discerning what pleases God.

• Discerning What Pleases God: Himself

• Discerning What Pleases God: Personal Obedience

All the other talks have been made available courtesy of Sovereign Grace Ministries here. So check out such talks like discerning your doctrine, your culture, the gray matters and know how to apply!

Redeeming the Time

Just a quick recommendation of a useful resource. Few of us may get the opportunity to study at bible college or seminary, but every Christian can benefit from the sort of teaching provided there. One way we can achieve this is using the otherwise "dead time" while we drive to work, make dinner or clean the house. An excellent resource to help us do this is the Biblical Training website which has a range of talks available for download from lay to seminary level.

I'm working my way through the New Testament Survey which is taught by Dr Bill Mounce and I can highly recommend it.