NA 07

After a conference like New Attitude you can't help but come away with knowing that God is good. Through all of the wisdom learned, the scripture taught, the praise and worship, the biblical fellowship, the incredibly funny memories, the tears shed, the strengthened relationships, the conviction of sin, and the truth revealed, there was one common theme: that God was glorified.

What a privledge it was to be able to hear men like Josh Harris, Eric Simmons, Mark Dever, Al Mohler, C.J Mahaney, and John Piper speak with one particular topic in focus. Discernment.
The messages can all be downloaded for free here at Sovereign Grace Ministries online book store. Use this wealth of knowledge and sound Biblical teaching to grow in God and apply truth to your life.

Here are the top 20 Highlights of the Trip for me:

1. My horrible failure to anoint the group with prayer at the beginning of the trip. (God's way of humbling me I think)

2. Writing on the cars.

3. Getting to ride in the front seat the entire way there and back. (Big-bird needs to spread his wings)

4. Having great biblical fellowship and discussion almost the entire way up and back. (Thank You ladies)

5. Taking way too many pictures.

6. The occasional head-butt of too many hunters. (catching my drift?)

7. Jonathan and Nathan's "Showdown in the Shower". (I died laughing and I wasn't even there)

8. "birrrr, birrrr, birrrr" (guys only)

9. Observing and unfortunately participating in "The Game". (I'm so sorry Kevin)

10. Meeting new people.

11. Finding out what God is doing in other peoples lives. (isn't it amazing to see that God is working with as much care in others life as your own?)

12. Hearing all of the wonderful preaching.

13. Getting not one but TWO hugs from Josh Harris. (Kaleb was a close second)

14. Worship. (never fails does it?)

15. Cramming all seven guys into one hotel room to save money. (thank you for the negotiating skills Kevin)

16. Saving Seats. (I almost lost my life twice)

17. Not Junk food. (we are never doing "Wal-Mart" again)

18. The foot stomping thing in the bleachers. (I wonder if you can hear it on the audio?)

19. Ryan and Kaleb getting Al Mohlers cell-phone number.

20. Being served so wonderfuly by the humble ladies in our group. Your humble servant-hood and never ending patience made leading you and serving you, a joy and a blessing.

-Kyle (but the last one is from all of the Men)-

Lest We Forget...

I am fully aware that by nature I am a forgetful creature. But I’ve come to realize that the times I forget the most is when it’s not really important to me and I don’t take the time to engrave it on my heart and mind. As Christians we can fall into the familiar. We can walk through our day, busy with life and forget who we are. I’m not saying we forget our names, but we forget WHO we are and WHO we’re living for. Everyday we forget. We forget appointments, to call someone, where we put our keys. But all of this doesn’t compare to the amnesia we have about who God is and His call on our lives. I have been going through the books of the Old Testament recently and have been struck over and over at how the story evolves. A man anointed to be king by God, will start out his reign serving the Lord and in return the Lord blesses him and his kingdom. And I’m not talking about little gifts here and there. I’m talking about palaces, incredible riches, becoming victorious in battles that would have been humanly impossible for them to win and their kingdoms becoming some of the greatest in the world. Why then would one of these kings suddenly find himself losing his grip on his kingdom and having almost everything taken from him? They forgot God and His command to “remember” Him. Here are a few of the dictionaries definitions of the word:

re·mem·ber
–verb (used with object)
1. to recall to the mind by an act or effort of memory; think of again:
2. to retain in the memory; keep in mind; remain aware of:
3. to have (something) come into the mind again:

Remember, is a verb. It’s an action. Not a passive pursuit. But day after day, hour by hour, minute by minute I forget to remember God. If God’s anointed kings in the Old Testament are plagued with forgetting God, how then is someone like me to survive this snare? Even King David, a man after God’s own heart, was fully aware of the temptations to forget and the importance of remembering.

Psalm 88:12Are your wonders known in the darkness,or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

Psalm 102:4My heart is struck down like grass and has withered;I forget to eat my bread.

Psalm 137:5If I forget you, O Jerusalem,let my right hand forget its skill!

Psalm 106:21They forgot God, their Savior,who had done great things in Egypt,

Psalm 22:27All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD,and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.

Psalm 77:11I will remember the deeds of the LORD;yes, I will remember your wonders of old.

God instructs His people continually to remember Him. And there are no little consequences in failing to obey this commandment. But there are indeed great rewards for obeying it. How patient and merciful a God we serve that puts up with us, even though we forget about Him more times than not.

Numbers 15:39And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after.

Deuteronomy 4:9"Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life.

Sometimes, when life gets busy, I can put God on the back burner. I will rush through my devotions and reading His word, or worse, not do them at all. But God has been impressing on my heart the question, “Are you willing to take the risk of forgetting?” Everyday I let pass that I don’t study the Bible or let my thoughts dwell on the Lord, I forget a little bit more. But my thoughts aren’t just ebbing away to the point where there will be nothing left, they’re being replaced by something. The lies of the world and cravings of our own heart. If we aren’t purposeful to fill our thoughts with the truths of God, then sin is sure to be close behind. Forgetfulness is no small phenomenon as seen in the Old Testament passages. It is at the heart of disobedience, idolatry, pride, and destruction. Why would anyone forget God? The writer of Deuteronomy suggests that pride is the key to comprehending why we forget the one who is unforgettable (8:14). Yet is the matter as simple as this one word? It is both simple and wildly complex. Pride is a word that implies we wish to see ourselves as self-sufficient, needing no one and nothing outside of ourselves for our existence. We forget God because to remember him is to be stripped of our presumption of independence, control, and self-centeredness. So, in order to help fight against forgetfulness, we must humble ourselves, knowing that we will never be able to succeed without His help. I am thankful that God has presently given me a passion to read His word and spend time with Him and I hope that if I even detect the slightest hesitancy to read His word or follow Him, that I will quickly recount the works and wonders of the Lord, “lest I forget”.

“Lord, thank you for Your mercies that are new every morning and Your patience with a forgetful people. May I keep Your works ever before me and be inclined to remember You rather than forget You. Amen”

-Lana Calabello

Gray Matters

With New Attitude just a week away I thought it may be appropriate to focus on the topic of discernment since that will be the topic of NA07. Eric Simmons has done a wonderful series on discernment called Graymatters and you can listen to the messages online. He has also written a kind of summary of the messages on Boundless.org. He gives five principles for growing in discernment that have implications for our daily lives:

• Imitate God
  
• Distrust your heart
  
• Think biblically
  
• Involve others
  
• Decide to worship

Eric gives the following verse and insight on discernment:

Hebrews 5:14 says, "Solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.""Notice something in this passage: There's no mention of gray. There's good, and there's evil. And how do you tell the difference? Discernment. Just because something is fuzzy or unclear to us doesn't mean it's fuzzy or unclear to God.

If we're honest we'll all admit we need to grow in discernment. But how? "

These messages and articles are a great tool to learn how to live, in the power of the grace given to us, discerning and God glorifying lives.

-Ryan-

Lewis on Reading

Kevin and Ryan, this one's for you, since I know you both love to read. Hee hee. Really, though, I thought these quotes were so good that I had to copy them from Justin Taylor's blog.

C.S. Lewis on why we enjoy reading:

The nearest I have yet got to answer is that we seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves. Each of us by nature sees the whole world from one point of view with a perspective and a selectiveness peculiar to himself. And even when we build disinterested fantasies, they are saturated with, and limited by, our own psychology. To acquiesce in this particularity on the sensuous level—in other words, not to discount perspective—would be lunacy. We should then believe that the railway line really grew narrower as it receded into the distance. But we want to escape the illusions of perspective on higher levels too. We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own. We demand windows. Literature as Logos is a series of windows, even of doors. One of the things we feel after reading a great work is “I have got out.” Or from another point of view, “I have got in”; pierced the shell of some other monad and discovered what it is like inside.

Literature enlarges our being by admitting us to experiences not our own. They may be beautiful, terrible, awe-inspiring, exhilarating, pathetic, comic, or merely piquant. Literature gives the entree to them all. Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom realize the enormous extension of our being that we owe to authors. We realize it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense, but he inhabits a tiny word. In it, we should be suffocated. My own eyes are not enough for me. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or bee. In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in a Greek poem, I see with a thousand eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 137–141. Cited in Jerram Barrs's essay, Christianity and the Arts.

(HT: BetweenTwoWorlds)

-Amber-

Subwoofer

I thought perhaps that this poem by Denver Theological Seminary professor, Doug Groothius, though catchy and rather humerous, was a tad excessive.


Thumping, bumping from nowhere—louder, deeper, unmistakable,
unavoidable.

Now from everywhere—pounding, roaring, bursting into my
unprotected being, uninvited, unstoppable.

A rolling, prowling object
radiating meanness, rudeness, crudeness, lewdness.

Sonic stench of thick machine noise
Putrid pulsations penetrating the unwary sensorium.

Subwoofer
Sonic-ravager
Noise-blaster
Rudeness-amplifier
Rudeness-accelerator
Boom-bomber
Bombast-er

Nowhere to hide
No shield to wield
No escape from the quake.

Vibrations vitiating body and soul
No cover for the ears
It roars in through the pores,
the spores of sonic death,
disintegration, degeneration.

At last, the beastly roar retreats
from the scene of the cultural crime.

The wounded remain
dazed, angry, helpless

On it thunders, to terrorize, victimize all in its audio wake
More sensoria to scuttle
down the wretched road

Shalom undone,
plundering peace, ravaging reason,
ear by ear, soul by soul.

Subwoofer
Sub-humanizer
De-humanizer
Anti-humanizer
Uncivil, uncivilizing
profitable, popular, poisonous

Subwoofer

Nowhere to be seen or heard or feared or hated
inthe Kingdom that is to come!

-Kyle-

Feats of Bravery

You can find many more of these excellent vidoes here at Desiring God's new ministry, "Don't Waste Your Life."

-Kyle-

Summer Reading, Anyone?

Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart by John Ensor is an exciting new book from Crossway Books. To use the words of Nicole at GirlTalk, it's an "insightful, fresh, well-written" book on biblical manhood and womanhood, and it's geared towards singles!

You can see more about the book by clicking here. This page allows you to view each of the chapters!

Thought I'd share in case anyone hadn't seen it yet!

(HT: GirlTalk)

-Amber-

Couldn't Think of a Good Title

You wake up in the morning, walk out of your bedroom and maybe grab a cup of coffee or a quick bite to eat. Normally, immediately after this would be time for devotions. However, today you just don't feel like doing them. What's the point anyways? besides you sinned again yesterday in a particular area that has been hounding you for years, so how can you approach God's Word and expect Him to give you any grace? Does this sound familiar? have you ever experienced these types of thoughts or feelings? I know that I have. Sometimes every day of the week.

Here are a few reasons as to why we shouldn't decide to NOT read: (I'm sorry if that statement is confusing :)

1. It Glorifies God and Humbles Ourselves
Perhaps one of the most humbling things that we can do is to acknowledge to God that we desperately need Him even if every part of our being desires to do something other than read His Word. James 4:7 says, "submit yourselves therefore to God." When we pass up our devotions for something else we fail to submit ourselves to Him and to His Will. Essentially we are placing ourselves in His rightful place and attempting to rule over our lives. Who would have thought that such a small thing could have such devastating and prideful implications? However, when we do "submit" ourselves to God we humble ourselves before Him and scripture says that "He will exalt you." Some of my sweetest and most intimate times with God have been periods where I had no inclination to read God's Word, but by His grace read anyways.

2. Us = Not Drifting.
Many times I have foolishly listened to the Devil's empty promises and told myself that I will read tomorrow or later that day. This is stupid and sinful(blunt yes, but true). We Never drift toward Godliness. If we wait to read God's word until the "mood strikes us" then I can assure you, the only scripture we will hear will be the little that is read to us on Sunday. I have even carried my Bible with me all day thinking that somehow His truth will seep through the pages. How foolish, how utterly prideful. It is very necessary and in fact vital that we not pass up opportunities to submit ourselves to God and His moral law.

These are only two reasons, but there are many more. We just have to read scripture to find them ;)

Hopefully these words have not come across as preachy or prideful All of these things I mentioned are areas that I have struggled in and desperately need God's help to grow in. I just wanted to share what I believe God laid on my heart.

P.S. I stole the drifting thing from Mike Bullmore.

-Kyle-

The Best Show on Earth

Excessive Introspection

Did you realize that it's posssible to examine your heart too much? Here's blogger Tony Reinke's write-up of David Powilson's thoughts on the danger of being overly introspective.

Mind your own Business

I recently stumbled upon a message by Mike Bullmore called Undistracted Discipleship. It addressed a topic that I had just become aware of in my life. I provided the link to it and encourage all of you to listen to it, he made great points that I believe would be benefiting to all. He spoke out of John 21:15-25, where Jesus is reinstating Peter and after Jesus commands Peter to “Follow Me!” Peter responses the same way I find I do all too much. Scripture says “Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one (John) who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, "Lord, who is going to betray you?") When Peter saw him, he asked, "Lord, what about him?"

I ask this same question very often in my heart, “Lord, what about him?” Even good things in other people can distract me from God. When I see my friends growing in areas I am not, I become discontent. Or see fellow believers not growing, I become puffed up. Or see them going through trials, I ask God why and don’t trust him. Or the lack of trials in other’s lives, I start to pity myself and think how bad I have it. This is only a glimpse at how this response can affect us. Mike Bullmore showed in his message how much mental and emotional effort this takes and how it doesn’t please God. The Savior is before me wants me to follow him and I am concerned with this guy’s gifting and ranking that guys spiritual level.

Jesus’ response to Peter’s question is like always blunt yet beautiful. Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me." Jesus basiscally is saying “yea what about him, I reign over his life just like I reign over yours, “Mind your own business” and don’t worry about him, focus on me, Follow me! Our Father lovingly frees us from having to take up this concern, “What is that to you?”, don’t think about him or her and their life, Think about your Lord and Savoir and what he is doing in your life.

Thank you Lord for biblical teaching that points to the truth of Your Word. I pray that through your Spirit I would become more aware of You and less of others. Help me to surrender my whole heart, mind, and soul to you Lord, Thank you for every means of Grace that you provide to me, may all the Glory go you.

http://www.sovereigngracechurch-ga.org/mp3s/20070218_MBullmore.mp3

-Ryan-

Evangelism: One Life

Colossians 4: 2-6 says this: "Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison- that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person."

Yesterday I was listening to another message by Eric Simmons. It was entitled "One Life". It was very similer to the message he spoke at New Attitude last year about evangelism. In this message, he talked about how important it is for us to share the Gospel, because this world deperately needs it. We can tend to think that everybody has heard the Gospel but just choose to reject it. That's true alot of times, however, there are still many people who don't even know what it is. I know for me, it frightens me to share the Gospel because I'm always afraid of what they'll think or how they'll respond. Eric says in His message that this is a good thing. None of us are going to be professional at this. Only God is. The best evangelist in the world could go share the Gospel with the same person that didn't respond well to me, and they might not get any better of a response. It's our job to plant the seed, and God's job to water. The basis of Eric's message is this: Just pick one Life. One friend that you know is not saved and desperately needs the Gospel. Here's the catch, if we pray in faith for opportunities, they will happen. God is so faithful.

Father God, forgive me for my selfish motives in not sharing your truth with those around me. I pray that you help me to speak your truth with faith, and boldly proclaim your Gospel. I don't live on this earth for myself, Lord. I live here for you, and you alone. I pray that you would remind me of this on a daily basis. Father, I am weak and I can't do anything at all without you. I thank you for your word that you have given to me, and I pray that you would help me to protect it and to proclaim it. For you are my everything. -Adam Morgan-