“Because we see the law and love of God fulfilled, we become both humble and bold because we know we are his by grace. This is unique. Without the gospel, humility and boldness can only increase at each other’s expense.” — Timothy Keller

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This is an excellent presentation on what is important as we consider what our churches are about.

Every service, we must choose what the church we pastor will be about. People or God. One will dominate; the choice and the responsibility is ours.

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HT= Jared Wilson

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“If I may speak my own experience, I find that to keep my eye simply on Christ, as my peace and my life, is by far the hardest part of my calling… It seems easier to deny self in a thousand instances of outward conduct, than in its ceaseless endeavors to act as a principle of righteousness and power.” — John Newton

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Yesterday I cane across this news story from Associated Press; 1 In 5 Young Adults Has Personality Disorder. I wondered, is this what we should expect from the 3rd generation raised since the Bible was taken out of our schools? These are young people without any knowledge of God, raised by parents who do not know of God. How could we expect anything else?

One might consider this a judgement of God. And perhaps it is. Also possible is that this is simply the consequence of raising children without the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

It is a sad thought either way…

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Tradition is Death to a true relationship with God. It allows people to go through the motions without having a heart experience. When the church starts doing things just because “we’ve always done it that way,” it is moving in the direction of a man-made religion. It is just an easy step to go from there to the elevation of tradition to dogma, allowing tradition to crowd out the Word and to excuse violations of the Word. — Chuck Smith

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For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame — who set their mind on earthly things (Philippians 3:18-19).

Scary verse, eh? Even more so in this day of cheap grace. The people Paul is writing about were the cheap grace folks of their day. No commitment, no conversion, no real change, and certainly no fruit. Are they even saved? I do not know for certain. These folks are the reason the legalists were after Paul so much. They were the very opposite of the legalists. As Jon Courson once remarked, "sloppy agape."

It is easy to say that these are the words of one man. The challenge is he is writing under the direction of the Holy Spirit. This is part of the Scripture. This is the Word of God. Jesus speaks in a similar vein to some others:

"Not everyone who says to Me,’Lord, Lord ,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.  Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord , have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’  23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’  (Matthew 7:21-23)

Serious stuff. We should all be certain to examine ourselves. It is important. I do not want to enter into eternity only to find I had deceived myself! How horrible would that be?

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“When I get to heaven, I shall see three wonders there. The first wonder will be to see many there whom I did not expect to see; the second wonder will be to miss many people whom I did expect to see; and the third and greatest of all will be to find myself there.” — John Newton

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• Colin Adams at Unashamed Workman has a great post entitled, "Why I Won’t Be Attending Brian McLaren." Amen!
• Interesting article about the pastor who helped get the inscription "In God We Trust" on our currency. He went to be with the Lord recently. Read more here. Interesting story. Interesting look into modern Christian history.

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