Fruitfull discussion with your wife!

This is a great way to spark fruitful and intimate conversation with the women closest to you. Your wife should always be your closest friend and women you serve before any other person

From: Bryan Croft with Practical Shepherding

"My post a few weeks back on what might be a surprising way to love your wife, brought requests of other additional questions that could be good discussion starters for a husband and wife. One request came from a dear pastor friend of mine preparing for a special vacation with his wife and wanted to engage her in some fruitful discussion while on it. Here is what I sent him and thought I would make it available to those of you who were requesting other questions of a similar spirit.

Here are 10 additional questions that husbands can and should be asking their wives if they desire to study, learn, and understand how to best love and care for them. You will notice some are more specific for a pastor and his wife.

- What can I do to make you feel loved and appreciated by me?

- What can I do to make you feel like I enjoy being with you more than anyone else?

- What are some things I can do to encourage you, spiritually?

- What can I do to help relieve the stress of life responsibilities?

- How can I best serve you in dealing with our children?

- What can I do to heighten your desire for physical intimacy?

- What can I do to make you feel our family is the priority over ministry?

- What can I do to help you grow in a love to serve our church?

- What kinds of moments when our family is together do you cherish the most?

- What do you love most about serving in ministry together? Greatest challenge?

Husbands and pastors, I hope these questions provoke much helpful and fruitful discussions that will lead you to a greater love and enjoyment of the wife of your youth as well as to equip you to love her in such a way that she feels loved and care for.

We Aren't Needed!!! By John Piper

Ministers are not needed by God! We are chosen by God to be leaders in the His church. It's His Grace not anything we have accomplished!

"(Author: John Piper)

Some books are for tasting regularly, not reading through once. One such book is Wise Counsel: John Newton's Letters to John Ryland Jr. edited by Grant Gordon (Banner of Truth, 2009). Newton was the former slave-trader turned pastor, and the author of "Amazing Grace". The flavor of his ministry is such that frequent tastes are better than rare gulps.

I hope that he and you and I shall all so live, as to be missed a little when we are gone. But the Lord standeth not in need of sinful man. And he sometimes takes away his most faithful and honoured ministers in the midst of their usefulness, perhaps [for this reason] among others, that he may show us he can do without them. . . . Blessed is the servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing, with his loins girded up, and his lamp burning. (p. 280)"

"

God is in control! He is not far away!

Lyrics Far Far Away (You feel) Far Away. (You Seem) Far Away.. So So (x2)
Hopeless!
I can spell it
I can smell it in the air
Lotta people wonder if you still care
And are you still there
Cuz I dun lost it all
I keep calling your name
But do you hear my call
And are you still involved
Or am I left alone
I wander the streets
Cuz I no longer have a home
My brothers all GONE
My sisters all GONE
My families and my friends aint gonna be here in the Mornin
Ya see me hear mourning
They say you feel my pain
They say you went through it
Say to die is to gain
But I aint gain nothing
I lost everybody
Now Im losing my mind
And my faith is all Im counting
Im still holding on
Thats why Im still pray
Feelin empty inside
I cant make it through today
I dont know what else to do
I dont know what else to say
Im talking to ya now
But I promise you feel so far


Far Far Away (You feel) Far Away. (You Seem) Far Away.. So So (X4)

Dear hope: Been waitin on ya for a while now
Been cut so deep that I aint sure if I can smile now
Look at this devastation
Look at the pain and sorrow
Somebody fed me lies and promised me a bright tomorrow
I know the God I follow
Is bigger than disaster
Big enough to handle
Any evil that harasses us
But I feel like he passed us
Pain overtook us
Buildings tumble over head
As the ground shook us
God have you forsook us
Lord you still with me
I know you save souls
I trust you to forgive me


Relief can you hear me
Hey Rest can you get me
Hey Peace can you see me
Hey love can you heal me

I dont know what to do
I aint looking for answers
I just need you to hold my hand
Through this cancer
Tell me you never left
Even in the midst of death
Breathe on me Ill do anything to feel your Breath

Far Far Away (You feel) Far Away. (You Seem) Far Away.. So So (X4)
(PSALMS 62:5-8)
5. For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
6. He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
7. On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.
8. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.

(Far far away.) Hes not (Far Away) No hes not (Far Away) Our Gods not Even though he seems

The Atonement

Chapter Overview of Systematic Theology

The Atonement is what Jesus accomplished both in his life and death to bring about our salvation. The basic idea is that humans needed God to send a representative to set them free from sin. Do we know what caused Christ to come down to earth and die for mans sins? Yes we do! “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” John 3:16 God loved man so much that he came down to set him free. In order to is set man free he had to remain completely just at the same time. So, God in his infinite wisdom set forth a plan to give man his son as a substitute for their sins. (Rom 3:25) God requires that sin be paid for. It is our penalty. The wrath of God has been stored up from the beginning of the earth ready to be unleashed on sin. Without God punishing sin he would not remain the just God that he is.

How do we know we need Christ? We know because we have broken His holy law. The penalty for that is death and eternal separation from God and we can’t obey the law because we have inherited sin. How’d we inherit it? We received from our first parent’s disobedience to God. God gave a command to Adam in the beginning and Adam disobeyed falling away from God, and in Adam we all sinned. (Rom 5:14) Now none of us not even one can or even wants to follow God. We are by our very nature Children of Wrath. (Rom 1:18) This is why we needed Christ to save us. We had a debt that needed to be paid, either by our suffering under Gods eternal wrath or allowing that suffering to be poured out on one that is completely holy and blameless, perfect in all his ways, so we could receive mercy, grace, and love.

Was there any other way than Christ dieing on the cross to pay for sins? If there were another way would not have God taken it. Jesus said, “ If it is possible, let this cup pass from me…” Matt 26:39 If there was any other way other than dieing on a cross and taking our full punishment God would have taken that road instead of his sufferings. But we had to be bought with the Blood of Christ. (1 Peter 1:19) it took his blood to make man righteous. He had to live a perfect human life and then take upon himself the punishment of man to make him righteous. (Rom 5)

It is important for us to realize that the main work Christ did, redemption, is not our work. It has been entirely finished by Christ. Jesus died for us but we must realize its Jesus who died! He made the many righteous. (Rom 5:19) He made us alive. (Eph 2:5) He transformed us. (2^nd Cr 5:17) It is all His work and we can do nothing but be made alive by Christ.

Wayne Grudem separates the atonement into two aspects: 1) Christ’s obedience for us and 2) Christ’s sufferings for us.

The First Part shows that Christ had to live in perfect obedience under the law of God. This is our proof that he was the perfect sacrifice acceptable to God. It also communicates that we are made righteous because he was our righteousness for us. If Christ never lived a holy life he would not be able to impute his righteousness to us through faith then Phil 3:1, “ not having a righteousness of his own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ,” would not be valid for man. We wouldn’t have his righteousness attained for us through his life if he didn’t live perfect.

The second part has been covered thoroughly so far but we must know that by Christ dieing on the cross he bore the wrath of God on our behalf. (1^st John 4:10) he died for sins, (Heb 9:26) he bridged the gap between God and man, (2^nd Cr 5:18-19) and he saved us out of the kingdom of darkness. (Col 1:13)

The atonement is the final complete work of Christ on behalf of condemned sinners. It is God Show he is love, mercy, just, forgiving, longsuffering, and glorious. Both in Christ’s life and his death he shows us characteristics of himself, doing it for his glory. The resurrection of Christ proves that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and counted him worthy on our behalf!

SEND ME!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOsBE_xbSj0

Living By Grace

Living by faith! Living in complete surrender to Christ. This can be something that is very hard to do. Realizing and maintaining the attitude that Christ is sustaining us every moment. He is giving us grace to live!

Matt 6:26-27 For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, {as to} what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, {as to} what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and {yet} your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?

God is allowing us to walk and move and accomplish what He wants in our life. But God is also most glorified in you and me when we are completely satisfied with him. When we can count loosing life or family or jobs or toys or health as gain because we are left with Christ, that makes him look Glorious. When our joy is in God, not in this world. Paul says he boast in weakness because in weakness he is strong. That is saying that in weakness Christ is most satisfying.

We as Christian should not only think of Gods grace as the Justification of our sins even though that is completely what it is, but also look Grace as Gods sustaining power in your life that is given to us moment by moment in order that we may live out our lives in service to God.

1st Cor 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

Paul realized that everything he did was by the Power/Grace of God! we should do the same. God holds our future and will sustain us.

Lastly remember that Gods grace will not take away our pain or suffering but allow us to have joy in the middle of it! It is a supernatural Power enabling us to give thanks for what we have.

2nd Cor 8:1-3 Now, brethren, we {wish to} make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, {they gave} of their own accord,

Trust in God and may His grace sustain you!

Miracles

Miracles are a huge Topic in today’s charismatic movement. It seems to be all about miracles. So should we look for miracles? Why does it seem like miracles were more for the apostles than us? Let us look at some of these things together.

A big question today is, why do we see so many miracles back when the apostles were around and not today. First I’d like to say that they’re lots of miracles today. Every time someone gets saved that is the greatest miracle of all, but just for question sake ill go with the question being supernatural physical miracles. Acts 5:12-16 is a perfect place where we see lots of miracles being used by apostles. We do need to remember who the apostles were before going into miracles. The apostle where directly taught by Jesus and sent out to establish his church. With this in mind we can see that God would do extra ordinary things with them so they can testify to God and establish the church. Today we have all the teaching of Christ and every thing that God chose to reveal has been given to us. This is a reason we don’t see as many miracles today. We already have everything we need to be sustained by Christ. We don’t need miracles to know its God. (2^nd Peter 1:3)

To go even further sometime supernatural things today can be to try and lead us away from God. Duet 13 talks about signs being used to lead us away from God. We need to be completely in love with Him so that these miracles don’t draw our attention to another teacher. Miracle from false teacher will be allowed by God to test the people to See if the love God or miracles.

So today should we seek miracles? This can be a good question. Many people would say yes. They would say that seeking miracles shows that God is real. But miracles are not the standard or the proof that God exist. All creation testifies that God is real. So we don’t need a miracle. I would tell you that we are not to seek after the miracles today. But we are to run after Jesus Christ and if a miracles to meet someone’s needs happens praise Jesus for it. Otherwise be fully in love with God. Be radical for him! Don’t chase after something you mite never see. But fallow the one who will satisfy your soul forever.