Men God Uses
Earlier this week my father in-law sent me this great summary, compiled by Samuel Guzman–via Horatius Bonar, of the type of men God uses. Men, especially pastors, it’s worth your time to think and pray through these nine:
There are many over-grown boys leading the professing Church today, acting like fools and profaning God’s name, in His name. God will never use them because they are serving a god made in their own image (Psalm 50:21), and not the true and living God. But what kind of men does God use?
Horatius Bonar, writing the preface to John Gillies’ Accounts of Revival, describes true men of God as possessing the following nine characteristics:
1. They were in earnest about the great work on which they had entered: “They lived and labored and preached like men on whose lips the immortality of thousands hung.”
2. They were bent on success: “As warriors, they set their hearts on victory and fought with the believing anticipation of triumph, under the guidance of such a Captain as their head.”
3. They were men of faith: “They knew that in due season they should reap, if they fainted not.”
4. They were men of labor: “Their lives are the annals of incessant, unwearied toil of body and soul; time, strength, substance, health, all they were and possessed they freely offered to the Lord, keeping back nothing, grudging nothing.”
5. They were men of patience: “Day after day they pursued what, to the eye of the world, appeared a thankless and fruitless round of toil.”
6. They were men of boldness and determination: “Timidity shuts many a door of usefulness and loses many a precious opportunity; it wins no friends, while it strengthens every enemy. Nothing is lost by boldness, nor gained by fear.”
7. They were men of prayer: “They were much alone with God, replenishing their own souls out of the living fountain, that out of them might flow to their people rivers of living water.”
8. They were men whose doctrines were of the most decided kind: “Their preaching seems to have been of the most masculine and fearless kind, falling on the audience with tremendous power. It was not vehement, it was not fierce, it was not noisy; it was far too solemn to be such; it was massive, weighty, cutting, piercing, sharper than a two-edged sword.”
9. They were men of solemn deportment and deep spirituality of soul: “No frivolity, no flippancy . . . . The world could not point to them as being but slightly dissimilar from itself.”
Falling Apart
“A Bible that is falling apart usually indicates a man who is not falling apart.”
-quoted by Kent Hughes at our Men’s Retreat this weekend
Nightime Worry
“Every night I give my worries over to the Lord. He’s going to be up all night anyway.”
Mary C. Crowley
Murderers & The Murdered One
My sermon on the 6th commandment from Sunday:
Download: Murderers & The Murdered One
Listen: Murderers & The Murdered One
Algebra for Parenting
A guest post by Taylor Buzzard:
This is a mathematics post. The reason for this different approach is my teething four-month-old’s frequent nighttime waking, which leaves me struggling to think clearly enough to form sentences. Math doesn’t require too many sentences, so I think this is a good plan. Let’s get started.
Your children are your dependents for 18 years. Yes, in some cases children try to remain dependents indefinitely. But, our task is to prepare them for life on their own, and 18 years is the amount of time they are our legal dependents, so 18 is the number we will work with.
Our algebra equation for the day is as follows:
x / 18 = y
“x” is your child’s age.
18 is the number of years your child is your dependent.
“y” is the percentage of time that has passed.
My firstborn is a mere 2.25 years old. He’s so young that I catch myself calling him my baby from time to time. Yet, mathematics tells me a sad truth.
2.25 /18 = 0.125
0.125 = 12.5%
12.5% of my time with him as my dependent is GONE. DONE. OVER. When I first did this calculation, I thought I had set up the equation wrong. It couldn’t be true, there had to be a mistake somewhere. I redid the math, I checked the equation, and had to face the dark reality. Over 10% of my time is done. And he’s still in diapers!
Algebra can help with parenting.
If you’ve had a challenging day with a know-it-all teenager, a pre-pubescent tween, a non-stop question asking child, or a shrieking infant, do the math and watch your heart soften. Our time with our children is fleeting. Be intentional. Seize every moment by the horns. And do the math again, every now and then, to remind yourself of how fast their childhood is going to whiz by.
Please, do the math. The math will help you love your children better today. The math will make you take a giant step backwards, away from the difficulties of parenting, to better see the privilege and delight of parenting. Take your child’s age, divide it by 18. Take the resulting number and move the decimal point over 2 places to the right, and that is the percentage of time that has passed. Leave a comment if the result leaves you a bit shocked.
Socrates in the City
T he latest issue of World has a great article, Mission to Metropolis, profiling the work Eric Metaxas is doing in New York City with Socrates in the City–a ministry that’s bringing the gospel to NYC’s cultural elites. Particularly helpful is Metaxas’ articulation of how William Wilberforce and friends have inspired his vision of gospel ministry.
On Labels…
Unless asked and able to define my terms, I don’t use labels/adjectives (“Evangelical,” “Reformed,” etc.) to describe my understanding of the Christian life because I think such labels are immediately polarizing, misunderstood, generally unnecessary, and very often a hindrance to advancing the gospel (especially here in the S.F. Bay Area). However, I appreciate this post by Kevin DeYoung and what he means by the label “Reformed.”
Scripture Memorization
If you’d like to use your ipod to help you memorize Scripture (ESV), this post will show you how to get started.
God-driven Preaching
“Missionaries, evangelists, and teachers who have understood both the scandal of the cross and the irreplaceable and foundational significance of of the news of Jesus the crucified and risen Messiah and Savior will not rely on strategies, models, methods, or techniques. They rely on the presence of God when they proclaim Jesus Christ, and on the effective power of the Holy Spirit.
This dependence on God rather than on methods liberates them from following every new fad, from using only one particular method, from using always the same techniques, and from copying methods and techniques from others whose ministry is deemed successful. Preachers of the gospel who understand that the primary cause of people coming to faith in Jesus the crucified Savior and Lord is the power of God become truly flexible, able to become a Jew for Jews and a Greek for Greeks.
They are authentically flexible because they are motivated not by the pressure of demonstrating the ‘effectiveness’ of their methods or the ‘success’ of their ministry but by their commitment to God and by their commitment to the people they seek to reach with the news of Jesus, a twofold commitment that is characterized by sacrificial love, faith and hope.”
Eckhard J. Schnabel, Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies and Methods p. 404 (paragraph breaks added)
Serve Christ Today
“Apart from the commitment of faith and a life of obedience no man can judge of his calling to the ministry. To learn how you may sere Christ tomorrow, you must serve him today. Stir up your gifts and Christ’s call will be made clear.”
“A man with a real gift of Christ cannot demand an immediate exercise of his gift under all circumstances. He must wait his turn, or even be silent…any man of God may be equipped for ministry before he is given full scope for service. Young men find it hard to wait for God’s season, but God always joins the man and the moment in perfect wisdom.”
Ed Clowney, Called to the Ministry
