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How to Overcome Discouragement

Who doesn’t get discouraged sometimes? My wonderful wife passed this along to me…and I needed to hear it. Perhaps you do to? (click here for article)

Discouragement is curable. Whenever I get discouraged, I head straight to Nehemiah. This great leader of ancient Israel understood there were four reasons for discouragement.

First, you get fatigued. You simply get tired as the laborers did in Nehemiah 4:10. We’re human beings, and we wear out. You cannot burn the candle at both ends. So if you’re discouraged, it may be you don’t have to change anything. You just need a vacation! Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is go to bed.

Second, you get frustrated. Nehemiah says there was rubble all around. So much that it was getting in the way of rebuilding the wall. Do you have rubble in your life? Have you noticed that anytime you start doing something new, the trash starts piling up?

If you don’t clean it out periodically, it’s going to stop your progress. You can’t avoid it, so you need to learn to recognize it and dispose of it quickly so you don’t lose focus on your original intention.

What is the rubble in your life? I think rubble is the trivial things that waste your time and energy and prevent you from accomplishing what God’s called you to do.

Third, you think you’ve failed. Nehemiah’s people were unable to finish their task as quickly as originally planned, and as a result, their confidence collapsed. They were thinking, “We were stupid to think we could ever rebuild this wall.”

But you know what....(more)

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Church: Love It, Don’t Leave It

I came across an article (Newsweek / Washington Post) on the church that was witty, well-written, and perceptive. Here is a taste… (HT Between two Worlds)

Here’s what Bono, Oprah, and the guru speakers on PBS won’t tell you: Jesus believed in organized religion and he founded an institution. Of course, Jesus had no patience for religious hacks and self-righteous wannabes, but he was still Jewish. And as Jew, he read the Holy Book, worshiped in the synagogue, and kept Torah. He did not start a movement of latte-drinking disciples who excelled in spiritual conversations. He founded the church (Matt. 16:18) and commissioned the apostles to proclaim the good news that Israel’s Messiah had come and the sins of the world could be forgiven through his death on the cross (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 2:14-36).

For almost two millennia, it was axiomatic that Christians, like, actually went to church (or at least told other Christians they did). From Cyprian to Calvin it was believed that for those to whom God “is Father the church may also be Mother.” But increasingly Christians are trying to get more spiritual by getting less church.

Take a spin through the religion section at your local bookstore. What you’ll find there is revealing – there are “revolutionary” books for stay at home moms, teenagers, and Christian businessmen. There are lots of manifestos. And most of the books about church are about people leaving the church to “find God.” There are lots of Kerouacian “journey” stories, and at least one book about the gospel according to Starbucks. It used to be you had to overthrow a country to be considered a revolutionary, and now, it seems, you just have to quit church and go pray in the woods.

We’ve been in the church our whole lives and are not blind to its failings. Churches can be boring, hypocritical, hurtful, and inept. The church is full of sinners. Which is kind of the point. Christians are worse than you think. Our Savior is better than you imagine.

But the church is not all about oppression and drudgery. Almost every church we know of visits old people, brings meals to new moms, supports disaster relief, and does something for the poor. We love the local church, in spite of its problems, because it’s where we go to meet God. It’s not a glorified social/country club….(more)

Church: Love It, Don’t Leave It By Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck

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Has the Church lost her mind?

“Has the Church lost her mind?” That is a question that many within the evangelical world are rightly asking. After much study of this question, historian Mark Noll concluded that “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”[2] Os Guinness laments “Anti-intellectualism is a disposition to discount the importance of truth and the life of the mind. Living in a sensuous culture and an increasingly emotional democracy, American evangelicals in the last generation have simultaneously toned up their bodies and dumbed down their minds.”[3] Guinness even begins his book by including a humorous cartoon illustrating this sad state of affairs with one character saying to the other “Buns of Steel—Brains of Silly Putty!”[4] Evangelical Philosopher and Theologian William Lane Craig observes that “Our churches are filled with people who are spiritually born again, but who still think like non-Christians.”[5] Is this an accurate portrait?


Unfortunately, in many circles it is. But it shouldn’t be; it doesn’t have to be….

That is why Think Christianly exists. (Luke 10:27)

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[2] Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994), 3.

[3] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It (Grand Rapids: Hourglass Books, 1994), 9-10.

[4] Ibid., 8.

[5] William Lane Craig, Hard Questions, Real Answers (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), 13.

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God Has Spoken

It is sometimes said that God has written two books: creation and the Bible. God has first revealed Himself through and in what He has made. This is His general revelation to all people, in that everyone has equal access to it simply by watching a sunset at the beach, standing on a mountain top, or observing the night sky.

But God has also spoken through people in history and this is known as special revelation. In special revelation, God reveals information that could not have been discovered any other way (e.g., people can’t deduce from a sunset that Jesus Christ has provided salvation for any who would place their trust in Him). As they were led by the Holy Spirit, the authors of Scripture communicated God’s words to His people (from 1405 bc to ad 95). The books we possess, from Genesis to Revelation, are God’s final and authoritative revelation to the world. No clearer word is needed and no higher authority can be appealed to.

An important corollary to this discussion is the Bible’s status of being “without error,” known as the doctrine of inerrancy. Because of God’s perfect character and the fact that He cannot lie, it follows that His revelation to us would be without error. But, you might ask, didn’t flawed and sinful human beings pen Scripture? Yes. But that is why the Holy Spirit guarded the original writings from error.

Theologian David Dockery offers a good summary of this doctrine, “When all the facts are known, the Bible (in its original writings) properly interpreted in light of which culture and communication means had developed by the time of its composition will be shown to be completely true (and therefore not false) in all that it affirms, to the degree of precision intended by the author, in all matters relating to God and his creation.” And even though none of the original manuscripts exist today, biblical scholars have sufficiently demonstrated that the Bible has been accurately and reliably preserved for us. Therefore, the Bible you can buy today is essentially the Word of God. Indeed, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16–17).

Passages to explore: Psalm 19:1–4; Matthew 5:18; John 10:35; 17:17; Romans 1:18–25; 2:14–16; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 1:1–2; 6:18; 2 Peter 1:16–21.