Stetzer: A Repentance-Filled Life

"Secret Sin and Spiritual Power" from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.

Ed Stetzer's message at Innovate Conference. Stetzer stated that a gospel-centered life is a repentance-filled life. God convicted me of my secret sins through this message and made me to come to my knees and repent.

This is a must-see. Here is a brief outline of the sermon:

Secret Sins and Spiritual Power

Stop trying to convince yourself that secret sin in your life and in the church will not hinder the mission of God. Instead, live a gospel-centered, repentance-filled life.

4 Principles to Consider:

1. Secret sins are only that way for a short time.
2. Private sin can deliver the community of faith into public defeat.
3. The church's toleration of sin leads to a communal rejection of the mission.
4. A return to God's mission begins with repentance before God's standard.

Heart is an idol factory- John Calvin

A repentant people is God's most powerful instrument for ministry on earth.

The lie: Secret sin in your life and in the church will not hinder the mission of God.

The answer: Live a gospel-centered, repentance-filled life.

For full outline, click here.

Evian: Live Young

One of funny commercials from Evian. By next month, my daughter is turning to be too old (two years old) for this movie. Maybe for our next kid we will train him or her to be in it.

Drink water... Live young!

Pastors, Don't Be a Coach

Pastors, DON'T be a coach or a spiritual director, but become a shepherd who makes disciples. A coach may give a game plan; a spiritual director may impart some advice and directions in life. But only a shepherd involves his own life - even to an extent of costing his own as the Chief Shepherd (John 10:11-18).

Paul called Timothy his child in the faith (1 Tim. 1:1-2). Elisha called Elijah also father in 2 Kings 2:12-14. I believe a biblical disciple-making is a life-on-life discipleship as THE Disciple-Maker, Jesus Christ demonstrated during his earthly ministry.

Too many of us, so called pastors, nowadays have settled with coaching or spiritual directing, because either one usually DOES NOT get oneself involved with lives of others deeply but DOES enable us to handle our involvement in their lives PROFESSIONALLY. As result, there is shallowness in the church's discipleship programs, and the churches have replaced a life-on-life discipleship with a professional coaching, spiritual directing, or simply a good program.

Why would Paul use metaphors of family relationships to describe the church in Ephesians and also rendered such acknowledgment to his relationship with his young apprentice, Timothy? He certainly understood a term for athlete trainers (coaches) of his days from the sport-oriented cities like Athens, as we can see in his illustration of 'race' to teach about faith living. I believe that is because a Christian discipleship is a life-on-life one that involves real lives (plural).

Pastors, don't be a wimp and settle with being a coach or a spiritual director. There is no transformative power with a mere game plan or a spiritual advice. It will touch a shallow surface of one's life without any penetration. The life-on-life discipleship is hard and costly, but is deep, penetrating, transforming and involves real lives that are tough, messy, costly and worthwhile.

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." - Jesus (Luke 9:23)

Happy Quincentenary!

John Calvin's theocentric legacy and zeal for the Word of God still resonate in the hearts of many who follow Jesus Christ.

Praise and thank God for using a theologian, expositor, preacher and teacher such as Calvin. Happy Quincentenary!

Let each of us, therefore, in contemplating his own nature, remember that there is one God who governs all natures, and, in governing, wishes us to have respect to himself, to make him the object of our faith, worship, adoration. Nothing, indeed, can be more preposterous than to enjoy those noble endowments which bespeak the divine presence within us, and to neglect him who, of his own good pleasure, bestows them upon us.

- John Calvin(Institutes of Christian Religion, Book I. Chapter V.)

Illustration by Krieg Barrie, courtesy of World Magazine. All rights reserved.

Piper: Pride in Both

John Piper tweets today, "Boasting is the response of pride to success. Self-pity is the response of pride to failure."

Responded, "Amen.. Lord Jesus, have mercy on me the prideful sinner."

Helm's Deep: Wright in General

Helm's Deep: Wright in General: a comprehensive and fair review on justification debate between Piper and Wright from a Reformed theologian, Paul Helm.

Helm is also planning on writing more about Tom Wright's new book, Justification this month. It's intriguing to me for I wrote a paper on this topic for Dr. Packer's theology class last term. I was hoping to get my hands on Wright's book then but wasn't able to. Looking forward to Helm's insights as well as Bishop Wright's book, Justification.

Next Monday (July 6), Professor Paul Helm is speaking on Translating the Faith into Other Cultures: Where Is the Limit? at Regent College's public lecture. Looking forward to it much.

Repenting of Ministry Idolatry

A penetrating message to all pastors from Mark Driscoll at Advance 09. Its link is posted on the previous post, but I wanted to point out especially this message. From hearing the last couple of minutes from the message, I've been repenting of my idolatrous sins.