• Our hope-filled future is bound up in sharing the story of Jesus, in discipling others, in bringing those disciples together into communities of believers, and in developing and releasing those believers to create other communities... till Jesus the King comes again!

What do you want to do with your life?

Posted on January 9, 2017 by wtdavid

“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

I remember a pastor once saying that repentance and faith were linked together in the minds of the biblical writers.  You could not talk about repentance without following up and talking about faith.  Likewise you could not talk about faith without turning to consider repentance.

My prayer, for this New Year, is that the Holy Spirit would search my heart (Psalm 139), put His light of truth on those places where my motivations are not pure, and drive me back to the Cross.  This is a prayer of repentance. As I consider what I want to do with my life, how I want to invest my energies in 2017, I begin by opening my heart to His ‘searchlight’ and work in teaching me to lay aside the sins that encumber me on my journey with Him.

Repentance though is regularly linked to faith. Faith is expressed in one way thdailyrough the words of this short verse from Psalm 90.  Daily, I must find my joy in the love that God has for me.  Daily.  This is an expression of my faith.  The Psalmist’s words are meant to convey that the day is ‘defined’ or structured by the context in which I place it.  I can express my faith by finding my joy daily in the unending, unconditional love of God for me.

There are times when I easily forget to find my joy in God’s love.  The result is often complaining and dissatisfaction.  What I want to do with my life becomes just that: a question of ‘my’ and how I can find satisfaction apart from God. Daily I should drive the roots of faith deeper into that love displayed in Jesus Christ.  Then what I will want to do with my life and how I will want to invest my energies will be an expression of thanks to the God of all grace.

Daily.

Filed under: Gospel, Love of God, Repentance & faith | Leave a comment »

Happy Reformation Day!

Posted on October 31, 2016 by wtdavid

For some in our world, today, October 31st, will be a day for collecting candy from friends and neighbors.  For others, it will be a day of preparation for All Saints Day (Nov 1st) where families will spend time visiting the grave sites of family members.  martin-lutherHowever, many others will celebrate today the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, launched by Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg church in Germany.

We are the ‘offspring’ of Luther’s call to return to the Living Word as our only source of forgiveness, justification and freedom.

The first of the 95 theses reads this way: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”   Repentance is the turning away from our sin and turning back to God to receive His forgiveness and grace.  Our ‘entire life’ is to be characterized by this constant act of repentance and faith, repentance and faith, repentance and faith.

It’s easy for us to tell others of their need for repentance.  It is much harder to accept our need for daily repentance.  However, if the Gospel is not ‘good news’ for us, how can it be ‘good news’ for others?

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”  (1 John 3:1)

Happy Reformation Day!

Filed under: Gospel, Repentance & faith, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

More than the strict minimum

Posted on April 26, 2016 by wtdavid

Tim Keller in a recent message, “The Centrality of the Gospel”, made the statement that the Gospel is not just the strict minimum we need to believe in order to be saved; that it is not “simply the minimum Christian doctrine required to believe in order to go to heaven when you die.”

The Gospel changes your life now: thoroughly, radically, and completely.  And it does so now. It becomes the all that directs our lives as believers.

This statement once again caught me off guard. We are so used to talking about the Gospel,self-confidence summarizing it in a few short declaratory truths, that we can forget it has far reaching power and influence in our lives.  Our capacity to forget the message of the Gospel provides fertile soil for the ‘weeds’ of selfishness and pride whose roots run deep.

“That’s not me!” you might say.  You could think this kind of selfishness and pride is not running rampant in your life.  Take a step back for a moment and do a quick check:

Does my anger and frustration come more quickly to the surface these days?

Am I overly concerned with what other people think about me?

Am I pushy about my agenda and what I think we should be doing?

Am I quick to criticize rather than build up others?

Do I complain constantly about what I don’t have?

Now I’m not saying these are key indicators, but the answers to these questions would certainly be a starting point to assess how deep pride is running in one’s life.

The Gospel is not simply the minimum Christian doctrine required to believe in order to go to heaven when you die.  The Gospel is the power (Romans 1) to radically and thoroughly change our lives now; to address the deep rooted pride in our hearts and draw us back to Jesus.

Our daily prayer should simply be: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting!”  (Psalm 139:23-24)

Filed under: Godly living, Gospel, Repentance & faith | Leave a comment »

Laying it down

Posted on January 9, 2015 by wtdavid

Many of you may have heard about the tragic events which occurred this past Wednesday here in Paris.  As I listened to an online talk show while driving to the office, the interviewer asked two religious leaders why we should continue to talk about the need to address the evil intentions of peoples’ hearts when that message, up to this point, has brought about little or no change.  The response was truly insightful: ‘Saying something once does not mean that the problem has been dealt with and will go away.  We need to repeat, repeat and continue to repeat the message for it to take root and bring about change.’

change in the skyWe all know the ‘right’ answer or response to the questions of ongoing Christian growth and maturity.  However, those truths are not sufficiently repeated so as to ‘take root’ in our hearts and cause real and visible change to occur.

“You have given us your most cherished treasure, yet we prize many other things more highly than Christ.  Forgive us for trusting in our own strength more than in his power to save us completely.  We live each day with hearts full of our own desires, minds full of our own agendas and plans for our own self-promotion.  Forgive us, Lord.” (Prone to Wander)

We know that we prize many other things more highly than Christ: the approval of others, our ministry strategy and vision, being ‘right’, and our comfort or lifestyle, for example.  We know that we prize these things and tell ourselves we need to prize Christ more, yet our actions (and our words) demonstrate that we continue to value these above Christ.

We need to ‘lay all these things down’ and that comes through a daily effort of crying out to God for His work to turn our eyes back to Him.  It comes as well through turning to others to help us take this Gospel ‘downtown’ to our hearts.

“Holy Spirit, fill us with everlasting wonder that the gospel is true.  You kept your promise to send a Savior; help us to stop trying to rescue others and ourselves.  When we are tempted as [Adam and] Eve did, remind us of Christ, who kept all your laws for us, and fix our eyes on him.” (Prone to Wander)

Slowly we will see changes occur in the way we as a WT community talk with one another and listen well to one another.  We will actually lay down our ‘right-ness’ in how we see and do things and begin to work together in community to bring the Gospel to ourselves and to the unreached.

Filed under: Change & transition, Community, Repentance & faith | Leave a comment »

Captivated by sin more than by Jesus

Posted on January 7, 2015 by wtdavid

A fellow worker from the WT community forwarded me a challenging article on: “The Danger of Fruitfulness without Purity”.  I would commend it to your reading and reflection.

The final challenge from this article got me wondering as to how such a change actually begins to work itself out in my life: “If we will simply return to the power and the beauty of the gospel, not only will the Lord grant fruit, but it will be fruit that will endure and bring his name great glory for eternity.  Let’s live and end well for that great name.”

That led me to a book that one of my mentors recently sent my way: Prone to Wander.  The authors provide practical ways to work out the exhortation of the excellent article above from Desiring God Ministries.  It comes through confession of heart difficulties and allowing the Holy Spirit to apply again and again ‘the power and grace that is ours through the work of Christ on the cross.’

repentance and faithOur hearts can so easily be captivated more by sin than by Jesus and His work on our behalf.  Let me quote a large section of one of the first prayers in Prone to Wander as a practical aid in learning to respond more quickly to the call to repentance and faith:

O God, our Father, forgive us for our many sins.  Like Eve [and Adam], we are easily captivated by the objects that our eyes desire.  We fall so often, and when we do, we run and hide in shame instead of running to you to confess our sin and find joy and forgiveness in the cross.  You have given us your most cherished treasure, yet we prize many other things more highly than Christ.  Forgive us for trusting in our own strength more than in his power to save us completely.  We live each day with hearts full of our own desires, minds full of our own agendas and plans for our own self-promotion.  Forgive us, Lord.

Jesus, you are our strong salvation. Thank you for invading our world to rescue us from ourselves.  We cannot fathom the humility, love, and commitment to your Father’s glory, which led you to give up heaven for us.  When the Holy Spirit took you into the desert to be tempted by Satan, you kept your eyes fixed firmly on your Father, your soul devoted to serving him in perfect obedience, and your mind saturated with Scripture.  You gave up your own glory to be stripped, humiliated, and shattered in death, so that you could serve us and be our substitute.  The joy or your life was fixed firmly upon the will of God, and now we find the joy of our lives to be your obedience for us and your death in our place.  How can we ever thank you adequately?  Holy Spirit, fill us with everlasting wonder that the gospel is true.  You kept your promise to send a Savior; help us to stop trying to rescue others and ourselves.  When we are tempted as [Adam and] Eve did, remind us of Christ, who kept all your laws for us, and fix our eyes on him.

Filed under: Community, Repentance & faith, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

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