Are you a spiritual Siskel or Ebert? If so, pastor C. J. Mahaney tells you what you need to do.

Too many churches are populated by spiritual Siskel and Eberts who think their function in the church is to observe, is to criticize, is to evaluate. They are self-righteous. They are self-appointed … They need to repent.

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C.J. Mahaney, February 2, 1999
1999 Desiring God Conference for Pastors
 

Here’s a good reminder from Jerry Bridges:

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.

- Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, p. 19

Dallas Willard, commenting on the request, “Give us today our daily bread,” from the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13):

The emphasis is on provision today of what we need for today … So we do not ask him to provide today what we will need for tomorrow. To have it in hand today does not guarantee that we will have it tomorrow when we need it. Today I have God, and he has the provisions. Tomorrow it will be the same. So I simply ask today for what I need for today or ask now for what I need now.

This is how children do it, of course. A mother who discovers that her child is saving up oatmeal, pieces of toast, or strips of bacon for fear of not having food tomorrow has cause to be alarmed. The world being what it is, we can all too easily imagine situations in which the child’s action would be reasonable. But in any normal situation parents will be astonished and pained that the child does not trust them to provide for it day by day …

Now, to make it clear about the teaching and the prayer, it is quite all right, as earlier noted, to have things now that we intend to use tomorrow and to work or even pray in a sensible way for them. What hinders or shuts down kingdom living is not the having of such provisions, but rather the trusting in them for future security. We have no real security for the future in them, but only in the God who is present with us each day. (Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, p. 261, Kindle location 4991)

I am in between jobs right now, and so I found this a very encouraging word. Today I have God, and that is enough.

Here is a striking quote from Charles Spurgeon that conveys both his strong burden for evangelism and his great heart for the lost. May God give us grace to grow in these areas.

Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

- C. H. Spurgeon: “The Wailing of Risca” (Sermon No. 349; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 9th, 1860, at Exeter Hall, Strand)

Check out Charles Spurgeon’s Election for the Kindle/iPad/Nook here.

From Thomas Watson’s A Body of Divinity:

Creatures below us, and above us, bring glory to God; and do we think to sit rent free? Shall everything glorify God but man? It is a pity then that man was ever made.

- Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity, p. 9 (from the section on Man’s Chief End )

I like Greg Dutcher’s definition of idolatry:

“An idol is a lousy substitute for God.” (from You are the Treasure That I Seek (but there’s a lot of cool stuff out there, Lord, p. 31)

Related post: No Idols (sermon on the Second Commandment)

“Spiritual discipline means simply this: Do what you don’t want to do, and you will become what you want to be.”

    – Patrick Morley (Seven Seasons of the Man in the Mirror, p. 234)

From the Christian Post:

“I have a theory why so many pastors burn out: They start out walking with Jesus but they end up working for Jesus.”

(Pete Briscoe of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrolton, Texas, recalled hearing from someone at a time when he was depressed)

Update: I found a similar saying in Oswald Chambers’ devotional My Utmost for His Highest:

“From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66 ). They turned back from walking with Jesus; not into sin, but away from Him. Many people today are pouring their lives out and working for Jesus Christ, but are not really walking with Him. (Chambers; Devotional for March 9)

“Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say that I am not what I once was — a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’” (Reference: John Newton, commenting on 1 Corinthians 15:10)

“I think the Discovery Channel should be on a different channel every day.”  -Comic Craig Sharf

Here are two great quotes from R. C. Sproul on Christians and science:

Christians Need Not Fear Scientific Inquiry
“There is a sense in which the Christian should be the most passionate scientist of all because he should be rigorously open to truth wherever it is found. He should not be afraid that a new discovery of something that is true will destroy his foundation for truth. If our foundation for truth is true, all other truth can only support it and enhance it. It can’t destroy it. Therefore, Christians ought not to be afraid of scientific inquiry. This does not mean that we should uncritically accept all pronouncements and pontifications of scientists. Scientists are fallible and may occasionally make arrogant statements that go far beyond the realm of their own expertise.”

Our Age Cries for Talented Christian Scientists!
“Our age cries for talented scientists who see the scientific inquiry as a true vocation and as a response to the mandate of God Himself. Rather than flee from the scientific enterprise or embrace intellectual schizophrenia which only destroys, Christians are needed by the thousands to venture into the realm of nature, armed with the knowledge of grace. We can show that a God who exists on the other side of the wall is concerned with life on this side of that wall.”

Related posts:

• The Bible is to Theology as Creation is to Science
• God’s Providence and Scientific Investigation

“If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen — nothing else matters.”

–Among the last words of historian Jaroslav Pelikan (1923-2006)

Happy Easter!

HT: Of First Importance