my seared conscience

1 Timothy 4:2 ... "Whose consciences are seared."

"Get and keep a tender conscience. Be sensible of the least sin. Some men's consciences are like the stomach of the ostrich that can digest iron: they can swallow the most notorious sins without regret. A good conscience is very delicate. It feels the least touch of known sin, and is grieved at the thought of grieving God's Spirit. It will choose the greatest of suffering before the least of sinning. However, the jeering Ishmaels of the world are ready to reproach and laugh it to scorn for its precise scruples. Daily train all your graces for battle. Live in a military posture, both defensive and offensive. Stand constantly by your weapons. Admit no peace with sin. The soldier of Christ must never lay down his arms. Satan never ceases his wiles and stratagems. He will tell you that sin is pleasant. Ask yourself if the gripping of conscience is also pleasant? Ask yourself if it is pleasant to be in hell, and be under the wrath of God? Ask yourself if the pleasures of sin for a season compare with the rivers of God's pleasures? How do they compare to a weight of glory, an incorruptible crown, and a heavenly kingdom? God alone is enough, but without him, nothing is enough for your happiness. His love, grace, and the comforts of his Spirit will certainly sweeten your way to heaven. Sometimes you will experience joy unutterable and full of glory. God is a good master and in his service is a perfect freedom. Your work is its own reward. With these thoughts, put to flight the armies of the enemy. Shield yourself with these against the fiery darts the tempter shall pour upon you. Do not even take a moment to parley with the tempter. As soon as your lusts begin to grow inordinate, do not stay a moment; delay is unutterably dangerous. A house on fire needs immediate attention."

John Gibbon, Puritan Sermons 1659-1689, 1:96-100

Taken from:
Voices from the Past: Puritan Devotional Readings
Edited by Richard Rushing
Published by Banner of Truth
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people-influencers not debate-winners

Newton cared more about influencing people with truth for their good than winning debates. William Jay recounts how Newton described the place of his Calvinism. He was having tea one day with Newton. Newton said, "'I am more of a Calvinist than anything else; but I use my Calvinism in my writings and my preaching as I use this sugar'—taking a lump, and putting it into his tea-cup, and stirring it, adding, 'I do not give it alone, and whole; but mixed and diluted.'" In other words, his Calvinism permeates all that he writes and teaches and serves to sweeten everything. Few people like to eat sugar cubes, but they like the effect of sugar when it permeates it right proportion.

- John Piper of John Newton

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of sweat and solitude: lesson four

Lesson Four: Talk to the One You Love

I was speaking one Wednesday to the youth at Glendive Alliance Church and, as introduction, spent a few minutes answering questions about myself. A question that came up went something like this: "What's one thing you would change about your walk with Jesus?" And my answer came quickly: "I want to be a better pray-er."

Quite simply, I have an easy time praying at "prayer times" or for specific requests, but a hard time praying all the time about all things--great and small--in my life. And that should not be so.

Very shortly after I admitted this desire, I was listening to a sermon by Francis Chan who used an illustration to communicate a simple truth that got me:

Imagine with me that I'm married, and that I have a simply wonderful day at work--I got a promotion, a trophy, had free lunch, and Stumptown coffee was the office brew. It was a good day. Who is the first person I call? My wife. I want to talk to the one I love!

Imagine with me that I'm married, and that I have a terrible day at work--I got fired, ate no lunch, and my coworkers poured coffee on me. It was a bad day. Who is the first person I call? My wife. I want to talk to the one I love!

My love for my wife makes me desire to talk to her about the events of my day. And the fact that the first person I call is my wife demonstrates that I love her. She is the first person I want to talk to!

Prayer, as simply talking to God, works in a similar way. If I love God, I will want to talk to Him! If I talk to Him, I am living out my love for Him. If my day is good, and I experience grace upon grace, then I talk to Him praising and thanking Him! And if my day is bad, and I experience pain and trouble, then I talk to Him pouring my heart out and begging for grace and help tomorrow! But regardless, I talk to the one I love!

So, the simple conclusion is this: if you love someone, you will talk to them. So, talk to the One you love.

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of sweat and solitude: lesson three

Lesson Three: God Works God's Plan In God's Time

God used three men to remind me of a spectacular truth: God will work God's plan in God's time. My practical application, then, is: be patient. If I aim to keep in step with the Spirit and gain knowledge to act upon, then I am allowing God to lead and act, but if I am so locked-in on my 5-year or 10-year plan for my life that I don't follow the Ghost, then I am a fool. Listen to how this idea even worked its way into my mind:

Mark Driscoll didn't want anything to do with Jesus until God radically opened his eyes to the gospel when he was 19 years old. At age 25 he began a small Bible study in Seattle with his wife Grace. And in the last 14 years, Driscoll has become one of the most influential men in America, and his church, Mars Hill, is one of the largest and fastest-growing. The crazy thing: at my age, Driscoll didn't have any life ambition to be a pastor and serve Jesus with his life, but God worked God's plan in God's time.

John Piper believed firmly in the doctrines of Free Will throughout his college and seminary and teaching days. But in the fall of 1979, at age 33, while on sabbatical from teaching at Bethel College and just prior to beginning his tenure as senior pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, he set out to study and understand Romans 9, and God saw fit to radically reverse his misunderstood doctrine of the Sovereignty of God. John Piper was a self-declared Arminian, who, when he studied the scriptures and was led by the Spirit, has become perhaps the most prominent and proficient Calvinist today. God worked God's plan in God's time.

John Calvin was a 23 year old law school dropout when he wrote his first book: A Commentary on Seneca. He was more interested in the classics than law, which his father had forced him to study after "running afoul" the church. It was shortly after the publication of this book, in 1532, that Calvin began to encounter the teaching and witness of the Reformation. And in 1533, at the age of 24, Calvin miraculously experienced salvation. Immediately after his conversion, he committed himself to studying Hebrew and published his Institutes in 1536. Calvin played a major role in the Reformation and his doctrines of Sovereign Grace bear his name. People remember John Calvin today, because God worked God's plan in God's time.

I could draw the same conclusion about every person and event in history, but these were the three examples that were marinating in my mind. As I was hearing the stories of these men, I realized a few things that made me almost cringe at the road I was taking.

Let me preface, I think my plan for my life is grace: God has given me a passion, and blessed me with opportunity and gifts to pursue that passion. And therefore, I believe it is a God-honoring endeavor, and for that I am grateful and pumped. Yet at the same time, I am learning that the plan is simply a means to an end, and not the end in itself. Therefore the plan is flexible, so I must be ready to forgo it if the Spirit leads elsewhere.

This is my plan as I see it:

1. Attend Portland State for a Marketing B.S. (2 years)

2. Attend Western Seminary for Masters of Divinity. (3+ years)

3. Plant a church or pastor in an established church. (5-10 years)

4. And I'd really like to get married while in Seminary. I think that would be cool. (someday)

My father and some other godly men in my life have encouraged me to have vision and a plan for my life, and that is good! There's something, however, about the fact that God works God's plan in God's time that makes me feel uneasy about such a scheduled plan.

I have a tendency to trust my plan or my ability to stick to it and fulfill it. I have a tendency to lock-in on a plan so firmly, that I simply don't recognize alternate routes. I have a tendency to live in the future rather than for the future. And I want those tendencies to fade, because I know that any successes are grace! And I know that any failures are...grace! I'm not the master of my own destiny. I'm not the captain of my ship.

It's an interesting dichotomy, considering the last two lessons I had learned at this point.

How do I weigh, in this situation, the leading of the Spirit versus acting upon what I know? I ask, because I know that I'm supposed to be doing what I've planned to do, but I also know that God works God's plan in God's time, and He leads by His Spirit.

And this is a lesson I can't really say I've fully learned at this point in my life, because I am not yet done learning. But the practical conclusion I drew this summer is this: I will work to be patient with my plan, to be content with where I am in life, to trust God to use me as He deems best, and to be willing to put my plan on hold should the Spirit lead another direction.

My plan for my life is foolishness and all-for-naught if I neglect the Spirit, for God works God's plan in God's time.

---

You don't believe me? Check out: Psalm 115:3 and 135:6; Proverbs 16:1, 16:9, and 19:21. That will get you started.

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of sweat and solitude: lesson two

Lesson Two: Knowledge Mandates Action

Having already spent a summer in Montana, I was more familiar with the work schedule and came better prepared this year: I packed fewer books. One book I badly wanted to read was "Knowing God" by J.I. Packer. Honestly, I read it nearly every day during every free moment, and I still only read 100 pages - this was no vacation!

I had plans to read this book to fill my head with knowledge, somehow making it easier to "keep in step with the Spirit." Listen closely to the quick, sharp lessons I learned when I first opened this book:

We need to ask ourselves: what is my ultimate aim and object in occupying my mind with these things? What do I intend to do with my knowledge about God, once I have got it? For the fact that we have to face is this: that if we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it is bound to go bad on us. It will make us proud and conceited. The very greatness of the subject-matter will intoxicate us, and we shall come to think of ourselves as a cut above other Christians because of our interest in it and grasp of it; and we shall look down on those whose theological ideas seem to us crude and inadequate, and dismiss them as very poor specimens...[1 Cor. 8:1]...To be preoccupied with theological knowledge as an end in itself, to approach Bible study with no higher motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied self-deception...[The psalmist] wanted to understand God's truth in order that his heart might respond to it and his life be conformed to it. [pp. 17-18]

Knowledge mandates action. Shoot. I wanted to fill myself with knowledge, and change nothing about the way I lived! I wanted to just get smarter! But it's fitting to learn lesson two immediately after lesson one. Consider: the Spirit is leading, and I know it. And if I know it, then I am mandated to act on it, by keeping in step with Him!

James succinctly writes, "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves," [1:22] and concludes, "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, to him it is sin." [4:17]

This lesson rocked me. No longer did I attempt to fill myself in order to satisfy my self-righteous, self-deceptive need to know about God. I genuinely wanted to act upon my meager, but hungry knowledge of God. And that changed everything...

Looking back, I am surprised and amazed that God was teaching me these lessons in this order...because He wasn't done with me yet.

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