There’s a new blog available that is biblically based and discipleship oriented. I recommend that you check it out. You’ll find it here.
The Need for Biblical Discipleship – Part 2
Posted by Jon • August 18th, 2009 • No Comments »Psalm 1
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
As we take a step back to look now at our need for God’s Word, Psalm 1 stands out as one of the clearest passages in scripture on the role of the Word in our life. It begins with a negative look at the follower of God. What is he not? He is not one who lets the ungodly call the shots. He does not rely on the wicked for judgement calls. He does not turn to those who hate God to find out where to turn in a trial.
No, he does something completely different. He does something that to our world would seem passé; he turns to the very words of God. He, in fact, does more than just take a casual glance at them. He does more than even reading it daily. This Psalm tells us that he does something drastic. He delights in it. Delights. Finds joy. Loves with passion. Delight is what causes a grandmother to spend hours knitting a tiny little sweater. Then plunk down hundreds of dollars for a plane ticket to fly halfway across the country just to give her grandson, who is too young to be thankful, this gift that he will outgrow in a year. And in a year, she does it again. Delight is the feeling a young man has when he sees his bride for the first time coming down the aisle. It is the thing that draws him back to her again and again even when he disagrees with something she’s done. Delight is the man who’s hobby is building things in his home. He starts to build a deck and he’s so enthralled with this project that when he’s not actually building it, he’s thinking about it–what he needs to get at the store, what comes next in the process, how he can clear his schedule to make more time to do it. When he goes to sleep at night he has trouble sleeping because he just can’t stop thinking about this deck! That is delight. That is exactly what the Psalmist is speaking of when he says that the godly man delights in the law of the Lord.
This kind of man is the kind of man who will recieve from God’s Word the daily nourishment he so desparately needs. Why? Because he is the one who is meditating day and night in the Word. That is the kind of people we must be if we are to be growing in Christ.
Anxiety: Thinking About Loss
Posted by Scott Cline • July 31st, 2009 • No Comments »“Scott Cline, please report to the office.”
As these words sounded over the PA system, my breath stopped short, my stomach turned flips, and the blood drained from my face. Never mind that earlier in the day I had been told to expect this, since I served with my high school’s student government and a leadership meeting was scheduled for that afternoon. I had nothing to fear–I was not guilty of anything which called for disciplinary action, and there was a very good reason that I was being called–nevertheless, authority “just freaked me out.”
Actually, I had developed a pattern of thinking about authority in a certain way.
Whether or not that particular situation would have tempted anybody else to feel anxious is not my concern, at this point. Stepping back and looking at anxiety in general, the question is simply this: how do we account for it?
Answer: the same way we account for any other human reaction–we think.
I shield my face when I think I’m going to get hit. My wife prepares food when she thinks we’re having company. You don a jacket when you think it’s going to be cold.
We do what we do because we think what we do. Worry is no exception.
When Isaac settled in Gerar, “the men of the place asked him about his wife, [and] he said, ‘She is my sister,’ for he feared to say, ‘My wife,’ thinking, ‘lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,’ because she was attractive in appearance.” (Gen. 26:7)
Or when his son, Jacob, was asked by his father-in-law about the secretive nature of his move, he explained that it was “because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force.” (Gen. 31:31)
When we worry, we are thinking; specifically, we are thinking that we might lose something. Isaac thought that he would lose his life. Jacob thought that he would lose his wives.
On the flip side, God’s primary antidote for fear is something which is thought: a truth; often a promise.
“Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” (Gen. 15:1)
“The angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, ‘What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is…I will make him into a great nation.’” (Gen. 21:17-18)
Joseph understood this, when he told his brothers, “‘do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.’ Thus he comforted them.”
Whatever the antidote for our anxiety is, then, it must be something which is thought. A truth; maybe a promise.
In many cases, that truth will be situation-specific. For instance, the persecuted missionary may think of Jesus’ promise to him, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20)
But, in the absence of a situation-specific promise, is there any overarching truth which I may cling to in any instance, which will serve as anxiety’s antidote? Yes:
What we cannot lose in Jesus is better than what we can lose in _____________.
If I feel anxiety, I am thinking that I might lose something.
Money.
A relationship.
A job.
A semester of school.
My reputation.
The list could go on.
In any of these instances, what I must think and feel and believe with all my heart is that what I cannot lose in Jesus is better than what I can lose in _____________.
The psalmist was not anxious about failing flesh, or a failing heart, precisely because God is better than those things; and, when we prize Jesus as the great treasure of our lives, we can say with that psalmist,
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart (and my money and my relationship and my job) may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Ps. 73: 25-26)
The Need for Biblical Discipleship – Part 1
Posted by Jon • July 31st, 2009 • No Comments »Christians today often live their lives as if there were no God. It’s not that they really believe that there is no God. It’s just that they live like there isn’t. They wake up every morning with things on their mind that pull their attention immediately away from God. There is no reality of God to them…to us. I say this rather confidently, having grown up in a large church where most of the people claim to be Christian but their lives are pervasively run by their worldly passions.
I’m not referring to sinful lusts or importunate desires. Rather, I’m referring to the daily warp and woof of life in which we all to often get caught up. We go to work to support our families. In fact, when we get married, we try to get the best job we can because we want to provide for our wife. We love her. We live with God’s command to love her as Christ loved the church right in front of our faces…for the first year or so. Then we soon begin to live just like the world around us. We go to work because if we don’t, we’ll starve. We go to church (most of the time) because we always have. We just don’t love God like we used to.
It’d be really easy to say that God just hasn’t done anything to make us keep loving Him. But that would be an egregious error. It is not God who has abandoned us. It is we who have abandoned Him. He is still there, every minute, drawing us to Himself. After awhile we tend to become accustomed to the calling and it fades out of our attention. We forget God. How does this happen?!
Two major things come into play here. The first is that we have stopped listening to God. The second, which I’ll deal with another day, is that we have left the fellowship and community that God designed specifically for our edification and growth in Christ-likeness–one on one discipleship (what some call Biblical counseling). I’ll just begin to deal with the first of these two issues today.
I claim that we have stopped listening to God. Is this really true? Have we really stopped hearing the voice of God and giving it our attention? Have we really left the Creator of the universe talking to no one at all? All to often, the answer is “Yes.” How? I have to admit that God doesn’t speak to us today in an audible voice. He doesn’t come down from the clouds to send us a personal message, so to speak. But He does speak to us. And He does it as often as we are willing to hear it. He speaks to us through His Word–the Bible. We have it. We carry it to church. We claim that we believe it…much like we claim to “love God.” But we don’t read it. We go through life living as if God doesn’t exist, and then when trouble hits our lives, we cry to God for help. He’s been there all along, giving us advice through the trial and through the good times. We just refuse to listen.
You say, “I read my Bible.” Yes, but are you listening to God? God’s Word is full of Christ’s redemptive hope for our otherwise meaningless lives. The Psalms speak of God’s Word as a river of water, and endless supply of nourishment. They says that the tree that is firmly rooted near the water will have leaves that never wither. We are that tree. We can live life with full enjoyment and satisfaction. But we must abide by the water of the Word. We must drink it up…daily. Nourishment is not only necessary when we are dying of starvation. It is necessary all along the way to keep us from getting to that point. And God’s Word is there all along the way.
Biblical Counesling Resource Ministry Center – A Walkthrough
Posted by Jon • July 8th, 2009 • 1 Comment »The Biblical Counseling Resource Ministry Center is an organization that was founded with the sole purpose of helping Christians get the resources that are available today into their own hands. A myriad of resources are available to help believers grow to be more like Jesus Christ, but often these resources are hard to find and are largely unavailable to the average Christian. That’s where biblicalcounselingresource.com comes in. We provide an online file cabinet at no charge to you that contains thousands of helps in Christian growth.
There are several sections to our site that keep the massive amount of resources organized. The tabs across the top are the easiest way to navigate around the site. The “home” tab is where you will find links to the most recent blog posts and links to the featured topic of the month. This is for easy access to new content. The “classes” tab is where you will find online classes that you can take to develop your understanding of specific topics. The classes are free, but they do not count toward any certification of any type. They are strictly for personal enrichment. The “links” tab is a list of links to other websites that also offer resources for you to download…most of them at significant cost to you. The “resources” tab is the heart of this site. As we add resources to this section there will be an “updated” tag next to the topics to which we have added content. The “calendar” tab is the home of our ecumenical calendar. Before you write this section off, let us explain. This calendar is an amalgamation of dozens of ministries events. We try to include on this calendar all of the major events and conferences that would be of note to a Believer in Jesus. We will try to include not only dates and times, but also location (with map) and cost of the event. We want to make this information as accessible as possible to anyone interested. The “blog” tab is the home of our blog. Each week someone in the ministry will post an article about either one of the topics in the resources section or biblical discipleship in gereneral. This will be a great place to interact with seminary professors and writers on pertinent issues of Christian Living.
If any part of this site seems like it needs our attention, please feel free to contact us with your concerns and ideas. If you have any resources that you would like to inform us about or offer to post on our site, please contact us. We would jump at the chance to include more resources for believers to have available to them.
The Call for Discipleship
Posted by Jon • June 10th, 2009 • 1 Comment »God has given us as His children a great responsibility to make disciples of all nations. This responsibility, though it includes evangelization, includes growth as the corporate body of Christ as well as growth on a personal level for each individual member of the body. God designed His body to work in such a way that each member is a part of the whole and has a responsibility to the other members to make them more useful to the body. In the end, we are all to image Christ. We are a picture of Him. And so, as such, we are to individually disciple one another to become more like Jesus Christ.
This personal discipleship model goes far beyond just having a good time together as believers in Christ. This is an intimate relationship between members of the body in which edification, exhortation, and accountability occur. We are to be building up each of our brothers and sisters in Christ in such a way that because of our contact with them they are more like the master.
This is were biblical counseling joins the fray. God has given each of us the knowledge we need, from both His Word and His Holy Spirit indwelling and controlling us, for all things spiritual in this life. We have everything we need to be godly at our disposal.
I have made this page for the specific purpose of helping other believers who want to fulfill their role in personal discipleship. There is a plethura of resources available both in book form and on the internet to help us better understand and apply God’s Word to everyday circumstances. May God bless you as you study and use these resources to spur others on to be more like our Savior, Jesus Christ.
