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Two thoughts prompted after reading the first chapter of Graham Cole’s excellent volume ‘He Who Gives Life: the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit’
1. The first step into idolatry comes when we remove the category of mystery from all our reflections on God.
2. The second step into idolatry comes when we use the category of mystery to destroy all possibility of talking about God with confidence.
“Forsake the truth, and the search for relevance becomes a journey without maps or compass, ending in a wilderness which destroys.”
Donald English, The Message of Mark, IVP, p61
“Surely there are few figures so pitiable as the disillusioned minister of the Gospel. High hopes once cheered him on his way: but now the indifference and the recalcitrance of the world, the lack of striking visible results, the discovery of the appalling pettiness and spite and touchiness and complacency which can lodge in narrow hearts, the feeling of personal futility- all these have seared his soul. No longer does the zeal of God’s House devour him. No longer does he mount the pulpit steps in thrilled expectancy that Jesus Christ will come amongst His folk that day, travelling in the greatness of His strength, mighty to save. Dully and drearily he speaks now about what once seemed to him the most dramatic tidings in the world. The edge and verve and passion of the message of divine forgiveness, the exultant, lyrical assurance of the presence of the risen Lord, the amazement of supernatural grace, the urge to cry, ‘Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel’- all have gone. The man has lost heart. He is disillusioned. And that, for an ambassador of Christ, is tragedy.”
“Don’t listen to the lugubrious voices that incessantly deplore the deadness of the age, and groan about the thankless uphill task of the Christian ministry and the desolating lack of response. It is a thrilling hour in which to bear the commission of your Lord.”
“Therefore I counsel you- let no fog of spiritual defeatism chill your ministry. Refuse to listen to the lying voices which insinuate that this is an unpropitious hour for the proclamation of the faith. You are to be heralds of a religion which once saw the blackest, most desperately unpropitious hour in history- the hour of the crucifying of Jesus- turned into history’s crowning glory and mankind’s brightest hope. Go forth, then, in the heartening assurance that this present cataclysmic hour is alive with spiritual potentialities.”
Don Whitney is associate professor of Biblical Spirituality at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. ‘Simplify your Spiritual Life’ is published by Navpress and is a model of clear, easy to read, concise (each chapter is a page long and is therefore ideal for daily reading during devotions) spiritual wisdom on the development of spiritual disciplines for godly living.
Here’s a taste:
“The Bible explicitly warns that if we do not look intently at (that is, meditate on) God’s perfect Word, we’ll forget it: ‘But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but and effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does’(James 1:25 NASB). Just as hearing the Word of God without meditating on it causes a person to be a ‘forgetful hearer’, so anyone who reads the Bible without meditating on it becomes a forgetful reader. And if you can’t remember what you read, you probably won’t experience or be changed by what you read.”
Preachers the world over regularly travel the desert called Monday. We are worn out. In our exhaustion we are often sitting ducks for spiritual attack and sin. Here are some possible routes through the Monday wilderness, and some of the pitfalls to watch out for along the way…
1. Plan Mondays, don’t just let them happen. Take control! Idleness is a sin that feeds on exhaustion and breeds more sin along the way.
2. Don’t do sermon prep on Monday. You won’t usually get far and you will simply feel guilty for your lack of success.
3. Don’t do a post-mortem on Mondays. You are too tired to be objective about your preaching, which, let’s face it, you are not good at being at the best of times.
4. Get some space. Time alone to pray and read and think without the pressure of sermon preparation is invaluable on a Monday. Monday morning is the time to go to the office and sit quietly and actually read the books you try to impress other people with.
5. Use Monday’s for soul cultivation rather than sermon preparation.
6. Use Monday’s to get out and visit your people.
7. Watch a movie and drink a beer. Kiss your wife and play with the kids. And say sorry for being grumpy.
