Food for Thought 4

How does the gospel apply to the life of a Christian? The Apostle Paul spent a lot of time writing about this. In verse 8 of the first chapter of Romans he states that the faith of those in the church at Rome was known throughout the world yet in verse 15 he tells them he wants to come and preach the gospel to them. Why would he want to do that? Especially considering that his letter to them is the richest letter in regards to gospel content. Well, Paul gives an answer to that in verse 16 "The gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes..." When is salvation done? When the new heavens and earth are created and the New Jerusalem comes down and God lives with His people. 

If that is so then it means that the gospel is the means by which we grow spiritually and become more like Jesus. How do we apply the gospel and live it out in our lives? Well, below are links to some blog posts that give some good "Food for Thought" about this. I hope they will get you thinking and be a blessing.

Killing Moralism

The Gospel Makes Us Different

The Gospel Still Matters to Christians: An Invitation to Think

Christ is the Point

The Turning Point of Francis Schaeffer’s Life and Ministry

Is Religion Just Self-Help?

Can I Change My Emotions?

Food for Thought 2

How should normal everyday Christians be involved in life, evangelism and missions and what should motivate them? Here are a few links that will give you some "Food for Thought" in regards to these things. 

http://www.alanknox.net/2011/01/missions-every-christians-job/

About the impact "normal everyday" Christians had on the growth of Christianity

http://www.skyejethani.com/redefining-radical-part-1/751/

The call to radical mission is NOT the solution to consumer Christianity - Part 1

http://www.skyejethani.com/redefining-radical-part-2/768/

The call to radical mission is NOT the solution to consumer Christianity - Part 2

http://straighttotheheart.highpointeaustin.org/2011/06/24/the-glory-and-goal-of-missions/

The Glory and Goal of Missions

http://takeyourvitaminz.blogspot.com/2011/06/attributes-of-god-in-light-of-cross.html

The Attributes of God in Light of the Cross

http://vimeo.com/23498421 - video - Dallas Willard on Spiritual Formation - 16 minutes

http://theresurgence.com/2011/06/29/spirituality-isnt-inward

Spirituality isn't Inward

Lording willing I will be sending out my newsletter next week. You can check it out you can at the link Time, Traveling and Teams and if you would like to receive my newsletters just go to Subscribe.

Food for Thought

Three weeks ago I started sending out a once-a-week email with links to articles and blog posts on the internet that I think contain some good "food for thought" for those who follow Jesus. If you would like to start receiving the email please let me know.

Here are the links from the first one sent out:

http://escapetoreality.org/2011/06/08/john-15v6_abide-in-the-vine/

Abide in the Vine

http://theresurgence.com/2011/06/20/3-steps-to-shrink-spiritually

Steps to Shrink Spiritually

http://vimeo.com/24570032 - This is Discipling (1:58 min)

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/12-ways-to-glorify-god-at-work

12 Ways to Glorify God at Work

http://gospelcentric.org/2011/06/22/nine-pastoral-prayers/

Nine Pastoral Prayers

As some of you know, I have a page on Facebook called christlinks that I put links to the best stuff I find on the internet about Jesus and the gospel. It is an experiment to see how Facebook can be used to edify and encourage believers and give those without Jesus things to think about. If this is something that interest you I would encourage you to go to the page and click on the "Like" button if you haven't already. That way the links will show up in your newsfeed and the ones that you like you can click on "share" for them to show up for your friends to see. It would also be good to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to use the links to speak to your friends.

Masculine and Feminine Spiritual Battle

I came across an article the other day about the consequences of radical feminism in Denmark and thought it was real interesting. You can read it here. It isn't a Christian article but I have read several articles on the web where Christians are discussing the same issue but from a Christian perspective. It is about all the confusion about what it means to be a man or a woman. You know it is getting bad when secular people start realizing there is something wrong with their "enlightenment".

We know that Satan is doing his best to destroy the works of God including that God created us male and female. I think this issue is something we will need to deal with so I would encourage you to study, think and pray about it. The issues are not all the same here in Romania but there are issues non the less that need to be dealt with.

Seems to me this should be a topic of high interest in men's and women's groups in churches.

Here are some resources and articles about being a godly/Biblical man:

The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood -

The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Free Online Books

Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood - free PDF download of book from John Piper and others

Knighthood and Biblical Manhood - from Campus Crusade's "Leadership U'

The Marks of Manhood - 13 marks of Biblical manhood

The Next Christian Men's Movement - from Christianity Today

A Jesus for Real Men - What the masculinity gets right and wrong

Christian Men Seeking Lost Masculinity

GodMen - a Christian men's movement - watch video

Desultory Thoughts on Masculinity

Profiling Christian Masculinity - very good, be sure to read it

The Masculinity Movement - added August 19th

Shalom in the Home: Gospel-Centered Marriages - added September 3rd

Fight the Good Fight, Part 1 - added September 18th

Feed for Interesting Web Articles

I have set up a feed of all the articles I like that I come across through the blogs and sites I subscribe to using Google Reader.

This is the link to subscribe to the RSS feed
http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=729233

This in the link to subscribe to receive email notices
http://feeds.feedburner.com/GodsWillsSharedItemsInGoogleReader

Quotes from Gospel Primer

Here are some quotes from part one of the "Gospel Primer" that I gave a link to in the last post.

“...the gospel...of first importance...” (1 Corinthians 15:1,3)

“If there’s anything in life that we should be passionate about, it’s the gospel. And I don’t mean passionate only about sharing it with others. I mean passionate about thinking about it, dwelling on it, rejoicing in it, allowing it to color the way we look at the world. Only one thing can be of first importance to each of us. And only the gospel ought to be.” (C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life, 20-21)

“The gospel isn’t one class among many that you’ll attend during your life as a Christian – the gospel is the whole building that all the classes take place in! Rightly approached, all the topics you’ll study and focus on as a believer will be offered to you ‘within the walls’ of the glorious gospel.” (C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life, 75-76)

The essence of eternal life is not found in having my sins forgiven, in possessing a mansion in heaven, or in having streets of gold on which to walk forever. Rather, the essence of eternal life is intimately knowing God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Everything else that God gives to me in the gospel serves merely to bring me to Himself so that this great end might be achieved. Christ died for the forgiveness of my sins so that I might be brought “to God.

The “gospel of God” is from God, comes through God, and leads me to God; and it is in Him that my soul finds its truest joy and rest.

Understanding that I am not the ultimate end of the gospel, but rather that God’s glory is, actually enables me to embrace my salvation more boldly than I would otherwise dare to do. For example, when my timid heart questions why God would want to love one so sinful as I, I read the answer, “to the praise of the glory of His grace.” I figure, then, that my unworthiness must actually be useful to God, because it magnifies the degree to which His grace might be glorified as He lavishes His saving kindness upon me. This line of reasoning makes perfect sense to me and convinces me to embrace the gospel with greater passion so that God might glorify Himself through me, an unworthy sinner. Indeed, the more I embrace and experience thegospel, the more I delight in the worship of God, the more expressive my joy in Him becomes, and the more I yearn to glorify Him in all I say and do.

Worth Reading

Here are links to some articles I found on the web that I found interesting and thought provoking.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54346
The Secret Curse of Holywood 'Stars'- excellent article that gives you a lot to reflect on for yourself

http://www.eucatastrophe.com/blog/archives/2007/02/19/preaching-the-gospel-to-yourselffrom-the-old-testament/
Preaching the Gospel to Yourself…From the Old Testament - For some reason I could not open it correctly in Firefox so I used another browser

http://www.cornerstonebible.org/Resources/gospelprimer7.6.pdf
A Gospel Primer- right click and save to hard drive

http://www.digital-web.com/news/2007/02/top_five_articles_for_presenters/
top 5 articles for presenters

Worth Reading

Here are a few articles I found on the net that I think are worth reading. Tell me what you think about them in the comments section.

Less Transparency, More Teflon

Gospel-Centeredness (list of articles)

Excellent article - Gospel Centered Men and Women (click on it to download PDF)