Best Gospel Posts of the Week

Sorry but last Saturday I was busy so I didn't have time to share which blog posts I thought were the best of the week. So here are the last two weeks:

July 26-August 1

• Faith Towards God, What is Faith?
• Gandhi was Wrong
• Gospel of Grace vs Religion of Work
  
• Surprised by the Kingdom of God (part 1) (part 2)
  
• The Dark Knight's Joker and the Gospel
• The Gospel
  
• Where is Jesus? (part 1) (part 2)
  

August 2-8

• Of First Importance (part 1) (part 2)
• More About Leaning
  
• The Gospel According to the Apostles
  
• The Gospel is Not Good Advice
  
• The Multi-Faceted Gospel
  
• The Weird Modern Desire for Legalism
  
• Tim Keller on What is the Gospel?
  
• What is the Gospel? The Full Orchestra Rendition
  

Please Pray for Our Outreach Concert Nov. 7th

We would really appreciate your prayers for an outreach concert we are planning for Friday, November 7th here in Bucuresti. This is not a concert for Christians but for the lost, especially the youth. We have a Romanian Christian band lined up called "Decean" who we think are a good fit for what we want to do.

Here are some specific things you can pray for this outreach:

• For wisdom if we should have any other bands (maybe even a band from the States)
• For finding a place to hold the concert in a good location where lots of university students live if possible
  
• For wisdom in how to best promote and publicize the concert
• For redoing our church's website and developing the gospel website more so we can publicize them at the concert
• For wisdom on how best to do follow-up- maybe plan a special meeting a day or two later
• For the finances to pay all the costs involved in doing the concert

Here is a link to a music video version of the song in the video above and here is a link to an English version of the song if you want to know what they are singing.

The Spiritual Implications of Physical Fitness

This past school year that was very intense for me and I didn't have much time for anything else. Besides not exercising since I left Brasov at the beginning of December 2006 I haven't been eating very healthy as well. During the month of June I was trying to recover from everything but even though I was not very busy I seemed tired all the time. I decided during the second week of July to start lifting weights again and eating better. So far I have lost 5 kg/11 lbs of the 6.5 kg/14 lbs I put on since I moved to Bucuresti.

Since I started working out others in the church have expressed an interest in wanting to start lifting weights and losing weight so this past Saturday I did a fitness workshop with a focus on using dumbbells for the major muscle groups and 11 people showed up for it. Below is what I shared at the start of the workshop on the spiritual implications of fitness. If you have any other thoughts regarding this please add them in the comments. At the bottom you will see links to a few articles I have come across dealing with these issues and also a link to a 170 MB zip file with all the videos, handouts and extra stuff I found on the web that I used in the workshop or made available to those that came to the workshop.

Biblical Considerations

Psalm 139:13-16
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Ezekiel 16:49-50
48 As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, Sodom and her daughters were never as wicked as you and your daughters. 49 Sodom’s sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door. 50 She was proud and committed detestable sins, so I wiped her out, as you have seen. (NLT)

2 Corinthians 6:16
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."

1 Timothy 4:8
For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both.

Spiritual Implications

• Our bodies were created by God, they are good. We are not to think that the body is bad, that type of thinking is Gnostic in nature and unbiblical
• God ordained us to be stewards over all He created, even our bodies
• Our fitness and health impacts us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
• Our fitness and health also impacts the quality of our service to God
• While taking care of our bodies is a good thing, if we are not careful we can make it a god thing, a false savior, an idol that we put our trust and hope in instead of God or that we look to it to derive our worth rather than from God and the fact that we were created by Him in His image, that Jesus came and died on the cross for us and that the Father has adopted us into His family

Here are the links I mentioned above:

• To Hell on a Cream Puff
• Wrestling with Weight Issues Part One
• Wrestling with Weight Issues Part Two
• Fitness Workshop Materials 170 MB
  
  
  

Best "Living the Gospel" Posts of the Week

Actually these are the best "Living the Gospel" posts that I have come across over the past 12 days. I was really busy last weekend so I didn't get around to posting anything. I also have decided to post the best "Understanding the Gospel" of the week on a different day rather than doing them together. So here is the list.

• A Gospel Centered Life
• Comfy Christianity
  
• Disciples Follow Jesus
• Gospel Relevance=Gospel Application
  
• Spurgeon's "Building the Church"
• Where is Jesus? (part 3)
  
• Where is Jesus? (part 5)
  
• You Have Your Clique... but Do You Have the Gospel?
  

A Blog Dealing with Orthodox Christians

On the A-Team Blog I came across a post today which explained how one of the guys blogging there had started a new blog called By Whose Authority that would try to foster communication between Protestant and Orthodox Christians.

This may be an interesting blog to check out especially for those of us ministering in countries where the majority of Christians consider themselves "Orthodox".

Best Gospel Posts of the Week

Here are the best blog posts I have come across this past week. I have decided to break them up into two groupings- 1. posts which focus mainly on understanding the gospel and/or Jesus since He is the center of the gospel and 2. posts which focus on how to live out the gospel.

Understanding the Gospel

• How Do You Maintain Your Desire for God?
• Keller: The Gospel is Both One and More Than That
  
• Ray Ortlund's Gospel Manifesto
  
• Repentance from Dead Works follow-up one and two
• The God-Centered-ness of Your Salvation
  
• The Man Delusion (with apologies to The Matrix)
• Whatever Happened to Hell?
  
• Why is the Gospel Good News?

Living the Gospel

• Beyond Charity - The Gospel
  
• Do You Really Use Your Bible as Much as You Ought
  
• Learning from the Joker
  
• Learning from the Little: Who Does Jesus Want You to See?
  
• Our Gospel
  
• The Beauty of the Gospel
• The Gospel Surprises
  
• The Subculture of Christianity
  

Oh Lord, give us grace to truly know and live the truth of the gospel!

In View of God's Mercy