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This conference looks legit...


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Procrastination and Youth

The dudes over at The Rebelution shared this video and offer some great wisdom about being young and fighting procrastination.



Here is a quote from the Harris Brothers at Rebelution:

When are you going to get your stuff done? Procrastination can sabotage more than a day’s work. Too many of us also procrastinate in much bigger areas of life — things like growing in responsibility, maturity and in our relationship with Christ.

For young people this can be expressed in the phrase: Life starts later. Life begins after high school, after college, later, someday, but not now. We view the teen years as a vacation from responsibility, a time to goof off and have fun. We’re like athletes, lounging poolside, not realizing the game has already started.

And you see, what bothers us when young people die is that we think they somehow didn’t have a chance to live. But that’s only because we’ve bought into the lie that life doesn’t start until after you’re married with kids.

Calvin on Perspective

John Calvin helps to provide a little perspective:

"If, at mid-day, we either look down to the ground, or on the surrounding objects which lie open to our view, we think ourselves endued with a very strong and piercing eyesight; but when we look up to the sun, and gaze at it unveiled, the sight which did excellently well for the earth is instantly so dazzled and confounded by the refulgence, as to oblige us to confess that our acuteness in discerning terrestrial objects is mere dimness when applied to the sun. Thus too, it happens in estimating our spiritual qualities. So long as we do not look beyond the earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms, and seem only less than demigods. But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect what kind of Being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue, to which, as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; what strangely imposed upon us under the name of wisdom will disgust by its extreme folly; and what presented the appearance of virtuous energy will be condemned as the most miserable impotence." (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 1.2)

Jesus' Agenda, Not Ours.

“We all have our own agendas for Jesus, just as the apostles had for Him. He, however, has an agenda for us. His agenda is power for us to be living, speaking testimonies for Him to an unbelieving world, power to love our enemies, power to bless those who curse us, power to forgive as He forgives us, power to love one another. This is the coming of the kingdom that He has in mind for us now. The other kind of power will come later; but that is the power He exercised in His own death on the cross, and it is the power He gives us. There is no other power for the church or for the Christian now.” (Jerram Barrs, The Heart of Evangelism, pg. 20)

UNM Lobos 2009 MWC Champs!!!!

Sweet!!

Mark Driscoll: Sharing The Gospel With Your Tip

I could not agree more with Pastor Mark on this topic. If you go out to eat on Sunday's after church, tip well!!!

He Rules...He Triumphs...He Defeats...

I have been so convicted recently the lack of evangelism in my life. If Jesus is my treasure why am I so reluctant to share His message? Why do I get so nervous and shy away from telling people about Jesus, who He is and what He has done? Obviously my own sin and flesh are constantly battling against me in this, and are more intent on stopping that message from going out than any other. That however does not excuse me from shying away from declaring the message of the cross.

Currently I am re-reading Jerram Barrs book “The Heart of Evangelism” and find this book to be encouraging and insightful. Barrs is a professor at Covenant Theological Seminary and was my professor in the area of Apologetics and Outreach. He is a teacher for pastors, in which I mean he is more concerned that we love people, care and have compassion than that we know all the theological jargon. I am not dismissing that stuff and Barrs is very solid biblically, but his emphasis is on the pastor’s role in leading out Evangelism through love, hospitality and boldness.

In the first chapter of his book, Barrs reminds us of what Jesus told the disciples in Matt. 28: 16-20:

“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” ESV

What Barrs reminds us, is that it is not us who have conquered, or are the ones with the power, it is Jesus. That Jesus is reminding them that because He has all the authority and will be with them, these poor, raggged fisherman will be able to go out and spread this message and start a movement. In times of shyness or reluctance to share, I need to remind and preach that to myself.

Here is a quote from Barrs:

“But Jesus also gave them some comforting words (they needed them!). He told them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.’ He rules the unseen world of the spirits. He triumphs over the demons. he defeats the false gods of the nations and breaks their poer so that His disciples are able to go out into the world with confidence.” (Pg. 16-17)

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