Tolle Lege: A Meal with Jesus

 

Readability: 1

Length: 138 pp

Author: Tim Chester

One of the most powerful, God-glorifying things we can do with others is to eat. In surveying six narratives in Luke that deal with Jesus and meals, Tim Chester shows how meals enact grace, community, hope, mission, salvation, and promise. One of the most neglected of Christian virtues is hospitality. Chester will show you why it is so important that we recover this virtue, and how we can do it. I really loved “eating” this book. A Meal with Jesus is great food for the soul; it will not only nourish your own, but move you to nourish others souls by nourishing each others bodies as well.

Sharing a family meal has been replaced by the fancy dinner party. …

There’s nothing wrong with eating out or hosting a special meal—indeed there’s a lot right with it. But somewhere along the line the commercialization of meals has cost us something precious. Hospitality has become performance art, and we’ve lost the creation of intimacy around a meal.

Hospitality involves welcoming, creating space, listening, paying attention, and providing. Meals slow things down. Some of us don’t like that. We like to get things done. But meals force you to be people oriented instead of task oriented. Sharing a meal is not the only way to build relationships, but it is number one on the list.

When my friend Peter turned eighty, his son took him out for a birthday meal. His son is a top surgeon, so they went to a top restaurant. Peter told me that none of the menus had prices except his son’s. It was a sumptuous, delicious, perfect banquet—and an expensive one. But God will provide a lavish feast to surpass any five-star restaurant. What’s more, God’s menu has no prices on it, because the price has already been paid through the precious blood of Jesus.

The hospitality to which Jesus calls us can’t be institutionalized in programs and projects. Jesus challenges us to take mission home. It may be a surprise, given my emphasis on meals, but I loathe church lunches—those potluck suppers in drafty church halls. They’re institutionalized hospitality. Don’t start a hospitality ministry in your church: open your home.

Neither eating to live (food as fuel) nor living to eat (food as salvation) is right. We’re to eat to the glory of God and live to the glory of God. When we remove God from our lives, our relationship with food distorts.

WTS Books: $10.04               Amazon:$10.19

The Pugilist: World Peace

It is only when the world shall have been remade and there is no longer anything in it that can hurt or destroy that the lion and the lamb shall lie down together—because now the lion has ceased to be a lion. These things are to us an allegory. They mean that peace is the crowning blessing of earthly life and comes in the train of righteousness. Peace is, in the strictest sense, a by-product and is not to be had through direct effort. He works best for the world’s peace who works for the world’s righteousness. It is only when the world shall come to know the Lord and obey Him, that the peace of God can settle down upon it. We may cry, “Peace, peace,” and there be no peace. But he who cries, “Righteousness, righteousness,” will find that he has brought peace to the earth in precisely the measure in which he has brought righteousness. Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace, because He takes away sin; and you and I are workers for peace when we preach His Gospel, which is the Gospel of peace just because it is the Gospel of deliverance from sin. Sin means war, and where sin is, there will war be. Righteousness means peace, and there can never be peace where righteousness has not first been realized. – B.B. Warfield in The Wrath of Man

Matthew 6:25-34 & Flourish to Wilt

Notice how Jesus deals with worry – He’s logical. Now if you know anyone that struggles with worry you know how insufficient logic is to battle anxiety. Statistics give no strength for the worrier. He only reasons, “I could be the one.” But Jesus isn’t simply logical, He is theo-logical.

Three times we are commanded not to worry in this text, and all three times Jesus introduces the command to worry with “therefore”. In light of what Jesus teaches, you are commanded not to worry.  His teaching should result in you not worrying. This knowledge should result in you not worrying. Jesus does not exhort you to pray for deliverance (you should, but this is not the primary way to deal with anxiety). Jesus does not tell you to seek an experience. Jesus tells you to think. The worrier may riposte that thinking is exactly what he has too much of. But when you worry, are you really thinking? Are you controlling your thoughts, or are your thoughts controlling you? Lloyd-Jones expresses this well when he writes,

I suggest that the main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. Am I just trying to be deliberately paradoxical? Far from it. This is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment was this [the man in Ps. 42]; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you’….The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself.

Now why is thinking so crucial? Why does Jesus call us to think, and then abandon worry as a result? The answer lies in another question. What is Jesus calling us to think about? We are to consider the character of the Sovereign God, our Master and Lord, who is also our Heavenly Father.  If I lack anything it is not because He is unloving or incapable. God is to be my Treasure, my Vision, my Master, and my Ambition. Worry therefore is God-belittling, that is, blasphemous, as it doubts His providence, and idolatrous as it reveals what we fear and therefore what we love, value, and treasure.

Worry wars against faith; big worry, little faith, big faith, little worry (Matthew 6:30). You fight against worry by fighting for faith. It is true that we cannot make faith happen, it is a gift of God. But God does use means that we can avail ourselves of to increase faith, namely His Word (Romans 10:17) coupled with prayer (Psalm 119:18). Why does the Word increase faith? Because there God speaks to us of Himself. Our faith is not ethereal, it has an object – God. Our faith is in Jesus Christ and all that God is for us in Him. By thinking God’s own thoughts of Himself, given to us in Scripture, we gather wood for the fire. The Spirit sovereignly ignites faith in our chests using the logs of Scripture as fuel. Faith flourishes as it looks to Christ and all that God is for us in Him. Jesus here is directing our gaze to God, who  is our Father in Him (Ephesians 1:5) so that our faith might flourish and our worry wilt.

The theological bedrock that you are meant to stand firmly on in this text is not that you will never hunger, but that God always cares. In Christ He is your Father.

Tolle Lege: Am I Really a Christian?

Readability: 1

Length: 148 pp

Author: Mike McKinley

If you are struggling as to whether or not you are a Christian I am going to recommend that you read two books: 1 John and Am I Really a Christian? By Mike McKinley. I am deeply thankful for Mike’s book as this is one of the foremost concerns brought to me as a minister. And yet, I think more people need to ask themselves this question. Many people are not doubting that likely need to. I believe this is especially true in the Bible Belt where many have been assured that they are saved because they have prayed some prayer, walked an isle, or some other action. You are not a Christian because of anything you do, but because of what Christ has done. Therefore we don’t need to see if we have done the proper action(s) so that we are a Christian, but we need to see if there is fruit in our lives as a result of our being a Christian. Mike will not speak “peace” to you when there is no peace – and that is why this book has so much potential to give you true peace; either if you are doubting, or if you should.

Imagine for a minute that we’re all running in a race. According to the rules of this race, it doesn’t matter how we place, but it is absolutely critical that we finish. Not only that, our eternal destiny hangs on whether we finish this race. Finishing means eternal joy. Failing to finish, for whatever reason, means eternal suffering. This would be a pretty important race, would it not?

Now imagine that, looking along the racecourse, we see people dressed in running shorts and fancy sneakers, but for some reason they are sitting by the side of the road. Other people are crouched down, still as statues, tense, poised, and ready in the starting blocks. But they never move; they just stay there. Some people are wandering around in circles. Still others are running the wrong way.

Suppose then we stop to talk to these wayward runners and non-runners. Quickly it becomes clear that they are convinced they’re running well. They say they’re looking forward to completing the race and receiving the substantial reward. They smile and talk dreamily about life beyond the finish line. The problem is, we know that they will never finish the race given their pace or direction.

Tell me: What would be the loving thing to do in that case? Would love motivate us to ignore their confusion? Would love motivate us to politely nod and say nothing? Of course not. Love would require us to warn them, to convince them, to plead with them to change their course.

That is the spirit in which I offer this book to you. I hope to serve you by helping you determine if you are “running your race” in the right direction.

[T]he important question is not, “Have I professed faith in Christ in the past?” but rather, “Am I trusting Christ right now for my salvation?” If you must point back to some distant event for evidence that you have an interest in Christ, you might wonder if you genuinely saved. But if you have continued trusting Christ over time, you have reason to have hope in your salvation.

www.amireallyachristian.com

WTS Books: $10.15               Amazon:$10.28

The Pugilist: The True Experts on Sin are the Saints

It is only the saint who knows what sin is; for only the saint knows it in contrast with salvation, experienced and understood. And it is only the sinning saint who knows what salvation is: for it is only the joy that is lost and then found again that is fully understood. The depths of David’s knowledge, the poignancy of his conceptions—of God, and sin, and salvation—carrying him far beyond the natural plane of his time and the development of the religious consciousness of Israel, may be accounted for, it would seem, by these facts. He who had known the salvation of God and basked in its joy, came to know through his dreadful sin what sin is, and its terrible entail; and through this horrible experience, to know what the joy of salvation is— the joy which he had lost and only through the goodness of God could hope to have restored. In the biting pain of his remorse, it all becomes clear to him. His sinful nature is revealed to him; and the goodness of God; his need of the Spirit; the joy of acceptance with God; the delight of abiding with Him in His house. Hence his profound disgust at himself; his passionate longing for that purity without which he could not see God. And hence his culminating prayer: ‘Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.’

Matthew 6:19-24 & Heavenly Math

God doesn’t give us our money, He entrusts us with His money.  It’s not a question of how much of our money will we give to Him, but how much of His money are we bold enough to keep for ourselves.  When Jesus uses strong language to rouse us to this reality He is not seeking to rob our joy. This command and the reward for obeying it are not about merit – they both come as further lavish grace in Christ – they are grace upon grace. Jesus wants us to unfurl our sinful fingers and give away temporal pebbles so that our hands are open to receive eternal diamonds.

Live on less, give more, and receive even more, this is heavenly math.

The Pugilist: Harmonizing Scripture

If we cannot harmonize without straining, let us leave unharmonized. It is not necessary for us to see the harmony that it should exist or even be recognized by us as existing. -B.B. Warfiled, The Real Problem of Inspiration

Tolle Lege: Managing God’s Money

Readability: 1

Length: 254 pp

Author: Randy Alcorn

If The Treasure Principle is a guided missile towards our hearts concerning the issue of money, and Money, Possessions, and Eternity is an invasion by the whole army, then  perhaps Managing God’s Money is the air force sent in to knock out most of the enemy forces. Behind all three books there is no better general in my opinion to help use our money strategically – Randy Acorn. I think every Christian should read The Treasure Principle, but if after reading it you want a refresher, or a more through dealing with the various facets of using our money well with out treating the subject exhaustively, then managing God’s Money is perfect.

Many who say, “I have nothing to give,” spend large amounts of discretionary income on cars, clothes, coffee, entertainment, phones, computers, and so on. They have nothing to give when they’re done spending, precisely because they’re never done spending

It’s not how much money we make that grabs hold of our hearts. It’s how much we keep.

Whatever “king’s kid” the prosperity proponents are speaking of, it obviously isn’t Jesus!

We need to stop thinking of ourselves as owners and instead see ourselves as God’s couriers. Just because God puts his money in our hands doesn’t mean he intends for it to stay there!

Much of our “giving” is merely discarding.

If I’m devoted to “simple living,” I might reject a computer because it’s modern and nonessential. But if I live a … strategic lifestyle, the computer may serve as a tool for Kingdom purposes. In my case, I use it daily to serve God in my writing. A microwave oven isn’t essential. But it’s handy and labor saving and can free up time to engage in Kingdom causes. Simple living may be self-centered. Strategic living is Kingdom centered.

Amazon: $5.99

The Pugilist: If you Discredit the Apostles You Discredit Jesus

This may be made plain at once by the very obvious remark that we have no Christ except the one whom the apostles have given to us. Jesus Himself left no treatises on doctrine. He left no written dialogues. We are dependent on the apostles for our whole knowledge of Him, and of what He taught. The portraiture of Jesus which has glorified the world’s literature as well as blessed all ages and races with the revelation of a God-man come down from heaven to save the world, is limned by his followers’ pencils alone. The record of that teaching which fell from His lips as living water, which if a man drink of he shall never thirst again, is a record by his followers’ pens alone. They have painted for us, of course, the Jesus that they knew, and as they knew Him. They have recorded for us the teachings that they heard, and as they heard them. Whatever untrustworthiness attaches to them as deliverers of doctrine, must in some measure shake also our confidence in their report of what their Master was and taught.

But the logic cuts even deeper. For not only have we no Christ but Him whom we receive at the apostles’ hands, but this Christ is committed to the trustworthiness of the apostles as teachers. His credit is involved in their credit. He represents His words on earth as but the foundation of one great temple of doctrine, the edifice of which was to be built up by Him through their mouths, as they spoke moved by His Spirit; and thus He makes Himself an accomplice before the fact in all they taught. In proportion as they are discredited as doctrinal guides, in that proportion He is discredited with them. -B.B. Warfield, The Real Problem of Inspiration

Romans 8:18-25 & The Weight of Glory

Our future glory is not light, ethereal, and floaty, but weighty, massive, and solid. It’s as weighty as the earth in multiple ways. Too many Christians have far more in common with Plato than Paul in their conception of heaven. It was the Greeks, not Jesus or Paul, who sought to be liberated from their bodies and the physical. Paul and Jesus spoke of their redemption and resurrection. The earth is both literally and figuratively tilted, eagerly awaiting our revealing (8:19), knowing that because it is our inheritance (Matthew 5:5), it will be caught up in our freedom and redemption (8:21). Where does the power for such cosmic resurrection come from? This Big Bang occurred 2000 years ago in the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Just how weighty is this future glory? So weighty that it renders our present sufferings as nothing in comparison (8:18). Paul here is not making light of our sufferings, but much of the our future glory. Give suffering is full weight and credit, don’t minimize it in any way; then think of your greatest sufferings and imagine experiencing a joy so great that when the two are place on the scales it is as if you are comparing a speck of pollen to an anvil.

But we have not yet even begun to imagine the weight Paul is calculating here. Paul is not saying that there is a glory so substantial that it outweighs your sufferings as an individual, but that it outweighs all of our collective sufferings (8:18). So gather all the tears and pains of all the saints, pile them on the scale and see it hit the ground with such a thud that it causes a fissure in the earth. Then imagine a future glory so massive that it topples and crushes the scales making all of our sufferings in comparison as particulate floating in the light of His majesty.

It isn’t that our sufferings are so small, but that this glory is so big. The future world, the new heavens and the new earth will be far more solid than this one, far more weighty.