Purpose in Your Practice

"Most people who think they are working hard are merely developing the skill of being in the gym, not the skill of making baskets."

Wow. That hit me. I found the article this quote came from after seeing Donald Whitney's tweet earlier today:

You can read the article HERE, but the basic premise is that those, like Mozart, Kobe, etc. who where/are the best in their field put in the time to practice. But that's not all. It's not just practice. it's practice with a purpose.

So, it's not enough to just "go to the gym for an hour" every day, there must be purpose in your practice. Waking up everyday and going to the gym at 6:00am and half-heartedly doing your leg workout while taking frequent breaks to check Facebook isn't really going to produce the desired results.Now, the analogy between practice and pursuing holiness is far from perfect but it is close enough to draw some application for us.

There is a category of "christian" in the South that means nothing more than attending church (sometimes), trying not to do anything "real bad," and being a good American citizen. This post isn't an address to that category because that category isn't really Christian at all. If you're in that category you need to repent and believe the gospel.

Here's who I'd like to address. Those who acknowledge their only hope of salvation is receiving the righteousness of Jesus Christ by faith which He secured for them by His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. You truly desire to grow in godliness but your bible intake, prayer life, evangelism, participation at church, etc. has felt stale.

You feel like your working hard, but not seeing "results".

Have you trained yourself to just go to the gym or how to make baskets? What is the purpose of your practice? Why are you reading the bible? Why are you praying? Why are you involved in a local body of believes? Why are you telling others about Jesus?

Seriously, answer that. Why? Is it because "that's what Christians are supposed to do"? Is it because "I feel guilty if I don't"? If those are your motivations, or something similar, you are training yourself in the skill of going to the gym. There is no sustaining purpose there and while there will be growth if you truly are a Christian through the means of these and others spiritual disciplines, you will never find satisfaction in your walk with Jesus by just trying to keep a checklist.

1 Timothy 4:7 says "Train yourself for godliness."

Paul understood that we have the World, the Flesh, and the Devil pulling at us as we continue to walk with Jesus by faith. While we don't diminish the work of the Holy Spirit in our Sanctification, the reality of the New Testament is that we must train. And actually, it's when we really come face to face with grace as Christians, and understand that we don't have to earn God's favor or do things to make Him love us (and realize that we can't do things to make Him love or hate us) that we will be motivated to train ourselves for godliness. We've tasted and seen that the Lord is good and we want more. We realize that God has saved us for a purpose - to fellowship with Him forever in holiness. To glorify Him and enjoy Him forever or as John Piper has put it "To glorify God by enjoying Him forever." While we will never realize anything close to perfection in this life, our desire now is to pursue holiness because we want to be glad in God.

And that's the kicker to training for the skill of making baskets, not just going to the gym. What must ground our bible intake, prayer time, discipleship meetings, church gatherings, etc. is the goal of godliness. We do not do these things to check off a list or to make God happy or to keep Him from zapping us. We do these things because we desire holiness.

So when the alarm goes off at 5:00am, and you're groggy, and feel like you're just going through the motions, keep this in the forefront of your mind: godliness. I want to know Christ in a more intimate way. I want to be like Christ. I want to do His blessed will in every area of my life. I want to love others and take the gospel to the nations. I want to be glad in God. I want godliness.

And that's purpose in your practice. You're not waking up early to train yourself to go to the gym. You're waking up early to learn how to make baskets.

On Corporate Prayer and Repentance

Below is a resolution passed at the 2011 SBC Annual Meeting. (Baptist Press Article about this HERE) I plan on discussing this with our church at our prayer meeting next Wednesday. Yes, this is now almost 3 years old but  I ask that you would prayerfully consider this resolutions's charge.  No doubt we are facing uncertain times as a nation and as a denomination for that matter. Let us seek His face together.  Who knows what our gracious God may do?

ON CORPORATE PRAYER AND REPENTANCE

From the SBC Annual Meeting 2011 

WHEREAS, Both the Old and New Testaments, as well as church history, attest to the reality that God works powerfully and manifests His presence among His people through authentic God-seeking prayer and repentance; and
WHEREAS, Jesus expressed deep grief and righteous anger when He came to the temple and found it to be something other than a “house of prayer for all nations” (Mark 11:17); and WHEREAS, The book of Acts teaches through the birth of the church that what is birthed in prayer is of necessity sustained by prayer (e.g., Acts 1:14; 2:1, 42; 4:31); and
WHEREAS, The common corporate sins of many churches include, but are not limited to, prayerlessness, lukewarmness, neglect of biblical church discipline, and shallow relationships with God and with one another; and
WHEREAS, In our preoccupation with Mammon, we have too often embraced unbiblical priorities in our spending, our giving, our response to the poor, and our allocation of resources, assuming by our actions, contrary to our Lord’s explicit teaching, that our lives consist in the abundance of our possessions (Luke 12:15); and
WHEREAS, For the past fifty years wickedness and family collapse have been increasing rapidly, and at the same time we have seen that programs and strategies alone cannot revive lagging baptism rates or anemic discipleship; and
WHEREAS, The Southern Baptist Convention adopted the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report in 2010, a part of which called for pastors to lead their churches in Solemn Assemblies “for the purpose of calling Christ’s people to return to God, to repentance, and to humility in service to a renewed commitment to Christ and the Great Commission”; and

WHEREAS, The Southern Baptist Convention adopted the addition to the Convention Calendar of Activities a focused Day of Prayer for the SBC in 2011 and for the years to follow; and 

WHEREAS, God has already promised that He will not despise a “broken and contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17); now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, June 14-15, 2011, do hereby beseech all pastors, congregations, ministry leaders, and denominational workers to seek the Lord in the manner of 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Joel 2:12-17, and to repent corporately in their various churches of all sins which God’s Spirit reveals; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we call on all Southern Baptist churches to renew their first-love devotion to Jesus Christ through full confession of and repentance from all revealed sin, and that they humbly declare their utter dependence upon, and glad surrender to, His grace; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we encourage all Southern Baptists to pursue a life of genuine repentance, Kingdom-focused prayer times for sweeping revival and spiritual awakening, and consistent prayer for specific lost people, missions, and ministry; and be it finally
RESOLVED, That we urge Southern Baptist churches to embrace corporate prayer and repentance for revival in the hope that God would be merciful to our churches, the Southern Baptist Convention, the United States of America, and the peoples of the world for the glory of His great Name.

Praying for Your Church

I have to give all the credit to this idea to my good friend Nathan Nalley. I've wanted to be more disciplined in praying for my church as a pastor but didn't have a good strategy.  Now I do! Below you'll find a copy of what I use (with names removed) and I don't mind emailing you a .pub file if you'd like to use it for your own church.  Before I get to that though, let me include some quotes on why, as a pastor, you should be praying for your people.

• “We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” Acts 6:4

• “A minister who is not a man of piety and prayer, whatever his other talents may be, cannot be called a servant of God.” - John Smith

• “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you.” 1 Peter 5:2

• “The minister who does not pray for his flock is no minister at all.” Martin Holdt

• “We have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Colossians 1:9-10

I hope those few lines are enough to motivate you as a pastor to pray for your flock.  How does that work practically?  I know Mark Dever suggests praying through your church directory regularly if you have one. My problem is, we don't have one!  So, with this guide we are able to pray for everone in our church in two weeks, praying 4 days a week.  This is a guide I put in every member's hand to encourage their disciplined prayer for every other member of the church.  Once printed, this is easily turned into a trifold pamphlet.

Family Devotions

I remember the 1st time I really began doing family devotions a little over 5 years ago.  I had a 9 month old, a wife of 2 years, and felt absolutely clueless.  I had been convicted of my neglect of this discipline and knew that we needed to do it but I was unsure of myself.  That was 2008.

(Piper and Big Sis, Ella)

Now, 2014, I have a wife of 7 years, a one week old, a 2 year old, a 4 year old, and a six year old. I am still convinced that we need to do family devotions (we call it "family worship") but as a husband and father I am still not always 100% sure of myself!  So, I wanted to pass along a couple of recent posts I've seen regarding family devotions to hopefully encourage you as you lead in this important discipline. 

First, here's a post from Dr. Jim Hamilton that fleshes out some of the biblical reasons for leading family devotions: That the Coming Generation Might Praise the Lord

Here is a video that features a recent panel discussion on family devotions but before the discussion it gives 2 real life examples of family devotions led by Dr. Jim Hamilton and Dr. Timothy Paul Jones:

(originally here)

The following is from a recent post by Andrew Weiseth at the Resurgence website:

Practical outline of a family devotional

In case you might find it helpful, here’s what we tend to do in our family time:

• Pray

• Sing a song or two

• Read the Bible story

• Invite all kids to interact with what they heard

• Act out the story, with me narrating as needed as we go along

• Take pictures during the reenactment and let the kids look at the photos

• Sing a song or two

• Hold hands and pray together for each other

I pray this encourages you. May it help you to lead your family toward Jesus with greater joy and power. How can you incorporate your kids’ play into your own family devotional time?

Finally, I'll link to an old post where I outlined How We Do Family Worship.  I would add a few things to that. 1st, we use The Jesus Storybook Bible now (instead of the one mentioned in the post).  We also open our night with Doxology and close it with The Gospel Song.  Finally, we are also intentional about memorizing Scripture.  You'd be surprised how well kids can memorize bible verses!  Repetition is key. A few good ones to start out with are Genesis 1:1, Psalm 19:1a, Psalm 34:8a, etc.

I also saw this book referenced in the above video and think we'll invest in purchasing it!

I hope you have found these resources helpful.  The one encouragement I like to give parents comes from the great shoe company, Nike: Just do it.  Seriously.  I know you feel overwhelmed and under-equipped but God has given you the tremendous blessing and responsibility for shepherding your children.  Just do it. Just begin and trust that the Lord will lead you, through His Word, in the right direction. To God be the glory.

7 Attributes of the Church

Immanuel Baptist Church, Clinton, AR

I’m finally beginning to read Sojourners and Strangers: The Doctrine of the Church, a book by Dr. Gregg R. Allison.  It is a book that I’ve wanted to read for some time because of having the opportunity to sit under a couple of classes taught by Dr. Allison at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and hearing his heart for Jesus and his love for the local church.  I’m sure I’ll share some more from this work but one thing I liked was Dr. Allison’s 7 attributes of the local church.  I think you'll find it helpful reflecting on these.

The local church is: (pg. 103)

1. Doxological: oriented to the glory of God

2. Logocentric: focused on the Word of God – this is understood in two aspects. The local church is to be focused on Jesus the Word of God incarnate and to be focused on Scripture.

3. Pneumadynamic: created, gathered, gifted, and empowered by the Holy Spirit

4. Covenantal: gathered as members in new covenant relationship with God and in covenant relationship with each other

5. Confessional: united by both personal confession of faith in Christ and common confession of the historic Christian faith

6. Missional: identified as the body of divinely called and divinely sent ministers to proclaim the gospel and advance the kingdom of God

7. Spatio-temporal/eschatological: assembled as a historical reality and possessing a certain hope and clear destiny while it lives the strangeness of ecclesial existence in the here and now

The first three attributes deal with the church’s origin and orientation.  The church exists for the glory of God!  Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone and head of the Body.  The Spirit of God calls us out of death and into life and empowers us to live for Jesus and carry out His mission. 

The final four attributes deal with the church’s “gathering and sending.” We are gathered under the new covenant and confess Christ as our only suitable all sufficient savior in accordance with historic orthodoxy.  We are carry the message of the gospel this lost and dying world realizing that we have been called in a specific time and place as we await the blessed hope of Jesus’ return.

Therefore, I don’t think it’s necessary for a church to have a “vision statement” in the sense of needing to create a reason for why a local church exists. Here is our vision!  This is what the church is and this is how and why it exists and these truths are rooted in Scripture, which is all sufficient. 

I’m only about halfway through this book so far (which weighs in at about 471 pages) but I would recommend it to anyone who desires to grow in their understanding of and love for the church.  Here it is on Amazon. (I get no commission so just find the book for the best price!)

Are We Practically Denying the Sufficiency of Scripture?

I have the following note written in my iPhone:

NEVER give up the fight for pushing people to give priority to bible saturation.  Don't let up or stop emphasizing until the majority of folks get it and apply it.

This stems from the reality that in the 'Bible Belt' (for what that's worth) there is a great practical denial of the sufficiency of Scripture.  A quick definition from Grudem's Systematic Theology (pg. 127) says the sufficiency of Scripture:

...means that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains everything we need God to tell us for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly. 

I say "practical" denial because, and let me address Southern Baptists here, we have affirmed the sufficiency of Scripture in our minds, nay, we have conquered in the battle for the inerrancy of Scripture, but in our daily or corporate lives we fail to let Scripture have any meaningful place. Perhaps I shouldn't say any meaningful? We fail to let Scripture have its rightful place.

Let's put the 16 million 'members' in SBC churches but only 6 million of those who actually show up on Sunday, or whatever crazy statistic it is, on the table for a moment and try to identify a few other ways that we can know when we are practically denying the sufficiency of Scripture:


1. When we don't read it.  This is pretty basic.  I have found that there are many laypersons who do not have a working knowledge of the bible.  We don't expect everyone to be seminarians but I do think it reasonable to expect that people who've been a Christian over a few years should have at least a basic understanding of the grand story line of the bible, God pursuing sinners for the sake His glory - even if they don't articulate it in those exact words.  However, it seems many are confused as to how the Old Testament and New Testament fit together.  Certainly poor teaching is to blame but also a simple lack of reading.  When we don't read the Bible we are practically denying its sufficiency. We are saying "I don't need this to tell me everything I need to know about salvation, for trusting God perfectly, and for obeying Him perfectly."  To be in such a literate society with access to the Word of God does not bode well for many of us on how we use our time when we stand before God on that great Day.

2. When we don't prize it.  Reading the bible is one thing, treasuring it is something else.  I've heard many a story of lost people reading the bible and other lost persons using the bible for historical or literary work.  Anyone can read the bible.  But are its teachings prized? Is the One it points us to treasured? When Southern Baptists who have been saved for years can only quote John 3:16 because they don't have "good memories" it seems that maybe the bible isn't actually prized. When Christian parents allow their children to memorize Taylor Swift songs but don't push them towards memorizing Scripture it seems that maybe the bible isn't actually prized.  When we are able to talk about what happened on Duck Dynasty or last night's game on a regular basis but not able to talk about our deep meditations upon Holy Writ it seems that maybe the bible isn't actually prized. I could go on but the point is we are practically denying the sufficiency of Scripture when we do not prize it as the very words of God. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb (Ps. 19:10).

3. When it doesn't drive our methodology. Write this down and circle it three times, then highlight it and put an asterisk out beside it: The end doesn't justify the means.  God did not say 'get people saved' however you want (He didn't say 'get people saved' anyway but that's probably another post). The Word clearly lays out that it is Sovereign, Holy God, who pursues sinners, and that we, His loyal subjects, are to take His message of forgiveness to the nations and to call all men everywhere to repentance and faith the way He has ordained for us to do. So, when the latest fad or scheme is used that is extra-biblical or even unbiblical, and people buy into it, what it is really saying is this: The Word of God is not sufficient.  Ah! But people are getting saved! The end doesn't justify the means. Maybe they are getting saved but if they are it is NOT because of the latest fad, rather it is in spite of it.  Is the Word of God sufficient for everything we need from God for obeying Him perfectly or not?

4. When it doesn't saturate our gatherings. If Scripture contains everything we need God to tell us for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly then we must sing it, pray it, and preach it in our services.  Sing the Word.  Pray the Word.  Preach the Word.  When a church service is void of one or all of these elements then the congregation is saying, practically, that the Word of God is not sufficient.

Let me conclude by clarifying that we don't saturate ourselves in Scripture for the sake of Scripture itself. "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me..." John 5:39. Scripture leads us to Christ.  We saturate ourselves in the Word because we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good and we want more.  We desire to pursue holiness, and to live for the sake of His name among all the nations.

These are just a few thoughts.  This post could have been much longer but I am interested in hearing your thoughts on other symptoms of practically denying the sufficiency of Scripture...

A Suggestion for Increasing Bible Intake

Like many of you I had some time towards the end of 2013 to think about my current level of daily Scripture intake. Like many of you I was not fully satisfied with where I was and resolved to make some changes for 2014.


I wanted to share one practical change I've made because I think it is an easy concept for anyone to incorporate into their bible intake plans and hopefully you will find it effective in your quest to know God's Word so that you may walk in His truth (Ps. 86:11).


So here it is, nothing revolutionary really...


Each night before we go to bed, my wife and I read 2 chapters from an Epistle. We alternate reading; I read a chapter and then she reads one. Once we make it through we start the same epistle over.


For example: Right now we are doing Ephesians. I'll read a chapter and she'll read a chapter each night, out loud. After 3 nights we complete the entire book. On the 4th night we start back over. At this pace we make it through the entire book twice each week. The goal is to do this repeatedly for 4 months and by the end of April we'll have made it through Ephesians over 32 times. In May we are going start 1 John and in September, 1 Peter.


Why do this?


1.  It helps us know individual books well: We each have separate goals for reading through the bible but this habit helps us to learn some individual books more in depth by just reading them over and over. 

2. Easy goal to keep: We don't do in depth bible study each night. We just read. It takes less than 5 minutes. Sometimes we do/will talk more about what we've read but our goal in this is to just read. If this was all we were doing for Scripture intake I would say it would be insufficient. However we each have other times in our day for meditative reading. The goal for this is just to read. 

3. It ends our day with focus on God's Word: what better way to go to sleep than to reflect on the inerrant, infallible, all sufficient truth of God's Word as you hit the pillow? We believe that the Word of God is transformative. Our hope for becoming more like Christ lies in the power of God to change us and we know that one way God changes us is through the transforming power of His Word.

4. It's another time the bible is read in "community." To read the bible individually is important for spiritual growth but so is reading the bible together with other believers. The Word of God is given for the people of God not just the "persons."

5. Helps focus our marriage on Jesus. We need intentional Christ-centeredness built into our marriages. This is just one of the things we are doing to help our marriage be focused on Him.


Is this plan or a similar one something you can incorporate into your bible intake plan?

I'm writing this post from a hospital room in Little Rock, AR where my wife just gave birth to our fourth child! We are grateful for God's gift of children. Needless to say this has thrown us off a few days on our reading plan but we'll pick back up soon. The goal isn't to "check off" a list anyway. The goal is to have a disciplined approach to reading God's worth in faith that God will shape us into the people He woul have us to be.