Happy St. Patrick’s Day

The post below is three years old, but has lots of good links about St. Patrick and is well worth checking out. At the very end of the post I have included a new video on St. Patrick from the Apostleship of Prayer. Enjoy.

Blessings,
Dale

As I write this I am wearing a green shirt. I began the day in a light blue shirt. But my kids steadfastly refused to stop pinching me until I yielded to the tradition of St. Patty’s Day.

I got to know a little about St. Patrick through two sermons/lectures. One was by Joe Morecraft and the other by T.M. Moore. Both men captured my imagination as they revealed to me more than I ever knew about this incredible Christian man. I’ve provided three short articles and/or devotionals below that will introduce St. Patrick to you. God used him mightily and celebrating his life every March 17 is probably a good thing insofar as it points us to Christ and what one person can do for the Kingdom of God.

St. Patrick: Why His Message Still Matters
Brother Colmán Ó Clabaigh, OSB
at CrossWalk.com

March 17 is upon us again, and all over the world everyone is an honorary Irishman or Irishwoman for 24 hours. St. Patrick’s popularity is a result of the wanderlust of the Irish, and there is no corner of the world in which his name is not honored.

Yet, if his name is known, his story is less familiar and his message often gets drowned out by the parades, the plastic shamrocks and the green-dyed beer.

The little knowledge we have of him comes from two letters he wrote in the course of his missionary work in fifth-century Ireland.

Click here to read the whole article. (also, make sure to check out the great links to more info on St. Patrick at the end of the article.)

In Honor of St. Patrick
by Mark D. Roberts
at The High Calling

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. Most people think of this day as a time for wearing green and that’s about it (unless you’re Irish!). St. Patrick gets relatively little attention on his day, so I thought I might offer a few thoughts in his honor, including a prayer that is attributed to him.

Patrick’s story reads like an Indiana Jones-type adventure. Raised in Britain (yes, not Ireland), Patrick was captured by pirates in A.D. 405 when he was only sixteen years old. The kidnappers whisked him away to Ireland and sold Patrick into slavery. He spent eight years as a captive in this pagan land.

Click here to read the whole article.

Concealing the Gift
by T.M. Moore
at The Fellowship of St. Ailbe

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We are right to remember this great saint, who labored so diligently in the cause of the Gospel, against unimaginable odds, but with unprecedented fruit. Sechnall, Patrick’s contemporary, was correct in referring to him as the light of God to the Irish. That, indeed, is what he was.

And what about us? Patrick’s mission field was all of Ireland, and he lit up the house with his diligent and faithful work. Our mission field is wherever God has set us, in the places and among the people we see week-in and week-out. Are we shining the gift of the Gospel on the people around us or concealing the gift of God under the bushels of timidity, fear, or simple disobedience?

Click here to read the whole article.

The Lord Bless You,
Dale

Read Full Post »

Satan and Your Marriage

Deepak Reju at Grace & Truth shares a helpful list of ways that Satan delights in seeing a couple’s marriage fall apart. It’s a helpful list because, as the old saying goes, to be forwarned is to be forearmed. He writes…

According the Bible, Satan prowls around like a lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8), but many times, he probably doesn’t have to do that much. I wonder if sometimes Satan sits back and laughs at us.

Marriage can be extremely messy. As sinners we can do dumb things in marriage—we hurt one another; we make false assumptions and then miscommunicate; we manipulate or say mean things to our spouse; we think less about serving and more about being served. We don’t always follow God’s Word or advice from godly leaders. We put our hopes in the world or each other more than we put hope in God.

We don’t need Satan to ruin our marriage. We do plenty of unhelpful things on our own to ruin our marriages. I’m sure Satan enjoys having a front row seat, watching our folly and foolishness.

What does he see?

Click here to read his list.

Read Full Post »

Godly Men Believe God is Holy

Godly Men Believe that God is Holy

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. ² Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³ And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

⁴ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

⁵ “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

⁶ Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷ With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

In 1993, even though I was already a pastor, God revolutionized my faith by giving me a glimpse of his holiness. Any more than a glimpse and I’m not sure my heart could have taken it. I was studying R.C. Sproul’s book, The Holiness of God, and at the same time studying Paul’s understanding of grace in the Book of Romans. I still remember sitting in my house alone (this is before I was married), weeping over how good God’s grace really is. But I first had to understand how holy God truly is to appreciate his grace.

Like many folks born and raised in mainline Protestantism, I grew up hearing lots and lots about God’s love. And thank God for it! However, I think I came to understand God’s love as an entitlement which was due me. I mean, God is love after all… he owes me love. In reality, God’s love didn’t mean that much to me. Yet, as I began seeing God’s holiness through a biblical lens, I couldn’t help but be humbled…and all the more as I saw my fallen and sinful state as God did. Newton’s “Amazing Grace” started really making sense to me.

A.W. Tozer writes about this “aha” moment that I, like the prophet Isaiah, had. He says…

The sudden realization of his personal depravity came like a stroke from heaven upon the trembling heart of Isaiah at the moment when he had his revolutionary vision of the holiness of God. …[Isaiah] expresses the feeling of every man who has discovered himself under his disguises and has been confronted with an inward sight of the holy whiteness that is God.

Until we have seen ourselves as God sees us, we are not likely to be much disturbed over conditions around us as long as they do not get so far out of hand as to threaten our comfortable way of life. We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing.

Godly men believe that God is holy, first of all, because that is what God has revealed to us about himself. He wants us to know he is a holy God. Second, I believe we must understand that God is holy because it truly impresses upon us how precious God’s love and grace really are and compels us to desire and appreciate God’s love and grace that much more. God forbid we should ever come to a place in our thinking where we believe love and grace are our due.

The third reason we must see God as holy is because God commands us to be holy because God is holy. God wants us to imitate him.  But we’re sinful and fallen, so how in the world can we ever obtain the holiness which is required of us? Tozer answers this question well…

We must hide our unholiness in the wounds  of Christ as Moses hid himself in the cleft of the rock while the glory of God passed by. We must take refuge from God in God.

This holiness God can and does impart to his children. He shares it with them by imputation and by impartation, and because he has made it available to them through the blood of the Lamb.

We must hide ourselves in Christ and put on his righteousness by grace through faith. Only then can we be holy.

Brothers, on this Lord’s Day, I encourage you to draw close to the One who was put to death for your transgressions and raised on the third day for your salvation… to make you like himself… to make you holy.

Have a great Lord’s Day today. I look forward to seeing you all this week.

Your Brother in Christ, Dale

Read Full Post »

Grace & Truth: Encouragement for Today

Scripture for Today

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

¹⁵ John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’” ¹⁶ From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truthcame through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. (John 1:14-18)

Prayer for Today

Almighty God, from whom every good prayer cometh, and who pourest out on all who desire it, the spirit of grace and supplication: Deliver us, when we draw night to thee, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind, that with steadfast thought and kindled affections, we may worship thee in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (taken from The Methodist Book of Worship for Church and Home, 1965)

Today’s Devotion

To Know God is to Love Him by A.W. Tozer

God is love, and is for that reason the source of all the love there is. He has set as the first of all commandments that we love Him with all our hearts, but He knows that the desired love can never originate with us. We love him, because he first loved us, is the scriptural and psychological pattern. We can love Him as we ought only as He inflames our minds with holy desire. Yet there is also a love of willing as well as of feeling. Though we may not be conscious of any great degree of inward sensation, we may set our wills to love God and the feeling will come of itself. Let us bring ourselves under obedience to His revealed Word and our love for Him will grow. Obedience will strengthen faith and faith will increase knowledge. And it is a well-known law of the spiritual life that our love for God will spring up and flourish just as our knowledge of Him increases. To know Him is to love Him, and to know Him better is to love Him more. (Taken from the Tozer Devotion website)

Points to Ponder by Fred Smith (Taken from Breakfast with Fred)

The Power of Possessions

My friend and mentor Maxey Jarman wrote a long memo to me responding to a question I posed about the loss of “things.” His summarized it: “A time of reversal and loss is a good time for a person to take stock of himself to see what he really wants out of life, whether he wants things that have eternal value, real value, or whether he particularly wants to have the kind of things that the world puts great value on.” He experienced great financial reversal, yet saw the blessing. Things were temporal; he built on the eternal.
In preparation for a men’s retreat on excellence, I thought about the power of possessions and asked myself and the group the following questions:

1. Am I obsessive about things, being either materialistic or antimaterialistic?
2. Do I use things as an escape from boredom?
3. Do I substitute things for accomplishment?
4. Am I able to “sit loose to things,” as Chambers says?
5. Is my view temporal or eternal?
6. What do things symbolize for me?
7. Am I accumulating things that appreciate or depreciate?
8. Does my anticipation of acquisition match my enjoyment?
9. How often do I use things to impress others?
10. How do I define the Christian view of possessions?
11. What traditions am I building as a legacy?
12. Do I acquire by plan or by impulse?
13. How do I define my lifestyle?
14. How high a price will I pay to be accepted?
15. Would I sacrifice excellence for wealth?
16. How would I respond if I lost everything?

This week carefully consider: 1) Which question made me stop? 2) What is my relationship to things? 3) Where is my security?

Words of Wisdom: “Things were temporal; he built on the eternal.”

Wisdom from the Word: “Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19 NET Bible)

Read Full Post »

The Ditches of Legalism and Licentiousness

After my last post, a Christian brother shared with me his struggle to faithfully teach grace to the folks he disciples. I certainly share in that struggle. I have often said that faithful discipleship is a narrow path between the two ditches of legalism and licentiousness.

Of course, I didn’t come up with that. The Apostle Paul had to deal with the same issues. On the one hand he had to warn the Galatians about the ditch of legalism espoused by the Judaizers. On the other hand he had to give an emphatic “NO” to those whose philosophy was… “let’s sin up a storm so that we can experience more of God’s grace.” The narrow path between the two ditches is narrow indeed and Christian history is littered with examples of how individuals (as well as groups of people) have fallen into one ditch or the other. Regardless of which ditch you fall into… you still end up dirty and smelly.

To my struggling brother, and as a reminder to myself, I offer some counsel I once heard. I take comfort in the struggle because the Apostle Paul experienced the same. Grace is a dangerous thing. I think if we faithfully and accurately teach the biblical doctrine of grace, there will always be the risk that someone might distort it in a libertine direction… just as a faithful and accurate teaching of obedience might lead some into the legalistic ditch. I guess, like evangelism, we are called to be faithful… even though we can’t control the results.

I think that those of us who take the ministry of discipleship seriously will always struggle. However, perhaps we can use this struggle between the two ditches… the struggle of the narrow path… to motivate us to be careful, loving, grace-filled, and faithful in our teaching, discipling, counseling, correcting, etc.

I know that walking the narrow path is hard enough for me… and I’ve been at it for some time. I can still remember the early days of my walk with Christ; I often found myself walking a little too closely to one side or the other… and sometimes found myself climbing out of one ditch or the other, cleaning myself off (actually, repenting… and begging for more of God’s Spirit and grace) and then getting back on the narrow path.

This reminder of my own history will hopefully encourage me to be patient with those whom I disciple… especially those who are just beginning their own way down the narrow path. Thank God for his ever-present grace!

Grace and Truth,
Dale

Read Full Post »

Heidelberg Catechism: Lord’s Day 23 (Good Works)

Good Works Before God

59. Question: But what does it help you now that you believe all this?

Answer: In Christ I am righteous before God and heir to life everlasting.[1]

[1] Hab. 2:4; John 3:36; Rom. 1:17; 5:1, 2.

60. Question: How are you righteous before God?

Answer: Only by true faith in Jesus Christ.[1] Although my conscience accuses me that I have grievously sinned against all God’s commandments, have never kept any of them,[2] and am still inclined to all evil,[3] yet God, without any merit of my own,[4] out of mere grace,[5] imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ.[6] He grants these to me as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, and as if I myself had accomplished all the obedience which Christ has rendered for me,[7] if only I accept this gift with a believing heart.[8]

[1] Rom. 3:21-28; Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8, 9; Phil. 3:8-11. [2] Rom. 3:9, 10. [3] Rom. 7:23. [4] Deut. 9:6; Ezek. 36:22; Tit. 3:4, 5. [5] Rom. 3:24; Eph. 2:8. [6] Rom. 4:3-5; II Cor. 5:17-19; I John 2:1, 2. [7] Rom. 4:24, 25; II Cor. 5:21. [8] John 3:18; Acts 16:30, 31; Rom. 3:22.

61. Question: Why do you say that you are righteous only by faith?

Answer: Not that I am acceptable to God on account of the worthiness of my faith, for only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ is my righteousness before God.[1] I can receive this righteousness and make it mine in no other way than by faith alone.[2]

[1] I Cor. 1:30, 31; 2:2. [2] Rom. 10:10; I John 5:10-12.

Read Full Post »

Trust God (featuring John Piper)

Here are two fantastic (and short) videos to encourage you to cry out to God, trust his promises, act on them… and then thank him for his grace and goodness. These two videos will really help build you up. Enjoy, Dale

Read Full Post »