http://www.gcc08.org/index.php/site/index/ en josh@lifetrac.org Copyright 2010 2010-08-14T15:17:10+00:00 Copyright 2010josh@lifetrac.orgnoGraceCovenantBloghttp://feedburner.google.com http://feeds.gracecovonline.com/~r/GraceCovenantBlog/~3/ealqbBqxZ4Y/ http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/echoes-of-realityhere-in-our-land-of-dreams/#When:14:17:10Z It's good to learn to see the echoes of God's redemptive story and impulse in the heart of every man and woman...even movie-makers and story-tellers.  Sharon and I recently saw the movie "Inception", and it was a vivid reminder that every human heart seeks for forgiveness, restoration, and reconciliation.  Every human heart knows things are wrong and longs for them to be made right.  Every human heart yearns to be set free from the tiring labors of the curse, to attain ultimate rest and finally come home.  It's a movie I think C.S. Lewis would have really loved.  Why?  Well, if you've seen the movie, you'll understand that C.S. Lewis was tracking along the movies premise long before the movie existed.  If you've seen the movie, the quote below will make you smile.  "Inception" was really on to something. In a letter to a suffering American woman named Mary Shelburne on June 28, 1963, five months before he himself died, C. S. Lewis wrote– Think of yourself as a seed patiently waiting in the earth: waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener’s good time, up into the real world, the real waking. I suppose that our whole present life, looked back on from there, will seem only a drowsy half-waking. We are here in the land of dreams. But cock-crow is coming. It is nearer now than when I began this letter. Yours Jack –Walter Hooper, ed., The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950-1963 (San Francisco: Harper, 2007), p. 1434; emphasis original HT: Mom, for giving me the book "A Severe Mercy", and JT Quotes 2010-08-14T14:17:10+00:00 http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/echoes-of-realityhere-in-our-land-of-dreams/#When:14:17:10Z http://feeds.gracecovonline.com/~r/GraceCovenantBlog/~3/_tEzXRK51O8/ http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/husbands-wivesheres-your-next-date-night/#When:14:00:50Z In the latest Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Rob Lister has a good article filled with practical suggestions for married couples to use in evaluating their marriage. The whole thing is worth reading for counsel on how and when to do this.  The website is a great resource for you to check out regarding anything on gender issues.  Enjoy! Below are the 15 questions: On a scale of 1-10, give your overall assessment of our marriage in the past six months. To be sure, this is a very broad and subjective item, but I have found it helpful to open the conversation with an item of this kind of breadth, because it helps to prime the pump. Obviously, you won’t hit on a ton of specifics with this one—that’s what the rest of the questions are for—but I have been truly amazed at just how much discussion this assessment alone can generate, as various issues come to mind. From there, we’re off and running. Follow-up questions in the event that the conversation fails to gain traction initially: What have been the strengths of the past six months? What would make your assessment higher? How has the husband’s leadership been over the past six months? The wife’s support? Follow-up: How can I improve in fulfilling my respective role? How is your walk with God, both personally and as a couple? Where do you see ungodliness in my life? Do I have any unconfessed sin that needs to be shared with my spouse? Are we guarding meaningful time together? Prayer? Conversation? Date Night? How is our sex life? What could I do to make you feel more loved/secure/respected? How can I serve you better? What are the issues that we need to anticipate in the upcoming six months? What’s your greatest personal disappointment and your greatest satisfaction in the last six months? How can I best pray for you? What are our major upcoming mutual prayer concerns? Spend a few moments, in an encouraging fashion, sharing several of the things that each of you loves and appreciates about the other. Then close, by spending some concerted time in prayer for those prayer concerns you just shared, as well as thanking God for his faithfulness to you as a couple over the past six months. HT:JT 2010-08-13T14:00:50+00:00 http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/husbands-wivesheres-your-next-date-night/#When:14:00:50Z http://feeds.gracecovonline.com/~r/GraceCovenantBlog/~3/fwc25gA6ngs/ http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/i-know-ive-posted-this-before/#When:14:00:48Z ...but it's so worth reading again! C.S. Lewis: The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping. The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication. It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman—glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. But clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens? Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand re-discovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made. . . . You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first. —C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Eerdmans, 1994), p. 280. {HT: Joel Willitts} This, of course, is reminiscent of Lewis’s comment in a letter to Dom Bede Griffiths (April 23, 1951): “Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things. We never get, say, even the sensual pleasure of food at its best when we are being greedy.” HT:JT Quotes 2010-08-12T14:00:48+00:00 http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/i-know-ive-posted-this-before/#When:14:00:48Z http://feeds.gracecovonline.com/~r/GraceCovenantBlog/~3/cWhL2gRAhJ4/ http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/theological-basis-for-democracy/#When:14:00:40Z C.S. Lewis: I am a democrat [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters. —C.S. Lewis, “Equality,” in Present Concerns (reprint: Mariner Books, 2002), p. 17. HT:JT Quotes 2010-08-11T14:00:40+00:00 http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/theological-basis-for-democracy/#When:14:00:40Z http://feeds.gracecovonline.com/~r/GraceCovenantBlog/~3/YI1h0swMhlo/ http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/how-to-really-love-your-spouse/#When:16:00:58Z C.S. Lewis: “(Sensual love) ceases to be a devil when it ceases to be a god. So many things—nay every real thing—is good if only it will be humble and ordinate.” (from a 1940 letter) “When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” (from a 1952 letter) HT:JT Quotes 2010-08-10T16:00:58+00:00 http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/how-to-really-love-your-spouse/#When:16:00:58Z http://feeds.gracecovonline.com/~r/GraceCovenantBlog/~3/D9TSb-JOUBM/ http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/when-i-awokethe-devil-came/#When:21:53:24Z Nobody knew how to kick the devil's behind-side when it came to fighting his attacks of shame and guilt with the gospel like Luther: When I awoke last night, the Devil came and wanted to debate with me; he rebuked and reproached me, arguing that I was a sinner. To this I replied: Tell me something new, Devil! I already knew that perfectly well; I have committed many a solid and real sin. Indeed there must be good honest sins–not fabricated and invented ones–for God to forgive for His beloved Son’s sake, who took all my sins upon Him so that now the sins I have committed are no longer mine but belong to Christ. –Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 105-6 2010-08-09T21:53:24+00:00 http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/when-i-awokethe-devil-came/#When:21:53:24Z http://feeds.gracecovonline.com/~r/GraceCovenantBlog/~3/qadnDLnQzjw/ http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/mysticism-existentialism-and-your-bible/#When:15:33:26Z One of the problems we sometimes struggle with as Christians is that we polarize intellectualism and emotionalism.  The solution is found not in trying to strike a balance between the two (say 50% of each), but rather to strive for 100% of both. For instance, there are some Christians who fear stagnating their walk of faith with too much "thinking".  I've had them explain to me how they've had moving spiritual experiences with God while staring at an object and trying to "center down" to meditate on what spiritual truth might be found in it.  Oh dear.  While I acknowledge that one can have profoundly worshipful experiences when out in God's creation (using the gifts to magnify the Giver), I am quite suspicious of mysticism and existentialism that seeks spiritual experiences apart from encountering Christ in the Word of God.  This is not to say that I'm against spiritual experiences and emotion.  Quite the contrary...without them I'm not sure you could call yourself a Christian, for conversion is certainly more with cognitively understanding a few doctrinal facts.  I'm just saying that regular pursuit of "spiritual revelations" apart from the word of God has lead many an earnest Christian asray.  On the other side of the ditch are those who fear emotionalism.  They acknowledge the importance of emotions (they have to if they read the Psalms), but in all reality it is functionally obsolete in the life of their church.  They emphasize "the pursuit of truth", but never actually experience who the truth was given to reveal, namely, the glorious and amazing Jesus Christ.  Theirs is a cold, intellectual, cerebral experience, where they treat the Bible like a subject-matter to be dissected rather than revealing the God they should tremble and bow down before.  This will not do either, for God commands us to feel proper emotions towards Him ("Make a joyful noise...serve the Lord with gladness" Ps. 100).  Tim Chester, in the book we're reading together as a church, says it well:  "Spiritual experience that does not arise from God's Word is not Christian experience.  Other religions offer spiritual experiences.  Concerts and therapy sessions can affect our emotions.  Not all that passes for Christian experience is genuine.  An authentic experience of the Spirit is an experience in response to the gospel.  Through the Spirit the truth touches our hearts, and that truth moves our emotions and affects our wills. This also means that Bible study and theology that do not lead to love for God and a desire to do his will---to worship, tears, laughter, excitement, or sorrow---have gone terribly wrong.  True theology leads to love, mission, and doxology."  p. 31 Church 2010-08-06T15:33:26+00:00 http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/mysticism-existentialism-and-your-bible/#When:15:33:26Z http://feeds.gracecovonline.com/~r/GraceCovenantBlog/~3/ujPViKhJY7o/ http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/spurgeon-on-the-blessing-of-sickness/#When:14:00:05Z "I venture to say that the greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the exception of sickness. Sickness has frequently been of more use to the saints of God than health has." Wonder how he could say that?  Join us in reading "The Swans Are Not Silent" and find out why! Quotes 2010-08-05T14:00:05+00:00 http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/spurgeon-on-the-blessing-of-sickness/#When:14:00:05Z http://feeds.gracecovonline.com/~r/GraceCovenantBlog/~3/GtCLqbUpgGg/ http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/packer-/#When:14:00:03Z In Knowing God (p. 71) J. I. Packer writes about how to understand the “unexpected and upsetting and discouraging things” that happen to us. What do they mean? Simply that God in his wisdom means to make something of us which we have not attained yet, and he is dealing with us accordingly.  Perhaps he means to strengthen us in patience, good humor, compassion, humility, or meekness, by giving us some extra practice in exercising these graces under especially difficult conditions. Perhaps he has new lessons in self-denial and self-distrust to teach us.  Perhaps he wishes to break us of complacency, or unreality, or undetected forms of pride and conceit.  Perhaps his purpose is simply to draw us closer to himself in conscious communion with him; for it is often the case, as all the saints know, that fellowship with the Father and the Son is most vivid and sweet, and Christian joy is greatest, when the cross is heaviest. . . . Or perhaps God is preparing us for forms of service of which at present we have no inkling.  He concludes: We may be frankly bewildered at things that happen to us, but God knows exactly what he is doing, and what he is after, in his handling of our affairs. Always, and in everything, he is wise: we shall see that hereafter, even where we never saw it here. . . . Meanwhile, we ought not to hesitate to trust his wisdom, even when he leaves us in the dark. But how should we respond to baffling and trying situations when we cannot now see God’s purpose in them?  First, by taking them as from God, and asking ourselves what reactions to them, and in them, the gospel of God requires of us; second, by seeking God’s face specifically about them.  “If we do these two things,” Packer writes, “we shall never find ourselves wholly in the dark as to God’s purpose in our troubles.”   2010-08-04T14:00:03+00:00 http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/packer-/#When:14:00:03Z http://feeds.gracecovonline.com/~r/GraceCovenantBlog/~3/hSVees6VS9U/ http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/behind-a-frowning-providence/#When:14:00:20Z For those in the church working through our "Redeem the Summer" reading list, you are familiar with the dark and difficult sufferings of William Cowper.  But it was in these dark nights of sorrow that some of the greatest hymns of God's faithfulness were born.  Case in point: God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.   Deep in unfathomable mines  Of never-failing skill, He treasures up his bright designs, And works his sovereign will.   Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,   The clouds ye so much dread         Are big with mercy, and shall break   In blessings on your head.   His purposes will ripen fast,   Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste,   But sweet will be the flower.        Blind unbelief is sure to err,   And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter,   And he will make it plain. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,   But trust him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence        He hides a smiling face.   2010-08-03T14:00:20+00:00 http://www.gracecovonline.com/blog/behind-a-frowning-providence/#When:14:00:20Z nonadult