Why I Don’t Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies by John Piper

This is one of those articles I can think of a hundred arguments against what Piper is saying as I'm reading...but I know I'm fighting against a nature which desires me to be dull in feeling the deserving greatness of King Jesus.

"There are, perhaps, a few extraordinary men who can watch action-packed, suspenseful, sexually explicit films and come away more godly. But there are not many. And I am certainly not one of them.... [read the whole article here]

Moses..It's time

We are told in the scriptures that Moses talked to God like a man talks to a friend (EXODUS 33:11). Only Moses has ever seen the back side of the Glory of God.

This is why I struggle with the decision God made when Moses disobeyed. We only have one record of Moses being disobedient(Numbers 20:10-13) and yet when it happen the result was severe. Moses would lead God's people through the dessert for 40 years and then not be allowed in. I feel for the guy.

I wish the Bible said "Moses walked into the promised land, finally, worshiped God and then dropped" but it doesn't.

This is what it says,

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the Valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. ⁴And the LORD said to him, "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, 'I will give it to your offspring.' I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there." So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD,

What a crazy that day must have been. Hey Moses, I'm going to show you the land and then your coming home.

I think two things (on top of a thousand others) were on Moses' mind that morning. I don't think he was sad about not going into the land as he was sad he sinned against God. It is an important distinction. We sometimes mourn the consequence instead of the turning away. I think Moses understood it because he never showed discontentment with God. Secondly, I think he went down happy in God. He saw with his eyes God's faithfulness would be greater than Moses' and would go beyond Moses. He didn't see the land he saw God's sovereignty. God's grace. God's love. God's purpose. God's greaterness (it's a word now).

The Prayer of Agur...What? Never heard of him?

I wouldn't name my first son after him but I do want to learn to pray like him.

"Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die:

Remove far from me falsehood and lying;

Give me neither poverty nor riches;

feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, "Who is the Lord?" or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God."

Proverbs 30:7-9

Only the view of God which becomes big in our eyes and heart can cause us to pray this way. To pray that God would remove my desire to be false, more significant, more important, more achieving than I really am is different than every other American prayer. It is a hard way to pray when we desire God only give us what we need so that we will not think we are God and that we have done it for ourselves. Do you pray God would give or protect you and your stuff more, or do you pray that God would make you to be faithfully Jesus satisfied and God dependent?

Maybe we should name our sons after Agur and then show them how to pray these kinds of prayers.

All things that pertain to life and godliness!

We have a tendency to make things so complicated. For whatever reason, complexity seems to appeal to us more. Following Jesus, being forgiven of sin and have eternal forever-happy relationship with God through faith seems outrageous. It must include more. It must mean that I do more, control myself more, moralize my life and behavior long before I'm presentable.

Before people come to our house my wife and I scurry around picking up all the baby toys. We wipe the puddle of drool on the kitchen table from the twins. We mop the floor and pile the clothes behind the door we are fairly sure our guests wont open.

We do this with God. Let me get my house (aka heart and mind) in order then when God comes over he'll be impressed and more apt to like you. What if God were to come over with everything in disarray like it is when we aren't expecting guests?

This makes Jesus so different than every other religion in the world. Every religion in the world is motivated by doing the right things to accomplish the desired effect, usually for some kind of favor from some form of god. Not true with Jesus. Christianity is the only "religion" where God himself accomplishes all the requirements for "favor" in himself. Christianity is the only religion that has a hero. God wants to walk into the messiness. It honors him when we don't try to clean up our heart and instead open the doors, let him see the mess and invite him into it and walk room to room as he sweeps away the disaster.

This is what Peter meant when we said,

"His [Jesus'] divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellences... (2 Peter 1:3)"

See that? All things concerning life and godliness. The two main concerns of every person. How do I make sure I really live? Who is God and how do I please him? It's all been answered by the knowledge of the reality of the "divine power" of Jesus. It's big and eternal but not complicated.

Death Is Not Dying

The tears are still drying on my cheeks after watching Rachel share her thoughts as she awaits death from bone cancer. There are very few more important things to say than this. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE take an hour without distraction and watch this video.

Rachel Barkey