When You Don’t Feel Like It, Take Heart

Encouraged by this article by Jon Bloom. Enjoy!

Did you wake up not feeling like reading your Bible and praying? How many times today have you had to battle not feeling like doing things you know would be good for you?

While it’s true that this is our indwelling sin that we must repent of and fight against, there’s more going on.

Think about this strange pattern that occurs over and over in just about every area of life:

• Good food requires discipline to prepare and eat while junk food tends to be the most tasty, addictive, and convenient.
• Keeping the body healthy and strong requires frequent deliberate discomfort while it only takes constant comfort to go to pot.
• You have to make yourself pick up that nourishing theological book while watching a movie can feel so inviting.
• You frequently have to force yourself to get to devotions and prayer while sleeping, reading the sports, and checking Facebook seems effortless.
• To play beautiful music requires thousands of hours of tedious practice.
• To excel in sports requires monotonous drills ad nauseum.
• It takes years and years of schooling just to make certain opportunities possible.

This goes on and on.

The pattern is this: the greater joys are obtained through struggle and pain, while brief, unsatisfying, and often destructive joys are right at our fingertips. Why is this?

Read the rest of the article here.

Can a True Christian Believe the Prosperity Gospel?

I had never really posed this question before but it is entirely appropriate to ask. Listen to Pastor John's response, a response that humbled my perspective.

The Falsity of the Prosperity Gospel

Piper just has a way of saying things that gets right to its core.

Maturation is an inspiration

One of the greatest thrills of working with youth, for me, is getting to see them mature in their walks with Christ. I've been particularly encouraged by my middle school girls who moved up last September from the children's ministry to my Sunday School class. Some of them started off as quite a handful. I butted heads with them a few times and even reduced a couple to tears...but I genuinely love these girls. I'm so happy to see how they are growing and stepping out in obedience to Christ. They did a wonderful job leading in our recent Backyard Bible Club and they'll soon be heading out to Arizona for our church's mission trip. I pray that this mission trip is a challenging time that brings about growth in them for God's glory. I can't wait to see what happens!

Sending and Going

Many people criticize the effectiveness versus the cost of sending missionaries from the West to other places in the world, particularly Short-Term Missionaries. These brief trips are painted as glorified vacations by their detractors. That's a whole other topic, though I'll say briefly that I am wholeheartedly in favor of appropriately planned short-term mission trips. The DG blog gives a brief rundown of why we should still be sending and going.

If you can't sufficiently counter each of their five points, why aren't you sending and going?