It is time to celebrate! (HT: SI)

There were three books that I recommended to our church family for the month of November: (more…)

Ok, LDS friends, you might ask me, “Todd, how in the world do you make such a connection today.”

Well, sit down by the cozy, crackling fire, enjoy some hot cocoa with me, and let me try to connect some dots in some of my recent reading. (more…)

In picking up two of my kids from school today, I also picked up the Calvary Chapel Magazine (Issue 46 * Winter 2011).  On the front cover of the magazine, I noticed a picture of the Salt Lake City temple right smack dab in the middle of the picture.  Actually, the picture was on the front of a brochure.  A man, named Joseph Arif, is reading a Urdu pamphlet about the distortions of Christianity to an elderly man in Sensra.

Through CC Pakistan Missions, Nadeem, Mr. Arif, and Joseph pass out pamphlets to cultural Christians.  Nadeem’s cell phone rings.

“Are you the ones distributing literature with your number on the back?” asked the young caller.  “I am so happy to know this information!”  the young man continued.  “I have many Mormon friends who have been challenging my brain.  I finally promised I would join their church–this Sunday.  But now I am shocked, learning from your pamphlet how Mormon teaching is not according to the Bible.  Otherwise, I would have become a Mormon!”

(p. 36 in the article, “Equipping Cultural Christians in Pakistan”)

1.  Rick Brown at Calvary Chapel shared some of  his recent experiences in Uganda and led me to I Chronicles 16:7-12:

On that day David first delivered this psalm into the hand of Asaph and his brethren, to thank the LORD:  Oh, give thanks to the LORD!  Call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples!  Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; talk of all His wondrous works! Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the LORD!  Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore!  Remember His marvelous works which He has done, His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth, (NKJV)

2.  Dan Smouse of Christ Community Church led me to Habbakuk 3.  After the congregation stood and listened to Dan read Habakkuk 3, he began his prayer, “God, you are an amazing, powerful, majestic, overwhelming God.”  And I like how Dan opened his sermon,  “God didn’t save me to make me happy; but that I would give glory to Him, so that I could shine His light in this world.”

 The chapter ends with  verse 19,

The Lord GOD is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, and makes me walk on my high places. (NASB)

Dan explains, “In the midst of the greatest difficulty that life can and will bring, in the strength of God I can walk securely as the deer walks the mountains, as securely as a mountain goat climbs the peaks, that is how secure I can walk.”

3.  Kirk Baker of Calvary Baptist Church led me to Exodus 17:

The LORD answered Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people.  Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.  I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb.  Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.”  So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.  And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?” (NIV)

Why did Israel have room to complain?  Why do we?  We have the presence of Christ (I Corinthians 10).  We have a pattern and person to follow.

4.  Paul Thompson of Eastside Baptist Church led me in I Peter 4:

Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.  For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousals, drinking parties and abominable idolatries.  And in all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excess of dissipation, and they malign you; but they shall give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.  For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God. (NASB)

5.  Theone Maupin of Shiloh Foursquare Church talked about an excellent spirit in the book Daniel.  I chuckled when the pastor talked about his experience in a Goth store.  And I was touched by Nathan Swisher sharing the testimony of a young couple who expressed thanks for the 99 days that they had with their little boy before he went home to Jesus.  Nathan urged us that we ought not to live in self-entitlement.

6.  Annmarie Worthington shares her story of being converted to Mormonism.  I would like to know who was her pastor that told her such things in her journey.

I was doing so well about being thankful all week . . .

until our Bronco Nation dreams in Idaho were crushed last night.

I have on my desk an original copy, The New and Complete Life of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by Rev. Paul Wright, D.D. vicar of Oakley.

This volume is 200 years old.  And the author combats the deists of the day.

I wonder.  Was this guy related to N.T. Wright?

I would encourage all of you to read at least the first chapter of the book, Decision Points (2010), by George W. Bush.  Buy a frap at Barnes & Noble and peruse the book (much cheaper than forking over the bucks to buy the book).  This first chapter talks about his family history and ends with his Christian conversion.  On the debate concerning faith versus works, the former President’s testimony is great to discuss with your community friends.

Also, I have been encouraging our Berean church family to begin with me in 2011 – reading the One Year Bible. I like what President George W. Bush wrote on page 32:

. . . Don Evans gave me a Daily Bible, a version split into 365 individual readings. I read it every morning and prayed to understand it more clearly. In time, my faith began to grow.

How many of you would be game to journey with me through the One Year Bible in 2011?

Eyes are looking down to the bottom of the I-15 Corridor.  What will be the outcome at the end of the day?

Martin Luther once wrote,

The chief cause that I fell out with the pope was this:  The pope boasted that he was the head of the church, and condemned all that would not be under his power and authority; for what he said, although Christ be the head of the church, yet, notwithstanding, there must be a corporeal head of the church upon the earth.  With this I could have been content, had he but taught the gospel pure and clear, and not introduced human inventions and lies in its stead.  Further, he took upon him power, rule, and authority over the Christian Church, and over the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God; no man must presume to expound the Scriptures, but only he, and according to his ridiculous conceits; so that he made himself lord over the church, proclaiming her at the same time a powerful mother, and empress over the Scriptures, to which we must yield and be obedient; this was not to be endured.  They who, against God’s Word, boast of the church’s authority, are mere idiots.  The pope attributes more power to the church, which is begotten and born, than to the Word, which has begotten, conceived, and born the church.

We, through God’s grace, are not heretics, but schismatics, causing, indeed, separation and division, wherein we are not to blame, but our adversaries, who gave occasion thereto, because they remain not by God’s Word alone, which we have, hear and follow.

When our Lord God intends to plague and punish one, He leaves him in blindness, so that he regards not God’s Word, but condemns that same, as the papists now do.  They know that our doctrine is God’s Word, but they will not allow of this syllogism and conclusion:  When God speaks, we must hear Him; now God speaks through the doctrine of the gospel; therefore we must hear Him.  But the papists, against their own consciences, say, No; we must hear the church.