John Baillie’s prayer and perspective

I stumbled across this prayer in Phillip Yancey’s book Prayer. It’s written by Scottish theologian and professor John Baillie (1886-1960) in his Diary of Private Prayer:

Teach me, O God, so to use all the circumstances of my life today that they may bring forth in me the fruits of holiness rather than the fruits of sin.

Meditate on that!

He goes on:

Let me use disappointment as material for patience;
Let me use success as material for thankfulness;
Let me use suspense as material for perseverance;
Let me use danger as material for courage;
Let me use reproach as material for longsuffering;
Let me use praise as material for humility;
Let me use pleasures as material for temperance;
Let me use pains as material for endurance.

An American living in Lebanon a few years ago, during a time of intense violence said that his family was always urging him and his family to leave Lebanon. However, since he was leading Bible studies in various sections of the city, he didn’t feel right about leaving during the time of crisis. He said, “I felt God should lead us to something, not just away from something. What would happen if Christians always packed up and left when trouble broke out?”

What can you ask God to use in your life for His purposes that might bring you renewed perspective?

dot Mac is really not Mac

For two years, I paid the $99 subscription price to Apple’s GPL service called “.Mac” (dot Mac). It was originally a pretty nifty service. My contacts, calendar and files could be backed up to the dot Mac server and synced with other Macs. Therefore, whatever contacts and appointments I put on one Mac would be automatically synced to another Mac.

However, with Google and Yahoo’s services catching up, a paid fee became odious, and I dropped the subscription. I even complained about it on some of Apple’s forums (along with millions of others). It just seemed that the service which started so brilliantly began to collect proverbial tech dustballs without any of the normal innovation brilliance from Apple.

Perhaps that’s about to end. Pay attention to Steve Jobs’ announcements Tuesday. According to Apple Insider:

During a recent interview, the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg held Jobs accountable for the poor state of .Mac, to which the Apple co-founder offered an interesting reply.

“I couldn’t agree more [with the assessment],” Jobs confessed. “And we’ll make up for lost time in the near future.”

Interestingly, there has been a public challenge to Mac users to come up with a free alternative to .Mac called “notmac.”

Why do we breathe?

I heard David Platt speak for the first time last night during worship at Collegiate Week Glorieta. At 29, Platt is a dynamic and powerful communicator, but it’s not because he’s “hip,” “relevant,” or “connected” – all descriptors that seem to demand fulfillment in order to be invited to speak to collegians these days. Rather, Platt is passionately biblical and powerfully Christ-centered in his approach. He’s the pastor at Brook Hills Church, and last night he backed the American church into a corner from which the only exit is a life devoted to mission.

“Let Everything that Has Breath” is a popular praise chorus made nearly meaningless by its empty repetition in collegiate worship services and “contemporary” churches these days. Its chorus is taken from Psalm 150.6. Platt suggested last night that the words “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord” are indeed the call of God upon all our lives. However, he posed an interesting question: What if the words were reversed? What if the words were:

Let everything that praises the Lord have breath?

Would you be alive today?

So began a dynamic, powerful message in which Platt probably quoted 5 entire Psalms from memory and used an additional 15-20 scriptural references without notes. In fact, his message contained more scripture than most preachers you might listen to, but he never opened his Bible (though he carried it the entire time). It was all committed to memory, and his delivery was undeterred by his lack of notes.

Beginning in Genesis and concluding in Revelation, Platt traced the purposes of God for all humanity: to extend His glory throughout the earth. In Genesis 1.26-31, he contrasted the creation of man with what had gone before. All creatures before verse 26 had been created according to “let there be… according to its kind,” but when God made man, He said, “Let us make… in our likeness.” There were two observations about this:

God created us to enjoy His glory in a relationship with Him. We were made by Him to share in and enjoy His glory as we bear His likeness.

God created us to extend His glory to the whole world. We were told to “fill the earth, multiply, subdue…”

Mankind seemed to miss the point as it chose to sin, and we see the mass of humanity after several generations gathered on the plains of Shinar in Genesis 11.1. Rather than going across the planet to extend the glory of God by bearing His image and demonstrating His character, man chose rather to stay and build their own name. It was there that God came down and enforced the scattering of man into the whole earth by confusing their languages.

In Genesis 12, you find God choosing one people from among all the nations – Abraham’s family (yet to be born) to be a people set apart to bless all nations. God told Abraham that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” So Abraham was given the original commission again – to spread the knowledge and glory of God across the planet to all peoples. To bear God’s image.

A bird’s eye view of the people of Israel show them consistently rejecting this responsibility to be a light to all nations, yet you can trace this eternal purpose of God throughout every page of the Old Testament.

• Genesis 28.14 – God reminded Jacob, Abraham’s great-grandson of His purpose to be a blessing to all nations (or people groups).
• Exodus 14.4 – Backed up against the Red Sea, God told Moses that what He would do to the Egyptians would be done so that that nation would know that He is God.
• Deuteronomy 4.5-6 – The 10 Commandments were given to share the wisdom of God to all nations.
• Joshua 5-6 – The walls come tumbling down in Jericho so that all nations would know that God was at work and fear Him alone. (No one was congratulating the trumpet players for a job well done.)
• 1 Kings 10.1-9 – Solomon was given wisdom so that the world would know the wisdom and glory of God. His wisdom drew the nations to Israel (think Queen Sheba) and brought honor to God.
• Daniel 3.29 – the result and purpose of the fiery furnace was to lead a pagan empire to worship the true God.
• Daniel 6.25-26 – the same with the lions’ den.
• Psalm 23 – we are led by paths of still waters “for His name’s sake!”
• Psalm 25.11 – It is His name and not our own that we are to honor and glorify.
• Isaiah 48.9-11; chapter 66
• Ezekiel 36.22-23 – for the sake of His name
• Matthew 24.14 – the end will not come until all nations have heard the Gospel preached to them. This is the culmination of the mission of God given to Adam and Eve and repeated to the Israelites. It is given again as a Great Commission (Matthew 28.18-20) to the church who receive salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
• Mark 16.15
• Luke 24.47-49
• Acts 1.8
• Romans 15 – Paul wants to preach the Gospel where it’s never been heard before. In fact, Platt stated urgently that we cannot “get” the New Testament apart from its connection to the Old in its direction to extend to glory of God to all peoples.
• Revelation 7.9-10 – The ultimate fulfillment of God’s purposes: worship of Him by people from all nations.

“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2.14)

After a breathless review of these passages, Platt barked out, “Do you realize what this means? God has blessed you to impact the world for His glory! That is why we have breath!”

He started getting personal from there… He asked, “Do you want the whole world for His glory?” He said that most of us just want the whole world to make things happen for our own comfort and personal enjoyment.

He then began to address common excuses that he hears from church members and Christians:

Objection: I’m not called to foreign missions… Response: Missions is not a “program” for the optional few. We have no right to accept all the blessings and privileges of our faith in Christ and delegate all the responsibilities of our faith to a chosen few. As if we needed a “call” to obey that for which we were created!

In Acts 9, Paul understands that the very reason that he was given salvation was to preach to the nations. He explains this in Galatians 1.15-16. In Romans 1.14, he says that he is “obligated” or “in debt” to the nations. He urges us to understand that the Gospel is for “the salvation of all who believe” – not just us. When Paul uses the word “Gentile,” he is referring to the nations – those who are not Jews.

Because we now own the salvation of Christ, we now owe the salvation of Christ, Platt said.

Objection: I don’t have to go… I can give… Response: It’s usually a spiritual smokescreen because the majority of people with that attitude are not even tithing – much less strategically and purposely living on less in order that the world may know Jesus. Our budgets and priorities are bound up in our SUVs and air-conditioned houses and damn the rest of the world to a Christ-less eternity.

Platt related a conversation with a South African believer. Before he shared what the man said, he said that it had cost him $3500 to go to South Africa for two weeks. Some in his church had questioned the stewardship of that, asking if it wouldn’t be better just to send them the money so that they could use it on whatever they need.

The South African said, “A true brother doesn’t just send things but comes to be with you in your time of need.” In other words, by your going (or coming), you identify with others and invest what’s most precious to you: yourself. Isn’t that what God did? He didn’t send us a missions check… He sent us His Son!

Platt asked if our churches were really that materialistic that we honestly thought that money was the answer to the world’s problems? We must go ourselves.

Platt concluded by saying that people would try to shrug off his message as being “too idealistic.” Two things about extending God’s glory to all peoples:

1. It is biblical. Thoroughly!
2. Those who say it can’t be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it.

I must say, it’s been a while since I’ve heard a message so powerful and so convicting. I bought the CD and plan to ask permission to share it with our church.

Some things that Platt was not saying:

• You have to become a career missionary and move to Siberia.
• You have to sell your house today.
• You have to dress funny and learn another language.

Some things Platt was implying:

• You became a missionary the day you received Christ as your Savior. Live like it. Where you are. Now. Imagine your hometown as a place you’ve just moved to for the very purpose of extending the glory of Christ and making Him known. If you knew that was your very purpose for living there, how would you then live?
• Get a passport. You may not become a full-time missionary in another country, but you can prepare yourself to go and be a part of short-term trip or even an extended stay for a specific purpose. By getting a passport, you take the first step toward recognizing that it is your responsibility and privilege to bless the nations with the knowledge of God.
• Do research. Begin discovering the most unreached areas of the planet. Begin praying for people groups. Gather a small group to begin mobilizing and planning what you can do to spread the majestic beauty and precious joy of Christ to the nations.
• Find out if there are international students on your campus or internationals living in your community and begin to strategize about how to minister to them. International students that are studying in the U.S. can be reached for Christ and may become missionaries for Him when they return to their own countries.
• Fill in the blank. Dream a dream about how you can suddenly start fulfilling the purpose for which you were created.

After all, you’re still breathing aren’t you? Then start praising.

Blogging as a thought sorter

I’ve been considering all the reasons why I blog, and when I began blogging back in September 2005, it was not that much of a leap for me in lifestyle change. I’d been a journaler for many years. Writing has always proved to be a “thought sorter” for me – kind of a mental catharsis.

Blogging has also enabled that, but it’s given others a window into my mind. Many times, when you pull up a chair and a donut to read Notes, you’re simply reading my continuous thought flow, a stream of consciousness inscribed and preserved by HTML. One of the surprising and encouraging rewards of blogging has been the input I’ve received from so many.

I’ve discovered that as I sort my thoughts, every now and then, what I’ve written helps someone else do the same – about a particular issue, problem, or relationship. It’s an amazing thing to be able to record one’s thoughts in a way that actually communicates and touches another person. Whether spoken, written, or sung, the transferral of concepts from one person to another is an awe-inspiring event that transcends our understanding.

So blogging really began for me as a way to communicate what I’m thinking to a broader audience. If you’ve never journaled, I suggest you start there and see if writing down your thoughts helps you sort through them. With the onslaught of our media-saturated world, you may just discover that sorting your thoughts and ruling over them well will bring a joyful sense of divine communion.

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor 10:5, NIV)

UAM MBSF site up

Give Rob Leonard, campus minister for the Missionary Baptist Student Fellowship at UAM some props by stopping by their new site at www.uammbsf.com and leaving a comment. I set it up for their new building campaign. Throw them some money while you’re at it!

Half and half…

Just a thought… from where I sit in the “chuck wagon” at Glorieta, NM for Collegiate Week, I can see about 10 students/ministers on laptops – checking email, blogging, etc. Last time I was here was in 2002. It was not all that rare to see students with laptops then, but this time around, it seems that a majority of collegians are Mac-users!

What this means is that this generation really is “getting it…”

Glorieta: Day 2

Well, the day is not even half over, but I had to post during our free time this afternoon. Landon Dowden, New Orleans Baptist Seminary grad and pastor/planter of Crosspoint Church in Baton Rouge, LA is one of our speakers this week. The theme is The Mission of God. This a.m., he spoke from Isaiah 6. The main point was that we must know God truly before we can be on mission with Him.

The prophet Isaiah discovered that quickly. When in a vision, he found himself in the throne room of the Creator, all he could exclaim was, “Woe is me, for I am undone. For I am a man of unclean lips, and and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Dowden said that we are not free to think anything we want to about God. His point? “We think too little of Him and too much of ourselves.” Isaiah discovered this, and it was clear that being in God’s presence and seeing Him clearly brought rapid horror. He had thought one thing about God, but being in God’s presence clarified things quickly.

What was the angels’ song? “Holy, holy, holy…” This is the only attribute of God that is repeated thrice like this in scripture. We don’t see “love, love, love” or “mercy, mercy, mercy,” but God’s holiness is extolled and magnified.

God’s holiness means God’s “otherness,” or His separate-ness. He is different and apart from us because He is completely pure, totally righteous, and devoid of any evil. Thus, He is holy. The scary thing? … He asks us to be holy, as He is holy.

• In Exodus 22.31, He said, “You are to be my holy people.”
• In Leviticus 11.14, He said, “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.”
• 1 Peter 1.16 echoes this passage when the apostle quotes, “Be holy, for I am holy.”

Knowing that we serve a holy God means that we must enter God’s mission with humility and a desire to separate ourselves from worldly passions and desires. It literally means that we must die to ourselves and allow God to make us holy through our love relationship with Jesus Christ (for we cannot through self-effort or behavior modification achieve our own holiness; it is a gift).

Seeing God on His throne caused Isaiah to realize His own compromise with his culture. The amazing thing is how God responded to Isaiah. He sent an angel with a live coal to teach his lips. Rather than becoming the first lipless prophet in history (I guess he’d talk like Elmer Fudd… “hewo, my nay is Isaiah..”, the coal rather took away his sin and iniquity, effectively cleansing him and preparing him for mission.

But notice that Isaiah had to first see and understand who God truly is before he could be a part of God’s mission. I think too often that we have compromised with our culture and allow things, habits, and people into our lives that belittle God’s holiness. As we swim around in cultural dirty water, we become dirty too. Then we begin thinking less of God and making much of ourselves. We interpret God as we think He should be, and gradually we morph Him into god rather than LORD. He becomes more a creation of our imagination than the true God. We find ourselves worshipping and serving a god who actually doesn’t exist because we have denied the one true God and refused to allow His attributes to infect our own character.

Let me stop here and just say this… It’s messages like these that make me appreciate what God is doing among collegians in our day. Can you imagine having heard, taken to heart, and begun to apply a message of God’s holiness when you were 18? God is continuing to move in a mighty way among collegians today, and it must be a strategic focus of any church that is near a college.

Dowden compared Isaiah’s reality shift to the one that took place in A Beautiful Mind. In the movie, Noble prize winner John Forbes Nash is firmly convinced of a non-reality, peopled by friends and colleagues that do not actually exist. Finally, with help and significant intervention, he encounters true reality and realizes that much of his life has been a lie.

Such is our own existence when we attempt to live life apart from knowing and embracing the truth about God and of God.

Dowden closed by urging us all to display the holiness of God to a world lost in non-reality. We were created to bear His image, yet we have sadly fallen in love with bearing images of ourselves that flatter us and help us get through life with the least conflict.

Our holy God is on mission, and He calls every person to Himself first and to His mission second.

• What is your concept of holiness and what needs to change?
• How can you change your understanding of God to be one that truly reflects who He is?
• What compromises do you make that hinder His holiness from being displayed in you?

Why blog?

Sometime ago, Ben over at openswitch had a great entry about how to enjoy blogging and not burn out. Ben summarizes his “why’s” in this way:

• Enjoy the writing process
• Enjoy the designing process
• Fakery is not sustainable
• Tell your story
• Define the word “success”

I thought I would share my own thoughts as well. They’ll come in part 2. For now, I’m heading to Sunday worship here at Glorieta. By the way, the high here yesterday was 80, and it got down to 57 last night. Brrr. I feel for you Arkansans and others enduring summer heat waves.

Glorieta, Day 1

I arrived in Glorieta, NM today at the Lifeway Conference Centers’ crown jewel of camps. No other camp compares. I’ve been to MANY, as far as sheer beauty, options, and a sense of holy expectation is concerned.

I made the trip with Stephen Weathers, BCM Director at UAPB. We stayed in Amarillo last night but didn’t get to bed until we’d seen the Bourne Ultimatum with some other folks heading to Glorieta.

Our first stop today was Target (to get a toothbrush for me and some stuff for him). Then we went to Dennys for a Grand Slam before making the remaining 4 hour drive. We had to stop and get some pix of the Cadillac Ranch (just one question about that … Why?)

Then back on the road. We arrived, checked in and I discovered my room had a pond-view. I’ll post pix tomorrow. I took a brief nap and then went to the “chuck wagon” – in the process running into some old campus ministry buddies.

Stephen hadn’t been feeling well and called to ask me to come back by his room. Come to find out, he’d spent the last 20 minutes throwing up and had intense stomach pains. He was concerned enough to ask me to take him to the hospital. So back on the road we went. That was about 6:00 Mountain time, and I’m still sitting here in the ER waiting room.

It’s 10:20. I did slip out for a Quiznos sub and a quick walk-through of Borders Books in Santa Fe. So I’m posting from my trusty iPhone and craving my bed.

Long day. In some ways I’m extremely disappointed that I missed tonight’s first session -they’re always so awesome. Ah well. I am where I’m slowed to be even if it’s not where I want to be. I don’t think Stephen really hoped to spend his first night here getting a CT scan.

That’s the crazy thing. We both think it was food poisoning but they want to rule out appendicitis.

This is all gonna be a great story about how our best plans and intentions can still be changed in a moment…

Update: I’m back at Glorieta; it’s 12:10 a.m., MT. It is appendicitis, and they’ll be operating sometime in the wee morning hours. Wow. Crazy.

The three JB’s

Cavman pontificates on the three JB superstars… Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, and James Bond. He comes to some fascinating conclusions. Funny thing is, I was just wondering out loud with some friends the other day who would beat whom in a fist fight, James Bond or Jason Bourne. My vote was for Bourne.

I also remember coming out of Die Hard XVII (or whatever) a while back and remarking to someone, “Jack Bauer could have cleared that whole mess up in 30 minutes…”

Glorieta-bound

I’m off for Glorieta, New Mexico Friday a.m. By the time most of you clear the sleep from your eyes, I’ll be north of Little Rock. Stephen Weathers and I will be boring each other for the next 10-12 hours, until we stop in Amarillo Friday night.

I’ve been looking forward to Glorieta all summer. I tried to go last year, but it just didn’t work out. Nearly every year I was a campus minister at UAM, we took students to Collegiate Week at Glorieta. It’s an awesome, week-long national get-together for collegians, campus ministers and churches that minister to college students. The worship services in the evening are dynamic, and the speakers are deeply relevant to this generation.

I’m exciting about the reunion with old friends who are still doing campus ministry, about being ministered to, about sharing what the Lord is up to in my own life, and most especially about listening to Him as I worship, read, study, share, and make myself available to Him.

I’d ask for your prayers while I’m there. I hope to be doing some writing as well. I’ll probably be doing some blogging from the “chuckwagon” – one of the coolest places on earth to drink some java, visit, and enjoy God’s presence.

I can’t think of a more “annointed” place in my own life than the cafeteria at Glorieta. Really. I’ll try to get some shots of it, but it’s airiness and window-lit expanse seems to be just the place that God has always met me on early mornings over a cup of coffee with my Bible and journal.

Here’s a shot a Caro and I taking a group of students (along with the group at SAU) to Ridgecrest, NC for Collegiate Week a few years back (CW is held at Glorieta and Ridgecrest simultaneously). You might recognize the brunette in the middle of the front row…

Mo’ love through a moped

Today, I picked up the newest transportation addition to the Noble household, a 1998 Honda Elite. An incredible friend simply gave it to me since he’s moved to a larger town and doesn’t have the same use for it. Many thanks, Kevin! I was reminded of another recent gift in my iPhone (have I told you that I have an iPhone?) from my dad. Then I remembered receiving this unexpectedly this year.

Ryan Morgan was the first recipient of a ride on my new-to-me scooter. I think I’m gonna name it Ghost. Either that or Steve Martin. The latter would be because everywhere the moped and I show up, people seem to laugh. I haven’t figured that out yet. ;) Shelley managed to catch a few shots of us on Ghost’s maiden voyage.

The surreal thing about receiving a gift that is unexpected and obviously costly is the rapidity in which it produces humility. Whether a book, an iPhone, or a moped… I’m undeserving. And because I seek to be a Christ-follower, the idea of unmerited favor resonates deeply. 1 John 3.1 says, “How great is the love that the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.” (NIV) Indeed!

I’d like to encourage you to try giving an unexpected gift this week. You may be surprised at the response such an action receives. If you get any “why’s?” you can simply respond, “I’m trying to model the favor that God has given me.”

Best “cross” book?

What’s the best book on the cross you’ve ever read?

Tim says that his is Frederick Leahy’s The Cross He Bore; however, in a recent entry, he reviews R.C. Sproul’s new book called The Truth of the Cross. He says that it is a short, highly readable but dense book that when combined with the other book…

could be read together every year and would undoubtedly bring great blessing with each reading. It is good to remember the cross and to come to a greater understanding of what it means and why it matters.

He quotes Sproul as saying, “I doubt there has been a period in the two thousand years of Christian history when the significance, the centrality, and even the necessity of the cross have been more controversial than now. … Never before in Christian history has the need for an atonement been as widely challenged as it is today… If we are defective in understanding the character of God or understanding the nature of sin, it is inevitable that we will come to the conclusion that the atonement was not necessary.”

If you haven’t read a book about the cross of Jesus Christ, this just may be the time to wade in. So here’s a reading assignment for us all… anyone interested in getting the book and reading it together as an online book discussion?