A letter from Charles Stanley

I received the monthly mailing from Charles Stanley today, and it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. I don't think I can explain it properly, so I'm just going to repost the entire letter right here.

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Dear Matt,

Have you ever noticed that some verses of Scripture seem easier to memorize than to put into practice? I certainly have. In fact, some of the passages that I love the most appear very difficult to live out.

A verse that immediately comes to mind, especially during the Thanksgiving season, is I Thessalonians 5:18, "In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." The word "everything" is challenging because there are situations when I do not feel particularly grateful. Perhaps you have experienced similar circumstances. There are troubles we face that negatively affect every aspect of life – stealing our joy and focus away from the Savior.

There have even been times over the years when I've walked out onto the platform as the church service began and my heart was somewhere else. I was as prepared mentally and spiritually as I could be to preach the message, but emotionally I was struggling with some devastating issue.

It was through those moments that I experienced something extraordinary. As the orchestra played and the choir and congregation began to sing, my heart would respond to the words of those hymns. Giving thanks changed my focus from the difficulty I was facing to God's awesome character, provision, and love. Suddenly my troubles did not seem so overwhelming.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you discovered how powerful and freeing it is to give the Lord thanks even in the most difficult situations? When you submit to God – taking a leap of faith and praising Him even though everything seems contrary – He blesses your obedience (Heb. 11:6).

Perhaps you are facing something that seems too difficult to overcome, and you have no idea why God is allowing it. No matter what spiritual battle is before you, voice your gratitude to the Father. Because it is when you take your eyes off the problem and focus on Him that you realize He's already given you the victory. The challenge is in keeping an attitude of gratefulness and appreciation.

Throughout the years, I've found that the best way to maintain a thankful heart is to recall the truth of God's Word – specifically all the great privileges we receive when we trust Jesus as our Savior. Although our loved ones, good health, and a successful career are excellent things to thank Him for – they may let us down at one point or another. But His promises never fail and always give us reason to rejoice.

Therefore, the first thing we should give thanks for is Christ's gift of salvation. Through His death and resurrection, our sin-debt is paid in full and we are granted the privilege of an intimate relationship with the Father. No matter what trial we face, it will never be as big as the problem Jesus overcame for us on the cross. And because He has sealed us with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30), we know that His wonderful presence and resurrection power are always available to us (Eph. 1:18-23).

Second, we can voice our gratefulness that nothing can separate us from God's love and forgiveness (Rom. 8:31-39). Our heavenly Father cares for us unconditionally – that is His character (I John 4:7-10). Unfortunately, the storms of life can cause us to doubt how much He loves us. They may even tempt us to respond in a manner that does not fit who we are as His children. Yet even at this very moment, God offers us His love and wants to shower you and me with His grace. In response, we should turn our hearts to Him, repent for falling short of His best, and thank Him for loving us so faithfully.

Third, the Father is worthy of our praise because He always hears and answers our prayers. We have the awesome privilege of talking to the Lord about anything that burdens our hearts – knowing that He doesn't grow tired of listening to us. And what is truly awesome about our God is that He is sovereign and knows every detail of our circumstances. He is not only able to help us overcome the issues that concern us but always understands the very best way possible to do so.

Finally, we should give thanks because we know that God has a will, plan, and purpose for our lives that He will accomplish if we obey Him. Hardships, temptations, and tests will touch each of us – no one is immune from them. But we can know for certain that the Lord allows difficulty in our lives for a reason – even when we don't understand why (Rom. 8:28). To us, trials may seem to impede our progress or undermine our dreams. But God uses them to mold, shape, and conform us into the image of His Son. Therefore, submit yourself to the Father and thank Him for His wisdom, being confident that He will accomplish His purposes for you.

As you face challenges in the days, weeks, and months ahead, I pray that you will remember to give the Father praise in every situation and find I Thessalonians 5:18 more rewarding every time you live it out. May God strengthen your heart with thankfulness and fill you with joy as you continue to seek and serve Him faithfully.

Prayerfully yours,



Charles F. Stanley

Book review: The Jesus You Can't Ignore

The Jesus You Can't Ignore

John MacArthur

©2008, Thomas Nelson

"This book will reinvigorate your intimate understanding of the Savior. Verse by verse, John MacArthur unpacks the conversations between Jesus Christ and the leaders of his day. MacArthur's conclusions about the Jesus we have ignored are unmistakable and bold. In these pages, you'll see a vivid portrait of the Messiah as he is rarely seen: declaring truth without apology, with clarity and love...to the offense of many who heard him."

That is a big, in-your-face promise from the inside flap of the book. Does it deliver? Let's take a look.

The theme of the book is all the conflicts that Jesus had with the religious leaders of his day, and the fact that there were plenty of times where Jesus was not "nice" to them. This is quite a contrast to the popular portrayal of Jesus, which has Him as meek, mild, compassionate, and tolerant to a fault. And indeed, He was all those things, except when it came to people dishonoring His Father. That's when this other side of Jesus came out.

Dr. MacArthur takes great pains from the beginning of the book to point out that combativeness should not be our primary tactic, and confrontations such as those in the book should be reserved for teaching that clearly violates the truth of scripture. "Many disagreements are so petty that it would be utterly unprofitable to engender strife over them." (p. xi)

MacArthur spends considerable time discussing the "postmodern" or "postevangelical" church, which seems to define itself by its lack of conflict and acceptance of all ideas and beliefs. Personally I haven't been exposed to this new movement, sometimes called the Emergent or Emerging Church, so I find it confusing that churches would not consider the Bible to be absolutely true or allow unorthodoxies inside all in the name of "consensus." Dr. MacArthur hints that some of the largest churches in America have fallen into this trap, which I find quite disturbing.

Wait, what about Jesus? Isn't this book about Him? Yes, once we get past the prologue and introduction. Starting from the first major public appearance of His ministry, the cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem during Passover, we see that Jesus did not come purely to be nice, or to build consensus. We see, through chapters such as "This man speaks blasphemies", "Breaking the sabbath", "Hard preaching" and "Unpardonable sin" that Jesus not only aggressively defended the truth of His message, but He frequently instigated conflicts with the religious leaders by doing and saying things He knew they would find offensive.

This is quite a change from the "Jesus was a pacifist" attitude that seems common today. So what are we to learn from this? How are we to follow the example left by Jesus? MacArthur is quick to point out in all of the documented incidents that He is attacking only the false teaching, not the people themselves, at least until the very end when they are too far gone to recognize the truth. And He was never combative over minor differences or uncertain things, only when the authority of scripture was called into question.

I think the whole philosophy of the book can be summed up in a couple of paragraphs from p. 171:

So let's be absolutely clear about this once more: Jesus' harshness with the Pharisees does not give us an unrestricted license to deal roughly with others every time we happen to disagree. Gentleness should characterize our relationships with people, including those who persecute us (Luke 6:27-36). Love "suffers long and is kind...bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Corinthians 13:4, 7). Those are general rules that should be paramount in all our interaction with others.

Nevertheless, Jesus' constant friction with the Pharisees does show that conflict is sometimes necessary. Harsh words are not always inappropriate. Unpleasant and unwelcome truths sometimes need to be voiced. False religion always needs to be answered. Love may cover a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), but the gross hypocrisy of false teachers desperately needs to be uncovered — lest our silence facilitate and perpetuate a damning delusion. The truth is not always "nice."

So there you have it. Be nice, until it's time to not be nice. But always make sure the truth is behind you.

Overall rating: OUTSTANDING

Pastor Skip and the men's breakfast

My church has been holding a men's breakfast on Friday mornings. They did a few during the spring, and I thought it was a pretty good idea, but every Thursday night I would think about what time I needed to get up in order to be at church at 6:15 and decide to go next week. After a break during the summer they resumed last week, and rather than make an excuse I just forgot to go.

So I decided this week would be different. I picked up a flier at church and kept it out to remind me every day that I was doing this. I set the alarm back to 5:00 and promptly hit snooze when it went off. You've heard that God works in mysterious ways? Today He worked through two hungry cats that jumped on the bed, thrilled at the prospect of an early breakfast and forcing me to get up. And I am so happy that I did.

Once again I can't express my gratitude to God that He has assembled such an amazing group of people at Avalon Church. Pastor Skip, who also runs the homeless ministry and is the choir director, was our host. His topic was the importance of relationship over religion. That it's not what you do here that determines where you spend eternity, it's your relationship to God. He read three of the most unsettling verses in the Bible, Matthew 7:21-23:

²¹"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 
²²"Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?'
²³"And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'"

This can be quite bothersome to people who believe in works salvation. As Skip explained, "knew" in the Biblical sense describes a personal, intimate relationship, with that of a husband and wife being the prime example. So when Jesus says "I never knew you" He's not saying "I don't know who you are" but "I never had a personal relationship with you; you never trusted Me to redeem you." And all the "good things" you did during your life count for exactly nothing against that.

Funny that Skip would speak about this the first time I went to the breakfast, after all the posts I've done on this topic over the past few months. Coincidence? I think you know how I feel about that too.

So thank you, Pastor Skip. I don't think I'll need the cats to help me make next week's breakfast.

The conversion of Matthew

No, not me. I mean that Matthew.

Let me set this up a little bit. Jesus at this point has moved the "headquarters" of His ministry from Nazareth to Capernaum and has just healed the paralytic who was lowered through the roof by his friends. See Matthew 9, Luke 5, and Mark 2 for all the details. As He left the house after the healing (and a very nice verbal thrashing of the Pharisees) He came across Matthew and called him.

What I love about this is all the synoptic gospels record this event in exactly the same way:

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, "Follow Me." And he rose and followed Him. (Matthew 9:9)

And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, "Follow Me." And he rose and followed Him. (Mark 2:14)

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, "Follow Me." And leaving everything, he rose and followed Him. (Like 5:27-28)

Wow. Try to imagine the power in just a glance from Jesus. Leaving everything, he rose and followed. I've heard of the doctrine of irresistible grace, but this really pounds that concept home. Even more amazing was that Matthew was a tax collector for the Romans. This office was essentially legalized extortion (imagine the IRS subcontracting to Tony Soprano) and anyone holding that position was considered a traitor to the Jewish people. So the fact that Jesus chose this reviled, contemptible man to become one of His closest associates shows that nobody is beyond redemption.

His conversion, while spiritual in nature, was no less of a miracle than the healing of the paralytic that immediately preceded it. His response was completely opposite to that of the Pharisees, who were the religious "experts" in Israel. Matthew yearned to be free from his sin, they could not even admit they were sinners. Yet another example of "religion" leaving people in total darkness and confusion.

So what will (or did) you do when the call comes?

"Follow Me."

The obligatory 9/11 post

Thinking back to the tragic events of September 11, 2001, I was led to re-examine the reasons behind the attacks. When you dig past the psychology, the political talking points designed to whip people into a frenzy, the cultural differences, and whatever other explanations people try to apply, what everything really boils down to is this:

"I'm right, and you're wrong."

That's the message we were supposed to receive eight years ago. And while I was considering this binary, black/white, right/wrong worldview I was reminded of a message I heard a while back that there are only two religious systems in the world: those based on human achievement, and those not based on human achievement. When everything else is stripped away that's what we're left with - either you can earn salvation based on something you do, or you can't.

No matter what your feelings are regarding such a black and white view, the fact remains only one of these choices can be right. So if it's works based, which set of works is it? Do I only need to be a "good" person? Can I eat ham? Do I go to confession? Kneel and pray at specified times of the day?

Which leads to even further confusion. What happens if I miss a day of prayer? What if I'm killed in a car wreck on the way to confession? How do I know what acts are good, bad, or indifferent? What's the good to bad ratio that gets me into heaven?

More importantly, who decides all of this? A bunch of guys in funny hats? I mean, who died and made them God?

On the other hand, if salvation is not based on anything I can do for myself, what do we have?

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Rom. 10:9-10)

He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5)

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— (Eph. 2:4-5)

Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified...I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Gal. 2:16, 21)

I could go on (and on). Getting back to the original point, who's right and who's wrong? The guys in the funny hats, or the creator of the universe? This is a choice you need to settle now, because we all saw eight years ago that life can end literally in the blink of an eye.

Purpose vs. Providence. Or, why serendipity is crap.

I've been thinking lately about the two aspects of God's will, which I always knew as purposeful and permissive. Purposeful being things that God makes happen, and permissive being things that God allows to happen, always with the purpose of displaying His sovereignty. One day recently as I was listening to my podcasts I heard a new term for God's permissive will: providential. While the word itself was not new to me, applying it in this way was: all of mankind's free will decisions, inexplicably, miraculously weaving themselves together into the completion of God's plan.

So it was with this in mind that I realized, much like an episode of Lost, that there are no coincidences. One example that came screaming home to me was how I reconnected with God and found my church. My wife, who works for Weight Watchers, was working at a meeting with another woman who happened to be married to the Youth Pastor at Avalon Church. She had invited us to join her a few times, and when we finally accepted I knew I had found my new home.

So, where's the serendipitous part? Well, in order to work for Weight Watchers you must have gone through the program. Which means you had to be heavy at some point. We were; and we would not have had any success if we had not done the program together.

Basically, if Heather hadn't been working with Brooke, if Heather didn't work for Weight Watchers, if we hadn't gone through the program, I wouldn't be where I am today spiritually. What I'm really getting at is if I had been able to control what I ate back in 2003 none of this would have happened. Coincidence? Random occurrence of the universe? That sounds about as likely as an explosion at the printing plant resulting in a perfectly formed dictionary.

God is always orchestrating events in your life to bring you closer to Him. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes (as in my case) it takes years to see the effects. But there's nothing coincidental or serendipitous about it.

Lord, I apologize.

I've had a bunch of great ideas for things to put on here, things from church, from the podcasts, from the books I've been reading, and because I didn't bother to write anything down or put the entries up in time, everything's just gone.

So Lord, I apologize that I won't be able to share these things unless I have a remarkable recovery of my memory. We'll just have to find some new things to share. As soon as I figure out the iPod keyboard so I can make a note while I'm away from the computer.