George Mueller on Starting the Day

I have been blessed recently listening to the audio book Desiring God by John Piper. In his chapter on the importance of Scripture, he quoted George Mueller's practice of getting his heart happy in the Lord by diving into the Word each morning.

"I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished...I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental, communion with the Lord."

Memorize...the Whole Book

Since the beginning of the year, a friend from church and I have been challenging one another to memorize Scripture. We aren’t simply memorizing individual verses or passages though, instead we are challenging each other to memorize the entire book of Philippians. Our goal is to memorize Philippians by Resurrection Sunday (April 24, 2011). We got the idea through Justin Taylor’s blog about a program called Partnering to Remember. They provide you with a printout of Philippians in the ESV, which you paste in a small moleskine booklet and memorize the book in 16 weeks.

We have all memorized verses or longer passages of Scripture, but have you ever attempted to memorize a whole book? This is a first for me. So far, we are 17 verses in and it is going great and not as hard as I thought it would be. 

I want to encourage you all to memorize Scripture. But also I encourage you to memorize entire books. Last night I read a chapter from the book Dear Timothy: Letters on Pastoral Ministry on memorizing Scripture. In the chapter, Pastor Andy Davis gives helpful reasons why we as pastors must memorize Scripture and then he lays out 5 reasons why we ought to memorize extended passages and even entire books of the Bible. Below is a summary of his 5 reasons taken from pages 92-95.

1. It honors the testimony that Scripture gives itself, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful…” (2 Tim. 3:16) and “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).
2. It enables you more readily to grasp the central thought.
3. You will be less likely to take verses out of context.
4. Your joy will increase, as will your awe at the miraculous infinity of truth in the Scripture, as you continue to discover new truths.
5. It lends itself to the best style of preaching- expository preaching. You can expound verse after verse that you have already meditated on deeply.

He also reminds us of the great value of Scripture memorization for: 

• Evangelism
• Counseling
• Your prayer life
• Stewardship of time

I pray that your mind would be saturated with Christ and His truth as you seek to guard your soul and shepherd God’s people. 

Pastor Andrew

Leaving $12M on the Table

Check out this story on former Kansas City Royals pitcher, Gil Meche.

He's retiring from baseball even though he has one more year and 12 million dollars left on his 5 year contract.

Read the article here

How to Publish a Document

Guys here is a 12 step program on how to publish a document on the blog.

Is "Senioritis" Sin?

The last semester of school is upon us and many of our students are seniors who are eagerly anticipating graduation. We need to help shepherd them through cases of “senioritis.”

I want to hear your feedback on this issue: IS “SENIORITIS” SIN?

Don’t forget to “reply all” in your response.

PASTOR ANDREW

Facebook

I was thinking about Facebook today and how it can be good and it can also be bad. At some point I want to talk to my students about it.

What are some ways that you think FB can be used for good or be beneficial? What are ways that it can be bad and dangerous?

Thanks,

PASTOR ANDREW

P.S. Here is an good article written by the New York Times, "Antisocial Networking"

Winter Retreat

Glory be to God for the youth winter retreat. The Lord did a mighty work in the kids lives as well as the leaders. One of our leaders opened Friday night with an introduction to Justification then I preached three messages on God's Wrath, Jesus' Sacrifice, and Repentance. We had lots of kids considering their salvation and I started a band of brothers with 4 young men who were ready to start living for the Lord. Praise God.

I produced a video to give a taste of what happened. You can see more details at our XChange Facebook page or get the sermons at the church's website.

Welcome to Pastor to Pastor

Gentlemen,

Welcome to the our new way of communicating about ministry. Taken from the concept of Lutzer's book "Pastor to Pastor" we understand that, "the role of the pastor is often complicated by problematic issues that must be handled gracefully, effectively, and sometimes publicly." As iron sharpens iron, so one pastor sharpen another. (Proverbs 27:17)

May Grace and Peace be with you.