(considering) 8:28

Implications of the Sovereignty of God

recent posts

  • T4G Day 3

    Yesterday’s messages were very good, and powerfully convicting. Though the one I found the best was not a main session, but the breakaway session for Canada. Putting aside the fact that they had little plastic laminated flags on hockey sticks, and they used the newer “official” Newfoundland flag instead of the much older tricolour, it was great to meet people from all accross Canada, and to hear the problems, the way God has been working, and a call to the kind of holiness (and here I mean real, active love for God an neighbour, not the number of Bible verses you memorize and whether your wife wears skirts or not) that will show the world that Jesus is from God, and that His Gospel is real.
    That was the most convicting part, not because I’m opposed to personal holiness in the life of the Christian, but because its often easy to imagine that holiness is irrelevant to the message I try to preach. The fact is, though, that it will be difficult for people seeking real fellowship with the living God to see that if I act in my life as if God doesn’t matter. Worse, I can end up convincing myself that God is small, or a tiny part of my life unless I do battle with the sin that keeps me separate from Him. After all, how can I claim I see him as majestic, awesome and glorious, if I find the sin that opposes that glory so minor… If I treat God lightly anywhere in my life, it means God weighs lightly on me, and that isn’t what the Bible is talking about when we hear about “the fear of the Lord”.
    Right now, and I hope this continues, my prayer after this conference is that I will continue to, “by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the flesh”. May God grant us all repentance.

     

    Soli Deo Gloria

  • T4G Day 2

    One of the cool things about conferences like this is that if you want, you can sit next to a new person each day. For example, before the opening session yesterday I was able to hang out with a few guys from 20schemes, which is a great ministry working to plant churches among the poor in Edinburgh, Scotland. Even before you get to the awesome accents, their ministry work makes for really interesting conversations, it was truly a blessing to sing hymns with them.
    Now we begin Day 2, Mark Dever is getting up now…. here we go, pray for God’s glory to be reflected through him.

     

  • T4G Day 1

    Today begins the first day of the Together for the Gospel conference here in Louisville. Yesterday’s CBMW pre-conference was very good, though a little like drinking from a fire hose. The format of the conference was short 15-30 minute speeches given in rapid fire succession over an entire afternoon. At some point in the near future, I’m going to have to reflect on my notes. As it stands, I’m sure that I’m missing some great thoughts (and maybe a few thoughts I’m going to disagree with later). I have several blog posts in the hopper for the days and weeks after I get back to NL.
    The really good part of this conference though, was that I got to meet with people from all over North America that want to see Jesus made much of in the culture and in our churches. Just seeing that is refreshing, as is the small group of pastors I meet with on Wednesdays. There is a reason that Christians meet together, and it is sweet to spend time with people who desire to see people come to a joy-filled knowledge of the Lord.
    This is where I’d have my greatest criticism of these conferences, but it isn’t a problem of conferences so much as a problem of being Christians and sinners. That problem is that it is so easy to get off the glory, sovereignty and majesty of God, and get lost in looking at the way the world is. I heard it both in the speakers, and in the conversations around me, and after some reflection, I notice it in my own heart. Today as I walk around and listen to speakers and the rest, I pray that I am able to keep God foremost in my affections. You’re welcome to join me in praying for that.

  • Online Reading (April 11, 2016)

    Soccer to Ministry in Canada: Gavin Peacock tells his story

    Is Internet a Human Right: While I generally agree that internet will help people out of poverty, I’m left thinking that if everything is a right, nothing is.

    Spurgeon: Yesterday’s dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs was particularly good.

  • T4G 2016, Day -1

     

    Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.
    – Proverbs 25:25

    It’s Monday morning in Louisville Kentucky. I’ve just finished my morning devotions after the long trip from Newfoundland, Canada, and after having done my morning devotions, I’m preparing to go to the pre-conference for T4G 2016. Thanks to all my friends and family, and especially Church family back in St. John’s who are praying for us, that our travels would be safe, and that God would refresh us here, and give us extra strength and ideas to bring back home to help rebuild the Church in our corner of Canada.
    After spending the last several weeks writing a preliminary paper on the secularization of St. John’s Newfoundland, cataloguing both the Christian past we had and the present broken condition of the Christian Church in St. John’s, coming to a conference like this one is likely to be a bit of a shock to the system. What would it be like if we had thousands of pastors willing to learn and teach and live a robust, Biblical Gospel, for the sake of the Glory of God in Jesus Christ? Pastors willing to help build a Church that will stand where so many Christian witnesses have faltered and gone after Gospels that are not the true Gospel, or who have turned the saving message of Jesus Christ into some kind of rule book? What would it be like to have 100 such pastors, or even 10?’
    I pray this week is not just a good conference, or a time to get books, or even a time to be refreshed as we worship God and hear His word preached. I pray this is a time where I can get a vision for how sweet it is to spend time with God’s people worshipping the one true God, with a worship that engages my mind even as it makes my heart sing. I pray I get a vision for the kind of Church God desires for my homeland, and for the eternal joy of the people I love.