From One Degree to Another

They now have a blog (today featuring the map that will appear in Study Bible of Ancient Rome).

Check this out:

(HT: J. Mark Bertrand)

Men, we always need encouragement in our task as the loving leaders in the home. Here are two helpful reasources I came across this AM to help us in our quest to glorify God as husbands and fathers:

Josh Harris linked to some Friday morning meetings for men at Covenant Life Church. They call this series THE MILL because that is where “you grind and reshape something.” Check them out.

Also, Colin Adams had some links to messages that encouraged him in home-work.

Avail yourself to the grace found here so that your life resonantes of God’s greatness.

Wish I could have attended this conference too. As always, the good people at SGM have made the audio available for free. The theme of this year’s Worship God conference was on the Psalms. They released this excellent CD as well with it.

This conference looks like it will be a good one. I have been reading Dallimore’s bio of Whitefield throughout this year and will be anxious to hear Piper’s take. Anyone else planning on attending this?

As many of you know, we are all gone on vacation. We actually left last Sunday after the AM services and came to my mom’s house. It has been a pretty busy week, really. Andrew has been sick most of the week. I worked on Monday – Wednesday on my Mom’s deck, dismantling the old one and then replacing all the deck boards and other things. That work will resume on tomorrow and Tuesday. I’ve also been nursing a pretty serious cold as well. I tried over the counter stuff for a few days but kept getting worse. Now, with the help of antibiotics, I think I’m getting better. Then, Friday and Saturday, we were at 2 family reunions here with my family. Needless to say, we are enjoying a day of rest today. It hasn’t been the most restful of times, but we have gotten lots done and hope to get more relaxing in during the next few days. Anyway, I may do some posts this week, but that is my explanation on the drought of posts.

For more info on Ben Stuart (Our Camp Pastor) and the ministry he is regularly associated with, visit Breakaway Ministries. (They also have a podcast available on their website for free).

Other messages from Ben given at Student Life the week we were at camp are available here, but they cost about $5 per message.

Yeah, camp ended last Friday. We were able to capture the spirit sledge for our Gold Squad. But aside from all that, I continue to be amazed at how God used our camp pastor, Ben Stuart to encourage us. In this closing session, he really simply summarized all that we had seen this week. He read Romans 8:1-2. He began by talking how some things are naturally bent and crooked and unable to fix themselves. This is our condition. We can’t save ourselves. Therefore, we must awake and simply confess: “I don’t know what this day has for me. I can set my mind on the flesh and walk in death or I can set my mind on the Spirit and be in step with Him, living at peace with others.” This should be the battle we wage in our hearts as believers every day. And it starts today. We should pray for help: “God, set my mind on you. Stir in me all you want me to be.” Keeping in step with the Spirit means we are marching together with Him. It is encouraging to find other people who can live this way with you. Ben closed in prayer encouraging us to live this way throughout our lives.

We had a refreshing and encouraging week. Ministry at our project was accomplished with excellence and the people we served were very excited about both what we did and how we did it. They were especially quick to notice how “these students don’t seem like other people.” This gave us an open opportunity for the Gospel. I came back full. Good stuff.

We do plan to return to OBU for Missions Camp next year. The dates are: July 20-24. Our camp pastor will be Neil McClendon and music will be led by Billy & Cindy Foote. Mark it down and plan to be there.

The Choir began singing “In Christ Alone” as worship began tonight. This was followed by a drama sketch, then, we took up an offering for missions and ServantLife, an international missions ministry of Student Life.

Addison Road took the stage and led us in songs like “Grace Is Enough” to prep us for God’s Word. Ben Stuart came and picked up where he left off last night from Galatians 4:4-6. Opening sentence — “Here’s a reality: who you are will determine what you do.” The reality for us as believers is that we are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:26). There is a difference between merely being a child and being a son with all the rights of the family. We are given that new identity, though; we are sons. But God has not left us there. He has put the Holy Spirit to indwell us. We are given a unity with Him. He will give us the energy to live for God’s glory.

After this, Ben launched into a great Biblical theology of the Spirit throughout Scripture. When the Spirit blows in you, you will change. We don’t have the tools in ourselves, though. We are not left to ourselves. Galatians 5:13-14 and v.16 speak of walking in the flesh being contrary to the Spirit. The most miserable person on the planet is those who are living in the flesh but have the Spirit within them crying out, “Abba, Father.” How do we do it, though? How do we keep in step wtih the Spirit. The fruits of the flesh are in direct opposition to the fruits of the Spirit. There are two words that summarize what the Spirit does in us:

1) He leads us. He’s the resident boss.

He leads us by being consistent with Scripture (John 16:13). He leads us contrary to the flesh (Gal. 5:17) He leads us into community (Eph. 2:18). And, He leads us by exalting Christ (John 14:15).

2) He empowers us. He moves us to obey.

We should respond by keeping in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:25). We should cry out with Augustine — “Command me and give me what You command.”

We ended by singing “How Great Is Our God.” This was such a refreshing word. We had a good church group time and headed back to pack up and leave tomorrow.

Morning celebration began with the “early bird” encouraging us to dance crazily for 20 seconds and we were in. Our group, Gold Rush, were privilaged to win the spirit sledge for the day. So we were raring to go in Missions. After all this, Addison Road came and led us in “We Will Wait Upon the Lord” and “Blessed Be Your Name.” Then, Camp Pastor Ben Stuart came and had us open to James 1:14-15.

The morning word was about temptation. Here are some thoughts he gave. As we are thinking about how we think and live, cultivating intimacy with God, we are really pursuing one movement in 2 parts. We are engaging in behavior that will enhance our relationship with God and moving away from other behaviors that hinder intimacy. This process is called sanctification, which he defined as being more holy or “set apart from things to God.” These two movements have traditionally been called vivification – bringing life and mortification – putting to death things that isolate me from God.

This process isn’t pursued in a vacuum, though. God is calling us to Himself and we have a real enemy who is seeking to hinder our approaching of God. Hebrews 2:14, Colossians 1:13 and Genesis 3:15 all speak of this. In God’s wisdom, He’s allowed the enemy to persist (this enemy doesn’t like our aroma of victory in Christ). Satan wants to frustrate our moving towards God in intimacy. How does the enemy work? He goes after our minds, which contributes toward affections and leads to an act of the will. He will put a thought in our mind in order to stir our affections. This is temptation. If I want to avoid sin, then, I must avoid what leads me to sin (temptation) [1 Tim. 4:16; Romans 13:14]. This is also done in community with other believers. Ben closed with this thought.

At our missions project, we had lunch with the women from our assignment. It was an encouraging and fun day for them. We served them a picnic in the park of hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, chips and cookies. Camp Pastor Ben Stuart and his wife came by and greeted us as well. All in all, it was a huge success. Our work is done and now we hope God takes this and uses it to produce eternal fruit.