3 ways the Gospel can transform a porn addict

Thanks to Covenant Eyes and Breaking Free for a clip of D.A. Carson, John Piper and Tim Keller discussing the power of the Gospel for those who struggle with pornography.

"If you can find a better deal, take it!"

I really don't know if Ann Coulter is a fellow believer, but I can see by what she's written that she gets the heart of the Gospel.

In a boiling rage, liberals constantly accuse Christians of being "judgmental." No, we're relieved.

Christianity is also the hardest religion in the world because, if you believe Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead, you have no choice but to give your life entirely over to Him. No more sexual promiscuity, no lying, no cheating, no stealing, no killing inconvenient old people or unborn babies -- no doing what all the other kids do.

And no more caring what the world thinks of you -- because, as Jesus warned in a prophecy constantly fulfilled by liberals: The world will hate you.

With Christianity, your sins are forgiven, the slate is wiped clean and your eternal life is guaranteed through nothing you did yourself, even though you don't deserve it. It's the best deal in the universe.

Counseling and the Church

If I lived in the Louisville KY area, I would most probably attend this church. Because they appear to preach the Gospel, and because they seem to have a strong counseling ministry. Sojourn will be hosting a two-day conference next month - The Gospel: Counseling and the Church. Author and speaker Paul David Tripp will be giving the keynote address. I may have to talk to my wife about attending.

RELATED: The best of Christian Biblical Counseling - a listing of Christian counseling organizations.

"Let the world see my weakness and denied high fives that my savior might be exalted."

Matt Kleberg has an outstanding post over at Common Grounds:

There are few moments more socially humiliating than the denied high five. You walk through a group of people, see a friend in the crowd and throw up a big five, but alas, the so-called friend misses the gesture and you are left with your hand in the air. You have one and only one option- the head scratch. If you can convince any witnesses that you really intended the scratch all along then you are safe, but you just know that everyone saw the denial, the rejection. You are a fool. The cover-up scratch failed, and you are humiliated, exposed, a goofy wretch.

The same idea explains why our diaries have locks on them and our moleskin journals never leave our sight. We can’t imagine what would happen if the mass public really knew what went on inside our heads and hearts. We fear the denied high five because for that fleeting moment our cover is blown. It is a full-time job concealing our true identities and convincing the world that we have all our ducks in a row. Deep down, though, we know the truth- that we are weak, hurting, and definitely not cool. This fear not only shields us from experiencing the freedom of the gospel, but it also warps the way we relate to fellow man.

(HT: Jollyblogger)

Forget about Joel Osteen's brand of Christianity - it's all about us becoming better and gaining God's favor. True Christianity is the story of God's redemptive plan for His sinful and hurting children.

the believer's blessing in Christ

Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things and heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guaranteer of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:3-14 (ESV)

Baptizoblogodebate

Justin Taylor has the roundup.

Where do I personally stand? I'm a credobaptist.

Sinead O'Connor's "Christianity"

I read with great interest a recent interview conducted by Christianity Today with musician Sinead O'Connor. I think she has a mesmerizing voice, and her rendition of Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U is one of the most haunting songs I've heard. Her infamy certainly increased following a performance on Saturday Night Live, when she tore in half a picture of Pope John Paul II while urging the audience to "fight the real enemy." She has seemed to mellow in the years since then. Even though her CD's haven't burned up the charts since I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, she continues to be prolific.

O'Connor is promoting her new album, Theology, which is reportedly inspired by the Old Testament. As if this wasn't strange enough, the album is supposedly being promoted to Christians. (Gareth Higgins, writing for Beliefnet, proves himself to be a fan.) Read this interview, and see if there is anything remotely Christian about O'Connor's spiritual beliefs.

What does Jesus mean to you?

O'Connor: I've had a lot of faith in Jesus ever since I was a little kid. I always joke with my friends that I have a cab company called "Jesus Cabs." And I tell my friends, "If you ask Jesus for anything, it will happen. But you have to believe that it's going to happen."

What about now? Where do you stand in your faith in Jesus?

O'Connor: I think everybody has an individual relationship with Jesus. I kinda really do believe in this Trinity thing, that God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all one thing. I understand Jesus as being an interceder, someone you ask when you really need a big favor from God. I also feel that Jesus is inside everybody. It's almost like an energy or a thing that lives inside of us.

new breed of Evangelicals?

Many people are talking about this article in today's New York Times, and I suppose it's for a good reason: with the death of Jerry Falwell, it's now hard for the main-stream media to point out someone as the face of Evangelicalism. Billy Graham is someone the MSM has recognized in the past, but he seems to be less mentioned the older he gets. Billy's son Franklin has obtained some prominence, especially in regards to his work with Samaritan's Purse, but he has nowhere near the star power his father once had. Pat Robertson, who thought seriously about seeking the presidency in 1988, has been ignored by most people in the Evangelical community.

Nowadays, the MSM looks at pastors of megachurches and authors on best-seller lists:

Typified by megachurch pastors like the Rev. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., and the Rev. Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church outside Chicago, the new breed of evangelical leaders — often to the dismay of those who came before them — are more likely to speak out about more liberal causes like AIDS, Darfur, poverty and global warming than controversial social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. But the conservative legacy of the religious right persists, and abortion continues to be a defining issue, even a litmus test, for most evangelicals, including younger ones, according to interviews and survey data.

Are these people advancing causes like AIDS, Darfur and poverty because the Bible commands to be concerned about such issues? Or are they doing so because they want to seem cool and progressive?

Not everyone, of course, believes that the political arena is the best place to live out the Christian faith.

Gabe Lyons, 32, is emblematic of the transformation among many younger evangelicals. He grew up in Lynchburg, Va., attending Mr. Falwell’s church. But he has shied away from politics. Instead, he heads the Fermi Project, a loose “collective” dedicated to teaching evangelicals to shape culture through other means, including media and the arts.

“I believe politics just isn’t as important to younger evangelicals as it has been for the older generations because we recognize from experience that politics does not shape the morality of a culture,” he said. “It simply reflects what the larger culture wants.”

What the article doesn't mention is what the main goal of Evangelicalism should be: the preaching of the Gospel. The radical idea that Jesus, God in the flesh, came to seek and save those who are lost.

Anna Nicole Smith, 1967-2007

I've avoided blogging about Anna Nicole, only because everyone else seems to be. However, I must draw your attention to Tammy Brister's post on the reality star's tragic life.

I hearkened back to Scripture and more specifically to the life of Jesus Christ to think about a couple of Anna Nicole’s in Jesus’ day. I recall a woman of Samaria who had many men in her life (John 4:1-42), a woman of the city who was characteristically known as “a sinner” (Luke 7:36-50), and a woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). Like the Samaritan woman, Anna Nicole had experienced many men in her life. Like the woman of the city, she prostituted herself for riches. Like the woman caught in adultery, she knew what it was like to be in a courtroom, being judged by others. Jesus was no stranger to the Anna Nicole’s of his day.

[HT: Justin Taylor]

Update: For a more secular view of Anna Nicole, go here.

For all her gaudy excesses, there is in some of us--or there ought to be--the urge to treat Ms. Smith gently. Hers is a pathetic story, of ersatz celebrity, dead children and the pursuit of money, sex, drugs, weight loss and validation-through-litigation. That this pursuit was so thoroughly unembarrassed is a comment not so much on Ms. Smith's personal aesthetics as it is on human folly, U.S.-style, taken to its logical extreme.

the meaning of Easter

Christians the world over have just celebrated the most holy of days on the Christian calendar - Easter. Christians celebrate this day as the day that Jesus Christ, who had been crucified just days before, rose from the dead. Paul stresses in Romans 10 the importance of belief in the resurrection of Jesus - "because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved: for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

There are some who claim that the resurrection of Jesus was not a literal event but symbolized the importance of endurance. The Jesus Seminar was composed of thirty scholars who were dedicated to researching the historical and authentic Jesus; they "concluded" that the resurrection did not actually occur, that Jesus did not bodily return from the dead. See this recent article in the "Washington Post."

Paul states that for salvation to occur in the individual, he/she must confess that Jesus is Lord and that He was raised from the dead. To confess something is to acknowledge or admit something - to profess a belief in something. It is through this belief and this confession that salvation lies - not on anything else. In his first letter to the Corinthian Christians, he argued that if Jesus was not raised from the dead, the Christian faith is vanity (see chapter 15).

Al Mohler discusses how death has been swallowed up in victory: "The church comes each year to this celebration of resurrection because we must constantly remind ourselves and the world of the resurrection hope, and of the reality of the risen Christ. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ must always remain a company of resurrection witnesses, speaking the Gospel of the cross and the risen Christ to a world desperate for genuine hope."

Mark Driscoll has a series on Easter: 1, 2, 3, & 4. *many people are linking to these posts by Pastor Driscoll - I'm just joining the bandwagon on this one*

Happy Easter!

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay."


Matthew 27: 1-9 (NIV)

What's good about Good Friday?

Matthew 27:32-50

32As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross.
33And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull),
34they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it.
35And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots.
36Then they sat down and kept watch over him there.
37And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews."
38Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left.
39And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads
40and saying, "You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross."
41So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying,
42"He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.
43He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, 'I am the Son of God.'"
44And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.
45Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
46And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
47And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, "This man is calling Elijah."
48And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink.
49But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him."
50And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.



Mark 15:33-39

33And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
35And some of the bystanders hearing it said, "Behold, he is calling Elijah."
36And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down."
37And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.
38And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
39And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"



Luke 23:39-43

39One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him,[d] saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!"
40But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?
41And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong."
42And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
43And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."



John 19:28-30

28After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), "I thirst."
29A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.
30When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.


RELATED: Mark D. Roberts has an excellent series on the seven last words of Christ.

"I really know that if God can forgive him, why not me?"

Eileen Harris forgives the man who killed her husband and daughter.

Rev. Eileen Harris looked into the eyes of the man who brutally killed her daughter and husband and talked to him of God's forgiveness during a court hearing Tuesday at which the former housecleaner was sentenced to life in prison.Harris, a petite woman dressed in a black suit, had just finished describing the pain and longing she has endured since her loved ones' murders when she leaned toward Russell Sedelmaier, who stood with head bowed.

"Russell," she said, calling his name twice before Sedelmaier looked at her. "Because I value the gift of life and I know God forgives and loves all of us, especially you, Russell," Harris continued, smiling just slightly, "I support a sentence of natural life."

"Thank you," Sedelmaier said quietly. He later said, "I'm sorry what I did to the Harris family and what I did to my own family. I'm really sorry."
------------------
"I really felt in my heart forgiveness," Harris said of her comment to Sedelmaier. "I really know that if God can forgive him, why not me? That's where I am in terms of my faith and my understanding of life." (Chicago Tribune)

Would I be able to do the same as Harris? I just don't know if I would or not - I would like to think so, but I just don't know. I've always thought, though, that we are most like God when we have the grace to forgive.