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Tag Archives: listening to God

George Whitfield and Applying the Gospel

I returned this week from 5 weeks away and began the difficult transition of  coming down off the mountaintop of being away with God for a sabbatical rest (i.e. vacation) and returning to the ordinary, the mundane, the imperfect, the very real work of life. The work of bills, house, cars, parenting our four girls, congregants with cancer, families in crisis, a sermon to finish and the rest of what makes up pastoring a church. It sure is easier to be a contemplative away from it all! I am sobered by my limits and body resisting too much activity after time away. By God’s grace, I am trying to listen to the Spirit in my body/spirit to live slowly. Each year I teach a course for 3 consecutive weeks on a book of the Bible. This year it is Galatians and the theme of Sonship and the gospel, one of the greatest contributions of the. Read more.

Mother Teresa Today

I encourage you to read the recent biography of Mother Teresa called Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the  “Saint of Calcutta“. It gives us a glimpse into her leadership, high activity level and struggle with the “dark night of the soul.” For me, it encouraged me in my own struggle to be an “active contemplative leader” Her life gives power to these words: We all must take the time to be silent and to contemplate, especially those who live in big cities like London and New York, where everything moves so fast… I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in the silence of the heart that God speaks. God is the friend of silence –we need to listen to God because it’s not what we say but what He says to us and through us that matters. Prayer feeds the soul – as blood is to the body,. Read more.

Listening to God through Fallen Vessels

I receive e mails regularly from people who are troubled that I am quoting and learning from people who do not have a solid evangelical theology, who might be universalists, or tend towards a works-righteousness, or pray to saints. The following are a few points to consider to help us remain humble and teachable as we seek to listen to God. Firstly, many of our great evangelical heroes also appeared to have some large holes in their theological armor. Consider Jonathan Edwards who owned slaves like his father before him and even defended the practice, arguing the colonies were dependent on it. (However, he also was the first pastor in Northampton to baptize “negroes” and admit them into full membership.) John Calvin endorsed the drowning of an Anabaptist, that is a fellow-believer who believed in baptism by immersion for believers alone! Martin Luther was an anti-Semite. Hitler quoted those portions of his writings. CT. Read more.