madalyn murray o'hair

"But in 1980, on Mother's Day, there came a horrible blow -- her oldest boy Bill "came out" as a Christian. And not a nominal, go-to-church-at-Easter Christian, either, but a foursquare, evangelical, come-to-Jesus, pass-the-plate, full-gospel Baptist. As a child, he wanted what all children want, his mother's love and approval. As an adult, battling an alcohol and drug problem, he realized that Madalyn was unfortunately one of those people who couldn't even conceive of her children as separate human beings in their own right. Her children were merely extensions of her ego, and her regard for him, or for anyone, depended on how completely they obeyed her every command.

For years, Madalyn had referred to Bill as the reason she picked up the cudgels to banish prayer from the schoolroom. She wrote heart-rending articles about how the other kids beat Bill up at school and ostracized him because of his beliefs. But looking back, Bill Murray felt that when he stood there on the Supreme Court steps, he was just being used as a prop in his mother's battles against everything she hated in bourgeois America. It took all of his pent-up anger to wrench himself free of her orbit and having done so, all communication between them ceased. His prediction that his mother would sever all ties with him was abundantly fulfilled -- O'Hair cast him into the void with this cutting remark: "One could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother, I guess; I repudiate him entirely and completely for now and all times...He is beyond human forgiveness." This denouncement demonstrated how she almost viewed herself as the god of her own universe; it was her prerogative to grant her children absolution, or even life itself."

http://www.crimemagazine.com/ohair.htm

"Let me encourage you to take those 'if onlys' and draw a circle around them. Then label the circle, "The providence of God." The Christian believes that God is greater than our 'if onlys.' His providential hand encompasses the whole of our lives, not just the good days, but the 'bad' days too. We have the word accident in our vocabulary; He does not."

~ Erwin Lutzer

"Everyone knows the amazing works that have been done through the ministries of men like Tim Keller in Manhattan and Mark Driscoll in Seattle; but the track record of exporting the Redeemer or Mars Hill models elsewhere is patchy at best, raising the obvious question of whether these phenomena are the result less of their general validity and more of the singular talents of the remarkable individuals.  To be clear, this is in no way to suggest that these churches are not faithful; but it is to ask whether they are not more unique and unrepeatable than is often acknowledged.  If the secret lies in the gifts of the individual leader, then time spent trying to replicate the models elsewhere with less talented or differently gifted leaders is doomed to failure and a waste of time.  

We have been here before.   I spent my early Christian years amongst people always looking for the `new Lloyd-Jones' or preaching for an hour when they only had thirty minutes of material to present.  So guess what?  The reincarnate Lloyd Jones never came and too many English evangelical congregations resigned themselves to thirty minutes of quality negated by thirty minutes of agony every Sunday.  We wasted time and valuable talent in trying to impersonate him or to identify the next one of his ilk to come along."

~ Carl Trueman

i would add though - acts29 and redeemer church planting are relatively young. we'll be better able to judge the fruit 10, 20, 30 years from now.

Do you love God?

Do you love God? We usually gauge our love for God by what we're doing, how we're acting towards others, even our thoughts. But what about what HE'S doing?

Do you love God for all the things in your life right now? Think about everything that's going on. Especially the harder parts, the trials, the difficulties, the pains. Do you love Him for those things? Can you thank Him that you still don't have a freakin job?

When we complain about what God ordains, we blaspheme Him.

"You worship God more by this than when you come to hear a sermon, or spend half an hour, or an hour, in prayer, or when you come to receive a sacrament. These are the acts of God's worship, but they are only external acts of worship, to hear and pray and receive sacraments. But this is the soul's worship, to subject itself thus to God. You who often will worship God by hearing, and praying, and receiving sacraments, and yet afterwards will be froward and discontented - know that God does not regard such worship, he will have the soul's worship, in this subjecting of the soul unto God. Note this, I beseech you: in active obedience we worship God by doing what pleases God, but by passive obedience we do as well worship God by being pleased with what God does. Now when I perform a duty, I worship God, I do what pleases God; why should I not as well worship God when I am pleased with what God does?

As it was said of Christ's obedience: Christ was active in his passive obedience, and passive in his active obedience; so the saints are passive in their active obedience, they are first passive in the reception of grace, and then active. And when they come to passive obedience, they are active, they put forth grace in active obedience. When they perform actions to God, then the soul says: 'Oh! that I could do what pleases God, and I labour that what God does shall please me: here is a Christian indeed, who shall endeavour both these; It is but one side of a Christian to endeavour to do what pleases God; you must as well endeavour to be pleased with what God does, and so you will come to be a complete Christian when you can do both, and that is the first thing in the excellence of this grace of contentment."

"Labour that what God does shall please" you. That is so difficult. But that is the real faith struggle every day. To love what GOD IS DOING in your life. To still be thankful. To still praise Him. To be able to genuinely say from your heart: "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord." When you can really say that, God's grace in your life is evident.
"Keep your heart diligently, for out of it flow the issues of life."