Jimmy On The Go!

GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD: “A Hunger for God” by John Piper

The following is a brief rundown on what the book is about.  This excerpt is taken from DesiringGod.org.

A Hunger for God

Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer

A Hunger For God was written to help Christians understand the Biblical nature and purpose of fasting and prayer.

In this book, John Piper looks at the phenomena of religious, political, and health-based fasting, which occur around the world, and explains what makes Christian fasting unique. He then discusses the reasons and ways the Bible commends fasting to us. Ultimately, Piper asserts, fasting is a way of expressing to God that he is the supreme hunger of our hearts—that we are starving for him.

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I CAME ACROSS THIS GREAT PICTURE AND QUOTE ON  SOMEGIRLWITHA.COM‘S PAGE. You should check out her “100 Things About Me”, it’s awesome.

The quote reminded me of a message I had heard a little while ago.  The pastor admonished us all to be “grace seekers.”  He said something to the effect that God delights in giving and showing us His grace, and if we were to ask, “God, help me to see your grace in my life today,” He would be absolutely thrilled to do just that.

KNOWING JESUS = SUFFERING AND GLORY

For a moment, allow me to pin a note here and mention that I’m not exactly down with the whole “positive talk” message that seems to be the only thing that comes out of some preacher’s mouths these days.  I am not entirely against some of it’s message & the true fruit it effects.  But bottom line is that I believe that the true Gospel entails true joy that embraces sharing in Christ’s sufferings.  So, “no”, I don’t believe that if I just have enough faith, speak faith, and speak only positive Scriptures over myself that life will be devoid of all troubles, suffering, and pain.  But, with that said, I am equally resistant to a Gospel message that is devoid of joy, victory, and God’s glory amidst, through and despite adversity!  Hallelujah.

MY GRACE MOMENT

Just recently I had a great “God-moment” as fruit of being a “grace seeker.” It was a few weeks ago.  I was in Taiwan and was near the last leg of, what was for me, a “preaching marathon.”  In the course of about three weeks, I had preached almost 20 messages, including two back-to-back big conferences that required me to preach almost day and night non-stop.  The most preaching I had ever done in such a short time span.

The  “grace moment” came as I was waiting backstage for my time to preach.  I was tired.  Totally exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  All I could do was just be real with God and say, “I’m so tired right now.  I don’t feel like going out there.  But, please.  Give the strength to serve you and these people well.  Because if you don’t…I don’t know how I’m going to go on!”  Right as I finished praying that brief prayer, I opened up my eyes and instantly a young boy walked up to me as I sat on the ground.  The boy’s name was Jedidiah.

Jedidiah has been in a fight for his life.  He was born with an abnormal heart [tricuspid atresia] that has required several surgeries.  Even to this day, his heart is not normalized and the doctor’s are talking about another surgery much to the heartbreak of his parents.  I had the chance to pray for him when he was just an infant.  But in this moment, Jedidiah just looked straight at me and smiled.  He then lifted up a toy puzzle he had been working on.  Since we did not speak the same language, he gestured to it proudly.  He simply and happily wanted to show me he had finished it.  He then sat right next to me and began working on a new puzzle.

It made me happy.

It was so subtle that I almost missed it.  Here was a quick answer to my prayer.  Here was some grace that I needed.

IT’S NOT EASY TO SEE A MUSTARD SEED

What is so amazing is that Jesus said that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. His kingdom is grand in scale, lavish in grace, immense in glory and yet, if we do not “seek it” we can just as easily miss it in our lives the way we might not notice a tiny, tiny mustard seed on the ground.

RELATED PASSAGES FOR MEDITATION

2 Peter 3:18 (English Standard Version)

¹⁸But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Ephesians 1:7-8 (English Standard Version)

⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, ⁸which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight

Ephesians 1:16-19 (English Standard Version)

¹⁶I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, ¹⁷that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, ¹⁸ having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might

Matthew 6:33 (English Standard Version)

³³But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

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Just when you think that what Jesus did on the cross is amazing enough, there comes some more insight that stuns, humbles and brings you to tears.

Here is a powerful excerpt from Pastor Mark Driscoll’s message “Part 1: Eyewitness to Jesus” based on Luke 1:1-4 which is part of his ongoing sermon series, “Luke’s Gospel: Investigating the Man Who is God.”

I encourage you to read it and love Jesus more.

For the full transcript as well as audio, video and other great resources of the message you can go here or click on the banner above.

FILTHY ROMAN SPONGE

Copyright © 2009 Mark Driscoll

And, in closing, I got one question most frequently along the trip through the social networking sites online and from those whom I’ve had the pleasure of talking with, and that was, “Did you learn anything new about Jesus?” or the question is sometimes alternatively stated, “What did you learn about Jesus that was most new and compelling?” I learned a lot of new things about Jesus. See, the good thing is that there’s always some-thing to learn about Jesus. Even if you’ve been investigating for twenty years, there’s still a lot more to learn.

And I’ll share with you in closing what I did learn that I found to be most interesting about Jesus. And I’ll have to explain this photo because I’m sure it’s not clear at first glance how this is what I learned about Jesus. On the left is Gideon Joseph, my youngest child, three years old, just started drum school. He rocks for the Lamb. He looks forward to joining a Mars Hill worship team. In this picture, he is straddling an ancient water trough that would deliver fresh water in front of where my daughter Alexie is sitting. She just started kindergarten.  And she is sitting on an ancient public toilet. I said, “Honey, why don’t you have a seat there?” And she said, “I won’t sit on it, but I’ll sit near it.” “Okay.” And what would happen is, there would be about forty people, this was an ancient public restroom, and there were no stalls. You’d just sit there, and I don’t know, visit or play Frisbee or I don’t know what you would do. And there was no toilet paper, so they would grab water and clean themselves. And the tour guide who was with us, and I believe he was a professor of archaeology, he said something and all of a sudden a portion of the Scriptures just made sense.

And here’s what he said. I’ll show you. He said that some of the poorest slaves realized that there was a potential income stream here, there was a way for them to make money. And so what they would do is they would take a sea sponge on a stick and they would moisten it in the fresh water and then put it into the hole where the person was sitting and scrub them after they went to the bathroom. And over time they realized that one sponge for hundreds of people caused some to get infections. So then they would cleanse the sponge with vinegar or sour wine as a disinfectant. And all of a sudden, a part of the Bible made sense. Do you remember the part?

Jesus is being crucified, God comes to earth and we murder him, and as he’s being crucified, he’s preaching. And he just got done saying, “Father, forgive them,” and to shut him up, the Bible says they took a stick and they tried to shove it in his mouth with a sponge on the end. That was the stick, and that was the sponge. Which means that that was the last taste in Jesus’ mouth on the cross. That was the last smell in Jesus’ nose on the cross. And then Jesus said, with those lips, covered in that filth, “It is finished.” What is finished? Forgiveness, the atonement of sin, the forgiveness of the atrocity that is your life and mine. And if Jesus could forgive those people in that moment for that act with that taste in his mouth, he could forgive anyone for everything. Amen.

I had always read that section of Scripture and thought, it was nice that they gave Jesus a bit of compassion in his moment of greatest need. And I realized, there was no compassion for Jesus. There was no love and respect and appreciation for Jesus. But there was a lot of love and respect and compassion from Jesus for people like me, who in our own ways, have just taken the sponge of our life and shoved it in his mouth. And what he says is, “I forgive you, and I have finished the work of salvation. I have paid for all of your sins, and I love you.” That’s our Jesus, Mars Hill. It’s all about him. There’ll be a lot more to learn, but that is all for now.