Take Your Vitamin Z

Woman: I was tricked into taking an abortion pill

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:00:00 +0000

CNN reported on a tragic story about a woman whose boyfriend tricked her into taking an abortion-inducing drug after she told him she was pregnant. The boyfriend, John Andrew Welden, is now facing first-degree murder charges for killing the unborn child. Welden told his girlfriend that his father, a doctor, had prescribed her an antibiotic for an infection. In reality, Welden gave her an abortion-inducing drug, and the pregnancy was terminated.

This story is undoubtedly tragic, and Welden deserves to face punishment for first-degree murder. However, the undercurrent of this story is working against the tide of abortion-rights advocates. Note with me the inconsistency of the logic of our laws and of abortion advocates.

The pregnancy of Remee Lee was terminated by her boyfriend, the supposed father of the child. Since it was against the will of the mother, Welden is being charged with first-degree murder. However, if Lee had terminated the pregnancy herself, it would have been perfectly legal and perhaps even applauded by abortion advocates. Even if the abortion had been against the will of the father, the mother would have been within her legal rights to have an abortion.

Why is this a problem? The charge of first-degree murder implies the pre-meditated killing of innocent human life. It implies value in the life that is lost. In this case, it is the life of an unborn child.

What makes an abortion elected by the mother any different? The charge of first-degree murder cannot be levied against Welden for any physical harm incurred by Ms. Lee. Instead, it is directly centered upon the loss of life for the baby. The attorneys may even argue that the life was taken against the will and rights of the unborn child. In the same way, abortions performed according to the will of the mother take the life of an unborn child against his/her will and rights. Why is it murder for the boyfriend to induce an abortion and not when a woman chooses it on her own?

The inconsistency is glaring but unspoken in our culture.

How To Create Your Own Mumford Band

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:22:00 +0000

Nailed it.

"We dare not speak on God’s behalf to explain why He allowed these particular acts of evil to happen at this time."

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:00:00 +0000

Al Mohler:

...the Bible points us to the radical affirmation of God’s sovereignty as the ground of our salvation and the assurance of our own good. We cannot explain why God has allowed sin, but we understand that God’s glory is more perfectly demonstrated through the victory of Christ over sin. We cannot understand why God would allow sickness and suffering, but we must affirm that even these realities are rooted in sin and its cosmic effects.

How does God exercise His rule? Does He order all events by decree, or does He allow some evil acts by His mere permission? This much we know–we cannot speak of God’s decree in a way that would imply Him to be the author of evil, and we cannot fall back to speak of His mere permission, as if this allows a denial of His sovereignty and active will.

A venerable confession of faith states it rightly: “God from eternity, decrees or permits all things that come to pass, and perpetually upholds, directs, and governs all creatures and all events; yet so as not in any way to be the author or approver of sin nor to destroy the free will and responsibility of intelligent creatures.”

God is God, and God is good. As Paul affirms for the church, God’s sovereignty is the ground of our hope, the assurance of God’s justice as the last word, and God’s loving rule in the very events of our lives: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who are the called according to His purpose.” [Romans 8:28]

We dare not speak on God’s behalf to explain why He allowed these particular acts of evil to happen at this time to these persons and in this manner. Yet, at the same time, we dare not be silent when we should testify to the God of righteousness and love and justice who rules over all in omnipotence. Humility requires that we affirm all that the Bible teaches, and go no further. There is much we do not understand. As Charles Spurgeon explained, when we cannot trace God’s hand, we must simply trust His heart.

And so, we weep with those who weep, and we reach out with acts of care and compassion. We pray for those who are grieving and have experienced such loss. We cry for the children lost in this storm, even as we are so thankful for brave people who did their best to save lives as the winds raged. And, we pray we we know to pray: Even so, Lord come quickly.

Read the rest.

Books by Al Mohler:

Seven Convictions In Light of The OKC Tornado

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000

Like Job's friends, sometimes the wisest thing is to simply keep our mouth shut for a time. But there is a time to speak as well. When that time arrives we would be wise to follow Dr. Storm's counsel here.

Sam Storms:

(1) It will not accomplish anything good to deny what Scripture so clearly asserts, that God is absolutely sovereign over all of nature.

(2) God is sovereign, not Satan.

(3) Great natural disasters such as this tell us nothing about the comparative sinfulness of those who are its victims.

(4) Events such as this should remind us that no place on earth is safe and that we will all one day die (unless Jesus returns first).

(5) We should not look upon such events and conclude that the Second Coming of Christ and the end of history are at hand, but neither should we conclude that the Second Coming of Christ and the end of history are not at hand.

(6) We must learn to weep with those who weep.

(7) Pray that God will use such an event to open the hearts and eyes of a city and a state immersed in unbelief and idolatry (and I have in mind not merely Oklahoma, but also America as a whole), to see the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and turn in faith to him, lest something infinitely worse than a tornado befall them: Eternal condemnation. Eternal suffering.

Read the rest.

Recommended resources:

Meeting For The First Time - An Adoption Story

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:58:00 +0000

Ben Peays:

"Showcase the Gospel in Living Color" follows the Chen couple as they meet their adopted son, Jacob, for the first time. This remarkably powerful and quality film shows the intimate moments when a couple becomes a family as the Chens hold Jacob for the first time. As the film demonstrates, adoption can be an outward witness to and expression of worship for God's adoption of us—and a way to showcase the gospel in living color to the world (Gal. 4:4-7).

Austin Stone Church has launched an incredible adoption campaign to try and adopt all 244 kids needing adoption in the city of Austin, Texas. They have also created an extensive foster care initiative to provide Christian homes to children who need a family.

Jacob Chen - An Adoption Story from The Austin Stone on Vimeo.

Recommended Reading:

Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches

Cheap eBook Alert

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:15:00 +0000

On the Grace of God

Justin Holcomb

$1.99

The Great Enemy

Tim Keller

$1.99

The Chip

Stephen Altrogge

FREE

The Last Superhero

Stephen Altrogge

FREE

"God's frontal assault on evil is through the church."

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:29:00 +0000

Books by Darrin Patrick here.

A Conversation at the Atheist's Car Garage

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:00:00 +0000

Six Recent Lessons I Learned from Turnaround Churches

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Thom Rainer:

I love hearing stories of hope. Instead of waiting for the stories to come to me, I recently interviewed 19 pastors whose churches had moved from struggling to breakout. All of the pastors had been in the church at least four years, and all of them had reached points of frustrations.

Then their churches began to reverse their declines and stagnations.
None of the pastors I interviewed were new at their churches. None of the churches had relocated in recent years. And none of the communities in which the churches were located had grown dramatically.

So what happened at these churches?

All of the pastors were careful to give glory to God. Most of them articulated that their stories were not ones of mere methodological devices. But they did have six common themes worth noting.

They led the church to become highly intentional about starting new groups. The fewest groups started by any one of the churches were four in a one-year period. These churches were serious about new groups, and most of them saw that, at least from a human perspective, as the primary source of turnaround growth.

They led the church to a culture of inviting people. These pastors expressed amazement at how many people started coming to their churches simply because they were invited. To be clear, this type of invitation was personal, from a member to someone else. It was not some type of major commercial marketing initiative. Some of the churches had a big event, “invite-a-friend-day,” to kickoff this new culture of inviting.

They began new member classes. These classes set the tone for new members. They established the expectations for new members. After a few months of these classes, many of the pastors begin to notice an attitudinal change toward the positive among the members.

They began a major community ministry. Some of the churches “adopted” local schools. Some of the leaders made appointments with key civic leaders to find out how their churches could best help the community. In all cases, church members got out of the comfort of the church buildings and went into the community to serve others.

They began to pray for the lost and unchurched by name. For many of the churches, this type of praying was a first. Most of them attested that it seemed awkward at first, but it later became a part of their Great Commission culture.

The leaders began to focus less on negative people and circumstances and more on God’s possibilities. The leaders became, in God’s power, people of faith instead of people of fear. This spirit of faith became pervasive in the churches. Many of the churches saw a negative and unbelieving church culture become a positive and faith-believing culture.

Read the rest.

Books by Thom Rainer:

How To Respond When Your Guitar is Stolen

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Aaron Gray writes a helpful post that helps us think through how to respond when we are injured, violated, or sinned against.

"He helped me to see things which if we didn’t have them, we would pay a million dollars to have."

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:01:00 +0000

John Piper on C.S. Lewis:

To wake up in the morning and to be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the coldness of the wooden floor, the wetness of the water in the sink, the sheer being of things (quiddity as he called it). And not just to be aware but to wonder. To be amazed that the water is wet. It did not have to be wet. If there were no such thing as water, and one day some one showed it to you, you would simply be astonished.

[Lewis] helped me become alive to life. To look at the sunrise and with say with an amazed smile, “God did it again!” He helped me to see what is there in the world—things which if we didn’t have them, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. He convicts me of my callous inability to enjoy God’s daily gifts. He helps me to awaken my dazed soul so that the realities of life and of God and heaven and hell are seen and felt.

Cheap eBook Alert

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:12:00 +0000

The Case for Christ

Lee Strobel

$2.99

How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage

Mary Hunt

$2.55

"True For You, But Not For Me"

Paul Copan

$2.99

Play of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Sun, 19 May 2013 12:18:00 +0000

Not a dunk but almost as good.

Cheap eBook Alert

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Sat, 18 May 2013 13:00:00 +0000

The Art of Neighboring

Jay Pathak, Dave Runyon

$4.99

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary

$4.74

Praying Backwards

Bryan Chapell

$1.99

Christians Who Tithe Have Healthier Finances Than Those Who Don't

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:04:00 +0000

The Christian Post:

There are an estimated 10 million Christians in the U.S. who tithe more than $50 billion annually, according to a press release for the annual State of the Plate report. The report encompasses survey responses from 4,413 tithers from all 50 states and a variety of different churches and income levels. The fifth annual study reveals that 97 percent of tithers make giving to their local church a priority, and 63 percent started tithing between their childhood and their twenties. It also found that 70 percent give based on their gross income rather than their net income, and 77 percent give more than the traditional 10 percent.

Read the rest.

Ministry is Not For The Superhuman

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:01:00 +0000

Mike Emlet reflects on Zack Eswine's book on pastoral ministry, Sensing Jesus, and our tendency to want to be omnipotent and omnipresent.

So what does it look like to lean against the temptation to be “everywhere-for-all”?

Frame your day with pauses that remind you of your absolute dependency on God and ground you in the present. Eswine suggests using the time-honored tradition of breaking the day into four portions—morning, noon, evening, night—and pausing at the beginning and end of each period of time to pray and read Scripture for a few minutes. Although my consistency in this discipline waxes and wanes, I can attest to how it acts as a speed bump to what would otherwise be a frenetic, prayerless, and unreflective day.

Focus on the here and now as you meet with people. Truly attend to the people in front of you—their words, smiles, grimaces, and furrowed brows. So much of interpersonal ministry is being with a person, not arriving at a destination. We are like children on a long car ride who whine, “Are we there yet?” while missing the glory of the ordinary passing scenery, not to mention the blessing (OK, sometimes!) of being together as a family.

Learn to value the ordinary, “exult in monotony” (66). If you don’t do this, you miss much of daily life! Without those eyes to see and ears to hear, it’s no wonder the here and now feels insufficient and the whisper to be somewhere else for someone else beckons. Can you smell the sautéed asparagus? Feel the warmth of your child’s hand? See the impish grin of one of the preschoolers in your Sunday School class? Taste the bitter goodness of that first swallow of morning coffee? Savoring these ordinary moments, gifts from God for a given place and time, reminds us that he will give us what is needful for the moments of ministry as well.

Go to bed! “Sleep is a Sabbath-like act. We rest from it all and leave it all for God’s keeping while we lie motionless in the world for a while” (80). Honestly, this is hard for me. While I don’t have the stamina of twenty years ago, I still am often driven by an everywhere-for-all mentality that trades sleep for the diminishing returns of working late.

Read the rest.

Charles Barkley and Shaq Wash Feet

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:00:00 +0000

Powerful segment. Didn't expect to see this.

What Day Changed the Course of Christian History?

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000

Interesting responses from several Christian historians.

On topic, this primer on church history is really solid and cheap for a limited time.

Can You Articulate The Gospel?

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

The term "gospel" is, as Matt Chandler likes to say, becoming a "junk drawer" term for anything and everything in Christianity. It is very important that we don't implicitly teach our people to enable this dysfunction. This article will help immensely. Don't use the word "gospel" without helping people know what it really means.

A New Category of "Dating"?

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:57:00 +0000

The "dating friendship". Sounds rather good to me.

From Sex, Dating, and Relationships:

Think of a dating friendship as a precursor to a marriage proposal but without all the romantic, sexual overtones that so often accompany a dating relationship. A couple in a dating friendship, regardless of their attraction to each other, doesn't pretend there is more to the relationship than is warranted. They consciously refrain from sexual and overtly romantic activity and don't become naively optimistic about the commitment level of their friendship. Thus, the main goal of a dating friendship is to explore the viability of marriage while preserving the guidelines of sexual and romantic purity required by the neighbor relationship.

Read Challies' review of this book here.

Noteworthy New Titles From Crossway Books

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Weakness Is the Way: Life with Christ Our Strength

by J. I. Packer

“If you, like me, struggle with discouragement over your weaknesses, you need to read this book. We all long to be admired for our strengths, yet we all find ourselves, ‘beset with weakness’ (Heb. 5:2). Does this mean we’re stuck living with discouragement? No! There is an escape to joyful freedom. Dr. Packer knows the way. Walking us through 2 Corinthians, he shows it to us so that we, like Paul, can ‘boast all the more gladly of [our] weaknesses.’”

—Jon Bloom, President, Desiring God Ministries; author, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith

Name above All Names

by Alistair Begg & Sinclair B. Ferguson

“As Christians, we find it easy to talk about God’s work in our communities and around the world. It’s easy to describe our growth in Christ and what we are learning from him. But how many of us simply delight in talking about Jesus? The art of contemplating the loveliness of Christ—and infusing those admirations into everyday conversation—is a dying discipline. But in Name above All Names, my friends Alistair Begg and Sinclair Ferguson invite us to meditate afresh on our wonderful savior and all that makes him beautiful and praiseworthy. I highly recommend this remarkable volume!”

—Joni Eareckson Tada, Founder and CEO, Joni and Friends International Disability Center

Echoes of Eden: Reflections on Christianity, Literature, and the Arts

by Jerram Barrs

“Echoes of Eden is the most accessible, readable, and yet theologically robust work on Christianity and the arts that you will be able to find. It is biblical, theologically sound, filled with examples, and edifying. It anticipates and answers well all the most common questions that evangelical people ask about the arts. I highly recommend it.”

—Timothy J. Keller, Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City; author, The Reason for God

Cheap eBook Alert

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:27:00 +0000

The Expositor's Bible Commentary - Luke and Acts

$7.59

John, Acts: Volume Two: 002 (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary)

Clinton E. Arnold

$7.59

Hitler in the Crosshairs

Maurice Possley, John Woodbridge

$3.99

The Sacred Acre: The Ed Thomas Story

Mark Tabb

$3.99

Preparing Expository Sermons

Ramesh Richard

$3.99

Colbert Spars With Gwen Moore of Wisconsin

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Thu, 16 May 2013 23:02:00 +0000

No matter your politics you have to admit this is pretty funny. Colbert is brilliant.

One Ministry, Two Kingdoms

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:01:00 +0000

Extremely helpful.

Paul Tripp:

It took God employing hardship for me to embrace the inescapable reality that everything I did in ministry was done in allegiance to, and in pursuit of, either the kingdom of self or the kingdom of God. This truth is best exegeted for us in Matthew 6:19-34.

I'm convinced that this passage elaborately unpacks the thoughts, desires, and actions of the kingdom of self. Notice the turn in Matthew 6:33, where Jesus says, "But seek first the kingdom of God." The word BUT tells us this verse is the transition point of the passage. Everything before it explains the operation of another kingdom, the kingdom of self. This makes the passage a very helpful lens on the struggle between these two kingdoms in everyone's heart.

I want to examine four treasure principles that emerge from this passage that I find helpful as I seek to examine the motivations of my own heart in ministry. I have included plenty of personal reflection questions for you to consider, and since you don't always see yourself with accuracy, you could use this as a small group/devotional resource with your fellow pastors or elders or ministry leaders.

Read the rest.

Books by Paul Tripp:

First Kermit Gosnell–Now Douglas Karpen

noreply@blogger.com (Vitamin Z) — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:49:00 +0000