David Brainerd (Pioneer American Missionary)

I have been reading off and on The Weapon of Prayer by E.M. Bounds. This book, along with Bounds other works, The Power of Prayer and Purpose in Prayer, have greatly influenced my focus and understanding of prayer. E.M. Bounds constantly references Bible passages and Biblical characters to illustrate his thoughts on prayer, but he also mentions several modern examples as well. One of the men he mentions is David Brainerd. The man, David Brainerd, has impacted my fervor for prayer in immense ways and it is good to know that I was not the only one. Countless men have directly attributed Brainerd to their outlook on missions, dedication to prayer, and devotion for God. In fact, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley and William Carey were all directly influenced by David Brainerd’s life and ministry.

Dr. A. J. Gordon speaks thus of Brainerd

In passing through Northampton, Mass., I went into the old cemetery, swept off the snow that lay on the top of the slab, and I read these simple words: “Sacred to the memory of David Brainerd, the faithful and devoted missionary to the Susquehanna, Delaware and Stockbridge Indians of America, who died in this town, October 8th, 1717.”

…

Now this man prayed in secret in the forest. A little while afterward, William Carey read his life, and by its impulse he went to India. Payson read it as a young man, over twenty years old, and he said that he had never been so impressed by anything in his life by the story of Brainerd. Murray McCheyne read it and he likewise was impressed by it.

But all I care is simply to enforce this thought, that the hidden life, a life whose days are spent in communion with God, in trying to reach the source of power, is the life that moves the world. 

Let us pursue “the hidden life” with God, over the                  life without God.

Good listeners improve our stories

I have been studying how to listen well for a Pastoral Counseling course at Liberty Seminary. This quote about congregational listening struck me as encouraging. For us preachers, kinds words and supportive comments during or after the sermon are extremely encouraging.

“Once at at preaching conference, I heard a nationally recognized African-American preacher discussing the “amens” and other vocal responses of his congregation during his sermons. Many of us were not used to such an interactive style.

He said,

“It isn’t just up to preachers [talkers] to get the message across. We need help. Preaching takes a lot of work from the congregation [the listeners] too. After services sometimes my people say, ‘We did good this morning!’ Now that’s real preaching when they feel like we did it together.”

Kollar, C.A., (2011) Solution-Focused Pastoral Counseling An Affective Short-Term Approach for Getting People Back on Track. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.53

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May we display the gospel more clearly in our marriages as we declare the gospel more compassionately in our culture.

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Speaking of false religions and their pursuit of deity and more specifically the Ancient Near Eastern version of religion surrounding and excluding the nation of Israel:

“The divine, in its multiple, personalized presentations, was above all considered to be something grandiose, inaccessible, dominating, and to be feared.” He observes that the gods were not the object of enthusiastic pursuit. The people sought the gods for protection and assistance, not for relationship. “One submitted to them, one feared them, one bowed down and trembled before them: one did not ‘love’ or ‘like’ them.”

John H. Walton. Ancient near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible.

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It is only in response to the cross of Christ that peace exists vertically between humans and God and horizontally between humans.

The Eyes of All People Are Upon Us

A Model of Christian Charity by John Winthrop

Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “may the Lord make it like that of New England.“ For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.

Think about your church. Is this the model your church follows?

I want my church to be one that does justly, loves mercy, and walks humbly with God. A church that embraces its responsibility to be a example before the eyes of all people. And when they see my church they see Christ.

Micah 6:8 (ESV)

He has told you, O man, what is good’

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness, 

and to walk humbly with your God? 

Modern day terms for the goal and vision in a church that wants to be a city set on a hill.

1. To do justly (do justice- fulfilling mutual obligations in a manner consistent with God’s moral law)

2. To love mercy (love kindness- doing unto others as you would have them do to you)

3. To walk humbly with our God. (faithfulness- day by day growing in relationship with God through His Word)

Learn to Lead with J.Oswald Sanders

 

I have been studying through “Spiritual Leadership” by J. Oswald Sanders and I’ve come across some incredible challenging thoughts. I would like to simply share some of those thoughts with you and with myself as I seek to record some of these key ideas for future reminders.

 

Professor G. Warneck described Hudson Taylor, the missionary pioneer to China: “A man full of faith and the Holy Ghost, of entire surrender to God and His call, of great self-denial, heartfelt compassion, rare poser in prayer, marvelous organizing faculty, indefatigable perseverance, and of astounding influence with men, and withal of childlike simplicity himself.”

 

Vision involves foresight as well as insight.

 

Vision involves optimism and hope. The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. The pessimist tends to hold back people of vision from pushing ahead. Caution has its role to play. We all live in a real world of limitation and inertia. Cautious Christians draw valuable lessons from history and tradition, but are in danger of being chained to the past.

 

Leaders move others.

— Jordan T. Moody (@jordantmoody) July 8, 2014

Leadership is influence.

— Jordan T. Moody (@jordantmoody) July 8, 2014

"The ideal Servant does not trample on the weak and failing. He mends bruises and fans the weak spirit into a flame." – J.Oswald Sanders

— Jordan T. Moody (@jordantmoody) July 3, 2014

KJV only uses the word "leader" six times and is more frequently translated "servant." We do not read Moses my leader but Moses my servant.

— Jordan T. Moody (@jordantmoody) July 3, 2014

If you want to maintain an image of infallibility, find something else to do besides leading people. – J.O. Chambers pic.twitter.com/5hRQrbfPkW

— Jordan T. Moody (@jordantmoody) July 5, 2014

 

 

 

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“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”

Paul’s Meaning Behind the Eyes of Your Heart

Ephesians1:18,19

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

Check out this fascinating quote explaining the meaning of Paul’s unique phrase the “eyes of your heart.” It is more than just a misjudging of the location of one’s ocular devices. It is Paul describing the importance of the Holy Spirit’s regenerating work in our hearts allowing us to see the truth.

Paul uses a strange construction here: the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. Usually we think of the eyes as being in our head, and we connect the head with the brain and the brain with the mind. Hence we say that we understand a particular teaching with the mind. But the apostle refers to the eyes of the heart. What does he mean?
He means that by nature we are closed to the things of God. He does not mean that we cannot discuss them nor have intellectual debates about them. But the heart in New Testament terms refers to the central disposition, inclination, bent, or proclivity of the human soul. In simple terms, the bias. Everybody has a bias and prejudices. The word ‘prejudice’ is usually a pejorative term, but what it literally means is to prejudge certain things, to have a standpoint, a viewpoint.
Our natural prejudgment of reality is against God. To receive the truth of God requires that our ‘anti’ bias be changed. The key work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration is not giving new knowledge to the brain but changing the disposition of the heart. Before the Spirit turns that heart of stone into a heart of flesh, we have no desire for the things of God. We may desire the blessings that only God can give us, but we have no affection for the things of God. At the moment of regeneration, the eyes of the heart are opened somewhat, but this is just the beginning. The whole Christian life involves an unfolding and enlarging of the heart’s openness to the things of God. There are concepts, attitudes, and values in my life at present that do not please God, for there will be stony parts to my heart as long as sin abides within me. Sin clouds my thinking, my will, my desires, my affections. There will always be parts of me that need to be opened more and more to let the fullness of God’s truth dwell in me. — The Purpose of God: Ephesians

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“These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.”