Ray Ortlund at his blog has some great observations about Human Approval. I copy it over here so that I can remember it and remind myself why human approval just doesn’t cut it.

1. Human approval is divided. Some like you, others dislike you. A split vote. Who can you believe?

2. Human approval is shallow. None of them know your deepest heart. What if they did?

3. Human approval is distorted. Your friends overlook — hopefully — some failings. Your enemies are blind to your merits. How do you sort it all out?

4. Human approval is unsatisfying. The need of your heart for belovedness goes far beyond anything another sinner can say or do.

5. Human approval is a blessing. The loving favor of true friends is a gift from God. Receive it cheerfully, with thanks to Him. And be sure to give it out to others in generous supplies every day.

“I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.” Philemon 7

Toward a more effective definition of “accountability” for men. – 22 Words.

The other day when I was on Justin Taylor’s Between Two World blog. I saw this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote and realized how true it is. After spending half of my life in counseling and at times medication through the world of psychology. It is a relief to find out that there are those who understand. I found the more counseling I got the sicker I was, the more hopeless I got. When I was introduced to Jesus Christ and his grace filled gospel I found understanding, forgiveness and hope.

The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus.

The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is.

Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this.

In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner.

The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness.

The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (pp. 118-119):

H/T: Between Two Worlds

There is nothing that I can say other than watch this video.

My friend Scott Wiyninger has FINALLY started his blog on worship. The blog is called “To the Praise of His Glorious Grace”. His first entry “Worship – How do I do it?” is about Psalm 71. If this entry is any indication of what he will be writing about it will be a great blog. He is a compelling person and a great worship leader. Welcome him to the blogsphere and let’s keep encouraging him writing and focusing on worshipping our God.

I admit this right now. I didn’t write this. I thought it was so awesome that I took the whole post and copied it here. I wanted what he wrote here so that I can see this post. This is from a blog called Fallen and Flawed. Demian will you forgive me. If you get a chance take a look at his blog. It is worth reading.

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God lacks nothing. Craves nothing. He has everything he needs in himself.

In fact, to admit the existence of a need in God is to admit incompleteness in God.

Why God created anything is a mystery then.

We do know that the emphatic teaching of the Bible is that God exists for himself and man for the glory of God.

So, with that in mind, let’s explore 10 biblical illustrations of what it means when we say that God is self-sufficient. And then look at how we should respond.

1. God is life. 
Self-sufficient, God requires nothing to give him life. He is the source of all life. Man, on the other hand, requires something else–something outside himself–to give him life.

2. God lives. 
Contrasted against the dead, dumb idols he is the living God. The God of Abraham, Jacob and Isaiah. The God who speaks from fire. The God who doesn’t beg for anything. But commands everything.

3. God is lord. 
The Hebrew word Lord used in Psalm 16:2 is adan…meaning master, ruler, owner, lord. Adan is thought to be the root of the noun adom, which is frequently used of men who own slaves. It’s were we get the word Adonia. It’s what believers mean when we prostrate ourselves before God in humble submission. We are slaves to the core.

4. God owns everything.
His possessions extend from the earth to the unknown regions of space. God sustains it like a man who sustains a small garden on the side of his house. He doesn’t need it to survive. He sustains it so he can enjoy it.

5. God provides everything.
God is our provider. What we have, we only have because God has opened up the way for us to get it. Our duty–especially in tithing–is to give back to the church. That is, God. The same is true for our lives.

6. God is jealous.
God is protective of his self-sufficiency. It’s what isolates him–and Him alone–from every other thing in the universe. Self-sufficiency is his air-tight silo. Except he can talk to us, comfort us, love us despite this barrier.

7. God is independent.
Man is dependent. God is necessary. Man is unnecessary. We get at the heart of God’s creation when we finally understand that God would still exist if all creation were dead. All animals. All birds. All plants. All men.

8. God gives life.
John uses the word “life” 36 times in his gospel–more than any other New Testament author. It refers not only to physical and temporal life that God gave to the world at creation, but especially to spiritual and eternal life imparted as a gift through belief in Him. Eternal life is at the beck-and-call of God.

9. God puts to death.
Self-sufficiency declares authority. Authority over birth, work, love and death. All things are slaves to him–the sea, the saint, the suicide. No once can escape Him or is out of His control. Including death.

10. God delivers.
The power of life is in God. As is the power of death. God cannot die, but he can kill. Furthermore, He is alive and without death and he is the one who can snatch people from the jaws of death. The Creator and the redeemer. That is the self-sufficient God we serve.

How Should You Respond to God’s Self-Sufficiency?

Get this: Gazing upon the face of God is a robust death sentence. Regardless, we are to pursue him. Any motion in His direction is upward for us. Away from him, a descent.

A. W. Tozer said about Christ, “The awful majesty of the Godhead was mercifully sheathed in the soft envelope of human nature to protect mankind.”

Self-sufficient God may be, but merciful, gracious and humble is he also, “who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being in the likeness of men. Being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even on a cross.”

How will you respond?

Here is the video that I tried posting yesterday, maybe this time it will work correctly. I have never embedded a video before in to my blog. I thought it had some very compelling thoughts in it and things we need to be looking at. I was certainly convicted by it.

On Justin Taylor’s “Between Two Worlds” there is a post about Norma McCorvey, the Jane Roe in the Roe vs. Wade case. The full post is quoted here on my blog. At the end of the post there is a link to the full testimony of McCorvey, it is definitely worth reading.

The “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade was Norma McCorvey. In 1969 she was 22 years old, divorced, homeless, and pregnant for the third time (she had placed her first two children for adoption). Somehow an adoption agency connected her with two young lawyers fresh out of law school who were eager to challenge the Texas statutes on abortion. McCorvey only met with her lawyers twice–once for beer and pizza, the other time to sign an affidavit (which she didn’t read). In order to speed things up McCorvey lied and told them she had been raped. She never appeared in court, and she found out about the infamous ruling from the newspapers. The baby she was seeking to abort was born and placed for adoption.

Today Norma McCorvey is pro-life, advocating for the unborn. You can read her sworn testimony recounting her experience as the plantiff in one of the most signficant cases to appear before the Supreme Court.

It is prayer week at Bethlehem Baptist, and Desiring God has a few articles on it. Prayer is one of those things that seem so simple and yet so powerful. For some people they struggle to do it, because they don’t have time, they don’t see a point in doing it or just don’t believe the promises that God gave us for when we pray.

As the new year comes, it is a time to reflect and to remember the year past. A time to remember the fulfillment of God’s promises to us this last year to sustain us into the new year.

A Good Start on Prayer in 2009

December 28, 2008  |  By: John Piper
Category: Commentary

At Bethlehem Baptist Church this is the beginning of prayer week. This is our way of encouraging each other to pray more consistently, more earnestly, more hopefully, and more biblically in 2009.

The best way to strengthen our faith and our resolve is to read what God has promised to those who pray. Here is a sampling:

Promises of Answered Prayer to Encourage Us to Pray with Hope

Jeremiah 29:11-13

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart,

2 Chronicles 7:14

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Matthew 7:7-11

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Romans 8:26

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Isaiah 64:4

From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.

Isaiah 65:24

Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.

Jeremiah 33:3

Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

Lamentations 3:25

The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

Psalm 145:18-19

The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. 19 He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them.

Psalm 10:17

O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear

Psalm 34:15-17

The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. . . 17 When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.

Matthew 18:19-20

Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

James 4:8

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

John 16:24

Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

Psalm 37:4-5

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.

Psalm 38:15

But for you, O LORD, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.

Psalm 102:17

He regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer.

John 14:13-14

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

John 15:7

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

John 15:16

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

Matthew 21:22

And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

Psalm 55:16-17

But I call to God, and the LORD will save me. 17 Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice.

Psalm 56:9

Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me.

Psalm 50:15

Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

Psalm 81:10

I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

1 John 5:14-15

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

Philippians 4:6-7

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Zechariah 13:9

And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’”

I am doing some testing on how to deal with spam on my blog. Either my spam filter has been letting a lot of spam in, or not allowing any comments whatsoever. The last plug in that I tried blocked my only two readers and commenters on my blog. I am hoping that the change that I made will continue to prevent spam and allow people to comment again.

If you have commented before and have a chance please do a test to this post so I can see if you are able to respond or not? Thanks