“The Ten Leadership Lessons We Don’t Talk About”
Truth #1: Politics are Everywhere
(*DPC [see below] – would add stick to the truth and your convictions and seek to be a bridge builder. The apostle Paul sates it this way in Romans 12:18-3:1, “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”)
Truth #2: Great Leaders Aren’t Liked Very Much
(DPC – you can’t please all of the people all of the time, only some of the people some of the time – it goes with the territory – some will not like your mission/vision/ some will be jealous and want your job; and some people are just rebels! As Rick Warren often likes to say, “Live for an Audience of One.” Ultimately if you are seeking to please God and uphold the Gospel you will be well pleasing to Him and be benefiting everyone around you. The important thing is that you seek to bring glory and honor to God as the Apostle Paul specifies, “So whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.”– 1 Corinthians 10:31).
Truth #3: Nobody Will Find You as Interesting as You Do
(DPC – The reality is everyone likes to be encouraged, praised, and appreciated for his or her talents, skills, accomplishments, and so forth. People know if you care more about your own agenda, or if you are genuinely interested in their welfare. In the famous “golden rule” Jesus states, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” – Luke 10:27 – Nobody can ever question Jesus’ love for them – as the Apostle John states in his version of the golden rule based on Christ’s death on the cross for our sins, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” – John 15:12-13).
Truth #4: Every Single Person, Even the Greatest Leader Out There, is Afraid
(DPC – God’s Word says that perfect love; God’s providential dealings; and meditating on and applying His Scriptures help us to overcome fear: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love… “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you… This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” [1 John 4:18 to all Disciples of Jesus; Isaiah 43:1a-2, to the people of Israel; and Joshua 1:8-9, God to Moses’ successor – Joshua]).
Truth #5: Someone is Always Watching You
(“But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load. Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” – The Apostle Paul in Galatians 6:5-10).
Truth #6: Great Leaders Diligently Protect Their Energy
(The Prophet Isaiah is helpful here: “but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint”– Isaiah 40:31).
Truth #7: Great Leaders Possess Supreme, Undying Confidence
(DPC – I would add: in the Gospel and in the power of the Holy Spirit – as the Apostle Paul says – “Put no confidence in the flesh” – and “it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes”– Philippians 3:3a & Romans 1:16a).
Truth #8: Great Leaders Never, Ever Talk Trash
(DPC – It’s hard to beat what the Apostle Paul says about the power of encouraging words in Ephesians 4:26-29, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”
And what James says about the power of words: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” – James 3:1-18).
Truth #9: Great Leaders Know What They Want and Go After it Relentlessly
(DPC – The greatest Person whoever lived – Jesus – focused on one thing: “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to give His life as a ransom for many” – Matthew 20:28. In Luke 19:10 Jesus put it this way, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” In other words, Jesus came to earth and lived the perfect life we could never live in order to give us His righteousness in exchange for our sin, so that we can be saved from the just punishment of our sins before a Holy God, and give us eternal life through repentance and faith in His life, death, burial, and resurrection – His paying the death penalty that we rightly deserved and giving us His righteousness so that we can have a relationship with God forever. Paul summarizes our salvation made possible by Jesus’ mission in this way, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” – 2 Corinthians 5:21. The Apostle Peter describes it this way in 1 Peter 2:24 & 3:18, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed”).
The greatest church planter and leader of all time and author of half the New Testament – The Apostle Paul – summed up his mission this way: “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”).
Truth #10: Great Leaders Insist On Excellent, Pristine Communication
(DPC – There is a ton of Biblical guidance on communication. Here is a small sampling:
Titus 3:1-7, “Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
The Apostle Paul in Colossians 4:1-6, “Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”
James 4:11-12, “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?”
1 Thessalonians 5:12-18, “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
1 Peter 4:8-11, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”)
*DPC – stands for David P. Craig – A Pastoral Life Coach who views everything through the lenses of Scripture and a Christ Centered Perspective. All the Scripture references are from the English Standard Version (ESV). I think her book stands alone and will help any leader – whether non-profit; business; or even in the home. The verses and comments are DPC’s are not to be associated or attributed to Deidre Maloney. Deidra Maloney’s “10 truths” are elaborated on in her new book Tough Truth’s mentioned below.
About Deidre Maloney:
Deidre is a nationally recognized speaker and author who uses her brand of “mild audacity” to validate and inspire. She passionately runs Momentum LLC, which helps organizations meet their goals…and their leaders sleep better at night. Her first book, The Mission Myth, helps nonprofits meet their missions through better business. Maloney currently resides in San Diego with her husband Jason. You can follow Deidre on twitter @Deidre_Maloney. The 10 leadership lessons listed above are elaborated on in her excellent new 100-page book: Tough Truths: The Ten Leadership Lessons We Don’t Talk About. Business Solutions Press: San Diego, 2012.
“You will Have Tribulation” (by Dr. David P. Craig)
I think that only in “good times” can anything that resembles a so-called “prosperity gospel” develop. Dr. Ron Carlson made a very important point in a lecture twenty plus years ago that I’ve never forgotten. He said, “If the gospel can’t be preached in the same way to every person in every tribe, country, and people group on the face of the earth – then it’s not the Gospel.” He was making reference to the teaching of Robert Schuller, whose “prosperity gospel” was failing miserably at the time in Russia in the 1980’s. People in Russia who had been under communist rule for so many years couldn’t relate to “health, wealth, and prosperity.” It was as abstract to them as living on Mars would be to us earthlings.
Over my 25 years in the ministry I’ve learned a few lessons about life. One of the most difficult lessons I’ve learned is in the furnace of suffering: emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually. Life is tough and it seems to be getting tougher all the time. I am convinced that one of the most important ways a pastor can love his church is by preparing her with a deep and robust Biblical theology of suffering. A theology of suffering should be biblical, systematic (what the whole Bible teaches about suffering – not just isolated passages), deal with the problems of sin and evil, be Christo-centric, and be holistic (involving the promises and plans of God; practical ramifications; grapple with the emotions and pain of suffering, and so forth). A sound theology of suffering must ultimately lead to the peace, hope, and even joy that is to be found only in the Gospel.
Should we be surprised, shocked, or indignant when we suffer?
In the 20th century more Christians were persecuted than in all of history combined. Conservative estimates place the martyrs at between 40-50 million. In the 21st century the martyrs are piling up and look like that number will double to over 100 million! Here is just a sampling of some Scriptures having to do with the “normal” Christian life – a life full of trials, tribulations, pain, and death:
Joseph as an elderly man who endured torture, exile, abandonment, and years spent in prison for crimes he did not commit said to his brothers who sold him into slavery, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20).
Job – who was the original “poster boy for suffering” said, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face” (Job 13:15).
Peter tells the “elect exiles” scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12-13).
Paul writes to the believers at Philippi, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:7-11).
James issues this declaration to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4).
Jesus told his disciples after telling them that they would be scattered and persecuted for their faith after His crucifixion, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Pain, agony, trials, and tribulation – these are synonymous with the Gospel and the Christian life. There would be no Christians without the gospel. And there would be gospel without suffering. The testimony of the Bible is not “if” but “when” we will suffer. Evil, suffering, and death are tackled head-on by the triune God in bringing about our salvation. Look closely at the following Scriptures as they clearly reveal the Father, Son, and Spirit’s own travail and suffering in brining about our own deliverance from suffering and death:
“Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:1-10).
For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you (Romans 8:6-11).
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 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. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:18-39).
“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (1 Corinthians 5:18-21).
How does a pastor prepare a church for suffering? (by Tony Reinke)
This was one question addressed at the recent T4G conference in Louisville. Jointly, C.J. and Matt Chandler provided answers to this often-neglected pastoral topic.
C.J. opened the session with a brief explanation of why this topic is critical in the life of the local church. He then invited Matt to share the story of the Thanksgiving Day seizure that led to his hospitalization, the discovery of a mass in his brain, and his surgery eight days later to remove a portion of his right frontal lobe. Before the 7,000 attendees Chandler recounted this unexpected and frightening time of his life and looked back at God’s grace in the midst of his recent suffering.
What sustained me through it all? Where did I find my feet landing over and over again? In the doctrines, in the theology, and in the beauty and magnificence of Christ and his salvation. There my feet could rest and there I had the ability to put my confidence in him and him alone. This has had ripple effects in the Village Church, which has had ripple effects in the evangelical community at large, where men and women who have not theologically lined up with necessarily where I am and where my heart is, all of the sudden are drawn in and want to have discussions around the beauty of God’s sovereign will.
Matt’s testimony and example were moving. Later, when reflecting on Matt’s role at the conference, C.J. said, “God’s grace is evident in Matt’s life in a profound way. His personal example of trusting God in the midst of severe suffering is compelling. I experienced this with Matt in private conversation at the conference and I think everyone experienced it as he shared publicly. His time with us was unforgettable and it will serve conference participants in an enduring way, long after the other conference messages are only a distant memory.”
C.J. followed Matt’s segment, briefly addressing an important question: How do pastors provide this foundation for their people before suffering arrives? In the remaining time allotted for the session, C.J. encouraged pastors to consider five points:
(1) Prepare your church for suffering through the preaching diet. For the task C.J. commended the books of Job, Habakkuk, and 1 Peter.
(2) Draw your church’s attention to living illustrations of people suffering well in the church.
(3) Develop a curriculum of supplemental books, chapters, articles, and audio messages on the topic. C.J. recommended:
(4) Point your church to the suffering Savior in the gospel. C.J.: “The great mystery is not why do I suffer? The great mystery is why would the sinless Son of God suffer as my substitute on the cross for my sins, receiving the wrath that I deserve, so that I might be forgiven and declared righteous?”
(5) When suffering arrives, be at their side. C.J.: “By God’s grace, when we care for people in the midst of suffering, they will never forget the difference we make. Their gratefulness will be deep and it will be profound and it will be unending.”
Part of the article above was adapted from C.J. Mahaney’s “View from the Cheap Seats” blog: http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/blogs/cj-mahaney/post/2010/04/23/cj-mahaney-matt-chandler-t4g-Prepare-Your-Church-for-Suffering.aspx (David P. Craig, Tony Reinke, C.J. Mahaney, and Matt Chandler – April 23, 2010).
About the Authors:
Matt Chandler: Matt serves as Lead Pastor of Teaching at The Village Church in the Dallas Fort Worth area. He has served in that role since December 2002 and describes his tenure at The Village as a re-planting effort where he was involved in changing the theological and philosophical culture of the congregation. The church has witnessed a tremendous response growing from 160 people to over 11,000 with campuses in Flower Mound, Dallas and Denton. Alongside his current role as lead pastor, Matt is involved in church planting efforts both locally and internationally through The Village and various strategic partnerships. Prior to accepting the pastorate at The Village, Matt had a vibrant itinerant ministry for over 10 years where he spoke to thousands of people in America and abroad about the glory of God and beauty of Jesus. His greatest joy outside of Jesus is being married to Lauren and being a dad to their three children, Audrey, Reid and Norah. Recently, Matt was named president of Acts 29, a worldwide church-planting organization.Over the last 10 years, Acts 29 has emerged from a small band of brothers to over 400 churches in the United States and networks of churches in multiple countries. Matt speaks at conferences throughout the world and has written a couple of books, The Explicit Gospel, published in April 2012, and Creature of the Word, coming out in October 2012. Matt has been a tremendous example to countless thousands in his hope in the Gospel in his own struggle with cancer (currently in remission – thanks to the miraculous working of God).
David P Craig: is a Pastoral Life Coach residing in Tustin, CA. He specializes in helping young pastors and leaders with personal and organizational balance by focusing on the Gospel at the center of all of life. He has a special heart for those dealing with emotional and physical pain, and is currently trusting in the God of the Gospel in his own battle with cancer. He has been married to his best friend and lover for twenty years and has five fantastic children and two grand sons.
C.J. Mahaney: C.J. Mahaney leads Sovereign Grace Ministries in its mission to establish and support local churches. After 27 years of pastoring Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, C.J. handed the senior pastor role to Joshua Harris on September 18, 2004, allowing C.J. to devote his full attention to Sovereign Grace. He serves on the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and on the board of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He is author of The Cross Centered Life; Christ Our Mediator; Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband Needs to Know; Humility: True Greatness; Living the Cross Centered Life and Don’t Waste Your Sports. He is the editor of Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World. He also contributed to Dear Timothy: Letters on Pastoral Ministry, and to two additional volumes in the Foundations for the Family Series (Crossway). He has also edited or co-authored four books in the Pursuit of Godliness book series, published by Sovereign Grace Ministries: Why Small Groups?, This Great Salvation, How Can I Change?, and Disciplines for Life. C.J. and his wife Carolyn have three married daughters and one son. They make their home in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Tony Reinke: is a former journalist now serving as a theological researcher, writer, and blogger. He lives in Maryland with his wife and three children. He is the author of the fantastic book: Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.
(*Disclaimer: There is much that Lloyd-Jones writes here and elsewhere that is to be commended. However, in this case I wholeheartedly disagree with his view that a Christian should “never be depressed.” Many godly men and women have battled with depression their entire lives – Martin Luther and Charles H. Spurgeon to name two (not to mention – David and Moses in the Bible). I think that certain personalities are prone to depression and some people are clinically depressed and can be helped tremendously with the aid of medication and biblically based counseling. If you are severely depressed and have battled chronic depression I think you would be wise to seek medical attention. I agree with Lloyd-Jones that the Holy Spirit is powerful to help anyone overcome anything, and that all Christians can and should grow in their faith in the Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence of God. The reality is that yes, Christians should never sin, but we do; and thanks to the work of the Trinity we are saved by grace and sanctified by grace. Sanctification is a journey of ups and downs and God-willing this sermon will help you to increase your faith – no matter what your doubts and struggles may be! – DPC)
One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?” – Luke 8:22-25
I WANT to call attention particularly to this question which was addressed by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to the disciples. He said to them: `Where is your faith?’ Indeed I would call your attention to this entire incident as a part of our consideration of the subject of spiritual depression. We have already considered a number of causes of the condition and this particular incident in the life and ministry of our Lord brings us face to face with yet another cause.
The one that is dealt with here is the whole problem and question of the nature of faith. In other words, there are many Christians who get into difficulty and are unhappy from time to time because they clearly have not understood the nature of faith. `Well’, you may say, `if they have not understood the nature of faith, how can they be Christians?’ The answer is that what makes one a Christian is that one is given the gift of faith. We are given the gift of faith by God through the Holy Spirit and we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that saves us; but that does not mean that we have fully understood the nature of faith. So it comes to pass that, while we may be truly Christian and genuinely saved through receiving this gift of faith, we may subsequently get into trouble with our spiritual experience because we have not understood what faith really is. It is given as a gift, but from there on we have to do certain things about it.
Now this very striking incident brings out the vital importance of distinguishing between the original gift of faith and the walk of faith, or the life of faith which comes subsequently. God starts us off in this Christian life and then we have to walk in it. `We walk by faith, not by sight’, is the theme that we are now considering.
Before I come actually to that particular theme, I must say a few words about this great incident in and of itself. Looked at from any standpoint it is a very interesting and important incident. It has a great deal to tell us, for instance, about the Person of our Lord Himself. It brings us face to face with what is described as a paradox, the seeming contradiction in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. There He was, weary and tired, so tired, in fact, that He fell asleep. Now this incident is recorded by the three so-called synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, and it is really important from the standpoint of understanding the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Him. There is no doubt about His humanity, He is fatigued, He is tired and weary, so much so that He just falls asleep, and, though the storm has arisen, He still goes on sleeping. He is subject to infirmity, He is a man in the body and flesh like all the rest of us. Ah, yes, but wait a minute. They came to Him and awoke Him saying:
`Master, carest Thou not that we perish?’ Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the sea, and they ceased and there was a calm-one of the others describes it as `a great calm’. Now it is not surprising that the disciples, seeing all this, wondered and said one to another: `What manner of Man is this! For He commandeth even the winds and water and they obey Him’.
Man, and yet obviously God. He could command the elements, He could silence the wind and stop the raging of the sea. He is the Lord of nature and of creation, He is the Lord of the universe. This is the mystery and the marvel of Jesus Christ-God and Man, two natures in One Person, two natures unmixed yet resident in the same Person.
We must start here, because if we are not clear about that there is no purpose in our going on. If you do not believe in the unique deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are not a Christian, whatever else you may be. We are not looking at a good Man only, we are not interested merely in the greatest Teacher the world has ever seen; we are face to face with the fact that God, the Eternal Son, has been in this world and that He took upon Him human nature and dwelt amongst us, a Man amongst men-God-Man. We are face to face with the mystery and the marvel of the Incarnation and of the Virgin Birth. It is all here, and it shines out in all the fullness of its amazing glory. `What manner of Man is this?’ He is more than Man. That is the answer-He is also God.
However, that is not, it seems to me, the special purpose of this particular incident. You get that revelation in other places also, it shines out right through all the Gospels; but the separate particular incidents in which it is seen, generally also have some special and peculiar message of their own to teach us. In this case there can be no doubt that that message is the lesson with regard to the disciples and their condition at this point-it is the great lesson concerning faith and the nature or the character of faith. I do not know what you feel, but I never cease to be grateful to these disciples. I am grateful for the record of every mistake they ever made, and for every blunder they ever committed, because I see myself in them. How grateful we should be to God that we have these Scriptures, how grateful to Him that He has not merely given us the gospel and left it at that. How wonderful it is that we can read accounts like this and see ourselves depicted in them, and how grateful we should be to God that it is a divinely inspired Word which speaks the truth, and shows and pictures every human frailty.
So we find our Lord rebuking these men. He rebukes them because of their alarm, because of their terror, because of their lack of faith. Here they were in the boat with Him, and the storm arose, and soon they were in difficulties. They baled out the water, but the boat was filling up and they could see that in a few moments it was going to sink. They had done everything they could but it did not seem to be of any avail, and what amazed them was that the Master was still sleeping soundly in the stern of the vessel. So they awoke Him and said: `Master, Master, carest Thou not that we perish?’ -are You unconcerned about it all? And He arose, and having rebuked the wind and the sea, He rebuked them.
Now we must be careful to observe this rebuke and to understand what He was saying. In the first place, He was rebuking them for being in such a state at all. `Where is your faith?’ He says. Matthew puts it: `O ye of little faith!’ Here as elsewhere `He marvelled at their unbelief’. He rebuked them for being in that state of agitation and terror and alarm while He was with them in the boat.
That is the first great lesson we have to apply to ourselves and to one another. It is very wrong for a Christian ever to be in such a condition. I do not care what the circumstances may be, the Christian should never be agitated, the Christian should never be beside himself like this, the Christian should never be at his wit’s end, the Christian should never be in a condition in which he has lost control of himself. That is the first lesson, a lesson we have emphasized before because it is an essential part of the New Testament teaching. A Christian should never, like the worldly person, be depressed, agitated, alarmed, frantic, not knowing what to do. It is the typical reaction to trouble of those who are not Christian, that is why it is so wrong to be like that.
The Christian is different from other people, the Christian has something which the non-Christian does not possess, and the ideal for the Christian is that which is stated so perfectly by the Apostle Paul in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians : `I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content . . . I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me’. That is the Christian position, that is what the Christian is meant to be like. The Christian is never meant to be carried away by his feelings, whatever they are-never. That is always wrong in a Christian. He is always to be controlled, as I hope to show you. The trouble with these men was that they were lacking in self-control. That is why they were miserable, that is why they were unhappy, that is why they were alarmed and agitated, though the Son of God was with them in the boat. I cannot emphasize this point too strongly. I lay it down as a simple proposition that a Christian should never lose self-control, should never be in a state of agitation or terror or alarm, whatever the circumstances. That is obviously our first lesson.
The position of these people was alarming. They were in jeopardy and it looked as if they were going to be drowned the next moment, but our Lord says in effect: `You should not be in that condition. As My followers you have no right to be in such a state even though you are in jeopardy’. That is the first great lesson, and the second is, that what is so wrong about being in this condition is that it implies a lack of trust and of confidence in Him. That is the trouble and that is why it is so reprehensible. That is why He reprimanded these men at that point. He said in effect: `Do you feel like this in spite of the fact that I am with you? Do you not trust Me?’ Mark reports them as saying: `Master, carest Thou not that we perish?’ Now I do not think that they were referring only to themselves or to their own safety. I do not think that they were so self-centred.
I do not think that they simply meant: Don’t You care that we are going to drown? without considering Him at all. I believe they were including Him as well, that they thought they were all going to be drowned. `Master, carest Thou not that we perish?’ But still, this agitation and alarm always carries with it a lack of implicit trust and confidence in Him. It is a lack of faith in His concern for us and in His care for us. It means that we take charge and are going to look after the situation ourselves, feeling either that He does not care, or perhaps that He cannot do.
It means that we take charge and are going to look after the situation ourselves, feeling either that He does not care, or perhaps that He cannot do anything. That is what makes this so terrible, but I wonder whether we always realize it. It seems obvious as we look at it objectively in the case of these disciples; but when you and I are agitated or disturbed and do not know what to do, and are giving the impression of great nervous tension, anybody looking at us is entitled to say : `That person has not much faith in his or her Lord. There does not seem to be much point in being a Christian after all, there is not much value in Christianity as I see it in that person’.
Now during the war we were all subject to these trials in an exceptional way, but even now in days of peace anything that comes across our path and puts us in difficulty, at once shows whether we believe in Him and trust in Him, by our response and reaction to it. There seems to me, therefore, on the very surface to be these two great lessons.
We must never allow ourselves to be agitated and disturbed whatever the circumstances because to do so implies a lack of faith, a lack of trust, a lack of confidence in our blessed Lord and God. However, let us look at the passage in detail, let us now draw some general principles out of the incident and its great teaching.
First of all, in looking at this whole question of faith, let me say a word about what I might call `the trial of faith’. Scripture is full of this idea of the trial of one’s faith. Take the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. That is, in a sense, nothing but a great exposition of this theme of the trial of faith. Every one of those men was tried. They had been given great promises and they had accepted them, and then everything seemed to go wrong. It is true of all of them. Think of the trial of a man like Noah, the trial of a man like Abraham, the trials that men like Jacob and especially Moses had to endure. God gives the gift of faith and then the faith is tried.
Peter, in his First Epistle in the first chapter, says exactly the same thing. He says : `Though ye are in heaviness for a season’ because of certain circumstances, the object of that is `that the trial of your faith which is more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ’. That is the theme of all the Scriptures. You find it in the history of the Patriarchs and of all the Old Testament saints, you find it running through the New Testament. Indeed, it is peculiarly the theme of the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation.
Let us then be clear about this. We must start by understanding that we may well find ourselves in a position in which our faith is going to be tried. Storms and trials are allowed by God. If we are living the Christian life, or trying to live the Christian life, at the moment, on the assumption that it means just come to Christ and you will never have any more worry in the whole of your life, we are harboring a terrible fallacy. In fact it is a delusion and it is not true. Our faith will be tried, and James goes so far as to say: `Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations (trials)’ (James 1:2). God permits storms, He permits difficulties, He permits the wind to blow and the billows to roll, and everything may seem to be going wrong and we ourselves to be in jeopardy. We must learn and realize that God does not take His people and lead them into some kind of Elysium in which they are protected from all `the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’. Not at all, we are living in the same world as everybody else. Indeed, the Apostle Paul seems to go further than that.
He tells the Philippians: `Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake’ (Philippians 1. 29). `In the world’, says our Lord, `ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world’ (John 16:33) `Be of good cheer’-yes, but remember that you will have the tribulation. Paul and Barnabas going on their missionary journey visited the churches and warned them, `that we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God’ (Acts 14:22).
We must start by realizing that `to be forewarned is to be forearmed’ in this matter. If we have a magical conception of the Christian life, we are certain to find ourselves in trouble, because, when difficulties come, we shall be tempted to ask: `Why is this allowed?’ And we should never ask such a question. If we but realized this fundamental truth, we never would ask it. Our Lord goes to sleep and allows the storm to come. The position may indeed become quite desperate and we may appear to be in danger of our lives. Everything may seem to be against us, yet-well here it is, a Christian poet has said it for us:
`When all things seem against us To drive us to despair’ .. .
But it does not drive him to despair because he goes on to say:
`We know one gate is open One ear will hear our prayer’.
But things may be desperate: `All things seem against us, to drive us to despair’. Let us then be prepared for that. Yes, but we must go further. While all this is happening to us, our Lord appears to be utterly unconcerned about us. That is where the real trial of faith comes in. The wind and the billows were bad enough and the water coming into the ship. That was terrible, but the thing that to them was most terrible of all was His apparent unconcern. Still sleeping and not apparently caring. `Master, carest Thou not that we perish?’ He appears to be unconcerned, unconcerned about us, unconcerned about Himself, unconcerned about His cause, unconcerned about His Kingdom.
Just imagine the feelings of these men. They had followed Him and listened to His teaching about the coming of the Kingdom, they had seen His miracles and were expecting marvelous things to happen; and now it looked as if everything was going to come to an end in shipwreck and drowning. What an anti-climax and all because of His unconcern! We must be very young indeed in the Christian life if we do not know something about this. Do we not all know something of this position of trial and difficulty, yes, and of a feeling that God somehow does not seem to care? He does not do anything about it. `Why does He allow me, a Christian, to suffer at the hands of a non-Christian?’ says many a person. `Why does He allow things to go wrong with me and not with the other person?’ `Why is that man successful while I am unsuccessful? Why does not God do something about it?’ How often do Christian people ask such questions. They have asked it about the whole state of the Church today. `Why does He not send revival? Why does He allow these rationalists and atheists to take the ascendancy? Why does He not break in and do something, and revive His work?’ How often we are tempted to say such things, exactly as these disciples in the boat were!
The fact that God permits these things and that He often appears to be quite unconcerned about it all really constitutes what I am describing as the trial of faith. Those are the conditions in which our faith is tried and tested, and God allows it all, God permits it all. James even tells us to `count it all joy’ when these things happen to us. This is a great subject-the trial of faith. We do not talk much about it these days, do we? But if we went back to the seventeenth or eighteenth century we would find that it was then a very familiar theme. I suppose that in many ways it was the central theme of the Puritans. It was certainly prominent later on in the evangelical awakening of the eighteenth century. The trial of man’s faith and how to overcome these things, the walk of faith, and the life of faith, was their constant theme.
Let us now go on to the second question–What is the nature of faith, the character of faith? This is above everything the particular message of this incident and I feel that it is brought out especially clearly in this record of it in the Gospel according to St. Luke. That is why I am taking the incident from that particular Gospel and emphasizing the way in which our Lord puts the question: `Where is your faith?’ There is the key to the whole problem. You observe our Lord’s question. It seems to imply that He knows perfectly well that they have faith. The question He asks them is: `Where is it? You have got faith, but where is it at this moment? It ought to be here, where is it?’ Now that gives us the key to the understanding of the nature of faith.
Let me first of all put it negatively. Faith, obviously, is not a mere matter of feeling. It cannot be, because one’s feelings in this kind of condition can be very changeable. A Christian is not meant to be dejected when everything goes wrong. He is told to `rejoice’. Feelings belong to happiness alone, rejoicing takes in something much bigger than feelings; and if faith were a matter of feelings only, then when things go wrong and feelings change, faith will go. But faith is not a matter of feelings only, faith takes up the whole man including his mind, his intellect and his understanding. It is a response to truth, as we shall see.
The second thing is still more important. Faith is not something that acts automatically, faith is not something that acts magically. This, I think, is the blunder of which we have all, at some time or another, been guilty. We seem to think that faith is something that acts automatically. Many people, it seems to me, conceive of faith as if it were something similar to those thermostats which you have in connection with a heating apparatus, you set your thermostat at a given level, you want to maintain the temperature at a certain point and it acts automatically. If the temperature is tending to rise above that, the thermostat comes into operation and brings it down; if you use your hot water and the temperature is lowered, the thermostat comes into operation and sends it up, etc. You do not have to do anything about it, the thermostat acts automatically and it brings the temperature back to the desired level automatically. Now there are many people who seem to think that faith acts like that. They assume that it does not matter what happens to them, that faith will operate and all will be well. Faith, however, is not something that acts magically or automatically. If it did, these men would never have been in trouble, faith would have come into operation and they would have been calm and quiet and all would have been well. But faith is not like that and those are utter fallacies with respect to it.
What is faith? Let us look at it positively. The principle taught here is that faith is an activity, it is something that has to be exercised. It does not come into operation itself, you and I have to put it into operation. It is a form of activity.
Now let me divide that up a little. Faith is something you and I have to bring into operation. That is exactly what our Lord said to these men. He said: `Where is your faith?’ which means, `Why are you not taking your faith and applying it to this position?’ You see, it was because they did not do so, because they did not put their faith into operation, that the disciples had become unhappy and were in this state of consternation. How then does one put faith into operation? What do I mean by saying that faith is something we have to apply? I can divide my answer in this way. The first thing I must do when I find myself in a difficult position is to refuse to allow myself to be controlled by the situation. A negative, you see. These men were in the boat, the Master was asleep and the billows were rolling, the water was coming in, and they could not bale it out fast enough. It looked as if they were going to sink, and their trouble was that they were controlled by that situation. They should have applied their faith and taken charge of it, and said: `No, we are not going to panic’. They should have started in that way, but they did not do so. They allowed the position to control them.
Faith is a refusal to panic. Do you like that sort of definition of faith? Does that seem to be too earthly and not sufficiently spiritual? It is of the very essence of faith. Faith is a refusal to panic, come what may. Browning, I think had that idea when he defined faith like this: `With me, faith means perpetual unbelief kept quiet, like the snake ‘neath Michael’s foot’. Here is Michael and there is the snake beneath his foot, and he just keeps it quiet under the pressure of his foot. Faith is unbelief kept quiet, kept down. That is what these men did not do, they allowed this situation to grip them, they became panicky. Faith, however, is a refusal to allow that. It says: `I am not going to be controlled by these circumstances-I am in control’. So you take charge of yourself, and pull yourself up, you control yourself. You do not let yourself go, you assert yourself.
That is the first thing, but it does not stop at that. That is not enough, because that may be nothing but resignation. That is not the whole of faith. Having taken that first step, having pulled yourself up, you then remind yourself of what you believe and what you know. That again is something these foolish disciples did not do. If only they had stopped a moment and said:
`Now then what about it? Is it possible that we are going to drown with Him in the boat? Is there anything He cannot do? We have seen His miracles, He turned the water into wine, He can heal the blind and the lame, He can even raise the dead, is it likely that He is going to allow us and Himself to be drowned in this way? Impossible! In any case He loves us, He cares for us, He has told us that the very hairs of our head are all numbered!’ That is the way in which faith reasons. It says: `All right, I see the waves and the billows but’-it always puts up this `but’. That is faith, it holds on to truth and reasons from what it knows to be fact. That is the way to apply faith.
These men did not do that and that is why they became agitated and panic stricken. And you and I will become panic stricken and agitated if we fail to do the same. Whatever the circumstances, therefore, stand, wait for a moment. Say: `I admit it all, but–‘ But what? But God! but the Lord Jesus Christ! But what? The whole of my salvation! That is what faith does. All things may seem to be against me `to drive me to despair’, I do not understand what is happening; but I know this, I know that God has so loved me that He sent His only begotten Son into this world for me, I know that while I was an enemy, God sent His only Son to die on the Cross on Calvary’s Hill for me. He has done that for me while I was an enemy, a rebellious alien. I know that the Son of God `loved me and gave Himself for me’. I know that at the cost of His life’s blood I have salvation and that I am a child of God and an heir to everlasting bliss. I know that. Very well, then, I know this, that `if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life’ (Romans 5:10). It is inevitable logic, and faith argues like that. Faith reminds itself of what the Scripture calls ‘the exceeding great and precious promises’.
Faith says: ‘I cannot believe that He who has brought me so far is going to let me down at this point. It is impossible, it would be inconsistent with the character of God’. So faith, having refused to be controlled by circumstances, reminds itself of what it believes and what it knows.
And then the next step is that faith applies all that to the particular situation. Again, that was something these men did not do, and that is why our Lord puts it to them in this way: `Where is your faith?’ –`You have got it, why don’t you apply it, why don’t you bring all you know to bear on this situation, why don’t you focus it on this particular problem?’ That is the next step in the application of faith. Whatever your circumstances at this moment, bring all you know to be true of your relationship to God to bear upon it. Then you will know full well that He will never allow anything to happen to you that is harmful. `All things work together for good to them that love God.‘ Not a hair of your head shall be harmed, He loves you with an everlasting love.
I do not suggest that you will be able to understand everything that is happening. You may not have a full explanation of it; but you will know for certain that God is not unconcerned. That is impossible. The One who has done the greatest thing of all for you, must be concerned about you in everything, and though the clouds are thick and you cannot see His face, you know He is there. `Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.’ Now hold on to that. You say that you do not see His smile. I agree that these earthborn clouds prevent my seeing Him, but He is there and He will never allow anything finally harmful to take place. Nothing can happen to you but what He allows, I do not care what it may be, some great disappointment, perhaps, or it may be an illness, it may be a tragedy of some sort, I do not know what it is, but you can be certain of this, that God permits that thing to happen to you because it is ultimately for your good. `Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness’ (Hebrews 12:11).
That is the way faith works. But you and I have to exercise it. It does not come into operation automatically. You have to focus your faith on to events and say: `All right, but I know this about God, and because that is true I am going to apply it to this situation. This, therefore, cannot be what I think it is, it must have some other explanation’. And you end by seeing that it is God’s gracious purpose for you, and having applied your faith, you then hold on. You just refuse to be moved. The enemy will come and attack you, the water will seem to be pouring into the boat, but you say: `It is all right, let the worst come to the worst’. You stand on your faith. You say to yourself: `I believe this, I am resting on this, I am certain of this and though I do not understand what is happening to me I am holding on to this!’
That brings me to my final word, which is my third principle –the value of even the weakest or smallest faith. We have looked at the trial of faith, we have looked at the nature of faith, let me say a closing word on the value of even the weakest and smallest faith. However poor and small and however incomplete the faith of these disciples was on this occasion, they at any rate had a sufficient amount of faith to make them do the right thing in the end. They went to Him. Having been agitated and distressed and alarmed and exhausted, they went to Him. They still had some kind of feeling that He could do something about it, and so they woke Him and said: `Master, are you not going to do something about it?’ That is very poor faith you may say, very weak faith, but it is faith, thank God. And even faith `like a grain of mustard seed’ is valuable because it takes us to Him. And when you do go to Him this is what you will find. He will be disappointed with you and He will not conceal that. He will rebuke you, He will say: `Why did you not reason it out, why did you not apply your faith, why do you appear agitated before that worldly person, why do you behave as if you were not a Christian at all, why didn’t you apply your faith as you should have done? I would have been so pleased if I could have watched you standing like a man in the midst of the hurricane or stormy why didn’t you?’ He will let us know that He is disappointed in us and He will rebuke us; but, blessed be His Name, He will nevertheless still receive us. He does not drive us away. He did not drive these disciples away, He received them and He will receive us. Yes, and He will not only receive us, He will bless us and He will give us peace. `He rebuked the wind and the sea and there was a great calm.’ He produced the condition they were so anxious to enjoy, in spite of their lack of faith. Such is the gracious Lord that you and I believe in and follow. Though He is disappointed in us often and though He rebukes us, He will never neglect us; He will receive us, He will bless us, He will give us peace, indeed He will do for us what He did for these men.
With this peace He gave them a still greater conception of Himself than they had had before. They marveled, and were full of amazement at His wonderful power. He, as it were, threw that into the bargain on top of all the blessings. If you find yourself in this position of trial and trouble and testing, take it as a wonderful opportunity of proving your faith, of showing your faith, of manifesting your faith and bringing glory to His great and Holy Name. But if you should fail to do that, if you should apparently be too weak to apply your faith, if you are being so besieged and attacked by the devil and by hell and by the world, well, then, I say, just fly to Him at once and He will receive you and will bless you, He will give you deliverance, He will give you peace. But remember always that faith is an activity, it is something that has to be applied. `Where is your faith?’ Let us make certain that it is always at the place and at the point of need and of testing.
The Article/Sermon above was adapted from Chapter 10 in the Classic book of Sermons by Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Spiritual Depression: It’s Causes and Cure. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.
About the Preacher:
Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) [hereafter – DMLJ] was a British evangelical born and brought up within Welsh Calvinistic Methodism, he is most noted for his pastorate and expository preaching career at Westminster Chapel in London.
In addition to his work at Westminster Chapel, he published books and spoke at conferences and, at one point, presided over the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Students (now known as UCCF). Lloyd-Jones was strongly opposed to the liberal theology that had become a part of many Christian denominations in Wales and England.
DMLJ’s most popular writings are collections of his sermons edited for publication, as typified by his multi-volume series’ on Acts, Romans, Ephesians, 1 John, and Philippians. My favorite writings are his expositions on the Sermon on the Mount; Revival; Joy Unspeakable; Spiritual Depression; and his recently revised 40th Anniversary edition of Preaching and Preachers.
Born in Wales, Lloyd-Jones was schooled in London. He then entered medical training at Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital, better known simply as Bart’s. Bart’s carried the same prestige in the medical community that Oxford did in the intellectual community. Martyn’s career was medicine. He succeeded in his exams so young that he had to wait to take his MD, by which time he was already chief clinical assistant to Sir Thomas Horder, one of the best and most famous doctors of the day. By the age of 26 he also had his MRCP (Member of the Royal College of Physicians).
Although he had considered himself a Christian, the young doctor was soundly converted in 1926. He gave up his medical career in 1927 and returned to Wales to preach and pastor his first church in Sandfields, Aberavon.
In 1935, Lloyd-Jones preached to an assembly at Albert Hall. One of the listeners was 72-year-old Dr. Campbell Morgan, pastor of Westminster Chapel in London. When he heard Martyn Lloyd-Jones, he wanted to have him as his colleague and successor in 1938. But it was not so easy, for there was also a proposal that he be appointed Principal of the Theological College at Bala; and the call of Wales and of training a new generation of ministers for Wales was strong. In the end, however, the call from Westminster Chapel prevailed and the Lloyd-Jones family finally committed to London in April 1939.
After the war, under Lloyd-Jones preaching, the congregation at Westminster Chapel grew quickly. In 1947 the balconies were opened and from 1948 until 1968 when he retired, the congregation averaged perhaps 1500 on Sunday mornings and 2000 on Sunday nights.
In his 68th year, he underwent a major medical operation. Although he fully recovered, he decided to retire from Westminster Chapel. Even in retirement, however, Lloyd-Jones worked as a pastor of pastors an itinerant speaker and evangelist. “The Doctor”, as he became known, was one of the major figureheads of British evangelicalism and his books and published sermons continue to be appreciated by many within the United Kingdom and beyond. DMLJ believed that the greatest need of the church was revival.
7 Tips on Scripture Memorization
I know of no other single practice in the Christian life more rewarding, practically speaking than memorizing Scripture. That’s right. No other single discipline is more useful and rewarding than this. No other single exercise pays greater spiritual dividends! Your prayer life will be strengthened. Your witnessing will be sharper and more effective. Your counseling will be in demand. Your attitudes and outlook will begin to change. Your mind will become alert and observant. Your confidence and assurance will be enhanced. Your faith will be solidified.
God’s Word is filled with exhortations to implant His truth in our hearts. David says that a young man can keep his way pure by treasuring God’s Word in his heart.
Psalm 37:31, “The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.”
Psalm 119:9-11, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”
Solomon refers to this in Proverbs 4:4, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live.”
The words “hold fast” come from a single Hebrew term, meaning “to grasp, seize, lay hold of.” Scripture memory gives you a firm grasp of the Word—and allows the Word to get a firm grasp of you! Solomon also mentions writing the Word “on the tablet of your heart” and having Scriptures kept within you so “they may be on your lips” (Proverbs 7:3 & 22:18).
Now, I know you’ve been challenged to do this before. But is it happening? Perhaps you have procrastinated because you have mental blocks against it. Maybe you tried, but you either did not see the value or could not get beyond the method that was demanded by some memory program—little cards, booklets, check-up techniques, hearers, etc. Perhaps that seemed elementary and insulted your intelligence, I understand.
Okay…forget the methods…but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Take your Bible, turn to a passage that’s been especially helpful…and commit that passage to memory—all on your own. Don’t learn just isolated verses here and there. Bite off whole chunks of Scripture. That way you can get the flow of thought God had in mind.
Here are seven things I have found helpful:
(1) Choose a time when your mind is free from outside distractions…perhaps soon after getting up in the morning.
(2) Learn the reference by repeating it every time you say the verse(s). Numbers are more difficult to remember than words.
(3) Read each verse through several times—both whisper and aloud. Hearing yourself say the words help cement them into your mind.
(4) Break the passage into its natural phrases. Learn the reference and then the first phrase. Then repeat the reference and first phrase as you go to the second phrase. Continue adding phrases one by one.
(5) Learn a little bit perfectly rather than a great deal poorly. Do not go on to the next verse until you can say the previous one(s) perfectly, without a glance at your Bible.
(6) Review the verse(s) immediately after you have gone through this process. Twenty to thirty minutes later, repeat what you’ve memorized. Before the day has ended has ended, firmly fix the verse(s) in your mind by going over it fifteen to twenty times. (You can do this as you drive or do your job.)
(7) Use the verse(s) orally as soon as possible. After all, the purpose of Scripture memory is a practical one, not academic. Use the verses in conversation, in correspondence, in teaching, in counseling, in everyday opportunities. Relate what you’ve learned to your daily situation. You’ll be thrilled with the results.
Article above adapted from Charles R. Swindoll. Growing Strong In The Seasons of Life. Portland, OR.: Multnomah Books, 1983, pp. 53-54.
About The Author:
Charles R. Swindoll has devoted his life to the clear, practical teaching and application of God’s Word and His grace. A pastor at heart, Chuck has served as senior pastor to congregations in Texas, Massachusetts, and California. Since 1998, he has served as the senior pastor-teacher of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, but Chuck’s listening audience extends far beyond a local church body. As a leading program in Christian broadcasting since 1979, Insight for Living airs in major Christian radio markets around the world, reaching people groups in languages they can understand. Chuck’s extensive writing ministry has also served the body of Christ worldwide and his leadership as president and now chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary has helped prepare and equip a new generation for ministry. Chuck and Cynthia, his partner in life and ministry, have four grown children and ten grandchildren.
Chuck’s prolific writing ministry has blessed the body of Christ for over thirty years. Beginning with You and Your Child in 1977, Chuck has contributed more than seventy titles to a worldwide reading audience. His most popular books in the Christian Bookseller’s Association include: Strengthening Your Grip, Improving Your Serve, Dropping Your Guard, Living on the Ragged Edge, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, The Grace Awakening, Simple Faith, Laugh Again, The Finishing Touch, Intimacy with the Almighty, Suddenly One Morning, The Mystery of God’s Will, Wisdom for the Way, The Darkness and the Dawn, A Life Well Lived, and the Great Lives from God’s Word series, which includes Joseph, David, Esther, Moses, Elijah, Paul, Job, Jesus: The Greatest Life of All, and his most recent addition, The Church Awakening: An Urgent Call for Renewal. As a writer, Chuck has received the following awards: Gold Medallion Lifetime Achievement Award, Evangelical Press Association, 1997 and Twelve Gold Medallion Awards.
“Getting Through The Tough Stuff of Pain” By Chuck Swindoll
HAVE YOU SEEN Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ? It’s like none other I’ve seen. It details the horrifying pain and anguish Jesus suffered in the final hours of His earthly life. By now, millions of viewers around the world have been moved beyond words by the graphic depiction of that violent and shockingly torturous ordeal. People of all ages, cultures, and races have looked on in alarm and disbelief as vivid scenes from the sacred story relentlessly rolled on, growing increasingly more bloody and intense. The film has stirred controversy that is unprecedented in recent history. But why? Why such shock at a story that has been told for centuries? Why the outrage over Gibson’s violent interpretation of Christ’s final days?
I would answer, because the film depicts and supports God’s revealed Word.
Many prefer to think of Jesus as meek and mild and gentle at heart. They find quiet rest in the loving Shepherd of Israel, who smiles at children, heals the sick, feeds the hungry, and speaks softly of a kingdom not of this world. Few wish to go much further. They resist embracing His inconceivable pain—His excruciating humiliation, that culminated in a horrible death at the hands of unjust men bent on cursing, cruelty, misery, and murder. No one wishes to dwell on such abject evil.
Yet that is precisely how the Scriptures portray Jesus—a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ” (Isaiah 53:3).
The Bible swells with more appealing and endearing prospects of the Savior. They are the names we love to let fall from our lips in song and in prayerful devotion: Prince of Peace, Lord of Hosts, the Good Shepherd, the Great Physician, Morning Star, Lion of Judah, Lamb of God.
But Man of Sorrows? That doesn’t sound like anyone we’d care to get close to, does it? Until we find ourselves in the crucible of the tough stuff of pain. Enveloped in a world of hurt, broken by life’s brutal blows, we discover He’s everything we need.
COMING TO AN UNDERSTANDING OF PAIN
Long before Mel Gibson even thought about making a movie that dramatically focused on the passion of Christ, the prophet Isaiah wrote his original script. It would serve as the basis of a drama to unfold nearly eight centuries later. Isaiah, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote of God’s promised Messiah—the One above all others who understands your pain and mine—the Man of Sorrows.
As It Relates to Jesus’s Life
Normally we don’t think of the Messiah in terms of weakness, sadness, deep sorrow, and grief. Yet Isaiah describes Him precisely in that manner, using just about every synonym available for suffering. Read slowly and thoughtfully the ancient prophet’s penetrating prophecy.
He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. (Isaiah 53:3–5)
He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth. (v.7)
But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief. . . . As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. (vv. 10–11) That doesn’t sound like a milquetoast Messiah to me, wouldn’t you agree? No, Jesus endured, and therefore He understands the depth of human pain and suffering. Look again at a list of Isaiah’s words: despised, griefs, sorrows, crushed, oppressed, afflicted, scourged, pierced through, smitten, stricken, like a lamb led to slaughter. Today we would say, He’s been there . . . done that, even though we don’t like to think about it. We like to think of Messiah as winning, not losing. We want to see Him in white garments coming on a white horse. We like Him to be conquering and victorious. But that is not the way He was predicted to be.
The writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews picks up the theme of Christ’s suffering when he writes, “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and he was heard because of His piety” (Hebrews 5:7). I find that to be a remarkably comforting thought. The Son of God, in all His deity, being also fully human, felt the sting of impending death and called on His heavenly Father for comfort and help.
Stop and think about what you’ve just read. All of it has to do with pain—that four-letter word from which we try our best to escape. But Jesus deliberately did not choose that route. He accepted the pain, He endured it, and He embraced it. Webster’s Dictionary defines physical pain as “a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort . . . acute mental or emotional distress” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, s.v. “pain”). Jesus knew such physical and emotional pain, as we shall discover in the pages that follow. Being the Man of Sorrows that he was, He understands and identifies with our deepest hurts and struggles.
If there is anyone who can meet you in your pain, you have found Him in the prophet Isaiah’s Man of Sorrows.
As It Relates to Our Lives
You and I enter this world screaming. Physicians tell us that one of the first signs of good, healthy lungs in newborns is that initial, piercing cry. The tiny child whose little frame has only moments before squeezed its way through a narrow birth canal screeches in pain when it leaves the warmth of the womb and emerges with a gush into the cold, cruel world—a world of pain.
From the moments we’re born until our final breaths, pain is our companion, albeit one we’d choose to abandon. Still, pain does have its benefits. Physically, for instance, pain signals unseen trouble, and it helps caring mothers and physicians pinpoint the problem. Personally, just like Christ, we learn obedience from the things we suffer (Hebrews 5:8). Spiritually, the pain of adversity helps us grow into mature people of faith (James 1:2–4).
Philip Yancey, in his insightful work Where Is God When It Hurts? writes,
“I have never read a poem extolling the virtues of pain, nor seen a statue erected in its honor, nor heard a hymn dedicated to it. Pain is usually defined as “unpleasantness.” Christians don’t really know how to interpret pain. If you pinned them against the wall, in a dark, secret moment, many Christians would probably admit that pain was God’s one mistake. He really should have worked a little harder and invented a better way of coping with the world’s dangers. I am convinced that pain gets a bad press. Perhaps we should see statues, hymns, and poems to pain. Why do I think that? Because up close, under a microscope, the pain network is seen in an entirely different light. It is perhaps the paragon of creative genius (Philip Yancey. Where Is God When It Hurts? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977, 1990, pp. 22-23).
Emotional or mental pain is not quite as objective. Almost always on target, C. S. Lewis adds this comment, “Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. It is easier to say ‘My tooth is aching’ than to say ‘My heart is broken.’ . . . Sometimes, however, it persists, and the effect is devastating” (C.S. Lewis. The Problem of Pain. New York: Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1962, p. 156).
I love that quote! In other words, it’s hard enough to go to a dentist when I have a bad tooth, but where do I go with this broken heart? I suggest the answer is not that difficult: We go to Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, who is acquainted with grief, who understands our brokenness and pain. Pain has a way of turning us back to the Savior. That makes it essential for our growth and spiritual well-being. If you’re feeling despised, forsaken, rejected, crushed, or afflicted, Jesus understands (Hebrews 4:15). To what degree does He understand?
To answer that, let’s revisit those final hours of Jesus’s life and look closely at the categories of pain He suffered.
THE PAIN OF GETHSEMANE AND THE ANGUISH OF THE CROSS
At the commencement of Christ’s ministry John the Baptist pointed to Him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). I’ve often imagined the dull sense of dread those words must have sent through Christ’s soul—knowing He’d one day be the actual “Lamb led to the slaughter.” Yet His physical suffering was only a portion of the cup of suffering He would be compelled to drink.
Relational Pain
Matthew 26:30 tells us that Jesus and His disciples had just completed their final meal together, which they ended by singing a hymn. That must have been an extremely emotional time for the Savior, as He reflected on the torturous anguish He’d soon endure and those He’d be forced to leave behind. The men He had lived among for so many months knew nothing of what would soon unfold. But Jesus knew what was ahead of Him from that moment all the way to the cross. If there was ever a time when He needed the strong support of His closest friends, it was in those ominous hours in Gethsemane.
Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me” (Matthew 26:36–38).
Gethsemane. The word means “oilpress.” Symbolically it is easy to see how it represents those places of deep, pressing pain and mental agony. We each have our own Gethsemane to endure. Perhaps you are in the depth of yours today. Maybe not; for you it could be in the future. Maybe you’ve passed through one and before you could catch your breath you’ve entered another. It’s always something! It’s at those times that having a few close friends means the most. We lean on them and draw strength from them.
In one of the most intimate scenes from Jesus’s life, Matthew writes of the Savior inviting His closest friends to remain with Him as a ready source of encouragement and support: “And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will’ ” (v. 39). Christ’s pain was so intense He pleaded with His Father for a way out of it. Don’t hurry over that. In Luke’s Gospel, we’re told that Jesus prayed with such intensity that He dripped sweat that “became like drops of blood” oozing from his skin and falling to the ground (Luke 22:44).
Drenched in pain’s agony, Jesus returned to His friends in hopes of finding some needed encouragement. But in that time, when He needed them the most, His disciples failed Him miserably. Read carefully through this tender but convicting scene, and allow Matthew’s words to touch you deeply. Let your heart be broken.
And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.” Again He came and found them sleeping for their eyes were heavy. And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more. Then He came to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going; behold the one who betrays Me is at hand!” (Matthew 26:40–46).
Each time Jesus returned to His friends, they lay snoozing in the grass. What a pathetic scene. To make things worse, as we saw in the previous chapter, one of His close companions stood ready to betray Him publicly. Jesus knelt in Gethsemane, broken in spirit and betrayed, anguished of soul and grieving, missing the comfort of those He had mentored for over three years. Truly alone, He now experienced the deep, relational pain of failed friendships and would soon feel the kiss of the traitor.
There is no place more alone than one’s own Gethsemane. Support groups are great. I believe in them and encourage every one of them in our church. But there are personal Gethsemanes you must walk through completely alone. You’ll always feel a deep loneliness while you’re getting through the tough stuff of pain. That’s when Christ will be there. Your best friends may fail you. Some will try to understand, but often they can’t. A few, frankly, will forget you. Some may turn against you. In the agony of your need for relational support, you’ll have all you need with Christ. You will find Him at those times closer than a brother. I know. He has met me in my own Gethsemanes, and He will do so again and again and yet again.
Internal Pain
A good friend of mine and former fellow church staff team member, David Carder, has spent years counseling brokenhearted people. Dave offers a rare insight into the reality of internal pain as he observes, “Knowing doesn’t automatically fix feelings.” Isn’t that an excellent insight?
In spite of the fact that Jesus knew all His life He would suffer a horrible death on the cross, such knowledge did not remove the internal agony
He endured when the zero hour arrived.
Jesus had known for thirty-three years that the cup of suffering would come. Knowing all of that for so long didn’t fix His feelings of intense pain. When the full weight landed on Him at Gethsemane, He pleaded for relief.
Herein lies a vital lesson for all of us: we are never more presumptuous than when we try to give hurting people the feelings we think they ought to have in their anguish. Don’t dare invade that tender, internal space! There are occasions when another’s anguish is essential for the accomplishment of God’s plan. Even though some of us wish to rescue others from pain, we need to restrain ourselves from doing so. Let’s guard against cutting in on God’s plan. Don’t try to fix people’s feelings. Our best involvement is usually to “keep watch and pray.” To stay near and be silent. To be available and to support.
Jesus understands better than anyone the silent cries of your internal pain.
Physical Pain
For those who have seen The Passion of the Christ, I need not rehearse in detail the depth of physical pain Christ endured. The brutalities were horrific and like none experienced by anyone before or since. A quick glance at Matthew’s list provides an overview of the intensity of what Christ experienced physically.
Imagine the horror of having iron spikes pounded into your hands and into your feet. Or the excruciating humiliation of being hung naked in plain view of a gawking crowd. Insects no doubt swarmed His bloodsoaked body. It must have been a horrible event to witness, to say nothing of personally enduring it!
Christ’s body had been so mutilated He didn’t even look human. The physical pain He must have borne is nothing short of mind-boggling. Still there was a pain more severe than that which He felt physically. Thankfully because of Christ it’s a pain you and I will never know.
The Ultimate Pain—Separation from God
Though Christ’s relational, internal, and physical pain were horribly intense, the pain of being separated from His Father goes far beyond our ability to imagine. Matthew writes, “Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” (Matthew 27:45–46).
For the first and only time, God turned His back on His Son. It was at that moment Christ bore all our sin. That’s why the Father could not look on Him—because of the affront of our iniquities. Christ experienced the ultimate pain—separation from God the Father. In absolute loneliness and pain Jesus screamed, “Why have You forsaken Me?”
Let me assure you, you cannot have a heartache that Jesus doesn’t understand and with which He doesn’t identify. You cannot have a physical pain that somehow escapes His awareness. You cannot have a crippling disease, a disability, a grief, a heart attack…not even a debilitating fear or panic attack that He cannot understand or feel.
He’s felt it all. Therefore He’s there to walk with you through your most profound depths of pain, if you’ll only let Him.
Do you have a lingering scar on your heart that won’t heal? Look at His hands, His feet, and His side. Feeling humiliated and alone? He knows what that feels like. Are you so confused by your circumstances that you’re tempted to bargain with God for relief? No need. Without one word from your lips, He understands. He’s touched with the feelings of our weaknesses, and therefore He identifies with them.
Perhaps you’re lonely. Your lifelong mate has gone to be with the Lord. You face an uncertain future—all alone. You may have recently been forgotten. Your parents told you to get out of their lives. Perhaps your husband or your wife just walked out for good, rejecting you for someone else. Or you may have just read a cruel letter from an adult child that included seven words you cannot bear to believe: “I never want to see you again.” Relationally, you need somebody. Internally, you’re in anguish. Physically, you’ve reached your threshold.
You may be confused, living with deep emotional scars as a result of being abused. You may suffer from such a horrible and shameful addiction that you fear rejection by anyone who might discover your secret. The pain of shame grips your soul and ambushes your thoughts. Perhaps you feel helpless, enraged, confused, disappointed, depressed, misunderstood, humiliated, and at the end.
Ultimately you wonder, as Jesus did, why God has forsaken you. You may feel that, but hear this: you are not alone. There is hope. There is help with the Savior by your side.
GETTING THROUGH THE TOUGH STUFF OF PAIN . . . WITH CHRIST
I want to close this chapter [article] with several analogies I hope will provide you a measure of comfort as you walk with Christ through the tough stuff of your pain.
Relationally, no one stays closer than Christ. Christ is better than the most faithful husband, more understanding than the most comforting wife, more reliable than the choicest friend. No one stays closer than Christ. There is no friend more caring. There is no person more unconditionally accepting. There is no one more available or more interested whom you can talk to in the middle of the night, or at any other time, simply by calling out in prayer. He even understands your groanings—He’s able to put correct meanings to your inexpressible moans! He has promised never to leave you. He will not walk out on you. No one stays closer than Christ. I’ll say it again: no one.
Internally, no one heals deeper than Christ. You may say, “I’ll never be able to get over this grief.” Yes you can, but not on your own. That’s where Christ is the Master Comforter. He’s the “Man of Sorrows.” Remember, He is intimately “acquainted with grief.” He understands what there is to lose. He lost everything for you. His own family thought He was insane. Right in the middle of His ministry they came to take Him away because they were convinced He was losing his senses. He knows what it feels like to suffer in silence, to be the brunt of unfair criticism, to feel helpless when no one understands, when no one remains in
your corner. His balm of comfort penetrates. No one heals deeper than Christ.
Physically, no one comforts better than Christ. In the midst of your deepest physical pain, His presence brings comfort and strength. He may choose to restore your physical health, but frankly, He may not. Regardless, His grace is abundantly sufficient for you. His hand is on your life at this time of your affliction. It’s better than the hand of any friend, any partner, any parent, or any child, because when He touches, He brings great compassion and lasting relief. No one comforts better than Christ. Ultimately, no one sees the benefits of our pain clearer than Christ. He sees through the dark, winding tunnel of your Gethsemane all the way to the end. You see only the unrelenting, frightening, thick darkness. He sees beyond it into the shining light of eternity. Maturity, growth, stability, wisdom, and ultimately the crown of life await the one who trusts His unseen hand. Keep in mind, He owns the map that gets you through your Gethsemane. No one sees the benefits of our pain clearer than Christ.
Whatever you’re facing today, please remind yourself that your pain is no mistake. It is no accident. In fact, your suffering may be precisely what Christ will use to bring you to your knees, to draw you back to His heart and discover His peace. “Man of Sorrows,” what a name! It’s the name of the Son of God. His name is Jesus. It’s the name that represents the extremes of pain and understanding, companionship and relief. Perhaps you have never recognized your need for a personal relationship with God, through faith in Christ. You’ve gripped the reins of your life tightly in your own hands. I suggest you release them and turn them over to God. Come to His Son, Jesus. Admit where you are and express to him what you need. A simple prayer is all it takes to begin this life-transforming relationship with Him. I close with a simple prayer you may use to speak in the quietness of your heart to the One who longs to walk with you through the tough stuff of personal pain.
A Salvation Prayer:
Father, thanks for sending Your Son – the Lord Jesus to empathize with my pain.
I know that I’m a sinner. I’ve made a royal mess of my life.
I’m tire of the fight. I’m tired of the pain I’ve added to my life as if You didn’t exist.
Today, I come to You (Lord Jesus),
believing that You died for me and that You rose from the dead.
I turn my back on my stubborn ways as I surrender all to You.
Take the reings, Lord Jesus. I release them to You.
I accept Your forgiveness, and I claim Your grace.
As I repent of my sins, especially my idolatry in putting other things before You.
I believe that only Your grace through Your perfect life, death,
and resurrection can save me, as I accept your gift of eternal life. Amen.
“Hallelujah, What a Savior!” by Philip R. Bliss
“Man of Sorrows!” what a name
For the Son of God, who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim!
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood—
Sealed my pardon with His blood:
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
Guilty, vile and helpless we,
Spotless Lamb of God was he;
Full atonement! Can it be?
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
*The article above was adapted from the excellent book by Charles R. Swindoll. Getting Through the Tough Stuff: It’s Always Something. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004.
About the Author:
Dr. Charles R. Swindoll is senior pastor of Stonebriar Community Church, chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary, and the Bible teacher on the internationally syndicated radio program Insight for Living.
Charles Swindoll’s Books:
Swindoll’s New Testament Insights Commentary Series
Profiles in Character series
Honors and Awards
“Peace in Cancer, Because Christ is Bigger!”
I’m in good company – John Piper and Tim Keller have both battled cancer – and there are many other less known Christians who have faced the battle. As of today, Piper and Keller have been freed from any trace of cancer. Perhaps my greatest pastoral hero was Dr. James Montgomery Boice. When he was diagnosed with cancer he continued to minister in his church in Philadelphia as he always had – being faithful to the gospel, emphasizing God’s glory and sovereignty – and the Lord took him home within six months of his being diagnosed with cancer. He was steadfast and brave because all he had known and preached for forty years was the sovereignty and goodness of his Savior – the Lord Jesus Christ.
Tomorrow, I go to the hospital for a PET scan. When I first found out recently that the lump in my neck was cancer (and not an infection – as I had hoped) – I didn’t take the news too well. After receiving the news I came home and went for a long walk – cried, prayed, got angry with God, confessed every known sin, and got extremely tired, depressed, and discouraged. A few days after the news I settled down and realized that this is where the gospel meets the road of life – when faced with our mortality.
In the excellent book Suffering and the Goodness of God edited by Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, Robert W. Yarborough writes an excellent illustration in the first chapter that articulates the realities of life and death and the integration of the gospel that gives us hope in the face of our mortality:
Suffering is a bracing slap in the face that drives God’s people again and again to clarify and purify the fundamental terms of acknowledgment and worship of their God. It drives us to turn our hearts to God in truer prayer. The rediscovery and application of a brutally realist God-centeredness is an urgent need in an era of much crass human-centeredness—typified recently in the ego-centered absurdity of Episcopal priest Ann Holmes Redding’s simultaneous profession of both Christian and Muslim faith (Cf. Eric Young, “Episcopal Priest Suspended over Muslim-Christian Identity,” Christian Post Reporter, July 7, 2007, http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070707/28350_Episcopal_Priest_Suspended_Over_Muslim-Christian_Identity.htm – July 9, 2007).
Nor have we explored implications of the fact that whatever suffering Christians and everybody else must endure in this world, it pales next to scriptural predictions of what awaits the divinely accursed both in this age and in the age to come (Cf. Stephen Keillor, God’s Judgments: Interpreting History and the Christian Faith. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2007. 40. See Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, eds., Hell Under Fire. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004).
This has contemporary significance in that contemplation of both current and eschatological woe is an important incentive to cultivate a seemly sense of urgency in personal pursuit of God, in ecclesial labors including evangelism, and in mission generally. But the last word of this introductory chapter belongs not to one more thesis or argument but to a story. We began speaking of a boy’s death by crocodile in Costa Rica. No one could save him [he was killed by the crocodile].
A second story, very similar, has a different ending. In the Nseleni River near subtropical Empangeni, South Africa, two third-graders released from school with pinkeye decided to slip away for a secret swim. As they were leaving the water, a hidden crocodile’s jaws closed on Msomi’s leg. He shouted frantically for help. Companions wisely and understandably fled. Except for Themba. He grabbed his friend Msomi in a tug-of-war with the determined reptile. Matters hung in the balance for a long turbulent moment. Suddenly Msomi broke free. He scampered out of the water, bleeding from his left leg and arm and from a cut across his chest. But he was saved. And Themba the noble rescuer, a third-grade kid with the heart of a grizzled warrior? Msomi, visibly shaken, lamented from his hospital bed: “I ran out of the water, but as Themba tried to get out, the crocodile caught him and he disappeared under the water. That was the last time I saw my friend alive. I’ll never forget what happened that day—he died while trying to save me” (Sibusiso Ngalwa, “Boy Dies Saving Friend from Crocodile,” April 4, 2004, http://www.io l. co.za/?click_id= 14&art_id=vn20040404110517366C649996&set_id=1 – July 10, 2007).
The crocodiles of crises and calamities beset us all. Eventually we wander into the kill zone where the unwanted lurks, biding its time.
Suffering is ubiquitous and finally terminal in this age. But there is a God, and he is good, and those who seek him are saved. We are all Msomi, but there is a Themba (Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, eds., Suffering and the Goodness of God. Wheaton, IL.: Crossway Books, 2008).
I praise God that Jesus is my Savior – my Themba. Although Themba’s death for his friend was an incredible act of love it was not salvific in a spiritual sense. Only Jesus’ perfect life and purposeful atoning death propitiated the wrath of God that my sin deserves. Therefore, whether this cancer takes my life or not – I’m covered by the blood of Christ’s death as payment for my sins. His perfect love casts out my fear!
I’m sure I’ll have ups and downs along the way. However, I hope that whether I live or die soon, or in several years that I can live like Keller, Piper, and Boice who have paved the way for me – at peace with God because of Jesus – my Themba!
My heart’s desire is that whether God chooses to take me home or spare my life mercifully and graciously that I will be able (with Christ’s help) to bring Him the glory that He deserves for already sparing my life and rescuing me from eternal separation from Him.
May I be able to say with the apostle Paul, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”…and “So whether we [I] eat or drink, or whatever we [I] do, may all be to the glory of God” (Philippians 1:21; 1 Corinthians 10:31).
Why? because of passages like 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Romans 8:1,11, 18, 28-39:
“For our sake [my sake] he made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God…There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you…For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us… And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Christian Leadership Defined:
“A Christian leader is a humble, God-dependent, team-playing servant of God who is called by God to shepherd, develop, equip, and empower a specific group of believers to accomplish an agreed-upon vision from God.” – Dave Kraft
The Key Ingredients of Leadership:
Christian leaders are, first and foremost, servants (bond slaves) of the Lord, and second, servants of those they are leading.
They are characterized by humility, dependence, and team-playing, rather than being a loner or one-man show.
Christian leaders are called by God into leadership. They do not decide for themselves to be a leader. They are not pushed into leadership by well-meaning supporters, nor do they arrive at leadership because no one else will do it.
Christian leaders are moving toward a specific destination.
Christian leaders are creating and sustaining an agreed-upon vision. There is an initial buy-in and a growing ownership of the vision among those being led.
Christian Leaders Have 4 Major Responsibilities:
Shepherding—a leader loves and cares for those being led.
Developing—a leader helps those being led in their personal walk with Jesus Christ to become fully devoted followers.
Equipping—a leader trains those being led for ministry.
Empowering—a leader inspires, encourages, affirms, believes in, and frees people up to serve out of their gifting.
Contrasting Past and Future/Current Leaders
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PAST LEADERS: |
FUTURE LEADERS |
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Organizational |
Relational |
|
Operate in committees |
Operate in teams |
|
Command and control |
Permission-giving |
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Degreed and elected |
Gifted and called |
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Linear and pyramidal |
Overlapping circles |
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Share propositional truth |
Tell stories |
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People of the written page |
People of the screen |
|
Tightly structured |
Highly flexible |
|
Emphasize position |
Emphasize empowerment |
About The Author:
Dave is originally from the LA area. He is definitely a Southern California boy. Dave has been married to Susan for 42 years. They have four adult children and six grand children.
He served with The Navigators for 38 years leaving that organization in the fall of 2005. In those years with The Navigators, Dave had assignments in Southern and Northern California, Sweden, Colorado and Washington State.
He served as Pastor of Coaching and Leadership Development Mars Hill Church in Seattle & currently in Orange County, CA.
In addition to his work at Mars Hill, Dave is a Life Coach with Ministry Coaching International with headquarters in Bend, Oregon. Dave has the joy of coaching pastors around the country in developing a Life Plan to stay strong and healthy in their personal and family life. Building upon this, Dave helps each pastor think through their specific vision for their ministry and their game plan for building a team to help them carry it out. Visit this link to have Dave Kraft spend a weekend at your church.
When not recruiting training and placing leaders, which he truly loves, Dave likes to read, jog, listen to music and watch movies.
The excerpts above are from the introduction to his excellent book pictured above and published by Crossway Books in Wheaton, ILL., entitled Leaders Who Last, 2009.
What we read affects us deeply, with long-term results. What books have influenced you the most? The following are the responses given to a survey of Christian leaders, sent out by R. Kent Hughes (*note that many of these leaders have entered into the presence of God).
Specific questions asked on the survey were:
(1) What are the five books, secular or sacred, which have influenced you the most?
(2) Of the spiritual/sacred books which have influenced you, which is your favorite?
(3) What is your favorite novel?
(4) What is your favorite biography?
JOHN W. ALEXANDER
(1) Charles Sheldon, In His Steps; H. B. Wright, The Will of God and a Man’s Life Work; H. J. Carnell, An Introduction to Christian Apologetics; William Manchester, American Caesar; Garth Lean, God’s Politician.
(2) H.J. Carnell, An Introduction to Christian Apologetics.
(3) Charles Dickens, David Copperfield.
(4) William Manchester, American Caesar
HUDSON T. ARMERDING
(1) The Bible; Calvin’s Institutes; J. I. Packer, Knowing God; J. O. Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion; S. E. Morison, History of the U.S. Navy in World War Two.
(2) After the Bible, Calvin’s Institutes.
(3) Dostoyevski, Crime and Punishment and Ernest Gordon, Through the Valley of the Kwai.
(4) Pollock, Hudson Taylor.
JAMES M. BOICE
(1) John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 vols.); B. B. Warfield, Inspiration and Authority of the Bible; T. M. Lindsay, History of the Reformation (2 vols.); John Stott, Basic Christianity; Donald Grey Barnhouse, Romans (10 vols.- most recently issued in 4 vols.).
(2) Calvin’s Institutes.
(3) Ernest Hemingway, Over the River and into the Trees.
(4) Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield (2 vols).
BRYAN CHAPELL
(1) C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
(2) Calvin’s Institutes.
(3) J. Oliver Buswell, A Systematic Theology of Christian Religion.
(4) John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress.
(5) Sidney Greidanus, Sola Scriptura.
RICHARD CHASE
(1) Charles Colson, Loving God; Werner Jaegei Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture (3 vols.); Sir Robert Anderson, The Silence of God; David J. Hassel, City of Wisdom; Nathan Hatch, The Democritization of American Christianity.
(2) Charles Colson, Loving God.
(3) Mary Stewart’s novels: The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment (favorite).
(4) Charles Colson, Born Again.
CHARLES COLSON
(1 & 2) C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity; St. Augustine, Confessions; Armando Valladares, Against All Hope; Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago; Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square; Donald Bloesch, Crumbling Foundations; Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship; St. Augustine, The City of God; Jonathan Edwards, Treatise on Religious Affections; R. C. Sproul, Knowing Scripture; William Wilberforce, Real Christianity; Jacques Ellul, The Political Illusion and The Presence of the Kingdom; J. I. Packer, Knowing God; Paul Johnson, Modern Times; John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress.
(3) John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress.
(4) St. Augustine, Confessions
JAMES C. DOBSON
Rather than select several books which exceed all others in their impact on my life, I prefer to commend the authors whose collection of writings are most highly prized. This is easier because the best writers require several books to state their cases and leave their mark. First, I admire the memory of Dr. Francis Schaeffer and the anthology he left to us. Second, I have great appreciation for the writings of Chuck Colson. His best book, I believe, is Loving God. His life is a demonstration of its theme.
LYLE DORSETT
(1) Besides the Bible, which I would, of course, rank #1, E. M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer; George Muller, A Life of Trust; G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy; Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest; Robert E. Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism.
(2) Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.
(3) C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.
(4) Catherine Marshall, A Man Called Peter.
ELISABETH ELLIOT
(1) Romano Guardini, The Lord; George MacDonald, Salted with Fire; Amy Carmichael, Toward Jerusalem; Janet Erskine Stuart, Life and Letters; Evelyn Underhill, The Mystery of Charity.
(2) Impossible to say.
(3) Sigrid Undeset, Kristin Lavransdatter.
(4) St. Augustine, Confessions.
LTG. HOWARD G. GRAVES
The Bible; Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest; Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?; J. I. Packer, Knowing God; James Stockdale, A Vietnam Experience, Ten Years of Reflection; Charles Swindoll, Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life.
(2) Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.
(3) Herman Wouk’s series, Winds of War and Remembrance.
(4) The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
HOWARD G. HENDRICKS
(1) C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
(2) Adler Mortimer, How to Read a Book.
(3) Calvin’s Institutes.
(4) Lewis Sperry Chafer, He That Is Spiritual.
(5) A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God.
CARL F. H. HENRY
The Bible; James Orr, The Christian View of God and the World; John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (this is all Dr. Henry provided).
DAVID M. HOWARD
(1) John Stott, The Baptism and Fulness of the Holy Spirit; Earle Cairns, Christianity Through the Centuries; Alexander Whyte, Bible Characters; Carolina Maria de Jesus, Child of the Dark; Dwight Eisenhower Crusade in Europe.
(2) Earle Cairns, Christianity Through the Centuries.
(3) Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
(4) Elisabeth Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty.
JERRY JENKINS
(1) Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer.
(2) Charles Colson, How Now Shall We Live?
(3) Charles Colson, Born Again.
(4) Elisabeth Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty.
(5) Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor.
KENNETH S. KANTZER
(1) St. Augustine, The City of God; John Calvin, Institutes; Jonathan Edwards, The Distinguishing Marks of a Revival of the Spirit of God; James Orr, The Christian View of God and the World; Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
(2) St. Augustine, The City of God.
(3) Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
(4) Carl E H. Henry, The Confessions of a Theologian.
JAY KESLER
(1) Jacques Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom; John Bright, The Kingdom of God; Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope; Carl Sandburg, Lincoln; C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity; Fyodor Dostoyevski, Crime and Punishment.
(2) Jacques Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom.
(3) Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope.
(4) Carl Sandburg, Lincoln; see also Lee, Jefferson, Sadat, Wesley, Judson, Truman, Churchill.
DENNIS F. KINLAW
(1) Clarence Hall, Portrait of a Prophet: The Life of Samuel Logan Brengle; Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret; The Standard Sermons of John Wesley; Yehekel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel; A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God.
(2) The Standard Sermons of John Wesley.
(3) Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.
(4) Clara H. Stuart, Latimer, Apostle to the English.
HAROLD LINDSELL
(1) John Calvin, Institutes; Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church; Matthew Henry, Commentary; Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression – Its Causes and Its Cure.
(2) Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.
(3) None.
(4) Hudson Taylor, Spiritual Secrets.
DUANE LITFIN
(Most influential authors rather than most influential books)
(1) C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce; Mere Christianity; God in the Dock.
(2) A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God.
(3) J. I. Packer, Knowing God.
(4) St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine).
(5) Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching.
WAYNE MARTINDALE
C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce; C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain; C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity; Charles Sheldon, In His Steps; Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor.
Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor.
Fyodor Dostoyevski, Brothers Karamazov.
Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor.
ROBERTSON MCCUILKIN
(1) Romans, John, Luke, 2 Timothy; C. S. Lewis, Miracles; Warfield, Inspiration and Authority of Scripture; Johnstone, Operation World; Pollock, Course of Time.
(2) Pollock, Course of Time.
(3) C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces; Tolkien, Lord of the Rings; many of Shakespeare’s plays.
(4) Robert McQuilkin, Always in Triumph.
CALVIN MILLER
(1) Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines; Bill Moyers, World of Ideas II; Virginia Stem Owens, If You Do Love Old Men; Larsen, Passions; Williams, Islam.
(2) Jean Pierre de Causade, The Sacrament of the Present Moment or Mother Teresa’s Life in the Spirit.
(3) War and Peace, Anna Karenina, anything by Dickens, Dostoyevski, Tolkien.
(4) Troyat’s Tolstoy or Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra.
HAROLD MYRA
(1) C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity; C. S. Lewis, Perelandra; Paul Tourniet, The Meaning of Persons; Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father; Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ; Oswald Chambers books.
(2) C. S. Lewis, Perelandra.
(3) Fyodor Dostoyevski, Brothers Karamazov.
(4) William Manchester, The Last Lion.
STEPHEN F. OLFORD
(1) Alvin Toffler, Future Shock; Carl Henry, God, Revelation and Authority; Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ; A. J. Gordon, The Ministry of the Spirit; John Stott, The Cross of Christ.
(2) Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor in the Early Years: The Growth of a Soul.
(3) Lloyd Douglas, The Robe and Lew Wallace, Ben Hur.
(4) Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor in the Early Years: The Growth of a Soul.
J. I. PACKER
(1) John Calvin, Institutes; John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress; Goold, John Owen Works (Vols. 3, 6, 7); Richard Baxter, Reformed Pastor; Luther, Bondage of the Will.
(2) John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress.
(3) Fyodor Dostoyevski, The Brothers Karamazov.
(4) Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield (2 vols.).
PAIGE PATTERSON
(1) F. W. Krummacher, The Suffering Savior.
(2) Leonard Verduin, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren.
(3) Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore.
(4) Roland Bainton, Here I Stand.
(5) Francis Schaeffer, Escape from Reason.
EUGENE H. PETERSON
(1) Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans; Fyodor Dostoyevski, The Idiot; Charles Williams, Descent of the Dove; Herman Melville, Moby Dick; George Herbert, Country Parson and the Temple.
(2) Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans.
(3) Fyodor Dostoyevski, The Brothers Karamazov.
(4) Meriol Trevor, 2 volumes on Newman: The Pillar of the Cloud and Light in Winter.
C. WILLIAM POLLARD
(1) C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
(2) C. S. Lewis, Surprised by joy.
(3) Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?
(4) Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker.
(5) Peter Drucker, Managing for Results and Managing for the Future.
JIM REAPSOME
W. H. Griffith Thomas, Christianity Is Christ; C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity; A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God; Dr. and Mrs. Hudson Taylor, Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret; D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression – Its Causes and Its Cure.
HADDON ROBINSON
(1) Richard C. Halverson, Christian Maturity; H. Grady Davis, Design for Preaching; S. I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action; Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative; C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
(2) James Stuart, Heralds of God.
(3) Olov Hartman, Holy Masquerade.
(4) Stockford Brooks, Life and Letters of E W Robertson.
R.C. SPROUL
(1) Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will; M. Luther, Bondage of the Will; J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion; James Collins, God and Modern Philosophy; William Simon, A Time for Truth; Ben Hogan, Power Golf.
(2) Martin Luther. Bondage of the Will because of its theological insight and its literary style.
(3) H. Melville, Moby Dick.
(4) W. Manchester, American Caesar.
CHARLES R. SWINDOLL
John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress; A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God; J. I. Packer, Knowing God; Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor; J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership; Charles H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students; Philip Yancey, Where Is God When It Hurts?
BILL WALDROP
(1) The Bible; A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God; A. W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy; Elisabeth Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty; Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline.
(2) A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy.
(3) Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace.
(4) William Manchester, The Last Lion.
WARREN WIERSBE
(1) A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God; Jill Morgan, Campbell Morgan, A Man and the Word; Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ; Henry David Thoreau, Walden; Phillips Brooks, Yale Lectures on Preaching.
(2) Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ.
(3) Herman Melville, Moby Dick.
(4) Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson.
OTHER THAN THE BIBLE, BOOKS MENTIONED MORE THAN ONCE
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (10)
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (8)
A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (6)
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (5)
Fyodor Dostoyevski, Brothers Karamazov (5)
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (5)
John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress (5)
Elisabeth Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty (4)
Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret (3)
Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (3)
C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (3)
J.I. Packer, Knowing God (3)
Charles Sheldon, In His Steps (2)
James Orr, The Christian View of God and the World (2)
William Manchester, American Caesar (2)
William Manchester, The Last Lion (2)
The Article/Listing of favorite books above was adapted from “Appendix C” in R. Kent Hughes. Disciplines of a Godly Man. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2001, p. 241.
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