The Call by Os Guinness

Few books I have read in my life have had the kind of profound effect on my way of thinking like The Call has.  I got this book last summer and intended on reading it then but it had been sitting on my shelf for quite a while before I actually got around to reading it.  I finally picked it up again this year about two months ago and I am so glad that I did.  I have been greatly blessed.  Os Guinness is a fountain of knowledge as he draws on the combined wisdom of philosophers, theologians, and artists throughout history to present a Biblical perspective on finding ones purpose in life.  On to the review!

The Good: Os Guinness’ writing is so deep and profound that each chapter really does need to be enjoyed as suggested in the table of contents: one chapter a day.  Each chapter is written as its own unique meditation on the different aspects and results of having a Biblical perspective on calling.  While I tried to read a chapter a day, each section is so rich that I could have read and meditated on a chapter for an entire week before I would be ready to move on to another topic.  The study guide questions included in the back of the book were also a great blessing as they gave me the opportunity to really spend time with each chapter.

This book covered so many topics that it would be hard to single out any as being any better than the rest.  Personally, I most enjoyed the chapter titled “Patches of Godlight”.  In this chapter, Guinness explains how even the lowliest and most menial of activities is transformed by knowing that what we do, we do in service to the Lord.  This knowledge gives meaning and importance to all that we do.  I could probably write an entire book extolling the virtues of The Call but I do have to stop at some point, which brings us to…

The Bad: While I would recommend that everyone read this book, I do realize that not everyone will appreciate it nearly as much as I have.  Os Guinness’ style of writing is very much like an old philosopher passing on his wealth of knowledge.  Some may find it boring and there may be some who would not be able to fully appreciate this book.  To those who pick it up and get bored I would encourage you to take time to carefully read each and every chapter individually and to continue reading it, despite your sense of boredom.  I promise you that you will not regret the time spent reading this book by the time you finish.  Now for…

The Ugly: I simply wish every book I read was as thought provoking as this one was.  This book will sit in a prestigious spot on my book shelf for many years and every book I read after this will be compared to it and will most likely be found lacking.  That may be a little extreme but I don’t think I can say enough how great this book is.

If anyone buys this book and would like to read it through with someone, let me know.  I would gladly read this book again and would appreciate having someone to talk to about it.

You can find the book here.

Now, this is not an attempt to boast (since one of our principles here at PHD is Humility), but I would like to encourage you all to make a list of books that you are committed to reading this summer while you have some extra time.  I would also like to encourage you to get together with some friends and start a reading group so that you can hold each other accountable and stay disciplined (another PHD principle) with your reading and also have a chance to really study what you read, rather than just get through it and forget it.

Now, I know some of you aren’t “readers”.  Many of you don’t enjoy reading and I know it can be difficult but if you’re going to grow, you need to be reading.  You don’t need to be reading 5 or 6 books at a time but if you have one book that you’re committed to reading a chapter from every day, or even every other day, you will be able to get through many books and be immensely blessed.

This week I want each of you to be thinking about what books you want to read.  If you need suggestions, let me know.  If you have suggestions, comment.  Maybe you can even form reading groups!  Take this summer as an opportunity to learn and grow.

I got your back...

Part III: The Brotherhood (part a)

The last few weeks of Bible Study have been great and one of the reasons is that the guys are growing together and are truly becoming a brotherhood.  When I started writing about being a Warrior of the Lord three weeks ago I intended to write about this particular topic.  I got a little sidetracked but I feel Parts I and II were a necessary starting point for a discussion on being a Warrior.

In Part I we discussed how a warrior of the Lord does not rely on his own strength.  The need for God is clear, but what is often ignored is the need for other people.  Some might even make fun of a man who admits that he needs other people.  Our modern American culture tells us that, “The only thing a real man needs is himself!”, but this is far from the biblical model for how we should live our lives.  In the book of Genesis the Lord says of his newly created man, “It is not good that the man should be alone”, and so he created woman.  While this was good, men need more than a woman by their side.

Men need someone who can understand the deepest core of their being and offer encouragement that can only come from another man.  Men innately understand the weaknesses and struggles of other men and are uniquely qualified to come alongside us and help us through our struggles.  This brings me to an important point.  Warriors need to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity against their enemies and watch each others backs to guard from a surprise attack.  As Warriors for the Lord, we need to be like the Spartans at Thermopylae, standing shoulder to shoulder, shields overlapped, or like the soldiers pictured above, covering each others backs.

This can be accomplished in a number of ways.  First, we can stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight by praying for, encouraging, and building up one another.  When our brothers are struggling, we must come alongside them and help them through their struggles.  When we see our brother down, we must pick them up and help them continue the fight.  Secondly, we can hold each other accountable.  Accountability is very important.  Ask each other the hard questions and be willing to hear the answers.  This is something that will be discussed in more detail later but its important to think about.  Do you have someone that you can trust enough to open up to them about your struggles?  I would encourage you all to find someone to meet with regularly to discuss the things that you struggle with and that cause you to stumble.

By standing shoulder to shoulder and watching each others backs as brothers, we can help prevent stumbling, and even if someone stumbles, we will be able to build them back up again.

2 Timothy 2:3,4  “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.  No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.”

In the last two posts, we’ve discussed what God has done for us.  In the Purity post we discussed how God creates in us a new heart and renews our spirit.  In the last post on being a Warrior we discussed how the battle belongs to our Lord.  This week we will begin a discussion on our response to all that God has done for us.  Since we know that Christ has taken our punishment and we receive the righteousness he earned in exchange, how then shall we live?  What does it mean to be a soldier of Christ?

Before discussing what life as a soldier for Christ looks like, I do need to say a few things about legalism and moralism.  There are many people who deny that Christians live under any sort of obligation, claiming that rules or standards for living are meaningless because we live under grace, not under the law.  While it is true that we live under the covenant of grace, and not under the law anymore, we still strive to do good things in an attempt, not to gain God’s favor, but to show our love for God and our gratitude for what he has done for us.  Legalism is about people attempting to earn their own righteousness in order to get something back from God.  A life of service to God is about people who know they could never live up to his standards, and yet have been given a gift they don’t deserve and every action and thought is devoted to pleasing our heavenly Father.  We must live a life of service as a soldier of Christ, a warrior for the Lord.

We no longer live under the law since Christ has fulfilled the law and given us the righteousness he earned, but because of what he did, we must strive to please God.  But how do we do that?  What kind of Warrior pleases God?  While there are many character traits that could be mentioned (Galatians 5:22,23 for example), I do believe that three very important traits are Purity, Humility, and Discipline.  The need for these can be seen in 2 Timothy 2:14-26.  Purity is important if you are going to be a useful tool in the hands of your redeemer (vs 20-22).  Humility is necessary if you are going to avoid quarrels, show kindness to all and correct opponents with gentleness, which presents a good witness to all (vs 24,25).  Discipline is required to “rightly handle the word of truth” (vs 15), and to have the ability to teach (vs 24).

These traits should not be surprising or unfamiliar.  Throughout history great warriors have been defined by these traits.  All great warriors have been defined by a pure heart, a humble spirit and discipline in their training.  King Arthur, Robin Hood, Batman, the list goes on.  While many people may model their lives after their heroes, as Warriors for God, we are called to follow Christ’s example.  If purity is defined by nothing short of Holiness, Jesus the only son of God surely was pure.  Today in church Pastor Ted explained how Jesus was meek and humble.  He was also very disciplined in his prayer and work (which will be discussed in a future post).  A good soldier of Christ will follow his example and pursue these traits as well.

Purity, Humility, Discipline: PHD.  A warrior with these characteristics is ready and able to serve his master and carry out his mission.

Last Friday we talked a little bit about being warriors in a specific sense, and Jay brought it up again in his comment on the purity post.  So for this weeks post I decided that I wanted to expand on that idea a little bit and really talk about what it means to be a warrior for God.

Throughout the Old Testament there are many references to the Lord being a Warrior.  There are also many stories of other great warriors and battles, but one common theme that can be found is that these great warriors of old relied on the Lord’s strength for their victories.  One warrior in particular can be found in Judges 6.  The people of Israel were once again being oppressed because of their disobedience and unfaithfulness, this time by the Midianites and Amalekites, when Gideon was called to deliver God’s people.  In verse 12, an Angel of the Lord comes to Gideon and greets him saying, “The Lord is with you, mighty man of valor.”  Gideon’s immediate reaction was to question God for allowing the Israelites to be oppressed, but the Angel of the Lord simply responds with, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”  Once again, Gideon questions the angel, this time with doubts of his own ability, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”  The Lord’s response is such a wonderful illustration of what I mentioned before about God giving us the will and the ability to do good.  The Lord responds to Gideon’s doubts about himself by saying, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”  God doesn’t build up Gideon’s self esteem or give him a pep talk.  He simply says, “I will be with you” and that is all that Gideon needs to overcome his enemies.

Gideon’s story continues in Judges 7 where he gathers an army of 32,000 men to go against nearly 135,000 enemy soldiers.  Despite the imbalance, God says to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’”  After sending all but 300 men home, God then tells Gideon, “Arise, go down against the camp [of the Midianites], for I have given it into your hand.”  And the Lord surely did.  In verses 21 and 22 we see God clearly working, fighting the battle for Gideon and delivering the Midianites into his hands.  All Gideon had to do was a mop up campaign, as Pastor Ted so often says.

While this may have been a rather lengthy introduction to the topic of being a warrior of the Lord, it is important for us to remember that we cannot rely on our own strength.  I know this isn’t new or revolutionary for many of you and I’ve talked about it in every single post so far but this is a reality that everything relies on.  If we don’t keep in mind that we are not fighting our battles alone, and that we cannot rely on our own strength, then we become proud, thinking that our own hands have saved us.

Be sure to watch out for part 2 where I discuss the character of a warrior of the Lord.  Also, if you want to get emails when I post a new topic, be sure to subscribe at the top right of the blog.

Job 14:4

Welcome to the PHD blog! I’ve been thinking about starting this for awhile as an extension of the weekend bible studies that I’ve been hosting for the high school guys.  Earlier this week, I finally had a name and even an idea for a first post. While my book review was necessary (and hopefully informative) it was merely what compelled me to actually stop thinking and start doing. Hopefully book reviews will be a regular feature here but my primary concern is with PHD. This opening post on purity is the true beginning. All the bible study guys know what PHD means, and I must apologize in advance to the ladies but I can’t divulge the full meaning as of yet. It is simply too much fun to keep you guessing. Anyway, this entry is the first installment of a three part series on PHD.

As a warning, this post covers the idea of sexual impurity. I would encourage you all to talk to your parents about this and possibly even read through this with them. It would be foolish to ignore their wisdom and wishes for you in this matter.

Out of all the things that young men struggle with, purity is probably the most difficult. While dealing with surging hormones, the culture around them is screaming sex at every turn. In every aspect of our society, sexually active (and promiscuous) young men are glorified and held up as examples of what a man should be. It is no wonder that 38 percent of teen boys deliberately access pornographic materials on the Internet every year (http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/webporn.aspx). This culture of “all sex all the time” has led to an unprecedented desensitization of America’s youth. In 2003, a study found that 62 percent of twelth graders had had sex (www.kff.org/youthhivstds/upload/U-S-Teen-Sexual-Activity-Fact-Sheet.pdf). Obviously there is something wrong here. This is not what God wants from teenagers.

So what exactly does God want? Does he want a guy with “swagger” who bags a babe a week? No! God demands Holiness. 1 Thessalonians 4:7 says, “For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.” Now for all of you who may think “well, I haven’t engaged in any sexual activity yet, so I’m doing pretty good,” take a look at Matthew 5:28, “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  We must remember that purity is not some sort of line or boundary to not cross. It isn’t as if you can still remain pure if you “just kiss but nothing else” or “look but don’t touch”.  Psalm 24:3-4 makes this perfectly clear, “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart…” What are your intentions? What do you desire in your heart? To worship God, or to bring pleasure to yourself? God wants our minds and hearts to be pure.  He wants nothing short of Holiness, but we are obviously not holy.  The sin of impurity is something that every man will struggle with in his life.  What can we possibly do then?

The story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11 is a heartbreaking account of the fall from grace of a powerful King, a man after God’s own heart. For those of you who don’t know the story, read it, it’s good. What begins as an act of laziness on David’s part, by staying in Jerusalem while he should have been out with his army, quickly devolves into a seedy story of adultery and murder as David steals the wife of another man and has him killed to cover up an unexpected pregnancy. David’s sins built on one another until he violated nearly every one of the ten commandments! After sending Nathan the Prophet (awesome name by the way), David sees his error and confesses his sins.

A beautiful response to Nathan’s challenge can be found in Psalm 51.  Take a moment to read it.  This psalm serves as an excellent model for all who have fallen into the sin of impurity.  David cries out for mercy (1,2), he confesses his sins (3-5), he begs God to cleanse him from his sins (7-9) and finally he humbly requests that God would “create in [him] a clean heart and renew a right spirit within [him]” (10). Rather than a man with swagger, God delights in the sacrifice of “a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart,” (17). To all those who suffer from the guilt of impurity, confess your sins and cry out to the Lord! If you do so, he is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). If you feel that what you have done is far more than God could ever forgive, you’re wrong. God takes the filthiest of rags off of us and clothes us in the righteousness that Christ earned by living a life we never could have lived (Zechariah 3, Romans 13:12b), and dying the death we deserved (Romans 6:23). What a comfort it is to know that, while we were yet sinners, God showed his love for us and sent his son to die on the cross to atone for our sins! (Romans 5:8)  Not only that, but he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and is with God the Father speaking in our defense! (1 John 2:1)

Now, you may be thinking, “this doesn’t exactly help me with purity on a daily basis”.  Purity in practice will be the topic of a future post but this is the starting point.  Without this, all the advice and techniques in the world would be meaningless.  If we know and are constantly reminded of all that God has done for us, it gives us reason and purpose.  Because of what God has done for us, we are called to a life in the pursuit of righteousness (2 Timothy 2:22).  Purity, H and D are all vital to this pursuit and all three will be discussed in future posts.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment.  If you don’t want the question to be public, you can always send me a private message on facebook or you can call me anytime.  Also be sure to check out the link to our sister site, the Grace Gurls blog, where my talented wife has her web extension for the girls bible study.

Recently a book has been coming up in conversations I’ve been having with kids in the Youth Group and I decided that it would be good to read it and see what the kids are reading these days. I’ve been pretty ignorant of “Christian Trends” my whole life so it wasn’t much of a surprise that I had never heard of Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris, although their names sounded familiar. Apparently they are the younger brothers of Joshua Harris, author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye. (Another trendy Christian book I’ve never read but hope to review soon.) Do Hard Things is a book, “written by teens for teens”, that challenges modern views of adolescence and encourages people to not waste their teen years as a break from responsibility. While the underlying premise is great, and I agree whole-heartedly, this book does have some major problems. Before I get to that though, lets take a look at…

The Good: Alex and Brett hit the nail on the head in Chapter 4 where they describe the dangers of not using your teen years as preparation for life. Too often people go through their life with the mentality that “high school is for fun, these are the best days of our lives” and then “college is a time to experiment” and “hey, I’m in my 20′s, the prime of life, I need to have all the fun I can”, and pay too little attention to their training for life. This book does serve as a wake up call to a generation and shows them that there is a better way and that even teenagers can make a difference in the world.  Now for…

The Bad: While they do mention that the teen years should be for training, they do little to develop this idea. In fact, they do little to develop many of the ideas that they present in this book. I find it quite funny that a book called Do Hard Things is so easy to read. In the first chapter they criticize books written for teenagers as being “dumbed down” and that you “never have to read anything twice” but after reading this book, I feel that it fits right into the same category that they’re so critical of. Now, there is nothing wrong with having a book that you don’t have to reread portions of to understand, but a good book is the type that you want to reread because the words have such profound meaning. While they may have missed out on introducing the ideas of discipline or training in godliness (I Timothy 4:7b-8) they do have a lot of ideas of how to do hard things. Unfortunately, these ideas lack an adequate explanation for why, which leads me to…

The Ugly: The thing that drove me crazy about this book was its nearly total disregard for God. God was never fully explained as the reason for doing the hard things they talked about (until you read the appendix which explains the gospel which “didn’t quite fit” anywhere else), and even the explanation there is hollow and empty. While God is mentioned at various points, it seems that the Harris brothers simply think that God will help us grow when WE do hard things. God is seen as a resource for strength when we act, not as the ultimate how and why for all that we do.

The one part of the whole book (besides the three pillars of the rebelution and the word rebelution) that made me want to scream and yell and throw the book across the room was the end of the chapter on collaboration. “I was only fifteen. It makes me wonder, what more is possible when TEENS work together?…Imagine what we could do with a team of one hundred people! What could you do with three people, or ten, or a hundred? Pray and plan. Then go for it.” This portion clearly illustrates the most blatant error of this book. What could teens do? Who cares? Instead, the question should be “what could God do through us”? Who needs hundreds of people when you have God on your side? God should be the reason for any of the hard things we do. Moreover, we are incapable of doing any good, apart from God.  The “hard things” we do, were prepared in advance for us by God (Ephesians 2:10), who gives us the will and ability to accomplish HIS work (Phillipians 2:13).  Sure, they mentioned prayer, which is good, but why and what should we pray? Alex and Brett Harris are silent on the reasons yet again.

The story of Gideon from Judges 7 is a clear example of the power and strength of the Lord as we face “hard things”. Gideon had gathered 32,000 men of Israel to go against the Midianites but God said, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’” In the end, God sends home everyone except for a group of 300 which go on, with the help of The Lord, to defeat the Midianites. Clearly numbers don’t matter to God.

Summary: While this book does have a compelling message that will resonate with young people, the perspective and reasons given for doing hard things are so skewed that its hardly worth reading. I give it ½ a star out of 5. There are plenty of better books that teenagers are capable of reading that will inspire them to do their Utmost for God’s Highest: Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper (I haven’t read it but a respected friend highly recommends it), Disciplines of a Godly Man by R. Kent Hughes, The Call by Oz Guinness. There is also Disciplines of a Godly Woman. I haven’t read it but if its anywhere near as good as the version for Men, it would be worth looking into.