I am still alive.

Hello blog readers (if I still have any),

I hope that you are well. It has been way too long since I posted on here. In fact it has been over three months. Life has been a little crazy over the last few months and has kept me from being able to post anything. I apologize.

The end of April brought the conclusion of my Greek class. I then launched almost immediately into reading some 1300 pages for my next class. In the midst of this, my wife, Amy, and I made the final decision to move to Louisville, KY to attend seminary full-time.

We moved out of our house in May and moved in with my parents. I then finished up my job at McLean Bible Church, went to Myrtle Beach for a week, came back and did a lot of last minute things before moving to Louisville this past weekend.

We are here now. I am officially unemployed and awaiting the start of my five classes. So far I have about 29 books for my classes.

I wanted to make this post to let you know that I fully intend to become a more regular blogger again. In fact, my plan is to relaunch my blog in the coming weeks. Once I do that I will make another post on here with the address change so that you can stay updated.

Thanks for bearing with me and for being a faithful reader. I look forward to interacting with you in the near future.

.grace and peace.

Justin

Lecrae: Don't Waste Your Life

I have recently started listening to Lecrae. If you like hip-hop this is solid stuff. The lyrics to every song are challenging and convicting. They are like mini-sermons with good theology. One of the songs is called Don't Waste Your Life. Below is the official video for the song.

Lecrae and others will be on a DWYL tour this year. You should go check them out. I hope to.



*If you are reading this via RSS or email you will need to click on the link to view the video on the actual blog.

(HT- Justin Taylor)

Well, it is official...

I am heading to seminary full-time in the fall. I will become a full-time student again after 6.5 years in retirement. After a lot of prayer, counsel, divine provision, and thinking Amy and I decided that it would be best for me to finish my Master of Divinity sooner rather than later.

It is a bittersweet time as I have enjoyed my last five years at McLean Bible Church in the young adult ministry and at our Loudoun Campus. The thing I will miss the most are the incredible men and women of God that I have served with over the last five years.

My time will end at MBC sometime at the end of June or beginning of July. Amy and I are hoping to move to Louisville, KY sometime in late July or early August depending on our housing situation in Louisville. I hope to finish my degree by December 2010.

You may ask, "What will you do when you are done with school?" Good question. I am not sure yet. We will spend the next year and a half praying about what is next in ministry. I still have a strong desire to plant a church, so perhaps that. What I do know is that I want to preach the gospel, lead people to follow Jesus, and make sold out, passionate disciples of Jesus. Where that will happen is yet to be seen. I have thought about planting a church in Knoxville, TN, Northern Virginia, and the Northeast. All very different places.

I hope to keep the blog going while in school, so please keep reading! Pray for us in our new adventure. We are very excited to see what God is going to do with this season of our lives.

.peace.

Celebrating the Resurrection

With the passing of our celebration of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ this past weekend, I had a thought that I wanted to pass along for your consideration:

Every day should be a day that we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I find that many people go through their lives regularly forgetting to celebrate and think about the death and resurrection of the Savior. I do not believe this is purposeful but, rather, due to passivity. In other words, it isn’t that people are willingly ignoring the reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but that they choose not to purposefully think about them.

I know that I am guilty of this. However, I have been challenged to think and meditate on this more every day, not just once a year at Easter.

I want to challenge you to do this in your own life. How can you be more intentional about meditating on the fact that it is through the efficacious death of Jesus and the victorious resurrection of Jesus that you are made spiritually alive and reconciled to the living God? What do you need to change in your life to make this a foundational piece of each day?

Do not forget Romans 5:8—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

What an amazing truth! While we were still in the midst of sin, enemies of God, in utter rebellion—right then—Jesus bore the weight and penalty of our sin on the cross.

Thinking about this everyday will change the way you live life and go about your day. Celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ every day, not just once a year.

1 Corinthians 15:54b-57-

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Meditating on the Gospel

I am studying 1 Peter with my friend Mark on Thursday mornings. It has been a phenomenal study thus far. I leave each week excited and fired up for the gospel and the glory of God.

We recently studied 1 Peter 2:24-25:
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. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

These are some powerful verses that contain some powerful truths about the gospel. I keep meditating on them and thinking about them. What does it mean that Jesus bore my sins in his body? What does it mean to die to sin and live to righteousness? What does it mean that I have been healed by his wounds? What does it mean that Jesus is the Shepherd and Overseer of my soul?

So much in so few words. This is the gospel. This is the glorious and magnificent good news of Jesus Christ.

As we draw near to Easter, a time when we remember the sacrifice of Jesus and his victory over death, I would encourage you to meditate on 1 Peter 2:24-25 and ask God to move you to a more worshipful lifestyle of radical obedience and reverent fear because of the amazing reality of your redemption and regeneration.

Thoughts from John Owen on the Glory of Christ

You know I love me a little J.O. I am currently reading John Owen’s The Glory of Christ. I am only in the first part of the book, but it is already blowing my mind. I wanted to share a challenging and thought provoking quote with you.

“There are some who profess to be strict, disciplined Christians, but who never put aside time to meditate on the glory of Christ. Yet they tell us that they desire nothing more than to behold his glory in heaven forever. They are being wholly inconsistent. It is impossible that someone who never meditates with delight on the glory of Christ here in this world, who does not make every effort to behold it by faith as it is revealed in Scripture, should ever have any real gracious desire to behold it in heaven. It is sad, therefore, that many can find time to think much on earthly, foolish things, but have no heart, no desire to meditate on this glorious object. What is this faith and love they claim to have?”

I want to challenge you to intentionally meditate on and think about the gloriousness of Christ regularly. Read the Scriptures looking for it (Hint: It is everywhere!). What is keeping you from beholding Jesus’ glory?

Owen says that many cannot meditate on this glory “because their minds are so cluttered up with earthly things.” Get rid of those earthly things.

Philippians 4:8 says: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

If Christ is truly our delight and our treasure we will not have a problem making him the object of all of our thoughts and affections. This takes discipline and practice, but I believe it is well worth it.

Meditate on the glory of Jesus this week.

In His Joy

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Matthew 13:44

Can people tell that you value Jesus more than anything by the way that you live?

That is what this parable gets at. In one sentence Jesus says that we should value the kingdom of God, the gospel, our new life in Christ more than anything else. We should be willing to sacrifice everything else in our life in order to gain the ultimate treasure, Jesus.

Notice that in his joy the man sells everything to get the treasure. The world would look at him and think he is nuts for selling everything to buy a field. But the man knew and understood something that the world did not—within this field is a much more valuable prize. Selling everything is secondary compared to the value of what he would receive.

The same is true for our spiritual life. It is worth laying down our lives, taking up the cross, and following the narrow road in order to experience the joy of knowing Jesus, the ultimate treasure.

Remember Jesus words in another passage: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matthew 16:25).

Is that how you are living? Are you living in a way that communicates that everything else is rubbish and trash compared to knowing and following Jesus? When other people look at your life what would they say you value most?

Treasure Jesus this week.

Religion and Church Planting

As I continue to pray and think about whether or not God wants me to plant a church as a part of my ministry I am often torn between where I would go if I did plant a church.

Al Mohler, President of Southern Seminary, recently posted a blog with some interesting data that the Gallup organization gathered in regard to religiosity in America. 350,000 people were asked: “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”

I will let you read Dr. Mohler’s blog for yourself (it is very good). The data was informative, confirming, and not that surprising. Basically, there really is a Bible-belt in America. The most religious states are those in the South. While the most non-religious states are in the Northwest and Northeast.

As I consider church planting this data leads me to two possible conclusions about where to go to plant a church. First, there is a clear need for Bible-believing, gospel-preaching churches in the Northeast. A friend of mine recognized this and is in the beginning stages of planting a church passionate for the gospel in New Jersey called Jacob’s Well. There are many in this area that have never darkened the door of a church and if they have it is either liberal theologically or dead spiritually.

The second possible conclusion is to plant a church in the Bible-belt. You may say, “Why would you do that when there are so many religious people there already?” Good question. They key word here is religious. As Mohler points out, many in the South consider themselves to be religious and follow a cultural Christianity, but are not regenerate Christ-followers who truly understand, believe, and live out the true gospel. It stops at religion for them and nothing more. They need to hear the gospel.

Sometimes I think it might be harder to plant a church in the South because you have to first convince a large amount of the population that they are not in fact Christians and then re-teach them the true gospel so that they might become true followers of Christ.

Either way, there is a clear and growing need for passionate, gospel-preaching churches to be planted throughout the United States whether that is to reach those in the Northeast and Northwest who are admittedly not followers of Christ or to reach those in the South who are deceived to believe that they are true followers of Christ.

Pray that God would clearly show me what he would have me to do in the future. Perhaps you could also pray and see what God would have you do about this as well.