A Few Points from...

A Few Points from John Piper

 

   These few points come from my notes of a John Piper’s Ask Pastor John podcast, I pray they are a blessing to you and your ministry. Please share them with your flock, especially those young men who are called to be ministers. By all means I encourage you to have some savings and multiple streams of income (as much as possible) even though you are a minister, but kill the desire to use ministry as a tool for “riches.”

 

  #1 Kill the desire to be rich in ministry—don’t want this.

  #2 Don’t just accumulate more and more if the Lord increases your finances/resources, but grow your giving.

  #3 Be transparent with a board of elders. Let them know what your entire income, from all its streams, is.

   #4 Live simply and model for your flock that your true treasure is in Heaven.

   #5 Have a leadership structure that includes multiple elders where you serve as a “chief among equals.” In other words, you each get one vote—you do not dominate and rule the group just because you’re the minister.

A Few Points from John Piper

A Few Points from John Piper

 

   These few points come from my notes of a John Piper’s Ask Pastor John podcast, I pray they are a blessing to you and your ministry. Please share them with your flock, especially those young men who are called to be ministers. By all means I encourage you to have some savings and multiple streams of income (as much as possible) even though you are a minister, but kill the desire to use ministry as a tool for “riches.”

 

  #1 Kill the desire to be rich in ministry—don’t want this.

  #2 Don’t just accumulate more and more if the Lord increases your finances/resources, but grow your giving.

  #3 Be transparent with a board of elders. Let them know what your entire income, from all its streams, is.

   #4 Live simply and model for your flock that your true treasure is in Heaven.

   #5 Have a leadership structure that includes multiple elders where you serve as a “chief among equals.” In other words, you each get one vote—you do not dominate and rule the group just because you’re the minister.

Thought 248: Our Expectations from Ryan's devotional book series Thoughts

Thought 248

Our Expectations

    Are your expectations in line with the Word of God? In our modern culture, rationalism and humanism abound. Rationalism trusts the mind of its user—logic is its all-consuming idol. Humanism vaunts itself up as a form of atheism which contributes success to your actions and yours alone by saying that God had no role in helping or equipping you to accomplish or excel. Amidst a world full of scientific rationalists and self-confident humanists it is very easy to fall prey to their philosophies. Today, take some time to ask the Holy Spirit to help you to examine your heart for any false expectations you have and delve into the Word to learn what God’s proper expectations are for you.

Thought 217: Why Do Young Men "chase" Young Women? from Ryan's devotional book series Thoughts

Thought 217

Why Do Young Men “chase” Young Women?

One word L-U-S-T!

      Sadly, many times young men chase young women with lustful intentions. Some run after the ladies to obtain a meaning in their life (to fill a void for companionship or to satisfy a false understanding of love) or to have “fun” (they use the woman for a while, while she is fun—just like a video game, an object—but when interest is lost and the thrilling hype is no longer there, they “trade” her for someone else that catches their eye).

      O Christians, have young men made a fatal mistake in how they ‘go after’ a young woman? Have they ever read Proverbs? Do they not know of anything that will last them through life?

     Sadly, many young men know only worthless things: thrill, pleasure, laziness, and  distraction. I have committed all four of these worthless acts—and pursued them! in my youth—but I have learned that they are hollow and deceptive, they are lies of Satan. I used to use video games as a drug. When I was tired, discouraged, depressed, or confused, I would just turn on a video game and tune it all out. Just letting a distraction free up my mind. O the folly! I should have been turning to the Lord on my knees in fervant prayer, rather than such a worldly solution! I pursued the way I felt (pleasure), I was slothful, and I fed on the lustful thrill of chasing young women for my own selfish pleasure—I didn’t really care about them or about a marriage created by God. But I found a real relationship with the Lord and the became Holy Spirit my teacher! Then, I was led by the Word and convictions. My faith has become my life instead of an accessory to my life.

      May we all recognize the follies of sin and it’s many rooted lusts and all turn our hearts to the Lord!

Read Matthew 6.

Thought 212: The Seriousness of Sexual Sin from Ryan's devotional book series Thoughts

Thought 212

The Seriousness of Sexual Sin

Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything. “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 (NIV1984)

Remember Your First Love

Thought 167

Remember: Your first love

      A man from my church took some time to give me this piece of advice: remember you first love. He wasn’t talking about a young woman who would become my wife, he was talking about Christ. He told me to persevere— that if I stumble and fall to get back up, not to fall down and stay down, and to do everything I can not to fall, but to get up if I do. He related these things to the story of Marry and Martha. He told me that I must remember to sit and listen to Jesus and not always be “busy” like Martha. Martha was so busy that she cried out to God to have Marry help her, but she was supposed to sit and listen by putting everything else aside.

How can you ‘remember your first love today’?

Daily Devotion from Ryan Marks devotional book series: Thoughts

Thought 165

Prayer

   An elder at my church, gave me two words of advice once. One of them was prayer. He told me that people are always praying for a great event to happen, but they fail to realize that prayer is the GREAT EVENT. You get to talk to the God of the Universe! The richest dude ever! The King of Kings!

    Prayer is important. I encourage the young men and boys that I mentor and teach to pray for their future wives now. Few of them have probably even met her yet, but they can pray for her everyday starting today. They can pray for her salvation, that she is guided by the Word, that she is grows in her spiritual walk, for her faith, etc… In the same way, young women, begin praying now for that guy. Pray for his boldness to stand for God, pray that he doesn’t fall prey to lust, pray for him to persevere, to love God, that he would beware of the danger of compromise and not just ‘go-with-the-flow,’ that he will initiate the relationship between you and him, etc…

      I felt directed by God to start praying for my future wife about a year and a half or two years ago. Since that time my Dad and another mentor, on separate occasions, have prayed for her with me. That mentor told me that the most important relationship I will ever have on this earth is with my wife. I will LOVE her more than my mom or my dad. I know that he is right, but I cannot do anything for that amazing woman yet . . . but pray. . . . Will you pray? . . .  Will seek God about a “romantic relationship” first or follow your heart?  . . .  Will you obey if God says wait?  . . . What if God says, “Not at All!”? . . .  Will you stand, even though your friends fall around you in the “love game”? Will you focus on God or girls (or guys) first? . . . . Remember: where your focus goes the power flows.