If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.

John Piper

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From: http://truthcrossing.com/

It is interesting to see this belief system on the rise (at least according to Time), because the teaching of the most prominent churches today is not usually of a sovereign, all powerful, all knowing God.  Most churches choose to teach a weaker faith where the individual is in control of all aspects of the relationship with the god of his/her choosing. 

From my perspective, the God of the bible, when taught the way the Bible teaches Him is not as popular as the god who looks and acts like Santa Claus.  The God I know is in charge, no matter how bad the situation seems.  He is powerful enough to do anything, knows everything, and is everywhere.  That God is deserving of worship.  That is one of the main ideas behind Calvinism…

Calvinism (sometimes called the Reformed tradition, the Reformed faith, or Reformed theology) is a theological system and an approach to the Christian life that emphasizes the rule of God over all things.^[1] It was developed by several theologians, but it bears the name of the French reformer John Calvin because of his prominent influence on it and because of his role in the confessional and ecclesiastical debates throughout the 16th century.

from Wikipedia

But don’t misunderstand me, I would not say I’m a Calvinist anymore than I would say I’m a Baptist.  I follow Christ and His word, the Bible.  When a belief system teaches something that is Biblical, it is correct, but when it teaches something that is contrary (or extrabiblical) to the teaching of scripture, that belief system has gotten it wrong.  In other words, when men control a belief system, it can often become a religion void of truth and love for Christ, but when men merely interpret the Bible and allow it to be the standard, people meet and grow in love for Jesus.

I think Calvin got it right, becasue I think Calvin understood what the Bible said.  Therefore, I am a Bible believing Christ follower who happens to agree with Calvin’s understanding of some of the biggest theological concepts from the Bible.

Mark Driscoll, of the “new calvinists” mentioned in the Time article has written a couple of blog posts about this topic, I encourage you to check them out, and especially give me your thoughts on His first post.

• Time Magazine Names New Calvinism 3rd Most Powerful Idea
• John Calvin on Theology
• More Thoughts on Time Magazine and New Calvinism

I’ve also got to say, that I don’t see how you can have a heart for people either in a general compassionate human way or in a soul loving Christian way and be pro-abortion. I don’t see how you could reconcile being for the death of those that God wills to save. And don’t hear me being one of those hard edged conservatives who hates everyone who has had an abortion, I am not. There is forgiveness in the cross. So there will be no judgment in me. But I feel that it is irresponsible and murderous for a society to support the deaths of so many little Rachael’s and Isaiah’s.

What do you think?

Anyway you see it, this is a great perspective about how we should see missions. And remember I didn’t write it, so don’t get mad at me, although, I guess, it is totally legit to be mad at me for agreeing with it. So agree, or disagree, it will not make it any less true.

If you are interested in getting this book, visit DesiringGod.org or click on the link below to be taken to the page for that book. You might also want to check out their resource library which does have a lot of books available to read through a PDF for free, can’t beat that.

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Ps 97:1). “Let the peoples praise thee, O God; let all the peoples praise thee! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps 67:3-4).

But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord…I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High” (Ps 104:34, 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.”

–John Piper
Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, 2nd Ed.

Hmmm. That last paragraph seems to say what I have been saying all along, although much more eloquently, that people who enjoy Jesus will bring Jesus, the true need, to the nations, while people who do not enjoy Him as ultimate can not be effective in bringing Him to them because their pleasure is not in Him, but rather in other things they worship as ultimate. So, in order to effectively reach the lost we must treasure Christ as ultimate in our lives, or we risk bringing our prosperity to them as blessing instead of giving them what they really need: Jesus.

I am becoming more and more convinced of the importance of good Bible teaching in the lives of Christians. I think without good Bible teaching Christians can never fully understand who Jesus is and why they should live for Him.

I don’t think that there is a worse message that the church supports other than the idea that all of the worlds hurting and pain can be cured by the blessing called America. We think that all the world could be fixed if we could just export our culture. We think that taking vacation time from work (so that we still get paid) and heading over seas for a weeks worth of work in a third world country is going to dramatically change the lives of people living in poverty. But the convenience of our culture makes it easy to slip on our iPods to drown out the cries of the hurting, miles away, as we lounge by the pool in our upscale hotels.

My point has nothing to do with iPods or iPhones or any other iProduct. It is this: if Americans can’t decide what is truly important to them, if Christians don’t truly believe that Jesus is more important to them than their stuff, then how can we really change the world. If we see simply people who have less money than us and houses that are falling apart and have pity on them for that, but don’t see their infinitely greater spiritual need and tell them of the hope of Christ, we have failed.

The call of Christ is to desire Him above all else and to share the hope that we have in Him with others. If necessary, we are called to sell all that we have and love people for His glory. And we can do this because He is what satisfies. So when the church won’t stand up and say that, one could argue that if we can’t truly stand for Christ amongst our plenty, that it is very unlikely that we will stand for Him amongst the little of the poor? Is it that we feel sorry for them that they do not have electricity, or is it that we truly, deep down, understand that it is Christ who can satisfy them and that He is the most important thing that we can share with them?

The gospel isn’t about making lives more successful, it is about hope for eternity, hope in the midst of loss and poverty. I saw this video the other day and have been haunted by it. I think there are too few people standing up and saying the things that John Piper says in this video. And I pray that people would truly see the value of Christ, and that our love for the lost and hurting would be far stronger than our love for gadgets which fades as soon as something else catches our eyes.

Life is not about moralism or religion. Life is about Jesus. A Christian isn’t someone who is good, he is someone who glorifies Christ. I believe that if Christ is not central in your life, and that He is only the means to the end of Heaven, that you don’t really understand the gospel. The gospel is not about creation, it is about the creator. The gospel isn’t even about Heaven (which Jesus created), but about Jesus Himself. The gospel begins and ends with Christ. And if our lives don’t reflect that, we show a great ignorance of the greatness of Christ.

Jesus is everything. He is our sustainer and our life, and without Him all of life is a waste. And when we live like the rest of the world and act like being good is good enough we belittle the glory of Christ.

If Christ is not made much of in our lives, they are wasted. We exist to make Him appear in the world as what He really is – magnificent. If our life and death do not show the worth and wonder of Jesus, they are wasted.

John Piper
from “Don’t Waste Your Life” p. 64

Jesus didn’t come to earth to make us good Christian people, He came to change our lives so that we might bring Him glory. The gospel is more than living morally and believing the facts about Jesus. It is more than being good and doing good, it is about the glory of Christ.

We exist to show His glory to everyone we can. We exist to be Christ to others because of Christ in us. But more than anything, we exist to make His name famous, to proclaim His excellence, and to live for His glory, and not our own.