Borrowed Light

Pray With Your Spouse: Day Ten

February 13, 2017Mike Leake

Day Ten: God’s Keeping Power

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— Jude 24

Sometimes it is good for us in prayer to simply meditate on a great truth from Scripture and thank God. Marriage has many terrific seasons. Sometimes those terrific seasons are borne out of seasons of trial and difficulty. It is encouraging to know that God is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us before himself without fault and with great joy. This is where God is taking you. Your marriage is a means that God is using to make you more like His Son and He will accomplish His purposes. So, let us take heart and have confidence in God’s keeping power. Today, no matter if you are on the mountain or in a valley God is at work. Let today be simply a day of adoration. Thank God for his keeping power.

Lord, if it were not for your keeping power we could not stand. Our marriage would only be a means to further our joy in ourselves. Even good gifts, like marriage, would be used to rob you of glory and ultimately to destroy us. But you have purposed something greater. You have purposed to make our marriages further our joy in Christ. We know that as we grow in Christ our joy in one another will also deepen. So we thank you today for your keeping power. Thank you for holding us up and keeping us from stumbling headlong into hell. We look to our ultimate rescue in Jesus. Amen.

The Peculiar Danger of a Preachers Personality

February 10, 2017Mike Leake

Because of my role in helping select preachers for the Pastor’s Conference I’ve listened to quite a few sermons (or at least parts of quite a few sermons) this past year. Honestly, I was blown away by all of the sound preaching that we have in the SBC. We could easily have filled up the next five years worth of solid preachers.

There was actually something I expected to hear quite a bit of but I only heard it a handful of times. But when I did…oh, boy. It might be accidental, but I’m almost certain it is not. What I’m talking about are preachers who must listen to their favorite celebrity preacher so much that they start to sound like them. I heard a few David Platt’s and even a couple Adrian Rogers’. I know I’ve done it too. Who hasn’t listened to a Paul Washer sermon and then the very next time you preach have a tendency to get a bit more fired up and dramatic in your pauses?

But like I said, for the most part what I heard where several unique preachers. That was refreshing. It tells me that college and seminary professors telling us to be ourselves is being heeded. It looks like this was even a topic in the late 1700’s. Speaking to the Eclectic Society, Josiah Pratt said this:

Every man is unique, both in mind and experience. Every man, therefore, has his own way: and is natural and graceful only in that way. But it is a great error to think there is no danger peculiar to him. Every man has his peculiar danger, as well as his peculiar forte. A wise man will remember this, and guard. –Josiah Pratt

Pratt makes an interesting point here, though. Being ourselves isn’t only a positive thing—there are also peculiar dangers which accompany our unique preaching styles and personalities. We would do well to consider these potential dangers.

Those with a great sense of humor can be engaging in the pulpit, but they can also distract from God’s Word by their wit. Those who are very learned can make stellar arguments but might struggle with losing their audience.

So what are your strengths of personality and style and what peculiar dangers might accompany these?

Be yourself, but be aware.

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Photo source: here

Pray With Your Spouse: Day Nine

February 9, 2017Mike Leake

Day Nine: Throwing Away Our Record Books

Love…keeps no record of wrongs. –1 Corinthians 13:5

When sinners live with other sinners it is not surprising that we will sin against one another. I suppose if we kept an actual notebook of the wrongs we’ve done and the wrongs done against us we could fill a couple shelves of notebooks. Some of these would be minor infractions that are easily forgotten. Others might be deeper seated wounds, real issues that need to be worked through. We are told to not keep a record of these—this means that we will deal with these offenses and not become resentful towards one another.

The Corinthians had been keeping a list of wrongs towards one another. Their resentment towards one another was fracturing their church. The same will happen to our marriages if we keep these record books.But love will burn them to the ground. We gain nothing by keeping record. Instead let us forgive one another, take our wounds to Christ, and live in the freedom of forgiveness. Pray today that we will cast of the shackles of resentment.

Father, if you kept a record of wrongs we could not stand? But you do not. You know our frame, you remember that we are dust and you choose to forgive. You graciously cast our sin as far as the east is from the west and remember them no more. Help us to burn the record books as well. We acknowledge that we gain nothing from hanging on to these offenses. Help us to deal with them in healthy and appropriate ways. Give us hearts ready to forgive and a love which is quick to cover offenses. Amen.