Today in Blogworld 02.21.14

31 Days of Purity

In case you missed it yesterday, Tim Challies and I are joining together to encourage men to commit to 31 days of purity. Click the link to read Tim’s plug for the challenge.

10 Stages of the Creative Process

This is helpful.

5 Quotes that Luther Didn’t Actually Say

Time to update your sermon illustrations file.

Why I’m Glad Ronnie Floyd Will Be Nominated for SBC President

I am also glad for this nomination. As of now I’ll likely vote for Floyd.

I’m thinking of saving a couple bucks and signing up for this:

31 Days of Purity

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Last July I felt convicted to be more intentional in praying for my wife. I figured that it might help me to join with a few other guys and commit to using the month of August to pray every day for our wives. To that end I set up the 31 Day Pray For Your Wife challenge. I was astonished to see over 2,000 men commit to praying. And I’m even more astonished to see that this challenge is still going on every day—thanks to our free eBook and the P4W app. (All our challenges can be easily accessed here).

In October and January we prayed for our sons and daughters. Once again many people partnered with us in praying for our children. Half way through the pray for your son challenge a good friend asked if we could perhaps dedicate a month to praying for purity. This got my mind rolling.

Since that time I’ve had my eyes on March for a 31 day purity challenge. I’m happy to announce that starting today you can join the 31 Day Purity Challenge. I’m honored as well to partner with Tim Challies to impact as many people as we possibly can. You can sign up today…but before you do, let me give you a run down of what it will look like and try to answer a few questions.

What is it?

The 31 Day Purity Challenge will be similar to the other prayer challenges. I’ve written about half of them and Tim has written the other half. We will also have a few guest posts (from some people that you might know). Each day we’ll have a scripture passage, a short devotional, and then a prayer. Tim and I will post them on our respective sites and they’ll also be posted to our Facebook group.

This group, though, is different than the others. We are encouraging you to commit to 31 days of detox as well. This challenge will actually benefit you more if you can find a group of guys at your church to do this together. But we also have the Facebook group to assist in this. As we are praying we are also committing to aggressively pursuing purity in our lives.

What if I don’t struggle with porn?

When Tim wrote this article (When You’re at Your Best, Plan for Your Worst) I knew that it would be great to partner with him in this challenge. If the Lord has given you victory in this area then thank the Lord, but don’t stop battling. What Tim says here applies to you with this challenge:

There is a kind of weakness, a kind of vulnerability, that may come when we are convinced of our strength. It is when we are not being tempted, it is when we are standing strong in the Lord’s grace, that we ought to consider the times we will be weak and tempted and eager to sin. We need to assume such times will come and we need to use the moments of strength to put measures in place that will protect us when we are weak. –Tim Challies

Also, as you pray for yourself to continue in this you can partner with a guy in your life that might not be living in the same victory. Encourage him along.

What about ladies?

There is a possibility that we will have a similar challenge for ladies in the future. But this challenge is also for the ladies. Would you commit to praying for the men in your life? As you read through these pray for your husbands, sons, grandsons, etc. It would be a great blessing for you to quietly join them in praying for the victory of Christ in these areas.

We’ve created a 31 Days of Purity Support group on Facebook, for those that will be praying for the men that struggle in this area. You should join here..

How do I start?

First, pray about who could join you. Then ask them.

Secondly, go here and sign up for the 31 Day Prayer Challenge. That will be a great place to go for encouragement and to talk with other guys that are going through the same challenge.

Thirdly, consider purchasing Tim’s book Sexual Detox for only .99 on the Kindle edition. (There might be more discounts available later)

Today in Blogworld 02.20.14

One Great Question to Ask a Friend

I’m struggling to answer this question for myself.

An Improvement-Proof Gospel

Great reminder from Jared Wilson.

Pastor, Stop Lying

Ouch.

Calvinism Thursday

Dave Miller has lost his mind. If you like discussing Calvinism and if you like doing it on SBC Voices then today is your day.

Goats bouncing around on metal. It doesn’t get much better than this:

A Blogger’s Temptation

It’s Monday morning. I’m at my desk. And the clock reads 9:00 AM. Designated writing time.

I read through a few articles, a few books, I look through some of the random ideas that I’ve had throughout the week. And I start to work on one of them.

And then she whacks me in the back of the head.

The Muse.

The goddess of inspiration.

Articles don’t normally flow this freely. And this is going to be a good one. I’ll likely win an award for most traffic generated by one blog post. Digits will drop off my Alexa rank. Newspapers will call. I might even get a letter from the President.

And so I get to writing. I spend a good portion of my writing time crafting this gem. At least an hour. I have it exactly as I want it. Precisely how the Muse has inspired me to write. It feels good. My points are cogent and powerful. I’m even convinced that they are utterly true.

Then I delete the whole thing.

—

He’s been in the wilderness for forty days now. He’s hungry and he’s tired. His mission is to create a kingdom of glad-hearted worshippers. He’s destined to be King. But it must come through trial. Through suffering. Through death. And then the exaltation.

And then he comes.

The Tempter.

The god of this world.

His solution is simple. It seems so wise. His points are cogent and powerful. To the eyes of any passerby it’d look like the greatest deal ever offered. “You were destined to be King, eh? Here you go. I’ll give you every bit of this, if you fall down and worship me. It’s all yours. The entire kingdom. The world and all of its glory will bow at your feet.” (Russell Moore does a great job of explaining what is at stake here)

Jesus didn’t bite.

And neither should we…

—

Bloggers face the daily temptation of hitting publish too soon and for all the wrong reasons. When an article flows so smoothly, when it feels inspired, and when we believe it is truthful we can far too quickly assume that all of this was from the Spirit.

But is it divisive? Such a piece might be for the most part truthful. It might be well written. It might even be written with the best of intentions. But if it is divisive I’m given pause. Is this from Lady Muse or is this wisdom from above?

Is my goal selfish ambition? Am I hitting publish to further the kingdom of God or my own version of said kingdom? If selfish ambition is in my heart then I have to question whether or not this post is of the Spirit. (James 3:13-18)

Bloggers, let us not assume that the enemy would not seek to hijack our writing ministry. Let us not assume that just because something comes easy and feels like it’s inspired that it necessarily is inspired by the Spirit. Give pause before you publish.

Don’t bite on the tempter’s proposal. Love the Lord and His glory more than the fleeting pleasures of retweets, facebook likes, and heavy blog traffic.