Pray For Your Son: 31 Day Challenge—Day Nine

Mike Leake 1 Comment

Day Nine: That he would love the church

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. –John 13:34-35

Many children that grow up in churches are walking away. (Though some statistics are quite misleading). I can’t help but think that some of the reason is that our children have never really learned to love the bride of Christ. Our sons can get caught in the crossfire of petty church fights—he can also cause them. The love that he has for the church is proportional to his love for Christ. Let us pray that our sons will love the church, serve the church, and be loyal to the church.

Lord, thank you for your church that you have redeemed by your blood. I pray that my son would love her, in all of her stains, warts, and failings. Help him to bleed for your Bride. Cause him to see the necessity of covenanting with a local church. Give him a servants heart. Help him to love the Bride the way that you love him, so that all may see your greatness. Amen.

How You Fell

Mike Leake 1 Comment

Wiping away tears from his eyes, the once confident man expresses his dismay, “How did this happen, I had such strong faith?”

And he did. He’s not the only one shocked. If you asked his pastor to give a list of the top 10 people that would never fall like this, he’d have been on that list. If you needed someone to counsel young couples going through marital strife, this was the guy. He seemed to have a way of helping young men to become better husbands. This guy had a faith in the Lord that was secretly envied by many in the congregation.

Now he’s an adulterer.

You’re probably thinking, “ah, this guy was just a hypocrite. He was trying to help other marriages because he didn’t want to face his own”. But he wasn’t. And there weren’t warning signs. No double life. No deep dark secrets. His fall came swift. And now everybody is confused wondering what in the world happened to this guy. How did he fall like this?

How He Fell

I wrote earlier that his fall was swift. That’s not totally true. It was actually a long time coming. Nobody—especially this guy—would have suspected it. But seeds for a fall were planted years ago.

Somewhere along the way he became secure in his faith and less dependent on Christ. There is a world of difference between the two. His budding confidence in his faith caused him to slowly direct his gaze away from Christ. He became spiritually self-dependent. It was a gospel-sounding self-dependence, thus making it more deadly.

Secure in his faith he started reading the Bible differently. Places like Proverbs 7:6-9 no longer rattled his soul.

For at the window of my house I have looked out through my lattice, and I have seen among the simple, I have perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense, passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness.

Proverbs 7 once warned him. Now he’s not the guy on the street, in his mind he’s the wise man peering through his window, gazing at a world of fools. But not him. He’s not a fool. He’s strong. He’s confident. He’s secure in his faith. God has worked more grace in his life.

When he went to get groceries he figured that he was strong enough to walk the streets of fools. After all, he’s not a fool—he’s a believer in the risen Lord Jesus. He has the Spirit. Therefore, he can handle things that would cause a lesser man to fall.

And then he fell…

Increase Our Faith

In Luke 17:5, the apostles come to Jesus and ask him to increase their faith. Jesus’ response seems strange. He says, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” His point isn’t about how to transport mulberry trees. His point is that what really matters is not the vivacity of their faith but the object.

Jesus then tells a parable that highlights our continual dependence on grace. I read Luke 17:5-10, as the disciples asking for an increase in faith and the Lord Jesus saying, “How about I increase your dependence on me?”

A radical dependence on the Lord is what is needed. Placing confidence in our faith is just as shaky of a foundation as putting confidence in our wealth, our power, or our own abilities.

The only certain foundation is the work of Jesus Christ. While our eyes are fixed on Him, we’ll see ourselves rightly. We aren’t the wise man looking upon fools parading in front of harlots. That holy position belongs to Jesus. We are the fool. Only our radical dependence on Him, and upon His wisdom, will cause us to walk down a different street.

Pray For Your Son: 31 Day Challenge—Day Eight

Mike Leake 2 Comments

Today’s prayer comes from Brian McMillen

Day Eight: That he would hold fast to the Word preached to him

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2

I have two children that have professed faith in Christ at a young age, followed by baptism. My heart rejoices and my cup overflows that they have been rescued from Satan’s clutches, and that they have been bought with the blood of Christ. At the same time, my heart also trembles in light of such early conversions. I know all too well that early professions of faith still require a daily holding fast to God’s Word.

An early profession of faith is a flimsy foundation for confidence. Let us then pray that our sons would hold fast to the Word, and therefore, have a surety of their conversion. May they exalt Christ in everything. I pray that my little boys—when they become men—will stand upon the Word that they have held fast to since a tender age.

Father, save my children. Daily, God save them from an eternity separated from You. Make yourself known to them, use his parents as vessels to point them to You. Let this jar of clay somehow show them that Christ is my most precious treasure. Help them to see that it is solely because of Him that we can even take our next breath. Let my sons stand firm on the word they have received and in which they stand. Do what only You can, Father- work, move, save these young souls. For Your glory and in Your good name.

Brian McMillen is a Jesus lover, husband, and father to four amazingly cute kids. When he’s not busy entertaining those around him with his witty humor, he enjoys playing guitar, fishing, and cheering for the Royals.

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This prayer from Brian M. comes with a story. Brian, like his two boys, had made a profession of faith at a young age, followed by baptism. He writes:

The remainder of my childhood and teenage years were spent swimming in a cesspool of self- exalting and Christ-belittling carnality.  I cared very little for God and the things of God.  I became addicted to pornography in middle school, an addiction that would follow me through college and wedding vows.

I spent very little time in the Word and not surprisingly missed the precious words of Paul to the church at Corinth.  It wasn’t until my junior year of college that I heard the Word preached, that my dead heart began to beat, that Christ became precious.  “In which you stand…..If you hold fast to the word”.

Suddenly–upon actually hearing the Word preached–walking an aisle at age 5, praying a prayer, and juvenile sincerity seemed like a flimsy foundation. I realized that there was not, nor had ever been fruit in my life. There was no evidence of salvation. I had never taken a stand on the gospel, had never held fast. Salvation was no longer ‘say a prayer and you’re in’.

I thank God He would choose me based solely on His good pleasure, that He would save me apart from myself, that the Word was received and I can hold fast, that my regenerate heart is being daily sanctified.  I pray this over my wife and children, and specifically here three amazing boys.  I want them to be sure of their conversion, I want them to exalt Christ in everything, I want them to hold fast to the word they’ve heard preached and have taken a stand on, even at such a tender age.  Like Paul, I wish myself a curse if they would know the pleasure of being children of the Most High.

What To Do When the Early Church Freaks You Out

Mike Leake 1 Comment

“[Jesus] took human flesh from the ever-virgin Mary.” –Athanasius

Athanasius is a theological stud. If it weren’t for the influence of Athanasius we’d all likely be Arians, and saying silly things like, “There once was a time when he was not”. We Protestants are big fans of Athanasius.

But it kind of freaks us out when he says things like this. Here we are, a mere 300 years after the ascension of Jesus, and church leaders like Athanasius are talking about the perpetual virginity of Mary. How could something like this develop in only 300 years?

If Athanasius can say things like this—and not be soundly rebuked, even though he is Athanasius—this should tell us that belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary wasn’t new with him. Should we then conclude, that this is something the apostles taught and believed? Could something get so “off” in only 300 years?

Church and State

In 1802 Thomas Jefferson, writing to Danbury Baptists said this:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

One of the hallmarks of the New World was a freedom to exercise religion apart from any government interference. The separation of church and state meant that the government could not interfere with churches. It did not mean that the state must be wholly secular. The concern was to provide freedom of religion, not a freedom from religion.

Fast forward to 1992 and Justice Scalia would refer to this same statement and the Establishment Clause as a bulldozer:

In holding that the Establishment Clause prohibits invocations and benedictions at public school graduation ceremonies, the Court – with nary a mention that it is doing so – lays waste a tradition that is as old as public school graduation ceremonies themselves, and that is a component of an even more longstanding American tradition of nonsectarian prayer to God at public celebrations generally. As its instrument of destruction, the bulldozer of its social engineering, the Court invents a boundless, and boundlessly manipulable, test of psychological coercion…

Not even two hundred years and a phrase that was meant to protect religion from the government was turned to protect the government from any religious influence.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you see the point that I am making. In our very nation we’ve seen a complete turn of a phrase in only 200 years. It’s not too much, then, to think that 300 years removed from the early church that a doctrine like the perpetual virginity of Mary could gain traction. Just as in the case with the meaning of church and state being turned, so also the status of Mary within the Roman Catholic Church took time. Just because it’s early doesn’t mean it’s biblical.

My point is less about Mariology (I hope to make a lengthier comment on that later this week) and more about how we look at early church history. We can put far too much weight on something that is 150-200 years removed from the founding of the Church, simply because we are 2,000 years removed. At the end of the day whether or not something is biblical is what must be considered.

So, don’t freak out if something really early seems very non-biblical. And also don’t place that early tradition over the clear testimony of Scripture.