“Do you ever wonder how it’s possible to be so blessed and so unhappy at the same time?…To have more than any generation in history and yet still crave more? What’s wrong with us?” (pg 12)

Those questions really start to make you think. Why am I so unhappy, why do I desire more, why doesn’t the new ipad 2 bring me lasting joy. Stephen has written a beautiful book that really attacks our discontented hearts by highlighting the beautiful gospel of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ! The Gospel is faithfully proclaimed throughout this book and page after page Stephen is pleading with the reader that contentment is found only in Jesus!

I don’t know how to put into words what this wonderful book has done for my soul. I plan on reading it often because I am prone to forget and prone to grow discontent. I love that this book was written and I love that Stephen doesn’t just give you seven steps to contentment. Instead, he slowly unpacks the gospel page by page so by the end of this book you can’t help but have your eyes fixed on Jesus, and then and only then, truly content. I highly recommend that you read this book. I will end with one of my favorite quotes:

“The Gospel of Christ is the fountainhead of contentment. In the gospel we have access to infinite blessing. But if we don’t drink often we will always be thirsty. The moment i feel the saltwater-like thirst of discontentment, I need to plunge again into the gospel. I need to stop and stare and wonder and laugh at the goodness of God in the gospel. I need to spend time working on my gospel math, calculating the infinite distance between what I deserve and what I’ve received. To marvel that a prodigal like me could be embraced by the Universe Maker as a son. To imagine the gutter of misery I would be lying in if Christ had not rescued me. If I want to overcome discontentment, I need to spend time wallowing in the gospel.” (pg 70)

I am so excited to finally get our new website up and running.  Browse through the website and please email us at info@ljcok.org if you find anything that needs to be changed or for any suggestions.  Also under the resources tab you can click on “Launch Sermon Player” to hear past messages and also to subscribe to the Love and Justice podcast.  I hope you all enjoy the website, we have worked long and hard on it and pray that the Lord uses it to bless you and bring glory to His Name!

What is the Gospel?  In this short little book of 128 pages, Greg Gilbert answers this question in an easy to read, very understandable way, all the while staying biblically faithful. 

There are 8 short chapters in this book and it took me a little over an hour to read.  He starts by finding the Gospel in the Bible and follows the pattern God-Man-Christ-Response.  He gives multiple examples of how the Apostles preached the Gospel and closes the book discussing the Kingdom of God, keeping the Cross central and the power of the Gospel. 

I really enjoyed this short book and I am very greatful that Pastor Gilbert has written it.  As I read through the pages I was reminded of how great a sinner I am but I was also reminded that I have a great Saviour who lived a perfect life on my behalf, died in my place for my sins, resurrected from the grave and has ascended to heaven to sit down at the right hand of God the Father.  Hallelujah!  What a Saviour!

He then goes on to spend the majority of the third chapter talking of Isaiah’s vision in Isaiah chapter 6.  He states that his vision is three dimensional:

It was an upward vision – he saw the Lord; an inward vision – he saw himself; and an outward vision – he saw the world.

It was a vision of height – he saw the Lord high and lifted up.  A vision of depth – he saw the recess of his own heart.  And a vision of breadth – he saw the world.

A vision of holiness.  A vision of hellishness.  And a vision of hopelessness.

Oh that the church would grasp this, he throws out many statistics in order to stir up passion for the gospel in our heart, one of which is heart breaking and breath taking, he says almost a million people in the world die each week, most without Christ.  Is this nothing to you? Were you blown away when I stated that there are so many who die each week who have never heard of Christ, if you weren’t, you need to repent and cry out to the Lord to give you a heart for the Lost.  May we be a people, a church who desires that the name and fame of Jesus be spread to every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every where, because He is worthy to be praised by all!

He closes the chapter with a story, I want to quote it and I pray that the Lord would use it to spread a passion in your heart, remember brothers, we are not professionals!

Charlie Peace was a criminal.  Laws of God or man curbed him not.  Finally the law caught up with him, and he was condemned to death.  On the fatal morning in armley jail, Leeds, England, he was taken on the death walk.  Before him went the prison chaplain, routinely and sleepily reading some Bible verses.  The criminal touched the preacher and asked what he was reading.  The Consolation of Religion, was the reply.  Charlie Peace was shocked at the way he professionally read about hell.  Could a man be so unmoved under the very shadow of the scaffold as to lead a fellow human there and yet, dry-eyed, read of a pit that has no bottom into which this fellow must fall?  Could this preacher believe the words that there is an eternal fire that never consumes its victims, and yet slide over the phrase without a tremor?  Is a man human at all who can say with no tears, You will be eternally dying and yet never know the relief that death brings?  All this was too much for charlie Peace.  So he preached.  Listen to his on the eye of hell sermon.

Sir, addressing the preacher, if I believed what you and the church say that you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worth while living, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that!

Brothers and sisters, where is our passion?  How can we read over these things flippantly, how can we read of the garden of Gethsemane and the Crucifixion of our Lord with dry eyes.  Oh Spirit come and move our hearts to not take lightly these things, come and stir up affections in our hearts for Jesus, please give us a passion for Your Glory and Your Name.  Please let us truly see that everything really comes down to this;  knowing You and making You known!  Forgive us for our lack of passion in evangelism, forgive us for focusing our attention on ourselves, and forgive us for being hearers of your Word only and not doers.

You have had much grace on me and for that I am thankful, please stir up a passion in my life to boldly proclaim the Gospel of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ!  Stir up a passion in the readers for the same, let us be a people who weep for those that don’t know you and who live lives worthy of the Gospel until you come or until we go home to be with You.

Ravenhill starts chapter two off with a bang. It is so easy to read past that statement, so lets look at it again: No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. I am deeply convicted of my lack of prayer as I read through this chapter.

He goes on to say that the church has many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, Ravenhill says, we fail everywhere. I think one of the main reasons for this is our lack of humility. We would rather be seen than labor in prayer in private. Lord forgive us.

He then asks, Can any deny that in the modern church setup the main cause of anxiety is money? Yet that which tries the modern churches the most, troubled the New Testament Church the least. Our accent is on paying, theirs was on praying. When we have paid, the place is taken; when they had prayed, the place was shaken!

Chapter two is a short chapter that discusses prayer, the lack of passionate prayer warriors in our churches and the new testaments concern for prayer over their concern for money. I pray that the Lord would raise up men and women in our churches, men and women who count others as greater than themselves and who don’t care about being known by other men, but that they would be known by you God. That is enough.

I will close this short post with a quote from chapter 2:

The world hits the trail for hell with a speed that makes our fastest plane look like a tortoise; yet alas, few of us can remember the last time we missed our bed for a night of waiting upon God for a world shaking revival! Our compassions are not moved.

He then goes on to talk about prayer, saying the offense of prayer is that it does not essentially tie in to mental efficiency, rather it is conditioned by one thing alone and that is spirituality.  He goes on to say that one does not need to be spiritual to preach, that is to make and deliver exegetical sermons.  By a combination of memory, knowledge, ambition, personality, plus well-lined bookshelves, self confidence and a sense of having arrived, almost any person that fits those requirements could stand up in a pulpit and preach.  Preaching of this type is not spiritual but mainly mental.  This type of preaching might affect the hearers morality but it wont change the hearers heart.

“The tragedy of this late hour is that we have too many dead men in the pulpits giving out too many dead sermons to too many dead people!”

The reason for this, Ravenhill says, is preaching without unction.  Preaching without unction kills instead of giving life.  He says the unctionless preacher is a savor of death unto death.  He states that we could well manage to be half as intellectual if we were twice as spiritual.  Preaching is a spiritual business.  A sermon born in the head reaches the head; a sermon born in the heart reaches the heart.  He says when their is a spiritual preacher, he will produce spiritual people.

He continues speaking of unction and states that it cannot be learned, only earned-by prayer.  He compares unction to dynamite stating that spiritual preachers words will explode on the hearers heart.  He closes out the chapter with some pretty strong words, “The prayer meeting is dead or dying.  By our attitude to prayer we tell God that what was begun in the Spirit we can finish in the flesh.  What church ever asks its candidating ministers what time they spend in prayer?  Yet ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime, degree or no degree!”

I was deeply convicted in my lack of zeal and my lack of seeking the Lord in secret.  Matt 6:6.  We say we want the Lord to move yet we don’t seek Him, we say we want to overcome this habitual sin in our life yet we don’t seek Him, we say we want more of Him, or to be made like Him or to desire Him as our all satisfying treasure yet we don’t seek Him like we should.  Father forgive me for my laziness in seeking after you.  I ask that you would continue to stir my heart to return to prayer and study of your word.  I see a passion and stirring up of prayer in our church body and ask for more Lord, would you please raise up men at Love and Justice church.  Men who seek hard after you, men who will live lives worthy of the Gospel, men who will run the race with endurance keeping their eyes on You Jesus, the author and perfecter of our lives.  Please Lord bring more men to our Saturday morning prayer meeting, bring more men and women to our prayer meetings before service on the Lords day.  Father we need Your help, We need you to come and lead us because we do not want to go on without You.  Thank you for convicting my heart and stirring up in me a passion to seek you in secret.  I pray all these things for Your glory, in Jesus most beautiful name.  Amen

Toward Leonard Ravenhill it is impossible to be neutral.  His acquaintances are divided pretty neatly into two classs, those who love and admire him out of all proportion and those who hate him with perfect hatred.  And what is true of the man is sure to be true of his books, of this book.  The reader will either close its pages to seek a place of prayer or he will toss it away in anger, his heart closed to its warnings and appeals.

I am excited to read this book and I pray that the Lord would have much grace on me and show me areas where I need to repent and I hope that after reading these pages I would be stirred to spend much time alone in prayer with the only one who is worthy of all my time!

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i hope to update more often but lets not hold our breaths…

4:1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. 4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

1 Peter 4:1-6