Loved by God.

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* It's good to suffer loss, for it draws me to the Cross where God's loss is more than what anyone ever lost. * We cannot hear what the stories of the Bible are saying until we hear them as stories about ourselves. * Let go of control. * Trust God. Thank God. Think about God. Talk to God. Talk about God.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches

Reference: Hamilton Jr, James M. Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches (Preaching the Word). Wheaton: Crossway. 2012.
To get the weight and balance of the whole book, an overview of Revelation will prepare us for the immediate future, the distant future, and the eternal future. To understand the book's flow of thought, its structure, and the main points made in each section will help us rightly understand the smaller units of the book in context when we study them. So we'll look at

  • the Opening (Rev 1:1–8)--a prologue 
  • the Vision (Rev 1:9–22:9)--a body
  • the Closing (Rev 22:10–21)--an epilogue
As we begin, let's ask the Lord to use this book to fire us with the same urgency we would have if it were Sep 10, 2001, and we had just learned what was going to happen the next morning. You would not rest with that information. So may it be with this information.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

What's Goin' On In Heaven? (Revelation 4-5)

Revelation 4:1-5:14; Key Verse: Rev 4:2

"At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it."

Questions. What is God like? What happens in heaven? How does this apply to my life on earth?

Short answers : 1) God--who is on a throne in heaven--is sovereign; he rules the world. 2) All beings around God's throne are worshiping God. 3) All of life is worship. Why? If the book of Revelation has a single theme, then surely it is God and his greatness, which Rev 4-5 will show.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Pride and Ego (1 Cor 3:21 - 4:7)

1 Corinthians 3:21-4:7; Key Verse: 1 Cor 4:3-4

"I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me."

How do Michael Jordan and Madonna feel about their own monumental success and fame?

Longing for his glory days. In an interview in anticipation of his 50th birthday on Feb 17, 2013, Michael Jordan, the Hall of Famer, confesses, "I would give up everything now to go back and play the game of basketball." When asked how he replaces it, Jordan simply states, "You don't. You learn to live with it." Jordan has accomplished what most men can only dream of. Yet he seems to still be longing for his glory days of winning 6 NBA championships, being voted the Finals MVP all 6 times, being the only player in history to lead the NBA in scoring 10 times (7 consecutive, tied with Chamberlain), being voted the NBA's MVP 5 times, and the accolades, awards and records just keep piling upon themselves. Here and here are short summaries. Despite having accomplished and achieved all this, he still wishes he could go back and do all of it again. In his supercilious 2009 Hall of Fame speech, Jordan called the game of basketball his "refuge," the "place where I've gone when I needed to find comfort and peace." Three years later, the restlessness remains. (Source: Do you still want to be like Mike? When greatness meets emptiness. (Michael Jordan at 50) by Matt Smethurst.)

Monday, April 8, 2013

My "First" Blog Post from 2010

Nov 23, 2009 (I am posting this here for posterity because the website this was originally posted on is being discontinued. My original title was "The imperatives are based on the indicatives," which I subsequently changed. Though I had posted occasionally from 2009, I regard this as my "first" blog post.)

Ben Toh  //  The one Jesus loved 1st, husband of 1, father of 4, grand-father of 2, unrepentant Chicago sports fan of winning teams only, and bi-vocational: pastor and self-employed physician in Chicago.

Religion/Imperatives Versus the Gospel/Indicatives

Bryan Chapell said, "The imperatives are based on the indicatives and the order is not reversible." (Chapell is the President of Covenant Seminary and author of Christ-Centered Preaching. He gave a lecture at the Advance09 conference in Durham, North Carolina titled "Communicating the Gospel through Preaching.") Related post: Imperatives - Indicatives = Impossibilities