What I did on my summer vacation:)
Hi all,
On my vacation I have been trying to catch up with some reading and am enjoying a number of books plus I have had some time to catch up on a few internet bloggers I enjoy. One of the best is Tim Challies' blog. You can find it
HERE.
I copied the following (see article below called, 'Something's Missing from Your Giving') from one of his articles and thought it was a great reminder to all of us and which personally challenged me as I read it.
Praying your summer is both relaxing and refreshing. Please make sure you don't take a vacation from God or from worship.
Can't wait to be back together with you all. Last week I was in Louisville Kentucky and had the privilege of attending some classes all week at Southern Seminary. These classes were all about the philosophy and methodology of expository preaching. God graciously taught me many things which I pray will be reflected in my preaching this fall. Would appreciate your prayers as I still have some papers to write and other work to do to complete this semester's requirements, then on to the next starting in the fall.
These last two weeks of July our family is at Fair Havens Bible Conference near Lake Simcoe. It has been exactly one year since we have had an entire week off. Not that the church doesn't give me vacation as they do, and they are generous. But with our family situation of having two children graduating grade 12 this past year and other commitments we just didn't get away. So we were more than ready for this time off.
We love Fair Havens and have been coming here each summer for about 25+ years with a few years we didn't make it. We had our older two children here when they were just toddlers and next week they and their spouses and children will be joining us so that will be a real treat. Plus two of our boys - Josh and Jake are serving here at Fair Havens all summer so it is great to see them again. Please pray for our daughter Sarah as she is spending the month of July serving at a Christian orphanage in Romania associated with a Harvest church there.
Here at Fair Havens we have church services every morning and evening which has always been a blessing to us. This week the speaker is Pastor and Apologist Joe Boot (click
HERE for his website). He is amazingly gifted, incredibly smart and well read. Apart from the two services each day we enjoy swimming, eating, relaxing, fishing, golfing and just sitting around doing lots of nothing! So overall we are being well fed physically, emotionally, relationally and spiritually!
But we REALLY do miss Harvest and can't wait to be back worshiping with you all on the 31st. So thankful for Cory's ministry for the first two Sundays in July and Drew's ministry last Sunday. This Sunday you will be blessed and well fed by Jacob Reaume, a top-notch young pastor from Harvest Cambridge and a personal friend. Then Cory will be back for a couple more Sundays. God is gracious and I so appreciate that all of you are just hungry for God's Word and faithfully come out for worship and the Word regardless of who is preaching. And I am thankful to our elders for these Sundays of not needing to preach. I love preaching at our church but the weight of carrying the preaching ministry is one which can significantly overwhelm me at times. So a break every now and then is much needed.
I have been enjoying a book I have had for 20 years and tried to read many times but always found it confusing. I brought it with me to try again this week and picked it up just this morning and I can hardly put it down. Not sure why it now connects when it didn't in the past but that is how God works at times. It is Spurgeon's book called, 'Lectures to My Students' and contains lessons or lectures the great preacher Charles Spurgeon taught a group of men he was training in pastoral work.
In a chapter I just finished at supper called, 'The Ministers Fainting Fits' he talks openly about the heaviness of a preaching and pastoral ministry and rightly points out that we have the, 'duty and privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus'. Yet he stresses that this privilege also has many struggles and they often lay in the very nature of what our ministry is as he says, 'who can bear the weight of souls without sometimes sinking to the dust? ... How often, on Lord's-day evenings, do we feel as if life were completely washed out of us!' And he goes on to say most preachers often feel like 'empty earthen pitchers which a child might break'. I share all of this to say how thankful I am that you would all allow me this break and that you would pray for me to be renewed and refreshed in Christ so I can return ready for our next ministry season.
Love you all. Enjoy the following article and see you in a few weeks!
Norm
Something's Missing from Your Giving
As the ushers take their place to collect the offering on Sunday morning, how do you decide on the amount of money you’re going to give? If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that we don’t put too much thought into the matter. In fact, the only time most of us even think about our giving is when we first notice the offertory plate rapidly winding its way up and down the aisle towards us. For some, “God loves a cheerful giver,” refers to that exhilarating feeling we get when we somehow manage to both find and fill out a check only moments before the offering plate passes by!
At a time when less than half of U.S. church members financially support their church, putting anything at all in the offertory plate is an achievement. And, while it’s true that the most important step in giving is to actually give something, many might be surprised to know that they have completely missed an equally important step in the process. What’s missing involves how we come up with the amount of money we write on our check.
People use a variety of different methods for coming up with the amount of money they choose to give. For some, it comes down to sheer practicality. They look at their checkbook and give what they think the can afford that month and still have money left to pay the bills. Others follow the Old Testament command of a tithe (Leviticus 27:30) and simply give 10% of their paycheck. On the other hand, examples of giving half (Luke 19:8) or all of your money (Mark 12:44) are praised in the New Testament. So what rule on giving are we supposed to follow?
The answer to how much we are supposed to be giving can best be seen in the story of the ‘Rich Young Man’ in Matthew 19. In it, we find a man very interested in obtaining eternal life. When he asks Jesus if he was missing anything, Jesus tells him to, “sell your possessions and give to the poor… then come, follow me.”
As I mentioned earlier, the Old Testament is clear that God expected his people to give at least a tithe at that time (a rule that I’m sure the Rich Young Man followed closely). Despite his command to sell and give all, Jesus was not, in fact, instituting a new rule on giving for everyone. There is no 11th commandment that says, “Thou shalt give all ye have to the poor.” So why did Jesus ask this man to give so much?
While it’s true that Jesus was not instituting a new rule here, it is important to remember he was on earth to institute a new Covenant (1 Cor. 11:25). This New Covenant removes us from the management of the Law of the Old Covenant, and instead places us as sons under the Lordship of Jesus Christ (Galatians 4:1-7). This is important because it’s this New Covenant that governs how we should give, not the old. It’s all about a relationship with a Man now, not a mere set of rules.
Jesus commanded the Rich Young Man to give ‘all’ in order to highlight the fact that for all his rule following he had no relationship with the Lord. While he could submit to rules he could not submit to the Rule Giver!
Are we doing the same thing when we give to the Church? Do we have some rule that we follow that governs our giving instead of submitting to what our Lord is asking of us that day? Why miss out on a golden opportunity to not only fellowship with our Father but also to submit to His Lordship.
So, how much are we supposed to give this week? You won’t know unless you take the time to ask God! It’s only when we walk in obedience born of a relationship with Jesus Christ that we will experience true ‘cheer’ in our giving.