Joie de Vivre A Wretched Man’s Quest To Follow Jesus Christ

Foreword: I thought I’d give a little background into how this testimony came about, because it simply demonstrates how often God works wonderfully in us and there’s only goodness when we submit to His will.

For some days now, my wife has told me that she hasn’t been able to sleep well because God has prompted her time and again to write her testimony down.

She asked me why, and I told her testimonies were a good way for us to glorify God through telling others what He has made anew in us. As to why God is telling her to do so I am not sure, yet we need trust that the Lord has need for her to do something that has not been revealed, but it’s all good (Romans 8:28).

We had retired rather late to bed last night. Just 15 minutes later, she was out of bed, and the study light came on while her computer whirred to life. When I popped into the study to ask why she wasn’t in bed, she was quite in tears, telling me that God had admonished her for not submitting to His will, right after prayers.

She had been fighting the burden in her heart to write her testimony down, believing wrongly that it’s rather pointless.

It was the first time she had experienced such a prompting, so I gently told her that that’s what God does with me many, many times over — a feeling so heavy in one’s heart that you go on your knees and cry out saying, “Father, Lord, I’ll obey and do it!”

I made coffee for us and stayed up with her while she completed her testimony which we are now sharing with you. May it encourage and bless you as it has us.

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John Piper’s exhortation to constantly make all-out war against temptations that we face, our pride, our fleshly cravings and all-enslaving desires in the sermon featured below definitely spoke to me.

Yes, I am guilty of murmuring and murmuring “oh, how I wish to be free of this” and not do anything concrete about it, much less actually wage war against it!

Perhaps you are a better and more conscientious warrior than I am, but I am sure that there are many like me else we wouldn’t have so much heresy and that many hypocrites in our churches today.

If you are honest about it and have been putting off fighting that giant of a sin — be it pride, sloth, pornography, mean-spiritedness, covetousness, or just about any sin — then I pray you take this as the impetus to begin to make constant war.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God…

– Ephesians 6:13-17

With reference to the alternate title of this post, it has to do with how the sermon was presented.

If you like how it was set to music, then you might also like how other sermons have been treated in the same fashion by the good folks at 10:31 Sermon Jams. Not all of the treatments are good, but there are gems like the one from John Piper I just linked, aptly titled “WAR”.

There’s another site that does the same thing with some of the better sermons called Relevant Revolution. I haven’t gone through much of their treatments yet, but the one I’ve heard — “Go” by Paul Washer — sounds pretty good.

Shalom Aleichem.

It’s worrying me a little.

I’ve been slow on the adoption of ‘new’ technologies in the past couple of years.

Take, for example, this wonderful technology called a ‘podcast’.

I’ve seen it everywhere, but never really paid any attention to it, nor took the time to find out what it does or how it can benefit me. In times past, I’d have leapt at lapping up every piece of information on how it works and how I can benefit from using it.

No, I don’t know what it is, but for someone like me who’s been in the IT industry for more than a decade, it is a little disconcerting.

Well, as the wise (hmm…) old saying goes “better late than never”, I’ve finally caught up with how useful podcasts can actually be.

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Here are some of my favorite quotes from two of the most faithful and true teachers of God’s Word — John Piper and Paul Washer. I hope that they, too, encourage you and spur you on to examine your Christian walk.

John Piper

“Many people are willing to be God-centered as long as they feel that God is man-centered”

“One of the reasons we are not as Christ-centered and cross-saturated as we should be is that we have not realized that everything — everything good, and everything bad that God turns for the good of his redeemed children — was purchased by the death of Christ for us. We simply take life and breath and health and friends and everything for granted. We think it is ours by right. But the fact is that it is not ours by right. We are doubly undeserving of it.”

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Have you ever considered why we back-slide now and then and fall away sometimes, or just don’t have the motivation to read the Bible, pray and sing praises to God?

While it’s a fact that we all go through dry spells, why then do some of us slip away so much that there’s an actual term for the condition, i.e. ‘backsliding’.

I got to thinking about this issue, because it’s not a unique problem to most Christians, including myself. I backslid down the slippery slope for years from my late teens after I left college and enlisted in the Army, and have just recently started to once again reach for the peak.

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Perhaps there comes a time in your walk with God where you realize that maybe you have learned so much falsehoods or teachings that have been twisted in one way or another from church and even the most respected pastors and teachers, that you think that perhaps you haven’t really lived a real Christian life.

It’s not a real Christian life because you have not learned to be truly obedient, nor truly submit yourself to God’s will. It’s not a real Christian life because you think that being subject to God’s will is just trying to do what is taught in the Bible and have the faith that God shall answer your prayers, and thinking to yourself that you’ve asked them in accordance to God’s will.

And to think that you’ve been dissing the prosperity gospel when you yourself are living it! Because the prosperity gospel in its essence is about you, you, and you!

Because, when you pray, don’t you say “Oh, Lord, bless me” with this or that, a job, a wife, a girlfriend/boyfriend, and whatever that your heart desires, you preach within yourself the prosperity gospel!

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