New York: Tuesday

Ephesians 2:11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands- remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

One of the toughest things about connecting with the people is the large culture gap. Different ethnicities, different cultures, different skin colors, different languages, different hobbies and entertainment. An even greater hindrance is that our team is part of the national 'majority' culture, and our target group, the West Africans, are vulnerable immigrants. They are strangers in a foreign land and have little welcome from Americans. Strange to me, there is even a longstanding tension with the African-Americans.

But that is part of the beauty of the Gospel. In our sin and our shame we were divided, hostile to God, far away, strangers to his people. Christ humbled himself and sacrificed himself on the cross so that we could have peace, so the hostility would be torn down, so we would have hope and be near to God. Muslims have an acute sense of the holiness of God and the distance between this world and God's dwelling. What they are missing is the peace of knowing that in Jesus, God has brought himself near to us, despite our utter sin.

Today, we seek to continue breaking down walls between ourselves and the people we are trying to reach. A couple members of our group have spent time (or were even born and raised) in Africa and know some of the languages or the colonial French, which lessens the culture gap. For the rest of us, the work may prove hard and slow. But the Gospel runs deep and is powerful. For the glory of the Father.

New York: Monday

Luke 10: 5Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ 6 And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. 7 And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house.

Today we finally have our first 'work' day in New York. That's not to say we are not already tired! Yesterday (Sunday) we got to worship with a congregation of brothers predominantly from Burkina Faso. What a blessing to sing praises to Our Father with the nations, and we didn't even leave the USA! In the afternoon we prayerwalked the Harlem areas where West Africans are mostly gathered. While it's not central Manhattan, Harlem is still filled with tons of people in tight quarters. There are churches on many corners, but most lack vibrancy and solid gospel truth. Even still, the work among West Africans is nearly zero. Among African peoples with Muslim backgrounds, there are no established churches. There are, however, around 60 West African mosques in Harlem, not even counting the 400 non-African mosques in the city.An overwhelming task before us. How will we ever reach all these people? Today, we pray that God will lead us to these 'persons of peace' that will be receptive to our message and to our friends, so that we may sow seeds of the Gospel on soft ground.

Pray: New York

For the next week I will be in the Big Apple, the grand city, New York, on another mission trip with the school. This is a little different adventure than the last time I wrote asking for trip prayers. I will probably be challenged a lot more in expanding my relational qualities, and the people we interact with will probably be a lot more hesitant to hear what we have to say and to be connected with the local 'missionaries' we want to connect them with. Primarily we are working with a team of church planters in a section of Harlem that is primarily filled with West African immigrants, many of which are Muslim. Most of the week will be spent walking and talking on the streets of the marketplaces, trying to build short friendships and break down barriers in the community that prohibit the gospel.

Our trip leader gave us a prayer-walk guide and I wanted to share the outline of it here so you could pray with me for God to work in the lives of the people we will see and interact with. The whole prayer is premised on God opening what he will open and doing the work through our obedience that he wills to happen. Some of these should be self-explanatory.

Pray that God would:

1. Open the heavens. Isaiah 64:1-4 "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down that the mountains might quake at your presence...no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him."

2. Open hearts. Ezekiel 11:17-21 "...And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God."

3.  Open homes. This is the "person of peace" strategy, that through one peaceful person a whole family or neighborhood will be invited to hear the gospel. Luke 10:1-10 "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest...    Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you."

4. Open highways. Specifically, that God would grant proper channels and methods, that our work would not distract or conflict with God's declared plan. Isaiah 62:10-12 Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples... “Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.” And they shall be called The Holy People,The Redeemed of the LORD; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.

5. Open hands. Matthew 10:5-8 "...And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay."

Bookends in John - Glory of God and Belief in God

The Gospel of John is perhaps the simplest book of the New Testament in terms of grammar and writing style. It does not contain many flashy turns of phrase, subordinating clauses, or strings of synonyms like in Luke or Paul. It can be read and understood on a grammatical level by the youngest of readers - no wonder it is often the first book read by novice Greek students!

Yet, on a theological level, John is the deepest in the whole Bible. It is often called the "Spiritual Gospel" in contrast with the synoptics (which are not spiritual?!). Some of Paul's letters like Romans can be studied and digested paragraph by paragraph as a logical argument pieced together, but it is often said of John that the individual parts cannot be understood unless the whole Gospel is understood. Today I want to look at two key verses in John's Gospel, one at the beginning and another at the end, and hopefully help us dive more clearly into this great Gospel.

 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. - John 1:14

This is not an unfamiliar verse to many. In the 13 verses that precede it, we see the cosmic beginnings of the universe: all things were created through this grand Word that was with God and strangely, was actually God. Now in our verse we are told that this Word is the person of Jesus Christ who, though being God, became man and became the manifestation of God's glory. Matthew calls him Immanuel, God with us. John calls him the dwelling place of glory, which can only remind the Israelites of the Temple, the place where God's Holiness was most highly displayed. For example, in Exodus 40:35, we are told that the cloud, which was God's physical guiding presence for Israel, dwelled over the tent, and God's glory filled the tabernacle. The very word for tabernacle means "dwelling place," and the same Hebrew root is borrowed by John for the incarnation of the Word. So many have suggested we could better translate Christ as having "become flesh and tabernacled among us," to remind us of the way he resided among us just like the various places in the Old Testament where God resided with Israel: the ark of the covenant, the tabernacle, and the temple (it is also convenient to not confuse this word with the more common word in John, "abide" or "remain," a theme beyond the scope of this post!). The Son of God came down from heaven, became fully man, full of grace, full of truth, and showed his glory to the world.

 But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. - John 20:31

This verse, near the end of the Gospel, is also very well-known. Our response to John's Gospel is simple and brief: believe. Believe in Jesus as who he says he is, the anointed Messiah fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies (including the Temple, as well as providing the New Covenant, the grand Prophet of Moses, the full embodiment of Wisdom, our High Priest, our King, our Redeemer, our Savior and Lord), the divine Son of God who was sending the Holy Spirit after him. Believe in this Christ, put your trust in him, put your full dependence upon him. For no one else grants life, nothing else can grant life except Jesus Christ. Without Christ we are dead (Eph 2:1), we are in darkness, blind, we are unclean and wicked before God, ignorant of the Truth, unable to know the Word.

John 1:14 serves well as the topic statement for the rest of the Gospel. All of the signs display the glory of God in the miraculous and yet human workings of Jesus. The discourses spread throughout the book proclaim the grace of God in full truth, that Christ calls all to himself. John 20:31 serves as the corresponding purpose statement. Through 20 chapters, John is nearly done with his presentation of Jesus' interaction with the disciples, and the call which heretofore has been indirectly given in the story is now directly given to us, the audience: believe in this glorious Christ. Will we answer as Nathanael, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" and receive life from Jesus? Or will we rest in our own knowledge and assumptions as the Pharisees, and remain in our guilt (John 9:41)?

Value of Memorizing Scripture: Part Two

In my last post I summarized a few quick points about the value of Scripture Memory, laying out three categories of relationships where a knowledge of God's Word helps us. The truth is, all three of these categories (vertical, horizontal, and inward) are inter-related, but we can say some distinctive things about each relationship. Today I will start with the vertical relationship.

How does memorizing Scripture help our relationship with God?

This hopefully is obvious and redundant to any believer, but it cannot be said enough: The Bible is God's Word. A less redundant concept that is lacking today: To know God, you must know the Word. If you do not know the Word, you do not know God. We may learn certain subjective things about God through nature or our experiences, or objective facts about God told in the Bible may be confirmed in other ways, but God is not ultimately known through searching *deep* inside yourself or going on some kind of processing journey.

The Value of Scripture Memory

"What if I offered you $1000 for every verse you could memorize in the next seven days? Do you think your attitude toward Scripture memory and your ability to memorize would improve? Any financial reward would be minimal when compared to the accumulating value of the treasure of God's Word deposited within your mind."

Donald Whitney introduces the section on Scripture Memory in his now standard book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, with this financial illustration to encourage Christians to memorize Scripture. I think Whitney could have used the same illustration for nearly every other Christian practice and discipline, but it works especially well for Scripture memory because I can think of very few "bad" ways to memorize a verse, other than objectively not memorizing a phrase correctly or by memorizing a verse with the wrong attitude and motive, but those are topics for another time. I started to address the topic of improper, or rather, inadequate memory habits earlier on this site and perhaps will get back to that soon. Fortunately, in a few weeks I am set to give a short seminar at my church's youth retreat on Scripture Memory, so you may be seeing several more posts here about it!

For today, I want to summarize the main benefits that Whitney proposes for memorizing God's Word. I have organized his points into three categories: our vertical relationship with God, our horizontal relationship with others, and our inner relationship with the devil and our sinful flesh.

Memorization Helps our Relationship with God
Knowing Scripture can strengthen our faith. When we come upon times of struggle or weakness, we should turn to God and his promises of faithfulness. More often than not, we do not have a concordance or a John MacArthur standing next to us who can point us directly to the verse we need (and we may not even have a Bible readily accessible). "Memorizing Scripture strengthens your faith because it repeatedly reinforces the truth, often just when you need to hear it again."

In the same light, knowing the Bible in our hearts can push toward meditation and further study of the Word. Like a tune that gets stuck in your head, if you have memorized Scripture then you will be continually be reminded of these verses and they will force you to consider and apply their Truth.

Memorization Helps our Relationship with Others
The most tangible use of Scripture is in witnessing or counseling to those around us. If we claim to be followers and disciples of Christ, then we should always be telling others about God's very Word, and perhaps the most effective way to do so is by having it memorized. It is always a joy for me to be in casual conversation with someone else, and to be able to interject Scripture that comes to mind. The fewer portions of Scripture I know, then obviously the fewer I can talk about!

Memorization Helps our Inner Battle
One of the interesting things we learn from Matthew 4 is that Satan uses God's Word in a superficial and twisted way to deceive (see also: Genesis 3, Job 1), while Christ battles and defeats Satan with God's Word correctly (sidebar: there's a bigger point to this passage about Christ's victory on behalf of us, but that's another blog series!). Meanwhile, over in Ephesians 6, Paul tells us to put on God's armor, including Scripture, so that we may be equipped to stand against spiritual battles. 2 Timothy 3:16 says point-blank that the Bible tells us about doctrine and trains us in righteousness. To escape from sin, we must flee to the words found in Scripture.

One benefit Whitney mentions that may overlap between these categories is that memorization can help to guide us. The Holy Spirit is promised to be a Counselor and an Advocate for us, but how does that happen? John 14:26 tells us: But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Jesus is specifically talking about the creation of the books of the New Testament, but I think he is also making an application for us, that the Holy Spirit will work to impress upon us passages from Scripture as a Helper for us.


The benefits of memorizing Scripture are about as numerous as the amount of methods published on how to memorize Scripture. I have only given a few of the points here, and they are a tiny introduction. Hopefully we will be able to elaborate on these categories of why we memorize. But for now, I pray this encourages you to get in God's Word, to know Christ and the power of His resurrection more intimately. Take to heart the words of Proverbs 22:17-19:

    Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise,
        and apply your heart to my knowledge,
    for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you,
        if all of them are ready on your lips.
    That your trust may be in the LORD,
        I have made them known to you today, even to you.

Is Christ the Lord, or is He your Manager?

The LORD is my manager;
I’m equipped with what I need to be successful.
He makes sure I have enough to eat and drink,
And that I’m not too stressed out.
He gives me what I need to get by;
He communicates good advice
so I can keep him satisfied with my progress.

I came across this excellently-written "Semi-Psalm 23," and the ironic realities gripped me. I go through life doing nearly everything on my own. I'm pretty smart, I have decent means to get through life. I give lip-service to what Christ provides for me but little more.

But when the darkness closes in and I feel half-dead,
I’m frightened by all the pain that grips me,
Because you seem so far away from me,
And your distant management of my life leaves me alone and afraid.


I have not known any real hardship. I have tried hard to rest content with what I have, and I really have never been in a place where I didn't know how I was going to eat or whether or not I would be provided for. Yet, somehow I still let the pressures, the stress, the distraction of this life overtake my inner emotions and I let Christ become a fading distance. Sometimes out of guilt or shame, sometimes out of fear, I run into myself instead of to the riches of Christ.

You do let me help myself to the leftovers from your table,
Which I suppose is better than what my enemies get.
You acknowledge my presence at dinner,
And you let me pour a little wine into my cup.
I guess I have an adequate and decent life most of the time,
And I can always stay at the LORD’s house for a few days if I ever feel the need.

Obviously the writer of this poem was making a satire off Psalm 23, where God is our great Shepherd leading us where we need to go even in times of suffering. I think another passage in the Bible can unlock the truth of how Christ relates to us. Instead of the lackadaisical approach to Christ portrayed here, consider the precious words of Colossians:

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

…The riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Our local church is just beginning a study into this wonderful book about Christ and his Lordship over us. I am excited to study again the greatness of who Christ is and what He has accomplished in my life. I pray it is a time of renewal and revived focus on making great the name of Jesus and no longer trying to rely on our own strength.


    If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.