Love Is More Than a Choice

This is a gentle pushback on a popular slogan.

There is truth in saying, “love is a choice” or “love is a decision.” It is true that if you don’t feel like doing good to your neighbor love will incline you to “choose” to do it anyway. If you feel like getting a divorce, love will incline you to “choose” to stay married and work it out.

If you shrink back from the pain of nails being driven through your hands, love will incline you to say, “Not my will but yours be done.” That’s the truth I hear in the statements: “Love is a choice,” or “Love is a decision.”

But I don’t prefer to use these statements. Too many people hear three tendencies in them that those who use the statements may not intend.

1. Saying “love is a choice” sounds like the tendency to believe love is in our power to perform, even when we don’t feel like it.
2. Saying “love is a choice” sounds like the tendency to make the will, with its decisions, the decisive moral agent rather than the heart, with its affections.
3. Saying “love is a choice” sounds like the tendency to set the bar too low: If you can will to treat someone well, you have done all you should.

I disagree with all three of these tendencies.

In their place I would say:   Continue at John Piper

When You Can't Even Pray

We are not strong but weak. How are we weak? Well, how aren't we weak? Brokenness, unmet needs, emptiness, confusion, weariness, unbelief, fear, dullness, depression, bewilderment, sin—we can be so overwhelmed with the crushing weight of this existence that we don't even know how to pray. The very enormity of our struggles silences us. We don't know what to pray for, as Paul says in Romans 8:26. We may be paralyzed in helpless indecision. We may be too distressed to utter a coherent prayer at all. We are weak.

Christians are not always on top of things. Where in the Bible are we taught to expect unruffled composure and unbroken victory? Sometimes life is so troubling, we feel defeated even in prayer. And if we cannot pray, we are really in trouble. At that very moment when we most need to draw upon God's promises through prayer—what if we fail at that vital point of connection, when it really counts? Will our weakness bungle the purpose of God? Under normal conditions we tell ourselves that, when all else fails, we can fall back on prayer. But what if we do come to the end of ourselves and our own devices only to discover we don't even know what to pray, we don't understand how to connect the Bible with our experience, and God himself seems far away? What then? What encouragement can we look to beyond our own radical weakness?

When we're reduced to helplessness, the Holy Spirit will help us. Have you ever thought of the Holy Spirit as a gracious person who steps in with the offer: "May I help? May I bear that burden with you? You're in anguish over your children. You feel forsaken by God. You don't know how to negotiate that important decision. You're lonely. You're tempted. You're sinful. You need to pray. May I help?" The Holy Spirit does not reproach us. In fact, he "gives generously to all without making them feel foolish or guilty" (James 1:5, Phillips).    Continue at Ray Ortlund

Five Misdiagnosed Symptoms

In the Emergency Room, decisions of life and death are regularly made with extreme pressure and very limited information. Symptoms present themselves and a trained, discerning mind diagnoses the real issue. Get it right and the treatment plan takes over. Get it wrong and not even the best treatment plan is able to fully help.

But what about diagnosing spiritual problems? Only God is omniscient and has a full, uninfluenced view of the human heart (1 Samuel 16:7). As believers, our discernment must be driven by the insights and fruit Scripture directs us toward as His Word exposes and corrects issues of the heart (Matthew 7:20; Hebrews 4:12-13). Many more could be added, but here are five symptoms that are commonly misdiagnosed by pastors:

1. Remorse misdiagnosed as repentance

Remorse is the reaction to the temporal, human consequences of sin. It springs from guilt and often seeks to halt the sin for a season. Mere remorse does not require any supernatural power. Remorse is not repentance. True repentance is God’s supernatural, sanctifying work in our hearts! It is both forsaking sin and turning to righteousness (2 Corinthians 7:10-11). It is the abandoning of self as the Spirit works in us to put off sinful thoughts, words and actions and works in us to putting on righteousness (Colossians 3:1-11) producing His fruit (Galatians 5:22-23). Guilt and God’s wrath are not erased by remorse and His discipline will continue to remain until a believer is brought to repentance on a given sin issue (Hebrews 12:6).   Continue at Jim Stitzinger

How Do I Make Decisions That Please God?

Today we come to the fourth and final part of this short series on knowing and doing the will of God. In the first part of the series I laid a foundation of God’s complete sovereignty over the universe and in the second part I sought to show that God is speaking to us today and how God is speaking to us today. In the third part I wanted showed that God is speaking to you and revealing his will for your life. In this final installment I want to ask the big question: When it comes right down to it, how do I make decisions that please God?

I want to give you 3 questions that will guide you as you think about any decision or any situation and that will help you have confidence that you are doing God’s will for your life. As you consider that big decision, you need to ask these three questions in order.

Question #1

What does the Bible say about it? That’s a rather obvious question, but it’s one we sometimes miss. What does the Bible say about it? Is there a passage in the Bible that speaks directly to this issue or is there a principle that applies to it?   Keep Reading>>>

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