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National Day of Prayer 2011 – Suggestions from Joni

May 5, 2011 by John Knight

Joni Eareckson Tada is the Honorary Chairperson for today’s National Day of Prayer.  Joni offered several specific things we can pray about today (and every other day, too!).

For the National Day of Prayer, remember to intercede for all members of society, including the elderly, children and adults with disabilities.

  • Let’s make the Gospel accessible to all — pray for churches to not only welcome, but learn to embrace people with disabilities.
  • Caregivers need a break — pray for parents and spouses needing respite as they give full-time care to their loved ones with special needs.
  • A disability can be lonely — ask God to draw people who feel isolated into an abundant life with Him.
  • Siblings have feelings, too! Pray for children who sometimes feel neglected because of the attention demanded by the medical needs of their sibling.
  • Marriages with a disability are under stress – pray that marriages will be strengthened, not weakened, by a disability.
  • Remember to pray for America’s brave warriors who have returned home from Iraq or Afghanistan bearing wounds of conflict.
  • The abortion rate of unborn children with disabilities has escalated in the last 3 years – pray with a pro-life perspective.
  • It’s time to make Luke 14 a reality – ask God to empower churches for active, effective outreach to people affected by disability.

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Get Paul Miller’s Book – A Praying Life – for free on Kindle!

May 4, 2011 by John Knight

At least it was free on Tuesday.  You can download it here.

And if you don’t have a Kindle, you can still read it on a PC, Mac, iPad, etc.  You can get more information about how to do so here.

This is a fantastic book, and the author understands what living with disability is like through his daughter with autism and developmental delays.

Paul Miller spoke at the most recent Desiring God Conference for Pastors:  Helping Your People Discover the Praying Life.  He also lead devotions the next morning, and that was even better.

Posted in Book Commentary | 1 Comment »

If I might only have it to utter one sentence, it would be this one – Spurgeon

May 3, 2011 by John Knight

I do not know what you need, but I do know Christ has it. I do not know the full of your disease, but I do know Christ is the physician who can meet it. I do not know how hard and stubborn and stolid and ignorant and blind and dead your nature may be, but I do know that “Christ is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.” What you are has nothing to do with the question, except that it is the mischief to be undone. The true answer to the question of how you are to be saved lies yonder in the bleeding body of the immaculate Lamb of God! Christ has all salvation in Himself. He is Alpha, He is Omega. He does not begin to save and leave you to perish, nor does He offer to complete what you must first begin. . .

If I might only have it to utter one sentence, it would be this one, “Your help is found in Christ.” As for you, there never can be found anything hopeful in your human nature. It is death itself! It is rottenness and corruption. Turn, turn your eyes away from this despairing mass of black depravity and look to Christ! He is the sacrifice for human guilt. His is the righteousness that covers men and makes them acceptable before the Lord!

Charles H. Spurgeon, Memory: The Handmaid of Hope, delivered October 15, 1865.

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God moves in a mysterious way to gladden our hearts

May 2, 2011 by John Knight

The celebration of communion included some great music yesterday.

God Moves in a Mysterious Way has always been a moving hymn, especially knowing how William Cowper struggled his entire life with depression.

But the combination of this hymn, my oldest son with his arms wrapped around my neck as I held him, and anticipating the celebration of the Lord’s supper – tears came to my eyes at the wonder of God’s extraordinary goodness as we sang these verses:

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.

We sang a different musical arrangement at church, but I like how the Sovereign Grace team put the version below together.  Enjoy our great and merciful God today!

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Moments of sadness point to my need for a great savior

May 1, 2011 by John Knight

We needed a new stroller for Paul and decided to invest in a more substantial one.  Ebay worked again, saving us several hundred dollars.  God kindly provided for it financially through a decision his grandfather made almost 15 years ago, so we had the money.

It came.

And then the sadness came.  I had bought a stroller for a 15-year-old boy.  He wouldn’t be asking about driver’s education and the keys to the car.  How I hate this world I live in!

I know you’ve experienced this.  You’re just going along, doing the regular activities to take care of things.

Then something will happen – an article in a magazine, a picture of a friend’s child who is the same age as your child with disabilities, a random comment from a stranger.  And for a moment all the gift that this child is will fade away in the harsh light of seeing how the world sees that child.

Veteran parents, or maybe I should say parents more veteran than we are, have warned that these moments will continue to come.

And, at root, I know the problem is my sin.  God has given me the greatest treasure of all in Jesus Christ, and everything else should pale in comparison.  I want to say – but can’t – with the Apostle Paul:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:8-11

The great and glorious irony is that when these moments come, I see my need for a strong, good, and providing God more clearly.  Those moments serve to shake me up and heighten my desire to be dependent on God rather than my own strength.  And I believe that brings even greater honor to Jesus!

So, even as I write this on a dreary Saturday, I’m struck with how much I hate those moments for what I’m feeling and what they reveal about the state of my heart – but also how much they bring me back to God and his word.  Once again, I bring nothing and God gives me everything.

P.S.  We’ve used that stroller a few times and its really nice.  I’m glad we got it.

Posted in commentary, Scripture | 1 Comment »

It is not a comfortable truth, but it is comforting – John Piper

April 30, 2011 by John Knight

To know that our Father in heaven has ordained our pain is not a comfortable truth, but it is comforting. That our pain has a loving and wise and all-powerful purpose behind it is better than any other view—weak God, cruel God, bumbling God, no God. To know that in his hands “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17) is profoundly reassuring. And yes, “light” and “momentary” meant, in Paul’s case, a lifetime of suffering. The excruciating “lightness” of his suffering was light compared to the weight of glory. And the interminable “momentariness” of his suffering was momentary compared to the eternality of the glory.

John Piper, A Sweet and Bitter Providence, pp. 138-139.

You can download the book for free at the link above.

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Why we want to live outside the camp

April 29, 2011 by John Knight

I didn’t realize leprosy was anywhere in the United States until I read this article.

Then it came up yesterday in my Bible reading:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead. . .” And the people of Israel did so, and put them outside the camp; as the Lord said to Moses, so the people of Israel did. Numbers 5:1-2, 4

Being forced outside the camp was a hard thing on everybody.

Maybe disability gives a little glimpse into what that was like.  Many of us live in a different kind of world than most of the people we know.  It is a world with a different vocabulary, full of educational and medical specialists and paperwork and expenses.

And suffering.

We live outside the camp of our culture.

It isn’t so bad.  It’s where Jesus is.

So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Hebrews 13:12-14

Yes, it is worth it to live outside the camp with Jesus!

Pastor John helpfully looked at Hebrews at Together for the Gospel in 2008.  It is a longer message at just over an hour, and requires direct attention – don’t try to have this on in the background while you do something else.  It is worth it.

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His providence enfolds ALL who bear his image!

April 28, 2011 by John Knight

His providence enfolds all who bear his image in everlasting arms. He will advance you higher, and secure you better than any noble birth or estate could ever do.The delight and pleasure resulting from the observation of divine providence is very great. It will doubtless be a part of our entertainment in heaven to view with transporting delight how the designs and methods were laid to bring us there. Providence not only brings you to heaven, it brings heaven to your soul now.

God is providentially steering all to the port of his own praise and his people’s happiness, while the whole world is busily employed in managing the sails and tugging at the oars with a quiteopposite design and purpose. They promote God’s design by opposing it, fulfil his will by resisting it, and enlarge his church by scattering it. They make the saint’s rest sweeter by making their condition so restless in the world. What a history we might compile, as we trace the footsteps of providence along the way. . .

O reader, what a life of pleasure you might live by noticing the ways of providence towards you! What a heaven upon earth you may have! Taste and see the glory of the study of providence.

John Flavel, Works, IV: 336-342

Thank you to the chain of people who passed this on, and to Carol Steinbach who shared it with me.

Posted in Quotes | 2 Comments »

God chooses the best goals – every time

April 27, 2011 by John Knight

We’ve been going through an extended difficult season with Paul’s overall health.  I appreciate firm reminders that God’s wisdom is guiding things to the best possible eternal result.

From Wayne Grudem’s Making Sense of Who God Is: One of Seven Parts from Grudem’s Systematic Theology, p. 83.

God’s wisdom means that God always chooses the best goals and the best means to those goals. This definition goes beyond the idea of God knowing all things and specifies that God’s decisions about what he will do are always wise decisions: that is, they always will bring about the best results (from God’s ultimate perspective), and they will bring about those results through the best possible means.

Scripture affirms God’s wisdom in general in several places.  He is called “the only wise God” (Rom. 16:27). Job says that God “is wise in heart” (Job 9:4), and “With him are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding” (Job 12:13). God’s wisdom is seen specifically in creation. The psalmist exclaims, “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Ps. 104:24).

And some of those ‘all’ will be made by God to live with disabilities (Exodus 4:11).  I’m grateful that God always chooses the best goals AND the best means.  He is entirely worthy to be worshiped for his wisdom.

Posted in Book Commentary, Quotes | 1 Comment »

Born again to a living hope!

April 26, 2011 by John Knight

This Easter was one of contrasts with previous years.

We attended the Sunday evening service for the first time.  We experienced a wonderful worship team rather than the wonderful orchestra.  The normal excitement and energy of a packed room was replaced with a more peaceful, less crowded time of worship.  And no trouble parking!

Last year, Paul was awake and active and blessed many by singing the Resurrection Chant.

This year, he was mostly lethargic and slept through the service, an impact of both the new medicines he is taking and the spells he continues to have.

One thing remains the same: hope in Jesus Christ!

I soaked in one of the readings from Sunday, and invite you to do the same, from 1 Peter 1:3-7:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Posted in Scripture, Special Events | 1 Comment »

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